Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru - Episode 428

Episode Date: January 31, 2026

This week on the Drive Thru, Jim reviews WWE Saturday Night's Main Event, as well as Cody's confrontation with Jacob Fatu from Smackdown! Plus Jim answers YOUR questions about Harley Race, working snug, face paint, if Vader has defeated Shawn, what Verne Gagne got right, and much more! Also, Jim previews the Royal Rumble, and the Comics Corner! Thanks to our episode sponsors: MARS MEN:  For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off FOR LIFE, Free Shipping, AND 3 Free Gifts at Mars Men at Mengotomars.com SURFSHARK:  Go to surfshark.com/JCE and you'll get 4 months extra when you sign up for a 2-year plan and enter the code JCE. SHOPIFY:  Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/jce 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.

again, friends. And you are our friends. And welcome back to another edition of Jim Cornett's drive-through. I apologize if I hit any wrong notes. My arms are tired from shoveling snow. There's a lot of snow and a lot of wrestling talk with this man, the leader of the cult of cornet. Did I say my name?

I'm the great Brian last. And here he is the leader of the cult of cornet. Mr. Jim Cornett. Everybody knows who you are. Just the sound of your voice beaming into people's homes instantly heralds the rival of podcasting entertainment the likes of which people have never heard before. And Brian, I was going to say your fingers are frostbitt. You had it going there.

I was even kind of doing the thing in my chair here. Why, you got my chair run down slow? The thing in your chair. What do you do? I was doing a little dance, a little shoulder shrug thing. And then all of a sudden you hit that sour when it was like you were milking that cow. and everything, and all of a sudden, out come a big, just stream of chocolate milk suddenly. Just threw the whole thing off, and then it was off to the races.

I could have done better. I could have done better. I'll admit it. Did you ever want to, when you were a child, want to buy a brown cow so you could have chocolate milk? Never wanted to own a cow. That wasn't one of the dreams I had along Island. Never owned a cow.

Good Lord, you people. Never owned a cow. I said, I never wanted to own a cow. Not even that I never owned a cow. I never wanted to own a cow. Well, don't all young boys aspire to have their own cow, Brian? Even if you aspire to be a cowboy, it's to have a horse, not a cow. Well, no, when I was a kid, I liked my cows in the back.

I figured a few of them were mine, even though technically they were the property of the farmer behind us. But I made friends with some of them. You never tipped them over? No, that would be mean. Whether they're not coming over here and coming in the house and kicking me when I'm in bed, why would I do that to them? I thought that's just like what you guys do in the South. Like, hey, let's go for a drive and hit mailboxes and tip over cows.

Woo-hoo! No, that's only the asshole contingent. Proper people in the South have decorum and manners and gentility. and don't abuse animals or mailboxes in that order. But you're just grumpy because you've been shoveling your snow. I'm just going to say for the record, for one time in history, the worst thing that could happen here in Louisville did not happen. We could have got a foot or more of snow depending on where the sleek line was.

Well, 50 miles to the north of us, they got a foot or more of snow. and just south of us they got a quarter to it half an inch of ice and all we got was six inches right in the middle. So now you're fucked, because you're just buried under a depository of fluffy sustenance that's not going to fucking melt for quite a while. What did you have, 14 inches, give or take? Give or take wonderfully fluffy and soft.

If you can get past the ice coating, it's just wonderful inside all that snow but 14 inches of snow a lot of driveway it's like a mallow cup a lot of shoveling and snow joeing and now my forearms and arms are feeling it my legs are snow joeing snow i got the snow joe the snow i forgot about snow joe it's a snow thrower is that is it its last name is joiner snow joe joiner i guess so well speak but it doesn't it have a height limit when you get above a foot of snow, doesn't Joe say fuck no?

Well, that's one of the great things about it. The worst thing about it is clearly the battery. The best thing about it is the ability to just like nail it right into the giant pile of snow and it'll just start cutting it down. Just chopping in a whopping. Just chopping and cutting it down. That's right. And what's the temperature up there?

You've not told me yet. How cold is it there in your location? It's actually warm today. It's like 20 degrees, not counting the, windshield. Yes. The low, I think, was five. Well, and that's the problem that we've got now.

It's going to be the actual air temperature on a couple of nights this week, because it's going to get colder this weekend. So watch out for that. That'll be coming your way. But the actual air temperature is going to be below zero. So they've issued like an area-wide extreme cold warning last night. And then I think one is coming up a couple of nights later on this week. and the wind chill will be 20 below zero.

It's not going, another week, it will not be above freezing to start dissipating what we've got. So you can expect the same thing only worse. How about that? I'm very happy to say for the first time in a few days, I have my coffee right here, and the mailman delivered all the things that were in the email that were going to be delivered over the last several days.

They finally arrived. Now, wait a minute, you could have had coffee. What is this, the goddamn, You're not trapped in the, in the Yukon. You could have coffee in your own home, aren't you supplied and stocked with you, you insist on takeout coffee? Well, Suzanne made me coffee in the last few days. It's not exactly the same.

It's not the same. We'll just leave it at that. And I'm very happy to have my cappuccino from Starbucks in my hand once again. It's not the same. Not the same. She uses like the, she uses like the, the fucking, I don't even know what it is. The cane sugar, the natural sugar.

I don't want the dominoes. I don't care if it's going to kill me. Just give it to me. What the hell are you talking about poor sugar being the problem when you're drinking that fucking garbage, caffeine-filled muck they call coffee? It tastes like mud. It's ground every morning. It does not.

First of all, you hate coffee. So you hate the smell of coffee. I don't know if you should be commenting on the taste. I don't think you have anything in your experience that would tell you that you should be commenting on modern coffee taste. I can't tell you the difference between raccoon shit, pig shit,

and horse shit. Either, but I can tell you that it's all fairly in the same fucking direction. I think maybe you could tell me the difference between some of those shits based on just size alone. Well, by sight I can, but not by taste if you blindfolded me.

and I had to do one, two, three. I wouldn't be able to tell you which one was which, but I could identify them on site. One, two, three, Len Barry. What? You don't know that song? There's a song, Jim Cornett does not know. One, two, three.

Lynn, who is Lynn Barry? He sang the song, one, two, three. What else did he ever do? Or when was this? Or where was he from? or what did he look like? He was from the mid-60s. I believe he was working on a follow-up called 4-5-6,

but it never really took off. And that was his big song. I don't know any of his other songs. If he has other songs, and I know he does. Len Barry. That's right. Well, Lynn Rossi had as many records as Lynn Barry had, apparently. He has a better singing voice than when Rossi.

Also, a good song, unlike the wrestler's prayer, which is the most oppressing thing ever. But we played it on the air a while back. Yes, yes. It was very, very, very, very, very, very, yeah, it was bad. Speaking of bad things, real quick, we're not going to today. There's been more shit to take place as soon as we finished the last show that you and I did. So we rejoined the outside world and realized what was going on.

There was more shit. And I'm going to talk about it on the experience this week because one, I don't want to get mad here at the top of the program and not want to do it. And secondly, I'm actively speaking with someone to try to figure out some way to pass on word of how to pass on word to people in the country today of how to potentially get help if you just end up being fucking randomly assaulted for no reason or family members or whatever. But we'll do that on the experience. And also at the top of the program, Brian, yeah, I'm not trying to take over here. but, you know, we've got to acknowledge a couple of people have passed away around the periphery of the world wrestling

this past week. I guess the most known would be Mick Foley's mother. He put out the news that she's passed away, I guess, in the last couple of days is when I saw it. And obviously, you know, Mrs. Foley's baby boy, she's kind of like, isn't a Mama Cornette pantheon of, you know, gimmicks that you could refer to at any point and never had to be on television? A baby-faced Mama Cornet.

There you go. And, well, Mama Cornett was a baby face, but not the way I presented her. Yeah, exactly. She was always presented as being the heel mastermind behind you and your stator. Well, wouldn't that have been great if they'd have revealed, If Mick had brought Mrs. Foley out one time and she'd turned to heel on him and aligned herself with fucking forces of darkness or whatever. But anyway, our sympathies to Mick and his whole family for that loss. And also more known here on the show, we refer to him, but Sean Delaney, who's done some of the, many of the histories of Evansville wrestling.

we've been referring to on and off over the last couple of years is working on a new one. I just saw it on Twitter just yesterday evening that his mother had unexpectedly passed away and we send him the best also. He's got all kinds of things in the works for this year, but certainly he didn't see that coming. So we send him our sympathy also.

Yeah, very nice guy, very sorry to hear that, sending my best to Sean. But anyway, otherwise than that, I guess we've got to talk about wrestling stuff today, don't we, Brian? Actually, technically, no. We could do whatever we want. It's our show. It's time for the Comics Corner. Let's talk about something else. Aha! Okay. I didn't have this plan, so I'm just going to go with it. We'll create a comics corner at a thin air. Hey, you know, I did notice something. The Fantast

collection. We talked about them. They are the collection of comics that was featured in the documentary selling Superman about the thought and maybe at a time attempted sale of Superman number one, which the owner of the collection's father had, which was a 7.0 grade, correct? Yes, and we confl- I believe when we were talking about that before, conflated

that with the other copy of Superman 1 that just sold for $9 million right before the copy of Action 1 that just sold for $15 million and I'm starting to get ill at my stomach talking about this. But anyway, but yes, that is the fantast collection you were referring to. Well, I have some news on that. Uh-oh. I was on Instagram and this popped up and this is from a few days ago. It is a picture of the Superman number

one, which has now been re-graded to 7.5. And the comment here from Fantast Comics, which I believe is Darren Watts, the owner of Fantast, well all, it's the right time for the right person. DM me with a serious offer to get the most direct deal without middleman broker fees. I'm not willing to auction this comic. and it goes on a little further there I'll stop there so it appears that this comic is now for sale again now graded to 7.5

which is a upgrade from 7.0 we'll get into that in a second but what are your thoughts on this going back up for sale well are you seeing it's it's slabbed right it's in a correct CGC apparatus

in the documentary that was one of the things that the guy freaked out about when he was having that mental meltdown was that the documentary filmmaker had dropped the Superman number one and cracked the case. Remember that? And by the way, by the way, I would freak out too. I mean, it's not like he was doing anything wrong by freaking out about that.

No, no, no, but I'm saying, but I mean, he was already, remember we talked about he was having issues and like, oh, God, I don't know what I'm going to do, everything. And then this guy, oh, no, you can imagine. If the guy had dropped my fucking cracked my case, I would have cracked his fucking head. But nevertheless, they had to get it. Regrated because the case was cracked.

And he hadn't wanted to deal with it or whatever the case was until this point. But now that he's done that, instead of devaluing it, because that was his big point. by God he dropped it if any small damage could be like hundreds of thousands of dollars difference, right? And now he dropped it and they regraded it and it's in better shape. The fuck does that mean he has to give the guy that dropped it a fucking, you know, a percentage or something for improving the condition of the book.

See, that's the thing about this precise numerical value. grading and the ridiculous value now that is attached to all these books, is that it's still a human being or even a group of human beings, if they bring in their fucking team of experts on it, that are looking at a thing and there's going to be some variation. If it's a 0.5 variation in a tails of suspense, 58, well, that's not a big deal. But a 0.5 variation in

Superman number one is a half a million dollars. Well, Jim, let me read on a little bit, and if you go to your email, I sent you a link to click so you could actually see this as well. Thanks to CG comics, or CGC comics, excuse me, pressing and cleaning services, this one seven point-0 copy of my father's Superman One is now an extremely well-eastern, presenting 7.5. I feel that the comic deserves to move on to an owner that values and appreciates such a high-grade copy. Currently, this is the fourth highest-graded copy of Superman 1

on the CGC Census and the only copy that will ever receive the Fantas Custom CGC label. I love this comic. I love this character. But I don't need this high of grade copy to love either of them. I would like my own universal mid-grade copy of Superman... Universal mid-grade copy of Superman 1. So if someone is looking to approve upon their copy, I would be very interested in a universal 3.5 to 4.5 in trade towards this 7.5 copy.

I am only interested in Superman 1's on a trade. Although I never got to collect comics with my father, it offers me a small connection to him that his prize comic will help me acquire my own copy of our mutually favorite superhero. I'm excited to continue the Fantas Collection. With each comic I buy and sell, the collection becomes an increasing mix

of my father's comics and my own. Better or late than never, I suppose, I'm selling Superman with great humility, Darren. Good Lord. And I'm looking at the, I'm leaning over into the microphone now. Because I'm looking at the screen, this fucking book looks beautiful. Gorgeous. And again, it's the same company that graded it before.

Did he not have it cleaned before? It was it his father that didn't have it clean? before? It sounds like Rodney Dangerfield. Check to see if you're clean enough. Hey, we talked about the grading process, but I don't know if we talked about it. If you could explain to the listeners the process of pressing and cleaning.

Well, it is something that exists in modern times that once again, we didn't have back when I was just a young pup. And that's why so many comic books from the 60s and 70s, that were collected by young people and or rudimentary collectors had tape on the spine or new staples, I'll fix this up. You saw a lot of that.

But they could actually go in and you see the same thing on if you watch a history channel documentary on ancient Bibles, manuscripts, papers, art, where they can clean the grime off a painting. You said they clean the fucking painting on the church walls in the ancient cathedral in Europe or whatever. There's these experts now that I mean if it was some fucking goofy teenager taking peroxide in a cotton ball to a rare comic you know what you'd end up with. But they can

clean some of the if there's dirt or grime or whatever, the pressing is again some process that they have perfected where they can flatten the book out, if there's some element of a rolled spine or whatever, it just makes it present better in the plastic case that they then provide you, all included as part of the fee they charge. And that increases the value of the book to all of these rich Hollywood fucks and major attorneys and corporate businessmen that have now decided they wanted to buy a million-dollar comic books.

