Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru - Episode 437

Episode Date: April 5, 2026

This week on the Drive Thru, Jim reviews WWE Raw, and talks about Tony Khan & Vince Russo's online bromance, Bad News Brown going into the WWE Hall Of Fame, Jimmy Valiant's retirement match at 83 years of age, Rick Rude & Manny Fernandez walking out with the belts, WrestleMania gifts for opponents, and much more! Thanks to our episode sponsors: HARRY'S:  Our listeners get the Harry’s Plus Trial Set for only $10 at https://www.Harrys.com/JCE  #Harryspod THE PERFECT JEAN:  F*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean 15% off with the code JCE15 at theperfectjean.nyc/jce15  #theperfectjeanpod 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.

All right, the music was loud. I couldn't hear it sounded like you were singing along. Hello again, friends. And you are our friends. Welcome back to another edition of the wrestling and music spectacular Jim Coronet's drive-thru right here for another action-packed week of action-packed wrestling talk. We've got action and we're packed with it.

We're packed all we're impacted. I'm your host, the great Brian Lass, and here he is the man who makes the impact, the leader of the cult of Coronet. Mr. Jim Cornett. I'm fanning myself here, Brian, just one second, trying to get some fresh air after that. You know, I haven't had the most pleasant of weeks.

I was a little cranky. I was a little on the cranky side. Not my normal, pleasant, easy-going, fun and fancy free kind of self. I was a little on the cranky side on the experience. I'm trying to get cranked out of that. today here on a drive-through. Do you hear the sound over my shoulder, Brian? A little bit.

I got one for once. My yard mowing fellows came early this morning so as not to disrupt this program that we do in front of an ever-increasing amount of people each and every week and got out of here to ski-daddled and scramed and guess who showed up about 10 minutes before we're scheduled to go on the air our old friend Landon who still does the guy next door to me I think he sees some kind of illegitimate family relation

possibly from my neighbor and a squirrel and so now he's roaring his machinery and blowing his fucking as Troy Graham a dream machine said blowing your whiskey's smelling breath and shaking your nicotine stained fingers at me. He's blowing all his machinery right over here on this wing of the castle. So don't say a word to me about what's that noise. Just ignore it. Because I ain't a mood to be trifled with.

I'm still cranky at various things and people and entities and sorts. so don't be frivolous with me. I will brook none of your foolishness today, sir. That's good, no, and at least Landon's there for support. But, you know, we're going to have a fun show. Oh, yeah, I would like that taken. And here's another thing. It's not even April yet.

And we're already all fools. Everything is budding. The dogwood is starting to bloom weeks ahead of schedule. We just had a freeze last week. the red buds are in full color, except by one over here on the side, I think may have been freeze bit the other day. But this is way early.

It's like record hot temperatures here around the Ohio Valley. And with it has come the pollen. So now Michigan J. Frog is in my throat. So just don't worry about it there. then. And this is the happy talk, folks. This is the happy talk portion of the show.

You know, there's one fucking sorry sack of shit that's happy in the world today. We heard from him. No, I'm just, I'm using that. Well, see, that's kind of American, because the word that he uses in this email that he sent to us, because, you know, the folks in the United Kingdom across the pond, they use that C word just frivolously. but it's frowned upon in this environment over here. So I can't call him that as a term of endearment. So our southern term of endearment is,

why are you sorry, sacking a shit? In a loving way. We heard from Grado is what we did. Because, Brian, we just, on the last program, I think of whatever, talked about Grado, told a story on somebody's, podcast that he was on. He sent me a link to it.

I haven't had a chance to watch it in person yet. But on the show that he was doing, he told the story about when T&A sent him an actual drawing of a check, somebody drew a picture of a check on a piece of paper from TNA and sent it to him as a paycheck. Hey, after you hear about that, don't you just want to do it? Don't you just want to draw a check and send it to someone to try it out?

You know, again, we've already gotten some feedback that I was going to go into more of this on the experience because we've gotten some feedback on the idea of checks in general and I think I have an email on that that I'll find for the experience but that folks like in Scotland maybe the United Kingdom there's people that haven't seen a check in 30 years and there's also people as I was about to mention that have said actually

you can legally still, in the old days, remember I said you can do that here, draw this on my bank, you can still technically legally do that in many places if all the information on your handwritten document is correct and it's presented to your bank where they know these things. But nevertheless, a lot of people don't fucking see checks over there anymore, which would, how do they pay their bills? I mean But no That's a direct deposit

Where they send you your money And it's directly deposited in your bank account And I There's been a few people Try to do that to me And I never liked it Because I want to see the goddamn document In my hand

But just to pay the goddamn electric company Yeah then they're gonna They just pull it out of your account Direct deposit Well yeah fuck them I don't have anybody just pull anything out of my account. While they're in there, they may start shopping. Something may stick to the fucking hand as they draw it back.

There are no, there's no, I pay all of my bills by a check and have for the past 50 fucking years. But nevertheless, back to the original thing that we'll more on the experience on this gripping topic. But Grado wrote in, and I will excerpt a few things because he heard our reaction to his reaction to getting that check and et cetera. And he says, if you are arst, which is, I believe, from my time over there dealing with the fine folks, that means if we give a shit. That's the way you'd say, if you give a shit, he has been doing. a BBC sitcom called Two Doors Down for like seven seasons on BBC One. And now they're going to do an eight-night run at the hydro in Glasgow. Oh, wow.

The WWE runs their fucking shows. They're doing like the live performance of this sitcom, eight nights in a fucking row. So this is, this ain't no dog and pony show apparently. He's got himself involved with. here. He also hosts the Heart of Heart Scotland Breakfast Radio show every morning. He does the Christmas pantomimes. I mean, people in Wardberg are going, what the fuck are these things? But these are

big deals to them over there. And twice a year, he does Grado's Big Family Wrestling Bash at the Pavilion Theater in Glasgow and April 25th. only has a hundred tickets left is going to sell out 1,500 people with only Grado announced on the car that's crazy he's a fucking cottage industry I'm telling you

and here's the thing people are going to say well I cordet love this fucking comedy wrestler if he's running his own shit and doing network television I can soften up a little bit for him because also listen it is he says I book decent looking guys that can work and talk the only

bleep on the show who doesn't look like a fucking wrestler is me and I always go over. Glad he added that at the end there. Six matches, three in the first half and three at the second half. He wants to keep the mums and dads entertained because when you need that you want, you need them to want to come back because the kids always want to. And the parents need convincing to bring them. he doesn't book anybody that looks like a bag of shite and there's no three-way dance bullshit

that's just straight up good guy versus bad guy and that's why they keep coming back so oh and he did mention that apparently he's it looks like he's 10 years too late for the WWE's comedy spot because Danhausen's got it now he says so here's a curse for you fuck off

and that's that's for great Cheers mate and all that type of lingo they use over there You know I'm not too familiar with his work but I know who he is and I've seen a little bit of him and you know he's right about the timing of it if you look at all the ironic things that became big

with wrestling in the States like Orange Cassidy or Danhausen or a timeless Tony Storm whatever it may be he was kind of one of the early guys doing that, but I guess the difference is he, not that none of them have business sense, but it seems like he's pretty entrepreneurial and has found a way.

I mean, for an indie wrestler, I mean, I say that, I don't know if they consider him that over in England, but here in the States, for an indie wrestler from 10 years ago to have everything going on, and he has going on, it's pretty amazing. Well, yeah, I mean,

and where would he be, you know, if it was 10 years ago and it was an AEW starting up, is he one of the guys AEW would have gone after? Oh my God, he would have been the champion at that point. For one thing, he's barely a wrestler now, and I don't say that as a knock.

He was barely a wrestler then. I'll say that as a knock, but he doesn't have time to fucking wrestle on his own shows that he sells out because he's doing goddamn network TV and playing Santa Claus to the goddamn royal family. I don't know what the fuck he's doing over here, but he's doing every goddamn thing.

can't get away from him. Apparently, people are trying. But that's the thing is that he was so hot. T&A drew houses over there off him without the benefit of. That's what I remember hearing. Billionaires backing in a potential, you know, they're talking about a feud with the, they're going to unseat the WWE and all the buzz when AEW started a few years before

that. What everybody had accepted that T&A. wasn't going to be the ones to get the job done. He still drew for him because he was so hot over there and he had the entrance and the fucking, he got on legitimate television. Is that a,

can we say that now? Like legitimate theater. He got on fucking actual television. It's BBC 1. Yeah, not BBC 4, you know. Yeah, well, whatever. But not, I'm just saying, not in the wrestling universe. He was on legitimate television shows.

And because he was an entertaining personality. So he kind of did, well, unfortunately, without the big contract that Danhausen's gotten first, but he kind of did what we hope our young friend Danhausen will do, which is be entertaining in some kind of way that he can branch out into other forms of entertainment besides wrestling that may be more longer, longer term suited to his needs. And you use that goddamn. word again. I swear to God, before 1995 or whatever, you would never have heard the word ironic except if you were reading 1800s literature. Now it's come to mean apparently in my eyes bullshit. So I was looking up ironic, which irony, to see how close it was to bullshit. And it's

the use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning or incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs. So in other words, people that are fucking saying one thing that mean another, so they're unbelievable. And what actually occurs is not what was expected, so it doesn't make a lick of fucking sense. That's what everybody likes for ironic these days.

Well, thanks for writing in radio. doing. Yeah, thanks for writing. Oh, yeah. Yes, good to hear from you, Grado. And good to hear from the telephone ringing here suddenly. I don't know who the fuck that might be. All right. And of course, any other wrestlers who have letters to the editor, whatever you want to call it, feel free to send your emails to corny drive-thru at gmail.com. And if we like it, we'll get to it on the air. And you know what? If you're not a wrestler, but you just would like a piece of me, you want a piece of me? It's, if Saturday, April 4th

has already occurred by the time that you're hearing this, then at noon, that's when all the Jim Cornett ring-worn and ring-used merchandise went on sale at Jim-Cornet.com. The shirts, the pants, the ties, the shoes, the glasses, the rackets, the, the ephemera, if you will, that I've used and abused over my,

the last 30 years of my career. Now that I'm retired at the home and I'm not in need of these things anymore, I'm just having the doors open wide for the folks to come on in at Jimcornet.com and snatch these pieces of history up. All details are just click on collectibles and boom.

Whoops, there it is. Whomp, there it is, not whoops. Whoops. Well, whoops, what is it? whoop or whoop, there it is, hoop, there it is. Whomp, there it is, what was that exclamation? Wom! See?

Womp. Womp. Womp. Shared wasn't whoosh. Whosh, there it is. I know, I know it wasn't woops. What is whoop? And whoosh, it suddenly, whoosh, and landed right in front of you.

There it is. But whoop, it's like, fuck, that thing just fucking fell over. Swamp, W-H-O-O-M-P. Well, it'd have been a bigger hit if they'd have written it properly. All right, well, once again, Cornett's collectibles, Jim Cornett.com. Jim, why don't we start with what's happening in wrestling last night as we are recording, a big Raw, WWE Raw at Madison Square Garden. We gotta start with that.

We don't have to. It's up to you. well let's get it over with then but he i know i know i know i know that it's a big marketing machine and these guys are stars sounds like the start of a bill watts memo but again 181171 people in madison square garden in new york the pickiest audience probably wouldn't you say altogether in the United States, you really had to impress the people in Madison Square Garden, Brian, from your own experience, be it you've been there more than I have probably. Yeah, and New York in general is a tough sports town.

For instance, the Mets got a new third baseman. In three games into the season, they were booing him out to the stadium because he struck out a few times. Again, it's the beginning of the season, brand new guy. New York's a tough market. You have to perform here, and you have to perform well. You'll hear it. Or you won't hear it.

Okay. So, yeah, oh, yeah. And they have seen through all the eras, right? And we're talking of Austin and Undertaker typeish and mankind and the fucking attitude era and angle and all it. I mean, just when shit was fucking happening, right? And if they were old enough before that, they remember goddamn Hogan and that cast of characters.

Eight dollar tickets. Well, and that's another thing they remember. even for the price, even, if it was the same show, the point I'm making is these people in Madison Square Garden became a glorified studio audience for a three-hour television show where there were four matches that I think didn't. And I know everybody says, Oh, Cornyette A-Dade said when the AEW matches go 25 minutes,

and I do. But if you've only got four matches on a three-hour show and they only go 10 minutes or less each, that kind of fucking sucks too, doesn't it? For those ticket prices. Yeah, this, and again, this is the hardest audience. And this is the,

one of the most jaded one would think audiences if they've been around for lengths of time because of all of the greats and near-grates that have, you know, performed there, et cetera. and they get a three-hour show where they have four matches and in the middle all the stars come out and talk to each other

and or have a 30-second flurry or in some cases just throw around a bunch of security guards. And I don't know how hit those prices. They could continue to get those numbers for... They get a sat there watching a fucking home. It's not like that all those, how many people would you say were in Madison Square Garden last night for the very, they're seeing their very first WWE show? Oh, I don't know.

I have no way of, I hadn't even thought of that question. I don't know. One would think it's not, again, in Madison Square Garden in New York City where they have been consistently more than most places, most, most those people, one would think, have been there before. wouldn't you imagine? I don't know. They don't run there that frequently and the ticket prices are pretty high. I don't know.

That's why I'm actually thinking about it. There was a time where there were always new people coming in because a lot of the older people weren't coming anymore too. But I don't know what it is now. Yeah, because a lot of the older people were going.

But there was always the steady you knew in your hometown, half the people, three quarters of the people or the people who come every week or every month or whatever, you can kind of see. But point being is,

they were happy with this in New York. I mean, it might play in Poughkeepsie, but they were happy with this show at Madison Square Garden. Apparently, they don't make a noise. God damn, if we had formatted, again, I think back to my experience under the emperor of poopdom

if we had told Vince yeah we're going to start the show with a fucking three minute entrance and it's not for Hogan or Austin before anybody fucking says anything or does anything and it's just

and then whoever is entering in this case it was Cody they went straight to no recap or anything straight to Cody music out he comes Cody, Cody, three minutes after the start of his music, he spoke.

What do you want to talk about? Had goddamn music plays. And here comes Stephanie. And Brian, my reaction was that ain't a, that's a very tepid reaction. But again, it was New York, these jaded New Yorkers.

But it took, she ran out of pop by the time she got there, didn't she, into the ring, she had already it had worn off. And then we get basically a scripted promo that Stephanie has gotten a chance to memorize for herself about her grandfather built Madison Square Garden, Tootsmont and Jack Curley would both like words.

