Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru - Episode 441

Episode Date: May 2, 2026

This week on the Drive Thru, Jim reviews Hulk Hogan: Real American episode one & WWE Raw! Plus Jim talks about Ric Flair's apology to Kaiser, how many matches Brock Lesnar has had, Nick Khan's town hall, the yips, Sid's son trying to buy the Mid-South Coliseum, the credibility of wrestling documentaries, and much more! Thanks to our episode sponsor: RAYCON:  Celebrate the moms in your life! Go to buyraycon.com/JCE to get 15% off the Everyday Earbuds Classic. Send in your question for the Drive-Thru to: [e-mail]  Follow Jim and Brian on Twitter: @TheJimCornette @GreatBrianLast Merch! https://arcadianvanguard.com/ Join Jim Cornette's College Of Wrestling Knowledge on Patreon to access the archives & more! https://www.patreon.com/Cornette Subscribe to the Official Jim Cornette channel on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/OfficialJimCornette Visit Jim's official site at www.JimCornette.com for merch, live dates, commentaries and more! You can listen to Brian on the 6:05 Superpodcast at 605pod.com or wherever you find your favorite podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I messed up a few times. My hand was in the one position. Hello again, friends, and you are our friends, and welcome back to another edition of Jim Cornett's Drive-Thru, your home of wrestling, and, of course, great music. I'm your host, The Great Brian Last. I'm not sure what we're going to talk about, but actually I am sure about a few things.

This is awful so far. Let's get away from me, and let's get to the star of the show. the man who's not yelling at you right now, Mr. Jim Corvette. Oh, boy, howdy. Have you ever done this before, Brian? Oh, boy. You know, here's the thing, not even, not even that organ playing that you just simulated there

that sounded like the Phantom of the Opera having some type of psychotic episode and being restrained by his handlers. Not your bungled introduction to this program that you've been doing for the past 10 years without botching it up that bad. Nothing that you can do or say is going to put me in a bad mood today. I'm back, baby. I'm back and ready to roar.

You know, the last month, I'm telling you, has been a shitty month. We had bad news and bad wrestling and just then the burnout to the bees. badness and burnout set it on me with with that i was just you know what the fuck but i've been a cranky person but now brian i'm back in a spirit that i always was before the optimistic the guy whose glass is not only half full but overflowing the eternal optimist the person who can see the silver lining at every cloud and try to eke out to positivity at a sea of negativity, nattering nabobs of negativity.

I am going to, I'm back in my normal frame of mind. I'm going to be happy and joyous. Jubilant even, I say, my boy. Jubilant even. Do you know who? Uh-oh. Do you know who? I shifted in my chair and that went off.

I thought I was farting somehow. Do you know who the cartoon character, Foghorn, Leghorn. was named, was based upon Ron Forger. No, no, come on. Ron was only about four years old when Fargo and Latin. Oh, do you, seriously, do you, have I stumped you with this one? Oh, great pop culture trivia expert.

You know, I feel like it's something I've heard because it's not like you're saying it. I'm like, oh, I've never heard anything. but I have no memory of who it was. There was a character on the radio in the 30s and 40s, I believe on Fred Allen's radio show, I believe. I don't want to attribute him properly, but named Senator Claghorn.

And he was a southern politician, and he was always trying to give the speech you fine to get the people to vote for him. Are you listening to me of what I'm talking to you, boy? And that foghorn-leghorn character was based, on Senator Claghorn, but now Senator Claghorn has been lost in the midst of time to the point where even the bright ones like you, my son, have forgotten about him, and Foghorn Leghorn has taken the whole goddamn smear over. He's a Foghorn Leghorn was Ivan Putzky getting

the Igor gimmick over better than Igor did. According to Wikipedia, Senator Claghorn was a blustery southern politician character played by Kenny Delmar on Fred Allen's popular 1940s radio show. There you go. I say, there you go, son. What's the matter with you, boy? All right.

Well, how did we get on Foghorn, Leghorn? I don't remember... Because I was talking about how happy... I'm in a good mood now. The wrestling still sucks, but we've got other things to talk about because the people doing it are all still saying,

and stupid and silly things, and or they're doing documentaries about people who have done this to some degree of success in the past that we can enjoy discussing and or dissecting, as the case may be. You know, I like documentaries now that I'm an old person, Brian, because they never did documentaries about the shit that I wanted to know about 30 and 40 years ago.

but now they do because that was the shit that was going on 30 or 40 years ago but I like to watch documentaries not only about wrestling but about things that I'm interested in and whether it's a history channel or the

various now streaming is full of them it's the only thing that streaming is good for the dagam documentaries however how much of the how much of the documentaries can we

trust on Netflix, let's say, about the subjects that we're interested in but want to learn more about or who would like to know about when the documentaries about the shit that we know about don't match up with the shit they tell us. Is that just a wrestling thing because wrestling is so mystified and mythified and shrouded in the K. Fabery, or do they just, on a regular basis, just bullshit their way through these other things, too? Without going too deep into the Hogan review right now. Just as overall general topic.

Again, there's a lot of things in the air of the Von Erics will talk about. I know on the next show, and there's a Sean Michaels one, and we've seen a lot of them in wrestling. I watch a lot of documentaries, too. Because of what you see in the wrestling ones, it makes you question a lot of the other ones. You know, with sports stuff, we'll talk more about him, I'm sure, in the next few weeks,

this David Shoemaker kid, who, again, I know he's been on a podcast and he's been a part of Bill Simmons's scene, and that's probably the problem because that's lent him credibility he doesn't deserve. He was exposed. He was in the Andre the Giant documentary making things up.

When you see that, And you realize that's Bill Simmons's person making up things in a Bill Simmons documentary that beyond the lies was really well done. But it makes you question the credibility of his other work. Well, see, here's the thing. They're lying here. Why aren't they lying when they talk about Magic Johnson and Larry Bird or this or that? It makes you question the other work of the filmmaker.

Well, here's the thing with, and I swear to God, one of the, the one of the lines I'd written down when he popped up again was who the fuck is is David Schumacher and I know that you had told me before and I because I remember asking the same question and I didn't care enough to retain the answer to where I remembered it but I would you say making things up do you think because he didn't actually come out and say well Andre the giant lived a double life as a you know secret service agent for the French government or whatever. No.

I think what he is is the guy, because like you said, one of the producers likes him or he's with ESPN or whatever he's doing for a living these days. But when they need to tell the story and bridge things and with what they're putting together in their final video edit

and they sit somebody down in the chair and they say, just give us a couple of lines about this topic. And he does, know what the fuck he's talking about so they're trying to feed him shit and he's wording it in a bullshitter he's a bullshin ways that you know over that just pulling it out of his ass that because he doesn't i you know i i am not sure what his qualifications or resume is to be a wrestling expert besides the same things everybody else do it these days is looking it up on the internet but

sometimes the internet doesn't have the real facts or you just don't understand them so more often. But he's not an expert, and the Von Erick documentary specifically on screen called him a wrestling historian. He's not that either. And there's a difference between being a soft fan who likes it and has their own points of view on it

versus someone actually understanding anything about the history or the timeline or the people you're talking about. Again, you say he didn't say Andre the Giant was in the CIA or whatever. No, what he said. was that in the 70s, Andre the Giant would go from territory to territory to wrestle the top good guy, which is completely wrong,

100% wrong, it never happened. And he confidently said it in that documentary produced by Bill Simmons. The most basic thing about Andre's career was that he had never been a heel in the United States until the fucking turn on a hoagun and he got that fucked up. But that's why I'm saying.

is they sit him down and just feed him shit and he's one of these guys that he probably saw a picture of him wrestling lawler and figure a lawler's a good guy not that whatever i don't but point being is the wrestling historian thing is thrown around a lot lately because that again consists of kids that get on the google machine and have no understanding of who the some of people still don't know there's two Danny Davis's. Remember every time we talk about my Danny Davis, the one that I possess on my friend and partner, Danny Davis, I swear to God, there's a tweet or a comment somewhere that, oh my God, I was today years old when I found out that they were two different people. It's even WWE. I forget what they put out. It wasn't even recent. But they put out something,

and they were talking about the different promoters in the different territories, and they put their image up, you know, Eddie Graham, Florida, Jim Barnett here, Paul Jones, George, And they showed the wrestler Paul Jones, like the... Well, the Paul Jones is a wrestler, too, but not the old man, Paul Jones, the 1980s manager. Yeah. But again, historian means you know something. The shoemaker guy does not have any credibility with any historian I know.

And even the ones I don't get along with, I don't think he has any credibility with them either. Like, he doesn't... No one considers him a historian. he's Bill Simmons's guy because of that platform, this fan with bad takes and no knowledge of history is elevated to be a historian. I heard he put out a book, and from what I've heard,

it's not the greatest book, you know what I mean? But because he's a part of that world, he's now a part of these documentaries, and when I see him, you know, you see a Bruce Pritchard and you say, oh, Bruce, I know what Bruce is going to do here, and he's not great on camera and he's full of shit but at least you know

this is the official company statement you see a Peter Rosenberg and you're like okay it's time for the fluff boy suckass shit where you're just gonna say everything the company wants you to say because you're just so happy to be there and then there's this kid

who's a pretend historian he's a pretend history he doesn't know anything about wrestling history and no historian considers him a historian so not to go off on all that right now. But it's just, it makes you question the credibility. Again, it makes you just, you go back and you think of documentaries and you're like,

okay, who's the shoemaker in that documentary? You know, who's the person that the filmmaker said, I need my guy here. I need, and, you know, for anyone who thinks, oh, well, they need someone there, who should it be? I'll tell you who should be. He should be Brian Solomon, quite frankly. And he's in Connecticut so they can get him anytime they want. But it should be someone who's good on camera and credible, not someone who.

And independent. Just really wants to do it. knowledgeable on the subject. Yeah. But that's the thing. That throws me off of some of these other ones. Also, I'm like, did this woman really fuck Lon Chady, Senior? Can we trust this?

What documentary is this now? Well, just anything, it's you happen to come across on the streaming. The many fuckings of Longchady. You know, he was. A thousand faces and two million fucks. Yes. He had all those faces. That's why he was able to get away with it.

around the country, and then news didn't travel as fast in those days also. But anyway, but this is your program, and I'm happy to be on it, and I'm happy to be here. I'm so fucking happy. They'll have to sandblast a smile off my face with a sandblast. Well, that's good to hear in the period of time where you were unhappy. You swore off AEW Dynamite. You reviewed Smackdown 60 minutes. That's another thing that's made me happy.