I could have had a son of a bitch that looked just like that 55 years ago for 200 bucks. But I didn't have 200 bucks when I was fucking nine years old, or $400 from my mother when I was 10. Well, that's the update on Superman being sold. We'll see what happens there. Boy, that's a pretty, and here's another thing, because when you're looking, and I invite anybody to go to Google and just look at the,

and look at this book, Fantast Superman number one. It's got to be out there somewhere, but just the cover of Superman One, which, by the way, there is no number. There's no number because they didn't know whether they were going to do another one. And it's, so many people are used to covers of, comic books, even in the 60s and 70s had the logos and this publisher's logo. And then in came the bar codes and all this other shit. This is literally Superman, picture of a middle in an oval, 10 cents, and the blurbs, 64 pages of action, all in full color, the complete

story of the daring exploits, the one and only Superman. No publisher's logo. No number of a book, no nothing. It's just so simple and beautiful. Anyway, that's me, simple and beautiful. You know, I got turned on to this, and I wish I had found out about it sooner. It's only a few years old, but I've got them all now. There's a series of books that were put out called the American Comic Book Chronicles. I mentioned it to you off-air briefly.

It's like an encyclopedia year by year of comic book history. And these are extraordinary. and they're well laid out, and they look good, and it's all full color. Very, very cool. So this may be something you have to check out just because it's so interesting to learn about the backstory behind all this stuff, too. Not just the actual books. Yes, and also, and just again, to just stare at those wonderful million-dollar items. You know, in terms of wrestling programs, there isn't anything like that for wrestling.

you know, again, there's a smaller market than comic books. Not everyone's looking for old 1930s wrestling programs. But, you know, I don't know how many copies of, you know, the program from when Strangle Lewis won the world title are out there. Are there 10? Are there five? Are there 100? I don't know. And, you know, that's the only, I shouldn't say the only, but that's one of, I think, the big benefits of the grading system is that they kind of keep track of how many copies are out there.

The census. The census. but actually the there are no programs or really paper material in related to wrestling that are that high dollar it's more the belts

and the ring worn items and that is where there there's the most value as you know in in individual items or things in wrestling collecting, whereas there were so many programs, I think, and there were so many the books and magazines, whereas that's the problem is there's nothing that is there is a tremendous demand

for, like there are however many millions of Superman fans, and there's only 100 of these books. Whereas, yes, it was great that Strangler Lewis won the world title on given night he also won it five more times than how many people want that but they might they're his tights and his boots well there you got something that type of thing yeah no i know i'm a smaller market but i care more about the program the ring worn stuff or all that stuff to me doesn't matter but they have something and see i'm i'm with you but i've found out that it's flip-flopped the high dollar the higher dollar stuff is is that rather than well in general i mean because you're not i mean

Because, you know, Babel's uniform costs more than, you know, a lot of baseball cards. But I think as the years go by, you're going to see things that are, you know, right now, I shouldn't even say recent. It's not that recent. But like the program for one, Hogan be the Iron Sheik, which is a not generic, but the same program they were using everywhere with an insert. Right. Like that price for that goes up every single year. Not saying it's ever going to get to like $10,000 unless there's a graded mint copy or something. what do you know what also would

create value is anything that that was from before World War II because of the paper drives which is why we're talking about these Golden Age comics because since then there's been no reason for people to actively throw away shit

they would have normally kept or liked or wanted to have around except you were told it was patriotic in World War II and all that shit went to the fucking recycling plant. Yeah, thank God Jack Pfeffer was not patriotic.

You know, he was goddamn, he was a hoarder no matter what the fucking country. Well, that is the comics corner for the drive-thru. We will have more comics corners in the future as the thoughts keep hitting us, but we've gone off topic for a while, Jim.

I guess we should get to some wrestling talk and has been a lot of WWE happenings on TV. Well, and, you know, I guess we should do this. Should we do it in chronological order? Friday and then Saturday and then Monday and catch everybody up? It's not like we're going to go through everything in excruciating detail, but just to stay in order of things. Yeah, why don't we start with what I believe would probably be the lone thing

you saw from Smackdown this best week? Well, and I, because you brought it up to me, And when I watched it, I will talk about the feelings that I had. But this is kind of a teaching moment for the folks out there, the confrontation between Cody Rhodes and Jacob Fatu on SmackDown the night before the Saturday night's main event, where there's the pretense that Cody is doing the sit-down interview with, you know, before the big match and he's all,

smiles and looking toward the future and winning the Royal Rumble and blah, blah, but Michael Cole, I believe it was. Thankfully, I don't remember who asked him as a fucking question. But you got to face Jacob Fatu at Saturday night's main event and then Fatu bus in. Now, you can stand, Orson Wells still was in some staggy movies, right? So I'm not saying this whole thing was perfect because of the standard reasons. It was just so convenient that he interrupts this and that they sit down and that the security guys look like they're 18 years old and with jazz hands or acting as statues like the mimes in Central Park with their hands outstretched and their jaws agape. You know, you've seen them, Brian.

I mean the mimes in Central Park there aren't a lot of mimes and there haven't been mimes all over Central Park in quite a while Jim I haven't seen that too often well every every time I went up there back in the day there was a mom wanting to have a good time baby but anyway that may have been the meatpacking district Jim

I'm not sure exactly where you were that's right I was there was definitely some packing going on but what I'm trying to say is, is that despite the fact that this was a bit contrived in terms of the peripheral players' performances, when Jacob Fatu comes in, he takes up the screen, he has an aura and a presence. He delivers his shit in a way that Cody is a very eloquent speaker, and you can believe that it was Cody that it was coming up with all those fine things to say

and kind of be non-committal and the baby face that he is he would use those words, or you can believe, you could easily see that he's doing a very good job of delivering those words that were written. Is that one of those bland white guys around the table on Unreal? Koski, is that his name? Yes.

one of those bland middle-aged white people at Duthy Rhodes would say Middle-Aged white people you could see them writing that and Cody

delivering it very well but you can't see Ed Koski sitting down and writing word for word Jacob Fatu's promo so that you would think that Jacob Fatu would then

have memorized oh yeah he said 16 locked up 18 locked up or locked down or whatever the fuck no he's taken the story that they're giving him that they're asking him to tell and he's making it his which it as we'll get to it a minute it's our life imitating art and i put that in the right order but you believe he's speaking he's got body

language he's got inflection he's the delivery that he gave cody when he's up in cody's face just before they even got up nose to nose, when he was just telling him, this is, you know, this is who I am and this is what I was doing with Drew and then you get involved. And then Cody mentions that he thinks before he acts before he thinks.

That's why he went to jail or got locked up, however Cody phrased it. And then Jacob kind of loses it. But he tells the story, yes, I've been locked up. And he comes off as a guy, he said, I didn't even have a job until six months ago. I didn't know if I was going to have a job. He'll say, whatever the fuck. This guy obviously has not become a multimillionaire yet and has been in prison and has an element of danger around him.

And that's what's kind of made him. Steve Austinish, he was a heel, but they made him a baby face because of, he was such a badass and he was so cool. And then they went with that. And now he's his own guy. He's fighting Drew, but he's mad at Cody and blah, blah, blah. But that's Jacob Fatou delivers that shit

like it's his own. And that's what if if anybody wants to watch that and then as we used to talk about solo, when Solo was a thing that had just become the enforcer of the bloodline, Solo is not that guy.

That's why years ago, when Solo had become a thing, I said, this needs to be Jacob Fatu because you need that element of danger and going off and fucking just, he looks dirtier. He looks nasty.

here and he looks more believable. In the back, Solo's the kind of guy. You'd ask him, go get me a sandwich. With Jacob, you'd ask him, do you want a sandwich? Do you see what I'm saying here, Brian? I do, although I thought, at the time and the moment, Solo got over as well as you could have hoped for. They got the spike over.

He didn't talk. He stood there with his arms crossed. Watch Roman and Heyman's back. And since that time, I don't want to say he's been over-exposed. I think a lot of it's the booking. A lot of it's, he's with a group that has been booked to the point where people don't care anymore. But Jacob Fatu, I don't want to say he's the real deal, but it would have put that, in that role, he would have put it over the top, I think. Well, and that's, I'm not, I'm glad that Solo got a job and all that stuff.

but I'm glad that now that Jacob has still has gotten a job, I'm not bad at Solo got the job, but when I saw who Solo was supposed to be, I said, my God, that needs to be Jacob Fatu. That was my point, is because of all these things that we've come to find out about how Jacob Fatu gets over. Imagine that. But I know, Brian, a lot of people still think that I have

just no idea of what kind of, what kind of people can get over in a wrestling business? You're out of touch. You don't know what it is nowadays. I'm just, I'm riding a gravy train talking about people that are getting over, but I thought that this, this interview that Cody and Fatu did

where they talked about him being locked up in jail and the trouble passed and he didn't know if he could get hired and anything, blah, blah, blah. That's familiar. and we went back and found a clip from our official Jim Cornett YouTube channel that you could officially look up on YouTube, just say official Jim Cornett and it'll officially take you there. And just to make sure to dispel the rumors that I'm just lying out my ass,

what was the date on this clip when we talked about Jacob Fatu and how they should present him in the WWF. I believe it was December 11th, 2022. So it was about three years and a month and a half ago. Should we, can we just play a little of that now to see how far off I was between what I'm saying about this guy then before he had ever been hired and didn't look like he's going to be hired and what they're actually doing with him as a main event guy right now on SmackDown?

Yeah, and for the record, It wasn't just WWE you were saying should hire him. You were saying, why isn't Tony Kahn hired him? I was saying, why is anybody not giving this motherfucker a job? In the other context, this idiot over here with billions of dollars to spend can hire all of these friends and relatives of the trampoline cowboys, but this motherfucker could pick his teeth with all of them, and he's jobless? It was one of my comments.

Well, let's go to this audio now from Drive-Thru Episode 272 in December, of 2022, as featured on the official Jim Cornett YouTube channel, Jim Cornett on Jacob Fatou. We've talked many times about Jacob Fatu, so there's no sense beating that dead Samoan werewolf. Is there any value, real quick, as an aside, do you think there's value to Jacob Fatou beyond his actual talents just because of the relation to Roman reigns and the bloodline? Yes. I mean, if you're not if you're W.D. if you're AEW.

If you're anybody. If you're anybody. It's written itself already. See Edgall Wanga down the street? He looks like somebody you don't want to fucking mess with. He's not that tall. He's my height. He's six feet tall.

When I was watching him work, I think he's lost a little weight. Last time I saw a clip, he's a little lighter. But is he 250? Is he 270? I don't fucking know. But he not only fucking looks like somebody you don't want to fuck with when he's walking down the street,

but then he gets in the ring and does far and away athletic things that you would look at his physique and his build and say, nah, this is a guy that can moon-salt and not make it look fucking phony. He's not like pack, where he has to fucking get up on a top rope and super glue his feet to the fucking turnbuckle for 30 seconds,

get his balance. He flies at people. He fucking flips. And again, you know, people are going to say, Al Cornett's talking about flips. Well, when any trampoline cowboy that weighs 175 pounds can do some, it's one thing. When it's a 260-pound Samoan,

and he's got better form and it comes out of nowhere, but he springs up. He does the moonsault. He's going over in mid-air. He's going to fucking land on this guy, knee-first, probably in his face, but he sees that instinctively. and he raised his knee up to the side and boom and landed perfectly where he didn't hurt

the guy to look like he killed him. And I hold on here on television. I jump in one second. That was when I saw, I was referring back to when I saw Jacob at one of the MLW TV tapings. Anybody else would have landed right on this guy's face and he just made a little adjustment. But the point is, okay, I've said that so far. what was the first thing that everybody noticed and started getting over

about Jacob Fahoo when he first debuted here not that long ago in the WWE was not only his look but also the moonsault and all the crazy shit that this fucking freak can do, right? Yeah. So so far, that's kind of what happened. So where do we go from here, Brian,

now that all the children have grown up, watched it back in slow motion, and you could tell as soon as he was turning over backwards where he could see the guy, he just spread his leg out a little bit. And when I mentioned it to him afterwards, he didn't even know he'd done it. It was just, it was instinctive.

But to point I'm making is, this thing has written itself, but nobody will take advantage of it. Solo, as good as he is, solo is in the spot that Jacob Fatu should be in in the WWE as the enforcer, the street fighter, because he looks, Solo looks clean, he's got a nice haircut, he's got clean gear. Fucking Jacob Fatu looks like a goddamn beast. And yeah, from meeting him and talking to him a few times, I get to feeling he's one of these

guys he probably grew up in a rough neighborhood around some rough people and have probably done some things that people that grow up in those places and know those people have done. But he's not like a goddamn axe murderer or criminal or a lunatic or whatever. But he sure comes off as one when he turns it on. And that's the thing. This guy emits animosity and aggression and danger and the sense that he would go into business for himself, even though he's nobody. because when you've got Brock Lesnar,

he can still give off the aura that he'll go into business for himself and fuck somebody up just on a whim because he's got fuck you money and he don't give a shit. Well, this guy's on the other end of the fucking spectrum. You can pretty much look at him and say

he ain't got shit that he really gives a fuck about losing, right? This fucking character is so fuck it. He don't care. Boom. Can we hold on here a second. He's just saying on that promo, I didn't know if I was going to have a job,

job six months ago or whatever the fuck and and he's just come in and yes i'm from the streets and i but i've made choices and blah but the whole this is the whole thing they're telling is it not did you take it the same way that is what they're telling and they haven't really told that story as well he's been in the w wwe now what a year a year and a half whatever it is well they finally figured it out because they finally listened to our youtube clip but anyway well let's go back to it a little bit more here you're talking about Jacob Fatu. The aura that you have to have danger with somebody like that.

You have to have an aura of danger. So, you asked about AEW. Jesus, Mary and Joseph on a fucking zebra. I didn't ask you about AEW for using him just for what he is. I said specifically about the fact that he's related to the top stars in WWE. Well, yes, but here's the gimmick.