But even if you're referring to this, just that building. I mean, as a wrestling promoter, her grandfather had that building for what, 14 years, 13 years? 13 years, I think. Yes. Yeah, I mean,

I guess I didn't want to say the house that Vince built, but it was the whole thing, the whole thing was a ridiculous argument here. You said scripted. That's a nice way of saying it. This was Vinceera, WWE content. Yeah. this was almost like

some writer since he's about to get fired and came up with this idea to shoehorn Stephanie McMahon into something completely out of nowhere to please her and save his job. This, in her heelish and unlikable way, she recited this bunch of shit

that really never got to a lot of the point till the end. you didn't know where it was going to about Randy Orton is so diabolical you got to think like Randy Orton you know you just you're just a babe in the woods here a babe in the woods baby in the woods baby in the bull this is some bull in the woods dusty could get down and dirty she said but you're not your father and this version of Cody Rhodes can't beat this version of Randy Orton because he's the viper and the snake and he'll strike and blah, blah, blah. And Cody's standing there

and taking his thing from her. And then his comeback is acknowledging how violent and viperish Randy Orton is, but I'm not afraid. And but then the comeback was to the point and to Orton. But then he got the, the only big pop maybe of the thing or the definitely the biggest pop.

Cody told her, well, I'm not my father, but Stephanie, respectfully, you're not yours either. And there they came. They wanted somebody, in New York, they wanted somebody to, it mentioned Vince as soon as they saw Stephanie. They had to refer to him in some kind of way. The fans did. And they had to know that or they wouldn't have put that line in. that it wasn't going to get fucking booed or whatever.

But nevertheless, then Stephanie slaps Cody. And it says, it basically dresses him down like, I'm out here to help you. And it'll let you

basically to smart you up, kid, because you're in over your head. But basically, fuck it, nevertheless. Randy's voices are going to cause you to lose. And she referred to the Randy's voices and whoever else he's listening to. And who knows what's,

I still say, my idea's better. He's on a dead phone. The voices are telling him on the phone to do the shit. But nevertheless, it ain't, I'm just, nevertheless.

Randall, hi. How you doing? They're not, they're not going to allow him to have any telephone communication. or emails that aren't monitored by an independent third party. Nevertheless, fucking Stephanie, Stephanie goes to the billionaire princess,

tells Cody that Orton's going to beat him basically at WrestleMania because he's a, doesn't know what he's doing here. And she goes to walk off and he snatches her. And she spins around and bows up. I thought for a minute she might have to whip him. here. But he said, Stephanie, I've got two words for you. And they start coming up. Thank you. And he walks off on her and the people are. So, yeah, I've, again.

Yeah, I got two words for the writers. Fuck you. What was this? I got one word for Cody at WrestleMania, which he's going to hear over and over. Boo! The conditions are right. You know, like the severe thunderstorm warning, Brian, where you got to have 58 mile an hour wins, you know that for a severe thunderstorm criteria. I believe we can now officially announce at least a moderate risk of severe boo storming for WrestleMania with Cody Rhodes against Randy Orton.

They should have had Brandy come out there and tackle Stephanie. That would have been the only way to say. a second. That would have been the only way to save this segment and give the world the baby face they need. Yeah, I mean, again, I've said it for a while. They've booked Cody under. He's the world champion. I'm saying they've booked him horribly. They've not given anyone a reason to cheer him. And I don't know what this segment was supposed to be. I don't know what kind of pop they thought Stephanie would get. I don't know why they think Stephanie is good on the mic in terms of sounding realistic or real or likable.

She sounds like she's going over a script like you said, but again, it sounds like it's a script from 10 years ago. I got tired of seeing her slap wrestlers, and nothing ever happened. And now she's doing it again to the world champion? You said it, talking to him like, listen, kid, he's 40. What the fuck? What is this?

They shoehorned Stephanie on it. It is like they shoehorn her into everything. but this doesn't, this booking is not helping Cody. She's very shoe horny. Unless they're going with Cody's going to turn heel by being crazier than Randy Orton, they're not doing anything to help Cody Rhodes right now. That's what I think.

Do you see any positives in the booking of Cody Rhodes right now? Oh, no, no. And I'm wondering if that's why again, you know, maybe the golden boy, the chosen one. this is his path. Golden Boy Cody Rhodes, baby. What a heel. What a heel he's going to be.

But nevertheless, that's what happened there. We were past 15 minutes in to get to that point. What did that segment build up? Like, what did that segment led to nothing? It just went away. Well, it basically told people that Stephanie McMahon thinks that Cody Rhodes is going to get his ass whipped

unless he gets his head out of his ass, which is what you want everybody to think about your baby face, I guess. They should have had Heyman come out there as his advocate and say, you can't have the boss's wife who has no official position coming out of a slapping talent? Yeah, and I bet you he could hook her up with a, or hook him up with a personal injury attorney. Yeah.

Fucking take care of that. Important note, the drive-thru is brought to you by the law office of Stephen P. New 877-5-0-0-Stive. Get even with Stephen Newlawoffice.com. but you know what we don't beat that to death as much anymore because poor stephen if he has any more he's overworked clients or i won't say customers he's not running a fucking ice cream stand if he has any more clients he'll go out of his mind uh but nevertheless it was time now for the first match of the night uh after they've broken and travel logged and plugged and whatever we're 20

minutes in. So we're going to get a tag team championship match with Logan Paul and Austin Theory against the Uso's. And it's a street fight. Oh, God. Thank God. Thank God. Any other match with the Uso's I wouldn't have been able

to watch at all. I'm not saying this is perfect, but it's better than watching them wrestle a regular match. Then why was this the shortest whatever? Normally when we have to watch them wrestle a regular magic goes on forever. This thing, they had the entrances. They rang the bell after 30 seconds. Air Uso did a dive and they went to a three and a half

minute fucking break. And so when they finally came back, they had a table in the ring and two trash cans, a Kendo stick. And they were super kicking the trash cans and beating the trash cans with the Kendo sticks. Because it's no and I started to say, and no J.C.

But by the time that I could even try to skip anything, it was like six or seven minutes into this thing, counting the break, the Uso's superplexed theory through a table in the middle of the ring and all of them are laying dead, which gives the opportunity for the attention to go to Logan Paul down on the floor where he goes to the front row. And Brian, can you vouch for the people that I'm not lying when I utter these words?

Logan Paul gets a pair of brass knuckles from his mother who pulls him out of her purse. Yes. That is what happened. Mama Paul. Mama Paul. Me. Mama Paul Mama Paul, we got a thing

Going on Because his name is Billy Paul You went to his song Is that what was the What led you there? Well, I just was thinking of Mama Paul You know, I spent many great moments With Mama Paul

About 2.30 She'll be there Mama Paul All right, let's get Far away from the falsetto and back to the... Yes, Rapo. The vision of the Uso.

Hey, we know when they were hitting him with the Kendo sticks, I had to thought, thank God he has that garbage can on to protect him. Because otherwise, those Kendo sticks would really hurt. Well, obviously, but that's the deal,

but here's the thing. Who was it? It's just, it's okay to do every once in a while. And actually in old-fashioned street fights when he didn't see them every day. It was a nice little spot when everybody knew how to take it and what the fuck. And you didn't, they go crazy with it now to the point where it loses.

He was hitting him so many fucking times the guy couldn't sell anything. You see what I'm saying? It used to be like they'd do a little pinata spot, but whack the can and let the guy fucking sell. And it just, it's rushed. But nevertheless, it can be dangerous also. And I'm trying to think who it was. I can't remember.

One of the girls, and I think one of the guys over the period of time that I've been around to see these things, they put the can over their head and they hit it with the fucking stick so hard that the can, because they didn't have their hands upright, they chipped their teeth in their face, right? Bam! Because it's just, you can't see with the can on.

You can't see which direction it's coming from. and you're trying to sell and they're hitting so fast, you see what I'm saying. Yeah. So nevertheless, Mama Paul gave the knucks to Logan Paul who and Mama Paul is sitting next to I show speed, who is the person of somewhat dubious employment status in the world. who just shows up places. And last time we saw him, somebody speared him.

Oh, Bronbreaker. There you go. So whatever the fuck it is that this guy does that he is asked to be these places, he's sitting next to the mother of Logan Paul. But now, L.A. Knight, who's been doing color commentary on his thing, comes over and he jumps on Logan Paul,

and he just walking a dog on Logan Paul. Logan Paul has dropped the nucks. So speed is, when Logan Paul is attacked by L.A. Knight, Logan Paul holds on to speed and drag speed over the rails. Now they're fighting over there and speed sees the nucks. But apparently even though he's sitting next to Logan Mama Paul, he's supposed to be a baby facer, at least was not against Logan Paul

against L.A. Knight is what I'm trying. He's a baby face. He was on L.A. Knight's side because when he's trying to spin around and he's got the nucks and somebody grabs him on his shoulder, he hits. L.A. Knight knocks him out, but he didn't mean to hit L.A. night.

So he must have thought it was Logan Paul. Did you understand this goddamn exchange? Where he gets the nucks, he puts him on his fist, the guy touches him, he spins around, knocks him out. Then he's like, oh shit, I didn't mean to knock out L.A. night. Well, then the only other choice was Logan Paul, but now he's freaked out and he fucking leaves.

Why is he sitting next to Logan Paul's mother? So speedy, he takes off. Logan Paul gets the knucks and swings and misses, and the Uso's, super kick Logan Paul and then fucking super kick Austin Theory and spear him. But as the other guy's going to go to the top to do 18 more finishes, Logan Paul, who still has the Nucks, hit Jimmy and knocked him out. One, two, and they did all that in under 10 minutes with the break.

I'm a what the fuck is happening? What was happening, Brian? And then, of course, I shall speed left with the vision, with the bad guys. Oh, did he? I thought he'd already gone when he left before. Oh, no, he came back out of because they had a vision of him with the vision. I'd already quit paying attention to my vision to this fucking thing.

What happened? They got the belts off. Well, then what the fuck? Why did he goddamn leave him getting with? What is happening? I don't know. Now, how did Mrs. Paul get past security, and the metal detectors at the garden?

I don't know. But new tagging champions, the Uso's didn't have to lose in a square and fair match, and the vision has something going for them finally now? Because all the interesting stuff are Paul Heyman is not involving them right now. Yeah, I think he's kind of, well, and I don't blame him, actually, because this thing with Brock and Oba is huge

and his interventionist thing well we'll get to the other thing but you're right about just again you know I went to the garden for years and until the late 90s raw there were no wrestling shows that didn't have a card of seven or eight matches maybe at the garden I don't know and then all of a sudden

with the late 90s raw, you started seeing more extended interview segments, opening segments that went a while. This goes into the early 2000s. None of that went away. It's only more now. And clearly they allotted a lot of time for promo segments and no time for matches.

And the matches they did give you, you know, again, I've always said I liked it, Yo, Sky. I didn't watch that match. I didn't care. I didn't watch the pent a match. I didn't care. I wanted to see the stars. and what they were going to do, and none of them were wrestling.

Somehow or another, Brian, in a previous generation, we had a way to still do Raw that had Buku multiple times more viewers than it does now, and still have it be an action-packed show with a roster half the size that the size

that they've got now, a third the size, whatever the size you can count in XT, who knows what the multiple is, and not have the people in these major NBA arenas, which we were in then also sitting

there for fucking 15 or 20 minutes without seeing any appreciable action, even amongst stars. If you're not going to give a main event away, somehow they managed to interact. and boom, boom, and there were more matches and they were shorter when they happened,

but there was more of them and it kept the thing flowing. And nobody, again, it's wonderful to be able to milk the people and get them to chance your name and et cetera. But at this point, not only for the television viewer, five-minute entrances, which we'll get to here at a minute, actually six, with just the announcers just kind of filling, yeah, there's a blah, blah, blah, telling you the story, okay, but it's still a guy walking to the fucking ring for six fucking minutes. And so for the television viewer, you get, you got a lot of places in this show you can get

distracted without turning the whole thing into a goddamn 100 mile an hour, formatted in a blender type of crash TV like old Vinny Rue would write. There's some middle ground to be able to keep things moving along. And, and again, with the size roster they got, but you get, you get a lot of girls match filler and then you get, you know, the tag team garbage match so they can get the, you know, the belts away from the Uso's or whatever the fuck it was. And the stars that are in the main events at WrestleMania talk to each other in various

forms, but God damn, for three hours, if you congealed that all down into, would that make a good pro wrestling this week with Gordon Solie and Joe Petasino back in 86 when they had 48 minutes without commercials? Yeah, pretty much. The saddest thing is just that Vince McMahon succeeded in making the fans accept this, because they didn't always, and now more than ever they accepted in the, they pay the highest prices ever for it, a wrestling event with barely any matches build is taking place,

and if you go there, there may not be too many matches that actually take place. And then, like you said, I can't even imagine what it would be like to be in that building when the music's playing and people at home are in a commercial break. And for three minutes, I have to listen to someone's music while they stand there. That's awful. And somehow they've made people, they've made people accustomed to it.

their fans and they accept it, you know, it's one of the things that you look at AEW say it's a big miss if there was just an alternative product that was, you know, angles and promos the way you're supposed to have them, but also matches that people care about. But, you know, whatever, but that's the problem. And or even if they've made people used to this, that's the problem. Even if not every, everybody cares about every match in the three-hour program, if it's, It's a somewhat legitimate, regular talent, recognized star of some level against a guy who knows what the fuck he's doing. You can have them out there for six minutes bell to bell with a minute entrance apiece. And it's not going to fucking kill the goddamn show and the network fucking tear your contract up.

But it's easier to take two of those than it is one of them that goes twice as long. long. Nevertheless, an hour and 15 minutes into the show, we finally get Barack. Let's see, I don't know how, maybe that's how I realize it now, Brian. Paul has been saying Barack Lassner like that for so long. He has built his throat muscles up. That's what it is. It's not that he's got jowls. It's just that his throat muscles are so prominently developed that it's pushed the edges of his cheeks and shit out. But I bet those things are hard as a rock.

It's just an observation. I don't know. I guess so. But nevertheless, Brock and Paul are in the ring, and his name is Paul Heyman, etc., etc. And did the promo for him for Brock. Hey, this obfemi,

one time Seth Rollins distracted Brock and another time Brock wasn't dressed to wrestle, well now he's dressed a fight. And he started cutting a promo. Anyway, he did cut the promo on Oba and jazzed that up a little bit. And he's impeccable with that. And then to give it even more gravitas, to carry more weight and cachet, Brock grabbed the microphone,

said, all right, to hell with this. Obafemi, get your ass out here. But here comes Adam Pierce, who looked like he needed a drink. And he said, no, no, no, no, no. This ain't going to happen tonight.

You're not screwing up the WrestleMania main event. He's got security with him. I mean, again, everybody knows what I'm talking about. This is constantly done. Please leave the ring. Here's the security guys that don't look like they get whipped cream with an outboard motor. And then suddenly the lights went out and the music played and here came Oba Femi.

What is the thing, if the sheik did the camel walk, then what is the thing that Oba does called? The turkey trot or what did the war day? amongst who? What fucking fearsome tribes war dance like that? I don't know enough about the history of fearsome tribes, but obviously it's some sort of motivational, this is what we do when we go to battle kind of... It looks like a fucking...

