Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru - Episode 431

Episode Date: February 21, 2026

This week on the Drive Thru, Jim reviews AEW Grand Slam Collision in Australia, and WWE Raw! Plus Jim talks about Dave Meltzer's defense of his Brody King reporting, Chris Jericho's contract status, the announcement of Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano, WrestleMania 42's ticket sales problem, Wendy's, and much more! Thanks to our episode sponsors: SHOPIFY:  Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/jce BRUNT:  Get $10 Off at BRUNT with code JCE at https://www.bruntworkwear.com/JCE #Bruntpod FUM:  Head to https://www.tryfum.com/JCE to get your free gift with purchase, and start The Good Habit today! Send in your question for the Drive-Thru to: [e-mail]  Follow Jim and Brian on Twitter: @TheJimCornette @GreatBrianLast Merch! https://arcadianvanguard.com/ Join Jim Cornette's College Of Wrestling Knowledge on Patreon to access the archives & more! https://www.patreon.com/Cornette Subscribe to the Official Jim Cornette channel on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/OfficialJimCornette Visit Jim's official site at www.JimCornette.com for merch, live dates, commentaries and more! You can listen to Brian on the 6:05 Superpodcast at 605pod.com or wherever you find your favorite podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I messed up. I'm going to roll back over here. Hello again, friends. Boy, roll on back. Then you are... Roll on down the highway, there, Bachman or Turner. I'm going to roll away the stone. And you are our friends.

Welcome back to another edition of Jim Cordyx drive-thru right here. In the middle of the winter. I'm your host, the great Brian last. We've got great music. It's going to be 70 degrees tomorrow. The fuck it is. It's going to be severe thunderstorms. It's going to be so warm.

middle of the fucking winner. Fuck you. And of course, that happy wrestling talk you've all come to know and love. I don't remember if I said my name. I'm the great Brian last, but here he is, the star of the show, the leader of the cult of Cornett,

Mr. Happiness himself, Jim Cornett. I was ready to give you some room to improvise, a little improvisation on the keyboards there. I was out, but I was going to take the ride with you. Doon, do, do, do, do, do. And I've got kind of an idea after this long of how that's supposed to go. And then suddenly I was doing it in my head, but you wasn't doing it on your keyboard.

And then it just all went to flummox and foolery. Well, you see, I'm a big Lou Reed fan. And do you know any of Lou Reed's songs, like any of his hit songs? I've walked on the wild side. All right, his biggest hit. that's one that everybody can identify with and then the catalog gets a little deeper from there

well plenty of other great songs yeah name three coney island baby a charlie's girl and kicks and that's all of one album and that's a great album but Jim should have known he could do it what I was going to say is Lou Reed has a lot of good songs

if you ever see him perform it live or you know he's dead now any old video if you ever see him perform it, Dad? If you ever see him perform it live now, it's a miracle. No, if you ever see him like on old footage perform any of his songs that you know that you could sing in your head, it's like he purposely fucks up every song. He sings it. He sings things at points that he doesn't sing them on the album.

And then he just doesn't sing. He just talks. My point is my music is my music. And, of course, I have a lot of fans of this new sound, this new sound that's sweeping. not just the nation, but the world. I mean, it's a worldwide show. And, of course, thank you to all the people who get in touch and talk about how this music moves them and grooves them

and gets them through the day. Are you going to say anything? Jump in. Stop me. Stop. Help me. I'm waiting around. I'm waiting. I'm trying to get you to stop. I was waiting for you to come to some type of conclusion or point or even a quality interruption point where I could just jump in.

but you kept commaing us to fucking death there. Well, I've been reading The Observer for a long time. Well, you know, that will, after a while, good God. Would it hurt the man, just as an aside, after 40-something years in the industry, to just hire somebody to maybe take out the time he says the same thing twice, one right after another? And the weekly show that happens every week,

It was weekly, but nevertheless. I think I said it to you and Brian Sullivan recently. You know, it changes everything if you go in with the idea that maybe Dave's a big fan of Jack Carrowack. And it's just like one endless scroll that he's typing on, as opposed to like page one, page two. It's just one. It's all one. Well, he could be Jack Carrowack and his partner, Dave Zadowack.

See, they got a gimmick right there also. I tell you know just real quick it's your show but you know who's got a gimmick the brazilian steakhouse i took stacey and her mother and stepfather over to the brazilian steakhouse that they've opened up out at the mall for valentines for everybody to have a nice dinner together and i loved most parts of it but one part was jesus christ they're charging some some some some breads as Joe Leduc said one time on a pro, but they're paying me some bread. They charged some bread.

I would pay even more if they would give you room to eat in that fucking place without feeling like I was, where I was sitting at my table, I could have picked three people's pockets without even getting up out of my chair. Have you been to one of these joints? Are they smaller in Brazil?

What's happening here? I have not been to a Brazilian steakhouse, but I have lots of friends who have raved about them for years, never about the seating accommodations, but... Well, that's... The meat. The meat. They got the meats. And the side, the augrottin potatoes, the cheesy augurotin potatoes,

and the sauteed button mushrooms were my favorite and the elaborate salad bar and the charcutories as opposed to the sharknados, which we have the... on our salad bar, but all the stuff that appealed to Stace and her mom and me and her stepfather were like, yes, they have the giant meat skewers that come up, this is great, the bacon wrapped fillet,

the whole nine yards. But I swear to it, the table for four was not, couldn't have been three feet square. And you got a plate and you got a glass and they give you all of these other glasses that we dispensed with to try to make some more room. But by the time you've got a plate and a couple of utensils, a goddamn glass and the little sides they give you, and there's no fucking room. You can't put your goddamn elbow

down. I like to put my elbow on a dinner table. And in Brazil, that's a sign that you enjoyed the meal. That's what every time somebody would burp or belch, depending on your geography where you're from at the dinner table, Mama Cornett would say, well, in some countries, that's a sign of appreciation for a good meal. So people wouldn't feel fucking odd. But anyway, if I'd have belched,

I would have deafened the people next to me at the next table because we were that close, not only the table's small, and there's no room for the gauchos. With these skewers, I was afraid I was going to be stabbed at one point. and I would think they would at least take 15% off your meal if you bleed out during the goddamn dinner service. But these people have these fucking skewers and they're trying to goddamn get through it between these tables where there's, you'd have to use Vaseline to slide of pubic hair in between us.

I need room to breathe and gesticulate and spread out when I eat. Who's idea was this? well it was the only reason it wasn't my idea it was stacy's idea because she saw the sign but they put the sign up before the place opened she said like last year we should go to the Brazilian steakhouse and i fucking looked it up and yeah opening soon they weren't open yet so now they're open so i had suggested that we do that that we were going to do then Did you mention the Gracies? No,

hoist didn't come up because the people that seated us were obviously not Brazilian. And the Gauchos had those, like I mentioned, had those sharp fucking skewers, so I didn't want to fuck with them. And I didn't know whether maybe

one of the Gracies had somehow fucked up one of their great-grandfathers or something. So I kept my mouth shut. Well, it sounds like a really pleasant Valentine's Day, very romantic Oh no it was a dinner

it was a nice meal but they need to give us a little more space the next time I'm gonna call for a fucking table for eight

and then say but oh shit four of us fucking didn't show up or something I just need to spread out well this was Valentine's Day was a pack

because of that no it wasn't on Valentine's Day we waited until Monday after Valet it was Monday President's Day they've had Friday Saturday

and Sunday for Valentine Well, it's still a holiday. It's still a day where people may be off. It ain't the President of Brazil day. Why would you, it's a shit, it's President's Day. I'm going to the Brazilian Steakhouse. Why would that be a thing? I just went to the car, and bought a new car because it's the President's Day sale.

Now I need a nice meal. Where should I go? Where can I fill up on meat? Why did they buy a car? Did they buy a car? Because did they buy a Lincoln? Because it was presidents? Why is it?

But no, it was the mall. It's the mall people. There are people that still go to the mall apparently. I've been to the mall in 20 fucking years. Apparently, people still go to the mall because when we got there, why they were just jammed in like sardines and parking lot was full. And not only just this restaurant, it's in the mall, but all the various mall activities.

But boy, about the time we finished gorging ourselves, 30 or 45 minutes for the mall closes, it is spread out considerably where you could fire off a fucking shotgun in the parking lot and not fucking wing anybody. It would just boom suddenly. They all left while we were sitting in there with our heads buried in dishes of all grotin potatoes.

After listening to your conversation because they couldn't avoid it, they all got out of there. Yeah, it's nothing. It's very funny. fucking amenable to eavesdroppers there? What if there was some kind of spies discussing something important over a good Brazilian meal? And the table right next to them,

there's members of the opposing secret society. Did you ever have that happen to you? Like when you were actively a heel in the business where you and the Express or whoever were sitting at a restaurant or sitting someplace? I don't know if that ever happened alone. But if that happened, you picked up on maybe this person knows who I am, or you just start whispering or something?

Oh, yeah. I mean, honestly, always we knew depending on what we were talking about, if you went in a restaurant or a convenience store, or you were at a mall or whatever, it wasn't like you were going to be out loud saying, well, fuck Dusty at his fucking finish or something like that. I mean, you know. Unless you were totally Blanchard. Yeah.

Well, yeah, he was over, he was over at the mall and Charlotte on South Park Road. He had a booth and said I will tell Dusty to fuck off for 15 cents. No, we did not you could tell when you

could be talking frivolously about the business or whatever and usually not except in the car or in the locker room or if we were in a place that was completely fucking empty. But I mean, I don't know about other people, but that was just

our experience. All right. Well, speaking of your experience. It's not my experience. It's your drive-thru. So I'm following you. Well, whether the experience or the drive-thru, there's only one place to get official Jim Cornett

merchandise cornets collectibles at Jimcornett.com. Boy, there, you have said a mouthful there when you've said that. So while you wash your mouth out, I will continue that heroes and friends is still selling briskly. Why do I have to wash my back? Well, you got a mouthful. It just depends on the way you took it. Heroes and Friends is still selling briskly and is available now at Jim

cornet.com, as you mentioned, as are all of our fine products and quality merchandise with affordable and is something would even say cheap prices. And as I've mentioned, and Hotchkiss is going to be back over here at a few days. We're working on some very interesting things for 2026. everything from one-of-a-kind merchandise to limited-ed edition merchandise to more mass-marketed merchandise, but it's all going to be just fucking swell. Jim Cornett.com.

All right, one-of-a-kind items coming to Jimcornet.com. Jim, we have a lot to get to today. There was collision in Australia. There was Raw in Memphis. We have questions that hopefully will save the show. But we have a little bit of a follow-up we're going to start with. And let me pull this up because a bunch of listeners sent this over. And it is a follow-up to the conversation about Dave Meltzer reporting that WBD pulled Brody King from Dynamite.

The call was from above Tony's head, this mysterious figure above Tony's head. We never see him, but we hear about this. figure. And then it came out that no, Brody King was on the way to Australia, as were several other the talents who did media like MJF. Well, yes, and it also came from WBD that, no, we have nothing to do with the booking and the appearances of the wrestlers on this program. And AEW said the same thing.

Lots of people from Sean Ross Sapp to Brandon Thurston obviously started reporting this out. and everyone got firm denials from AEW and their minority owner WBD. And I said at the time, I said, we know that Tony and Dave communicate on the telephone that's been proven on tape in front of millions, if not several thousand.

So if Dave, that's why I said, did Dave just pull this out of his ass at that point in time that he was saying, it just blurted out or would it have been easy to call Tony and ask him something like this and apparently he was just blurting things out of his ass. You know, he could also just add the words, I think.

Well, I don't know. People might question is they might impugn his integrity, integrity, it is, ha, impugn his integrity. I say boy I say boy they might impugn his integrity if he was to say the words

I think in a declarative fashion well again they reported or the observer Dave Meltzer reported that that was why he was pulled it was firmly denied not to say that

WBD and AEW wouldn't lie about this I mean they're denying it but that doesn't mean we should both believe them. Well, there have been things that have been firmly denied before in a variety of ways and fields, and this doesn't sound like one of the smelliest ones. But again, Dave Meltzer reported on it in The Observer, didn't mention that he was now reporting against his original report, but he was asked about it on Observer Radio by Garrett Gonzalez, I believe, and this was

posted by Meltzer said what on Twitter who follows the trials and tribulations of Dave Meltzer. Let's go to this now. Trying to use the English language. To kind of wrap this up, I've seen this in a couple places that you misreported the entire story. Again, like, I sort of looked at it as like, this is kind of the big picture of the whole thing. Like, do you think you misreported anything when it came to this?

Yeah, probably. I think that I went too strong with the idea that it was a directive. I think it was, you know, the story itself is a big story. Let me stop it there before he starts talking about. The reality, which is it is a big story. The fact that the chant happened and then the media ran with it became a story. Whether Brody King was purposely pulled wasn't a story until Dave said it. that was not something people were reporting until Dave said it.

That's the thing is that he said, well, I probably went too strongly with the thing that didn't exist at all. I went too strongly that it was a directive. It wasn't even a suggestion. It was like, we're not going to have him on this show because he's going to be flying to Australia. That was a decision. But there was no way.

Well, I went too strong that it was a directive or even a thing that could have happened, given the circumstances that he was already going to be flying to fucking Australia. Yeah, I may have went too strong with Shabbat having his brain removed. It was actually his consuls. Let's go back to Dave and Garra Gonzalez. As far as, you know, I think that I definitely think that I, if nothing else alluded to the idea it came from Hubbub. and maybe it didn't have to come from above and it was understood and under it was understood maybe wait a minute stop stop stop I alluded to the idea that it came from he eluded to the idea it came

he said it was from someone above Tony that's not alluding is hold on let me get the American by God heritage diction because elude is more of an insinuation rather than a hold on here. That is exactly right. I'm stressed angel fish, anesthesia, a luminous. Angelfish. Well, you know about them fucking fish that

when they bite you, you talk to angels. So there's allow alma mater allure allude to make an indirect reference. An indirect reference is not, it came from above, I directly alluded. Similar to the Jay Briscoe incident of a few years ago. This was how he compared it.

If you didn't come from above me, at the same time, if I heard it, and Tony said he never even heard anything. I don't know. I heard something. I mean, he did, but, you know, how many times is your wife woke you up with that in the middle of the night? I heard something.

He heard so what did he hear? Were the birds in the trees whistling Louise? By the way, I love the fact that Tony got in touch, and he was like, Dave, why are you reporting this? This is not true. I heard something. From who? From where? If it wasn't me and it wasn't WBD, who?

I see dead people. I'm not the only one who heard stuff as far as the nature of this story. And even if I heard nothing, the fact is I had already written a story. this issue that I had to, you know, update a couple of times. I already had a story in the issue before the show was even on. Before I heard anything. Hold on. He's not really helping his argument if this argument is, well, you know, it's not

that I said anything wrong. I already wrote the article. The article was already written before any of this happened. I had already written the story before I heard anything, so I was afraid not to run with it. Oh, my God. Dave Meltzer Time Machine. Story in last week's issue, too, on it.

So it's like it's the coverage of the story itself is what made it a story. It's not that fans change something. You know, it's the fact that it got so big. And then what happens by getting so big, it becomes a cause for, okay, what do we do? And, you know, in one case, the idea would be like, man, we got to get him on the TV next week, no matter what. to take advantage of it, or he's not on TV this week. Now, Tony would say that that had nothing to do with the story. And maybe it didn't.

I don't know. I know that, again, when... Well, hold on, he doesn't know, but he's calling Tony a liar. If he's saying Tony said this, but I don't know that to be true. Well, but actually, you picked up on that because I was starting to feel like I was riding a motorcycle in the fucking... the Oval of Doom or whatever at the fair where he's riding around in circles.

He was looping me where I was getting a little dizzy. But pointed, no, again, the story of the fans chanting fuck ice at the Brody King and MJF match was amplified by mainstream news outlets picking it up, yes. And that is correct. That's a true statement. because it happened.

We all saw that happen. And if Dave wants to, again, speculate, and probably rightfully so, the WBD, because of what they did on collision, did not want to people chant and fuck ice on their network, I can buy that. But the only reason why the story about them, requesting or demanding that Brody King

not be on television came from Dave Meltzer. So he created the controversy he was in the middle of when he's tried, well, it blew up to be a big story. I'm dizzy. Well, a few more words from Dave here. You know, the first thing Brian asked is, you know, practically was what happened there.