Here's the gimmick for anybody. This is the black show. sheep of the fucking family and look at the territory that takes in when you talk about all the fucking samoan wrestlers and the island boys and whether it's the the onouai family or the fucking widened it out to the barbarian and the fucking haku and the legendary lineages and the samoans and the peter my via this guy is too hot for all of them to touch the black sheep of the family. Build up the danger about this

fucking guy. He's been in jail. He's been in solitary. They wrapped him up at a goddamn straightjack at one time and put him in a rubber room at the puzzle factory when he cleared out a goddamn gang bar. Because the fucking performance that this

guy puts on, if it was a straight, I mean a serious presentation of somebody that don't give a fuck and has got nothing to lose and has been overlooked because he was the black sheep of the family and the others don't want a part of him and he's got and like I said if I was ever going to come which I ain't manage anybody anymore at all we can cut that off now I've no longer

even making that fucking offer but but the point is they're going I mean they can't come out and make him, you know, as goddamn, imagine him in ECW, if ECW had the WWE budget of today, but he can be believable as a guy, and as he said, the closing line in the interview or the promo with Cody, everybody thinks I'm out of control,

but no, I'm very in control. He's his own guy now. He's not even the enforcer of the group of the bloodline, but he's his own guy. but he's still, yeah, I don't know if I still believe him when he says he's in control. But that's the, he wants to be in control. And he's going to be a cool baby face,

whether he's fighting a baby face or a fucking heel. Because he's a thing of his own, if they do it right. But I mean, is there, what difference is there between what I was just saying and what is happening right now, basically. We're judging them for WW's PG style of things. I mean, the difference is, notwithstanding the fact that really cool heels get over his baby faces.

Jimmy snuck a great mooda, spectacular cool heels get over his baby faces. Yes. They're kind of, I mean, I don't want to spoil the review of Saturday Night's main event before we get there, but they didn't go all the way with just, you know, here's Jacob Fatu, he wants to respect the title, whatever it is, he's now a heel. He just kind of ended up being, again, I don't want to spoil the match, but the promo here and everything we just listened to from you from three years ago, it gets you pumped up for Jacob Fatu, the main event heel, not the main event tweener.

Well, but now that they have seen him this much, I don't. I don't know if he needs to be a heel, but I definitely think that he doesn't need to be. See, this is the one that comes along every once in a while. This is the unicorn. Because he can't be a baby face, because at some point a baby face has some values and morals that he won't do this or he won't do that.

And Jacob Fatu needs to make people believe that he will do anything because it's his chance that he never thought he was going to get when he was in the fucking behind bars, how he puts it, locked down, and he's got a family, he's got kids, he don't know if he's going to die tomorrow doing a goddamn moonsault, he's going to fuck everybody up and rip their balls off gets in his way. But because he does it in such a spectacular and cool fashion with an aura of, about him, people are going to cheer for that no matter what. Not everybody.

I mean, it's not like if he starts just caving Cody's head in with a chair that they're going to be, yes, hit him more, hit him more. Well, they might, not all of them. But that kind of accumulation from a large segment, you can book him against either fucking side if the story makes sense and it will still work. I believe. Well, we will see what happens with WWC Creative and we'll talk about Saturday night's main event in a few moments.

Now, and here's one thing, you can't book, Jacob, give me the name of a really, a kind of popular and cheery-looking preliminary baby face. Otis or Tazawa, or that you don't book Jacob Fattu against those. people and have him just fucking just hurt them badly because then people go ah you know then you're just kind of soured up you but you have jacob fatu weighed through the middle card guys usually but not punish the really popular he can't be he can't be a bully to those that can't defend

themselves that the people like that's the only thing it would hamper him from being a big baby face. I'm sorry. Well, once again, we will talk about Saturday night's main event in a few moments, but Jim, Jacob Fattu's in much better shape today than he was when you first saw him in MLW, although he looked like a star then. I can't say that it really changes anything. He's just, he's gazed up to his cardio and he's, he's dropped a little bit of weight. He's a little leaner, but at the same time, he's still meaner. He still has a lot of testosterone. It would seem. Oh, boy. It's coming right out of his eyeballs, and if they thought it was, his ear wax, but it was coming out of his ears, too, the testosterone.

Now, Cody Rhodes was sitting there doing one of his performed... It's like a performance of I'm a human being, Cody. And when he does that, he doesn't seem genuine. Seems like maybe he needs some to test that vac. It's like it's like he may need some testosterone. And Jim, on this topic, some of the listeners may be looking for a little boost right now. And we have a new friend we can tell everyone about that could help them. right now. Yes, the friend that can help you give me this spot so I can run with it. Our friends

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Venus Women. A new sponsor coming in the future, but a Mars men once again, men go to Mars.com. I'm just interested in finding out more about Uranus. Jim, let's return to Earth and let's go to Montreal, Quebec, Canada,

which is still on Planet Earth, as we record here today. And why don't we talk about Saturday night's main event? Just barely still on the planet, but apparently it was the same temperature in Montreal, Quebec, Canada as it was in Louisville, Kentucky while I was watching the program.

They said it was like fucking the wind chill was 13 below. Same thing we had. Doesn't stop them. They were used to it. The first thing I'm going to say about Saturday night's main event is why

oh why if Joe Tessatori was stuck in Detroit and he was legitimately because they had him do a I guess one of their boxing ventures, they had him calling boxing the night before he was supposed to call wrestling, and he couldn't get from Detroit to Montreal because of the flight cancellations. But instead of just, they had Michael Cole and Wade Barrett,

instead of just abandoning the premise of the Saturday night's main event host desk, because they didn't have Jesse, obviously, I'm sure after Jesse's recent comments, neither side is displeased that he wasn't there. But why keep that and just have Stephanie out there? To explain that the guy who's supposed to be standing here twice on this show without even a reason for him anymore because Jesse's not a part of this thing,

but he can't be here, so I'm going to stand here and do what he would have done. Or why didn't they just go down to the announcer as Michael Cole and Wade Barrett? Hey, Joe Tessatori would love to be here. Do you see what I'm saying? She is the shits. She is rotten as a host.

She's not peppy. She's not cheerful. She's got rotten inflections. She comes across as ungenuine? What? Did you see any of these attributes in her? No, and I've ripped on her in the past. I think it was the last Saturday night's main event.

When we talked about it, I said she's horrible hosting, and I was with someone. She comes across as disingenuous, she screeches. She's not, other than playing a heel character as everyone's boss who no one ever gets revenge from, she's not a good on-air character. She's not a, she doesn't have a play. pleasant voice. I mean, I hate to really nitpick, but her voice isn't a host's voice. She screeches.

She's not a good on-air presenter. And unfortunately, her entire life has been WWE. She's never worked anywhere else. She's never done anything. She's never had anyone say, hey, you know what, let's try to poach Stephanie from WWE. She'd really help our business. And now, for the rest of her life, it's going to be them trying to cram her on this show to find some. something for her to do. Because she has nothing to do. She's a podcast no one cares about. She's hosting on these shows all of a sudden, where for a while she was getting a sympathetic baby-faced pop, just because she was the daughter of Vincent and everyone hated Vince and everyone thought, well, she must be on our side. She's, she's the normal one. Let's support her.

But no, this is even on unreal. Like there are wrestlers in back at guerrilla having their post-match commiseration, hug, whatever. All of a sudden, she's there. a shot of Lyra Valkyria and Becky Lynch after their thing talking and then Stephanie's like, hey, let's get a picture of three Irish girls. Get the fuck out of here. Get out of here. Seriously. Stop trying to find the place for yourself.

You were only there because you were Vince McMahon's daughter. You were horrible and creative. You were incredible as an on-air heel character. But it never had any payoff because other than Vicki Guerrero quickly throwing her in mud, I don't think Stephanie ever, there was no payoff to her being the heel for. for years. It's just she disappeared, and then Vince disappeared, and then you cheered for Stephanie the next time you saw her, because she was a McMahon not named Vince, and this is going to be an ongoing problem. They're going to keep trying to find things for her to do,

and she's not an on-air presenter or a host, and quite frankly, I don't know what she can do. I don't know what she could do without her family propping her up. It's like she's talking, like, I'm trying to be cheer. I hate all you people. My mom's going to get rid of all your schools. Oh, did I say that out by her? That should be the gimmick. Bring her back as a heel and just have her unofficially as like Linda's spokesperson.

That'll get her some heel heat. But you're, and you're right, yeah, she's sitting at the guerrilla position. You see her in some of the shots just sit in the background like, why are you there? What are, is this bring your wife to workday for Triple H? What? I have the business

in my blood. Yeah, because your dad, you go to the warehouse. You know, I go, what the fuck? Andre the giant was my best friend. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. It wasn't. I used to I used to tap dance in the palm of his hand. Yeah. When she was a kid, somebody read her thumbalina with a friend.

All right. But we got to talk about the show. And I was looking forward to one thing, Jacob Fatu against Cody Rhodes, for all the reasons I've said, I'm a big fan of Jacob Fatu. I would have to see him have the main event match. blah blah blah and again when he did the walking promo when he goes through gorilla but he's talking

and you see the it's just he's i'm not saying he's got bad body hygiene but he's dirtier he's meaner he's wilder he's more intimidating he's more convincing verbally he's the guy that you think might fucking go off. This is what I was talking about. And then you have Cody's entrance. And as Cody gets up on the ropes for the what? Fatu jumps him. And they jumpstart it.

And they start having a big fight. And at first, I think Cole said, well, we're off and running. And Barrett had to remind him, well, the bell hasn't actually rung yet. And then I was like, uh-oh. They're going to do the same thing. They're going to have a big fight.

Yeah, this again. Like AEW, a big fight, and then they ring the bell. Well, little did I know. But they bumped the referee, and then here came more referees and agents in and security. And this again, all these security guys come out. Is it just because I've spent so many decades of my life in various arenas?

large and small and professional and unprofessional, but I know what real security people looks like and these aren't them. And why did they all have jazz hands? It's just, if they can't coach these guys on how to do it, then I wish they would, hey, either, they've got $12 billion, bring their fucking own. Get a couple of 40-year-old guys that look like, their security guards.

But anyway, Fattu did the big dive on the pile and then here's what I didn't like about this. Well, there's a few things I didn't like about this, but the thing that

kept happening throughout the fight that they're about to have, they started at that point when Fitu did that big dive off the flip dive off the top onto the pile and Cody wasn't really under it but everybody went down but they're telling Jacob Fatu go to the back and they're pointing go to the back and he starts

walking to the back and he's the one that jumped Cody and as he's walking to the back Cody runs and jumps on Jacob in the aisle and they start fighting again and they go back to the ring and through the ring and back to the other out the other side and over the desk and into the crowd in the back of the arena. Here's another thing I didn't like about it. And there's going to be a, I'm sorry if I'm going to get too deep for everybody today, but you might learn something about wrestling. I'm directing it toward some of the producers and personnel into WWE.

There's going to be a theme to some of this as they're fighting through the crowd and up the stairs of the arena so they can go out in the concourse and do a miniature concession stand spot and everything. Brian, did you see while they go up the stairs? They're within inches of, in some cases, of the fans, they're going right through the fans. The fans aren't ducking.

Even the women, they're smiling. The kids are thrilled. well, maybe the kids I can understand, but nobody is, they're totally not scared of even getting potatoed by accident on a drawback. And that's the picture we're seeing on camera while they're fulfilling the modern wrestling obligation of fighting through the crowds,

they can fight up the side in the concourse and walk around the arena. The people aren't, They're cheering them on, yes, and when they've got them held back and they're cheering them on from a distance, that's fine. But when they're this close to the guys and they're not scared of even getting hit by accident, then it is the visual you're getting as a viewer, you're killing the fucking, you're killing the whole deal, really, but especially Jacob Fatu. So first, he instituted the jumpstart,

but when the security was telling him to leave, he started to walk away. That's kind of a heel move. Then he's fighting through the crowd and the women and children next to him are smiling and laughing about it, which indicates that he is not as intimidating to people in person

then he seems to be on my television. And then besides, when they go to the concourse and the concession stand and they throw one of the stooges through a table and throw the other stooge on the other fucking stoogees, it's more of the walk fighting. And again, the fans just willingly being next to all that

without any concern for their safety does not give you the visual you want to project. And then as they're standing there, Drew McIntyre comes out and throws Jacob Fattu off the railing or the barricade or whatever the fuck they were standing on, threw a table on one side, and then power bombs Cody through a table on the other side and walks off and we got the main event, in my opinion, which was this match, match. We didn't have a match. And that went 10 minutes. So it was, this in a shorter version, it could have been an angle between two guys to then book a match and say, well, we're going to settle this with a fucking street fight. But now they've already had a whole goddamn street fight.

So do we ever get the fucking match? Probably not because we're going to get a three-way. So my opinion is none of this helped and Jacob Fatu again a second time obeyed security and was walking away from Cody

when Cody had to run and tackle him. That's not him. He's not a mad werewolf that way. There should have been an equivalent of Jacob Fatu needs to stay on Cody. until the fucking security pulls him off

and then yes, he can deal with him and Cody can jump him and vice versa, but he should never have started walking off at their behest. So I really didn't like any of this now that I come to think of it. Did you? I started getting into it

and then they've done what they are doing all the time now. me with the finish. Another interference. We'll talk about the main event of Raw in a little while, but as soon as they announced it, I said, shit, it's going to be a good match that's going to end with interference. I already know it because it's all they do. And then back to another three-way. After the angle, they did, they did, they did throw you a curve. They didn't have a match with a shitty finish. They just had a shitty finish without actually even having a match. they got me interested in seeing Jacob Fatu and Cody they did a good enough job in that angle on Friday

without Drew McIntyre's involvement in making me actually want to see these two guys what for? Why even do that if this is what you were going to do here? And it's a three-way and I don't want to see the three-way and they book Cody into the dirt whatever you think of Cody the last year has not done him any favors and he at this point now is a baby face being booked

in a way that it's almost like they want people to start booing them. Some of the decisions they've made with Cody are questionable. And this is, again, you know, another three-way, which is the only thing that stops us from being completely fresh is Drew and Cody being in a three-way with Jacob Fatu. Jacob Fatu and Cody is fresh. And Jacob Fatu, again, he's a baby face heel. So people are going to cheer him.