A dance from an 80s country video when those fucking boot scooting bars were goddamn infashionable. And then the ones where you could hang the woman's underwear on the fucking bar and everything. What? Boy, it was, it was fucking pain in the ass, getting the goddamn nails out of those things, too, while nobody was looking.

What? Anyway, so here comes Oba. And he does his walk to the ring. And he pitches four or five security guards around and shoved Adam Pierce. Adam took a nice little bump, his monthly bump. And then Oba walked. around the ring doing his and I'm saying, oh, he's getting inside of Brock's head.

He's getting all my fucking nerves by this point. Half his show has been people walking to the fucking ring. Get in the goddamn ring. So he got on the apron and then he got in the goddamn ring. And as soon as they had the face off going,

Triple H slid in and got in between him. And he got booed. Because everybody by this point was like me, just fucking do something, even if it's wrong, as Mama Cornett would say. And he's in between them and there, and Brock ended up being the one he stepped out, and he and Paul are leaving, and Brock grabbed one of the security children and F-5'd him on the floor on the way out. So this was literally 15 minutes, and I know as good, promotion for their match.

And again, as I mentioned, they're following the principles that I've prognosticated. If they do anything physical, it's brief. And Oba has so far come out on top of most everything. And if they don't do anything physical, it's going to even be briefer. And so that's what, but God damn. we're an hour and a half into the show by this point, and we've seen this promo where they came out and stared in menacing fashion at each other,

and Stephanie slapped a world champion. Am I being too pessimistic? You know, it is cranky season, Brian. I told you I was cranky at the top. Am I being too pessimistic here? I think so right here specifically, because I think the Brock Oba stuff has been the best thing on Raw. even with the strong Cody, or not Cody, even with the strong CM Punk, Roman Rain stuff,

the anticipation for anything to happen has made this the best thing. And something as little as Brock coming out there in his gear, made you think something could happen. And, you know, again, now we've gotten three weeks of people really getting into Oba's entrance before he does anything. And this is the week where he did the least. But also, they probably should not have him do anything else to Brock. cluster before WrestleMania at this point.

You know, again, maybe Brock might pissed his post-hosties in some fashion, nothing devastating to leave him down and vulnerable or whatever,

but otherwise it's made, but it's just, I, and again, this show was well, this show, this segment was well done because of everybody

that was in it, but I'm just, I'm just tired of watching these shows where the most, time is spent, playing the music and walking to the fucking ring. But at least we could skip ahead because the next match was Penta and Kofi Kingston and neither of us gave a shit.

But that was another 10 minute. On any other show, that would have been, like a 20-minute match. At least it gives the people into building something to fucking look at. And that was like 10 minutes. You know, Jim, though, when you talk about the Brock and Oba stuff, you go with Brock and you look at Oba, even Heyman. It must be hard for these three men to get a good pair of jeans,

a pair of jeans that fits, that feels good, that doesn't crush the nether regions, a gene that you could trust, and we know someone the listeners can check out today, Jim, the perfect gene. Well, that's right, that's exactly right, because, you know, imagine Brock Lester is not built like the normal guy.

I think it's safe to say that most normal people are not built like the old goddamn guy that used to do the gorilla suit spots on a 60s comedy series. He's just, he's gigantic and enormous everywhere, but the perfect gene, well, they stretch and you can move freely. You can squat and bend and sit and dangle the boys with just reckless abandon without fear of them getting caught in the vice-like, hammer-like, grip of the seam of the goddamn stiff awning-like material jeans that you are currently wearing. Do you get the mental picture, Brian, that I'm trying to draw here?

Something like that, yes. Well, the perfect gene will not render you sterile every time you bend over to fucking flush the toilet. So that's the thing, whether you look like Brock Lester, you know, they got all kinds of sizes. I just looked at the various sizes when I ordered my jeans. And, you know, that's another thing. I went to the doctor one time because I was worried. I was losing my hair.

I got this bald spot starting. He said, well, it might not be anything we can do. It's in your jeans. I said, Doc, that's not the problem. I've got hair in my jeans. But the perfect gene, you can actually shave and just be naked down there. And it's not going to chafe you because they're more comfortable. because they don't have, you know,

the sadists and massacus making these goddamn things, like the normal genes where they'll just cut your balls and right up in your tank, you'll give you a red taint from ass crack all the way to fucking ball zipper. But I'll tell you, the perfect gene is not going to do that

because they've got all kinds of sizes and all kinds of colors and all kinds of styles and various things, but they all have one thing in common is that they're perfect because they're comfortable. So whether you've got athletic legs that lift weights or you got ham hawks because you got your own mud flaps coming out of your goddamn gluteous maximi,

whatever, you can find something to fit you here. I don't know about Hayman, though. It might be hard. I don't know that you might have to go to some type of veterinary supply instead of human clothing. All right. Well, listen. We have no guarantees, but I think even Paul Heyman wouldn't have to worry about finding a good pair of comfortable fitting, good-looking jeans from our friends, the perfect gene. Well, and that's right, and you can go to the perfect gene, and of course, that's J-E-A-N, not like Gene Simmons, he's not perfect. Gene LaBelle, the perfect gene. Well, no, he was actually with a G. So you... I was going based on just the way.

not the actual spelling, but... Oh, no, I'm trying to direct fucking illiterate people. How to goddamn find this thing. The perfect... Well, I'm trying to just try to help everybody. Gene Madrid, the perfect gene. Gene Madrid, there you go.

Theperfect gene. Dot NYC. I guess they're so big, they got their own fucking thing now. Instead of dot com, it's the perfect gene. and you can read all about how wonderful and amazing these things feel how well they're made, how you can avail yourselves of the opportunity to purchase them along with the butter soft teas

and polos that can perfectly hug your arms and chest, Brian. And yeah, I know how much you like having your chest hugged. Hey. And they've got a midweight plush brushed as quarter zip pullover. that's luxuriously soft. Apparently much of this is made of unborn virgin goat's fur,

which is, again, one of the softest things known to man. We don't know about that. That's what Elbano told me. I don't think that's a reputable source for this, considering he's been dead for about 20 years, but Jim... Well, see, this should have last, too, for you. Let's come back around. A great deal.

Let's give the listeners that information one more time. Well, I'm going to give him some of the information. now. Thousands of guys who wore Levi's for 20 years have donated their entire collection to a bonfire after trying one pair of these jeans because of the comfort and the quality and the fucking fact that again,

don't just put your balls at a vice. Get 15% off your first order and free shipping at the perfect gene. YC when you use the code JCEE4.N.YC when you use the code JCE15. Again, 15% off the first order plus free shipping at the perfect gene.n.yc. Or you can Google the perfect gene,

if you'd prefer to do that, and use the code JCE 15 for 15% off. You can do either of those things apparently, and both of them will work. Perfect Gene. Yes. Back to Raw. Oh.

Well, back to Paul. Paulie's in the ring again. I mean, it's better than jelly roll. Last Fry's Smackdown has become the jelly roll show. If we can have Heyman out here, if we've got to listen to somebody talk, I'd rather it be him. And we don't have to worry about watching him walk to the ring

endlessly because they obviously he made three trips this night they had a golf cart there's no way he'd have been able to do that so and at the start of the segment as soon as he started speaking the fucking ring lights went

out for a second and then they hit him with a spotlight and he said oh I guess a fucking lighting guy is from New Jersey and got the pop and he's trying to crow that Logan Paul and Austria, the new tag team champions.

And, of course, he wanted to give Madison Square Garden Brock versus Oba, but Adam Pierce stopped me. And here comes Pierce now again. Shut up. Shut up. I'm not saying that to Pierce. He's saying that to Paul. Have you checked your emails today, Paul?

And then they went into just this kind of awkward banter about, well, no, because they did it at a backstage thing, too. I'm from New York. I keep my ear to the ground and my nose in the sewer, which I guess is kind of apropos of New York life. But he gave a non-committal kind of awkward answer. Like, I know everything I haven't checked my email. Well, then you know that the Boston Police Department has dropped all the charges against Seth Rollins.

Anytime I'm a New Yorker and I'm not scared. I'm the last manager standing from the 80s and the last promoter from the 90s. And he's got all his cholesterol from the 2000s. No, that was a good line. It actually was a truthful line of the people currently active today in whatever this fiasco is, they call a wrestling business.

He's the only one with the patients. so basically but then Pierce tells Paul well you might not know that Seth Rollins has been cleared for medical combat or whatever how do medically cleared for act

whatever and Paul oh how many how many and Seth's music plays and the same thing he comes in the ring from behind and Paul's just standing there like well I don't see him yet

as so he could Paul ain't going to move because he doesn't want that chair shot to be off. But Seth hits him in the back again with a chair. And Paul, how would you describe that bump? Was it a crumble bump or not really just kind of a timber bump? It just, he just kind of. It was a rookie indie manager bump. Well, it, but it looked like it almost defied the law of gravity.

because he got hit with the chair, and then he just suddenly everything about him went numb, and he lost his bone structure, and it just went down and kind of rolled. Then the problem was, now he's down, and Seth was trying to either pick him up or roll him over or put him into place to yell at him

and go for the stomp. And once you get pulled down, he can't get back up. I don't think without a bit of, assistance or take it a second and I'm not even being funny here and he started going the other way besides the direction Seth was going to take him so it took him a second to roll it was like working with a beached whale where you're trying to roll him into some type of position to you know and finally he's going to go for the stomp and Gunther appears at ringsai and pulls Seth out

and puts a sleeper on him and chokes him out somehow I believe Seth's fighting it trying to fight it so wildly that he actually punched Gunther in the fucking eye and busted his, his, Gunther's eye open, his eyebrow. So the fucking heel that comes out and pulls a guy out and chokes him out is the one it ends up bleeding after the fights over with. But now we have Gunther and Seth Rollins,

because they got nobody else. This is Cinderella story out of nowhere. Is Braun not going to be ready, apparently? I mean, you would think that. I mean, it's interesting, Guinther didn't leave with Haman. It wasn't like he was helping Haman or joining Haman. He just went after Rollins,

which begs the question, where was Gunder? How did he know Rollins is Gron's? going to be there if Hayman didn't know. But yeah, I don't know what to say other than I guess Bronbreaker is further off than the most optimistic thoughts. I think everything worked out for Rollins in terms of the most optimistic timeline, but it's not going to necessarily happen for everyone else. Well, Rollins has had, what was it, four more months on the front end, so one can understand that more easily. Bron, we said, was going to be close.

And I didn't see how it might even happen at that. And I'm just, because there's no other explanation because elsewise, the person Seth Rollins would be, if Bronner is going to be on his show, he would be wrestling Seth Rollins is the statement I'm trying to make in English. And that apparently ain't going to be fucking happening. Does Gunther Rollins work for you? Well, I mean, it would be just a wonderful match,

but it's just got a, what, ho? Like, after everything wrong, just been going through for the last year, this has nothing to do with any of it. Exactly. It's like,

you know, you see two people working at the fucking grocery store when you go in, but, you know, that you have no reason to believe they hate each other and suddenly you walk in

and they're goddamn down on the floor choking each other. You're like, well, how did that fucking happen? But now, if they'd have been cussing each other every time you're in there, about two or three months ahead of time,

well then you're probably going in more often just to see when they're finally going to break down and have that fight. At least that's the way I'd look at it. Well, another WrestleMania match being set up on WWRWA. What else did you watch, Jim? Well, then, you know, we had 11 minutes and 35 seconds left in this three-hour program

after we got finished with E.O. Sky and Rochelle, Rochelle. and again here comes Roman rains the blackout thing and da-da and he makes his music entrance and he gives us the finger and the pyro

and the intro and he walks slowly in the ring and around the ring and stared at everybody and his music came down and he milked it some more and they sang his name and he paced some more.

And then they chanted see him punk and then he stared at him some more. From the time that his music started until the time that he spoke, five minutes and 50 seconds. We've got to get a grip on this, people. Jesus Christ, it's just killing me. You got time to go make a sandwich. Think about that, Brian. how long does it take you

to make a ham and cheese sandwich? I don't need ham and cheese sandwiches. Well, whatever the, any type of sandwich that may be made from any type of deli meat and the product of that nature. Depends, like a turkey sandwich or a pastrami sandwich? Turkey sandwich.

What am I putting on it? What kind of bread? Oh, goddamn. Okay, you got a turkey on rye Oh. Seedless? Seedless? with browned seedless oh no seeds no yeah i agree seedless rye turkey with a brown mustard not a fucking yellow mustard obviously that's for peasants maybe some talism i i don't know about any of these type of paragons or tarragons or pentagons or whatever but i'd put some cheese on there

but i'd i know not to even bring it up to you and some bacon sometimes i'd do a turkey on whole wheat bread that's toasted, and then I put some tarragon on the turkey, and then a little bit of black pepper, and maybe some coleslaw, depending on the mood I'm in, and it's a very delicious and nutritious lunch. Coal saw on a side, not on a sandwich. Sometimes I put it on the sandwich. I want it in the bite. Sometimes I put it on a burger.

If I make a fresh burger on the grill, I'll put coleslaw on the burger. There's so many things going on. You've never done that? You can have slaw on a dog. You can have slaw on a barbecue sandwich, but you just don't have cold slaw on a goddamn, just a turkey or fucking pastrami sandwich or like a club sandwich with coleslaw on the sandwich?

First of all, you can't have cold slaw on a hot dog. I don't know who taught you that or told you that, but that's wrong. That they do it. I'm not saying that I do. They do that in the Midwest, and it's not unheard of or within the bounds of, propriety. I think you could put sourcrow

on a hot dog, not coleslaw. And coleslaw goes fine on a fresh burger. If you have a plump burger that you make, put some coleslaw on top of it while it's hot, every bite will be delicious. And a pickle? Sourcrow... Sourcrow works on a dog or on a reuben, but anybody who just eats it by itself

is obviously mentally impaired. Well, it's very healthy for you. Well, I don't care. Mentally, very mentally impaired? Not just regular mental impairment. It's vinegar a fluvia without the fucking greasiness of the meat and the onions and everything

around it to fucking balance it out. And or the Russian dressing. Well, back to the ham and cheese. You know, that's another thing. That's another thing. They don't have Russian dressing places anymore. Places? There were places that had just that? Well, no, you go to a good high-quality steak place. You get the Russian dressing back in the day

in the 60s and 70s. None of this pussy-ass thousand island shit. When the Russians got a bad name, apparently, the people who made the salad dressing moved to the Thousand Islands. People saw Nikolai Volkov in that same red suit for 40 years and said, I've had enough a Russian dressing. There you go, boom. And they incorporated somewhere else and it's lost some of the tang.

Anyway, Roman rains, there's fucking five minutes left in the show. And we get New York. acknowledge me. And the punk's music plays. Oh, God damn even him. But at least here he came, he's got his fist taped. He took 30 seconds to get to the ring.

He was by hero of the night. And he slid in and they got in a fight. And they go to the floor and the referees and the officials. And they're trying to separate them. and Roman goes for the spear, but he ends up spearing Pedy Williams. And then punk gave Roman to fucking go to sleep on the floor down there.