And I said, you know, in the sense of it's like, it's a story. This is the story. and it's still a story and if they if the story goes away then it's not a story anymore well that's the uh the stunning conclusion that needs to be a t-shirt if the story goes away it's not going to be a story anymore that's yogi Berra that's it ain't over till it's over it's deja vu all over again here so let me we'll talk about collision later on in the show but I'm going to say this here because it's pertinent.

They're going to do, first of all, what the fans are going to do, the AEW fans, whenever there's a good size gathering of them, and Brody King comes out, they're going to chant fuck ICE because now this has become a thing, and they want to express their opinions. And Brody King raised whatever amount of money it was, tens of thousands of dollars, I understand, which is how the,

that the original organic chant kind of started. He had had the shirt on and he raised money and that got a little publicity. And then they spontaneously did it. So the network wasn't ready for it that night. Or was it on, was it on the pay-per-view? Or where was it? Oh, it was dynamite. It was dynamite.

It was dynamite. That's right. Yeah. So the point is they weren't ready for it. They didn't know it was going to happen. But now did it has? And they've said, fuck, in various incarnations. before on that show, plenty.

But now that it has, the people are going to continue to do it when they see Brody King. But the television network and or crew is going to continue to do what they did on this collision from Australia because they were chanting fuck ice too, but they lowered the crowd so low

and they had the announcers up who did not reference it and they didn't pause. They didn't give it the, uh-oh, we better to lay out of this. This is a moment. They were talking right over it about something completely else. It's going to be disguised as much as possible. If anybody has a sign, they're probably going to be picked off

with some sniper with a goddamn T-shirt cannon or something. They're not going to let it go out, but they can't stop it from happening in the building unless they just stop the whole goddamn show and say, look here, unless y'all sit down and shut up about the ice, we're not going to go on. They can't stop it.

Do you think it's anything with ice? They're certainly not going to broadcast it. Do you think it would be anything with ice? Like, if the fans are chaining, we hate ice, is it different than fuck ice in terms of how they would react, or is it all the same because it's all about being afraid of how the administration's going to act and come after you?

I don't think, see, you know, here's the thing. you've just found your niche, Brian. We hate ice. We hate school. You can go play the organ on Jimmy Hart's 40th anniversary, re-recording, remastering of We Hate School. I think if, you know, we hate ice, they still ain't going to fucking,

they're going to mute it and they're going to talk over it or they're going to distract from it. It's a little bit easier when there is a profanity involved to say, oh, we can't, you know, even though Moxley used to say, fuck all the time, while he had a microphone at his hand. But no, they don't want any anti-ice because the criminal administration has to improve, improve.

That'd be the first, approve. There are potential fucking multimillion dollar mergers that are above Tony's head. Way above Tony's head. Like when Howard Stern was getting fined back in the day, after a while it wasn't about finding him or his show. they find the company that was syndicating it. That was how they really made the punishment.

They tried to. The company stuck with them up to a point. But, you know, you have a merger where you have two bidding parties at war with each other, and they both want different things at a WBD. And now we know AEW is owned in part by WBD. You know, AEW is in a very tricky situation. If they, in a perfect world, of AW didn't have a television partner they had to worry about, and didn't have to worry about anything like getting thrown off, you know, pay-per-view or whatever

services used to stream or buy an event, they could really go head first and just get behind this thing with Brody Lee. It would probably take off because of the sentiment from the public right now. And instead, they kind of have to suppress it. and I'm not saying it's right because it it's just they're in a situation or what are they going to do well exactly and that's why again all the CBS News is is down they're one of the pod people and and their conglomeration uh they've neutered their news department and now the the word came out that Stephen Colbert was

going to have the Democratic candidate from Texas that they think is going to flip Texas blue, oh, oh, saintly mother. And Trump, through his FCC stooge complained, and the network made him pull the interview with this Democratic candidate from Texas. So they put it out online. Yeah, so he still got to release it. That's the thing, yeah. But they put it out online, but he banned them from,

showing this on their program and the network is the one who called it is he colbert said the network called us that you can't have him on and you can't say why you didn't have him on so i'm going to tell you why we didn't have him on because they said so but that's the problem is that steven colbert is probably whether he's a lame duck show or not there's more money at stake for that corporate entity in that show, then there is in AEW fucking wrestling. And they're having to bow down to this fucking lunatic because they need regulatory approval, which is the problem with a few people or a few entities owning all of our media outlets, which is what they're trying to do.

So then the media will be fake news like he's claimed all along, but he'll be. the one who's turned it that way. So again, my point is, if Colbert's show is being forced to do things or not do things, you think they give a shit to another WBD about saying, hey, fucking AEW wrestling, don't have this shit. And again, it affects Brody King. You asked about it beforehand, and I told you they probably will chant fuck ice in Australia, and that's exactly what happened.

And it was loud. So it's not like it's going away. I hope it doesn't make Brody King go away I mean, evaluate his work and his promos but leave this on the other side of it don't let this effect his push but we'll see. I think they're going to do the exact same thing

they're going to do. They're just going to try to clean up the broadcasts of the shows, turn the crowds down, edit, whatever the fuck they need to do to not hear that. If Donald Trump tweeted out whatever his social media is, if he did that

and it was something, the way he rants about everything, he just put up a whole screed about Bill Maher the other day, just random rants. And it was about AEW and Brody King, beyond any regulatory issues. Does that help AEW in terms of that sort of publicity right now? I think the AEW audience currently would flip out and go insane

and just be, oh, yes, we've got under his, skin, which I again, I would wholeheartedly agree. He loved to go under his fucking skin. There's a goddamn air bubble from a syringe. But nevertheless, I think that it would be a passing blip in the mainstream news, but also because he cuts, you know, incoherent rambling promos on every goddamn thing, multiple times a day when he's up thinking about whatever the fuck he tries to think about. but I don't know that it would suddenly

get a bunch of people who are not already into wrestling to go, oh, we got to watch this wrestling promotion because he's ranting about this now. So that means we must support it. I don't know if it would be a big difference maker in terms of finding them a new audience or whatever. Most people would just say, oh, God, this fucking old demented lunatic

is now ranting about some pro wrestling company. Well, the circle back to how we started, Dave Meltzer's reporting on this. To his credit, at the very beginning, he said probably whether he got this wrong, but then he issued a bizarre defense, as we heard, for two minutes where, you know, even if Tony doesn't think, whatever, Dave is not like completely backing down from his assumption. The thing is, if he'd have given the story that, they said fuck ice and here's why they said fuck ice and boy i tell you what

i bet you that they're not going to want to have that on the tv network all these obvious things that would have been great but just to take and run with and brodie king went on tv because somebody higher up made the call to not have him on it was that's where he stepped in it he couldn't get out of it should a w use this the idea that there's a never seen higher power that outranks Tony? Well, you know, it might not be a bad idea, depending on who that it might eventually be revealed to be,

but I don't think that Tony, how can he have somebody else that would be in charge of the way he moves his action figures around? His dad hires a maid. That's what it could be. Telling you, one of these days, the greatest gimmick, they get rid of that fucking idiot, Luther, Butler,

Butler Luther or Luther or the Butler, whatever his name is. The Butler needs to be Cadbury and it needs to be Shads. And it needs to be Alan Napier from fucking Batman. And we need to do a sit down. They would, God damn it, if they were any threat to Vince McMahon and he was still in charge, he would do this. A sit down interview every week with Tony Kahn's Butler Cadbury. We could tell stories about what he was like as a child.

all the way up to today, or last Thursday, you know, when he gave up drinking out of his sippy cup, whatever. Now, that would be some fucking television. That would be ratings, and of course, ratings are reported by Dave Meltzer and Jim. When you think about the observer, you know, Dave has spent so much time evaluating everyone else's business and at times seemingly concocting executive decisions as it relates to the wrestling show. Yes.

I don't know how much time he has to focus on his business. It's been pointed out that the Observer website seemingly all the time has a 50% off deal to get people back in the door, and they're also constantly putting more and more stuff behind their paywall. Isn't that kind of like when you leave a restaurant, you get sick, and they call you and say, come back and eat here again and will only charge you half as much to get sick?

And again, it also seems to have a whole lot more clickbait headlines than it ever has before on Dave Meltzer's website, makes you wonder if maybe they need some help. Maybe they need some business help. Maybe they need the right partner for their online store, the right person to say, hey, what are you doing? We could do it a better way. We trust them.

You can too, ladies and gentlemen, our good friends at Shopify. There's got to be a better way. There's got to be a better way. And ladies and gentlemen, there is a better way and the people that can show you the better way the theory is are the people who buy and last just mentioned at our friends at Shopify.

Because they, oh gosh, that kid sooner or later, I'm telling you. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world. Shopify is the tentacles that reach into all of these organizations and tie them together the common thread that makes them a powerhouse, makes them a dynamo, makes them a giant, a massive cancerous tumor on commerce around the world, taking it over, sucking all the money away from people and putting some of it in your pocket.

I wouldn't necessarily say that. You know, that kid, I'm going to close line that little bastard. With your arm? Well, yeah, you can accelerate your efficiency. They can put you on speed, ladies and gentlemen. they can soup you up, they can tweak you out. Well, hold on metaphorically,

your business you're speaking of. They are going to put you on metaphorical methamphetamine where you're going to, you're uploading new products for days at a time trying to improve existing ones. They're going to be helping you. And these people never quit, so you can't either.

Prepare to lock your fingers to the bone as they attack you. No. With helpful tools. tools. No, come on. They're here. When he'd see something. No, no, he's like the wrong guy

fucking did a sunset flip. No, no, like he was looking at the Hendenberg disaster. No. You can get the word out like you've got a marketing team behind you, ladies and gentlemen, because these people are blabber mouths and there's millions of them and they're all going to be talking about you. Your phone numbers are going to be written. on restaurant walls and cinnamon halls.

It will not, absolutely not. All the way from fucking Minsk to the grid. Nowhere at no time. But they will be there to spread the word about your business online because that's what Shopify does. They support you and they support your business and they get the word out. And of course... They spread the word all right.

And what if people haven't heard about your brand? Well, they're going to tell them and they're going to talk about your tattoos too. That's one of the you fill it out. You make a list of all the tattoos you've got and they're going to broadcast that information. People are going to want to see some of these things, ladies and gentlemen. They're not going to do that. There wouldn't even be a reason for them to do that

because that wouldn't help your business, of course. Ladies and gentlemen, you know it helps some people's business. What if you get stuck? Ladies and gentlemen, Shopify is always around to share advice with their award-winning 24-7 customer support. You call them in the middle of night and say, I'm drunk and I just ran over something. I think it was a bag of garbage,

but it looked like it was wearing shoes. They're going to tell you get the fuck out of there. No. Tackle all. What kind of example is that? First of all, you're not calling anyone, ladies and gentlemen. One of the beauties of Shopify is you can just do everything online, leave everyone alone.

They will leave you alone, except in the virtual online sense, in which case they will be there holding your hand and escorting you and your business to commerce supremacy. And of course, we all want to make lots of money with a partner we could trust, as I said at the top, and everyone should remember this. We trust them, arcadian vanguard.com, we trust them, you can too.

There's lots of fun and games and lots of funny things that we say on this road to business time, but Jim, I understand there's a wonderful deal for the listeners. The road to trust, ladies and gentlemen, it's a long and winding road and filled with many thing, and he ain't heavy, he's my brother, but the road is long with many a winding turn.

And again, folks, tackle these important tasks. In one place, they're going to gather them all together, you just take a fucking stick and start wailing on them. From inventory to payments to analytics and more, no need for multiple websites. You'll only have time to look at this and only this that they tell you to focus on as you become a worker drone

and a vast global network because Shopify's got the best converting checkout on the planet. It's time to turn those what-ifs into chiching? Where's that kid when you need it? There he is. With Shopify today, sign up. Oh, go away, little boy, you bother me.

Sign up for your $1 a month trial period today at Shopify.com slash j-se.e. That's the code. Shopify.com slash JCE. That'll get you that $1 a month trial period where then you can take your product or service or goods or the recipe for punani pie, whatever you've got and put it out there for the millions

who will then pay many, many dollars for you to either get the fuck out of the way or shut up. Shopify.com slash JCE. All right, there it is, and there we go, and here we are, and ladies and gentlemen, you are there. And we are all together. We are all together, and of course, a big week of wrestling action, but aren't they all? No, none of them anymore, but go ahead. AEW, their annual Grand Slam, it used to be, I think in the fall, in Queens, and now it's in

winter in Australia. In Queensland. On collision, it's the biggest collision of the year, I guess you could say, AEW collision Grand Slam in Australia. Isn't that like being the nicest guy in prison, Brian? The old chestnut there, the biggest collision of the year. And it was on Valentine's Day. I guess, again, I don't know the time difference,

but it was still on, well, it's the next day in Australia, right? It was recorded earlier the day. It was recorded earlier in the day than when we saw it here. But was it still on Valentine's Day over there? Yeah, I presume so. They got there first. Well, I'm just thinking that a Valentine's Day evening probably isn't the greatest time to have a big giant show.

But nevertheless. Not all those fans may have dates. Well, they'd be out trying to. find some for all the lonely women out there that didn't have dates. You can't just give up hope and say, fuck it, we'll go to see the wrestling matches. Anyhow, in Sydney, Australia, they had 7,000 people, I'm told,

a little over 7,000. Unfortunately, they had a big fucking building, but apparently they have lost some of their television coverage in Australia in recent times. I'm never excited when the first thing that we see is Moxley. Dick the Boozer and the fucking hole, we're going to wander. Why is he now still after three years?

He can't have a private locker room. He's got to wander in from the bowels of the building or off the street. And all of this group does just to, it takes for fucking ever and even if he just wanted to be the one to do it but can't the rest of them just come on out to the goddamn ring are you tired of it Brian

yeah I mean I've been tired of a lot of the stuff with Moxley I just think he thinks it's cool even if it's illogical and it doesn't stand out as much as it did when he used to come out as a baby face to a wild thing and then it's a You know, that makes us want to see Wild Thing back again. I forgot about that.

And it's a team of, you know, undercard guys. I'm sorry. You know how I feel about Claudio. I like Pac, but, you know, Pack's not the main guy in this group. He's just one of the guys in this group. And then Yuda and Garcia are job guys. I'm sorry. They've been getting a big push for a long time.

They're job guys. That's all they are. Well, back to the head. Back to the head of the job squad, I forgot he was the continental champion. So now right off the bat, we've got a title match, the continental championship of Dick the Boozer against our friend, take a shit.

Remember when we first saw him and we said, hey, this guy could be a big deal. He's bigger, he's stronger, he's younger, he's stronger, he's younger, he's faster, he works harder than all of the rest of these broken down imports that Tony's paid millions of dollars to Okada being at the top of the list. He don't even show up anymore, does he?

Nevertheless, this guy's got something is what we thought. And two years later, he's another guy having fucking matches and he's in this group of a dozen people or more with the pretend manager and sometimes he's mad at the other guys that are in the group and they make faces at each other.

So you know I can't stomach Moxley. I'm not going to goddamn break this down step by step. I tried to watch some of this and got very impatient. there was the spot where Moxley overshot take on a dive and almost killed himself, went right over the top of his head to the fucking cannonball to the floor. But then that was followed by two minutes where they were on the floor for two minutes

straight having one of these sloppy fucking fake-looking fights. Literally two minutes. With the referee, I heard a count of. seven at one time, I think. I don't know. What the fuck? When they went to picture and picture and break, the show part was a color bar slate and said Techwood Studios. And of course, it's a 20-minute time limit because why not?

And at 19 minutes, they stood in the middle of the ring, holding hands with each other, trading fake head butts until both of them fell down, woozy and groggy and disoriented. And then they stood up at a hundred miles an hour, Moxley with a clothesline on a one count and take with a forearm and a one count. And they're just fine. And then the bell rang.

And of course the crowd booze, the time limit draw, especially after having to sit through of 20 minutes of that. And then Moxley, the baby face goes over and pie faces the heel. And the heel gives Moxley a big suplex and the fans cheered the heel laying out to baby face. And, well, what did you think of that? Moxley's the baby face. Yes.