I'm going to continue that. right well we'll see if anything big happens on the show that necessitates you watching but uh it's good to hear that the old jim is back again here on the show jim's back ladies and gentlemen and you know what else is oh it's never went away cornets collectibles is there too make jim extra happy go there today well yes as a matter of fact make me extra happy because my pants right now are half off you've heard about this brian matter of fact I think I've told you before

right now at Jimcornet.com if you go there and click on collectibles the last of the the ran by the way if you ordered ring worn and ring used things like the rackets and the glasses and the suits and the ties

and the shirts and the wingy dingies well that stuff has either already been delivered or is in the hands of Hotchk's feather bottom and has been shipped or is being boxed up but I'm done with it. So thank you guys for your support, but I mentioned on the last program that the pants had not gone. Nobody wanted to get in my pants. So I've decided to go ahead and take my pants

half off. So now they are half price from the original price, a hundred bucks apiece for these ring-worn television worn. I was an authority figure in these. I was a TV announcer in these. I was a manager of legends, legends and icons even in these. And now you can have them with an autographed certificate of authenticity for only the sum of $100 plus shipping at Jim Cornett.com. But our regular merchandise also, the wonderful t-shirts, the heroes and friends book that is now, from what I've heard of other sales figures,

one of the best-selling pro-restling oriented books of the last year. That's available and many things more at Jim Cornett.com, but don't forget to go ahead and take my pants while they're half off. That's right. What a prize. Cornets Collectibles, Jimcornet.com. Jim, let's move on from your pants paying half off. Let's just move on.

Before we get to the things we're going to, review. We have Raw. We have some documentary, the Hulk Hogan documentary series. Let's get a follow-up on something we talked about the other day on the experience. I have a tweet here from Rick Flair at Rick Flair Nature Boy or N-A-T-R-Boy.

Mr. Ludwig Kaiser. Uh-oh. I never implied that you couldn't work. Or didn't have talent. I actually understand that you are doing really well with the Undertaker's promotion. Wait, wait, hold on, hold on, there's many things to unpack here. Already, I mean, I don't mean to interrupt you.

But we're going to lose track. I'm not even halfway. Go ahead. We're going to lose track. I can't keep them all in my head. I'm an older man, right? Historian, I was there when they fucking wrote the history that the historian studies. So, see, give me some goddamn respect.

the Undertaker didn't buy the promotion. The Undertaker didn't buy AAA. Undertaker's booking AAA. But I think Rick's been to Mexico. Nevertheless, I'll give him that one. But what did he say? I never said you didn't have talent or couldn't word. Didn't he say it was a goddamn piece of shit that would never go anywhere in the fucking

business? He said pretty much exactly that, didn't he? I think it was like, where is he even today? And then Ariel Juani was like, he's in Mexico. Good, he should stay there. Yeah, like this guy's going anywhere in the fucking business. All right, I'm sorry.

I am sorry that I got upset. I'm naturally very protective of my daughters, as I am sure, as you grow older, you will be too. Continued success. I apologize for anything I said about, you personally. It was not about your professional skill, which I have heard is very good.

Such a weird which, again, never seen you, you fucking invisible man, but I've heard you're okay. See, that's a thing. I think Rick, Rick has always been an emotional person.

And I think that Rick, something gets under his skin and he stews on it. And then once he says something, he just, he can't stop himself him, but he doesn't have any kind of filter toward his vehemence in some of these situations. And then what do he get? I don't know whether it's feedback he gets from the fans or whether his daughter says, dad you know i got to work with this guy oh jesus christ whatever and then he does genuinely feel bad

because i've been around it it's just it's magnified now as i guess all things do when we get older but he if he was if he was made to feel genuinely bad about something he would in the old days when I knew him, he would feel genuinely bad about it. It wasn't like he had to fucking fake feeling genuinely bad about something. I think he just goes from stewing about something to that going too far and then have it, you know, yeah, I should know, whatever. And he could just get down the middle lane a little bit. Well, in this apology, he says, I never implied you couldn't work or didn't have

talent. It was not about your professional skill, which I have heard is very good. If I go to the actual transcript of what he said, I didn't get invited to WrestleMania this year. I threatened to beat up Tiffany Stratton's husband last year, and I wasn't allowed to go. A 24-year-old kid being threatened by a 76-year-old man, and I can't go to WrestleMania? Are you kidding me? That English kid, he's going to go as far in wrestling as a gnat he'll be a fly on the wall in a year and then if I go down a little bit and I went okay I need your number

I got it which I can get anybody's number I want any minute of any day and I called him I said hey when I see you I'm going to beat the shit out of you so he went like a little bitch told Hunter and I wasn't allowed to go he's going to really go far in this business. A 76-year-old man tells a 24-year-old kid

that he's going to kick his ass and where is he now? Is he even on the roster? Little punk. But he never disparaged his ability, which he's heard is quite good. Yeah, that's a weird thing. Like, the apology, all of a sudden it's all about to work. It's all about it.

Yeah, you said also, yeah, you're still a fucking punk and a prick. but and also he's 35 he's 35 now so and knowing how flare is i think it's fair for him to be upset at tiffany stratton but yeah it was charlotte that dragged ludwig kaiser into this like he didn't do anything and if the only thing he tweeted out was a giff of diana hart being told don't flatter yourself that's not that bad he didn't do anything wrong well it actually again as you know we talked about that the other day on the show it also could have technically been taken as you know, advancing their issue because, oh, there's a little dig because they were still working together.

They ended up working together, didn't they? And then they didn't shoot. Was it WrestleMania? Wherever the fuck it was. I don't care if it was at the Walt Whitman truck stop. The point is it was building their fucking, it's the same thing that Flair and Dusty used to do to each other. The little pointed comments, it's just that Rick is obviously protective of

his daughter there. What would Flair have been like if there was a Twitter in 1990? Would he have been on it or would he have avoided it? You know, you would... But there would be a bunch of fuck you, Jim Hurd's followed by... I'm so sorry, Jim Hurd! Here's the thing I would like to...

See, then that takes into account that if there's a Twitter, then there's cell phones, and there's internet and there's all the other shit going on, Flair would have been mortified at that time by the boys or anybody in the business speaking smart or talking about anything backstage or in the locker room or whatever, it would have incited him to a fight

if someone had done that on any platform, the newspaper, radio, whatever existed then, but just to plop that one thing in there I would have to think that he would think what the fuck and it would be

something that he wouldn't even fuck with because remember it was I was gone already so it was when I was still living in Charlotte but I had already quit

WCW so early 1991 he had me come over to his house took his VCR up he couldn't have time or patience he's on the treadmill or he's at the gym or he's on a plane or he's working he didn't know how the fuck to put the fucking VCR together how is he going to just adopt this new technology to make

fans smart i don't think i think it's been a gradual as it has with a lot of people as these things came up one by one and one led into the other one to another sounds like the monsters are due on Maple Street. One to another, one to another. Then everybody's just lost track of what they would have thought was a stupidest fucking way in the world to waste your time on 30 years ago, whatever. Well, Jim, that's the update on Rick Flair and Kaiser.

We will stay on top of this story and see if Rick Flair continues to blame the 24-year-old English kid for not going to WrestleMania or perhaps just blames his AEW contract. Hey, but now here's the problem. He's apologizing now that he thinks Kaiser is 24, if he finds out he's really 35, then you'll take the apology back because he figures he can take him. Is this why they put him in the mask?

They may be hiding from Flair. Don't let Flair see him. Flair's looking for a Grande Americano. He doesn't know which one. He doesn't know what to do. Oh, great. That could be, you know what, that would be their highest rated wrong.

show, is if the whole show was a string of flair storming through backstage, beating up fucking all the grand Americanos until he got to the right one. Jim? Let's get at the top of WWE-related news. I saw a very interesting thing the other day. I wanted to ask your thoughts on this. This was sent out. It's from the culticorinet Facebook group.

It was posted by Chris G. Jr., but the original post was by Chris Van Vleet. it is a list purportedly, and I have no reason to doubt it, of the total amount of matches Brock Lesnar has had in his career. Huh. Do you have any guess on what that number would be? And again, this is going back to 2000, so I'm guessing 2000 and 2001's numbers would be OVW official matches. But since 2000, so 26 years, how many matches?

Okay. it would make bad broadcasting for me to sit here and muddle through that and go all through the, for instances in my head. But we know that he was working in public two or three times a week during the period of time that he was in OVW. and that when he went to the main roster that he had the first run and then quit and was gone for fucking X years. Again, I'm just fast forwarding through this. And then has come back on a limited at best schedule ever since, has he had in 26 years, has he had a thousand matches?

I bet not. We'll go over the year-by-year numbers here. but according to quickly doing this on my calculator, 443 matches. Good Lord. In 26 years. Here's the breakdown it has here. In 2005 matches.

In 2001, 51 matches. Let me stop there for a moment because those are your years. Does that sound right? Well, again, you're springing this on me, so I don't have my books in front of me. I can't remember when we got him, but if we had him in 2000, unless we got him in fucking mid-December,

he would have had more than five matches. But maybe is that, was that some kind of, did he have matches with ringings? And no, that was afterwards. So I, I don't know is the question is, I don't remember offhand when he debuted for us, but at the same time he left in 2001 to put that's only 50 something that would be in OBW at that time

that might be fucking six months he was here longer than that. I don't know. They might not have every time he was at the St. Therese gym in downtown Louisville. listed on that. Let's now go to the national stuff. 2002,

his peak year, 141 matches. 2003, 137 matches. 2004, which was the year he left WWE at WrestleMania. 18 matches. 2005,

which I could be wrong, I think would be New Japan for Anoki. Three matches. 2006, four matches. Two, 2007, one match. 2012, so there's a gap between 2007 and 2012. There's the UFC. 2012, two matches.

2013, three matches. 2014, four matches. 2015, eight matches, 16, 11 matches. 2017-14 matches 2018-11 matches 2019-8 matches 2020-20-20-20-20-year-of-the-pandemic three matches

2021 one match 2022-8 matches 20-23-6 matches and finally 25 and 26 two matches each year is he the best paid wrestler ever per match yes well well ever per match with that qualifier yes

because obviously we know that they've just blown the rocks fucking bank up with all the money they've given him for shit but yes per match yeah but it's not actually for wrestling yeah not only that but that's the that's a unique career, not just for a guy who was a top box office attraction, whenever he decided to appear for the, all but the first two years of his career, if for anybody,

nobody's ever had a career like that. They just did that. Good, bad, or indifferent, baby face, or heel, success or failure. that's the oddest goddamn pro wrestling career match count I've ever heard of in my life. It's incredible, especially when you consider he was a bigger star

when he came back in 2012, even though he was pushed to the top. And then the most matches he ever worked in a year was 14. Eight seems to be the average. I mean, there's a lot of, well, a couple of twos and ones and threes here. So, but it's extraordinary. it laid out like this because

I can't think of anyone else who's ever had a wrestling career like this who is a consensus Hall of Fame pick. Right? No one's like, well, he didn't work enough. Everyone agrees. Brock Lager's All-Famey.