And they were about to get him out, but he circled around again and grabbed Roman Raines and power bombed him through the announced desk and then got on top of him while he was punching him saying, Roman, Roman Rains, which I thought was a nice touch. And that was so, Literally, that was, we got punk and Roman Rains for like 75 seconds as the main event in Madison Square Garden. And there was no dark match afterwards just for the people.

Yeah, I saw that. That was surprising. Again, say what you want about him, but that was something Vince always and say, they're going to get, even if it's only for a couple minutes to see them, but at least they're going to get that Undertaker versus Austin versus. Foley versus my whoever my big star of the time is, main event that we've advertised and just to send

them home, you know, happy and we've just seen the stars. They've just seen the stars. They're happy here, kind of, because punk seems to be the more popular of the of the two with the general fan base. But it wasn't like they saw, you know, any kind of a match.

there were two men's matches. Was it not? Let me go back here and go through my notes. The 10-minute street fight thing that they had, and Penta and Kofi, this is the first, not just WWW wrestling show, but any wrestling show ever held in Madison Square Garden that only had two men's matches on it.

Well, W.W.E. Raw, another record-setting night at Madison Square Garden, the house that Vince McMahon, senior, built. And with that, Jim, we shall return right after this short commercial timeout. All right, just not feeling it today. Sorry, I apologized all my fans and, of course, the executives. No need to apologize. And there's no one in that category anyway. Well, Jim, I believe that's it for review. So what we're going to have is topics and questions for the rest of the show here. got some big things happening. Why don't we start with fast food news? I have an article here from the New York Post.

Get free ice cream at Chick-fil-A if you do unusual family-friendly activity, is the headline in the New York Post from Rita Wigglin. Oh, wait. Wait. For one thing, I didn't know Chick-fil-A was noted for their ice cream, but secondly, an unusual family activity. Family-friendly activity, you dirty man. Well, no, and they've good milkshakes.

You've never had a milkshake there? I mean, that's, I guess what they... I didn't know that they were a big ice cream outlet, like your dairy queens and your frosty freezes and things. But so an unusual family-friendly activity, doesn't that still leave with the state of people and society as it is, doesn't that leave way too much room for interpretation? Well, let's find out what it is.

One fast food chain really gives a cluck about table manners. Select Chick-fil-A locations have implemented a reward system for families who go phone-free. Oh, okay, okay. I thought it was going to be like an amazing. America's Got Talent thing, where if you came in and performed some kind of unusual activity with your family, then you would get free ice cream. Yeah, I don't know if that would fly. That's, well, that's the way that I took it. I was like, you said, that's why I said it's so open to interpretation.

Oh, yeah. Because it could be anything. You could have acrobatts. You could have tumbling. You had card tricks. Where did that egg fly out of? Yeah. You could have, you know, shooting the ping pong balls.

blowing the candles out. You get anything. Let's get back to this family-friendly article here, Jim. In an effort to encourage human connection over dining, while doom-scrolling, the fast food chain is offering free ice cream that those willing to share a meal sends screens. Brad Williams, who owns two Chick-fil-A restaurants in Georgia, was inspired to implement the dairy bribe

after witnessing a mother of two spend an entire meal on her cell phone. Here's a quote from Williams. It just got me thinking how to get people to disconnect in order to connect and to take a technology time out. In response, Williams created a cell phone coop for every table. Decorated with chicken wire, the coop instructs patrons to set their phones to silent, and surrender them to the coop.

If the devices remain in the box for the duration of the meal, diners get a free ice cream dessert. Now you've lost me already. So let's stop there because that kind of explains it. A chicken coop on your table with real chicken wire, and you have to somehow get your phone in there and you can't take it out. Is the coop on each individual table or where is the coop located? Well, again, going back to what it said here...

What did it say exactly? The exact words were decorated with... Oh, no, he created a cell phone coop for every table. For every table... Jesus Christ, why don't they just fucking make the fries better? Here's a quote from him. We're trying to slowly create rituals that create disciplines, and will slowly create habits. well here's the thing just

number one make the food and service better and number two give them the goddamn ice cream if you just look across your counter at this again as I said all these fucking modern the Wendy's the McDonald's they all look like a waiting room at a fucking STD clinic in a major city just look across the goddamn counter and see who's

not on their phone. Who's actually talking to each other or eating the food that they just bought? Because that's, I, whether I'm with somebody or alone, when I'm in a fast food place or any kind of restaurant, of course I'm not going to be on my phone because I'm fucking eating. And I'm going to devote my full time and attention to this goddamn greasy triple cheeseburger and these hopefully hot crispy fries that are in front of me. and why would I want to have my phone out when I should have grease to my elbow to begin with, and I want to make the phone a greasy mess,

then I'm going to stick back in my fucking pocket, and who do I want to talk to, or what do I want to find out about, that is more important that eating that triple while it's still hot enough to almost burn the inside of my mouth. It can wait 15 fucking minutes. Well, they actually have, if I scroll down here, some numbers, a 2019 study found that people who ate while staring at their smartphones consumed, on average, 535 more calories than those who focused on their meals. And a January 2018 study found that one in three Americans can't eat a meal without being on their phone.

Oh, Jesus Christ. 81% of Gen. First of all, if I, if I, apparently, If I got on my phone while I ate, I would weigh 300 pounds. But second, why does anybody, who gives a shit? I don't want to talk to anybody to begin with. And all the news is bad. And if you're in Wendy's and you need the news, you can look on the screen and they got the news on.

And it's all bad. So what the, I don't understand what the attraction is. well you think this will catch on the chicken coop service and no I think they ought to put the fucking people in the coop because if you again what kind of nut can't just put their phone down if you're alone okay and you're bored you're waiting to be served at a sit-down restaurant I always bring a magazine if I'm alone or a newspaper

if I was going to go to the Philly diner or whatever the fucking case but I can understand if you're alone You want to look at something Once the food comes Put the fucking thing away Eat your food and leave Be about your day There's things to do

And places to go But if you've got somebody there with you Then Then do like they do on WWE stare at each other Especially if it's kids It said the guy saw a mother with two kids And she was just staring at her phone the whole time

Well yeah No wonder these fucking little snot-nose crumb-snatching fucking semen blurbs are running rampant all over the world because the mothers are on the phones while the kids are just out being delinquents and

toilet papering homes and stealing fucking hubcaps and things. Well, this has been fast food news, ladies and gentlemen, and from there let's get to the wrestling talk. Jim, I have an article here

from S-I.com, the takedown on S-I. Oh, boy. By Aidan Chaconne. W-W. How do you spell that? C-H-A-C-O-N.

So it can't be chakin? It could be. I don't think it's chakin or chak-in. Why do you have to give it that? Chacon! I think that's how you would say that. How else would you say that? You see that and you say that's a chakin?

Makes him sound a little obnoxious, though. He's a little rude, a little rude. Kurt. You don't want to talk to a guy named Chacon. Sounds like he'd goddamn be the commandant of a

fucking prison camp. What about Aiden? You have a problem with Aden? No. No, Aiden sounds inoffensive enough. All right.

Well, here's Aiden, Aden's article. Here's Aden's article. W.W.E. Hall of Famer set to wrestle last match at 83 years old. Former W.WF.

Tag team champion Jimmy Valiant has set the date for his last match. Rick Flair set the bar in 2022. I don't know if I would say that. Oh, boy. Rick Flair set the bar in 2022. Rick Flair sat at the bar in 2022.

Jimmy Valiant is about to rip through that bar in grand fashion. Rip through that. Is that a goddamn cogent simile? Rip through that bar? Rick Flair set the bar. in 2022, Jimmy Valiant is about to rip through that bar in grand fashion on April 25th. 83-year-old W.W.E. Hall of Famer

Jimmy Valiant has set to wrestle his last match for N.A. Championship Wrestling. Valiant made his wrestling debut in 1964 and traveled the world as a pro-wrestling star. He and Kay Faye brother, Johnny Valiant, overpowered the tag team scene as WWWF tag team champions for 370 days. I'll stop there for a moment.

Any initial thoughts on one of your all-time favorites? Everyone thinks Jim Cornett and Jerry Lawler, but Jim Cornett and handsome Jimmy, one of your all-time favorites. Finally, getting ready to hang it up at 83. Woo, mercy. Handsome Jimmy loves you all, baby. Woo, mercy. Handsome Jimmy Valiant,

besides being on the Mount Rushmore of all the Tennessee baby face legends, it's Lawler, it's Dundee, it's valiant, and then you don't really, you've got to go back to Fargo to find any individuals

that over consistent for that long. But it's he had his retirement match in Louisville in 2004 for OVW. So he's working his way across the country with it. He's taking it on the road.

No. I love handsome Jimmy because not only was I a huge fan when I first saw him, I had just found Dick the Bruiser's TV from Indianapolis and Minnaker, and now we know they were in the middle of the war with the Sheik in Detroit, and that's why they had all this talent and everything was hot.

But it was just like, this is some big time shit. And Jimmy Valiant came in as a single managed by Bobby Heenan. So automatically he had heat, but the whole strutting pretty boy blonde, but he had the spin on it with that body language he had. and the, who, mercy, and the promises, promises on the back of the jacket, and just the whole package, right? As a single, I was already familiar with him, and then they brought Johnny in to be his brother,

and I got to see their first run on television as it happened. I didn't know at the time, you know, they've never been together before in the whole backstory. I'm, what, 11, 12. But the Valiant brothers were tremendous. And to be perfectly honest, Johnny was great as the brother. It wouldn't have worked without Jimmy.

He was the personality. He was set the tone for the thing. Johnny just had to keep up and he did that. But they were tremendous, not only as a, a heel team on promos and just so completely different and over the top and they, you know, woke everybody up. But in the ring, it was so much action.

They did the Tennessee tiptoe and they weren't even from Tennessee where they had the double knockout with each other in the end. And Jimmy was always doing the thing that it was an offshoot of the Bill Longson thing. But what Bobby Heenan would do also is when the baby face is starting to make his comeback or trying to and chasing him around the ring, Jimmy would go in the circle and circle until finally he dove over the top and took the walk on the floor. And the people are on him.

He was just a magnetic personality. And again, together, it just happened that conditions were right. Bruno was not the WWWF champion in 1973. He had given it up in 71. and he was just doing dates for promoters that he liked and that he wanted to work for. He went to Japan for Baba. He went to Los Angeles for the Battle Royal.

He worked Keele Auditorium in St. Louis for much Nick, blah, blah, blah. But he came in to work for Bruiser. And remember he and Bruno, Bruiser and Bruno, beat, who was it, Ernie Ladd and Baron Von Rashke for the tag team title. And they were the super team. They were like, and Nikita the superpower. That was because Bruiser,

everybody thought was the world champion in Indiana, but if you read the magazines, Bruno had all the covers because he was in New York, so they were like, well, these guys are unbeatable. I got that match from Ron Martinez when I was a teenager. Yes, I saw it when they aired it on television.

And that's the thing. I'm sitting there, oh, this is cool because even though I liked the Tennessee TVs and it was the Louisville I hadn't been to the convention center which is what they called Louisville Gardens then yet live but I was watching the TVs but there was studio TVs and here Bruiser was doing 10,000 people for these shows at the Expo Center or the Fairgrounds Coliseum and here's Bruiser and

Bruno Samertino against the Valiant Brothers now. Holy shit and what I, you know, didn't realize was at the same time he was in this, that's when Vince Sr. was making the pitch to him to come back. So they announced that on Indianapolis TV, the weekend after it happened, that Bruno had beaten Stan Stajak for the WWWF championship in Madison Square Garden. And even then, I like, okay, I guess we're not going to seem too much, more, but he came back and the valiant brothers beat Bruiser and Bruno for the tag team titles because Bruiser had to take his belts off of him.

And that got the Valiant Brothers over in that territory, anybody that saw it, you know, immediately. So that was a big run. And that's what got the Valiant Brothers into the WVWW left because when Bruno worked with them. He immediately went to Vince Sr. And said, all these fucking guys, these guys, Vince dead great. They bump like crazy.

And they went to New York and had a record run. I get, what did they have the best run? Now we're getting into your territory, pal. They had the best heel tag team run since the Graham brothers. Didn't they in the garden? I would say so. And again, there was also, although not as strong as the first one, there was a second run.

That was the one where eventually Jerry became the brother, but it went on for a little while. You know, they main evented the garden. And well, and Bruno teamed up with Strongbow when he was champion still to work with them. And so anyway, that run, then now they've been in all the magazines, their national names.

And then they kind of bounced around a few different territories. where they could, a couple of times they had short runs for whatever reason in some places. But Jimmy, the point I'm getting to, Jimmy ended up because he usually started making Indianapolis his home base. He was originally from Tennessee. He was born in Tennessee in 19, I think 40, what, 42, right? 43, whatever. And so he.

was living in Indianapolis and working for Bruiser, the Valiant brothers were back there in 77, but since Bruiser was running a more reduced schedule, Jared brought Jimmy into Memphis to be in the southern title tournament. Lawler and Dundee's program in 77 had just finished, and Elvis died. And Jarrett realized that he couldn't keep Loller a heel much longer anyway because he was the hometown guy and he was the top box office attraction. So they worked a deal playing on the people's sympathies over Elvis, where Lawler announced he was going to retire from wrestling to pursue his musical career

because of the loss of the other king of Memphis. I swear to God, I'm not making this up. And the people bought it. And so he retires. And they have a tournament for the Southern Heavyweight title. And originally Jared had booked like Dick Steinborn came in as Mr. Wrestling because he couldn't get Tim Woods. And he just wanted some outside names.

So he booked handsome Jimmy Valiant from Bruiser because Brewzer didn't run Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Memphis, Louisville and Evansville in Jared's territory. And when Jarrett saw, I think they were going to do some kind of DQ and advance the baby face in the first round but when Jared at the Coliseum saw the heat that Valiant was getting and what he was doing just doing his shit

in the ring he was so animated then and moved so much and was violent and was athletic and was trim he had like a fucking 38 inch waist at this period of time it wasn't like the boogie wuggy man you saw in the 80s right I just

want to make that point Jimmy Vagin had some of the wildest, most violent matches I've ever seen. And in those days, when he was 30-something. Anyway, Jared saw that and said the word, the referee switched to finish and put it over. He sent him to the finals and put the fucking belt on him and booked him back.

That's crazy. You know, then it was what, I think, four weeks or whatever. And business was the shits because Lawler wasn't there. And the other towns held up better than Memphis, but Memphis, you were dead without Lawler on the card, but they had to sell it for four weeks or so. And then Lawler announces he's going to give his big concert with his backup band, Jimmy Hart and the Gentries.