Yeah, I just want to make sure you understand. Yeah. And that's why they wouldn't take a shit gave him his big fucking suplex. The people were, yeah. Who do... I think the fans have taken to Kestha, and they always have, no matter how heal is you make them. And he is one of the guys in AEW that you're not sick of,

and that can work. He's like a jumbo Saruta next to some of these other guys that come over. Does he has size, and he can move, and he's good in the ring? Again, he's not being produced the way you would like. But I'm watching this match and I'm impressed by him. And then I watch Moxlead. I'm always waiting for that moment where I understand anything that anyone sees in him. Anything.

His work is terrible. When I say his work is terrible, the basics, the match layout, when he does the same boring spots that he does in every single match, the trading forearms, the calling spots out loud at this point, the punches, he can't throw punches. I don't care how hard he hits a bag If he can't throw a good looking punch Don't do that Don't do any of this

His work... Don't do shit you don't know how to do His work isn't good His work bell to bell in the ring is horrible Unless you just like watching him Try to get a fucking headlock on someone Choked him out But it's just...

He's terrible. He's terrible in the ring. Here's what I'm saying And I saw somebody on Twitter speculating or proffering the theory that Moxley heard the fans booing that they went to a 20-minute draw and thought, well, his kid is kind of flat. And he wanted to give the people something, but he's an idiot at calling shit on the fly. Because that was the theory.

So he called afterwards, he called an audible, he said, to have take. give him his fucking big flying wing ding or whatever. It's still stupid because Moxley is nominally the baby face and take his nominally the heel, especially since he's in the fucking other group of the guy with the manager that these people are feuding with, the blah, blah, blah. So instead of Moxley getting up

and being the tough guy bullshit that he does and going head to head and then pie-facing the guy where he's got to come back and do something all mock said to do was tell a referee have him fucking hit me from behind and give me the goddamn deal and then instantly you've removed the fucking confusion

and take shit as clearly the heel because he jumped a guy from behind and gave him his move after he couldn't beat him. And it was still what a guy, got a pop, but it would have established the people where they needed to be instead of just now it's your turn to give me a fucking move. This is why they don't think. Beh. Not the first time we've seen a draw in AEW in the last several months, obviously with the

continental rules for the continental champion. Everyone has a belt. We'll talk about that later when Adam Page came out. But I guess it in their eyes helps Takesha that he went to a draw with Moxley. But we'll see. Oh, is it my turn? It's your turn for your big review of the big collision and big Australia. Well, the big bunch of bullshit they gave us next was the women's tag team championship with Penelope Pitstop and Megan Brain against Willow and Harley.

And if you think that I sat through this and you are absolutely just bat shit out of your mind. But when we come to what you were just referring to, because then here came our friend hangnail Adam Page against Andre Andalee, whatever they're fucking calling him these days. And this, it was the, it was nine o'clock by the time that these guys got started.

That was the fucking third match in this parade of terror. And I'm sorry, I did the best I could to see what the fuck. that people see in Adam Page. And it's the same shit all the time. It's the same mood all the time. It's the same tone all the time. It's the same sequence of events.

It's every Adam Page match that you ever see. I don't see it. They did a spot early on taking selfies with another fake model. But Brian, did you see it? She buried the company on social. media yet. The woman that was taking a selfie with him this time, because the other one did before they, before the tape was even cold.

Now, this one in Australia obviously has more manners when it comes to treating her client with, I guess, a true girlfriend experience. Jesus Christ, I wasn't. I don't know what's going on with these perverts in AEW. I wasn't trying to inseminate by any stretch. the imagination. Allude. Were you alluding?

I was not being lewd about alluding. That they were having penetrative intercourse with her. I was just saying they paid these whores to show up and sit on a front row and take these selfies and rub on these guys. And they have obviously the ones that they had before had no idea that we were talking about last week or whenever. had no idea who any of these people were whatsoever. And now this one did a better job, just all by herself,

but still, this is, you know, this is obviously a planted individual. I think Tony should go all the way with this, and I double down, triple down, quadruple down, get 10,000 hookers and put them in the building with all those AEW fans. They will have a time, they will have the time of their lives, they'll want to come back every time you're in town. They'll tell their friends. Who, the fans are the hookers, certainly not the fans.

The hookers. The hookers will be making out like Queens. They'll be making so much money. But I'm talking about the fans. They'll be around women who are happy from all the Tony money. They won't let fuck ice on TV. Maybe they'll allow something else. I think what you pay them to get them in the building.

But if they got to interact with the fans, I think there's going to be some things on the a la carte menu. But back to the match. Back to the match. At this point, they went about 15 minutes. then Don Fallis drew Aubrey's attention. And Paige went for the buckshot. And Andre went for the ball kick,

but Paige blocked it and kicked Andre into balls. And then it's not enough to just kick a guy into balls and he goes right down. Then you have to leave the ring, go out to the apron, stand to grip the rope, flip over the top rope, after waiting for him to stand up, and in close lining, one, two, three. But Page now gets the world title match at the next pay-per-view event on March 15th against MJF. So at the previous pay-per-view big event, we saw MJF and Adam Page going for the world title in a match with two other fucking extra top main event guys.

and after we got that, now we get half those many guys in a single match going backwards. And that was my thoughts. And I'll say it here. Adam Page is going after the AEW Championship. That's his whole goal. That's why he's chasing MJF. That's why they're having these matches with Omega and Swerve and Andrade and Page.

Everyone wants the belt. It takes that argument. down a notch when he walks out with a belt. And I didn't even remember what he was like, what champion is he? I always forget he's the six-man champion because they had one six-man match on TV weeks ago. But if he's chasing the championship belt- He wants an upgrade. He wants a belt upgrade.

Seriously, if you were going for flare, do you want to walk out there with the Western States Heritage Championship? It takes it down a notch. It doesn't help. And that's, again, that's the thing. is that subliminally, they don't understand that not everybody's going to live in this bubble where they just love these people and their motivations. And if you've got to, well, I'm not happy with a belt I've got.

I want another belt. Well, that guy's got a belt. This guy's got a belt. That's why all these belts has muddied the gene pool to begin with. But anyhow, so then and Brian, I'm sorry. blame you again that I instead of dismissing it completely

out of hand I agreed to see what the fuck they did on the next match and it was basically what what we said that they were going to do because it was the only thing they could have done if they well even these people because normally I'd say well they'd have to be crazy

to do well these people some of them are crazy but even these people we're not going to shave Tony Storm's head or Marina Schaefer's head and pockets would just look stupider and mortal ludicrous

and who gives a shit but until Wheeler useless grew this massive werewolfery he's basically going back to the haircut he was wearing

three years ago any? Or what kind of, what kind of vitamin do you have to take to grow hair quicker? Go ahead. I think Yudan may have been going bald a little bit on top. That's kind of what I thought was happening, even though he had the long hair hanging down everywhere. It was kind of cool when they shaved just a top. Long beautiful hair. Oh, boy. It was a, please stop for the sake of the children. It kind of looked cool when they shaved just the top of his head. It almost looked like a natural bald head. I would just the long hair on the sides and the beard. I was like, man, I wish he would kind of stay with that look. That would really stand out. But now this sucks. I hate the universe

of Tony Storm more than I hate the universe of Orange Cassidy. And now that these two universes have collided, these are the worst segments on every single show. This is cringe-worthy, fucking developmental type shit from the Vince McMahon era after OVW. And it doesn't appeal to me. And I think if a lot of AEW fans were honest and not just drinking the Kool-Aid, they would call this stuff out. But the Tony Storm Orange Cassidy stuff is embarrassing and terrible right now, especially when you're trying to, it seems, have a lot of serious stuff on the show.

Maybe more than there has been for a while. I don't need to see this shit. So, you know, this is all garbage. And where are you to, how are you ever going to take this guy seriously? Well, nobody is. That's why they did this. They wanted to tease one of the girls might get their head shaved. But here's the thing.

Reason why I think it's malpractice is, Tony Storm is from there. She's from there over there, in them parts. And this is what you give her to come home as a big star on American television, is with the mascot against a goof and a mute. And I mean, just the whole idea of the mixed tag besides the fact that they overbook these things, and many of the people in this cannot actually work, but they had to garbage it up. The baby faces jump the heels in the back of the arena.

And they had a fake-looking fight that was not only slow and unexciting, but not shot well, and too dark and et cetera. But two minutes into the match, Wheeler gives Tony a pile driver on the equipment case. And here's another thing. You can pile drive, a man can pile drive a woman on TV now on an equipment case in the middle of the arena, but you can't say fuck ice.

See, now there's another thing. But nevertheless, so Fat Luther carries Tony Storm out, and the two heels work two-on-one against pockets after they take him back to the ring through the commercial break. But by the time we come back from the break, here comes Tony Storm back out. They're trying to restrain her. No, she's coming. She's just a goddamn pile driver from a man on a fucking safe.

And then as soon as she gets in the ring, she and the hatchet-headed little fucking pocketpool freak started doing square dancing. And it's like Batman and Robin on the 66 TV series. They're to the pirouette and we kick. Except if Pockets is Batgirl and Tony Storm was Robin. there was no Batman Who was Batman?

This is like when you say help me and I'm supposed to figure out what There is no Batman here There's no Batman. Batman's dead We've talked about the butler We've talked about Robin We've talked about Batman today

What about Ann Harriet? Well she was actually waiting to fucking run in And fucking peel Schaefer off storm I mean, this was embarrassing even for this show because it just is so preposterous. And then after a bunch of stunningly fake shit, they beat Wheeler, who could have imagined?

And then he tries to leave and Moxley, who's the leader of his group, which is another thing, they have sub-chapters or sub-stories where some of the group is heeled still, while the other ones are baby faces. So Moxley says, no, stay and honor your commitment

or whatever the fuck. And makes him go back in and they cut a little bit of his hair off where it looked like me that night in New Orleans when they were down to trying to take it off with a Bick disposable. And he just striped it up

so he'll shave it in the back. They didn't even, the clippers were working. They could have shaved it in 30 seconds in front of the people, and they didn't. They just made him look even goofier. And then everybody just stood there. That's what I got to say about that.

Another fine match. Batman is dead. That Commissioner Gordon was a real idiot. He didn't know his daughter was Batgirl. But anyway, Jim, there's more action in Australia. Now, do you think that Robin was jealous of Batgirl? For trying to get the attention of... I don't think we ever saw any signs of jealousy.

Or she was trying to get the attention of Batman. And she really looked good as Batgirl. When she was like, you know, the normal librarian daughter or whatever the fuck she was, eh. Da-T-T-Tin-T-T-T-da-T-T-T-T-T-T-Bat-Gat. Bat girl! Bad girl! Let's try to stop the singing. For the international listeners, of course.

But Jim, what else was on? They can't understand. I'm not singing in their language. Well, the big two main events, and I watched these matches because they had an opportunity somewhere in there in conception to be good. But the double main event, we got the latter match with Mark Briscoe against Kyle Feltcher for the TNT title. So these guys had a big angle for the, they worked six.

six times where Briscoe was championed and Kyle won it from him. And they were even three and three. And then they got away from it. And that was great. Leave the seventh match in your back pocket. But then poor Tomaso Champa comes in, wins the thing in his first match, loses it in his second match.

And then is just, okay, thanks for coming. And he's out of this. and now they announce a ladder match for the seventh match between the two guys that started this three months ago and champ has already been in and out of it. And it's a ladder match. And so you know, especially with these two, it's going to be a schlog.

I like them as athletes. I hate them as Hollywood stunt men. But they rang the bell on this and they were on the floor in 15 seconds and suplexing each other on the floor and going for ladders. And I timed it. Five minutes into this, they got into the ring, Brian.

Did you have that on your stopwatch? I knew it was a little while. I did not time it out, though. So they finally got in the ring. And the heel, cow, through the baby face, briscoe, like a lawn dart, into the ladder faced first. He was defaced. is what he was face first.

And the fans cheered and Briscoe got his color. And because now Kyle is a hometown guy. So you got, again, I can even see if they'd wanted Kyle to win the fucking thing in his home country. But at this point, to use the seventh match between these guys, one of your most popular one of your most popular baby faces dependably that gets over for a live crowd is Mark Brisco

so negate that completely by having Kyle be the home choice and then they just try to kill each other and you just got people are going to

they did a big thing instead of oh I hope our hero wins so Kyle got color when Briscoe put him on a ladder and came off the top rope with an elbow onto him. And then Kyle power bombed Mark through a ladder. I wrote 10 minutes in seems like an hour. Briscoe was down at one point and Kyle could have just climbed the ladder and got the belt. But instead he took forever to set up a ladder, balanced on another ladder.

is stuck into the turnbuckles on the robes and then pulled brisco up and they took forever to help each other balance gingerly on the ladder so that Mark could give Kyle a jade driller on the ladder and then not beat him because Mark then climbed up but Kyle caught him after he'd got the jade driller on the ladder that was propped up on the cat that chased the wrath that lived in the fucking mind that Tony's father spawned and then Kyle bumped off the ladder and Mark was right there at the belt but Kyle ran up and stopped him and gave him a brain buster off the top of the ladder and it looked pretty goddamn good it looked it looked good it looked safe, and it was also a brain buster off the fucking top of the ladder, right?

So then Kyle's climbing, and Mark got up and pulled another ladder in the ring. Yes, and it was terribly inconvenient of me, of you to give me your finish off the top of the fucking ladder to head first to 10 feet. I will have to drag this 50-pound ladder in here and climb it and have a word with you. And then he was setting up the fucking ladder and actually I grabbed the remote because I've just, I got to get to the end at this point.

And that was the end. They both climbed up and Kyle knocked Briscoe's ladder over and got the belt. It's like if somebody was making a move And they said, and the bank robbers, when the cops are catching them, they'll use the fucking machine gun and they'll mow all the cops down. Then the cops get up, jump back in the cars, and you go, what? Well, yeah, we need more chase. Help.

You know, I think the saddest thing is that a match like this where these guys are clearly going to feel it. And they get a lot of things. It doesn't stand out anymore. It's run-of-the-mill. We've seen way too many of these latter matches, way too often. Unless someone dies, and in that case, they would have to really exhibit that death to the audience to get the big reaction. It can't be like, oh, they may be dead. They'd have to die, because you've seen everything else.

So, regrettably, I didn't care much for this match. I'm a fan of Fletcher's. I like Briscoe. I've seen them have lots of matches, lots and lots, six maybe, up until this match, I think. But I didn't need to see this. And several of them were better, because at least they sometimes used the ring and didn't have fucking fuck with the ladders. And by the way, on the topic of Mark Briscoe in Australia, one of the cult of coordinate members James Garcia posted this with a couple pictures. Second year in a row, representing the cult at AW-W Grand Slam meet and greets,

and there's a picture of him here wearing his cornet-faced shirt. Well, thank you, my good sir. We have Mark Briscoe. We have pockets. And you can see a picture. There's two pictures here. Mark Briscoe was awesome. Appeared to be extremely happy to be there, and he loved the shirt.

He had very high praise for Jim. Pockets, on the other hand? He spoke to all the fans and gave them a fist bump as they walked up to him. But me? absolute silence and no fist bump. Oh. So as you could see, I decided to give him a thumbs down, which didn't impress the staff very much as I walked off.

I said, what a joke. And as a picture of him and Mark Briscoe, they were going to having a party together, and him and Orange Cassidy, and Orange Cassidy, as dispassionate as ever, as James towers over Orange Cassidy and gives him thumbs up over his head. So his thumb is over Orange Cassidy's head doing thumbs down.

But Mark Briscoe, very cool to the listeners. So we should say that and say thank you. And the other guy under my thumb, the mascot that wants. No, seriously, you see this picture, you think James is the wrestling. It looks like he would power slam Arch Cassidy. He towers over, but he just has the thumb down right over his head. You know, from now, on anytime you meet Orange Cassidy

at one of these fan fest or public events or if he just happens to be in the U-Scan over at Target or whatever, just go up and say, hello, little fella, hello, and just see if you are bigger than Orange Cassidy. That can become an internet viral game. Are you larger than Orange Cassidy?