It's incredible. And if you break down what he was in the main event of, which was almost if he was on the card, probably almost all of them, then he's probably the highest grossing wrestler per

match in I would think in history because of all the goddamn you know inflation now of the modern day tickets has passed the actual inflation of the dollar

so yeah no wonder they fucking well it's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy they were smart enough to treat him like that because he was smart enough to make him treat him like that. Nobody else has ever been able to do it

or ever been a position to do something like that. But which came first? Was he special because they made him special? Or did they make him special? Because he was already the goddamn biggest draw they had. It just, it all worked together. I'd like to see a breakdown of the Rocks matches because he worked more than Lesnar,

but I'm trying to think of who else is a top wrestling star that really eventually worked very, very limited dates. The Rock was a regular for years, but eventually, you know, one match here, one match there, I wonder what his total amount of matches is. Undertaker, for years, was just coming back to have WrestleMania, have surgery, and coming back to have WrestleMania.

But he had years of working full-time. Well, but I was about to say his, you know, his, I don't want to say his final years, the last X number of years of his career he was only working a few times but previous to that he had worked the full schedule except for injuries for years and years

well there it is the extraordinary career of Brock Lesnar we'll see what happens when they bring them back for SummerSlam Jim quickly because I don't know if you know anything about this but a bunch of listeners sent it over and I don't know anything about it I have a tweet here from Gunner Udy.

That is the son of Sid Udy, Psycho Sid, Sid Vicious. Yes. Well, it's official. I just put in an offer on the Mid-South Coliseum with hopes of making it the permanent home for TWA the Wrestling Order. It's going to need a lot of renovations and work, but it will be 100% worth it. this is a dream I've had for a long time.

Memphis wrestling history belongs here. What a bunch of hashtags. I've never heard of TWA the Wrestling Order. I didn't know Sid's son was involved in the business, let alone bidding on fallen Coliseums. What do you know about this event? It might be at this point cheaper to renovate the Roman Coliseum than the Mid-South Coliseum.

I can only tell you what I gather, and if anyone wants to do research further into it, they're welcome to, but what I do know factually is that the Mid-South Coliseum has been a subject of debate in Memphis for years. It's been closed to events, not only closed, but people who have, my friend Mark James has been one of the people

have been able to go in and have a tour or every once in a while they'll do a news piece on it and they've got things stored on the main floor, just old racks of chairs, the ceiling, the drop ceiling tiles, a lot of them have fallen out.

There's shit just, you know, set around everywhere. It's a near historic building. It doesn't have that designation, but obviously for the people of Memphis, especially the previous two or three, four generations.

It was a big deal. And it's on the fairgrounds there. It's next to the Liberty Bowl. And I don't know if it's still there, but Liberty Land used to be the amusement park. I don't know what they call it now. And it's an 11,000 whatever seat sports arena and concerts, etc. I saw Zizi top there.

It just when they built the new buildings. Beatles played there. Beatles played there, but I didn't see them, though. That's why I didn't mention it. Everybody, the goddamn world is played there. That's the point I'm saying. When they built the new buildings downtown, they just let it go. They closed it.

It wasn't as much demand. You know, had a giant parking lots as easy to get to if you could drive. But it didn't have the downtown ambiance. So a point being, it's been a. subject of debate and there's been mark again was one of the people involved in one saved the coliseum coalition type of movements where they were trying to have the city at least repurpose it to do something with it rather just tearing it down and it's a you know means so much to everybody let's do something with it and that has gone nowhere as of the last i heard so this has been going

on for a number of years. I'm wondering because again, for the people who don't know, Sid and his family are from the Memphis area, Sid lived in West Memphis, Arkansas, and I don't know where Gunner lives now, but probably in the area. Could it be that he is involved with a an organization, a civic organization or a group of private businessmen, possibly he's a successful young man, and they have access to a line of credit for what would it cost to buy a 12,000 seat dilapidated sports arena with a parking lot for like 4,000 cars from the city, and then renovate same to do anything with it to get it up to code to let members of the public in without a fucking permit because something might fall on their head.

And then finance and start up a local wrestling promotion that could stage events in said 12,000 seat Coliseum. And this could be a, you know, at least he's a young man. He's got plenty of time. I don't know what, how do you just put in a bid on something like that from the city? Even if you said, I'll take it off the city's hands for a dollar

so you don't have to worry about the goddamn security of running off the homeless people. Then what's he going to have fucking Mr. Handyman come over and on weekends, do some fix-ups? What do you think is in worst shape, the Mid-South Coliseuma, or the Louisville Garden.

You know what? What would need more repairs to be operational? The Mid-South Coliseum. Because, as strange as it may sound, because the Louisville Gardens was originally the armory, right?

Built in 1906 as a fucking armory. The structure itself, I think they put a new roof on it after storms several years back. The structure itself, the fucking, walls are goddamn concrete and stone and like two feet thick or three feet thick or whatever it just needs interior renovation and it takes up half of the footprint of the coliseum and it's not

nearly as as tall and but the the gardens is in the middle of downtown so there would be logistical nightmares to really do a full-scale renovation, whereas there's plenty of room to do it at the Coliseum, but there's a lot more to fucking work on. According to someone in the Eculticorna Facebook group, Joseph O'Toole, he posted, in 2024, a Memphis newspaper said estimates, just for ADA compliance,

would run 25 million, and general renovation, 40 million for the Mid-South Coliseum. Well, and that's the ADA compliance is wheelchair and disabled folks' access, of which when they built the Mid-South Coliseum, the big news story was that it was actually going to have integrated seating, that there was no crow's nest for the African-American fans. They weren't worried about the fucking people in a wheelchair yet.

they just got everybody to be able to go down on the floor. So you still had to walk. But so that would be another idea. Holy shit. I'm just thinking with the way that that building is in that cool bowl shape, how you would figure out a way to get people in a wheelchair or whatever from one place to another. I don't know. As far as wrestling organization names, how does the TWO, the Wrestling Order,

how does that sound to you? I, you know, again, after they disrespected Sid for the Hall of Fame, I don't want to just say that his son is potentially biting off more than he can chew here. But I, again, unless he's a successful local businessman now and has a bunch of friends that want to put in a lot of money for a civic project. And, oh, by the way, we'll have wrestling. again in a building that size, I don't know what to think. All right, that works because I don't know what to say.

Jim, another piece of news as we are recording. Earlier today, a press release went out from WWE. I'm not going to read this whole thing, but announcing the CW Network acquires exclusive broadcast rights to WWNXT premium live events and multi-year deal. Want to get your thoughts on this.

NXT obviously has been airing on CW from what we've heard. They've been happy with it. We'll see how they feel now that all the NXT stars are on other shows, but they'll have to make new stars. But the PLEs have always been either on WWE Network

or Peacock, I think. I don't even know where they currently air. But what do you think of the idea that WWE is selling these rights that we'll get premium live events on, I guess, when they would normally air on a weekend on the CW. Originally, when they started NXT big events,

didn't they get in and do a couple of paper, actual old-fashioned pay-per-views before the deals changed with NXT? And then they went to the network or whatever. I don't know. I don't remember that, so I couldn't. But nevertheless, they're basically now this is going to be the first time that there's any kind of PLE pre-

I guess they're going to be live event I guess can is a catch-all phrase premium not sure about but any of the PLEs its first time it's going to have been on regular broadcast television back as General Sarnoff intended it the other. whether it's been pay-per-view or whether it's been streaming or whether it's even been cable as where they were just on the first hour of WrestleMania, ESPN ESPN 2, whatever the fuck. Now this is like an old-fashioned Saturday night's main event kind of thing where they're actually on broadcast television with the widest possible audience when you think about it because you can still pluck these channels out of the air if you desired to.

It is their goddamn developmental show. The developmental show is the last thing left on old-fashioned television. How the fuck does this work? And this summer you'll be able to see the Great American Bash on the CW. How does that sound? Dusty's dream has finally come true. the youngest audience should be going for the young people, right? That's what they want all those NXT kids and fellow kids to do

as appeal to the young folks, and it's on the old people's television medium. It's not even cable anymore. It's, oh, shit, put it on Channel 7. According to this press release, NXT is the CW's number one telecast of the year among adults 25 to 54 and 18 to 49. It's just basically fucking everybody.

Plus, have you seen the other roster of programming they have on the CW? It's not like NIST has a lot of... Well, that's part of the problem. They're the nicest people in prison over there, but at least... At least they're still on fucking television. Launched by WWE chief creative officer Paul Triple H. Leveck, NXT has aired weekly since 2012 and features the brightest young talent in sports entertainment.

Launched by AAA, that's like, launched by Tony Kahn, this dynamic, radical new company, all of a sudden he has to announce that he launched NXT. But there it is, NXT, premium live events starting with the Great American Bash on the CWA multi-year deal. And Jim, with that, we shall return right after this short. commercial timeout with your review of WWRWA. I just don't have it today, I'm so sorry. I don't know where you ever had it, but you scared me with that one. Startled me out of my momentary stupor.

Well, the fear continues right now, because we're going to talk about a show that at times is scary to get through, but some things to talk about this week, WWE Raw. Doon, doon, do, do, do, do, do, do. What's your show? Who's your daddy? This, I'm, now that they want to be, the kids in AEW,

they want to be the video game characters. They want to play around and have some fun and jump on the trampoline and wear the fancy costumes. These people in the WW now have set their sights much higher. They're the grown-up adults. that they've got their eyes on Hollywood. Everybody on this goddamn show was to win an Oscar.

And it started with a goddamn movie scene. What was this, a Scorsese production? We are, are we in the post-wrestling era? I'm just going through my notes of what any of the stars did on this wrestling program and none of it was wrestling. That just filled it out in the middle. I was supposed to be in a good mood, Brian.

Help me, help me. Yeah, I was just complaining about your 16-minute Smackdown review. It sounds like we may beat that today with Raw. Well, no, what are you complaining about you? You weren't complaining to me? Are you talking behind my back? Or were you talking to yourself again, which is probably the safest conversation you'll have all week?

Oh, come on. I mean, it's, No, there's things to talk about, but none of it, these people could just as easily have come from the Strasbourg Institute. Did you like the Roman and Uso's in the dark room with the ominous music shot like the movie scene where they're plotting amongst their, it's, you know, this would have had a Walter Winchell voiceover in 1959, Robert Stack would have been in it. Did, da, da, da, da, da, light that night. In the south side Chicago apartment of Frank Nitty, Roman Reinses' gangland enforcer. It would be Heyman in this situation.

Um, I didn't like it. Not to say that, like, they weren't really committed to it, and obviously they put a lot of thought and time into it. But what were we supposed to believe that these guys just had a meeting in this dark room and had the camera right in front of them? Yeah. Right in front of them. Let's talk about all this crucial private shit involving our professional lives and make sure we do it on national television.