And they had it at the Mid-South Coliseum, and as Lawler is doing his final song and playing the guitar, it came out and broke the guitar over his, head and broke up all the fucking musical equipment. And Lawler comes back as a baby face. And that started, he and Hansom went, I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but I'm going to say in Louisville and probably in Memphis as well for the next 16 weeks, they were against each other in the main event in some fashion, single, tag, stipulation,

and whatever, at least 12 out of 16 weeks. And fucking handsome was a free bleeder. But Lawler did too in this angle, because this was his first major baby face program of his career. He had been a baby face briefly earlier on a few years before, but not after he'd established himself. So Lawler was not a fucking, you know, Abdullah the butcher level fucking blade master,

but he bled a lot against Jimmy because this was the first baby face run, including they took a break from it. In December, Harley Race came in, the Coliseum for two weeks. Lawler got a world title match against race. and that is the one that went to a 60-minute draw that the people see the music video,

the I'm a Man Chicago music video from, it's on Twitter all the time. Is that what that is? That's Chicago? Well, I think it's a live version because it's not, I've never been able to find it. I love the studio version by the Spencer Davis group. That's what I'm going to say, yeah.

Well, in Chicago did a studio version also and that ain't studio version either. I think it is a live Chicago performance. if I would be a betting man. I should have used the Spencer Davis version. It would have been so good, but whatever. Well, it's a goddamn wrestling music video in 1977. I'm surprised we got it at all.

The point being they went to a 60-minute draw, and the next week they came back with a 90-minute time limit, no disqualification, whatever, and people came back to think, Lawler's got it this time, and that's where they did the angle, where Valiant dressed in street clothes not booked on the card when the referee

got knocked down. Lawler's about to pile drive Harley. That's Lawler's finished, but it's illegal. But the referee ain't going to see it. And Valiant slides in and breaks the bottle over his head. And then not only he breaks the bottle over his head, but then when Lawler's down on his knees selling and you can see, oh, my God, he's bleeding.

Valiant takes the broken body. in his hand and stabs Lawler in a chest with it. And Lawler actually bladed his fucking chest because they took him to the hospital and it made the newspapers that he was treated for cuts with X amount of fucking stitches or whatever and released. And that instantly, again, that heated him up.

They'd already been going for six or eight weeks. That heated them up for another couple of months. And not only did he cost him the world title, but he fucking came in a ring and stabbed him. So anyway, they drew incredible fucking money. Jared had, he didn't have Nashville yet and he hadn't opened Lexington at that point in time. He would the next summer. And they did business, Lawler, and Valiant Lexington too. But on the Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, Memphis, Louisville and Evansville,

Valiant was on top in main events against Lawler and making more money that he was making, working for Bruiser, while he was still in Indianapolis. And that's how my mom and I ended up driving him a variety of places because Big Mama, Felicia, his ex-wife, would bring him down to Louisville here to start or whatever or pick him up at the airport if he'd gone to

Memphis or whatever he'd need to ride over to Evansville or whatever the case. And he did not mooch at all. Handsome Jimmy is known for never want to drive a car. He used to meet the Italian stallion in Charlotte to ride to Rock Hill, South Carolina. It was 14 miles to the building. And he would leave his car at the store that we passed by on the way out of town to ride with stowl 14 miles. but he didn't

he bought gas he was very respectful and that's what he even when they had handsome Jimmy Jr. When he was on top in Memphis in 79 I think they named my mother as one of the official godmother. I don't know how many other godmothers he had

but she was one of them. So anyway I was a big fan of Jimmy Valiance. got over when I first saw him as part of the team. And then that program with Lawler, that got him over so strong in Memphis, even into 1983 and 84, if they announced in Memphis that coming back to be a special partner or somebody to help Lawler get even against so-and-so,

if you just announced it, be valiant coming in from the Carolinas, they would sell out. They announced that he was going to be there one night. He got sick in the Charlotte airport, couldn't make the plane. They had to take him to the hospital. And when the people found out he wasn't in Memphis, they had set to seats on fire, literally. They had a fucking riot.

So, I mean, he was just incredibly over. We went to, on a location shoot they did for one of the music videos where he in Memphis, that's when Lawler and Jared bought him the house in Memphis. They bought him out. They said if you'll come in and work for us, we'll pay you and will buy you a house, pick out a house.

And he took him up on it, was there for a while, but then when he got the big money offer from Crockett, he left the keys in the mailbox and fucking told him he had to go. But he got this entire motorcycle gang fully outfitted with all of the bikes and the girls and the whole nine yards to come out to the airport.

This was 1979, or we probably would have all been SWAT teamed, to shoot the fucking video. They had Randy West, Jerry Jarrett's fucking son-in-law, with the video camera, and he shot a plane landing, and then he shot Handsome Jimmy on the moving fucking escalator. Like he'd just come off the play. I came rolling into me. Info, TWA.

Smokey Johnson! And he walks through the airport and he's greeted by the biker gang and he gets on the biggest motorcycle with the biggest fucking handle bars and he leads the charge and they switch from his song to

Bob Seeger. Headed out to Fire Lake. And that was a music video. So if we shot one with one camera guy, no audio guy, and me as the still photographer and it took an hour and a half but I took the picture

we sold thousands of the pictures of him riding the motorcycles and with the biker gang and etc it just the guys the girls bought Lawler and Dundee and the fabs and the guys couldn't get enough pictures of handsome Jimmy Vagin

anyway back to his retirement that was an 83 year career there that I just well I have a quote I have a quote from Jimmy Valiant here in this article. Yes, this will be my final dance. I've retired before, but this is truly my last dance.

I'm honored to hang up my boots after 62 years of wrestling pro. I had over 15,000 matches and drove 6 million miles on U.S. highways, plus flying to get to those matches. I want to dance down that aisle to my theme song, boy from New York City, one last time to make wrestling in seven decades from 1964 to 2026, a reality for me. And you know, the thing is, is that he is, he can do the same match he was doing 35 years ago.

That's what I was going to say. I saw a match when I was a teenager tape trading of Jimmy Valiant from Memphis in the studio in like 1980, maybe, 81, 80. 80, I think. And it was one of the more ridiculous things I've ever seen, and I couldn't take my eyes off it. It was almost like he was bigger than the ring. But his style never changed. His whole thing was constant motion and constant movement. You could pick holes in it if he did something and stop. But because he never stops, you never get a chance to really, like, poke a hole in it. It just keeps going. But now, see, here's the thing. Some people who might never seen him are going to go,

well, constant motion, constant movement, how's he going to do that when he's 83? That's the thing. We're not talking about actually doing anything to anyone. He can dance down the owl without his feet leaving the ground because his dancing is going to be clapping his hands and nodding his head. And when it, but that was the, when he was in his prime,

he was the constant motion and the throwing the punch. and the woe and the raring back and the fucking bumps and the hip tosses and the on offense or defense he was in constant motion and bumping and doing these things but as he morphed into the boogie-woogie man then it became all about the personality it became how long can the beard grow it came it became the music and the clapping and the kiss and the announcer and the holding, hugging the kids and the high-fiving the fans and the, who, your boogeyman loves you all. Willie, Willie!

That's it. That was it. And the people loved it. And it's hard to translate when we first got to the Carolinas, because he started in Charlotte, I think in like 81-ish, 82-ish, they brought him in as a heel. As a king?

And, yeah, King James, with J.J. Dillon and that was a popcorn fart. And I think it was a who was at the time booking? Was it a Dory? I don't know. But some way he just said, let me do it. I'm doing it in fucking Memphis.

And he did that and boom. And think about this now. For everybody again, that's shitting all over because, I mean, the matches by 85, 86 were horrible by standards of if you're trying to see wrestling, he would come in, he'd get the flurry, they would poke him in the throat, he would go down, he would go into convulsions on the mat

as they kicked him and stomped him, and then he'd make a comeback and boom. But in a company with Dusty Roads and Rick Flair and technicians like Arn and Tully or the Midnight Express and, you know, brutes, the road warriors and the Anderson brothers, he was one of the most popular baby faces I've ever seen anywhere. They, the Rock and Roll Express got shriller,

shriller, higher pitched, more female screams. But the boogie-wogie man for that period of time until about 87 and then it was, it was done. The people went crazy. absolutely burjork whenever he came out and did his shit. And that's why the dusty kept him in that program with Paul Jones and Paul Jones's army, whether it's the Baron or whether it's Pes-Wadley or was it Paul Jones himself. Many.

Him he valiant, especially in the Carolinas towns, North, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia. he was so valuable to the cards to drawing the live house that you had to have him on it but he he had to have like his own little universe to work with just because they were foils for jimmy valiant the only reason they were ever put over is to get heat so jimmy valiant could come back and get even and that was paul jones's position for what like a year and a half yes that's the thing if you've only seen the point Paul Jones stuff, like from 87, 86, 87, let alone 88. It's rough.

And by then Jimmy Valiant had lost any semblance of being in shape and he was over the top for even himself. But if you look at 83. And also, well, and you mentioned Jerry Valiant because the reason why Jerry Valiant came to be, nothing against Guy Mitchell, but Jimmy and Johnny were scheduled to go back and main event for events again all over the territory. and that's when Jimmy came down with hepatitis and had to take like three months off.

He was worn down and his eyeballs turned yellow. And, you know, because he was here in Tennessee and about to finish up and go there, but, you know, ended up having to go home for a few months. And that's why then he joined and became a three-man team. But in 86 for Crockett, he's 40 fucking four years old he's lost the bodybuilder physique it's all about the gimmick

and the gimmick it was you know just get the match over with because we want we want to see handsome Jimmy come to the ring be handsome Jimmy and beat somebody and then go away yeah in 1983 if you see any footage of Mid Atlantic that year he is ridiculously over it's crazy and it's enjoyable too because the fans were selling to him. Some of the same stuff,

83 stuff, there's some Mid-South Coliseum stuff on YouTube, and you can see that the six-man tag with oh, goddamn, maybe the assassins and somebody against Lawler and handsome and whatever,

that was a sellout, but there may be some older, lawler valiant stuff on YouTube, but that was right in that point where I didn't have my VCR yet and a lot of tapes didn't get saved. But the Bob Blue Chicago Hall of Fame stuff that's out there has the Valiant Brothers in Chicago and, you know, it was just, he was a whole different fucking guy.

Better as a baby face or a heel in Memphis? I like him as a heel, but obviously he's so strong and important as a baby face. Best matches, best matches with him and Lawler some of the best I've seen, period, much less his best matches. And as a heel, overall, he was better in that time period, but he got over so good as a baby face. It would have been stupid for

him to do anything else. And so, but even then he was, I mean, as a baby face, you know, a strap match with lumberjack, Joe LaDuke. There was some shit going on there for the first few years. And then

started the other side of the mountain. So he leaves WCW, we'll call it that, I think at the end of 88, next time anyone sees him, he's lost all the weight. What were your thoughts the first time you saw the skinny Jimmy Valiant, which he's been ever since then? Yes, well, I was warned because if you'd known handsome as long as you'd known him, and then all of a sudden you saw he weighed like 75 or 80 or 100 pounds less or whatever it was.

Oh, shit. But no, he became a vegetarian. and then, you know, he met his wife Angel who he's been married to, I guess, now for and together all total 30 something years and moved up to his place in Virginia because he was so over in that territory that when he would go to those small towns, especially in that, you know, western part of Virginia, everybody knew who he was and he started his boogies wrestling camp there and has lived there. And he,

you know, doesn't need, he don't need a mansion and diamond rings and all that stuff because he has the earth. Shaw'sville. And Shaw'sville. But that's the thing. People are going to go see

that and they're going to have fun and he's going to come out rail thin with the long beard that he's had. He's 83 now. He had it since he was 43 and he's going to clap his hands and cut the promo and nod his head and it'll tear the house down. And he can at least still do the stuff that he was noted for in some fashion more than the guys that try it from the same time period when they were noted for other things.

They should bring in Baron von Rasky. He's still out there. And you know, how old is the Baron now? The Baron was always younger than he looked. I'm going to say the Baron is not as old as Jimmy. But when I was 12 years old, I could swear the Baron von Rasky had to be 50 years old because of the bald head and the ugly sneer and the cauliflower ears. And I didn't know he was a goddamn hot shot amateur from Nebraska.

I thought he was from Stuttgart, Germany, for fuck's sake. 85 years old, born 1940. Well, there you go. See, even the Baron. He finally aged into his gimmick. That was a weird moment for me where I saw a picture of Killer Carl Krupp, and I was like, he looks young. I was like, oh, my God, how old am I?

If he looks young, finally. That's another thing. Carl Krupp, as he would say, had to be the ugliest man on the planet, didn't he? It was perfect for the gimmick. It was perfect for the gimmick. Yes, classic heel face, the just, just hideous like some Marvel comics drawing

of a German baron from a castle somewhere. I met his wife after he had passed away in Nova Scotia while we were up there doing the raw that memorable fucking year I spent up there. She was not, what you would have imagined Killer Carl Kroop's wife would have looked like. Did she put you in the claw? Now she put me in a couple of things, but not the claw.

All right, Killer Kroop, that famous awful cast match. What do you call it? I mean, they both wore cast in the match, right? Well, now we've got to explain it because when Lawler broke his leg in early February of 1980, immediately panic set in amongst everyone because, you know, our biggest star has down, right? And how bad is this going to be?

And it wasn't a good break to begin with. And they kept trying to rush, Lawler, because, again, Louisville did okay, Evansville did okay, Lexington held up, because it was a once-a-month town, but as I've told the story, there were high spots in 1980 in Memphis occasionally, but for the most part, that was the worst year that Jared had had. And they got down to less than 3,000 people a week by the end of the time that Lawler was injured.

So there was always a pressure. And Lawler being, you know, obviously having a piece of Memphis and main event pay overall, that was even before he was a partner. but they still wanted to get him back. So for a week to pop a house, they did this in Memphis, Louisville, I don't, maybe Evansville,

but I definitely know they did it in Lexington. Jimmy Hart was managing Killer Carl Krupp. He was the top guy in the first family at that point, and they did some kind of deal on TV where Lawler was still trying to come back, wasn't medically cleared, although they didn't have that terminology in those days, just, oh, he's not ready yet.

But they did something, and they booked a match where that Lawler could wear the cast on his leg that he actually had on his leg, and Kroop had to wear a cast on his leg also, and that was going to handicap Killer Carl Krupe, because Lawler was used to the cast.