Cody hasn't given you anything to cheer for in a while. I didn't like this at all. And again, it was a bad opening sign to the show when the match really started getting going and after the opening brawl. But I was getting into it. Let's see how they're going to get out of this. What are they going to do?

The interference, I don't think WWE fans like it. And again, I understand it's a mechanism. It's an angle to get to something else. Even still, it was just like, you know, hear all of us out of nowhere, I mean, if you go back and look at a variety of great matches from whatever era, period of time, they tend to build to where, oh, my gosh, oh, shit. You know, it's like they're almost there anyway, and then something happens. Instead of just, all right, we've fought long enough.

So now here Drew shows up and just boom, boom. But again, this was 10 minutes. But couldn't they have done eight to 10 minutes of, wild action in and around ringside, hand to hand, as they say, and had a hell of a, again, think of midnight fantastic

clash of champions in Greensboro or any Memphis main event where they just hit the ground running and go eight minutes wild and show that Fatu is a crazy man and show that Cody and he are competitive so you keep everybody elevated and then let

Drew come out and again if they're going to have interference at least let it be a point where you tease the idea my God Jacob is on the top rope he's about to splash him or whatever maybe he's got

some way or another he's got Cody and Drew interferes from behind to stop it and Cody gets on Drew or whatever but then Fatu is fucking mad because he cost him his chance but he still thinks he can beat.

There's 18 million ways you can do it instead of just out in the arena, let's just jerk two guys through the table all of a sudden. No match, no finish, no decision. Even if you were going to do this finish, and I hate the finish. You know, I was just watching some 86, 87 UWF, which I've always liked.

The in-ring brawl is kind of like a lost art. Every now and then they go to the floor, maybe a chair will get used, but Doug it and Terry Gordy or Terry Gordy and Steve Williams in 86, those were in-ring brawls. They looked like they were kicking the crap out of each other, and they didn't have to go all over the arena. You bought it, because they were on the giant stage called a wrestling ring, so everyone can see them.

Yeah, under the lights, where we can see it. And that's what this could have been. This could have been these two guys going back and forth, kicking the shit out of each other in the ring would have gotten people really invested in it because the other thing is the brawl around the arena too much. We've seen it all the time. It's not special. It is as special as a match in the ring.

It's the same level of specialness at this point. Well, and also, they can't take any bumps. And Jacob was trying to super kick Cody while Cody was going down the stairs, the arena stairs, and Cody's just having to wait for his foot because they're going to they're going to turn their ankle, blow a knee, break a leg, whatever, doing this stupid up and the stairs and down the stairs, bullshit.

And that was worse for their, not worse for their cardio, but expended more cardio effort to go all of those places around the arena that if they were taking bumps and providing action in the middle of the ring, instead of fake wandered around. Yeah, instead of the fake security guards, give all of those wrestling trainees a ticket and have them sit in one section,

and just have like Jacob Fahue throw Cody into the fans. There you go. And you don't know their fans because the security guards wearing everyday clothes. But not good. Again, WVE's beating me and a lot of other people down right now where it's like you want to give them a chance and the booking is what's getting you.

The booking is what's killing you. But that was the opening match. Jacob Fattu and Cody and I guess, like you said, it sits up a three-way, which I'm certainly not too excited. to see. I don't know about anyone else. Well, that's the thing. Another multiple man match for a title. And it works better this time

in theory, in a vacuum, because you do have one baby face, one heel, and one guy in between that hates both, but that is over. That's why, if this was the first three-way that we'd seen in a couple of years, they might have something. But now it's just oh my God again. And they're going to lay it out the same way.

They're not going to not to go off on a tangent, but when we had the first one with Brian Lee, what was it, Tracy Smothers, Dirty White Boy and Brian Lee. Right, 93. In Knoxville, I went through the match with him and already had thought up a couple of things to give anybody who took a bump out of the ring or was out of the match for any period of time

had a reason for it. This guy was thrown over the top rope and blah, blah, blah, and took a bump or whatever. And the other two guys says he's coming up, somebody hit the rope and knocked him back through a fucking chair. When he finally got it, there was reasons for everyone's absence. We were careful to do that. And account for everybody through the whole match,

but that everybody was still fighting for themselves. And now it's just, okay these guys can go a minute and a half or two so i'm just going to roll out and disappear i fucking hate it because i know the fans can see in the building where they are even if television didn't shooting them and that has to look just like shit just have a guy just sitting there just staring waiting for his cue i'm i'm just off on a platform again i apologize well i think a lot of other people are on that platform with you or at least want to hear your platform i don't know exactly how to make this work but jim how would that platform

be constructed. Would it have a trapdoor in it and potentially a fucking rope involved? I'm not exactly sure, but you know, Jim Saturday night's main event was on peacock. And of course, Smackdown was on USA and Raw was on Netflix this past week and the Royal Rumble's coming up and that will be on ESPN a lot of places. Just everywhere. I forgot about that.

The ESPN app, which is actually labeled Disney in a lot of places. Well, Disney owns ESPN. A lot of people have to go to Disney Plus to get to ESPN's $30 a month app. Yes, you've got to go everywhere now. You've got to go everywhere. You've got to spend a ton of money. A lot of money.

This is an American problem. This is not a international problem. This is not a Canadian problem. This is an American problem. One of the many we've got here is the problem with the streaming. We're the ones that are getting the stream, right? in our faces. However, Jim, this is one of the problems that there is a solution for. We have a cure. We can fix it. That's right. We can fix it and we will fix it by telling you about our friends

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J-C-E That's it All right Jim Well let's keep riding that wave Let's get back to Montreal Quebec Canada The city that Ivan Robair made famous As well as Rusty Staub

Let's go back to Saturday night's main event What about Eddie Auger? I don't know I heard there's going to be an Eddie Auger action figure I can't wait to get that So people can come over and say Who's that? They're taking pre-orders right now

From what I understand Anyway, well, you know what the next match was, Brian, on Saturday night's main event? And what's a boy to do? I've already got jacked out of my main event match I wanted to see. And now we have Rio Ripley, the great Rio Ripley and E.O. Sky teaming up against Liv Morgan and Roxanne Perez. So it continues to be a rib on me that my all. old-time favorite female wrestler in the history of wrestling is teamed up with the poster girl for everything I don't like about modern women's wrestling.

And I know a bunch of people just love E.O. Sky, but let me clarify this. Let me, as Don Knott's would in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, let me clarify this. Japanese wrestling is just like American wrestling. wrestling. It used to be great and I loved it. But now it's all fake bullshit and I don't. And E.O. Maybe can do all the moves just wonderfully and dive off the top rope with a trash can on her head. But the grinning, the acting or lack of lacting, she's lacting. The context, the context to patient voice, the silly fakeness of everything

with the diminutive size coupled with the fact that every other Japanese female wrestler is presented in the same over-the-top fashion, whether they're either Kabuki warriors in this company that all

do similar things or the goddamn ones that imitate them in the other company and do all the same things, but not as well and stupider has spoiled me on watching this shit and it's not that i'm being sexist or racist because i didn't say that i didn't like japanese women because they are either women or japanese i don't like the japanese women wrestlers because it's all horseshit i am i was a big pink lady fan, Brian. If a Japanese person is singing, I have no problem.

Or if a woman is doing something else, I have no problem. But when a Japanese woman is doing silly fucking wrestling, that's what's put me off this shit. When you say silly wrestling, you specifically talking about the way WWE is presenting her and you've got to think her or Aska, whoever lean into the way WWE wants to present them, or are you specifically talking about, like, the, the work? Because I agree with a lot of your complaints about Eos guys.

You know, I see people pointed out. The 12-year-old, you know, pointing at her head and just, it's silly. Yes. It doesn't seem like a real person. And she dives off the top of shit wearing a trash can. In the ring, she's really good. Deer me to a man or a woman. See, I think she's really good in the ring.

I don't like the stuff around her, but that may be the stuff that actually makes the fans they're like her, I don't know. But that's the part of it. It's, again, it shows that a five-foot-tall, 100-pound grinning woman who's presented with the mentality of a 12-year-old can do all this shit the same as all the top fucking guys

and or girls and stars. And then when you pair it with, Eo does her cartwheels and things that she, she does. And then Roxanne got on the top of her. This is the first minute of the match. And windmilled her arms in the air.

Not even with her fists clenched. Well, Eo was just covered up there. And Roxanne didn't land anything or act like she was trying to land anything. There's a high definition camera right on them. what the fuck is going on I like this match I thought it's the best match on this show however you're exactly right

that was embarrassing otherwise then I went to see fucking the Rolling Stones and Mick had that projectile fucking diarrhea right during Jumpin' Jack Flash but otherwise it was a great show

it's just I'm sorry but I don't know how else to say it. It's not that I don't like Japanese people. I feel the same way about them as I do about American wrestling. I like all the American people that don't do bad wrestling. There's just not that many of them. Same with Japan. My God, it's not that hard to figure out. And Ria is capable of more than this playtime bullshit. But nevertheless, on the finish,

after a referee bump, our friend Rochelle, Rochelle came out her journey from Minsk to Montreal, and she wiped out Ria Ripley, and she power-bombed E.O. Sky flat on her back on the floor. Boom! and rolled her in the ring, and then Stephanie Vacker came out and got in a fight with Rochelle and they fought into the crowd and in the back. And then Roxanne Perez covered EO,

who had just been power bombed on the floor. Referee was up one, two, no, a two count. After the power bomb on the floor. And then Roxanne tagged Livin, who hit her, finish on EO, but Ria had tagged EO and then hit the riptide on Roxanne. But now that I think about it, I thought Liv was legal. Well, nevertheless, maybe I missed that part, but nevertheless, Ria went over. I have no problem with that. But boy, howdy, there's four matches advertised for this show. We end up getting three, and one of them was this one.

Again, I thought this is the best match on the show. Again, I didn't think this show was that great, but I thought this is the best match. Taking E.O. Sky out of the equation, taking Roxanne out of the equation. And you're right, those throw, uh, throws, those punches were pretty embarrassing. I don't know about Mick Jagger, diarrhea, whatever you talk to. I believe Mick Jagger's diarrhea. I believe that's called the album, She's the Boss. But Ria Ripley and Liv Morgan are two of the best in the company.

Not just best women. They're two of the best in the company. Liv Morgan is possibly the best heel in the company. Can't take your eyes off her when she's out there. It's not just because she's a good-looking girl. She is always doing something. She's always committed to being the heel, Liv Morgan. Yes.

So I enjoyed the hell out of this. I think Ria Ripley and Liv Morgan are two of the very best in the entire company, and they made this really good. Roxanne, I think, is good. she didn't necessarily show it here. E.O. is really good, and I've seen some matches of hers that I really like, and I can't disagree with your assessment of her character or the presentation of her. Every time I try to watch some of the shit they do when they do an angle where they're,

remember the one where they were all crying? That was the one where everyone was like, just give it a chance, give it a chance, and the week we did, it was the worst acting we've ever seen on wrestling. And, anyhow who, What do you think? Hold on. If I can just stop you real quick, from you forward. What do you think was the best match on this show?

Do I, does there have to be one? There has to be one. There has to be one. You have to pick one. Well, geez. Yeah. Maybe it was the fight just because Fatu, Fatu was in it.

I don't know, because we got a four-way in a singles match with, you know, AJ and old shaky wasn't bad when you take into account because what's been my problem with Nakamura

for past several years since we've seen him? He has no physique. He looks like he's 100 years old and he moves like a broken down old man. But now that I've seen Okada and Ishi and Tanahashi and all of those

over the hill gang members of the Japanese promotion that Tony Khan has brought in Nakamura looks like Bruce Lee. He was the first one to get out. He was the first one to leave and sign with an American company at WWE. The rest of them stayed over there a few more years, a few more G1 climaxes and destroyed their bodies. They look like they've climaxed their last time already.

You know, it's weird. They always worked a physical style. I mean, that was one of the things that stood at about 80s or 90s Japanese wrestling. It was a lot more physical than what you saw here in America, especially all Japan. But I feel like these guys are all broken down quicker, younger than those guys were. And I think those guys worked more. Whatever that says. The same thing, the Marx took over.

The marks took over. And again, I got regular Japanese tapes through the entire decade of the 80s, where not only was their great talent in Japan, but also all the top Americans went there, and they had hard-hitting matches. And obviously, there was always gimmick guys even in Japan, but they didn't just have fake silliness. But they had hard-hitting matches with professionals. like the guys that made it over there and that lasted

and that were used on top could do the style just as well as they could do American wrestling or be Gordian Williams or fucking the top stars of the NWA for 20 years went for Baba. The in ring guys, the best in Europe, went for Anoki. But it was still not marks just dropping themselves on their heads and getting up without selling suplexes and pile drivers and a variety of shit over and over and over and

and standing there and trading forearms with each other. That was when their generation of in-ring marks took over the business. Our generation of in-ring marks trained on trampolines. their generation of in-ring marks still believed the shit was mostly real. Am I lying when you think about it? I guess not. So there you have it. Oh, but Nakamura wrestled AJ, didn't he?

Oh, that's right. I was wondering what we were talking about. Where were we on this show? Well, at Nakamura. And AJ is tremendous in-ring, and he's still, I'm sure he's got aches and pains, and he's retiring this year, and I'm confused about this. He may be retiring his week. But he's still in great-looking shape.