Roman Raines desperately wants to be an actor or at least win an Emmy for his wrestling acting. At this point, to me, it's overacting. Like, I don't believe him at all anymore, but I enjoy it. He's good at it. But it's overacting. The best actors are the Uso's. the Uso's they excel in any of these kind of scenes but again you have to get past the idea that

they're in a dark room with a dark table and the camera's right in front of them so I'm sure they really had a lot of things they wanted to achieve with this Scorsese was not let's not do that maybe there's a little more sore assy maybe Roger Corman I really don't know it wasn't Ed Wood

still resides in AEW. But, and they did the thing where the Uso's or the, the angel and the devil on the shoulder where Jimmy, I understand Jacob, what he's, where he's coming from, but not, not to take anything away from you, tribal chief. And, hey, that fucking Jacob, he's unhinged, he's unpredictable. There's got to be some consequences. I say consequences, our boy.

and then Roman takes the council, you know, I appreciate your input. And I'm going to address this later on and the ominous music is playing. So then we know that, you know, Roman has said that he's going to face to face with Jacob later on. So this is setting that up. Well, that's fine. And then we get the program actually started because that was right off the top of the bat. the tip of the toe. And then here comes Seth Rollins to the fucking ring.

And between the entrancing and the preening and the milking and the singing endlessly, you know, it's forever that we have seen people talk, then we've seen people walk, and then he talked. And he's pissed at Braun Breaker. for all the various reasons, all the usual suspects. And he calls it if, and Bronn Breger, if you've got a hair on any of your testicles, actually he didn't even say it that entertainingly, come on out here. I'm sensing a pattern again.

Guy goes out, talks. Come on out here, motherfucker. Other guy comes out. Talk, sometimes fight, leave. So they do the face off. Bron comes out with Paul Lee. and there's more singing, so they have to wait until people are tired of singing.

They were in Laredo, right? They were more musical than the WrestleMania week crowd. And then Seth's story is that he gave Bronn everything, and Braun repaid him by taking everything away from him. Why? Why, man, why? And Braun says, hey, me and Reed, we got to fight your battles that you started, you needed us. And he made fun of Seth's somewhat nasally vocal delivery.

We never needed you. I needed him. And he pointed to Paul E. Braun did. And then Seth gave Bronny. Well, that's true. That was a, you know, I'm going. obviously a double meaning comment. But Seth went into the whole long history lesson about their relationship

and put Braun over as the next big thing. And I understand the point they were trying to make. It would have been already a lot of people talking. But there's a lot of talking. And he lectured Braun. It started to sound like, I'm sorry, Mr. Connor. And it went on for a while. and it was delivered fine.

The story is okay. I wrote just fucking long. Eddie basically makes the point, but you don't need this fucking sorry meatbag or whatever. And the biggest thing is, Braun, all the potential in the world, you're not ready.

This is what they're doing with four different people, isn't it? You're not ready? Jacob's not ready. Braun's not ready. Doesn't that just muddy the water on

one person being not ready and proving he is when it just happens all the time? Yes, that's exactly what that does. Okay. What do you think of Rollins rubbing it in his face, calling him Steiner, a little Steiner, whatever he said there, he said it a few times. Well, that's, that's, well, hold on, I'm not even there yet.

Because remember now, they're still talking. That's right. Because that's the thing. he tells braun you're not ready and in brawn he's already cut the good promo and had all the personality he's got personality for three people he's a fucking steiner he's got it his blood he is the future i'm sorry i apologize to the cowfeltcher fans out there but prom breaker is the future of the industry but he went kind of long and then he said you know what you're the best in world at Seth, you're the best in the world

and be a number two. And then Seth came back with... Good line. Good line. Well, that it was. But then Seth gets a chance to, well, that's pretty good, baby Steiner. That's what he got him there. And he said, you're not even number two in your own family.

So they're leaning into the Steiner thing, which again is fine because everybody knows and if they don't know it helps. but the challenge for backlash. So after all that, okay, well, let's fight next month. And we're 20 minutes into the fucking show. There are a situation comedy, a full episode of situation comedy without commercials is 22 minutes.

They weren't that funny. Again, if he's not going to be a Steiner, I'm not saying you ignore who his family is, but don't rub it in his face that he isn't called Steinner. Steiner. Because he should be. He should have been from the beginning. It was a stronger name with Steiner in it.

But, uh, yeah, and the fans love singing Seth's song, as always. There's a report on CNN named Jeremy Diamond, Dead Ringer for Seth Rollins. Oh. Dead ringer. Can he get any help? Is there any plastic surgery or some type of defoliation cream for his head? All right, back to Raw. This took a turn.

Back to Raw. We haven't even talked about Heyman, and he's insulting. Well, I'm just, you know, it's just hate to hear the people who suffer these unfortunate life incidents and threw no fault of their own. So then we had Penta and Ruseb, and I didn't watch that, because I don't give a shit. How about that?

And I say this in a most cheerful way possible. I don't give a shit. You know what else I don't give a shit about? Becky Lynch came out in the ring and did a promo which led to E.O. Sky coming out with the constipation faces and the ridiculous business that she does. And they goaded each other into a match. And then they had the match. And by the time the fuck a match was over and Oscar came in and kicked the shit out of

that was 25 minutes. That was longer than every episode of Seinfeld or I Love Lucy or even the Big Bang theory. And then we got a concert. What are you laughing at? I'm not, I'm not lying here. I haven't broken it down like this. It's a very interesting comparison.

Everything I have just said is factually correct. The concert was with Joe Hendry. I like the young man when I'm, met him 10 years ago now across the pond and i figure well it's the first time he's on the main the main show here so i would see what he's going to do and you know what he it's not like elijah or elias or ezekiel or no joe henry writes stadium anthems what can't well this is the thing is that the other guy was just drumming the guitar and doing whatever the fuck and never actually did whatever the fuck and he didn't care he's a very talented young man he writes his

songs he sang a song announced and played the guitar announced that he'd been signed to raw got the fans to sing it back to him yes and and you know the then the song continued can we fire Logan Paul. I can't remember the tune. I'm not very musical. They went crazy for that part. Yeah, they went crazy for that. The point is he's another guy

that you can't use him as a main event guy because that would be ridiculous. But at the same point he's not embarrassing. He's a grown adult man.

He doesn't have the he doesn't look like Obafemi, but he's fine. If you can use him in spots and capitalize on his popularity, he can carry his part of the ball, but he again, I don't think,

hopefully we'll never be challenging for the WWE world title or whatever. But the good thing is, the people like it because usually this is done, as a gimmick by somebody who can't play, can't sing, or is sucked and meant to be booed, but he's good and he's clever at it,

and he's keeping people cheering him. So that's harder to do is what I'm saying. But anyway, I thought this was good, though. Yes. This was maybe the best Joe Hendry thing I've seen. I've not been a big fan of the little bits I've seen here and there, but I watched this and, you know, the fan reaction helped it a lot, but he

give him credit, too. He's not a lion. He wrote a song with hooks. Yes. He wrote something that people will want to start saying. And that was really good, I thought. Logan Paul was screaming was an interesting take while Austin Theory just broods next to him. Whatever the hell is tagged.

What are they doing these two? But whatever. Austin brooding theory. But no, he is a very broody guy. I like that. But no, Logan Paul, when he got the whole. crowd was chanting, can we fire Logan Paul or singing it? And Logan Paul comes out and just melts down.

And he can tell he's having fun. And they menaced Joe Hendry until Joe Hendry attacked. And with the heels two on one team. And here came the street profits out to make a save. And right there it kind of dims me for wanting to see Logan Paul and Austin theory as a tag team. If we have to watch them against the street profits or any of the same underneath guys

that have escaped being fired last week. It's a new match. You got to give it a chance. Oh, I don't care. It could be good. It could be good. It could be good. It could be a good match with the street profits. I don't care because they do.

Who are they? They are the street. Who are they? They're not going to be a fly on a wall in this business in a year. By the way, what does that even mean? Well, it's not, it's not spelled prophets

it's like P-R-O-P-H-E-T-S, like that they're prophesizing something. It's a play on because they're an ethnic group. Apparently, it's not racist to feel that they make all of their profits, aka their money out on the street somewhere, dealing illicit substances and some kind of enriched uranium. But if they're not going to picket the fucking whole office in Stanford over it, I'm not going to get an uproar.

I meant, what did Flair mean? You won't be a fly on the wall. Is that the expression he meant? Oh, I thought you, I thought what did the street profits mean? Well, I mean, because you just said it again, you repeated it, a fly on the wall. No, and I'm repeating it because that's what Flair said, but it's jimmerish in this context. Because he was, he was mixing his metaphors and shaking up his similes. You know, the old saying is, I'd like to be a fly on the wall.

to overhear or oversee when such and such thing happened, right? You'll be a fly on the wall. Well, because he'd already gone to the insect kingdom when he talked about him being a gnat. He was trying to say some of the effect of one of the old phrases like you're, you're just a gnat on an elephant's ass

and diminish him, but once he'd established him as an insect, then he went to the, he'll be a fly on the wall. Well, if he's in Mexico, he wouldn't be a fly on the wall, he might be a fly at a fucking restaurant. I may tell you something, fruit flies, stay away from my drink. Woo!

He'll just be a fly in the, and a fly in the ointment. He could have said it was this guy's a fly in the ointment. Well, that wouldn't work either for what he was trying to say. Well, what he said didn't work for what he was trying to say. Why are we still on this? I'd rather evaluate what flare was trying to say with, You'll be a fly on the wall.

Well, speaking of flying, but not on the wall, then Joe Hendry ran and jumped over the top rope like a white man. Oh, I didn't realize what we were talking about. Well, that's where we're back to it because we've got to close this up. Joe Hendry jumped over the top like a clumsy white man and just landed in their arms. And the end. music.

But it was, again, not the most violent concert I've ever seen, but go ahead. It was a fine segment and also for what is likely a brand new audience for Joe Hendry, despite him being on NXT, this was a good way to introduce him to the

audience and really get them behind him. They had fun with him. They may not have fun during everything on this show. They had fun with Joe Hendry. They'll remember that. Well, and see, now your mind is in the gutter. Joe Hendry's

fucking the only way for him to get over is just to go out and give everybody a fun time in the audience. That's not what I was saying. What I was saying is we should collaborate on a song. Oh, hey, you write the music and let him perform it.

Well, I mean, I really don't write for guitar. Well, that would be, see, that would be silent. See, your part would be silent, where you just write it down on paper and then he'll take it from there. You'd be Bernie Taupin and he'll be Elton John.

All right. Well, we're going to get back on the Yellowbrick Road to WW. Are we done with this segment? I don't even know. Are we done with this? I don't know what's happening. Yes, that's over now.

You know, Jim, Joe Hendry, yes. He writes his songs. He has to perform his songs. He has to memorize his songs. Maybe he has to listen to them. over and over and over again on his Raycon everyday earbuds. Well, you know, that's the thing.