This photo is so funny too, because he has the one thumb over head down and that he's pointing to it with his other finger. Well, glad everyone had a good time in Australia. That was the big TNT title match, the reason they had to get that belt back on Kyle Fletcher and off Tomaso Champa. One more big match on this show, Jim. Well, and it was the one we've all been waiting for,

and we referred to it earlier, the AEW title match with MJF and Brody Ken. that they had built up with the, you know, various ways that we've been talking about for the past few weeks. But the thing that the fans did that right at the start of the match, they had a little pocket between the music of the entrances and the introductions and then before the bell rings, that's where the chance of fuck ice came in. but this time instead of the guys stepping back in the corner, they were ready for it this time, instead of them stepping back at a corner, and him, Jeff, doing the, you know, muggy face

and them giving the fans the opportunity to do it and the announcers laying out and letting you hear what the fans said and the people airing it in the truck because they didn't know it was coming, this time they were chanting, ice and it was a bigger crowd than the original chant but it was muted the announcers ignored it completely and talked over it and the guys didn't so and I'm sure they were instructed to not do anything to milk it that's the only way that you can the the change in reaction response, what happened from number one to number two

was drastic. So you saw that it was not something they want to encourage, but they're going to have to put up with is what was, what this told me. The previous dynamite, the moment where the fans were all chanting fuck ice, and they went to a shot of MJF right at the moment MJF was looking at the camera, it's one of the greatest comedic moments in AEW history.

They didn't know. that the chant was going to happen and that MJF was going to try to suppress his laughter is what it looked like. But what a fucking moment would they go to the heel? His face is like, well, hey, I don't have anything to do with this. It was Butch Reed walking away from the express attacking Bill Watts.

Yeah. Just hold your hands up and just I ain't got anything to do with this. I'm a heel, but this is not me. Anyway, I told you, and I still stand by, that a match between MJF and Brody King was going to be a lot better than a match between a lot better than the match between MJF and Bandito. And I thought this was. And MJF again, and I know people are going to say, oh, God damn,

he always like, well, it's things he does that nobody else is doing, that it's so obvious they should be doing. he knew here to be the heel he's going to be he's going to start slow put brodie king's power over nothing's going to work he's going to he actually here's nothing he reacts to shit that's happening like it's like it's happening like it's a surprise like it's not something that a routine that they have walked through that they are cooperating with or whether you hear him say, oh shit, or you look on his face when the guy's not where he thought he was supposed to be wink, wink,

whink, whatever. He puts the extra effort into shit. It makes sense. He reacts to it. It's a great performance of reacting instead of acting. And the match again flowed well. First, Brody King's big monster. Then he misses a cannonball and hurts his leg.

The cannonball in the corner and MGF worked on the leg and got the heat on the leg throughout much of the match from there on out. And brought that fucking goofy kangaroo kick that he had with him and Adam Cole were partners. And the hop and he brought that back. And it's Australia and they booed it. He knows what to do to keep the thing moving and tell a story and make it logical

and direct people in a proper place with the delineation between the heel and the baby face and not have it just this fucking over and over ridiculous pirouetting about. Brody King is not used to selling, to his credit, also not used to selling and having a real wrestling match and selling like a wrestler rather than again,

he's usually in the group of the guys do the moves, but he worked hard and he did okay with it. it. And when he made a comeback, he gave MJF a backdrop. Holy mackerel, an actual goddamn professional wrestling move used. He went to the floor, he squashed MJF on the railing, went for a cannonball and hit it in the ring and got a big two count. And then MJF was able to turn the tables, get a sleeper, but Bandito came to ringside and was going, Brody, don't give up, don't give up. up. And so Brody broke the sleeper. And but MJF hit the DDT on the apron. But Brody DVDed MJF, there's a lot of

initials here. They went outside and after a DDT on the apron, MGF gives him, Brody King picks MJF up and gives him the Death Valley driver into the fucking railing. And yes, they laid there and sold, but both of them should have been counted out like four or five times over, but Brody rolls MJF in and they just beat the 10 count. So there's, I know there's an element of indie wrestling fans that think they have to fight outside, but they were doing pretty good. They didn't need that necessarily. MJF puts the ring on, the diamond ring, and goes to swing, but the referee catches it.

Okay, now I guess we've just universally given up on the idea that catching a guy with a foreign object in the act of intending to use it is not any longer the automatic disqualification it was for 120 years or so. Another guy actually has to be caught doing it for it to be a disqualification. Anyway, and then Brody King got the sleeper and gave him the big Gonzo bomb two count and that thing looks pretty good too

but two count and then MGF was able to get back on Brody King by taking his knee brace off and getting back on the knee and okay after the Gonzo bomb I don't know if I would have gone back on top of Brody

enough to immobilize him to get the brace off or whatever the fuck but they have the staging apron fight where they're each trying to do something on the apron, and then MJF hit some type of slamage maneuver on the apron, and then hit his heat seeker, one, two, three. I thought the finish was flat.

I don't, I think the back and forth on the apron killed the pretty good momentum that they had going, and the people were into, whatever the fuck. if they had to do that gonzo bomb after the gonzo bomb instead of mjf kicking out they could have gonzo bombed and mjf get the ropes and then again he could have just stopped brodie briefly even gouges his eye or fucking throwing him into the post for a second to get the brace off and then miss some kind of big deal to the leg right he's going to do his double stomp that he does to the arm,

maybe he's going to do it to the fucking leg. And Brody moves and he misses that. And Brody go for the gonzo again, but his leg goes out. And MJF comes down on top and hooks the fucking tights, one, two, three. Instead of, then you've just,

you've got these guys at a kind of a slow pace on the apron back and forth. And then MJF hit the, again the slam thing which Brody kind of bounced partially off the ropes or whatever the fuck but it's dangerous out there and then just hits his heat seeker and one two three that's kind of flat but that's just me what do you think of the booking here for Brody King because obviously the big picture is the Adam Page MJF match Adam Page has gotten the last few victories over

MJF you got to think MJF is due you hope he is is. And then you got Omega down the line. But in the midst of all that, which is obviously Tony Kahn's version of long-term booking, obviously that's where he's been wanting to go. Brody King got over really big in the midst of it in a way they didn't expect, but it happened. The average person has no idea who he is, even if they're aware of that moment where the champ broke out, but that video of the chant breaking out went everywhere, and the people that were in the Brody King were more into him today than they were a few weeks ago, do you do anything different? I mean, it seemed like they booked this match and they went to the finish at this match the same

way they would have if none of that happened, right? Well, and that's the thing is that that's why I think the finish was flat. I don't think it, I mean, MJF has needed to get wins, and I've been saying that as world champion, and they weren't going to switch the belt, although God damn it would have been better to have Brody King as champions to the page or Moxley again or these other knuckleheads. But that's what I'm saying is that this just kind of beat Brody.

You could have again done it to where MJF got some heat out of it and Brody still the people could have said, oh, he could have, if he got that Gonzo bomb and the fucking Weasel made the ropes and then he tried it without the knee brace on and couldn't execute it, and then MJF got the opportunity to cheat, that's the out.

That's what the baby faces out is. The fans in their mind could say, well, if he still had that brace on, he could have given him that gonzo bomb, and then he would have had him. That's the way that, again, normal fucking wrestling fans for 120 years would have viewed that particular finish. Now, instead of the millions of those people, we have the tens of thousands that will

just debate this goddamn to death and shuck it all the way down to the fucking cob. But basically it's just, it's logic. It's fucking, that's how you manipulate people's fucking emotions. Yeah, and I'm not saying this is flare-b. versus Sting at the first clash, which elevated stinging got him over, although the fans were already getting into him. That's kind of why it worked. That took things and pushed it further. You couldn't do a draw. They already did a draw on this show. And again, the long-term plans right now are not Brody King and MJF. It's not Brody King's world champion. It's all the other guys that are in

the world title picture. But there's got to be something to do to... All he had to do was cheat. That'd be cheated through the match. in various places, but he didn't really, he didn't cheat to, they just had the awkward exchange, and then he slammed him on a hard thing and then dropped him on his head. That's, you're beating somebody, you're not cheating. Should they bring in someone to a feud with Brody, like a J.C. Ice or maybe Ice Train from W.C.W. That might be something. where's King Parsons when you need him?

If he just come out and represent his former party or people or whatever the fuck. I mean, you know, I'd keep Brody King away from Bandito because they've established him as a single and as a pretty popular baby face. And I don't think he needs to be doing stupid things with Bandito. I think they keep him in the mix, or they should try to. And maybe Okada's spot. Just nobody wake Okada up from his next nap and give Brody King Okada's spot. Well, that was AEW Collision in Australia, and of course, Jim, a lot of wrestlers flying back to the States.

May think about some of the booking issues and say, Tony's got to quit. Quit booking, quit booking bad, television shows, whatever it may be, But he's not the only one. There's lots of listeners out there, Jim, who may need a little help to quit their bad habits. Well, they've got to change their habits is what they got to do. You've got to change your habit, Brian, from a bad habit to a good habit. You've got to modify your behaviors, your motions, your fixations,

things and such of that nature. And that's why we are so happy to tell the people about our new friends. And Brian, I made a mistake. I said that it was fum because I you know I've I've heard the old poem fee five foe fum and I saw f um I said well there's fum it's a it's the company is fum but it is not fum and I don't want anybody to think that I will fight you if you call it fum and it'll be a fum fight that you'll have with me because it's it's fume fume with an um law fume Over the U there, the little drava there at the top, a fume is the way that it's pronounced.

And I'm not sure whether the company is based in the Netherlands yet or not, but they've got fresh air for sale is what they got, folks, with flavorings. Because here's the thing. If you're smoking and you're vaping, then you've got not only a bad habit, but you have established a hand to mouth pattern. Brian, follow me on this. You got something in your hand, you take it to your mouth. You take it out of your mouth, you keep it in your hand.

This is a habit, a pattern, a fixation. It's something that people do. And when you can't do that, then the cravings to do that begin to take over and they pollute your mind and they take over your senses. And then you hear music like from a William Castle movie in the early 1960s. But if you break that motion, and instead you replace it with another motion, then that motion is carried. And many people say that then the jury is in and the verdict is not guilty.

And you can get off of whatever it is that you did. See how easy it is to quit smoking and vaping? with fume? Well, it's certainly, I certainly don't understand your example, I guess is the best way I could. Well, I got there. I did my math right in front of you when I got there.

Folks, your fume fidget device will come to you and it's very, it's ornately, I think it's hand carved and possibly with some kind of silver plated nickel from the Isle of Spain. But it replaces your vape or your, or your smoke, and you suck on this thing, which is you're going to be inhaling, flavored air.

Flavored, nothing matter with air. We all need it. And now it's flavored. And just look at these flavored, brother. They sent all these packets. They got cinnamon hearts and orange vanilla and peach blush and mango and crisp mint and tootie-fruity. and I believe there's some

some burnt tire there there's no burnt tire that's not one of the ones. No, that's what you send well if you don't like people you send them that and then laugh at them later no what you do is you just load up the fidget device

and you stick that in your mouth and you suck on it but you don't taste chocolate salty balls you taste flavored air that will replace the nicotine and the chemicals and the noxious gases and the vapid people are vaping these days. What are they vaporizing into their lungs?

Could it be some type of agent orange? You don't know what's in this shit. So this is just air and flavor. Yes, not with fume. Things you don't have to worry about with fume. There will be no agent orange. Jesse doesn't use this. That's what you're trying to get off of with the fume.

When you go with fume, you'll get cool, refreshing air, and a cool little fidget device. And I'm just, there's a lot of written information, but I'm sure it's air and it's flavoring. And they stomp the grapes themselves for this, ladies gentlemen, with bare feet. There's some Pakistani women that have no place to go. and they stomp the various berries for the flavoring for your fume and they're barefoot because that's why it tastes better. See, they got nicotine on the soles of their shoes,

most of the people that make those flavored vapes. But you can decide for yourself, folks, when you grab a journey pack, you'll also get a free gift just for using my code JCE when you go to, and this is what made me throw me off, Brian. It's tri-fume, but it's spelled T-R-Y-F-U-M.

So some people may pronounce it tri-fum.com. Have you heard about people? Has there been any questions asked? I've heard no questions. We've specified it's f-U-M-f-M-fume. And there's two dots above the U. But you don't have that on your computer. See, in the United States, you only have that in the nether.

where it's the fume. So just tryfum.com is what you're typing in. But you'll pronounce it when you speak it out loud and you will. They're going to say, say my name over and over so you can get this free gift. Tryfume.com. Use the code JCE to get your free gift when you grab a journey pack. But again, the little device, you hold in your hand, you suck on here, just put it at your mouth and suck on it and it's healthy air instead of noxious chemicals and potentially some kind

of carbon monoxide or monoxicillin or something like that that's what some of these vapes it's been proven they grow hair on the inside it hasn't been let's stop making things up here at the end that has not that's that's why the one of the new products with the the hair removal is is now is for internal use where you have to remove the hair from the out of your lungs it's caused by smoking with a moxidil. Again, don't know about any of that. And none of that missed up. Don't know about any of that, but one more time, for those of you out there who are looking

to replace your bad habit with a good habit, one more time, Jim, a great deal for the listeners. Try fumefum.fum.com and use the code JCE when you pick up the journey pack of the fidget movement in the flavored air, you'll also get a free gift, which, who knows what that could be? It could be like what a Christine Jarrett's surprise packages. You never knew what you

were going to get. You're going to get a free goddamn gift. Had me gratis. You pay nothing. Tryfume.com slash JCE. Well, that goes without saying. Right, Jim, the fun continues here on

America's favorite drive-thru, Jim Cornett's drive-thru. We're running on fumes, baby. Jim, we have more wrestling talk, but on the topic of drive-thrus, a lot of listeners have wanted to get your thoughts. I have something here. Wendy's is reportedly expected to close between 5% and 6% of its U.S. restaurants, around 298 to 358 locations, in the first half of this year,

due to underperformance, and, according to this person, outdated compared to its competitors. And they're going to focus more on quality moving forward, according to whatever 25 news is. Bull shit! Have you seen any of these reports? Yes, I have. It's a dark day. It's a very dark day. But they're going to focus on the stores that they say aren't underperformers. which basically means they're closing 300-something stores across the country, hopefully thinking that that means that the people that used to go to those stores

will just go to another Wendy's store. Instead of addressing the problem, then nobody wants to go to Wendy's anymore. Because it sucks now. That's right. And it's a shame of the once great institution. That old girl, she was my prom date. She was my, boy, we would hold hands under the moonlight, me and Wendy back in the day. And now I just bleh.

What's his? She's on crack. They changed the meat, not only the smashing of the meat, but just the meat itself. They've changed the pickles. They changed the lettuce. And it did upset us. they got rid of the fries and did whatever the fuck they did to them now that they're like random peelings that they scraped up off the floor

the grilled chicken sandwich I ranted and raved about that a few years ago and they got rid of it it was delicious and was the healthiest possible option on any fast food menu and they got rid of it and the Ozziago grilled chicken sandwich was something that I I would even eat instead of grilled hamburger meat. So, but, and then honestly, when all fast food service has gone downhill and be honest, they're probably making almost no money and they don't want to be there to begin with.

And then you've got managers that don't give a shit. But the Wendy's closest to me, during the pandemic, I understood it, but then they continued it for about six months after everything it opened up. They just closed at six o'clock at night. What? And then fuck anybody that wants to eat. No.

Six o'clock? Yes. They were done at six o'clock at night. And now they've got a Freddy steak burgers opened up right next to them. And you could again set off nuclear weapons in their parking lot wouldn't injure anybody because everybody's over at Freddy's.

They brought this on themselves. Brian is what I'm saying, the people at Wendy's. And it's a, I'm glad that Dave is not here to see this dark time. He wouldn't have allowed it. I even used to love when I would go to Ohio because the Wendy's around Columbus, like within a hundred mile radius, was the fucking best of all of them because you never knew when he might stop in. Or go to the drive-thru or whatever.

and they all were on top of their shit and boy it was great and then as you got further out you know it got a little iffy but they brought it a self-inflicted wound I recently did a fast food taste test with my kids because

they always want to try different things depending on what toys and a happy meal or a kid's meal so I said let's test it out burger came McDonald's and Wendy's who do you think one best burger these days probably McDonald's

Burger King. No, really. Yeah, and I agree. It was the best of the three hamburgers, by far, Burger King. McDonald's got best fries, no surprise, but Burger King fries were pretty good, too. You got a high problem, at least you used to, when I used to travel with the Burger Kings in the south along Interstate 65 or 75, looking like they'd just had a cattle drive run through the lobby. Well, this has been drive-through news, quite literal.

Jim, let's get a few questions before we get to Raw, because we just talked about classic wrestling. Let's give it a few minutes. Our current wrestling is what you're saying. Our current wrestling. We're also drunk, ladies and gentlemen, here today. Would you like to just start that whole thing over again, or just press on? Let's press on.