And, you know, Nakamura's a guy. I think this meant a lot to them. They wanted to work with each other. But I'm thinking if AJ's fighting Gunther in a week and it takes him 20 minutes to beat Nakamura, then his career may be in trouble. But they went about 20 minutes, and then AJ beat him with Stiles Clash.

you know, they did the fist respect bump type of thing and all that stuff. But it was a good wrestling match, but again, it's was AJ's figured in, but Nakamura's not been a guy that's been on top for a while, so it was just a long quality wrestling match. But there wasn't anything wrong with it, but nobody really came to see that,

that particular match. is what I'm talking about. Did you see or hear about Nakamura's Instagram post? Well, he apparently stooge that AJ was going to retire at the Royal Rumble, didn't he? But is that an accidental stooge from a guy that is from, you know, English is his second language, but he's been around here a long time? Or is that deliberately planned? That's why I'm confused.

Well, real quick, I'll read this point. It's a long post that he has since deleted. During last year's Australia tour at a house show in Melbourne, AJ gave a speech after the match. Listening to it, it was clear that he was thanking the fans. But somehow, it also felt like he was hinting that retirement might not be that far away. The tour continued in Japan,

and before the show's there, I asked him something. We were in a van on the way to, the meet and greet. I asked him, when are you going to retire? He answered, the Royal Rumble. I've already decided. Me, and then his dot, dot, dot, three exclamation points. Whether I actually said it out loud or just thought it for a split second, I'm not sure, but I remember it clearly. He said, his quotes now, before you retire, I want to wrestle you one more time. AJ nodded.

So again, there's a whole lot more there, but that's the main focus, him saying that AJ said that he was going to have his last match at the Royal Rumble. Well, let me ask you this first. Is Nakamura just incredibly professorially fluent in English, or is he using

some kind of translation thing? And how come would Abushi write shit? He still sounds like he's writing at a third grade level in any language. Is he using the wrong translation gimmick, or what's the difference there? They are both Japanese.

I would hate to compare Nakamura to Ibushi, who seems to be in a class, all his own. I don't know if he had a Shabotomy. I don't know what his problem is, but... A shippo! He seems to be completely out of it either walking or talking or

writing. I don't know if a boo... When Kenny Omega's the brains of the operation, you have to wonder how messed up of Bush must be. Well, I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a shabbat of me, but nevertheless... I don't know, though, if this was originally posted in Japanese or English, because again, it's gone.

I just am reading a transcript of it. But what do you think about the fact that this was posted in the first place? Well, you know, again, if they wanted to work with each other and their friends, I would think that the language barrier wouldn't prevent... Nakamura from knowing that he probably shouldn't give away. It's an ongoing story on television that AJ is retiring and now he's risking his career. That's already kind of a giveaway enough without. That's why I was wondering if they did it on purpose and then deleted it to make people

think there was something to it because we're talking about it. But then the problem becomes AJ Stiles is wrestling Gunther at the Royal Rumble. and even if AJ Stiles wasn't retiring this year, there's no way right now in the various presentation of the two that AJ Stiles should beat Gunther. But if Gunther beats AJ Stiles and AJ Stiles has put his career up, then he sure didn't get no goddamn, we just heard he's thinking of retiring from a public announcement.

What recently? So, 2026 is not going to be a long retirement tour unless he beats Gunther. So I can't figure out what they're doing here. Unless someone, I'm not justifying this, unless someone screws over Gunther to set up a bigger program of Gunther against someone else who's offended, that he keeps trying to retire these guys, Goldberg, Sina, AJ, and whoever else is next. Well, but eventually we're hopefully building to a match with Gunther and Brock Lesnar, who I understand is going to be in Saudi Arabia.

But that wouldn't make any sense for, Brock Lester wouldn't take up for anybody or, you know, you've destroyed my friend's legacy. I can't figure out what they're doing here unless AJ just told them, Yeah, I'm done in January. Write me out. I don't know. Well, we shall see, but there's one more match on this lackluster episode of Saturday Night's

Main Event to talk about. And by the way, let me ask you this. Do you think this is the worst episode of Saturday Night's Main Event they've had since they brought it back? Probably. Wouldn't it be? I think so. I mean, Jesse's starting to look good at this point. It's a nothing burger.

This is like the biggest nothing. burger of the Saturday night's main events they've had. Well, because that's the thing. I almost forgot. I had to go to Peacock. I started to go to Netflix because now I'm used to that. But the peacock has to feel like a lame duck or a limp dick, one of the other. There's some kind of cock pun in there. But this four way for the number, again, multiple four way for the number one contender for

the blah, blah, blah. okay, we know going in and Sammy's going to win the thing because they're in Montreal and that, then he should. If he's in this thing,

he should win it. They're in Montreal and is for a title shot in Saudi Arabia. It was clear he was going to win this. Yeah, and, and, you know, he's gone from,

he can't go to the country for fear that they'll fucking abduct him and do horrible things to him to they're carrying him around on their shoulders. I again, I think you tried to explain it to me one time why that they were all mad and it's those various religion things and I have whatever. But you got Sammy Zane. You've got Randy Orton because they do need some type of name value in this thing. And I'm not saying Sammy's not a name, but again, there's four of them.

Damian Priest, who has not cracked through, and Trick Williams right now is nobody because he just started on the main roster. And it's three baby faces and one heel, so Damian Priest was double-fucked, because at least the heel, you know, he can get some fucking heat out of this some way, but Priest is just like the third guy. He's not even the best friend in the movie. There's the star, the best friend, and he's the guy that drives the best friend around.

But that's the thing. We got no match for the main event with Jacob and Cody. We got a girls tag team match. We got AJ and Nakamura and this, and they've got 200 wrestlers under contract. So I'm just, Orton was the smartest worker. We know that.

Sammy Zane's the best athlete. Athletically, trick is as stiff as a board and green. He's a good athlete, but his whole, all of his body movements need to loosen up. He's tighter in a banjo string, as the veterans used to say. And he needs to loosen up and follow through and just get more comfortable. And Damien Priest is, what did the kids say, Brian, 6'7? A little 6'7? I think he really is, but he's also six, seven.

Or his mama Cornett used to say, come see, come saw. So to me, it's four guys having about 21-minute matches. And they just trade out. And it didn't really build. It didn't really lag. It was just the same stuff as any other four-way. And then out of nowhere, Sammy Zane and Trick were on a top turnbuckle

and Priest gave Sammy a razor's edge and kicked Trick off the apron, but then Sammy turned around and Huluva kicked Priest in the face, boom, one, two, three. And Orton had taken a choke slam from Priest and rolled out of the ring like two minutes beforehand, and you never saw him again. So he was again the smartest guy

because he didn't get any on him and you forgot he was involved. But did this like build up into a classic where you couldn't wait to see who was going to snatch the victory from the jaws of defeat or just, well, it's time, finish up. I think everyone was just waiting for Sammy to get the win because it was clear he was going to get the win.

This, man, this didn't do it for me. I'm sick of four-way matches, just like I'm sick of three-way matches. everything I've hated on AEW TV has just polluted all over WWTV and no I didn't give a shit about this

I think there's been a lot of Montreal aside Saudi Arabia aside seen a lot of pushback from people about the push for Sammy Zane seems like a lot of WWE fans are kind of over Sammy Zane and they're a little sick of him

and now he's getting the biggest push he's gotten since the Roman Reins match a few years ago. So we'll see where they go with this. But see, here's the thing. Sammy is kind of established. He's a popular guy with a certain segment and he's been used very well and he's always going to get a pop

and he's going to work hard for you and have a good match. I can see with Montreal and Saudi Arabia so close together, that was a legitimate business decision that I could not disagree with to say, okay, we're going to have Sammy win a big match in his hometown in front of 13,000 people or whatever it was, and go to Saudi Arabia where they love him and have a big match and the people are going to cheer and that's going to make these fucking rich cock suckers that paid us $50 or $100 million or whatever they got happy.

as a business decision but who goes over but who goes over well who's he which which title is shot is he going for I'm trying to think did they

he who's the champion now what the fuck is going on who's he wrestling Sammy Zane versus Drew McIntyre for the WWE champion okay there you go for Drew well Drew's going to beat him and Drew's going to get a bunch of heat

in Saudi Arabia but I think it's going to go you don't think it's going to go the other way that maybe they'll have someone, I mean, Drew just interfered in everyone else's matches. Someone interfered his match cost him to the belt so you get the Saudi Arabia Sammy's ain't title way? No, because then they got to bring it back over here and come back to reality.

And Sammy ain't figured into plans for Drew and Cody and Fatu. Does that three-way need a title? One of those three guys needs to be the champion, regardless of whether the three-way needs title or not. So, no, they're not going to change the belt. but that's the point that's a business decision that they could make to have Sammy win the match of Montreal

and get the title match in goddamn Saudi Arabia but at the same time they could have gotten there a different way a better, a more intriguing way, a more interesting way than just had him win a wandum

four way from Bavuawa a Wanda a Wandum four way is what he won. Daddy said sale. Well, that was Saturday night's main event. That was how the show began with Stephanie on the introduction. But that was Saturday night's main event.

Again, maybe the most lackluster edition of Saturday night's main event since they brought the show in the format or whatever it is back. But, Jim, on this topic, let's preview this weekend as we are recording this weekend's Royal Rumble from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where a brand new stadium has been built in less than a month. I was, and here's another thing. There's going to, I know they used to do that back in the old days in the 19, teens and 20s for the boxing matches especially, but it, are you going to trust that thing with 30,000 people sitting on it when they've just jacked it up in a month?

Is there a potential for some type of structural flaw to be evident the first time this thing is ever used? Do you know how many slave laborers would be slaughtered if one of those section of bleachers caved in? I don't think it'll happen. And no, hey, we used to have fun talking about how dare they send the boys over to Saudi Arabia and be held hostage and kidnapped and things. it's so dangerous. Well, it's safer than Minneapolis. So we can't make those comments anymore.

Yeah, unless you're gay or Jewish or speak out against the regime or anything else. And what happens if one of the girls takes a backdrop and accidentally tears the clothing off one of the other girl? Who goes to jail, the stripper or the strippy? That's an interesting question. If there's a wall, waltrow, I can't talk either. If there's a wardrobe malfunction. If there's a wadwob malfunction.

If there is one, is the malfunctione punished for an inadverted, you know, nipple? Well, see, you know, that was nearly adjudicated in southern Indiana one night. I said, was it Dale Indiana? It may have been a spot show off the Evansville Indiana television. Out in that direction, they were having the street fight matches. where the Memphis street fights in 1981 were they wore street clothes and the winner was the person who stripped the fucking other person down to their skivies, right? That was the street fee.

He had to rip the clothes off. And Tini called him, they're having to rip the clothes off match again. So it was Jimmy Hart and a couple of his heels in like a six man with Dundee and whoever, the fuck. And to point that's when they used to fuck with Jimmy Hart and not only did they strip him down but they pulled his underwear off and he

ran back to the fucking locker room with his hand over his frank and beans in one and his fucking his hand covered his crack on the other side. He ran lickety split to the locker room and the fucking news spread through this little town of like

1,500 or 2,000 people the headline in that weekend because it was a weekly paper the newspaper only came out like once a week that weekend not only did the preachers preached about the naked wrestling at church but there was a headline naked wrestling sparks controversy and they they wouldn't let them come back with another spot show after that because they stripped jimmy heart naked and tini was pissed are you a heel if you are you know let's say it is a women's match one-on-one I guess you would be a heel but what if the heel just starts ripping off the baby face is close well that well that's that's what that's I'm glad you said that because in the newspaper article

about it they had been the police the local police chief had asked whether they were going to press any charges and they said they couldn't exactly figure out because of the situation whether to charge the person who was stripped naked because he was the naked one or whether to charge the person who stripped him naked against his will. And they finally just left it to say if none of these people ever just comes back to town

and we won't do anything. Well, once again, we are previewing the Royal Rumble. Oh, I forgot about that. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia in the midst of a wonderful rebranding, which you could see each week on WWTV with these wonderful tourism commercials. It's always the season in Riyadh.

I always Bonesaw season, but Jim, let's get to the matches here. As announced so far, now, recent WWE Premium Live events have been four or five matches, and there are two guaranteed hour-long matches, so... Oh, Christ, ah. But in a career-threatening match, A.J. Stiles versus Gunther, if Stiles loses, he is forced to retire. A career threatening match. Boy, if this one stinks, he's done.

Well, I said earlier, I can't figure out what they're doing because they've just announced recently that AJ Stiles is going to retire in 2026 and then suddenly he's putting his career up against Gunther. And if he was not going to lose this, I don't know why they would not book him against somebody else that he could beat without,

doing damage to Gunther. So I don't know what purpose it would serve for anyone to interfere in this match. We'll see what happens. But I got to think Gunther's going over. I would have thought so all along. I kind of do think so still. It's interesting that they made this this match. It's interesting that Gunther just retired two other wrestlers,

and this is part of that. to me, that's the only out for AJ to win if Goonther is kicking the crap out of him and on the verge of winning and some hero, some baby face or someone who would be a baby face says, I don't want to see AJ go out like this and does something to screw over Gunther

causing Gunther to say, hey, Brock Lesnar, I don't like that, or hey, Chris Jericho, I don't like, whoever it may be. No, good Lord. I'm just trying to think of other people he could potentially argue he could retire, right? Because that has to be part of it. It can't be like, Javon Evans, I'm not going to forgive you for this.

It has to be another old fart about to go. Well, and again, I don't know that I like him getting stuck in that. If it's to build to Brock, that's fine. But just anything extraneous not meant to go in that direction with just let's find some old people for him to retire. I don't think we need to go any further with that. Jim for the undisputed WWE championship,

the champion Drew McIntyre versus Sammy Zane. I think it's going to be a wonderful match and have the people are going to be spirited. And in the end, Drew is not, they're not going to switch the title. I'm not saying that Cody and Jacob Fatou

might not show up and do something or whatever, but Sammy is not. winning the title. Let's put it that way. Well, we'll see. Again, one of the big themes... They're not afraid to just do a DQ out of nowhere anymore, so anything could happen, but the belt ain't changing.