Any good performer, Brian. Any good performer is going to practice and rehearse until they get it just right. I'm sure he's on the long plane rides. He's international superstar. He's listening to those Raycons because that way he's got it right in his ears, right in his head. And you know, it doesn't need to be limited to people with talent or people with international jet-setting schedules where they're on plane.

and trains and boats and automobiles all the time. It can be just you, people out there in the audience, you little peons, you little minions running around out there with your hurry, scurry lives and your meaningless existences. You matter not. You make no impact on the world. You leave no trace when you go.

But you need some entertainment. Why? Oh, yes. Yes, you do. You need. Entertainment is important. Even during the Great Depression, people needed entertainment.

That's right. That's why the movies did so good. Well, now everybody just wants to listen to stuff because the shit's depressing to look at. So that's why we just do audio because we're depressing to look at. So folks, we're talking about your ears. Yes, we're talking about your ears and your mothers. We're talking about anyone's mothers. We're talking about the ears and Mother's Day and Mother's ears. Jim's over there somewhere, folks.

What we're talking about is the everyday earbuds, of course, compact size, active noise cancellation, 36 hours, just a three or five, 36 hours of battery, pack light. Well, that just depends on how long the assault takes. It said no assault, once again, pack light, jam hard. It has another language, you know. I'm trying to talk about their mothers, because Mother's Day is coming up. And it's a great time to find a gift that actually fits into your mother's everyday life, as well as fitting into the everyday ears that she wears around on her everyday head.

And whether she's going for a walk or running errands or commuting or even taking a phone call where she doesn't have to have her hands on the phone, the giant handset on the desk phone that is in your mother's house can be replaced by these small little tiny earbuds. and with active noise cancellation, they can block out the background noise because mom's a little, maybe a little hard to hear, and she might not be able to hear all the high notes of Connie Francis's greatest hits because of all the background noise will no longer because you can cancel that. And best of all, you're going to have a present for mom for Mother's Day that you're going to save

money on 15% off. and so she's covered you can act like you went to a lot of trouble it's really easy and you're going to save money so there's Mother's Day all wrapped up and you can fool her into thinking that you thank her for giving life to you

what does that mean why would you have to fool her into thinking that well most of these fucking ungrateful kids these days act like they weren't raised they were drug up by the hair of the head as Mama Cornett used to say anyway a thoughtful Mother's Day gift that fits easily into her routine. And it's great to pick up if you want a pair for yourself too and you can save 15% on two pairs.

And then, you know, maybe get a full house. You never know, a royal flush. That's what happens when she tries to blow her nose while she's listening to the racons and her capillaries in the white surprise turn red. that's called a royal flush. Let's get straight to the point. Yes, well, the Raycon, celebrate the moms in your life

or just listen to some good stuff on good audio earbuds for half the price of the big boys. Go right now to buy Raycon, B-U-Y-R-A-Y-C-O-N-B-R-R-A-C-O-N-B-R-R-A-C-O-Rac-C-E. You're going to get 15% off the everyday earbuds classic, no matter how many you order. Celebrate again the mothers in your life are just the people that you would like to have something stuck in their ears

so they can't hear you sneak it up on them by Raycon.com slash JCE That's right, a great deal for you and your mother and back to Smackdown. No, this is Raw. A raw, a real mother of her raw. Well, it's not even Mother's Day yet. I was about this point I was just wanting to get to the point so I didn't watch

Ray Mysterio against one of the Americanos but one of the Americanos had a fight with the other Americano how come they have the rules reversed where Chad Gables a heel in Mexico in a baby face here and Kaiser they went crazy for Kaiser in that clip we saw from Mexico yes that's why I'd rather watch them in Mexico than watch them here because it's it's the filler in between the stars and that Are we going to watch the show with the mask versus mask match? I will watch the mask versus mask match. I will not spend my life on the show preceding it.

It's the Undertaker's promotion. Well, all right since he bought it. Don't you want to see it? I mean, if people are really raving about it, I want to see a full, if it's a full episode or if it's a full special, whatever it is, I kind of want to know what the lay of the land is. What is it on? How are we watching this thing?

I think it's YouTube. Well, I know we can get that. Undertaker spending all this time booking, not working on TV deals, obviously. I think it's on YouTube. Well, we know multiple people at YouTube. We can call him up and ask them to send us a high-res feed. Anyway, the one good thing they did right, but it's not particularly worth discussing or critiquing,

was Obafemi versus Grayson Waller, where Obafemi beat him in a minute. and did a brief promo where he said that I'm I'm the ruler and I'm fucking here. It ain't nobody can stop me. And of course, he issued an open challenge. What did I say earlier about the, how many times are they going to do the,

you're not ready? How many times they're going to have people just issue an open challenge? It's a wonderful, valid idea, but not when everybody does it all the time and multiple people are currently doing it. But nevertheless, this is a push. This could have been Vince McMan. This could have been Vince Sr.

Bring in a giant charismatic guy, having beat people on a regular basis in quick succession in an overpowering fashion and get them to just let them tell them how great they are. And that's how you push people for fuck's sake. but having said that in this period of time, there was not a lot to nitpick or chew on. Would you like to chew on anything?

Obafemi Open Challenge. So I guess that means we'll see him beat people quickly for several weeks, which will be good to get him over. But the interesting thing will be whoever he actually has a feud with at some point. The thing is, it's almost the open challenge for, a baby face underneath champion, not for the world champion, but for a baby face champion of a U.S. title or whatever, that can be a good thing. Or if the heel is issuing open challenges but is kind of stacking a deck with tomato cans, that's a way to get heat.

I don't really like when a heel issues an open challenge because then he's an idiot when his baby face, you know, nemesis answers the call. You know, when we did the challenge thing with in Mid-South, I challenged any team except for Zabada, Zabada, Zabada. And then we did an angle around that. But you're an idiot. If you accept the Obafemi Open Challenge,

who's going to do that unless it's a a top guy, main event guy, world champion level person, and why would you do that right now? Isn't Obafemi a classic case of, well, he's on the roster, and so is everybody else, and the matchmakers have chosen his opponent this week to be so-and-so and have the promo where so-and-so is like, oh, fuck. Instead of somebody has to walk out there allegedly of their own volition, all the wrestling programs were you're booked in this match.

I don't want. Well, you have to. I don't want it. Well, you got to or we'll suspend you. Oh, goddamn. In this case, Brian, I'm just, do you see what I'm saying? Yeah. Well, good.

I'm glad you're not going to argue with me, like you always do. Back to Jim's review of Raw. After the joy of watching, Grace and Waller get squashed. All righty. And he was wallering around in misery. Rochelle and Roxanne had a match with Lyric and Bailey, and then we got to our main event. Roman Raines is going to confront Jacob Fatu.

Now, bear in mind, this is a two-and-a-half-hour fucking show. And this is, again, what we got. Besides the spots, the drone shots, the travelogues, the reminders, the plugs, the brakes. And Roman's story here is a, he's got the world heavy, title belt now and he said they made this title to spite me but then i made this title and now you can respect it and he did the big build up to that this time and all right this was for whatever reason laredo loves the roman reigns because he was really over here but he's he did the buildup

now you can respect this title now you can acknowledge this this title. Now Laredo, acknowledge me. And it got a huge pop. And then here comes Jacob Fatoos music. Funny how these things always work out. And they have the face off. And Roman is like, I'm hoping you made the right choice to unite the family and not divide it, Jacob. And Jacob said, I didn't need a week to think about it. I didn't need a minute. I know what I want. I want that title.

Twelve years of hard work and suffering. You were running the bloodline and I was starving. You didn't call me. Jimmy and Jay didn't call me. Solo called me. And Romans, are you confused or dumb? Solo couldn't get a cup of coffee. I run this place, right?

The things get hectic. but I never forgot about you. This is kind of like Roman is deserving his shit to me, right? But you haven't earned it yet. That's, if I fought you now, it'd be nepotism if I gave you a chance. I can't do that.

And Jacob just snatches Roman with the old Tongan death grip and fucking put him down and said that he was going to take everything from Roman and left, him laying to light booze. They don't want to boo Jacob anymore. But this was kind of violent and abrupt

that he just goozled this motherfucker. And Roman was over here. But then Roman rolls over against a microphone. He's laying here. He says, all right, if you want it, I'll see you. It's backlash. Why can't they again at least wait until the start of next week's program

to have the people who are supposed to be in charge of this company, Aldous or Pierce or Triple H or anybody, come out and say, based on what happened, we have no choice but to make this match. It's not up to Roman Raines who he defends again. You see what I'm saying, Brian, but they just, the guys just make their matches in the ring.

And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a theater in the round production with these breaks for these wrestling matches with the, you know, the supporting cast that you're, oh, well, they're exciting. Oh, here comes a star. That's why you see so many fans develop these, like, weird fan feelings for a lot of the women wrestlers, I think, because they're the only ones who wrestle on the show. they're the actual matches yeah I don't want to I don't know what to say the crowd reaction to the main event thing was not great is Roman reigns a baby face or is he a heel

and Jacob Fattu was a heel until he briefly turned baby face he always had the potential to be a great baby face but he probably needed to be a heel a while longer turning baby face against the solo group probably wasn't the move. And the fans didn't react at a time for Jacob.

I don't know why. He went for the death grip and Roman went down, but it was a weird reaction from the fans. And Roman is best as a heel, and I thought they were heels. And then it wasn't really a heel here at all. That's the thing is that they like Roman Reigns, the fans. but they like Jacob.

They don't necessarily want to cheer against Roman Reigns, but at the same time, Jacob kind of has a point. If the story is true that he has been nowhere in obscurity and he was in prison and blah, blah, blah. And meanwhile, here's Roman Raines talking about

he and his whole family ran this place and he makes millions of dollars, he's got private jets. And here comes this guy. I want some of that shit too. You know, you left me out. Roman being condescending to him fits Roman's gimmick, but it also kind of made Roman heelish.

But then when, again, when Jacob tried to rip his goddamn throat out, that was kind of violence. So people were like, ooh, I wish you had to done that to Roman, but they don't want to full-throatedly just condemn Jacob. He didn't deserve that. Yeah. It's a weird dynamic. I noticed it a little bit last time,

but it was really out in full force here. The reaction from the fans to this whole thing and to Jacobs specifically. And again, this show was bookended by things that set up things for backlash. You didn't even talk about Stephanie Vacare getting attacked in the back, I don't think. Well, see, would no on-screen fast forward

sometimes these things get lost in the shuffle, But I think this is another example, to be honest with you, of they're trying the writers and the writing team and the creative team are trying to be so cutting edge in all the wrong directions. They sharpen one edge and then they turned a knife over and tried to cut with the blunt side. They're trying to tell these intriguing stories among these top characters. And they're for, you know, are they falling into the trap

that baby faces and heels are passe. And it doesn't matter just because they've had they've had success with their icons against each other. Whether it be Roman and Punk or Cody and Orton.