Jim, let's get to some questions here before we get to Raw. This one was sent via the Culta Cornette Facebook group by Dave Parsons. We have all heard the old trope countless times for big man matches. The ring has been reinforced. Does Jim know of any time when the ring actually had to be reinforced for real? Kind of sort of yes. I will explain it if this is the, I wonder if this is the Dave Parsons I know. West Virginia Mount Mama, take me how.

That's the one. But if not, I apologize. or digress. But nevertheless, no, that used to be a thing, and especially during the period, what was it,

like late 60s through the mid-70s when not only Haystacks Calhoun was active, but then the other Haystacks Calhoun that worked a lot of the West Coast became Man Mountain Mike. That was kind of the gimmick, and then the McGuire twins came along and so sometimes they would do battle royals with one or more of those people added to the mix,

or sometimes there'd be a, you know, the McGuire twins as a tag team against anybody, but I think they did a Haystacks Calhoun and Man Mountain Mike battle royal in Los Angeles, if memory serves. And we've reinforced the ring because these guys, you know, the combined weight is whatever. And I don't think they really ever did. I wasn't there at every time that was ever said, so I can't testify to it in court.

But that was just more of a marketing tag than anything else. But there was one time where the ring, a ring that you could get available in a wrestling business wouldn't hold what they wanted to put in it. And that was when Jerry Jarrett came up with the idea to book the 50-man battle. Royal. I don't think there's any videotape that still exists yet.

And they only had I'm pretty sure there was only two of them. And I saw one. The other was in Memphis. I wasn't there. But was at the same time period when they had them? Memphis and it was the same fucking week. His Memphis and Lexington at Reparina. And I think he did it because that's what he had first opened up Lexington.

This was 1978, and, you know, he wanted a spectacular attraction that some people hadn't seen to put in there, and it worked. Lexington in 78, within six months, the houses were triple what he started,

you know, six months before with, but nevertheless. So the 50-man battle roll, the weight is not the deal in the ring, unless you're bored, are rotten or there's some major problem with your ring the guys in the battle royal that is a lot of weight but it's distributed and you've got you know the usually metal crossbars underneath the

ring blah blah blah but they just couldn't physically get 50 guys in a regular wrestling ring right and this was this when he had first started working jarrott with the a wa and he brought some of the big names down and there was a he had a full crew of guys but also for the Lexington one they booked the outlaw guys then the eastern Kentucky and some guys came up from Knoxville we're working for Ron Fuller but I mean I recognized names from this little outlaw group that Dale Mann used in front of 60 people in Georgetown Kentucky back then and I think they got to 47 and thought nobody would notice, but I had the ring announcer sheet.

During intermission, I wrote everybody down, right? But nevertheless, Eddie Marlin, on Jarrett's, you know, specs and authorization built a special ring to hold the 50 guys. But it wasn't, it was only going to be used a couple of times and then not used again, so they didn't get ring posts made, and they didn't get specially measured metal crossbars made

and welded and all this shit. It was a 30 by 30 foot ring, right? Never seen one that big before. Eddie made it all out of two befores. Even the ring posts were giant four by four or six by six fence posts, and they had to bring it on this fucking flatbed train, trailer and he had to be there to show this crew of guys how to assemble this guy.

This got every bit of the ring was made out of two befores and wood except for the eye bolts or the circle bolts, whatever the fuck they call them, that he drove into the ring post so that they could put ropes up. And the ropes, because they didn't have cables that were already cut and wrapped and had turnbuckles and everything on them, they used unwrapped ropes. So like you'd get it goddamn Home Depot. So it was the most bizarre thing that I've ever seen anybody work in. And for this, they had single matches in a 30-foot ring.

It looked like Cowboy Lang and Little Tokyo when they had Lawler and Leduc against each other. And then when they did the Battle Royal, the ring filled up, but once it got down to like the last three or four people and those ropes, there was no tension in them, so you couldn't hardly run and hit them. Joel of Duke jumped up and did a leg drop

in his match and landed on that thing. And it was like, it was like landing on the goddamn pavement because there was no give because it was held up by two befores. So that was the most bizarre reinforced ring I've ever seen. Well, Jim, we'll try to get to a few more questions after we talk about Raw, but why don't we talk about last night, as we are recording, WWRWA in Memphis, Tennessee, your old stomping grounds.

Let's talk about it. Well, I wish I'd have stomped in there and stomped out. No, I want to keep an eye on some of my favorite people on raw and unfortunately Bronbreaker is out and by the way now I guess

Hayman said somewhere it's his stomach instead of his crotch at least it has the hernia so it's still it can be every bit as serious and every bit as painful but at least they're not going to have

a knife that close to his dick and I don't see how that he can be ready to perform at the level he performs at in eight weeks after a hernia surgery. I just really don't without, you know, you're in danger for the first couple weeks of sneezing too hard. But at least it's better than,

which would you rather have a knife two inches from your heart or two inches from your dick? I may not want to play this game. This is not my kind of hypothetical game that I want to say. Hey, I ask the doctor, I asked the doctor on both of mine, just to make sure I said, now, there's no way you can cut any of the hydraulics down there, is there? And they said, no, and everything worked out fine.

But anyway, so what, what's, are you laughing? The hydrolyx, that got me. I'm sorry, I hadn't thought of it that way. I don't know if I'll ever think of it another way again. You never know when, you know, you could cut the wrong thing and snip, snip, and down goes the awning. Well, again, Braun Breaker out. He had taken over as the. leader of the vision with Seth

Rollins being out, which necessitated them kind of turning him baby face without him being there. And now the vision is getting more near-sighted by the day. If you're the top guy in the vision, you're going down, motherfucker.

They started the show with the Yeat party with the Uso's coming down, but the vision interrupted him. Bronson Reed, Logan Paul, Austin Theory, who looked great together, by the again, that's a heel stable. I like the looks of that together.

And Heyman. And I don't like the looks of him, but he looks good on them. Logan Paul does an excellent heel promo. We've established part of that is because he really is apparently a dick, but also he's just, he's got the, he's an updated buddy Landell. And that is a compliment in this respect.

And they showed the tape where the masked man screwed theory last week and in theory got a chance to speak a little bit and get fired up but Adam Pierce interrupted and they went back and forth and you know theory's not going to stand up for this being treated this way and Paul Lee wants Bronson Reed in the elimination chamber and they'll leave the ring if they get that and Pierce said Reed can earn it next week and then LA Knight's music plays and he's again The people love him and he gets a pop and it works.

And they like the promo and they like yang along. But he trashed Reed and Logan Paul and made the challenge for the sixth man that by then we obviously knew was coming because the Uso's are still standing in the fucking bleachers with their dicks and their hands. And Pierce made it official Uso's in L.A. night against Logan Paul, Bronson Reed and Austin theory which we rent, which we went right into at that point in time. Brian, before I run off and leave you, your thoughts on the oratorial portion of our program this evening.

I almost didn't see it. I almost ran off and left it because when they went right to the Uso's doing their thing in the hallway about to come out, I was about to say, you know what, I'll watch this tomorrow. And then luckily the vision kind of got out there real quick. and Logan Paul was positioned kind of as the leader now. In some ways, Austin Theory, I thought, showed a little bit more fire on the mic here

than we've seen from him. And it was good. I thought it was really good. He's starting to show a little more personality in the way he's dressing and the way he's acting. I don't know. Anytime you say anything nice about Austin Theory, there's so many listeners that jump on you,

so I'm scared to say anything nice about. Well, exactly, but I'm not. So I will. Here's again for the uninitiated. Would I talk about somebody like this or Braun Breaker from two or three years ago? I'm not necessarily always saying that they are fully formed and that they are the greatest talent in the world right now. I'm saying this is a guy you need to invest in.

This is a guy that you don't need to dick around with. This is a guy that you need to groom for the future. This is a guy's going to be a big time player and a puppy. with big paws. And you can tell with theory again, like you said, his body looks better. He's dressing more oomfy. He had more fire on the mic.

He's a guy you can tell. His work is technically is fabulous in the ring, but also he's working hard. He's trying. Instead of just doing a bunch more moves, you can tell that when he's getting criticism, or constructive criticism or he's trainable, he's coachable, he's improving, he's growing. He's making the most of whenever he gets an opportunity.

You can see it on his face now because he's been in limbo for so long. So that's the kind of guy you want to fucking invest your time and efforts in. And it will be fairly obvious in the next few years, but for now, people are like, oh, then gang. And especially the people, he doesn't do these moves or that moves or whatever. Even one of Uncle Dave's minions was like, well, Kyle is so much better. Kyle might be a fucking better athlete. He might run a quicker 40-yard dash or whatever.

But it's who learns best and who's coached best and who's given the best opportunities he's in the best program that goes on to the best success. So you got that. And you talk about coaching. He's going to have a personal coach with Heyman. If you're someone who can have a conversation and talks about wrestling,

you're going to learn a lot from Paul Heyman, and Paul Heyman's going to start pointing out to you all the things you should highlight and all the things you shouldn't. It's only going to help him. Well, and besides that, all these Nimrods out there in theory, again, Cornett,

Paul Heyman, he's an idiot too, he's wrong, he's in love with a guy that's, you know, the shits or whatever. He picked him to put in a group that's obvious. So again, just sit back and watch what's going to happen because we already know, and we're trying to tell you ahead of time. If you don't accept, it's not our fault. But back to this, and L.A. night comes out there, everything they've done to him, he's still super over.

And you know what, right now with everything kind of being stale, if there was ever a time that fucking give him the push, maybe it's time, I don't know. Well, they might have to. Yeah, more guys get hurt every week. So I thought that was good, but I was kind of in and out on the match. I hate the Uso's. I can't, I hate is a strong word. It's a hell of a motivator and a strong word.

I don't enjoy watching the Uso's stuff. It was a lot more enjoyable when they were just doing dramatic segments. They were the guys that could pull it off, specifically Jay Uso. Well, that's the thing is, but to give this match something, they got heat on L.A. night and left Uso's on the apron for a while. Because he's the only baby face can really work, it's got to be difficult to work with the Uso's with their odd timing and flailing about and sometimes.

but L.A. Knight hit the tag to Jay, and it was a hot tag. He set it up, and it was great. And Jay made the comeback, hit something, got a two count, got kind of lost. Then, ah, Spear got a new two count. And then they just repeated something. L.A. Knight got laid out, or no, L.A. night first laid out Austin Theory on the floor, but then Reed put L.A. night through the barricade. then the Uso's double-teamed Logan Paul,

but Reed dove on both the Uso's, but Logan Paul knocked out Jimmy. And then Reed Splash Jimmy, one, two, three. It was actually a pretty good finish and done well because they didn't step on each other. And it got the point across, but obviously these heels need to, they got to push this group a little bit harder now

because it's lost members, and you don't want that to be the, you know, the wet blanket on it. But good finish, done well, and then Logan Paul is at the desk, yelling at the announcers, and the masked man came out and gave him the stomp on the table and then ran off.

I'm wondering if they ought to have Austin theory as the masked man against some other fucking masked man as the WrestleMania match. Now, if they can't have Seth Rollins and Brown breaker. Thank you, Maskman. Thank you,

a mask man. The match. That's right. I don't know. I hope they have some place to go, because, you know, another trait of Paul Heyman stuff is, well, that's a really cool idea.

I wonder where it's going to go. And it never goes. It just keeps happening, and then it just never ends. It's like you're circling because of bad weather. You're still in the air, but you're not sure where you're going to fucking end up. That's a very Paul Heyman thing, you know.

All right, Paul, uh, what are we going to do? have no wrestler for this match. Oh, turn the lights off. What? Just turn the lights off. And I turn them back on. Okay.

Same thing here. Just it's one of those fucking Paul Haben justified things. But I've, you know, right now, they say all of the WrestleMania matches are up in the air because of the injuries and the changes and et cetera. And they got to figure it out pretty soon. So who knows? Who knows?

that masked man will be Kim Osabi, but would you like to get to the big segment that's going to sell all the tickets, Brian, the big mystery, the thing that's going to save the business and make everything all right, the box.

You're going to get to the box. You know, it's one of those things that had happened, and everyone immediately thought of you, you know, there's certain things that Vince Russo dies, everyone's going to be like, Jim Cornett, where's Jim Cornett? If a box shows up on wrestling.

Yeah, yeah. You've become the biggest proponent of the box in professional wrestling. Well, and again, this is going to be another example, I believe, of my, is it a homily, or is it an old chestnut or one of the tropes that the kids talk about? And we'll explain for people who might be new listeners and halfway lost, but a box, a big giant wooden crate shows up in the back in the WW raw building there and the stooge that's brought it to Adam Pierce and what's in it? Why didn't open it?

Why didn't you open it? Because it says do not open until February 28th, 2026, which is the elimination chamber. And so Pierce is like, oh, God, I don't know what to do about it. Hey, I tell you what, ship it over to all this and let him worry about it. Hey, you can't open it to Elimination Chamber. Why did you ship it here? That'd be my next question. Well, but that's the thing is, who says, is there a, is, it's like tearing the tag off

the mattress. Is there a federal penalty? Are they going to come to your house if you just, fucking just open it? Penalty box. But, but hold on, this shows they're really going to go with it because if they're sending it to Aldus, that means it's going to be on Smackdown 2. that means that they want over the next 10 days they want people to wonder who's going to be in this fucking box and here is the the story is as a lot of people know and i'll try to tell it briefly if you

don't is that we were in a meeting one day at vince mcmans house and and our friend shit stain vene russo was there good old vini rue and i don't even know what instance it was was at that point in time. I don't think it was with Funk. They did it with Terry Funk. It might have been with Terry Funk. But nevertheless, I made the comment. Chainsaw Charlie.

I made the comment, anybody that comes out of a box is over. And Rousseau just thought that was the funniest thing because that doesn't make any sense of blah, blah, blah, blah. It's just hilarious. And he's told a story. And when he tells the story, he tells on himself that he doesn't,

understand the meaning behind shit. No, you can't just set a box out there and nobody talk about it, nobody reference it and not call any attention to it, and then just at some random time, some guy that we've never heard of or seen before can pop out of it and oh my God, it's great now. Look at he's here. But traditionally, in wrestling all,

over the country, maybe all over the world. They might have done it in Mexico, never saw it in Japan. But variations on the theme would take place. In Atlanta, it might be a box that shows up right before the big Omni show.

And the fucking Anderson brother's like, what is it? And it might be Abdullah the butcher buss out of the box and causes two minutes of chaos in a studio, and it's going to be Abdullah the butcher, the mystery partner, or with wrestling two again or whatever or there was one time to humiliate manager jimmy heart when when luller was a heel and jimmy heart was his manager bill

undy brought a box out as a present for fucking jimmy heart with all kinds of stickers on it i bite do not open careful caution and of course luller makes jimmy get in front of him and See what's in that thing. And Cowboy Lang, the midget wrestler, busts out of the box and beats Jimmy Hart up and humiliates him. And it's Bill Dundee and a midget against Lawler and Jimmy Hart, because that way the odds are even. There's 20 million things you could do,

but they always, it, always a big star, a returning legend, a vicious bounty hunter, whatever fits the picture. is what comes out of the fucking box. And that's why anybody that comes out of a box gets over. Not an egg. The gobbledy gooker didn't get over. Gobbledy gherker. Because he came out of an egg, not a box.

And nobody gave a shit. Because they never seen it before and didn't know what the fuck was going on. Again, there's a chance it could have worked if it wasn't a dancing turkey. You know, no one wanted that. No one was thinking what's going to hatch out of that egg. It'll definitely be a giant dancing turkey who's going to square dance with Gene Okerlund. Well, yeah, and that's the thing is whether it'd been an egg or a box or a goddamn Ziploc bag, it wouldn't have mattered in that instance because it wouldn't have been over

because it didn't fit the parameters that I just discussed. But dipshit never understood that. And he just thought it was silly on the face of it, which if you don't know what you're fucking talking about it, It does. But nevertheless. What do you think it is? Who do you think it is?

You know what? I hate to go out on a limb, but I'm thinking that Jericho would have this much sense of humor, just possibly, that he might think that this, that, you know, this would be something that would be so ironic. He's too into spinal tap.