But considering where they are, this is like, you know, screwing over Jack Venino in Dominican Republic or something. Like, you may have to worry about this. I don't think anybody's coming with a fucking knife under their robe or sash or whatever. And the only thing it... I'll say not to support this because I don't like the idea of it, but if Sammy did win and someone screwed over Drew, we're right back to Drew McIntyre had everything going,

had the world on a string, and then someone screwed him over, Jacob Batu, Cody Rhodes. And they're both due. They're both due. It's going in the wrong direction. They would not do that. They'd be crazy to do that right now.

I don't want to go on with you like that. If you're talking about your singing, I agree. Jim. Go on to be a feather in your camp. Let's not hurt the listener's feelings. Jim, the women's Royal Rumble, a 30-woman Royal Rumble match for a title shot at WrestleMania 42

against one of the women's world champions. We have some of the names that have been announced so far. 30 people fighting for the right to have a match against one of two people. Jim so far announced, Eoskei Oh god damn Ria Ripley

Roxanne Perez Liv Morgan Raquel Rodriguez Bailey Lyra Valqueria Asca Chelsea Green Jordan Grace

Charlotte Flair Alexa Bliss Nia Jax Lash Legend Julia, Maxine Dupree, and Becky Lynch. 17 women have been announced so far. Oh, geez, there's 13 more besides that.

How would you like to be the surprise if it's in Saudi Arabia? Like, hey, we want you to make a surprise appearance at the Royal Room. By the way, bring more clothes than you have. Yeah, bring a scuba diver's not there. As it does, are we, if we get 30 of them in the ring and they're all covered head and to tour, we're going to be able to figure out who's. who. I guess we can spot the fridge pretty easy. Out of all the names you mentioned, obviously, Ria Ripley,

I would, out of the names you mentioned, I would put Ria Ripley over, or Liv Morgan over, or Becky Lynch over, or potentially do some major spot with good old Rochelle, Rochelle Rodriguez to make her the diesel-esque character of the thing, and otherwise, I don't, I wish they wouldn't just do an hour of this. You know, with all the booking problems recently, I have to say they may be booking Raquel Rodriguez better now than they ever have before. Which would be faint praise. Faint praise, we'll see what happens.

Jim, before I get to the men's match, which is the other match list here, I guess it's important to note, no CM Punk, no CM Punk world title match here on the show, at least as of now, as we are recording a week out. Well, they got four whole matches. What the fuck? What do you expect? Well, Jim, the men's Royal Rumble, once again the winner gets a guaranteed title shot at WrestleMania

against either champion. Here are the 15 competitors so far announced. Cody Rhodes, Gunther, Jay Uso, Ray Mysterio, Dragon Lee, Penta,

Roman Reigns, Solo Sacoa, Jacob Fatu, Bronbreaker, Logan Paul, Bronson Reed, Austin Theory, Javan Evans, and finally, Obafemi. Boy, they've got some names in there. Cody, obviously, you know, has already teased. I'm going to win the Royal Rumble three times,

which may be stretching it. Gunther's in it. Roman Raines is in it. although I think Roman may go off onto an island unto himself if there's going to be anything to the rock being involved Roman doesn't need to interact with anybody else well you think the Rock's going to be involved if the no if the Rock's going to be involved in WrestleMania

oh he doesn't Roman doesn't need a title matcher to win one he didn't get an Oscar nomination he didn't get an Oscar nomination but Marissa McMahon did that's right for producing some fucking documentary yeah uh jacob fatu's in there for whatever that that counts and brawn breaker but there's there's a number of names that you could see winning the thing and that doesn't even take into account if brock is there so that again that's why i wish they wouldn't have the women's before the men's to take the edge off the men's because the men's is where all the star power is but at this point, you know, pick it.

And then there's still the elimination chamber, which can determine who gets the other title shot at the other champion and blah, blah, blah. And there's too many variables in the men's scene to really predict with any certainty. But again, an hour for this, an hour for the other. And look up on the internet. net because I've got books, but it would take me a while to get over there and find it.

But what was the card for the Royal Rumble in, say, 1998 or 97 or 96? I booked some of these. I should remember, but... He just gave me multiple years, but I got 98 in front of me. Okay. 98, there was obviously a men's Royal Rumble, 30 competitors, also on the show. Does it say who was in that? Cactus Jack, chainsaw Charlie.

Tom Brandy. Was he Tom Brandy? Was he Salvatore sincere? Well, anyway, The Rock. I bet he was Sal sincere. Mosh. Finneyus Godwin. Eight Ball.

Black Jack Bradshaw. Owen Hart. Steve Blackman. DeLo Brown. Kergin. Mark Merrow. Ken Shamrock. Thrasher.

Mankind. The artist formerly known as Goldbust. Oh, remember because Mick would, Mick, Mank. and cactus we're all three in it. And dude love, that's right. The artist formerly known as Gold Dust. Jeff Jarrett. The Honky Talk Man.

I forgot about that. Ahmed Johnson. Mark Henry. Skull. Kamam Mustafa. The eventual winner, Stone Cold Steve Austin. Henry O Godwin. Savio Vega.

Farouk. Dude Love. Chains. And finally, Vader. So in all seriousness, you have a Royal Rumble with Mick Foley at three different times, The Rock, Steve Austin, Vader, Ken Shamrock, Owenhart, Gold Dust. So there's a rumble, so that's one match.

And here are the matches. Vader versus the artist formerly known as Gold Dust with Luna. Max Mini, Mosaic, and Nova, defeated. battalion, El Torito, and Tarantula. And that's when Vince was trying the Mexican minis. With Sunny as a special guest referee. The Rock defeated Ken Shamrock by disqualification for the intercontinental title, or at least it was a championship match.

The Legion of Doom defeated the New Age Outlaws by disqualification. Stone Cold Steve Austin won the Royal Rumble, and then finally, in a casket match, a infamous casket match, Sean Michaels, with Triple H in China, defeated the Undertaker. So with that Royal Rumble, you had not only a Royal Rumble with McFoly times three, with the Rock, with Steve Austin, with Vader, with Gold Dust, with Shamrock, etc. You also had Vader against Gold Dust in an angle match, the Rock against Ken Shamrock for the Intercontinental title,

the Road Warriors and the Billy Gun and Road Dog, and Sean Michaels and the Undertaker. a casket match. That's not a throwaway fucking card. Well, because they cared about selling pay-per-views back then. And they did. Exactly. That's what, this is a kind of

shit we used to have to fucking produce. Or if we'd come up with oh, here, Vince, we're going to have this three-hour pay-per-view with four matches. And what? And by the way, this is important to note, too. The match times. Vader, Gold Dost, 7 minutes, 51 seconds.

Mexican minis, 7 minutes 48 seconds. Rock and Shamrock? 1052. Legion of Doom and New Age Outlaws? 757. Royal Rumble? Must have shaved time, 55 minutes, 24 seconds. And finally, the casket match, 20 minutes, 37 seconds, as opposed to every match being 25 minutes,

it teared up the way it should. Yeah, no match besides Sean and Undertaker. and the Rumble needed 20 minutes or more. And that's obviously bell to bell and not counting the entrances and et cetera, but also it was a two hour and 50 minute show. It had to be because we had a three-hour pay-per-view window and they wanted 10 minutes to rewind the fucking tape before the replay. So that's why you had a two-hour and 50-minute fucking pay-per-view.

This will be airing 1 p.m. on Saturday. Will you be watching live? No. Why not? Middle of the day, you have no excuse. I don't want to ruin my day that early. And actually, I've planned to do some more fucking filing in the office on Saturday as part of my organization project around the castle.

And also that way, if it's happened afterwards, I can, because I'm paying attention to what I need to pay attention to, I can zip through the various advertisements telling me how they don't cut people's heads off over there anymore and everything's fine and get to the matches. Non-stop tourism. Hey, here's some of your favorite WW superstars hanging out by the beach here. You may notice the women are wearing a ton of clothes. Wow, this is such a great environment here in Saudi Arabia.

They hide all the violence from us. We're treated like stars. Royal Rumble in Riyadh this coming weekend. Jim? Yes. By 300,000 pay-per-view buys estimated for the 98 Royal Rumble. They don't have to worry about pay-per-view buys nowadays. Doesn't seem like they worry about ticket sales.

Doesn't seem like they worry about anything other than the stock price and making sure the Saudis are happy. They got no worries. There was a time the business was all about selling. Selling tickets? Selling in the ring. Whatever it may be. Selling pay-per-views.

Selling pay-per-views and perhaps mom and pop America out there are developing their own pay-per-views. My pop might be selling mom. Well, no. You know, if mom's still frisky enough, even though that she's older, if she's still frisky enough and has the energy, then pop could set up a hell of a business and they could both retire if he was just selling mom. But, you know, he could give her like a quota per day.

Again, maybe not the best example. Certainly not one. If you should be using here. If you'd like to advertise your mother on Shopify. That's not how it works. Let's get away from this awful example. Let's talk about business. Jim. Let's talk about commerce. Let's talk about the hardworking listeners out there who work

hard to develop their business, create their products, and need a little help, a little support online to get the word out, to make sure that everyone has an easy way to pay, to make sure that all the things are taking care of. They help us. Make sure that the money is collected. And if these people don't have the money when they promise to pay, that somebody's going to go over there and take a ruler to their knuckles, that type of thing. I don't know about that kind of thing, but Jim. But you know, I always thought those mom and pop stores, I took it literally. I thought, well, you know, mom and pop, they're a little freaky, but nevertheless,

millions of entrepreneurs folks have already made the leap from doing it themselves. You don't want to be doing it yourself. You want to have somebody doing it with you. You want to have somebody that knows what they're doing that's experienced, that knows all the angles and all the different spots and the ways that you can capitalize. on everything, and that's why you need to be with Shopify. And you don't even need to use protection, folks, because Shopify is safe. Millions of people have already made the leap to Shopify, from household names to first-name business owners just getting started.

Virgins, you might say, that had never experienced the deflowering that comes with getting your brand and your store and your product and your dream out to millions and millions of people where it can be used and used and used again and bought and sold and bought and sold until finally it's discarded like a Kleenex on the peep show booth floor of life. Setup is fast with Shopify's built-in AI tools, and marketing is built in too by Cracky, where they'll create email and social campaigns that reach customers wherever they are. You know, many times Shopify has said a lot,

team out to cover all of the restrooms in a particular metropolitan area, the gas stations, and the flea markets, in any place of rest areas where people will stop to take a piss, and they will write your number down on the wall. So people will be calling you from all over the place. They don't do that at all. You don't have to work. They don't do that. I don't know why the chain would happen now. That kid with the bicycle always shows up every time there's some shit we're arguing about. Once again, we're talking about all fun and games aside, all metaphorical fun and games. We're talking about real business. We're talking about real money. We're talking about real support. We're talking about you having someone you could trust and also your

customers knowing they're going to have an easy checkout and there will be... Oh, boy, they're going to be checking you out. All right. When Shopify puts these pictures they've got a view up on the internet, people will be checking you out all over the world. There are no pictures is they going to be putting out on the internet? They'll be putting your business all over the place. It's tended photography. It's not. If you want to transform yourself folks into an entrepreneur

and a founder and a boss, you can't just squat down into parking lot and poop out a website. You need to go to the professionals and shop if I can hold your hand and help you every step of the way from where you're just a little small embryo in the business world all the way

to where you're a flower, blossipping. blossoming and growing wild out in the fields of success. So if you'd like to be growing wild out in the field, go to Shopify. Right now, Shopify.com, and you can sign up for a $1 a month trial period with the code JCE, that's Shopify.com slash JCE, a $1 a month trial period, and they'll show you how they can help you with various, ways to manipulate yourself into pleasure and success.

And if you'd like to be shown manipulating yourself, then all you've got to do... Once again, not an example. Is go to Shopify. No, that's not all you have to do. You don't have to go there for that. You have to go there to help your business. Again, we trust them with our business. You could trust them with yours.

Yes, you put your business in their hands. Our fine friends at Shopify, Jim, I understand. In your hands right now, you have a wonderful link in a promo code to show. with the listeners. Yes, Shopify.com slash JCE. $1 month trial period.

Just put them in your hands or put it in their hands or one hand will rub the other. Shopify. I just don't have it today. We're back, ladies and gentlemen. And whether you're shopping

or selling, we have more show here, more wrestling talk. I got some some to sell you. I got something. to tell you there. We have an update here from a member of the cult of Cornette. Jeremy from Las Vegas, because you and I were talking here a show or two ago about, it was one of the, questions, what do the listeners sit in? What do they say take a powder, meaning to leave the ring

or to get out of there, whatever, take a powder? And I said, well, that's, that's an old expression, right? That's not just in wrestling. And of course, since you're a young person, you were no help whatsoever. But Jeremy has done some research on this. Would you like to hear the origin of Take a Powder? Yes, because I've actually heard a few different people with a few different versions of this. I'm curious what this will be. Well, Jeremy's research says originated in the 1920s as American slang for leaving or vanishing in a hurry, often to avoid trouble or in a runout, quote-unquote fashion, it likely stems from medical contexts where individuals took fast-acting powdered medicine like laxatives or sedatives or from a magician's powder that make things disappear.

In the 1920s, headaches or stomach ailments were treated with powders like BC powder, and the phrase might originate from the need to leave quickly after taking a moving medicine, but in gangster movies, it was commonly used in the 1920s, 1930s to describe films and novels, to describe escaping a scene quickly, and it may be loosely related to the powder-your-nose phrase

used by women to excuse themselves. Yeah, that's what I said. Though the medical escape definition is more likely for taking a pound. Medical escape? The medical slash escape. Like you took a powder, you got a shit, you got to go, or just. And it has to start. So you're saying it comes from powdered medicine.