I don't know what the fucking logic. Basically, Lawler still had to wear a fucking cast because his leg was broken. But to draw a house and to get the fucking people back interested, they said, okay, we're going to make Krupp put a cast on two,

which he did and then lumbered around like he was wobbly and couldn't fucking stand up and Lawler could knock him down and shit. And then Lawler actually did a leg drop where he leg drops the fucking guy with the cast and the guy sells it big. Oh my God, it's plaster. And they drew okay, but in doing that,

Lawler re-agravated his real injury and he was out longer. And then they still jumped the gun a couple of times on him. He came back in November in Lexington at Ruff Arena to have a single match with Jimmy Hart just because he could just stand there and walk around flat foot and Hart could bump for him. but he was out for 11 months until he finally came back the last Monday and December of 1980 in Memphis and the first week of January and the rest of the towns officially with the dream machine in that that series where if he beat the dream machine he'd get five minutes with Jimmy Hart which he did and did and that was what started the big run of houses where every week I don't think think they drew less, they didn't draw less than 6,000 people in Memphis for anything the first five or six months of the year. And they had the funks and Idol and Hogan and the dream machine multiple times and Joe LaDuke and various people from Lawler's Pass come in, but

during that period of time that Lawler was out with the broken leg, you know, overall, there was nobody to replace him because even if Dundee was as popular as a baby face, then who's Dundee going to wrestle? They've seen Dundee and Valiant. That's when Valiant had been a heel because Lawler had switched heel. But once Lawler got hurt, then they switched Valiant baby face because they needed a top hero to fight Jimmy Hart's stable. and then as soon as Lawler came back

they switched Jimmy heel again so he could fucking wrestle Am I droning on Brian do you give a shit at this point? I love it I think it's great and I think the listeners probably do as well and I'll ask you another question about Memphis in a moment

but with Jimmy Valian's last match on the horizon Yes maybe it's time he finally says I'm ready for a shave Maybe it's time that he says mercy, I want to see my baby face. Whatever it may be, and whoever you may be,

and whatever bad impression you may do, we all need a good shave, and to do that, you need a razor that you can trust. Sturdy and classy, looks good, functions well, like the ones from our friends at Harry's. Well, that's right, and you may remember that handsome Jimmy, the boogie-woogie man, got his head shaved that time in Crockett Land.

and had to come back and get even by shaving the heads of Paul Jones and Shaska Watley. Or, no, they shaved his beard. They did his beard and his head at different times. They beard on his head and his eyebrows. And they got this little tool and they stuck it up his nose and got the hair out of that too. He looked like a goddamn hard-boiled egg. But folks, I'll tell you what, if you want to look hard-boiled but not like an egg, if you just want to look like a swave and deboner type of fellow walking down the street,

you need our friends at Harry's because you got to say your old razors that dull too fast and then they irritate your neck and then they start scraping you. And then finally they're taking chunks of flesh off and you get some bacteria in there. Then you get infected and then it starts turning green and the pus comes. And then you're walking down the street and you got pus-filled blisters all over your face. people think there's something wrong with you. Or you're spending too much, $30 for six or eight of those refill cartridges.

You don't want to do that. That's a big scam. What you can do with our friends over at Harry's, and by the way, that, of course, is the all-new Harry's most advanced razor ever. That's exactly what we're talking about. That is not going to scrape your face or cut your carotid artery,

and it's not going to set you back an arm and a leg or skin flesh off of your face, all you got to do is go to harries.com. H-A-R-R-Y-S, I'm just wild about Harry's, and Harry's wild about me. You know why they're wild? Because they got so much extra time

after they just shave their face with this brilliant new device and don't cut themselves and don't squirt blood all over and look like a saw movie, that they've got all kinds of extra time to go out and engage in ribaldry in the hot spots and the speakeasies. It's the Harry's generation. Brian, you've heard of it, all the hepcats,

the young kid, they're out there getting laid. The men and the women that shave their faces with the Harry's razor get laid more. And for longer periods of time, from what I understand, than the average individual. I don't know how you understand this. This data has not been supplied to us by the advertising agency or anyone. Well, I'm going out and doing my own mouth-to-mouth research.

Going to the people directly and groping around for clues. Yes, I'm groping around for clues. Listen, let's get serious. Folks again, no. Harry's. Yes, yes. They own their own world-class blade factory in Germany. auto vans is the security guard there there's no outsourcing and no middleman they take these things these things are as sharp they're a rapier like construction multiple blades here as they're four or five in these heads and then they got the lubricate and strip on them so you got custom-made german blades so you know they're fucking assholes over there they like to cut things up and you've got the that that is nothing to do with what's going to do with what's going to

going on with Harry's for the record. Let's not associate Harry. Well, no, Harry, cut people up. Harry's from Schenectady. He doesn't go in for any of that stuff, but you got to go to the Germans to get your weaponry. And then the handle, the handle, Brian, it's like a stainless steel alloy. It'd be, again, perfect in a fight. You could kind of use this to load your fist because, boy, it's got some weight to it. It's ergonomically designed. You can hold it between two fingers, it'll just glide right down your face and just bring all of the fucking whiskers with it. And it's still cheaper than the Gillette Fusion 5, even with all of these

various features it has. All you got to do right now is go to harries.com slash JCE, and you're going to get the Harry's Plus trial set for only $10. That means the razor. One of the refined five blade cartridges, a two-ounce foaming gel of shave foam. Foaming shave gel is what it is for sensitive skin, I might add. Harry's foaming shave gel for sensitive skin. So you can actually use this as a personal lubricant when you're getting kinky time because it's for sensitive skin. And a travel cover to protect your blades while you're on the go, possibly diving out a window

because the husband got home. Just right now, head to harries.com slash JCE. Tell him you heard about it here. You'll get the Harris Plus trial set for only $10. Harries.com slash JCE. Just one $10 bill is all you need to pay and you will get this.

You'll just rake this over your skin hundreds and hundreds of times in gratitude for only $10. Harry's. That's who I'm talking about. I hit a few wrong notes. I was at the wrong angle. You're trying to sneak it in is what you're doing. It gets longer and longer every time.

I've heard that before. Jim, let's talk about a few things happening in wrestling. We've talked recently about the announcements of who's going into the WWE Hall of Fame, the 2026 class of the WWE Hall of Fame, where you get to watch your favorite superstars fall asleep. as people give speeches. It's going to start at midnight again, right? I think so.

It's going to start after SmackDown. So, I mean, everyone's going to be at SmackDown that have to put on a suit and go to this. And, of course, they have their big inductees this year, Stephanie McMahon, AJ Stiles, Demolition, Dennis Rodman, and the Legacy class, which are the deserving legends who will get a, a moment where their name will be said once while a video is played.

Maybe even in black and white, we'll see. But joining Psycho Sid will be Bad News Brown, aka Bad News Allen. But what are your thoughts on Bad News Brown being the latest legacy inductee into the WWE Hall of Fame? Well, again, like I said, it's ridiculous that Dennis Rodman has taken up space when Sid was, it's not like Sid needs to be in the legacy wing in black and white like Whipper Billy Watson

for fuck's sake. He was a star in the 90s. That just puzzles me from a standpoint of, you know, they could make a video package and make it part of the presentation, even if he's dead. Get a family member out there to speak for a minute and a half, but you've done the video and got people pumped up instead of just blah. It's even more awkward when they go from like someone from a different error to you when it's like Frank Sexton, psycho Sid.

Different worlds here. I think Sexton wouldn't have put him over, especially in Boston. But nevertheless, the point being so, Sid, Rodman's taking up space because he's a celebrity. and they think that somehow, they can't even think that the celebrities at this point are adding to the ticket sales for the live event or to the viewing of the telecast or whatever. It's just to make their bogus-ass hall of fame in their mind look more legitimate when they have these celebrities and they can get publicity from TMZ or whatever, but it's ridiculous. So I think Sid should be in that spot. With Bad News, Bad News Allen, he was Bad News Brown in the WWF,

but Alan Coage everywhere else in the world for his career. Including the WWF actually originally. Well, including his original run was as himself. He's not a star they've focused on in any of the retrospectives or the, the documentaries or whatever, but still he was there until 87 and demol- he was there while demolition was there. Well, not 87. Yeah, he was a little bit later than that.

He came in in, I think maybe the end of 87, early 88, and he was there until, he was there until 1990. Okay. So even point being, it's the same, he was there at the same time as they are. He goes in the legacy wing. and they i know demolition were overall bigger names in the scheme of things and more enduring but point being again are they doing it just because they have to because they have to check off the minority boxes that they i'm not making this up we have established they have to have

a woman they have to have a person of color they have to have these demographic holes that they fill, as well as their main event inductee and this and that. But I don't think he's old enough for the legacy wing with Thess and Londos and Tutsmont or whatever either. And co-workers who can give a good speech and family who are alive to accept an award, and people, wrestling fans would like to see that. I think sometimes WWE doesn't think wrestling fans would like to see that. We don't want everything to go 40 minutes, but we would like to see that.

And having said that, as far as is he deserving to be in the Hall of Fame, obviously, especially with some of the people that are already in there that have had a tenuous relationship with the WWF at best, I don't know that he did the best work of his career in the WWF, because by that time he was older and he didn't get a chance. to be, you know, the guy that he was, but Brett Hart always had nothing. But, you know, good things say about him is how strong of a draw he was in Calgary. And they loved him in Japan for, what, 10 years back and forth going for Anoki.

And since he had done judo and already been high level in that sport for quite, a while he started in pro wrestling late. So how old was he by the time he finished in WWF? That was 35 years ago, but I bet he was mid-40s at that. So he was born in 1943, so actually he was older than that. So there's, so 47. So that's, you know, again, at wrestling Hall of Fame, yes. And he was a badass legitimate shooter as a judo expert.

He was a tough guy. He was a convincing promo. And the matches, he wasn't exactly a Chris Cole level bumper. But from what I could tell, he made you work for it, but he could do it when he had to. He introduced me to the Enzeguri, which he called the ghetto blaster. That was his finishing maneuver. And that was actually. I believe that was the first time that really anybody on a national basis used that.

You know, when you're a kid and you love wrestling and you see all these promos, you sometimes copy them, like on the schoolyard and stuff. But there was like certain, like, with Bad News brand, there were two things he would always say. One worked, one you couldn't say. One was, you spineless cockroach. You could say that. The other one, you beerbelly sharecropper. that one wasn't one that worked on the playground I'll tell you that

well would they know in up there in the wilds of Long Island they'd know what a beer belly was but would they even know what a sharecropper was maybe not in elementary school but by the time you got the middle school you'd probably learn that in history yes well that's true you know when you're reading tom sawyer and huckleberry finn and you know about whitewashing and sharecropping and things of that nature well bad news brown Again, he had a good WWF run. He had matches with Hogan, matches with Savage,

when they were both champion, him and Jake Roberts. Maybe not the most exciting of matches, but... But that's the thing you could buy him against anybody, even the Giants. He had the deal where he backed Andre down that the boys couldn't wait to talk about, because even though, you know, most people liked Andre, that was high-level fucking gossip when they got in the argument on the...

the bus into Calgary territory and bad news had him pull the bus over and asked him to get out at all boss that's okay well i think it was japan was it japan i thought it was calgary somewhere on a buss calgary had a lot of buses maybe they just had vans he was the big heel in calgary post mongolian stomper you know there was abdulah the butcher there was mongolian stomper there was bad news allen yeah and he drew him a ton of money during that period of time and a ton of heat that's actually when Ed Whalen and all the problems happened and they got pulled off the air because That's right. They beat up Mongolian

Stompers' fake son who wasn't his son. And Ed Whalen was so offended by the whole thing. That was that Tommy Wright, wouldn't it? Tommy Wright, they brought him to Calgary as the, because the Mongolian Stomper was the

legend of all-time heel in Calgary and scared Brett Hart when he was a kid. But then, you know, the last, same thing. in Knoxville, they get nostalgia kicks in and they become iconic and they had him as a baby face

and they brought this kid in to be his son so bad news. What did they do? Pile drive him on the concrete? Whatever it was, it caused a fucking riot and the level of violence and the riot from the fans

and the kids doing convulsions and Ed Whalen said fuck it, the TV announcer and quit. And he knew the shit was work. Ed Whalen, too, when they did one of the last angles they did that people talked about, that people actually wanted to see, Davy Boy and Dynamite Feuding in 89 when they went back after the WWF, apparently Ed Wayland was so offended by the idea that the Bulldogs were

feuding, he like edited half the stuff off TV. Yes. So you never got to see it because he decided, and he had that kind of power, that kind of sway, he decided that he didn't want it airing. Ed Whalen, I can't quote chapter and verse on what his position was in the community, but he was enough of a prominent person that he's the reason why they were able to get the TV. When Stu had been off TV before for a while and business had hurt, had suffered. And he got TV and he was the announcer and he was the figurehead and he was also a raving baby face.

like a fucking Calgary version of Harry Thornton and Chattanooga. And he wanted good, clean sport and all this other stuff. And he didn't want the heels to get heat. He was another one of those guys that would steamroller over him with the microphone if they tried to get heat. But also he had the power in Canadian television was even, I don't know about still today probably, but back then was touchier than American television

on what they broadcast and Ed Whalen would overrule Stu on his angles and shit oh no we can't show that and he got away with it because they needed him so bad because they needed the TV well once again bad news Alan or bad news Brown and the WWF

going into the legacy wing or going in with the legacy class the 2026 class There's a Hall of Fame but there's no Hall He's going in there He's going in the wing Wings thighs breasts Fucking necks

Whatever the case may be Jim speaking of the W.W.E. Hall of Fame This year Going in to the W.W.E. Hall of Fame for the Immortal Moment Award What? Which is the award established in 2025

to recognize the most important matches in WWE history. Last year, Austin versus Brett from Mania 13 won. And this year going in Hulk Hogan versus Andre the Giant from WrestleMania 3. What are your thoughts on this match

finally receiving some recognition? It's been long overdue, Brian hadn't it? That that match would get some recognition from the fans. It's a forgotten part of history. Nobody ever talks about it. I mean, if they're going to do that, but they can't have Andre there and they can't have Hogan there. Now, now they get Nick Hogan there.

That's what this is. How do we get a Hogan moment? Are they going to send him a ride to the airport? They can let him run his own car. But they could use that time for Sid, is what I'm saying to you. I agree. I think we've got the picture by this. point that that was a milestone match in history.

But whatever. Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. Well, congratulations to Mr. Hogan and Mr. Andre and their families and friends. This big recognition. All of their families and Andre's grandfather that was eight feet tall, the whole fucking family.

I'm sure if Andre was here, he would say, Jim, let's move on here with the show. Let's go now. We better. We better go on with the show. Yes. A lot of listeners have won your opinion on this. I think I have a few things here to maybe be able to recap this.

The love affair in social media terms going on between Vince Rousseau and Tony Kahn. Oh, good. Have you been following this? Because as you could tell based on the participants here, the listeners have been flooding the email and getting in touch a lot about this. What we heard the other day... to the day was that who complimented who first.

Somebody from Vinny Ruse organization over there, that slap dash sloppy shop says how well Tony Kahn's got an open invitation to come on our show

and Tony Kahn wrote back well I'd love to sometime or other and the people were oh my God Tony Kahn's agreed to go on the show, but he said I'd love to sometime or another. I don't think they booked it, you know, for a specific time and date at that point. I think we talked about this the other day.