His idea would be that he couldn't get out of the box. you see something start to poke through but he just gave help me help me I can't chop chop that would be funny they do the big countdown oh the box is going to open you just kind of see it like getting pounded

the person can't get out but it's going to it's going to be somebody that they want people to pay attention to because they wouldn't I don't think they would do this and then also again they haven't done it on Smackdown

yet but they've just he's just said, send it to Aldous. So then Aldous will see it. You know, what the fuck. Something is up that they want people to pay attention to. And I believe it will be a person rather than a thing. So we'll see what takes place.

It'll be Vince. Like Dr. Frank in the box. It'll be Vince in the box. And then it just comes out. That'll be their way of reintroducing him. A lot of people, it trended last night, the name Vince McMahon. A lot of people see something like that on Ron. They say this is like Vince McMahon stuff.

Oh, we're getting more and more backstage stuff, more and more, and now a giant box. I guarantee you. I guarantee you that Vince McMahon is not going to be, because Vince was in the room too. He would probably think it's a real, but Vince, we've got a great idea to bring you back

in a fucking box. He was Cornette hired back now? No, it ain't going to be. Vince McMahon and Dubai. You mentioned Dr. Frank. Lawler brought Dr. Frank, the guy dressed up as a Frankenstein monster. It's Ken Dillinger, as I recall, that run.

Brought him in a fucking crate at Memphis TV for two or three weeks, and Lance would just make comments like, I heard that thing. There's some, there's noise in there. And then Lawler, after an interview, would knock on it, and it would come from the back, or from inside, back at him.

And it would move and wiggle. And one of the days that he was in the fucking box, this is the legend I heard was the day they had the bomb threat. And they emptied the studio and Lawler stood there with Lance one camera shot. And they did a 20-minute promo while that the cops looked around in the studio to make sure there wasn't a bomb for they'd let the people back in. They didn't want the fans at home to know that there was an issue because then they knew they could stop the show anytime they wanted, right,

by calling in a bomb threat. But nobody told Ken Dillinger it was in a box. He didn't need to be in the fucking box. While there was a potential explosion waiting to take place, nobody told him until he got out of it. If this is Jericho, do you think this is an appropriate way to bring them back? Is this a way to bring back someone to get them involved in the elimination chamber? Well, or just to be on the card?

No, again, it depends on, the circumstances on which the person or thing busts out of the box, who he busts out on, where he busts out of, and what he does when he busts out. It could be fucking Steve Austin. If it was the right goddamn person he was busted out in front of, you mean to tell me that if the box was on the stage at the opening of the elimination chamber,

and there the fucking rock walked out and started to address people and Steve Austin busted out of the fucking box and crowned a rock over the head with a chair would be the biggest pop in the history of wrestling. It would be inexplicable, but yes, it would be one of the biggest boxers. It would be inexplicable, but they wouldn't give a shit.

But to point, if, okay, just to my thing, if some way or another, neither Pierce nor Aldous wanted to take responsibility or possession of this fucking box, they kept bouncing it back and forth and between each other. And finally, it ended up sitting in the middle of the stage, the entranceway, at the elimination chamber. And suddenly, when it was time

for number six, the mystery guy or whatever, the box blew open and it was Chris Jericho running the ring. The people would still throw babies. If it was a cardboard box, they wouldn't give a shit. I'm not, again, I'm saying that it might be a goddamn sense of humor that one of the people involved in this would have that they would do that. But I'm not betting the farm on it. But you can't tell me that if he came out of, if he came out from under a sheet, the people go out of their fucking mind. Well, we'll see what happens with the mystery box.

Maybe that's why Jericho returned to WWE, the promise of more box. But Jim, before we get back to WWRA, it's important to think about what you would need in a box. You would need a way out. I'm a living in a box. I'm living in a cardboard box. Not everyone may understand how to get out. You may try to punch...

Not everyone can make a box, homie. You may try to punch your way out, homie. Or you may need the right boots to kick your way out of the box and kick your way through life. and make sure whether it's in the mire or the muck you are prepared for all sorts of action, just like we are with our friends at Brunt. If you would like to go down to the latest homeless encampment

and jump into a cardboard box and wear your brunt boots to kick your way out, you'll find that it's more comfortable kicking out your way out of a cardboard box with a brunt boot than any other dadgum boot that they have around town these days. And I'll tell you, if you're out working, If you're going to walk through the muck and the mire, they're waterproof and they're insulated and your footsies will stay warm and comfy. Or if you need to go up on the roof or out in the slick stuff like the snow and the ice and the slush and the sleet and the gropple, well, they've got treads on the bottom of

where you can backwalk up the side of a building like Batman without even hardly hanging onto the rope and not even straining through your fucking polyester costume where you could clearly see that this guy would be hanging on for dear life if it wasn't for the fact that it was a camera trick you don't need camera tricks with brunt boots you just put the boots on and wear them in front of the camera possibly wearing something else besides the boots depending on who's taking the picture what is happening but we're not here to judge no we're not here to judge and of course. Many people have decided to take nude photos wearing their brunt boots.

It's somewhat of a kind of a viral trend going on now and you can send those nude photos of you wearing your brunt boots. Well, the female division can send them to corny drive-thru at gmail.com. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, let's get back to the muck and the mire. The muck and the mire. We're stomping through the mud. We're making sure that no matter what we do, it's electrical work or cutting down a tree or going for a drive.

They're stylish, they're comfortable. I love them. Jim loves them. It's one of the things that I know he always raves about off air in front boots. Because I take them out in the yard and work in them. That's what you're supposed to do. But you can drive in them too. And that way, if you get a wreck and it's your fault and you've got to run.

Oh, my God. What the hell? These boots all day, you can climb fences and go through the forest. Here's another thing about the. of Brunt boots. They are made and created by the founder of Brunt himself, Eric Girard, who named these boots after friends in the trades, for example, the Marin Boot. That's probably a friend of his that got electrocuted because he wasn't wearing a proper kind of footwear. He chose to honor him or the Omen. That's not the reason. The Omen is the guy that he fell in

Quicksand and couldn't get out of it because he was wearing those cheap, lesser quality work boots instead of these waterproof insulated boots. And that made all the difference. His feet got so heavy, drug him right down. He was going, oh, man, oh, man. That's not how they named those boots. And by the way, those are nice boots. That's going to be the next thing I get.

Those are very, very nice boots. I'm looking at them right now. And you can check them out. And, of course, we have a great deal for the listeners. And these are Jim Cornett approved. I would tell them about it. If you'd let me, if they're going to Brunt Workwear.com, Brunt is spelled like anything else with a letter followed by U.NT.

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well, then you won't look like a big old mess of ground beef by the time he finishes a whooping and a stomping on you. What the hell kind of example is this? And again, we were on the road. You stopped me because we were going to tell the listeners about this great deal. And you decided to talk about slam bang, western style wrestling or whatever the hell's happening. talking about the job site punishment that these work,

the clothing and accoutrements from brunt workwear.com can stand up to, whether you're being whipped with a belt or a rope or possibly even a rubber tube, or whether somebody's taking a hammer to the soles of your feet, or potentially trying to jam something up under your toenails, all this brunt workwear will make sure that job site punishment does not harm you from living a successful life free to pursue religious freedom. As soon as you get off that job where you're being punished for your city work. We have a great deal to tell the listeners about.

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you will too. But Jim, let's stop on back to WWRWA. There were two segments that I what are we going to say? CM Punk and Finn Baller had a heart to heart talk.

Punk does a great job. Finn wonderful fellow. But the people aren't buying it. They're ready for punk and Roman Reigns, but they've got the elimination. chamber pay-per-view beforehand or PLE or

PPV or POV or whatever the fuck and it's in Chicago so punk has to be on the card really you know but they're ready for punk and Roman and they ain't buying punk and Finn and they had a long talk and punk was entertaining as always but I don't think the fans are seeing it do you what more can we say about that interview I mean, again, it's a placeholder until WrestleMania, which, you know, this is one of the things that is kind of interesting for WrestleMania, which is punk and Roman. I think that's one of the things that fans are not rejecting.

They've been trying to do something or not with Finn Bauer for the last few weeks. It sometimes feels like it's one step forward and then two steps back with everything they do with them. and obviously there was a big confrontation with punk and the judgment day and he got to tell jokes about them and I mean it's fine I mean I can't pick it apart I can't say it's great it was fine it was fine they

they did a good job with what they were doing and people were just kind of there because they're waiting to see punk and Roman and I again I just don't I don't see Finn I don't see Finn fit in and On the distaff side of things, as they say, A.J. Lee and Becky Lynch did the same thing,

where they had a nice long heart-to-heart talk, and nobody got physical or fought or anything, and they did an okay job with it. But I think probably more people want to see that than want to see Punk and Finn. But it took a while to get there to that. And then Becky left in a huff. What can you say about it? I think the family feud between punk and AJ Lee was more important than is A.J. Lee going to come back and regain a championship belt in her first single match in 11 years. I think it was like, we want to see this guy and his fucking wife fight this guy and his wife.

That's wrestling. I don't know if this is the most long-awaited women's showdown of all time to follow it up with. What do you think? I agree. I'm not into it. I thought this was very, you know, Becky Lynch, when she's on and it's the right moment, is so great as just this frantic maniac. But when it's not exactly perfect, it comes across like, this is, you know, like, I just aren't

WWNreal. I'm Rebecca, and this is my performance of Crazy Becky. And AJ Lee comes across very performing, almost like, you know, the way Cody does at times where it's like, okay, you've taking acting classes, I get it. So not for me, not terrible. I'm not saying, you know, no one could speak, but they're all speaking in a way that it sounds like they said everything they said there several times before they got out there. That's a good way to put it, by the way. I always tried never to say out loud any promo I ever did. I'd think about things in my head. I don't even know if I'd think it in order or not.

I would just think of, you know, my bullet points of whatever, who am I talking about? We were tag team champions. I said, mentioned three or four different teams, whatever. But if you said something to me, once you've said it, It ain't going to sound fresh if you say it's a second time. Well, you guys were lucky on TBS because you always knew if you ever got lost. Just talk about Dusty.

It'll work. But yeah, you understand what I'm saying? I can understand for the women's division in a lot of ways it's a big deal match, although I don't know if the fans were as into this as some of the other things in the women's division right now. I don't know. But it just, you know, I don't know. Forget about the match. don't like the promos, but whatever.

All right. Well, and also there is, again, a lot of talking in, but there was other matches, but yeah. But then we had the main event for another spot in the elimination chamber, for something that's so hard to get into, there's opportunities abounding everywhere. But it was a three-way, because they got to have the three-way, Gunther and Dominic Mysterio and Javon Evans.

and again, I like all three of these people. I just, I hate another three way. What they did here was fine, very professional, everybody, everything they did fit, Gunther did Gunther things, Dominic did things that Dominic would do, and Javon Evans was the one pure baby face. They like Dominic now because he's such a weasel.

that natural evolution of things, but Javon's pure baby face, they were behind him. And I actually, I think, if Javan, and Javon, spoiler, he finally hit a big super duper, what do you call it, the OG cutter on Dominic,

one, two, three after Dragon Lee had come out and knocked out Gunther with the ring bell on the floor, I would have liked to have seen Javan Evans against Dominic Mysterio in a single match with the winner getting into the elimination chamber. If Javan beat Dominic, it would mean something for Javan

while it wouldn't take away from Dominic. I think Gunther, in a match for something this important being screwed over by Dragon fucking Lee, Gunther's a main event

guy needs to be in main event shit with main event people. And even though he didn't lose here, it's just lazy booking that they wanted to give people thought that, oh, it's going to be in. So Javon will be a surprise. But yeah, it's a surprise that Guntler lost because he shouldn't have fucking lost. So I would have liked a single match better, but everybody was good in this. and then Javon, as I said, hit the big wing ding on Dominic, and Javon will be in the elimination chamber.

So that means they're going to continue to push this kid, and they've got high hopes for him. Obviously, they wouldn't be putting him in there with five other guys that are main event-level players. It's not about whether he's going to have a good match with them or oh, I can't wait to fucking see how many fucking backflips he does off the top of the chamber. That's not their motivation.

It's if we put this kid in the elimination chamber with other main event level talent, he will be seen as a new main event star. That's the motivation. So I like the result of it, except I don't think Guantther need to be involved. Your comments, Brian, on the situation. Are we getting Gunther and Dragon Lee at Elimination Chamber?

Who the fuck knows? But that will piss me highly off if we do. Maybe we'll get it on. Well, with the Elimination Chamber, it's going to be long enough. The girls got to do that too, so we're going to have four matches. Certainly to God, they wouldn't waste one of them on Gunther and Dragon Lee. He's going to be dragging his ass after Gunther gets finished with him. Unless they were going to do some kind of angle with Gunther,

but you would figure Gunther should have been in the elimination chamber. chamber, but beyond that, and the sudden Dragon Lee pulling Gunther, again, a big surprise, didn't expect that. Well, it's because Gunther had fucked Dragon Lee around a week, last week, or whatever the fuck, which he should, because Dragon Lee's a middle guy and that's all he's going to be, and Gunther's a main event guy, but they're trying to get Gunther or trying to get Dragon Lee to get revenge. But Javon Evans stands out more and more, and I've watched stuff I don't normally like.

I watched him in an El Grande-Americano tag match, three-way match here. It's about him. The little things he does, he adds a little flourish to them to make them stand out, the extra little spin he does, the height he gets on his drop kick, he is the best drop kick in wrestling right now. But the faces, the faces he makes, and the way that you take the ride with him,

he sells with his facial expressions, and he fires himself up and gets more determined. and you can see it in his eyes. He's projecting body language of movement and aggression and or purpose and or whatever the fuck. He's not just going into a goddamn floor exercise in a gymnastics class. Well, he'll be in the elimination chamber, which right away, you know, who's going to be jumping off the side of the chamber?

Who's going to do a weird flip into the chamber? who's going to do his RKO off the top of one of the pods in the chamber. You already have that answer, it'll be Javan. They're certainly trying to elevate him. At a time where a lot of these shows are stale, they're trying to elevate him, and he is exciting. But that was W.W.E. Raw, Jim. And with that, yes, we shall return after this short commercial timeout. All right, you know what that sound means, Jim?

that's the connotation that we are near the end of the program, but there's still some action to get to. Still action, the lights out action is yet to come. You know, because we just talked about this when talking about Raw and talking about the mystery box, do we just, do we call it a box or a mystery box? What, you're the box expert? What do you think? Well, it's a box. It's a crate.

See, there can be all kind of variations in the box angle. It can be a cardboard box. I'm living in a cardboard box. or it can be a crate, or it can be some type of draping apparatus. It just depends. Well, we're going to talk about Chris Jericho in a second, but you just made me think of something. Under your classification of coming out of a box, and of course, anything that comes out of a box or anyone is over, not anything, but anyone who comes out of a box is over.

Well, sometimes the thing can, you know, it just depends. In Georgia, in 1985, when Crockett first got the TBS time slot, they started doing something where there was a gorilla in a cage on the set. It may have been before the Midnight Express started, I'm not sure, with the Georgia. Yes, they did a good. That was a dusty, like the gorilla deal, but it was before we started there. So I was not present. I remember him doing something with a gorilla.

Again, it may not be my kind of idea, my kind of thing. I'm not really in the box is one thing, but my question is, does that count? Does Dick Slater eventually being revealed to be a gorilla in a cage count as if someone comes out of a box, they're over? If someone comes out of a masked character that's been in a cage for a few weeks, are they over? Yeah, that count. It's the reveal. It's the big shocking reveal and the surprise. And however you get people to pay attention beforehand, what the fuck is going on so that you can do the big reveal.

that counts because it's still a big reveal. Well, we talked about the upcoming big reveal, upcoming 11 days. A lot of time they gave this box to really breathe. But we talked about who it could be, and the position they would be in because they would be over coming out of the box. And you talked about, as many people have, Chris Jericho. A lot of people have been expecting him to come into WWE at any point. People expected him at the Royal Rumble.

He heard about some of the behavior restrictions of Saudi Arabia said, No way! We've been hearing maybe WrestleMania. Now there's a box. People think it could be a box. Well, as we were talking about all that, an article went up, The Take Down on SI, that's formerly known as Sports Illustrated, by Matt Black, major update on Chris Jericho's AEW status and potential WW return. Let's go to this article.