Taking a powder. Which I guess is just immediately have to shit. Would it be like medicine. It is now just without the capsule, just, you know, loose medicine, I guess. Well, yes, because that's what you remember even. in the 70s, Dusty Rhodes did the commercials for standback powder. It was a pain relief

of powder in a pouch that you poured into a drink and his commercial, I can tell you about pain. Stand back powders help relieve pain. But Jeremy says the phrase is sometimes seen as old fashioned, but still implies a hasty departure. So we got that going forward.

But we don't have like the first known example of like, Here's the first time it was in literature. Here's the first time it was set on film. Here's any time it was explained anywhere contemporaneously. We didn't pay Jeremy to go that deep. I'm sure that would take a while. And he's got a fucking job and a family. You want his children to starve?

So you're paying him for other things is what you're saying. Well, he is from Las Vegas. What happens in Las Vegas? Stays in Las Vegas as long as you pay the bill. All right. Well, let's take a powder from this. conversation, Jim, and let's return to the fun wrestling talk here on the show. We got some questions from the Cult of Cornette, and let's get to them.

Jim, this first one sent via the Cult of Cornett Facebook group by Tony, I swear I'm not Tony Khan, Kearns. Tony Kearns. Tony Kearns! Where is the line drawn between working snug and just going out there and beating the shit out of who you are working with. For example, guys like the Road Warriors and Steiner's had their way with local talent and others lower on the totem pole, yet they seemed to get a pass.

At any point, did rough talent get called out for taking advantage of the workers? No, because, first of all, even though the Road Warriors were green and, you know, and it could get carried away, especially in the early days. And a lot of times their rookie year, the job guys would come into the TVS studio and see the lineup on the wall and see they were working with the road wars, just turn around and leave. They had that happen more than one time rather than sticking around. But they weren't, they weren't just going out to just beat the shit out of somebody and hurt them.

They weren't punching them in the face. although I think there is one famous clip of hawk punching a guy in a face, but he deserved it. But they weren't, the clotheslines were stiff, but they weren't breaking people's nose with them. They weren't, I guess the thing that describes it the best is if a guy is hitting you hard and safe places, who was it, William Regal said that,

then that's working stiff but not being dangerous. And a shooting doesn't even come into it because that implies that you're really fighting for real and the other guy's going to fight back and all that stuff. Working stiff is if you're hitting a guy in safe places but with authority to where it sounds and looks real, that's working stiff. If you're hitting a guy the same hardness or the same force but you're hitting him in the nose or the mouth or dropping him on his head or, you know, busted his eardrum or that kind of shit, that's unprofessional and that's going over the line, I think, as he phrased it.

Does that answer anything? So who were guys that you thought took it too far? From the guys that you worked with, guys you saw personally. Did Ron Garvin take it too far? No. See, that's the thing. And I mean, like we've talked about a guy like Buzz Sawyer, who would particularly not,

he'd steal the guy's tights and boots, but he also wouldn't care whether he hurt him or not or whatever. But no, Ronnie Garvin, that's the thing. He was able to take those guys down and tie him and knots and make them pick their own nose with their own finger, but he wasn't hurting them. That was just part of how he showed how he was tough

because he didn't have the size or the body of the road warriors. but he was a master, wrestler, and hooker and all that shit. I've worked with Ronnie. When he was punching you, you didn't fucking feel it. Now, he and Flair were laying shit in when they were doing their stuff, but that was by mutual agreement, and it wasn't dangerous. They bled from the chest from their chops, but neither Ronnie nor Rick Flair in those 30-and-minute-long matches

where they were laying shit in and swinging white, I never saw a busted eye or a cheek or a busted head a hard way accidentally. That's the thing is that it's a more modern phenomenon to have all these hardways going on where guys end up bleeding and they're not supposed to. So I guess that's what I'm saying is you wouldn't see a lot of top guys who were known for being unprofessional and hurting people by just being too stiff or reckless or careless because even if they did it with the job guys,

it wouldn't be put up with the main roster guys in any territory. And, you know, you would occasionally have assholes in the old days that would take liberties with the young guys and not give them anything. But that doesn't mean that they'd punch them and break their nose or bust their eye open. All right. Well, Jim, our next question. Sent, via the Culta Cornette Facebook group,

was sent in by Bradley Shelbourne. A while back you brought up a possible Phantom match in New Mexico. Wasn't there a risk of Phantom matches damaging the business? Wouldn't word get out to the press or other fans if someone decided to make an issue of it? spreading the word that a given match

never happened in their town. It's an interesting question because you know, I think the example is the AWA tag titles here, but there are other ones. The idea that you announced the phantom match because the fans everywhere else will just hear about the title change, what does that do to the local crowd

if you're actually running that town? Well, see, that's one of the things that I couldn't figure out about the Albuquerque deal is because that was a town, and we found out they did actually run a show that night, and they might very well have had the match. So maybe it wasn't really a phantom match after all. They changed the car that they had advertised.

But when the territories would do a phantom title switch, let's say the Tennessee territory, for example, if the champion left, I remember one time, which I believe was right after Robert Fuller took all the guys back to Knoxville. We've talked about that a million times when Garvin and those guys broke off from Ron Fuller and the team was in need. Well, Jarrett lost his champion, but he announced that Outlaw Ron Bass had won the belt from, I think from Robert Fuller, whoever was the champion in Bluefield, West Virginia.

And that's the thing. Not only did Jarrett's TV not go to Bluefield, West Virginia. Virginia. Jared never ran a show in Bluefield, West Virginia. But he didn't come on TV every week and go, by the way, we don't go to Bluefield, West Virginia. So nobody in the territory that he was actually promoting in knew they didn't have any shows in Bluefield, but nobody in Bluefield got the TV to see that they were claiming that

the title changed hands in Bluefield. So who knew? that's how it worked in the territory days you just picked a town that you didn't fucking run but even in this guy's scenario that oh somebody will call a paper you would have had to have had in which they've done it in New York and other places you would have had to have a guy with the local newspaper that was just crusading

against wrestling and here's another example of how these motherfuckers act but most of the time nobody gave a shit to report that and and you would almost have to why would a disgruntled fan be that mad that he's going to demand that the newspapers investigate this

it just didn't work that way back in those days I mean not an exact example at all but you know the famous one the beginning of 1986 when Jake Roberts was going to go to the WWF he clearly had to lose the title match at the Sam Eustin Coliseum because he wouldn't be around to be the champion. He couldn't win. That's right. And the guy in the Houston paper said that beforehand.

So Jake won. So Jake won the title there, surprising everyone and going against what the newspaper writers said. Because they saw it in the newspaper, Watson, Paul Bosch, and then they switched the belt back before Jeff, before Jake left. in another place or whatever, but to cross up the newspaper, they did that. But that's the thing is that, you know, they could manipulate. And remember when Manny Fernandez and Rick Rood left Crockett without dropping the world tag title back,

they showed on television one of the dark matches that they'd had at a TV taping with the rock and roll against Fernandez and Rude and just said it was the title match. and the rock and roll one. So they just revoiced it. So there's all kinds of ways you can get around shit. Or you could back in those days

before everybody turned into a fucking stooge. All right, Jim, our next question was sent via email the corny drive-thru at gmail.com. This is from Sean Devaney. Hello? Sean Devaney. What is this? Jackfeffer business now?

This is not, our friend Sean Delaney is going to be upset. Well, this is from Sean Devaney. Minnesota, aka the land of a thousand or ten thousand lakes, it says here. On many occasions, we've heard Jim say that the majority of the reason that the AWA fell apart was due to Vern Gagne, be it his inability to pay talent, inability to progress with the Times as a promoter, or the fact that Vince McMahon basically poached every big name out of Minneapolis and the surrounding suburbs.

And can I hold on before you ask the question, let me just clarify, A lot of the responsibility fell on Vern. Now, he did pay the talent in the glory days in the AWA made a ton of fucking money. Bachwinkle in the late 70s, early 80s, was making 150 grand a year working like 17, 18 days a month. But as Vince poached the talent and things started going south, and Vern still had not prepared with younger guys and the next, generation, except for his son and Brunzel. So the talent decisions and the just sticking with the same boring television and not

upgrading things, yes, Vern technically was responsible, but we don't want to make him goddamn sound like Nick Goulis or anything. Well, depends on you talk to. With all that said, clearly you can't be on top of a territory, be it talent, champion, or promoter without doing some things correct. We know what Vern got wrong, but in Jim's opinion, what was it that Vern Gagne actually got right

during his heyday or during the heyday of the AWA? Well, Vern was able to build really the biggest geographic territory in the country. Of course, they were a lot of the least populated states, but they all had one or two major cities. And in the 50s, Vern on television was the biggest wrestling star in the country at one time. He was an NCAA champion.

He was the All-American boy. He was just the bees' knees. And he made enough money and had enough drive and determination that he went back home to Minneapolis, bought into the territory or into the promotion, actually ended up buying the whole thing, but Wally Carbo was obviously always a partner and had fronted him some of the money as well and was always involved. But at that time, it was the Minneapolis Boxing and Wrestling Club or whatever.

It was Minnesota and maybe a little Wisconsin. And over the years, Vern, he forged relationships. He never, the NWA never feuded with Vern Gagne. and neither did the WWWF. And there wasn't a lot of animosity between Vern and the rest of the promoters. They knew he had Minnesota and Wisconsin in his pocket and they couldn't shake him. And he always, later on when he had a piece of Chicago along with Bruiser and those guys, that was the Midwest stronghold.

And Gagne was still over. there. But Vern, another thing he did right was syndicating the TV to all the places that couldn't be a territory anymore. Not only did he work with Omaha that he took that over, but Denver, Salt Lake City. I mean, there couldn't be a territory involving Salt Lake City because there's no other fucking town in Utah except Salt Lake City, but it's a giant city. So Vern put together a unique schedule for the AWA in the glory years of the mid to late 70s and early 80s, especially after he expanded into California when Roy Shire went crazy and all those, that other stuff, the labels were gone.

And it's important to note he tried to expand into California in Los Angeles years earlier. It didn't work out. Oh, back in the 60s. It didn't work then. But he always had lofty goals, obviously, as a promoter. So point is, whereas the southern territories had full-time schedules that they could run every night of the week in just one or two or three states, and the Northeast had that big population center. Vern had the Midwest and all of those western states that nobody went to. He could do a show in fucking Montana.

They flew almost everywhere. So the point I'm making is is that that's why guys like Bokwinkle liked the territory because he quit running spot shows. He only ran big buildings in bigger cities and the guys only worked like 17, 18 days a month.

Maybe a little more in the winter, maybe less than a summer. But they were all big shots and they were well-paying gigs and he had a big geographic territory. So, and it existed. He bought in in Minneapolis and what? 1959, 1960, and he was still in business almost 30 years later and had made money for

all but four or five years of that. So he got a lot right. Yeah, I mean, if you just think about some examples, Hulk Hogan got over bigger than his push, which was a big push, got over as a baby face when brought in as a heel with Johnny Valiant as his manager. Vern went with it.

Yeah. You could argue, oh, he didn't give him the belt, but whatever. He went with it. Hulk Hogan became a star in the AWA bigger than he ever was anywhere else before then. And it's because Vern

just went with it. Vern was early with the merchandising. You know, we talk about LJN's and everything Vince did when he expanded nationally. Vern was right there. Like around the same time Vince was negotiating with stuff, Vern was getting his Remko deal.

May not be the perfect figures or anything, but, you know, they were kind of ready for that, but you kind of said it earlier. Well, but see, Vern from the 50s, Vern was on the cover of the NWA calendar in 1955.

Vern had a, I've got a copy. Me too. had the Vern gone your wrestling game. Vern in the 50s because he was a national name was merchandised like that so he kind of knew what you could do with it. But again, there's a period of time between 83 and 86. I mean, by 87 it's clear, but where he wasn't,

he didn't have his finger on the pulse anymore because the pulse had changed so rapidly that it was impossible for him to get caught up to it. You know, Vince had the rocket wrestling connection, and then all of a sudden it was Russell Rock in Minneapolis and they couldn't get Prince and they wanted Prince who's a wrestling fan

who was a wrestling fan and they couldn't get him but that was kind of like the end I think almost like Russell Rock in 86 they were still talented guys there still stuff you want to see Bach Winkle Kurt Hennig the Midnight Rockers

lots of stuff but the tone of the show guys didn't disappearing and coming back. This is the time period where, and you say, well,

Vern paid people earlier, the late 80s is when you started hearing about issues with money. Yeah. I mean, Chavo Guerrero went after Vern at the cauliflower alley club 25 years later for screwing him on the Superclash three payoff.

And what was that, January 89, the end of 88? I forget what it was. Yeah, but Chavo had a long memory. But in all honesty, another thing was that Vern had learned

television wrestling when they invented it and it was well known that even though the AWA had some of the best talent in the business and they never had a big roster even the major towns in the big years in the 70s the major towns would have four matches maybe five matches on a card

only one of those would be a tag team match that was done like the old days but also while the talent was some of the best in the world in the ring or at the box office whether it be Billy Robinson and the Crusher Bach Winkle Stevens all the guys

the television shows were the shits the interviews were what stood out because all those guys could talk Mad Dog Vashan but the matches were all squash matches and they did one meaningful angle on TV every six months or a year.

And it was the studio show. And it just, it was blah, but the people there in that territory watched it religiously because they'd never seen other wrestling on television. When they started getting the TBS show, a superstation from Atlanta, or they started getting the more modern TV shows, That significantly damaged the AWA's cachet as well with those fans there,

because when Norman Dooley would copy over all of the good wrestling television from every territory and send me tapes, I would literally get a best-of tape of the AWA, and it'd be two hours of interviews. None of the matches on TV except if it was a tape from the arena, where they did some kind of angle or finish or whatever. So that was the TV was just behind and the stentorian. Gene O'Kerland worked because he was talented and it was like a parody of himself that he was doing in the WWF. But all the announcers in the AWA, the, you know, what was the guy that, geez, what was the name he looked like Captain Kangaroo, Roger Kent.