And now, it was the same thing when we read that email exchange, the last email exchange between the two venses, where as soon as he's got an opening, he's like that, that fucking insurance salesman and it's the porch scene, and it's a gift with W. W.C. Fields. Immediately jumps in. Nice day, isn't it? Yeah. Well, as a matter of fact, and then he proceeds to try to sell you

the goddamn life insurance policy. So he comes back from Tony going, yeah, I'd love to do it. Whatever. To try to get himself a job with a co-promotion between Tony's AEW and this

outlaw band of reprobates and dipshits that he works with in a barn somewhere in fucking Colorado or whatever. He didn't even wait to talk to the guy in person. He's soliciting another job on Twitter. Is this what I'm understanding? Out loud. We have a recap here, apparently. It started where Jonathan Coachman, who must broadcast with Vince Rousseau, I presume,

responded to someone saying they don't watch AEW but if Tony Khan agreed to do a show with Jonathan Coachman at Vinnie Russo and Vince Rousseau, he may give AEW another look and Jonathan Coachman wrote Anything would be better than that, right?

That type of never less. We have an open invitation for Tony Con to come on our show. We had a great conversation today with one his female stars, Maya. If he came... Who the hell is that? I have no idea who that is. Anyway, if he came on shows like ours, instead of podcasts of people,

will only ask questions they want to know, instead of asking questions to make him think about how... What, wait a minute, did this guy graduate any kind of fucking school? You worked with him, this Jonathan Coachman. That's what... No, he came after I left, didn't he? Oh, did he? I don't know. I thought...

Maybe he did he did. I don't know. We may have passed in the night. He wasn't that memorable. But can he speak fucking English? I had Kevin Kelly and Michael Cole. Can this motherfucker speak English? Let me try to do this.

Can you read that again? If he came on shows like hours, instead of podcasts of people will only ask questions they want to know, instead of asking questions to make him think about how he is going about his business, then maybe a few things would change. I know this from my time in WWE. You can't possibly have all the ideas and the more good people you put around you

normally the better any product is. Come on, Tony. Any day. And he tagged Tony Todd, obviously. Wait a minute. So this, first of all, he can't fucking form a coherent thought there, but also he legitimately,

thinks that the more people that are chipping in the ideas, the better everything is, instead of, as we've talked about for the last 10 fucking years, that's the worst thing you can do. The big writing teams and the big creative teams and everybody having a finger in the fucking thing is what causes it to be a cluster fuck. But he's only worked in fake wrestling, not the real wrestling business, so he doesn't really know how things work. Tony says you're right, who do you recommend?

What's his answer going to be? Right, that's the test. But anyway, so he sends out the big, oh, well, all could be forgiven. We need to sit down and talk. Well, Tony Kahn responds, I would love to come on the show with you

and Vince Rousseau, coach. I've been a fan of both of yours for many years. Also, also, I think, Vince is doing a tremendous job on JCW, which I enjoy very much. Oh, good Lord. Like, he's watching that.

Hashtag AEW Dynamite, hashtag AEW Collision. Well, yes, but he's got two two-hour programs on per week, plus this Ring of Honor debacle, plus all of his other businesses, but he's got time to watch a literal wrestling show produced by clowns. Yes, apparently Tony Contrault. does have that time. Okay, and also the reason why I laughed was because I've told you, Joe Franklin, you, you, you, Channel 9. Being a New Yorker, Joe Franklin was a fucking New York

City television institution for what, 40 years with the Joe Franklin show late night, maybe longer. He was at, God damn it, it was either a pay-per-view in Madison Square Garden while Marlena was managing gold dust or it was the Hall of Fame. Somehow we were in New York City and Joe Franklin was backstage in the green room and he came up to Marlena who had obviously was Gold Dust manager because it was Terry Runnels who was his wife at the time and she had just started on television as Marlena like six months beforehand. And he had no earthly idea

that she had been Alexandria York and WCW because he didn't watch fucking WCW. He goes up to Marlena who in the wrestling world has existed for six months and does the classic showbiz line. Oh, it's great to see you.

I've been a fan of yours for many years, many years. Many years. Well, Tony's profession of fandom got two responses. From Jonathan Coachman, done and done. Thank you sincerely, Tony. Can't wait to make it happen and chop it up about the business we all love. And Vince Rousseau's response, Tony, it would be an honor. Seriously.

When can we do this? We're live on stadium at 11 a.m. on Thursdays. I have tried to talk rats into blowjobs with less enthusiasm. Then what, they are now just trying to get this son of a bitch on their podcast. They think they got them hooked. And, you know what the funny thing is? My first thought was, he thinks he's got them hooked. Remember, before anything, beyond being a bill,

son. He's an internet troll. That's what he is. That's how he grew up. That's what he does. So my first thought was, oh, what a brilliant way for him to fuck with him. But I don't know. But then now, do you have, do you have any Rue's creative pitch that he's sent out already?

Is that the same as this thing? Hold on. Let me, uh, I have another tweet that was sent out by Vince Rousseau. Tony Kahn. I got it confirmed. that's in caps, on a good word that you really do enjoy J.C.W. While that's cool and much, much appreciated, give me a follow back.

Let's talk some creative. Let's do something that will blow the WWE into oblivion! That's in caps. That's all in caps. You've heard about me over the years. We sure have. You've heard about me over the years, but you've never had the opportunity to get to know me.

And then all in caps, let's give them something to talk about. So obviously asking Tony for a follow. He wants to take this rag-tag band of fat, drunken dipshits that he books for fucking literal clowns and marched them into combat, like taking the goddamn National Guard of Slovakia into fight the Chinese Red Army

to blow the WWE into oblivion by co-promotion with AEW and Clown World. He and... How could this be real? How could that be real? Again, just that thought... Like, you know, you get more views, reviewing French fries

and they do for their like how good that thought process that if we merge these operations that's it for WWE well no see that's the thing that does boggle the mind and one would think that it's he's just delusional

but the thing is if you think about it he knows where he is in the world he can't Vince Russo cannot know cannot not know. He cannot be unaware of the fact that he has gone

about as far down the totem pole and the wrestling business as you can go in the current position he's in and nobody gives a fuck on a mainstream basis. If he was legitimately pitching Tony Conn a business deal, then after the initial contact on Twitter,

he would have got one of these good word givers to give him Tony Kahn's number. I've got it. Everybody's got it. I've got it. And he'd call, yeah, I know you do. And he'd call him on the fucking phone instead of, because this, he doesn't see this public groveling that he does to everybody as public

groveling and begging. And please throw me a lifeline and please get me back to my greatness or whatever. he just does it to get people talking. He thinks, oh, now the Marx will think that the two creative geniuses of these two companies are going to come together. But he doesn't want to do it privately because he's probably figuring he ain't going to talk to me anyway. But he wants to get the people rumoring and buzzing that these two titans of the industry are going to collaborate. and again, the buzz is going to be faint and minute except for the people laughing at the shameless desperation of it all,

in all caps, that he just can't. He can't even play hard enough to get till the guy does their show maybe, and then he has a conversation with him after they do the show. Hey, Tony, you know, We could do a little talent trait or something. He's got to do the full court press. You have to have a first date before you talk pre-nup.

My God, I was so shy. This one time when I was 19 years old, this very demure-looking young lady, I tried to steal a kiss and then kept stealing, and I was already passed home and in the goddamn parking lot before we even got to the movie. And I was like, where the fuck did that come from? because she didn't know how to play hard to get.

And that's why Vince Rousseau is in the parking lot of the showcase sitemas with his legs spread up over the fucking armrest. I was wondering how you were going to tie this back into the... Well, let's see it all works together. Again, why do... That's how I can't take this seriously. If you think you're going to actually blow WWE into oblivion, give me a break, that just means you think if you were somehow...

Have you somehow got the reins of AEW you think you could? Or it's just, like it's the weirdest way to get attention. You being the royal you, like this is the way Russo is thinking. It just seems, I'm going to say, don't pin this on me personal. It seems like a very weird way to get attention because unless Tony keeps responding in the positive, eventually, is the next one going to be, hey, Tony, hey, bro, we haven't heard back from you in a week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, what did I just give you these ideas for free?

about coming on my show? That'll be the next communication. But I, I think the only thing that it keeps me from believing that it's 100% just him yanking people's chains for publicity is because

as we know, Vinnie Rue is delusional enough to think that he was and could conceptually could still be valuable to the wrestling industry. And that's, he doesn't see, he sees this

as a meeting of equals instead of a deliriously irrelevant fucking unemployed fucking former fucking kind of okay guy for a little while begging for another job

25 years later. If they did speak, how long do you think it would take for Russo to pitch Tony Khan coming into JCW to be a heel? A couple of hours because Tony wouldn't shut up. Because that's the thing about when Tony Khan talks to experts

Tony Kahn reaches out and talks to experts at a variety of times, and it generally follows the pattern of he then tells the experts what all of his great ideas are, and doesn't listen to any of the experts tell him anything wrong with those ideas. But he loves to talk to experts, because he loves to tell the experts how good his ideas are. So I think it would probably take Russo at least an hour and a half to get cranked up to broach the subject because Tony wouldn't take a breath till then. I see something here. Ed Ferrar is asking if Carlos Silva wants to go on his podcast.

It's one of these days where I'm thankful we have a podcast that doesn't rely on guests. Thank God. Jim. Carlos Silva, there's another one just again. What is the state of him? that he feels that he needs to come out as a businessman running the company in a snow white baseball cap when he's only 5 foot 2 and 98 pounds and looks like Paul Schaefer's older brother. Can't anybody not look official?

If you can't look official, you shouldn't be allowed to play the part of an official on TV, even if really you're officially an official, right? Do you think part of the problem is that wigs have gone? completely out of fashion. I mean, obviously there are still some people out there. Ron Fuller's out there. It looks and sounds like Mr. Ed. He's out there with his wig.

Looks like one of the Beatles. But you don't hear about too many people getting wigs anymore. Usually people embrace losing their hair and shave their head or they wear a hat all the time. I know someone like in their 50s. They're always wearing their little baseball hat. Always. You never see the top of their head or scalp or anything.

Okay, then here's the thing. If Carlos Silva is bald and is wearing a baseball cap to cover up his baldness, then don't goddamn come out on television. Find someone to be the authority figure that is younger and larger and more virile and has more oomph in his voice and can tell these people what to do as the representative of the ownership of the promotion instead of some weasily little fucking executive that's marking out because he gets to walk out to the ring and stand around because the company that he runs accidentally bought a wrestling promotion.

But I'm saying if instead of the hat, what if he had a wig? What if he had like a full kind of, you know, Elvis, not Elvis, but you know, dark hair. I don't care. I don't care if they make him up to look like the werewolf of fucking London. He still looks like a little shit that doesn't have any power to tell anybody what to do. So just don't have him. do not do the in the words of oldie anderson just don't do this anymore all right jim let's get a few questions before we get out of here obviously more fun and hijinks of the experience no we're going to have a ball this week jim a question here sent me of a cult of cornet facebook group sent in by edward whipkey what were jim's thoughts when rick root and manny

Fernandez walked down to Jim Crockett promotions without dropping the tag team titles. I wanted to go to Dusty and say, see, we should have won them back. But I didn't because I wasn't sure I had that much cachet in the industry yet. No, I was pissed because, again, I understood, I said this before, what Dusty was trying to do was make another heel team. We were already established. So, you know, we had had the bells, or the rock and roll had them, then we won them, then we lost them back to them. Then they lost them to Tully and Arne, right, for a period of time,

and then got them back, and that's when they dropped them to Bull and Mani, I think, or Bull and Mani, Bull and Rood. Nevertheless, you could, the previous lineage of the tag team title in Crockett in the NWA, it still meant something at that point. And this was something that had been used as a main event attraction. And especially if Flair or Dusty, whoever the NWA champion was, was on another town. The tag team title was in the main event. And it was a co-feature in the big shows.

There had been Ivan and Kohloff and Crusher Khrushchev, the Rock and Roll Express, The Midnight Express. Tully and Arn. These are at that time, elite level in the business, heel and baby face tag teams. And in along came Rick Rood and Manny Fernandez. Rude was just beginning to find his way. He hadn't got all the way there yet,

but he was still only what a year and a half from leaving Memphis or whatever. He came from Dallas. loved or well okay Memphis then Dallas and then came yes to but point being he was still getting it together he'd only been working for three years man he was Dusty liked him and he was a tremendous in-ring worker better than he gets credit for he was a fired up promo that he could go too long and make no fucking sense but he'd been there a while it wasn't he wasn't he wasn't anything special in that roster, in that environment with guys like the horsemen, et cetera.

And they were managed by Paul Jones, who had otherwise and still mostly was working with Jimmy Valiant. It just, it was like, boom, it was a wet fart from the previous three years of the tag team scene, right? And so they were going to try to build them, but then to top it off, they just get the belts and just get into the program with the rock and roll and they fucking leave and take those beautiful old belts that Nikita Malkovich made with them so rude you could tell was destined for better things and you know I forgave that but

I was always mad at fucking manny for leaving the we should he should have put the belts back on the midnight and he'd say, he'd say, they'd still had their belts and we would have done better at the houses. But that's water under the braid. Hey, somewhat related question. When were you told that Dusty was going to create a U.S. Tag Team Championship? Oh, good Lord.

I don't know. I know that he had told us when we were going to win the belts from the rock and roll in February 86. he told us the week before probably at TV or one of the houses that we were going to win them in Atlanta that was going to be on the TBS special. And then he gave us, in those days, it was considered respect that you gave the guys, whether you thought there was going to be any argument about it or not,

you gave the champions some advance notice that when they were going to drop the belts, it a special big match or whatever. and even, obviously, it was a tradition for the NWA world title, but even the tag team belts and et cetera, you gave the guys, the champions, the respect of, okay, and Charlotte, you know, on the 23rd, we want to switch this, whatever. But as far as, I think we probably just heard,

oh, the beginning of the United States tag team championship tournament right here on TBS. That's when we probably found out about it. And since that was again, it was a thing that was on TV. I probably figured out that we were winning when we got to the semifinals. And he probably told us after we won the semifinal match or whatever. But that's what we got a chance to work with Ronnie Garvin and Barry Windham, who were a tremendous and an underrated team because Barry was so good.

And Ronnie, in hindsight, was so good in his own way. but that segueed into Roddy and Jimmy Garvin when they reunited them and then we carried it all the way to the Fantastics in 88 because that's what Dusty told us, especially when Stan came in in April of 87, that was the month before the U.S. Tag title tournament started, I think, and it was a couple weeks for the Crockett Cup.

The Midnight Express had a name he wanted to protect, So immediately when Stan joins the team, we went all the way to, what was it, the semifinals in the Crockett or the finals that year. We had at the Crockett Cup, we had the Road Warriors, which we won by disqualification. We went over the Garvans. I think that was a countout.

Oh, semifinals. You lost to Dusty and Nikita. Semifinals, we lost to Dusty and Nikita. And then they went on and won it. But point being, he kept us strong there. And then once we got the U.S. tag title, that's where he told us, he said, guys, that's just, that's potty over the belt to potty your ring outfit now.