The AEW contract status of Chris Jericho has been a hot topic of conversation for several months now. Despite heavy speculation that Chris Jericho would return to WW this year, he remains under contract to AEW. Oh, reversal! It was initially reported that Jericho's deal would be up at the end of 2025 and he could appear for WWE as soon as the January 5th episode of Raw. that obviously didn't happen. Fast forward to the middle of February,

and Jericho is still on AEW's official roster page, which typically signifies he's still under contract to the company. So what exactly happened? Before I go on, I'll stop for a moment here, initial thoughts. Well, we were riding the wave of sentiment, you and I over the past several months, with all these reports coming out saying that Jericho's contract's going to be up, the WWE people are expecting him, they're getting ideas and preparations together,

and it's just a foregone conclusion in everybody's mind. But at the same time, right when this talk started, it contradicted, I mentioned this, it contradicted that just a few years ago, Jericho had said he had a 10-year contract. in AEW because we were laughing at the time that was said he'd be 60 fucking two or whatever so it was he trying to work if he was still under contract was he trying to work was he trying to work people in the thing and he wouldn't be under contract to see if w.W.E would make him an offer so he could tell Tony hey you got to raise my offer even though

I'm still under contract or what the fuck is going on here? You know, the funny thing is, Chris Jericho is more valuable as a guessing game than he is on a roster right now. Because I don't think he would please the AEW fans if he was back on that show right now. I just think they're past it. And WWE, I'm sure it'll be a different thing because they'll try, they'll produce him. I mean, I hate to put it that way. He's a veteran, but his ideas have been his downfall in a lot of ways.

But they don't. That's what we. Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. Well, I'm just saying. That's what we've been saying is that he's more valuable in the WWE to be seen a little bit, but not too much, and heard a little bit, but not too much, and have a big retirement type thing.

Go ahead. Back to the article. According to Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp, Chris Jericho remains fully under contract with all elite wrestling, as he has been told the general belief from people around Jericho, is that his contract was frozen when he decided to take off in the middle of 2025. Sap makes it clear that he hasn't seen Jericho's contract, but there could be several reasons his deal with AEW was extended, including it being frozen, injury time,

or him quietly resigning a new deal with the company. At this time, none of these factors can be ruled out entirely. as it pertains to people close to Jericho Sapp reveals they are being very tight-lipped about his future however Jericho has told some people he'd be open to a WW return but feared it would mean giving up his outside projects while under contract with them

those incredibly valuable outside projects like Fawzzi but let's stop here for a moment his outside projects from his job right now are never having to go outside. If he's working for AEW and getting paid, he doesn't have, he never goes. So you can't really beat that job, Kenya? The idea that the contract would be frozen.

And again, that is a thing that started under WWE and really became the standard for many years. In a lot of ways, I think people thought Tony Khan wouldn't be that kind of guy, where a wrestling he liked was, out of action for a while, Vince McMahon would extend their contract. He had control just a little bit longer. I think Brian Danielson got hit with that. That made the best example. If Tony did that to Jericho, we're talking from the middle of 2025, so six months, that would mean he wouldn't

be ready for any other outside wrestling project until the summer of 2026. Or do you think all this could be bullshit and maybe there really is still a 10-year contract guaranteed by Shad in place. Well, but hold on here because first of all, he, okay, if they froze the contract for the last seven months from the middle of 2025, then if Jericho didn't want to contract frozen, he would have to, he would say, well, then book me again. so I can fucking run it out. Because if Tony doesn't book him for another six months,

that isn't the contract still frozen? But then it would be Tony's fault. So who's the referee that starts the clock ticking again? Arbitration. Well, but that's, again, somebody has got to do something here to get out of this in one fashion or another.

One would think one party to instigate movement. And secondly, you would think that Uncle Dave, who has been one of the big proponents again of Jericho is going to, it looks like he's going back, folks, and all the things that he would be doing in the WWE, since he's as close as anybody to the horse's mouth,

one would think that he would have some whiff of this. if it hadn't all been, if it wasn't all bullshit to begin with. Well, the article concludes with some thoughts from the writer about indications that Jericho was going to leave AEW, including not having AEW talent on the Jericho Cruise this past year for the first time. So again, going back to the idea, no one knows what the contract status is, but it's telling that he's still on the AEW website. Did maybe he think like everybody else that, well, Tony never free

as anybody's contract, and I'll be out of this fucking insane asylum at the end of the year, and then Tony got pissed at him for some reason. I'll freeze his contract. And then all of a sudden there's Jericho stuck there in a block of ice. You have to wonder what he thought over the last year and a half or so, because although we have criticized and critiqued some of the worst ideas that have come from Chris Jericho, and he's just been blessed with bad ideas. over and over and over again.

And then he tries to justify him. And then these poor kids who break into the business think, that's the veteran I should go talk to. Captain, bad ideas. The point is, he thinks his ideas are good. And the last year and a half in AEW, the fans started rejecting him.

And then he got sent to Ring of Honor. And he may have been the top guy in Ring of Honor, but the story that AEW allowed to get out was that maybe this is because Tony's going for a Ring of Honor TV deal. and on Chris Jericho on top of it. Well, that didn't happen. Ring of Honor is still on YouTube.

We don't know that Tony will ever seriously go after a ring of honor. We don't know what Tony, at this point we were told Tony Khan bought Ring of Honor, not AEW. The AEW doesn't own Ring of Honor. Tony does, but does that mean Tony's business partners in AEW, Warner Brothers Discovery, prevent him from doing anything, whatever. But that's how Jericho was used. Do you think he was happy about that? well on another way to look at it it could have been tony because jericho knew that he was getting a shit boot out of him in a lot of the AEW places Tony i'll i'll be the champion of ring of honor and help the next generation for you and even easier schedule and lower profile and same money he might have wanted to do that who knows but at this point now again jericho

have thought, yeah, Tony, you know, he's never going to play hardball with anybody, and he'll let me out of here, and it's not happening. So now you have to, but think about that. Jericho, when's the last time he trademarked anything? Remember that? Every three weeks on TV, he'd say something and then trademark it. And unless you're one of the Fossey followers. Well, you mean every few weeks we would say something on the show, and then he would take it in trademark. Jericho Vortex was our creation. And then he trademarked.

True. True. But nevertheless. Besides the Fossey followers, which are like the deadheads that they follow the Fosys around, who the fuck has heard from Jericho in a while? I think he still does his podcast. You never really hear about it. I don't even know if he's on tour at Fossey.

I saw he was on tour with some other bad thing that they're called quarantine. What? He's in another band. Are you sure that was music news, or is Jericho in quarantine? That's why we have not heard about him. I don't know. That would be his inside deal, not his outside deal. He's laying low until he can do something.

It looks like to me. Well, one last question about all this. Chris Jericho really does leave AEW and become a free agent, and of that period of time is extended to be late spring, summer. based on the way WWE TV is right now and the booking

and the way things seem to be playing out does his value go up because the longer he's not around and the longer Triple H is booking they're going to need the more guys get injured does his value go up in six months is he more valuable in six months

than he is right now I don't necessarily think so but you know one of the WWE talent tour buses could go off a bridge between now and then. But again, the value of Jericho in today's wrestling environment, he has valued AEW and it's a great job for him that pays well and he doesn't have to go to a lot and they don't have to suffer the indignation that they've

lost him, but he doesn't have any, he's not going to make any difference. as we've said nobody else will either in ratings or pay-per-view buys or whatever the fuck right he's not going to make a difference to the business in AEW that way and whether it's T&A or ring of honor or poo-poo platter or whatever any other company he don't need the money i'm sure certainly to god he doesn't need the money the value he has to the wrestling business, and it would be millions of dollars, is going back to the WWE for a year. I don't have two years, you whatever, have a few high-profile pay-per-view matches

and do a retirement Hall of Fame thing. And that would generate millions of dollars and be well worth their time to pay him to do that. Otherwise, his best contribution, to the wrestling business is what he's doing right now, which is nothing. Well, we will stay on top of the Chris Jericho news and see if Chris Jericho or a whole out of nothing come out of that box in a few weeks. But Jim, another big story, as we are recording, the announcement that a MMA superfight

will be taking place. This came out of nowhere. What a surprise. Cinderella story out of nowhere. Rhonda Rousey returning to the struck. not allowed to be called an octagon. It's a hexagon. She'll be going into the hexagon on Netflix's very first

MMA event against Gina Carano, who, Gina Carano was the first real female star in MMA and was a knockout and was good-looking, and within a few years she was gone. Let's put it this way. She was at M.A. when I was working in M.A. I mean, it's that long ago. And that's the thing. She's kind of like the Cora Livingston to Rousey's Mildred Burke, right? We're going to have to remind maybe some of the younger viewers or listeners

that Gina Carrano, as you said, was the first poster girl for women's MMA. There was Chris Cyborg and there was all, but Gina Carrano was the darling that had everything, including the poster appeal and et cetera, and they tried to do this fight. what 10, 12 years ago in Dana White fumbled the ball some kind of way with not with Ronda but with pissing off Gina Carrano

I can't even remember what the story was now but the question is and we know Rhonda's mental state is if she gets beat in a real fight, she fucking just melts down. And she's pissed off at the wrestling business. But she did learn some tricks of how to hype a fight and promote things in a wrestling

business. But how the fuck old is Gina Carrano now? Because she predated Ronda's heyday. I am looking that up right now because I hadn't thought about that, but that's a good question. Gina Carrano, 43 years old. 40, only 40. I would have thought maybe a little bit older,

but when was her last fight? Let me look that up. I don't remember her fighting in a long, long time. Let's see. I mean, Rhonda at least has not been training for legitimate combat, but has been in the ring. And I guess Rhonda's younger.

I don't know. I can't find my copy of her birth certificates. I don't know how old she is, but she's got to be, what, at least seven, eight years younger than Carano. Gina Carano's last fight was for Strike Force in 2009 against Chris Seid. Jesus! And Cyborg beat her up, didn't she? Well, yeah, I mean, Cyborg was loaded to tits quite literally on steroids and everything else

had appeared. Hence the Nom de Plume Cyborg. But, okay, so this girl had... fought competitively in 17 years and there was taught this would have been a big pay-per-view attraction as I said what 12 years ago or whenever there was talk about it when ronda got over that was the thought that everybody well what was let's we could see ronda or rousey against carano but when is the last time that ronda's fought competitively well hold on I'll check that I was just looking into the background of the company behind the show

We'll get into that in a moment. Rhonda Rousey, her last fight. Rhonda Rousey, 39 years old. Jeez. And her last fight. Oh, this is her filmography. Excuse me. She probably had a few dustups in that category also.

She didn't go back to MMA after she debuted in the WWE, correct? 2016. Oh, okay, so it's been 10 years and 17 years since either of these 40-year-old ladies have had a real fight. And we talk about, you know, I know Tyson has, God damn, has fought and some of these other guys that come back in their 50s and or 60 years old or whatever for the money. but should we be any more kind or gracious to the ladies that we are to the guys when we say, Jesus Christ, don't do this? Well, I think we need to say what it is. And this is, in a lot of ways, a throwback to the early days of UFC, the freak show element,

where it's not about the two most skilled fighters in a fight, it's about the big giant slob against a little Brazilian jiu-jitsu guy. What will happen? and I like that stuff, by the way. I like the early days of UFC because this is like Jake Paul against Mike Tyson. And by the way, Jake Paul's the promoter.

It's Jake Paul's company. What now? Most valuable promotions. Oh, Christ. They are the promoter of this event. So the brother just sold a fucking Pokemon card for $16 million and this guy's got enough money

to put on a fucking Netflix Superfight. I'm sure he has plenty of money, but I'm sure he's not putting up all the money for this. Well, you know what I'm saying. The point is, Rhonda Rousey's a world-class judo player. Beyond M.M.A. Like, she's the real deal.

Gina Carrano was a talented early days of women's MMA fighter. I don't see if this is a legit thing, and because it's Jake Ball's thing behind it, I don't know if it is. But if this is a legit thing, I don't see a world where Ronda Rousey doesn't destroy her in seconds and go right for an arm bar. Part of the thing. And Gina Carrano and help me out was her, her, because she was primarily a stand-up fighter, boxer, striker type of fighter.

But I think her father was some type of boxer or professional athlete of some description. I could be wrong, but I believe her father was on the Nevada State athlete. Control Board or Athletic Commission for a long time. He was one of the people I want to say that voted against legalizing MMA in the late 90s when Bob Meyerowitz hired a lobbyist and did everything he could. And the story that always came back, although some of the participants deny it, but you talk to anyone who was there at the time, this is what they were told. It was the Fratitas that killed the vote and make sure that they couldn't get the vote. And then, of course, they bought the company a year later.

And then got the vote. They've always denied that, but the people who were there, who I was around, all said that. And I believe her dad was on that same commission. Well, here's the problem I have, because you mentioned the freak show. And that's wrestling. And, hey, we want to see Martin the Blimp Levy against the fucking Swedish angel. And the reason I don't have a problem with that at wrestling is you promote unusual people or you promote several celebrities having a clash

or well-known people or whatever the case. But this is a fucking shoot. And somebody could legitimately get hurt and chances are it's going to be Gino-Curano because as you, Gino. Gino-Carrano. Gino-Carrano. What a surprise this fight's going to be for everyone.

Gina Carano is going to, because she was, it was the early days of women's MMA and nobody had really come along. And the things changed by Rhonda's time and her training methods and her background, she will, you know, obviously try to go take her down and fucking stretch her as quick as possible. But it's just, somebody's going to get hurt, is my thought. And in the hexagon, why don't they get one with like 10 sides? What would that be a tentagon?

I don't know. And just isn't that violating some kind of spirit of a copyright law? Should they bring in the luchador octagon to sit ringside so they can keep referencing octagon even though that would be an octagon?

And then they could bring in somebody from the Pentagon so that that way we'd and we just have a geometry class right before the fight. I don't know. I want to see this. I'm not saying it's going to be pretty.

It's going to be a freak show. I don't know if I want to watch the undercard, whatever that'll be, but I absolutely, this is the kind of thing I do want to see on Netflix, just crazy shit like this out of nowhere. So I'm excited for this. And I mean, I don't know what the, will there be betting on this?

Will there be odds on this or whatever? Because this is going to kind of be. like the old boxer versus wrestler thing. Again, unless I'm misremembering Gino Carrano was a stand-up fighter. Gina? Shit, I said it again. You keep calling her Gino.

All right, Gino-Cirana. Gina, whichever one, she was a stand-up fighter, and Rhonda Rousey will take her down and fucking put to ham sandwich on her back. Yeah. Ronda gets past one front kick and that just grabs her arm.

over, but we'll see. It's coming up on May 16th, the Intuit Dome in Englewood, California, and of course, live on Netflix. Jim, speaking of products that are live on streaming services, WWE, of course,

they're on Netflix, they're over here, they're over there. ESPN is their partner for pay-per-views, a lot of us paying $30 a month for this crap. It was so much easier when it was all cable television. ESPN now has a deal at Major League Baseball,

where if you want to get the online Major League Baseball package, which, you know, is a few hundred dollars every year, let's say, you now have to pay an additional $30 a month for ESPN to unlock those games. So it's a bunch of crap. But WrestleMania is coming up. Yeah. Back in Las Vegas, they were there last year. I have an article that went up a couple days ago from post-wrest wrestling by Brandon Thurston.

WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas. easily broke all existing pro wrestling gate records drawing $66 million in ticket sales over two nights. So that was last year. Amazing success, wouldn't you say? Wait a minute. $66 million just in ticket sales over the two nights? This is according to data obtained by post-wrestling

from live event trade publication, or the live-event trade publication, poll star. these were not previously reported in the media Paul Star did not provide a breakdown of sales for individual nights I'm going to dispute that figure even though the WWE is and I don't want to get derailed here because I know we're trying to talk about this year

but I don't see how it would be possible to they had 120,000 people for the two nights let's say 60,000 a night. What would the average ticket have to be for 120,000 people to pay $66 million? If you can do the math, I'll wait for it. Wait, what math? I'm sorry, I was trying to find answers in the article.

What math are you looking for right now? They drew 60,000 people each night last year, right? Give or take. That's 120,000 people. How much would the average ticket have to be for 120,000 people to pay $66 million? And actually it's less than that because the total amount was 113,412 tickets sold according to this thing. So let's take that number.