Roger Kent, Rod Trondgard. There were a whole bunch of people. They've all got the bow tie and the tuxedo. And, yeah, well, he did, didn't he? Al-Durushia. Al-Durusha. You know, they all looked like, and they all were like 50 or 60-year-old white guys with the voice like that. And oh, my God. And it was just, it was so old time.

Now, imagine, too, talk about seeing other TV and everything. When Vince starts coming into town, going after Vern's stations, but even when he first starts and you have Hogan with Mean Gene O'Korland David Schultz and other talent that were from other places

the fans there got trained just about with the exception of like the road warriors if someone here is a star they're going to just show up on that other show at any point

because it wasn't like there was another batch of people that came over it was one by one Jesse Ventura Bobby Heenan, Jim Brunzel. I mean, everyone just all of a sudden started showing up on WWTV in the same market with Gene O'Grolin, the same guy doing the interviews with a lot of the same stars.

And that was the key. The reason why that most outlaw promotions never won the promotional war against the established promoter is because the established promoter still had the established tax. But when you think about it, the time of the upstart won Jerry Jarrett, because all the boys went with him. They left Nick Goulis. They went with him. Nick had to bring in except for Fargo and Tojo brand new everybody. And it's hard to defeat the incumbent promotion because it's always been that the incumbent promotion came with the talent that was

over in that territory. But in Vince's case, he turned it around. He got all the talent that was over in the territory. And that's when the fans were more loyal to their favorite wrestlers than their favorite promoter. There's a video I love. It was on a Best of WWE, Best WWF back then, one of the early ones, I think. Or maybe it was the biggest, the strongest, the strangest, and the strongest, that tape. Mad Dog Vashon's debut, I think it was St. Paul, maybe it was Minneapolis.

He comes out. It's him against like this job guy that sucks. I think it was Paul Peterson or something. He comes out there, this old man, and gets a roar from this crowd like you've never heard. He just jumped. And these people all knew who he was. It's the biggest pop you've ever heard. It's amazing.

And he plays into it because, you know, there's no ramp or anything. He's just walking through the crowd. He's making fists and stuff. And that's the problem. He was one of the biggest stars in the AWA. He showed up there. The Crusher. It wasn't even just like the young,

wasn't it like, all right, Kurt Henning is a good future wrestler. Rick Bartels a star. Let's get them. No, it was anyone who had ever been over in the territory. But then the problem became

if Mad Dog Vashan showed up on a WWF show in Dallas, Texas or Tampa, Florida, people are like, what the fuck is going on? Or the same thing, it exposed the crusher. Because the people, it was like me and Okada. Allegedly, he used to be good. But now I'm looking at a broken down old man.

And that's what the people in places that had never seen the crusher and never seen Mad Dog Bashan, that's what they saw. And the guys were too old. to, you know, pass their prime to be able to get over from scratch like they would have been a new territory 15 or 20 years before. Well, again, that's our question about Vern Gagne and what he got right.

And wrong, actually, what we talked about here. Jim, a few more questions before we wrap things up this week. This one was sent to corny drive-thru at gmail.com from the notorious J.I. The question I have is a two-parter. I read about an interview Carl Gatch did, where Harley Race was mentioned, and Gatch said Harley was a clown, and even went as far as to say he would kill the business. I've also seen Luthez say he respected Harley, but found his, and is a quote, showbiz style

to theatrical. I was wondering if you think maybe that's why Harley maybe gave back so much to young wrestlers. such as CM Punk and Ace Steel, because of how critical guys like Gotch and Thess were. Also, can you remember maybe someone you looked up to in the business being critical of you, Bobby, Dennis, or Stan? Well, yet Oli, Oli was all right, I, Cornyat, you're going to take that?

Because I would take one night at a show, I'd take the bump over the announced desk, where I'd jump up and Ricky Morton would nail me and I would take the bump off the apron and over the desk and turn the chair over and whatever. Somebody's going to sue you. You're going to get somebody's leg or whatever. Only I've just tried to jazz this shit up a little bit.

There has always been, and Uncle Dave likes to say, well, the guys in the 20s said that it was all going to be killed because it was fake and blah, blah, blah. And Carl Godge called Harley Race a circus performer. Gatch and Thess were trained in a different fashion. Thess definitely in a different era, but they were primarily concerned with what looked legitimate in the business versus what could be seen through

or what would expose the business. And Harley was of the more modern 60s generation that was going to take more bumps. They were talking about him being a circus performer, not because he was going out there and doing comedy or doing crazy shit like they do today, but because he was taking bigger backdrops, or he was taking the backwards bump over the top turnbuckle.

And I thought, well, let's can't, but at the same time, Harley, in a lot of cases, made it look halfway legitimate. It's sometimes it's the person who originally, remember we were talking about his knee drop to the head. Did you ever see Luthez do a knee drop to the head? I don't think I've ever seen Luthez do a knee drop.

I don't think so, no. But Harley's, that's flashy and it's showbiz, but we were talking about it on a show here a couple months ago, you couldn't figure out how he wasn't given the guy brain damage. It looked so tight. There was no room for it. for error. Harley with the faster pace and the bigger bumps and the more exaggerated fucking heel

selling, that's what the Thess and Carl Gotts were upset about was that they were afraid that it would be see-through and that everybody would figure shit out, which is kind of what the problem has been with every generation. But then you, in hindsight, Harley went his entire career in the, the fans looked at him as like, well, this is one of the toughest some bitches we've ever seen. They didn't look at him as fake or silly. But it seemed like that to a guy who, with his, he would be coming from a background almost akin to if you trained for the Olympics today.

And so... You know, Harley Race built towards his bumps, too. Yeah. Like Johnny Valentine with that famous Wild Bowl curry match, it takes a while for him to finally start selling and go down. It's not exactly like that, but I think. a Harley versus Ricky steamboat on the Midlandic tapes. And I think he's getting the chops from Ricky.

And each one's registering a little more, a little more. And finally there's the big, ah! And he goes down. Yeah. Timber. One foot, you know, all of a sudden he's on one foot and then he's down. And you get the big reaction. I don't know if Thess cared about big reactions from fans.

Carl Gatch didn't, I could tell you. Gatch was not going for high spots. I mean, a hip toss would have been like, what the fuck? So you had two completely opposite camps, but the thing that I think we've lost the point that I'm trying to make is that, yes, anybody in those days who had gone out there and just done shit that was blatantly weak and see-through and just people were laughing at it because it was fake,

that would have probably not got over in any instance. But when you saw Ricky's, star is, you know, doing the ballet pirouettes, but when he kicked you and it still looked like he kicked you. That was upsetting to the older generation, but still it was drawing money, and it may look a little bullshitty, but they could still figure out a way to keep a contest in the ring. So, yes, point being in summation, there's always from one generation, there's always from one

generation to another going to be differences in philosophy, but those generations never changed the fundamental aspects of the business and what it was about and how it was supposed to be conducted, they just got a little more showboaty. Jim, our next question was sent via email the corny drive-thru at gmail.com from Steve in L.A. As a kid, I remember many male stars with face paints. Sting, Kamala, Ultimate Warrior, Road Warriors. This trend seems to have faded away. Any thoughts as to why it's lessened over the years?

And then the... Do you know... The subject of the email is, where has the face painting gone? Where have all my face painters gone? Do you know what my first rule in Smoky Mountain Wrestling was when I started it? No, Jackie Arles. dog. No. That was Rick Rubin's first rule. I'm sorry. That was Rick Rubin's first. Yeah.

For the people who don't know, we're not slandering junkyard dog, but my first Smoky Mountain taping, the two pilots, I did on a show that Bobby Fulton was promoting with a guy that he had found to put up some money in Greenville, South Carolina at the old building, and he had already booked YD. And I'd asked Bobby, I said, if I book some more guys and pay four him myself plus the guys you got can I do a TV taping there and that's what we did but Rubin didn't want JYD on the show and to be honest at that point neither did I because he was just doing indie shows at 1991 he hadn't he was in between gigs and he wasn't really in the greatest physical shape at that point and we wanted to do something different but my first rule was

nobody gets to wear face paint. And poor Danny David, nightmare Danny Davis, my partner, not the WWF referee. He was doing the nightmare with the star on his face. I told him, I said, Danny, we can't. I'm making a rule.

I want this to be different. So, you know, he did a little different thing, but it wasn't like I was going to make exceptions just because people were friends of mine. But that's, I wanted to do a wrestling show where we didn't see the fans cheering the heels.

Nobody was wearing face paint, and it wasn't just about the fucking bodies. But the face paint started because the road warriors got over. Just like the tag teams of muscle guys from gyms, and just like when the rock and roll express got over, everything became an express. the rock and roll r pms and the stop and go express and the fucking whatever the fuck but the only people face painting in the 70s where there was kabuki because that kind of fit and kendo nagasaki the american the american kendo nagasaki who was Japanese rather than the British Kendo Nagasaki who was British

but they had painted faces but can you say if if occasionally a savage type of guy or whatever. But it was really, Kamala had nothing to do with the face paint. Cray's it fit him. That was part of the gimmick. But if you picked up a National Geographic magazine and looked at someone in there, they may be wearing the face paint of Kamala. Yes.

And I think that's what Lawler did. The first night he painted Kamala up was look at a National Geographic, I believe. But it was the Road Warriors. and then the Road Warrior clones and homages and everything that caused the face paint deal because that's where Sting and Warrior got it because they were two big jacked up bodybuilders coming in two years after the Road Warriors. And then people just started doing it and then the powers of pain did it because they were, you know, working against the road warriors and it just, it blossomed.

for a while. And then it died off. You think it could be brought back? I hope not. Should matter, our next question was sent. Corny drive-thru at gmail.com from Zach. If Vader smacked around Sean Michaels and crushed the boyhood dream

underneath the oppressive Vader-time boot, what would have happened afterwards? In other words, if Vader is the world champion following SummerSlam 1996, what happens next? What was supposed to happen? Yeah, I guess so. When he was supposed to win it?

That was the deal. Well, well, he wasn't supposed to win it at SummerSlam. The original idea that Vince had until Sean complained and bitched and whine was that they would do the SummerSlam match and have those disputed finishes. is remember, it's 30 years ago, and I can't do it off top of my head, but there was some kind of count out and a restart, and then some kind of fucking deal in a restart, and then Michael's got a quick one,

but it was all controversial. That was supposed to go that way. And then they were going to go to the Survivor Series in a rematch with some stipulation that I may or may not be able to remember, but Vader would beat Michael's at, Survivor Series and set up Michaels at the Royal Rumble 97, which was in the Alamo Dome in San Antonio, Michaels' hometown, he would regain. That's why they did the book the stadium because they wanted to, they Vince wanted to have

Sean Michaels regain the WWF championship from this evil behemoth in his hometown in front of a record craft. And that's why they had $5 general admission in the Alamo Dome. But then Sean Bitched and Gripe, so they just gave the final two of the three matches to sit and did the same thing. But that, I mean, Vince even had it planned down to where he, he wanted to fly me and Leon in to do the press for the Alamo Dome

after the Survivor series to talk about the rematch and wanted me. I think this was before, was it before J.R. had the cowboy hat? Because he wanted me to have a big goddamn cowboy hat. Said that Vince was fixated on cowboys in Texas and hillbillies in Tennessee and whatever the fuck. But he wanted me to have the big cowboy hat and cowboy outfit and go into San Antonio with Vader as the champion in the belt and do all the press about how we're going to embarrass Sean Michaels in his hometown while I'm dressed up. up like, goddamn, you know, Festus Hagan or something. I don't know.

How'd you talk him out of that? Because if Invader never won the belt, Sean talked him out of it. That's right. So I didn't have to wear the cowboy outfit. Well, yeah. That's a deep subject. I can't get the vision out of my head of, you know, you shilling up. Would you have had a gun belt?

By the time he got finished, I probably, I might have had to ride a horse. I don't fucking know. Why would he want you to do that? How does it help anything? To get heat me, the rich fucking pussy-ass manager, dressed up like a cowboy with a big 10-gallon hat with this big moose that just beat the favorite son of San Antonio. That's what Vince was the vision he had.

By the way, this all ended up with one of the funniest moments ever, Sid versus Sean at the Garden for Survivor Series 96, where the fans turned on Sean Michaels and sheared, wildly for Sid to win the belt, and you can see Sean Michaels being upset about it while you watch. Well, he, he should have fucking worked with Vader then. He can't have everything. But yeah, they wanted, they wanted Sid to beat the fuck out of Sean Michaels, because

New York was, at that point, was turning on Sean bad. And, and he did. Well, Jim, with that, the drive-through is closed. Just like my career is a cowboy. Cowboy Cornet. All right, we'll be back in a few days on the experience, and of course next week, back here on the drive-thru, more questions, as well as the Royal Rumble,

and probably retro figures and so much more, next week here on the drive-thru. Of course, 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. The official Jim Cornett YouTube channel, go today.

Subscribe. Full episodes, Clips of the episodes, omnibus collection, that George Livonitis artwork that is so popular, the official Jim Cornett YouTube channel. Cornett's collectibles at Jimcornet.com. What's going on, Jim? We're signing them up and hopefully soon going to send them out. No, we haven't sent anything out this week

because of the inundation of snow, but that is coming shortly. We were caught up as to the middle of the month about 10 days ago. So Jim Cornett.com, but new things coming in 2026. I can't wait to tell you all about them, but I'm not doing it now. We'll do it in the future at Jimcornett.com. The drive-thru is brought to by the law office of Stephen Pino, 877-50 Steve. Get even with Stephen at new lawoffice.com.

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