But they can't fiddle fuck around with Jacob that much because he's not that established yet. And you need to go all the way, one way with him or the other. He can't be kind of looking like he turned heel against a guy that was just actually kind of talking

heelish to him, but we like both of them. That's mixing messages, although it's too early for that with him. They're going to diminish the reaction overall because people are confused or conflicted. Well, I'm not confused about this. That was another raw, another underwhelming WWE Raw. Jim, I know we have the Hulk Hogan documentary, review coming up, but let's get a few questions before we get there.

This first one was sent to corny drive-thru at gmail.com from Charlie and Starkville, Mississippi. Welcome back. Nobody missed your ass, but welcome back. So you can blow off your steam like you used to do. All right, can we get to this question here, blow off your steam like you used to do? Here's a question from Charlie. Bobby Heenan used to say, Yes. A guy would have a million dollar body and a two-cent brain. Who are the best examples of wrestlers you think have million-dollar bodies

and two-cent brains? Oh, my God. From down through history or right now? I mean, you know, because that used to be the, well, that used to be the fucking, even if a guy really didn't deserve it. the first thing they said about to road warriors. We were like a million dollar body and a 10 cent brain. Because that was the thing that the guys would say in the business

when all of the bodybuilders and the muscle builders started coming in. But I mean, you could go back to the magnificent Zulu. Remember, he was a classic example of a guy with a million dollar body in a 10 cent brain. He just couldn't get to wrestling business. And this doesn't even mean but the guy was just stupid as a person. It was a knock on their wrestling psychology and ability to grasp the business.

So you could say that about 90% of the people today that look any good, that Brian Cage, million dollar body, 10 cent brain. Not with it, as Frank Spaceman Hickey would say. Or, you know, I don't want to say Brown and Strongman, our friend that,

you know, his food show got picked up again, I think, for a second season, even though he doesn't eat everything on the menu, which I think is false advertising, because he's, you know,

he had some psychology about himself and has parlayed this into a hosting gig or whatever, but I don't know we ever really got the wrestling down. But it's anybody that just looks fantastic, but just Hulk Hogan, who we're going to talk about shortly. When he first got in the ring, you know, it wasn't, Lawler saw him the first time he saw him. He said there's no hope, right?

He came back when he started full time in the territory a couple months later, and there was like a barest glimmer of hope. And the only reason that anybody would have pursued that hope was because of how he looked. But he got it. So he didn't, at first he fit the classification, million dollar body and 10 cent brain, but he grew out of it. All right. I guess that answers that. Well, I was waiting for you to ask me any follow-ups that are needed to fully flesh this thing out.

No, I think you gave a good answer without having to go too deep. million dollar question opportunity 10-7 question I have a gym let's uh go on the same thing as same thing as like we used to say he's like the dinosaurs giant body to brain the size of a walnut and that's why they became extinct I have a question here sent a corny drive-thru at gmail.com from Tyson Agler in Dodge Nebraska

oh I don't believe in any of those places or things It says proud of of, so he left out a word or something, Joe Stecker. So I guess maybe he's from Dodge, Nebraska. Longtime listener, eighth time emailer. As I'm sure both of you have been closely paying attention to, old Tiffany Stratton seems to have a case of the yips. Having at least one unfortunate or noticeable botch, it seems like every match since she returned.

Either she stumbles, trips herself up, drops an opponent, or just plain screws up. I was wondering if, like baseball, can wrestlers get a case of the yips? And can Jim think of a time where a wrestler hit a bad streak of botches slash yips in consecutive matches or weeks? Are you familiar with the term the yips? Well, yes, it's where you start, you get in your head, you overthink things, whatever, you're fumbling things that you normally would do, right, as a basic description of it, correct?

Yes. I mean, that, when the guys were working, you know, seven nights a week, night after night after night, in house shows and then TV tapings multiple times in the same taping session, there was always shit that didn't come off, whether it's because the guy you were working with didn't take it or set himself up for it, right, or whether you just fucked it up.

So the only reason I think that it stands out more now is because the guys and girls are not as experienced enough to cover things up and or kind of just continue on with things and because the things that they're trying to do now are, in a lot of cases, more intricate or you can use the word choreographed. It's more noticeable and also because everything now is on some type of television where you can back it up and slow-mo it or look at it again

or put the clip on Twitter or whatever, watched over and over. One thing about the old days before that was possible is at least if you fucked something up unless the truck was stupid and used it on the replay, it was pretty much gone. So there's always some level of mistakes or just things that you, you know, it didn't come out exactly right or the bump could have been better or whatever. But I think everything is working against them today. They have less experience. They're trying harder shit.

There's a lot more girls matches now than ever before. And there's a high degree of botches in the female matches. I'm sorry. And it's so much everything's on TV where the spotlight is on it. and it's so much easier to watch it and analyze it like the Zapruder film. So a decline in the in ring smoothness and technical proficiency magnified by 18 different ways to go over and see exactly who fucked up what. But you can't think of any case of like some guy just all of a sudden couldn't run the ropes,

just all of a sudden, whatever it was when they got to the ropes, They just trump themselves. Well, I mean, Tex McKenzie was then a walking yip, but he was a yip for 20 years. Because there was guys that just could. It's not like they suddenly quit being able to do something. It's just they never could do it to begin with. Or they got better as time went on,

but I don't really. I mean, now, besides with chemical or, you know, alcoholic impairment no really you know not to a noticeable degree just every once in a while how the fuck did I fucking miss the moonsault god damn of the rope had grease on it

whatever but not an extended campaign of I can't do this anymore and to be fair I don't know if the email was completely correct I have not watched closely a lot of recent Tiffany Stratton matches so I don't know how true that is but that would be something of all of us, because she was pretty smooth from the moment she came up to the main

roster, of all of a sudden now there's an issue. I guess technically, if you come back from an injury, you could just have, you know, a lot of it could just be the footwork, just be, you know, if you hurt your legs or anything, I would assume. Well, yeah, but also remember, she's in a new Broadway play now, whereas she's not in NXT with the girls that she trained with and practiced with and worked with endlessly. She's with a whole new group of girls. you don't have that much practice against. This is not the days where guys and girls could just go in and have matches with anybody,

whether they'd ever met them or not, because they're laying it all out ahead of time and they don't know until they experience it, you can say, okay, I'm going to hit you with a crossbody off the top. But until you've hit me with three or four of them, I haven't experienced exactly at what, direction you're coming, how much height you get, where you put your fucking arms, blah, blah, blah. Also, anybody coming off the ropes, oh, I'll go for the clothesline, but you hook my arm and

spin around and do the float over. Well, you've got to do that a few times for you really get it smooth. All right, Jim, our next question here, sent the corny drive-thru at gmail.com was sent by Albert. That wasn't a joke. It's Albert. We're so sorry, Uncle Albert. I watch Andy Griffith Daily. In season one, episode 13,

Andy is conversing with the mortician slash TV repairman, and he happens to mention a client needs her TV back to watch her wrestling matches. Being that Mayberry is actually, Mount Airy, North Carolina, circa 1960. Who would have she been watching wrestle?

Who would have she been watching wrestle? And whose territory would this have been? Thank you for your time. Well, it was big Jim Crockett, senior, and it was still Jim Crockett promotions. And just the Jim Jr.,

would he have been a teenager, maybe around about that point? maybe a little bit older it would have been Jim Crockett senior and they would have been getting the Charlotte TV in 1960, 61, 62. The announcer would have been who, Brian, Big Bill Ward? Would he have been doing the Charlotte TV at that point?

I think so. I know that Grandma would have been watching Johnny Weaver and George Becker as the young babyface tag team that everybody loved. At that period of time, gosh, it was guys like Bronco Lubich and Aldobogne. This was even before the assassins and the Kentuckians. P.Y. Chung worked in the Carolinas in the early 60s.

And Tojo Yamamoto even got an NWA world. This was in 1962. an NWA world title match against nature boy Buddy Rogers at the Charlotte Coliseum. That's crazy. Insane to think about what that match would have looked like, but it would, it, it apparently drew because they were in the big building. What also says something for anyone who dismisses Tojo, as a lot of fans would just on site, as sometimes people think, like, oh, it's just a Memphis thing.

But no, it wasn't just a Memphis thing. Now he had the run in the Carolinas as a top Japanese heel before he came to Tennessee, and the reason they named him Tojo Yamamoto was because just a few years earlier, one of the top heels in the Tennessee territory was a Japanese heel named Tor Yamato. And he was the one that his wife shot and killed him. So they wanted to play on the people's memories, and Tojo was the one of the emperors

or the generals in World War II, blah, blah, blah, so Tojo Yamamoto. But nevertheless. You ever see that promo? It was Terry Funk. He came into Memphis and he was going over who he was going to team with, and I don't even remember who it was,

except that he couldn't remember Tojo's name. So he's running down his partners and he's like, and I'll be in there with this guy and the Japanese goof. Bill Ward. Well, nevertheless. At the end of Bill Ward's run, I would think, one of his last times doing promos,

I got a promo somewhere. It must be 82, I think, maybe early 83. It's Slater and Orton Jr. And they're doing a, they're both heels, and they're doing a promo, talking about coming to some town. And Bill Ward's setting it up. He's running down the card. He goes, and here they are now.

Dick Slater, Dory Funk Jr., Jr. And he gets them in there, and Dick Slater's doing all the talking. Bob Wharton just got his, like, arms crossed, just standing in the back. And Dick Slater's done, and they start walking off, and Bill Ward thinks it's over, I think. And Bob Whart Jr. goes, Bill Ward, do I look asleep? No, sir? Don't call me Dory Funk, Jr. And that's how the ad promo adds a local promo.

Do I look asleep? Don't call me Dory Funk Jr. And that was done to pop the room because at that point, Dory was one of the bookers in the territory. But anyway, back to Snaveits' favorites' question. It was the Charlotte Territory. It was before they expanded to become the modern mid-Atlantic wrestling that they were in the 70s and 80s. But there was a whole cast of local favorites there that the grandmothers just loved.

All right. Jim, another question here. Sent to Corny Drive-Thru at gmail.com was sent by Will Jackson. Jim, I know you hate everything. But should WWE create a Cougar championship for the Bella's, Page, Natty, Trish, Lita, et cetera? And is it true that bringing back Wendy Richter? Oh, come on now. for heaven's sake.

What do you think of Coober division? Wendy would stretch half that roster. What do you think of a Cougar division? No. Obviously, it's a rib question, but you know, that's, in all honesty, there needs to be, we know as long as you can still perform,

you should still be able to perform, but because of the cosmetic demands on a lot of the women, you know, which they all talk about, you know, well, I'm a woman in this business, et cetera. It's just as they get a little older, they don't look the same, but you don't want to call attention to them being older. So you don't want to think that, well, look,

one of those be Bella's is old enough to be Austin Theory's mother or whatever, because then that kind of really, it wouldn't be bad if it was one of the guys in this case, but just let's face it, it is bad if it's the girls. So I wouldn't do that. All right, no cougar division. Let me put that down here in my notes for that billionaire investor. No cougar division. No cougar.