I don't mean to be one of those type of people and derail the topic of your conversation. But they've just hit me with something I think is bullshit. Well, let's see. So we're talking 66. And I'm not saying $66 million. Well, it can't even be pay-per-view revenue anymore because they can't quantify that because they're the PLE on the fucking any TFLIX or ESPN or whoever the

If we divide the total for the two nights, 66,074,558 by the amount of tickets sold 113,412, the average would be $582.60 a ticket. Well, son of a bitch, they might have done that. That's insane. $66 million. Well, again, that was last year, and that was a major success. But let's talk about this year because at a time where fan enthusiasm for WWE is clearly down,

at a time where the arena sellouts aren't as frequent, at a time where the booking is being questioned more than it has since Vince McMahon disappeared, the word is coming out. I have an article here, but I'm sure you've seen stuff. WrestleMania 42 is struggling to sell tickets in Las Vegas for the second year straight. What are your thoughts? I'm not surprised. And when was that? They did a show here a few months back.

I remember us talking about it on our show here that, so what did they fucking expect? There's no way to get there. Where were the Salt Lake City? They're out of the middle of fucking nowhere in the, desert. Now, Las Vegas is not the middle of nowhere, but all of these things contribute. And that's the thing is when you have a big event like this that's not doing well, sometimes like the WrestleMania deal with Hogan and

fucking slaughter and they were going to do the L.A. Coliseum and have 100,000 people, but the angle stunk, the war came, nobody wanted to see it. That's pretty much cut and dry. That was the goddamn reason, right? Sometimes it's just you've shit the bed.

Yeah. But on something like this, it's everything contributing. It's not just one thing. And the booking, nobody ever knows the WrestleMania card at this time of the year. So it's not the card they're not liking.

It's that at this point in time, over the past few years especially, people have been anticipating, boy, it might be this guy and this guy, there might be this and this or might be that. There was a number of things that they were really excited about seeing. And that level with everybody dropping like flies and or the general malaise of, the creative whatever, they're not asking as many questions about who it might be or who might face who

or there's not as many options for them to get excited about it. But then there's also, they're in the middle of a fucking desert and they were just there last year with high-priced tickets. And they're coming back this year with high-price tickets. we've established that most of the time in WrestleMania these days that the largest part of the crowd

does not come from the immediate metropolitan area they travel it's not like it used to be when Watts ran a Superdome and all but two or three thousand of those people were from New Orleans so they've already seen that they paid a lot of money last year that may not as be excited about seeing it a fucking getting this quick locally. In the traveling sector, tourism is down. You're seeing reports of that not related to pro wrestling,

related to fucking tourism, the airlines and the hotel industry. Canada, what country would be the next country down on the list of sending the most people to WrestleMania besides the United States would be Canada. Obviously, Canadians don't want to come to the United States because they've been insulted by the fucking pig and chief. And the reports have been Canadian tourism is down double digits, especially not only Las Vegas general tourism is just down, but Canadian tourism is down more than general. All of these things play a problem.

part. And whether it's price or location, again, you can't just say I'm going to drive three or four days in advance. Let's drive over to Las Vegas. From where? So travel, price, the general malaise, all of these things. It's not a surprise. They're not doing what they did the very last day. It's the old, you know, you do a big supercard to open up a market and you get a big house because it's the first time they've seen these people ever or in a long, long time.

And then you go back because you did so good three months later and instead of the first time ever, it's first time in three months. And it don't do so good. Your thoughts, Brian. Well, let me give you some of what this article has here. This is by Robert Jackman, Yahoo Sports, uncrowned. It's not exactly the best way to kick off WrestleMania season, an emergency meeting to discuss low ticket sales.

But that's reportedly what happened in Stanford, Connecticut this past week, as WWE gathered some of its senior creatives, the senior creatives. Senior creatives. Around the table to discuss the apparently slow pace of tickets for this year's WrestleMania 42 weekend in Las Vegas. How bad are ticket sales? According to Russell Ticks,

WWE has sold just over 37,000 tickets for each of the two upcoming nights of WrestleMania in April. That's 10,000 fewer than this time last year when WWE ran exactly the same venue and went on to draw a crowd of 60,000 on both nights. Let's stop there, 37,000. a night so far. Yeah, and the information I've seen is that they're set up right

now for 43,000 in the stadium. And obviously they could always expand it if they had to, but they're set up to do 43,000. Last year they did 60 and

wavering, depending on how it's counted, they're going to be down, but here's another thing. thing. A lot of the people in this company have maybe not been there long enough to remember when if they had sold 20,000 tickets, they'd sold out the building that WrestleMania was in. Now that they've gotten used to and they've gotten complacent, oh, we'll just have two nights in a row where we'll draw 40 or 50 or 60,000 people a night in a stadium. That's a modern thing that has only been

possible over the last several years and it might not be permanent. And again, I think it could be more permanent if the ticket prices weren't outrageous. But let me go back to this article here. Well, yeah, here's another thing. I'll let you get back to your article. But if I'm seeing the information out, cheapest ticket available, $266, dollars. Cheapest available combo, $700-something

dollars, plus you've got to get to Las Vegas. And then you've got to stay in Las Vegas. And then you've got to eat in Las Vegas. Get around in Las Vegas. To fuck. Get laid in Las Vegas. That may be the cheapest thing of all. That would seem to confirm it then. Tickets aren't exactly selling like hotcakes. And plenty of folks have been quit to point to finger at TKO's

notoriously steep ticket prices, which have literally doubled in the past couple of years. Right now, a nosebleed seat on Saturday night of WrestleMania 42 will set you back $285, including fees, rising to 10 times that much and more for floor seats. TKO's aggressive pricing strategy has been a pretty persistent grumble for the past two years. But it wasn't like the prices were any different last year. We even had Randy Orton caught on camera, saying he thought WrestleMania 41 tickets were embarrassingly expensive.

And WWE still went on to sell out the stadium both nights. Boy, that Randy Orton doesn't learn about secret microphones or microphones being right. Does he? Where's that OVW tape? You've got to release it already. Well, on the first one, he was too young and stupid and no better, and now he's too old and rich to give a shit.

So again, ticket price is doubling. I mean, that's just for Raw and Smackdown, let alone WrestleMania, but they're doubling. They're in an expensive place like Las Vegas. They were announced for New Orleans, and they went back to Vegas. You didn't hear too many people went last year saying, I can't wait to come back to Vegas next year. Yeah.

And that's the thing. if again all of the expenses that I just itemized to go to Las Vegas to go to the wrestling show if you intended to do anything else in Las Vegas then that's extra on top of that whether go to a show or go to casino or blah blah blah and then you're dealing with you know the parking and the fucking the whole nine yards of Las Vegas and it's not like anybody just said God damn, we love wrestling so much. The only thing that would make it better is if every big show we go to could be in Las Vegas.

That's not what a lot of the wrestling fans are going for. The TKO people are used to these jet-sitting hip cats that are like the rat pack. They're in Vegas and they're at the lounge and then they're going back to L.A. or to New York. These people are coming from Des Moines to see a goddamn drop kick. and they don't have $10,000 to bring the family to do it. And I'm surprised they've got the 30-something thousand they've got, because it's not like they're going to have 70,000 different people. All those people are going to both nights.

I mean, there could be hundreds, you know, difference maybe, but not even thousands. But they haven't been announced a card, so it's not even like you could pick one night over to the other. Right. And, well, and besides that, you know, except for a work. schedule who the fuck is going to be there and not so anyway point is they've got 40,000 people already that are going to fly out to a fucking high price location at a desert and spend money to see their show but if they expect everywhere from now on to do 60,000 people per night for two nights even in a major metropolitan area it ain't going to happen so they're probably going to

go to Saudi Arabia every year. Well, let me scroll down a little bit in this article. Someone suggests that WW made a mistake running back-to-back WrestleMania is in one of the most expensive cities in the world, but that overlooks why WWE chose Las Vegas in the first place. Not only is the company receiving a hefty $5 million site fee, but the event will also qualify for a generous tax rebate from the Nevada government. That came out to more than $4 million, alone last year.

So again, stopping there, a $5 million fee and then a $4 million tax deduction. Well, God, are they going to make that up in the ticket sales? We've just talked about a $66 million gross on tickets. So, you know, oh, it's like the fucking money from the concession stand. But again, it doesn't matter if you get $4 million tax credit and $5 million.

if they end up in a situation where they go to where they can run the big building and the town will pay them to come there and do that, but they can't put any fucking people in it and it looks like shit, then they're going to have a problem. That's the other part of the TKO strategy, to extract as much money from host cities as possible, thus providing a potential hedge against slower ticket sales. When you look at all the major stadium shows like Mania and SummerSlam,

it's not uncommon to see about half of the total revenue coming from the host city, usually before a single seat has been sold. This leads to the biggest gamble in the TKO era, sending WrestleMania to Saudi Arabia for 2027. We don't know exactly how much to Saudi government is paying the host next year's event, but there are some suggestions it could be up to two years. It could be up to $250 million. Jesus Christ.

Well, let's stop here because there's not much more news in this article, it appears, but this is the issue when you're just selling shows. You know, WWE, since TKO has taken over, or maybe I should just say TKO, have acted like there's a secret, magical WWE formula that they have access to. And they could do anything and charge anything and go anywhere. and it doesn't matter because they are this traveling cavalcade of stars, superstars, going all over the world, making tens of millions of dollars everywhere they go.

They haven't paid attention to the creative and the creative is dropped and the fan interest has dropped and, you know, they spend so much time getting Triple H out there and doing everything they came to make him the face of the company, I don't know how much it's helping right now. And, you know, in the past, not to ever defend or justify Vince McMahon's perverted nonsense. But when it came to being a hype man, he knew what he was doing. Even when you didn't see him, his voice. You know, WrestleMania 7 may have been an issue. Again, going back to creative issues, they completely ignored the taste buds of the audience and decided to do what they wanted. But Vince McMahon was always good at those

Ressomania coming to Los Angeles like all that kind of shit It gets you kind of hyped up Seeing a bus with like Hulk Hogan's face on it He was like oh my God, that's a big deal on the TV He was P.T. Barnum What did we get for this WrestleMania? He was standing on the roof of the sphere

Because that's what people want to see him Standing on a rooftop in Vegas talking about how exciting it is to be in Vegas doesn't really appeal to wrestling fans. And then this fucking looking for Larry skit, or skits, because they did one with the women, too, of the top stars playing cards. Wow, what a cool scene.

It looks really cool. What a cool room. Look at the vibes. It does nothing to cause anyone, any excitement about buying a ticket for WrestleMania, does it? Am I wrong? That's what I'm telling you.

They're all, from the TKO ownership, Dana White's a guy that you see the videos of him winning a half a million dollars on a hand of fucking poker at a casino or whatever. They're all just fucking crazy, all the filthy, filthy rich. They don't understand normal fucking people anymore.

And yes, all that looks good. It looks like it's in the movies and everything. But they've had success. with the UFC audience because UFC audience is a bunch of fucking plumbers and carpenters and whatever the fuck that like see people get to shit slugged out of them but it's also these goddamn high rollers and rich people and Zabada and they've gotten away with that type of atmosphere there and they're trying to do the same thing in wrestling and they've all got way too used to the smell of their own farts when it comes.

comes to not realizing that a lot of these fucking guys that are just wandered around with the souvenir belts and that know how many fucking matches john seno won last year or whatever can't afford to go along with this and don't necessarily want to and they don't know what it's like to jet off to Vegas and go to the casino and they don't know why the fuck they should give a shit about all of these spoiled celebrities when we know all these people are fucking multi-millionaires now. That, I think, is part of the problem also. It's like, yes, we want to cheer for our heroes,

but goddamn, we also want to pay for our fucking groceries. And again, if you went last year, even if you had a great time, you know how much you spent. It wasn't just WrestleMania. Did you go to the fan fest? Did you go out to eat? Did you do anything other than the tickets? because you paid up the ass for it probably.

Brian, are you old enough to remember when you could, the one thing that you could do cheaper in Las Vegas and anywhere else in the country was fucking eat? With the goddamn, every hotel would have a $2.99 cent prime rib dinner on the fucking marquee. I've got pictures of them the first time I went to Las Vegas in 1986 because that was their way to get you in. They would give the food a way to get you in to play at their casino.

and now goddamn it's it's a steak dinner cost just to tip the fucking valet fucking hand job giver at the front or whatever well they may have to give out a lot of hand jobs this year to sell out these shows but WrestleMania 42 in Vegas if you're looking for tickets wait a little longer I would suggest wait for the scalpers to lower the prices because those see that's the thing is if you wait till the last minute when they put the tickets on sale, then you got a week to figure out how to get to fucking Las Vegas. Well, it could have been New Orleans. It could have been a sold-out Superdome, but here we are. Jim, not that we're going to go too much longer, but real quick, Comics Corner,

recent news. I have a headline here from Superman homepage.com. Oh, boy. Two Golden Age comic book icons sell for a combined $13 million. in historic private deal. It was a deal by heritage auctions apparently. Batman number one at 9.4. And Superman won at 8.5. Batman 1 being a universal grade,

Superman being a pedigree grade, but $13 million. We keep talking... I feel like in the last few months as we started talking about comic books on multiple occasions now we've talked about the sale of one of these books and it goes higher and higher in just a few months. Just another record. And again, you know what I found the other day?

Because I've been going through the negatives and part of the big Quarrettes Collectibles project is by photography from the 70s. But I also have gone through some pictures that were in the box, including pictures of some of the golden age comics I had when I was not even a teenager, younger than that. and I had a Superman number 12 at one time. Wow. And it was a good, very good, you know, that it's still, still. But it was a, at the time I got it's from 19, let's say 40, when I got it, it was 30 years old. But you know what that book is worth now? No.

In the condition, it's not even a thousand dollar book. in the condition I had it in. Now, because it's Superman number 12, it's not a key book. It's not one that gets all the attention. It's not, whatever. I had a Submariter 4 with a horribly rolled spine. And they're not as valuable now as some of the fucking

Silver Age books from the 60s that are key books. But nevertheless, it's, again, I don't know what else that you could go back if you had a time machine. And no, I can't imagine any other stock or unless you got in on the ground floor of Apple and the fucking whole thing and just bought up all of that shit.

But what has appreciated any more than comic books, especially the key books over the last 50 years? In 1972, I could have bought that if, if as a 10 or 11 year old kid, I could have talked my mother into giving me the money. I could have bought the Superman that just sold for $7 or $8 million or whatever it was

for like $250. That'd be like the greatest investment ever if you had gone down to the newsstand in my 1941 with a dollar bill. Give me 10 comic books, please. And every one of those. Oh, yeah, if you even, but if you went back any further to,

if you had a time machine, I guess you could just go. Just the first of the month, whatever the comics come out, I'll be here. But it's just, it's incredible. But at the same time,

as I mentioned, some of the, because I often wish, oh, I wish I still had those early detective comics or a couple of the other golden age things

that I had at one point in time. And when I look in the overstreet, they're not worth as much as some of the fucking marvels that actually bought off the goddamn stands in mint condition. It's amazing what the spread is these days. But I guess now that we publicized all this, we're not going to get any goddamn deals on Batman or Superman number one anymore.

More than likely not, and that is the comics corner for this week. I must admit, I've got the bug. I've been buying books for the first time in years since we started doing this. So hopefully we get obsessed with something else. soon. The book buying bug has bit you, so you've been buying books after being bitten by a bug. That's right. Well, Jim, I know we said retro figures, but we will do that next time because we've gone a little long and we had a few extra topics here.

So with that, the drive-thru is closed. All right. Hey, come on. When someone's here making beautiful music, we don't need that. That doesn't help anyone. except the ducks. I fought in your general direction. Of course, we'll be back in a few days

on the Jim Cornett experience and next week back here on the drive-through go through the archive, patreon.com slash cornet. $5 a month gets you access to the archive going back to 2013 Patreon.com slash cornet. The official Jim Cornett YouTube channel, just go to YouTube

and search for Jim Cornett. It'll come right up. Full episodes, Clip City episodes. Omnibusco. collections, that very popular George Livinitis artwork, that great guest artwork by Freeman, so much more, the official Jim Cornett YouTube channel, and stay tuned, some exciting stuff coming in 2026 on YouTube, who have more announcements in the future.

Cornets collectibles at Jimcornett.com. What's going on, Jim? All kinds of stuff, and just go there now and buy everything we have to clear it out of the way, because new stuff is coming very soon. At Jim Cornett.com. Of course, the drive-thru is brought to you by the Law Office of Stephen P.New, 877-50 Steve. Get even with Stephen at new lawoffice.com.

But until the experience in a few days and next week back here on the drive-thru, for Jim Cornett, I'm the great Brian last. Ouch.