They go right along with the robes and everything. Because he felt like if we had belts that I could crow about on the promos and that the guys could just wear, since it wasn't overdone, since everybody in a company didn't have a belt, they had world and U.S. tag team titles. They had a world singles title and a U.S. heavyweight title. Don't give you start on the Western Heritage title or whatever, but in a company with 40 guys, those were the belts, right?

So the midnight carried the tag team belts just as an extra little heat for the U.S. belts as a an extra little heat prop where we could still claim dominance and not be in the world title picture. And then that's how we were able to make the Fantastics. When they came in, we had had the belts for almost a year and we did the fucking deal where we were about to have our one year celebration and the fucking Fantastics fucked us and blah, blah, and we switched them back and forth with them.

At that point, the belts made. meant something because we'd been defending them against the road warriors or the Rock and Roll Express or Garvin and Wyndham or whatever the fuck may be. And there you have it. All right, good answer. You know, on that topic, 89 or 88 into 89, if Dusty hadn't been fired

and, you know, let's just say a bunch of things turned out differently, Dusty's not fired, Dennis doesn't walk out before the Loser Leaves Town match, you know, and no George Scott. Well, there wouldn't have been a loser leave town match if Dusty hadn't been fired. Oh, that's true. That was a Jim Crockett thing because he didn't like Randy Rose. My point was, if everything had worked out perfectly, how long do you think you would have stayed a baby face? Do you think it was just through the Paul E feud or, you know, you ended up having the run through, you know, the New York clash of champions with the dynamic dudes?

Would it have gone that long? Or like, what do you think would have happened differently if everything had worked out differently? well see that's the thing is that Paul E was the key to me being a baby face and to a lesser extent we could have done it with even though Tully and Arne left if J.J. Dillon had had another team but he didn't stay that much longer

I needed a manager in the opposite corner to offset me for me to be a baby face and serve a purpose and as well the reason why that the people like the Midnight Express as baby faces is because they had been such a great team as heels. You get other heels that the people dislike that are fresher heels, newer heels. The old, well, he may be a prick, but he's our prick. But those heels have to understand how to work with a baby face team. that has to be heelish, has to work like,

they liked the Midnight Express, same reason when Lawler turned baby face. They liked him because he'd been a dominant heel because he was going to give the heels a taste of their own medicine. In this aspect, any baby face that has been a top territory or company carrying fucking baby face, right, he's got to have had strong heels to combat him.

But when you get a strong heel that you want to turn baby face, in a lot of cases, that guy needs to keep working like a heel to give the other heels a taste of their own medicine. The reason why he is over as a baby face is because he was such a dirty heel. Sometimes they'd bring the sheik in. if Abdullah the butcher was a regular in the territory or the Mongolian stomper or whatever, they bring the only heel in the business

worse than them into the territory once just to fucking give him his own medicine. So with the original midnight, it worked because I had a foil on the other side and Dennis and Randy were smart enough to the business to know that Bobby and Stan still had to do their teeth, even sometimes behind the referees back or cheat or do whatever to stay over with the people. If it just suddenly Bobby Eaton starts selling like Ricky Morton, then the people would have gone,

well, what the fuck happened? So with them they understood. But then because that team was and the program was broken up early, then we're working with the Samoan SWAT team, Samu and Fatu. and they have the Samoans match, but they're working with the midnight like their baby faces. And even though Pauli was in their corner, so I had something to do,

the matches weren't good because they're working with the midnight like baby faces and they weren't going to sell, you know, because they're big and physically dominant, they're only going to sell double teams and their own headbuts. So those were completely unproductive matches. And then Paul Jones and the Russian assassins. God bless the angel of death, Dave Sheldon and Jack Victory.

But the outfits were goofy, and Paul Jones was not, people didn't give a fuck about me and him. What was our issue? And so we were, with the dynamic dudes, I saw a way to get out of the baby-faced thing. If the original program

had run its course, we would have gone through the summertime with the original midnight and Paul E, and we would have ended up with a six-man tag where I beat Paul E like I did at the Great American Bash 89. Jim Ross and Kevin Sullivan, the people on the

booking committee realized that since Dennis and Randy had been broken up, even though we won that six-man, I never really got even with Paul E. And so they didn't want to leave that stand. So as soon as George Scott, was out of the way and the booking committee took over they said okay we still we've got this that we can get promos out of cornet and dangerously and we've got to have cornet come out on top because

that kind of puts the button on their program so that's how I ended up winning the rip your clothes off match at the bash 89 but originally as I said if we'd have gone with the original midnight through the summer of 89, then we would have, with immediately the next program we got into, we would have figured out some baby face team to turn heel on. And truthfully,

if Dusty was still there and everything was still normal, it would have been the Steiner brothers. Because the midnight had great matches with the fucking Steiners. So that would have probably been what we would have

done because after the run with Dennis, Randy, and Polly, long term, there was no reason for us to be baby faces. That was to capitalize on that moment and get back in a spotlight and do some memorable shit. And then we would have switched back. But since the boys were floundering, we had to, with no opponents,

we had to wait until I figured out something with the dudes. And also, because by that point, Jim Hurd, who was a goddamn complete fucking befucking foon, wouldn't let us work with anybody but the dudes because the Steiner's and Doom were married and he loved the skyscrapers who were nothing but fucking trouble. There were no heel tag teams for you guys to work with

who would give you anything. I mean, the freebirds, skyscrapers, Samoans. Oh God, and the freebirds, that was with Jimmy Garvin. I was the same size of Jimmy Garvin. I was actually heavier than Jimmy Garvin, but he was on the juice, so he was crankier. But we had to work with Spankewarm. Ivy and Sid, every one night just to get on the floor just to get away from Sid,

Sid's clubbing Bobby and Bobby, the baby face reaches up at the giant and gouges Sid's eyes so Sid can be blind and Bobby can get away from him to get back to the corner and Sid didn't sell it. He reached out and gouged Bobby's eyes. So Bobby didn't sell it, reached up and gouged his eyes. Sid didn't sell us, so Bobby just walked away from him. And then after the matter, Bobby Tulsie, he said, I gouged your eyes. You got away. Well, I gouged yours, too. You didn't sell it either.

He said, because I gouged yours first. That's all right. All right. So we're talking about your baby face run. Yes, but that's why we had to get out of that because we needed to go back to be able to control the matches because that's another thing is I'm sorry, but the goddamn, neither spivvy nor Sid was in a position to call a fucking match at that point. And like you said, the heels we were working with,

The Russians, Victory and Sheldon, they just let Bobby and Stan call it because they knew they were in over their head. But the other guys, the heels wanted to call the fucking matches with Bobby and Stan. What about the militia, Jack Victory and Rip Morgan? Oh, they were gorgeous too. They were beautiful to work with. And nice guys, Jack Victory is one of the guys that helped me move from Dallas to Atlanta in 85. I helped me load up my fucking U-Haul trailer that I had You know, forgive me for not remembering,

but did you guys ever work with the State Patrol? On TV a time or two, I believe, I think we did, yeah, Dwayne Bruce and Buddy Lee Parker. How did Buddy Lee Parker rise up to be like the, it was almost like he really was a drill sergeant in charge of WCW's training facility? I never had any problems with the young fellow, and I'm not trying to slander him. But Jody Hamilton liked him because he was dedicated and worked hard and could do calisthenics,

and he could do all the moves solidly. But it was, that was a beginner's level type thing. If it had been OVW, he'd have been the guy in charge of our amateur class. Just teach him how to do the moves. Don't hurt anybody, but you've never been in a money-drawn position. so that's where you get off, but they had Buddy Lee Parker as like the figurehead trainer

of the power plant because Jody liked him. And he did a lot of shit. Jody didn't have to do that. And Dale Veezy, he was in our mid-South. Yeah, he was, do you know where his first gimmick? He was the hunter. Do you remember the hunter in Georgia and Tennessee for a very short period of time?

like 88ish or so maybe. No, before that. Yeah, I don't. Before that, probably mid-80s. Because the hunter's valet was Bambi. Bambi, the girl wrestler, that's how she first started. She was the valet of the hunter. One would have thought Bambi would have tried to stay away from the hunter,

but it didn't work that way. But then the rib was the Bambi ended up having a longer and more notable career than the hunter. Well, you've got to join the State Patrol, and isn't that an honor? Well, Jim, let's get another question here. A few people sent me this article. So let me ask you about this. Here's one.

This one from the official Cult of Cornett Facebook group was sent by Brad Spellich. Becky Lynch says getting your WrestleMania opponent's lavish gifts was a long-standing tradition. So we need to know What did Yoko get Brett? Did he have to get Lex something as well? What the fucker? And Piper and Perfect for refereeing. Also, what did Ahmed, Jake, and Yoko get for Vader, Owen, and Bulldog?

Also, did Jim ever get any gifts from any of his clients, WrestleMania opponents? I have a quote here from an interview they did. Becky Lynch says the greatest gift she and Seth Rollins ever gotten was from AEW's Claudio Castignoli who gave Seth a La Marzocco coffee machine after their match together at WrestleMania 37. It was a gift after WrestleMania

historically when guys would have WrestleMania matches they would give each other watches. Rolls. Historically! What is she? It's kind of a tradition that's fallen off the wayside unless you're Cody Rhodes. But instead of gifting something,

Seth a Rolex, Claudio gifted him a La Marzocco coffee machine, which was the greatest gift, the gift that keeps on giving. Oh, joy, oh bliss, so they can stink the house up with that foul-smelling fucking liquid all 24 hours a day. I don't know what the fuck they're talking about. Historically, maybe now, historically bullshit. My biggest WrestleMania payoff, I didn't make enough money to make a fucker to buy a Rolex. to begin with.

I think didn't Sean and Flair? Sean did that for Flair or somebody, whatever the fuck, every once in a while you'll hear so-and-so bought me this expensive gift or whatever, but as far as a

tradition, I would say that three quarters of the goddamn WrestleMania 10 card didn't make a payoff enough to buy a Rolex. Gross. gross to begin with. And besides that,

what the fuck? I just don't understand the concept of spending a coffee machine fine. Of course, I don't know how much this high-end Lagreca machine fucking costs or whatever, but it's like one of those curigs, okay. But fuck, getting another one of the boys

thousands of dollars worth of fucking presents for a match. They've lost their fucking minds. when a big payoff for WrestleMania was 100 grand like Gold Dust and Piper for WrestleMania 96 or Nash or those guys

you know what they left their opponent? Alone! Apparently this is a really expensive coffee machine. I'm trying to see... $300? What the fuck is an expensive coffee machine? Well, again, there must be different models. This one, Lamarzoko, KB93 group.

AV with Scales espresso $37,760. What the, what the fuck? The La Mazzocco Linnae, I guess it would be, mini espresso, this is a mini, red machine, $6,600. The La Mazzocco mini espresso and black is $7,400.

What the flying fuck is the matter with anybody that would spend $7,600? to make a cup of coffee. And here's another goddamn thing, just out there in the future, if anybody is ever thinking of getting me a gift, and they spend $7,000 on a Sprite machine or a coffee machine or just give me the goddamn cash.

Here, here. That is fucking ridiculous. I don't want my favorite kitchen implement is my deep friar. and it's one of those fucking stainless steel jobs that I got out of that what was it the

what's the big kitchen place is it hamaker slimmer or whatever the fuck it was like 200 bucks and I thought well I'll splurge a $200 deep fryer holy shit my mother would be ashamed

I had to wait till she was gone to do something like that and if it was $7,000 for a cup of coffee? Fuck all of you. I have a thread here on Reddit. Not necessarily the best place to look for good thoughts, but

La Mazzocco owners, was it worth it? And someone's talking about dreaming, about owning one, asking people if it's worth it. Someone says, buy it as an investment for your small business. Here's someone who says when you get to...

Who wants to walk into a goddamn boutique and smell stinky coffee. When you get to that kind of money for a non-essential luxury item, there is no cost worth at ratio. If you drop the money in the middle of your room and set it to fire, would it change your life? If no, then congratulations, you can afford it.

And you should go box. But no, I could set $7,000 on fire and it would not change my life, but I would be mad at myself for the rest of my life for buying a coffee, maker for seven or any kitchen appliance or god damn i didn't pay seven thousand dollars for our stove and it talks to me it's quite insulting on most days but every once in a while it's in a good mood i wonder how much parts of labor are on something like that fuck apparently you should get the fucking technician to come live with you for that amount of money but no i as far as the whole I can understand a hearty hand clasp and a thank you brother and et cetera,

but or hey, let's go, I'll take you out to dinner or whatever, but spending thousands of dollars on gifts for your opponent for a wrestling match. I don't. So there was never that for, you know, like, again, WrestleMania were telling me there was no moment where Yoko Zuna said, hey, Jim, I have a little something special for you because I'm going to get a big payoff or... No. I again this is a

when when things like this explode and people start making too much money these are when traditions like this starts taking place this my WrestleMania days were not an era where everybody was walking around going wow I can't believe we're making way too much fucking money oh man I met Johnson just gave me a sofa a great

WrestleMania. He gave people numerous potatoes but I don't know about any kind of furniture or you know, cooking implements. All right. No, everyone, again, every once a while, like, didn't Sean get flare a watch

and the dusty watch thing that Triple H got out of the pawn and gave to, these are documented incidents, but just the idea of, bunch of the boys just getting each other things because they worked with each other on a show I've never heard of. Well, there it is, ladies and gentlemen, and we will get more of your questions next week. But with that, the drive-thru is closed.

All right, pretty good. Did the hamster get stuck in those strings? It was pretty good, I think I just said, except for that last note. But there was no hamster. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play? Of course, the hamster wheel will continue. continue to roll on the Jim Cornett experience in a few days. And next week, of course, back here on the drive-through.

Go through the archive, patreon.com slash cornet for $5 a month to get 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 the official Jim Cornet YouTube channel. It'll come right up. Just stand straight right up. in front of you.

Check out that great George Livinitis artwork. Cornett's collectibles at Jimcornet.com. What's going on, Jim? Ring-worn stuff right now. Go there, click on collectibles and see what might be. If this is after April 4th, it might all be gone. Just jump in there and just get some things. And yes, and we will be back later on in a few days on the experience where I'm going to

try. I'm going to go find a cranky therapist. it can uncrank me. Maybe spend about 500 bucks a month or so on sessions with a therapist and being a better mood by Friday. We'll see how that works out. I think we're plugging Cornets Collectibles. Once again at Jimcornet.com.

Of course, the drive-thru is brought to you by the law office of Stephen P.neu, the law office, if I say it's slow enough so that two words are there, of Stephen P.new. Or the lost slaw, the lost slaw of Stephen P. If you can find his coleslaw, call 877-50 Steve to the lost slaw of Stephen P.Noo.

Get even with Stephen Newlawoffice.com. But with that, the drive-thru is closed. We'll be with you in a few days on the experience. And next week back here on the drive-thru, to all my fellow Jewish brothers and sisters out there. Happy Passover. And with that, for Jim Cornett, I'm the great Brian last. Telly-ho!