Well, plenty of cougars, just no cougar division. Jim, let me get your thoughts on this article that several listeners sent over from post-wrest Ressling by Brandon Thurston of WrestleMania. Nick Conn says Paul Levec has signed New Deal with WWE defense product against online criticism and message to all staff. WWE President Nick Con told staff on Monday in a town hall that WWE chief content officer Paul Levec

will continue in his role as the head of creative according to sources who viewed the town hall and informed post wrestling. We also obtained audio of the call. Here's a quote from Nick Con. Well, I mean, was there a doubt? It's not like, you know, oh, suddenly we're going with fucking... Howie.

He's explaining that they actually have evidence, or, you know, it's not just them talking out of their ass, which some... Not all wrestling journalism is the same. And it's good to say that we have the receipts for what we're saying, I think. But here's the quote from Nick. a number of us, Mark Shapiro, Andrew Schlemer, others... Schlema! ...were able to get Paul Avec to extend with us in a multi-year deal.

We're excited about that. They talked him into it, Brian. He's the head of creative, amongst other things, and has been doing a great job for and with us. So, Jim, let's stop right there. They were actually able to get him to... Agree to stay. What do you think?

Against all odds. I mean, who would have thunk it? We thought he was out the door. He was like, fuck this fucking place. I'm going home. And they reeled him back in at the last minute. I mean, no, it's a wonderful differential wording. Triple Hs have taken some, you know, right crosses and left hooks lately from every side.

So now they're kind of putting him over, hey, we, were able to convince him to stay with us. He's a valuable part of the flywheel and the cog of the spoke of the machine and more corporate blah, blah, but there's no, it's not like that there's anybody that's going to replace him anytime soon that would have any level of experience and be able to do that goddamn job. And more importantly, to not to invent storyline, or come up with creative,

but just to talk the guys into doing the shit that the people who think that stuff up want to do. That's probably where Triple H is most valuable. So I think this is just kind of a run-of-the-mill announcement that's of a renewal we knew was coming, that they're also trying to make it sound a little more flowery for Triple H. They're comfortable working with him, and he's comfortable bending to fit within their system, so it all works.

Khan also addressed online criticism of WWE during the town hall after being prompted by a question from an employee, read by Mark Shapiro, asking how WWE is addressing, quote, concerns about over-commercialization and creative direction. End quote. Con pushed back on recent criticism of WWE's product, characterizing it as coming from a vocal minority.

Here's a quote. To me, if you make business decisions based on an online sentiment, just know that you're going to be making said decisions on a minority percentage of voices, a vocal minority. Allow me to give you an example. He said, as he seemed to read online criticisms of years past. Con read what was said in a comment about Roman Reins from six years earlier.

I can't remember the last time the WWE universe hated a wrestler this much. He will never work. The WWE president went on to recount the negative fan reactions to Reins after his Royal Rumble 2015 win. Here's another one. When Roman Reins won the Royal Rumble in 2015, fans went to Twitter with the hashtag Cancel WWE Network.

It trended for two days. Let's stop for a second, and it points out here, Vince McMahon used the same vocal minority phrase when he downplayed the reaction at that year's Royal Rumble. They loved to talk about the... Well, that's where they were so close to Vince for so long,

that's where Nick Kahn's heard it from or learned it from. Go ahead. They love to flaunt any positive feedback they get from people. They'll put tweets on the screen. They will use a webcam broadcast of a fringe podcaster or just some content creator and put it on their TV just because they like that.

But if you're saying what's happening now isn't up to snuff, you're a vocal minority. That seems to be... I agree that it's a vocal minority of the audience on social media, but thinking that that sentiment is limited to that right now is probably ridiculous coming after this WrestleMania. Yeah, no, the

social media discussion about, well, is Kyle better than Kenny and, you know, did this get five and a half stars or whatever? That's ridiculous, niche bullshit they don't need to worry about. But something like,

again, in front of their own audiences, Pat McAfee's involvement was getting booed And as well, they've seen that the fans in their own most devoted categories are not buying the big ticket tickets like they were last year. And we've talked about all the reasons for WrestleMania. The fans were up in arms and criticizing the booking in 2015, and they liked Danielson and they didn't want Roman and they do that, yada, yada, yada. That's more of the audience that now today is, you know, arguing about which match got more stars or whether punk is a traitor to the human race or whatever.

It's not it's not the level of pricing people out or boring people to death or just turning people off with involving other people outside the wrestling business on a more more. numerous and more constant basis that even Vince was and just all of those things. That can't be, you know, just blamed on the internet audience and the, you know, stargivers or the IWC or whatever they call them. These are things that are affecting all of their fans. And that's what they've got to acknowledge. Well, we'll see if that happens. We heard the Mark Shapiro interview recently.

which dismissed any concerns about pricing people out or celebrities or TKO's direct involvement over creative. And here's Nick Kahn dismissing any criticism of recent creative. We'll see how this ends up, but Jim, with that, we shall return after this short commercial timeout with the review of the Hulk Hogan Netflix documentary series. Oh, gee. All right. We are back, folks. Jim asked me to play a little longer. That's one of his favorite of the tunes that we have.

I didn't say a word. He specifically said, that's the one. He said, the last one you play is my favorite one. So we wanted to give you a example. Yeah, that's what I said. My favorite one will be the last one you play. Well, that was the last break, I believe. the musical break at least here on this show,

but Jim, we promised it and we talked about it, and I didn't know how much of it you were going to watch, so this should be an interesting conversation. Netflix, in conjunction with WWE, produced a four-part docu-series called Real American, the Hulk Hogan story. It's all about Hulk Hogan. I don't even know if that's the exact subline there,

but a four-part Hulk Hogan documentary series, which he cooperated with, and his final interviews, and maybe bullshit aside, maybe some of the more insightful interviews about himself we've ever seen on camera were captured for this. There was a lot to talk about. Let's talk about the series and what you watched.

Well, no, I watched the whole thing. I had, too. It was like a car wreck. You couldn't turn away, right? No, I'm not going to poop all over the hoaxter, although the debate now is raging. Dave, Uncle Dave has inflamed a lot of people on the interwebs, but I say, well, actually, no, Hulk wasn't the greatest of all,

or the most mainstream of all time, because there was Ricky Dozan, and there was that blah, blah, blah, blah, and Uncle Dave always knows how to pick his spots, and there's merits to all these arguments, right? Londos was considered more of a national sporting hero, in the United States on a mainstream level than Hogan was. And Drew Moore fans to see him and dominated the business for all those years during the Depression, etc. But it's completely different time in measuring stick.

The Rock was a bigger movie star. Austin sold more tickets in a hot period for a shorter period of time for a couple of years. Ricky Dozan was a national hero in Japan and Korea. I mean, there's all kinds of asterisk, Brian. Asanto and Mexico. Really, inoki, because my God, not only did he dominate network television in Japan and that market, but also was nominated. He was nominated.

He was elected. to legitimate Japanese government positions. He was like a Senate, the equivalent of a senator. So you had more people in Japan as a percentage knew who Ricky Dozan or Antonio Onoki were than even in the United States during the hot period knew who Hulk Hogan was. We can carve out things. But on a whole, everyone has to admit that for the modern era, for the country where the wrestling business

was the biggest and most popular United States, he was the guy. So there's no need to, and plus Dave tries to make these learned points on Twitter with a limited number of characters while still trying to do his, you know, snarky gimmick where I'm smarter than you because I read and I learn.

And it just makes people mad. And then there's the dip shit. that don't recognize that there's been anyone but how well that that Ricky Dozer fellow was over just in Korea and said it's just a mess have you seen any of this going back and forth Brian before we start this program yeah I saw a lot of it and uh you know I saw some people chime in I think Matt Farmer may have chimed in early on and he's a historian I have a lot of respect for and again there's merits to what Dave is saying I think the issue isn't what Dave saying.

It's his delivery. It's his delivery and who he chooses to interact with. When you quote tweet someone, you're saying, I'm okay with everyone else seeing this. He quote tweets more than anyone I've ever seen. And it's always, like, say something right now about this argument. Just say anything, give me a one-line thing, and I'll give a Dave response. Well, nobody could have been bigger than gorgeous George. Nope.

Sorry. you're afraid to learn. It's people who are afraid to learn that come out and say this. You don't read. You clearly don't read. These are the rules. You're not playing by the rule.

It's just insanity. And again, Dave chooses to do it. It's not like it's an involuntary thing. He just has to be on Twitter. It's a choice. It's a conscious choice. So I think he's interacting with ignorant fans. And let's be honest,

most, the vast majority, I mean, very few fans know the worldwide history of wrestling. That's not a common thing amongst wrestling fans. We are a minority. So you could educate people, you could ignore the ones who are just coming at you because Bruce Pritchard doesn't like you. But it's the way Dave conducts himself. Dave could put the comments out there and just respond to the intelligent people in a respectful way. Instead, he says snarky shit. Even when you agree with what he's saying because it's historically factual, he says it in the most condescending fashion, and then he chooses to respond to people in an even more condescending fashion, sometimes ignoring what they're saying. I've even seen people respond like,

Dave, that wasn't what I was saying in any way. He just, he has some kind of glitch in his fucking I ran out of room knocking you. I didn't have time to make my point. Yeah, there's a glitch. There's some sort of glitch. Dave can't stop himself. And we're saying this is people who have been annoyed by Dave's conduct. There are people very close to Dave who think the exact same thing.

So it's not like it's just us. There are many people annoyed with his conduct. Anyway, so back to Hulk Hogan. For the purposes of this television program, he's the greatest of all time. And the first episode, obviously, was the rise, the beginning. And we said at the top of the program here, you know, it was a very well-done television program.

But now I have to kind of wonder of the other documentaries I watch on Netflix, as I mentioned earlier in a program, that I don't know as much about the subject, well how bad down to Primrose path are they leading me into bullshit land but this was a good television program and if you didn't know the story or barely know the story or whatever boy they told the story well

whether the story actually was the whole story or you know whatever we'll get into and they opened with footage from his funeral and even if you've got a deal to do a documentary on somebody if like if I

die I bet you well I'm not going to have a funeral anyway but I bet you stay we've got a three camera shoot ready to go don't you oh god damn it now this will be great for the channel give the people what they want and they'll turn out for it right is that what you're going on

kind of yeah I don't think Stace would let a television crew into my goddamn funeral but it just That whole thing. Various funerals and churches both creep me out, and they happen together, so it's a double whammy.

But nevertheless, they were shooting with Hulk in, they said early 2025, and they also, besides opening with funeral footage, then they closed the final show, among the closing shots was the funeral footage, but they interspersed throughout this, thing, Hulk and his son Nick in their gym at home and Hulk trying to work out. And well, and doing better than you'd think somebody 70 years old would do.

But show him when he would stand up, he was hobbled over and he couldn't stand up straight. And he was probably selling some for the camera, but he had 18 million surgeries, right? And so that they kept going back to the footage they had shot of him and Nick while they were working out or looking through his storage unit at his glory years or whatever. It's a very heart rendering the way that they've done this thing. But one of the first comments that Hogan made was he said, you know, he was trying to differentiate between him and, Terry Balea and Hoke, or between him and T. Well, yeah, differentiate between Hoke and Terry Balea. And he said, it's not like me playing Dracula.

That doesn't mean I come home and bite my wife and kids on the neck. But for the next four episodes, the whole theme of the dagum thing pretty much is, Terry Polaeia gradually becomes Hulk Hogan and there's hardly any Terry Bollah left, right? He couldn't separate the two, that's right. And then you said earlier that this is some of the most revealing comments we've had from him. I hate to say it, but he's sitting there telling these stories and just making some of these things up or not wanting to go into detail for some reason when the story would be fascinating. And it's just reduced down to simple fucking ABC terms.

Yeah, the guy handed me Vince's cards and called Vince. Okay. I was a kid watching Dusty Roads. I was, yeah. So, but the point is, the stories that he, if he would tell them in detail, they would have been fascinating nevertheless. But the thing is, is that it almost got, it's gotten to the point where he,

I think he was performing as a baby face, even in the things that he would admit, you know, later on, or come out about, it's always performing. It was always, could he stop performing as someone

instead of being real about himself? Not if there was a camera there. No. And everything would be said to, you know, to kind of engender sympathy for him or, you know, just mitigate to bad feelings or whatever, which is nothing wrong with that.

But it was, anyway, they did, they showed home movies when he was a kid with his parents. And my favorite part, obviously, of this entire series was the 1970s Florida films from the arenas that they showed, you know, Ernie Ladd and Dusty and fucking, all of the Florida talent and of course we haven't seen any of that that's all locked away

in that mountain up there in Stanford right they've got everything yeah we've always heard that they had all those films Sportatorium so they've got it all and these the arena films they've got also and that stuff that when they show the footage of a young Terry Bolaia training

by the way, if he started training in late 77, and he was that size, he had put on by what April, March, April, 79 when I first met him easily 60, 70 pounds. So he was drinking a lot of milkshakes. But anyway, the film footage that they have of him training with, and was that Paul DeMarco, the guy that was working, with him. It was doing stuff with him.

I'm not sure. I think it was. I'm not sure. He was a really, from what I've heard, I never saw much of him, but I've heard not only was he a really great solid worker and a good talk and heel, but also was a booker of some, and they had the book for Barnett in Australia for a while. Anyway, that film footage

was shot by Gordon Solie's son, Eric. That's when they first started experimenting with the film camera, 7, 8-ish and 9-ish taking it to the arenas or taking at different places. You may remember that there was a film of, oh, God, maybe DiBiase and somebody from Jackson, Mississippi on an episode of Mid-South Wrestling. and they had the cool film look and everything and whoever did the commentary over it at the time

said he has a Gordon Solie's son, Harry, it might have been Watts. Gordon's solely son Eric doing the fine cinematography or whatever the fuck, but it's a cool look anyway. You see where I'm going with this. And I've seen his other stuff too, you're right. And the slow-mo, but they did slow-mo on

like their workouts to where it was shit you couldn't see-through, and it looked so real and legitimate, you know, arm bar, oh, selling firemen's carry body slam with the impact. And it made, you know, it made more of everything instead of less, nevertheless. Interesting seeing Paterson work out with him. I mean, I've seen that footage before, but just it's always crazy to think, here's Paterson, future Booker of him, working with, or I shouldn't even say Booker of him. Vince is a booking assistant, however you want to phrase it. And like you said, I know what he looked like in the Hulk video. He's so lean and trim in the ring there.

Yeah. I was going to guess 100 pounds, but you may be right. Just because he was so tall, he was deceptive. Even when he was skinny, he was still heavy. But anyway, he had been a fat kid, as he said, with no confidence. And he wasn't particularly good at sports. So he got into music and gotten a bad. and met the guys at the bar, but then, I mean, I just wrote down some random things.

It'll be an ongoing theme through the program here. He said he got smart when he was at the matches one night, and he saw the heel tell Kern hit me, hit me. And suddenly he knew it was possible for him to be a wrestler because he didn't have to be a tough guy. That's how the revelation that he got smart. it was that fucking he not that all the guys saw him in the band and he talked to him at the bar and they said come down and work out and help me you know i don't know what to say he trained with

brian blair but he also like said like i saw brian blair and that like whatever he said it was a way that like brian blair was in the story earlier than i'd ever heard him in the story before I don't know. He also said that... That's not the way they smartened him up, though. No, but again, he also said he's been watching championship wrestling from Florida since the early 60s, and he specifically went right to Dusty Roads,

who wasn't there... Yeah. You know, until the later part of the decade, and it wasn't a baby face until several years later, so... Well, what had happened, obviously, was in 74, the whole state blew up with... They had had good business, but with Dusty became,

they have the sum of the dream baby, and he became the thing, he was all over television, and about that time, Hulk is what, 20 years old or early 20s, and he's at bars, you're going to see these guys in Tampa.

That's, and obviously Jerry Briscoe was told the story many times and all these guys, hey, you should come down and work out. And nevertheless, that's how he, got smartened up. He was at the matches and saw the heel talking to Steve Kern in the ring. And again, there's been controversy, not controversy, but there's been confusion over exactly how his

rookie year developed. And what has happened or what had happened was the first time that they let him out of Florida, they put the mask on him Super Destroyer because they go, well, this big kid, they don't want to beat, if he turns in any good, they don't want to just beat him right off, so they've just put him under a mask. But they sent him to Memphis

because it lets what Eddie Graham did with Paul Orndorf. As soon as he got out of training in Florida, Memphis was his first territory because Eddie Graham and Jerry Jared had a relationship and he knew that he could, Jared could use guys on his weekly television and fucking give him a gimmick, whatever the fuck, experience, right?

So anyway, they sent Terry the Hulk Boulder and they did the Hulk video in Nashville with Michael St. John doing the voiceover. He is the Hulk. And he came in to the Memphis end of Tennessee as Lawler's surprise partner to face the Mongolian stomper and, oh, God damn it, who what, nevertheless. And he spent just a couple of weeks here, but right about that time is when they had the upheaval

in Knoxville, Brian, where Orden Garvin Rup, those guys broke away from Ron Fuller's southeastern. Robert Fuller took all the fucking guys that he was booking at Memphis and went back to Knoxville to replace them. And Jared did all the other shit that he did, but somehow or another, they sent Terry Boulder,

the Hulk, to the Continental territory in Alabama that Ron Fuller was also running for the next couple months, and then brought him back to Memphis with beefcake as his brother, Eddie Boulder.

So does that make sense on the timeline? What you said makes sense. In this thing, they didn't mention Alabama, they didn't mention that he worked with Andre the Giant for the first time there either, which I think is a big part of the story. Also, to take a step back, I've now heard every possible version of the hero Matsuda story. We're back to we snapped his leg and they put up some x-ray. I don't even know if it's his or just an x-ray of a broken. It looked like a x-ray of a B-roll, like B-roll X-ray, broken ankle, type it in. They just put in some x-ray.

but we've also heard that Matsuda didn't break his leg. So who knows what really happened. And it actually was always supposed to be broke his ankle, not as Hogan was saying leg. The story was ankle, and now it could have been, well, maybe not. But the point being is that when they said, they just said he went to Memphis,

and I was at one of the TV tapings that one of his promos they clipped was from. That's, again, the summer July, when they brought him back from, Alabama. But some of the footage was also that they used during this time period from Georgia TV and from

the Knoxville TV was when he was Sterling Golden and nobody ever even mentioned that. They glossed over that they changed his fucking between Terry the Hulk Boulder and Hulk when he was Sterling Golden for about six months.

but they left that out. Yeah, no mention of that. They talked about him in Georgia because Brett Hart talked about working with him there, but another big omission, no mention of Austin Idol. And even Hogan has admitted how much he took from Austin Idol

in terms of Idol mania, the way Idol would do his promos. There should have been some discussion of that. The finger in the air. Yeah, Idol, you watch Georgia, Austin Idol, which is when Hogan would have been there, and you see a prototype of a future type of wrestler. And, you know, Hogan's giving them credit for that,

but they didn't do it here. Well, they didn't do a lot of thing, but nevertheless. So then Jimmy Hart and Jerry Lawler came up, brief comments. Jimmy Hart, apparently, I thought they shot it in like some kind of golf resort there in Florida. And he's sitting out the front with a chair. Apparently he's friends with a billionaire. Jimmy is that lives down there.

And I guess it was the billionaire's house. But I got to talk to Poo-Poo. I didn't know he's friends with billionaires. This may be the guy we've been looking for. No, if he was going to open a wrestling promotion, he would have already done it if Jimmy knows him. Nevertheless, it's Resoletious. Stop it now.

It's Resolicious, baby. That was the last billionaire or millionaire that Jimmy tried to open a wrestling company. Well, he didn't, he didn't have quality control over the thing. He was just doing it as he was told. But anyway, Jimmy told the story about when he first came up, and that's the thing when he was partners with Lawler. And Jimmy said, Lawler said, this guy wants me to manage him. And be his personal manager.

I said, he's never going to draw a dime. And then they had the clip from Lawler said, well, yeah, he was not very good. The thing was, apparently, I think it was Terry Boulder's idea. What up to fucking Lawler and Jarrett? When he got up here, it was Lawler's partner in the tag matches with, and I still can't remember who Stomper's partner was. God damn it. He had asked them, can you guys be like my managers?

and I'll sign a personal contract with you guys that you guys can book me or whatever and Lawler says this guy's never going anywhere because he was he was fucking rot but the look alone I do I think Lawler just didn't want to fuck with it it had been more headache than he gave a shit about that would have required

hard work and Lawler is like to just slide through life the Teflon King but that way yeah he turned down fucking hogue hogan those promos that hogan did in memphis in 79 is that his real accent or was he trying to sound southern there no he was trying to sound like he was trying to he didn't want to come out and do dusty because he didn't have a lisp and he couldn't pull off a jessie ventura voice and there's there was an element of trying to be like ostinado baby you know, with the padded like that. He was putting all those things together. And because he was sent to Tennessee, he decided he'd call his bear hug the super southern squeeze, Daddy. And the voice he was putting on not only was a little more southern,

but also was even more high-pitched. He had had no growl to it, right? Like, let me tell you something, brother. No, it was like, my super southern. squeeze, Daddy. Hey, by the way, May 22nd, 79, Louisville, Kentucky, Lawler and Terry Boulder, countout win over Mongolian Stomper and gorgeous George Jr. There you go.

Well, George was managing Stomper at the time, so I was thinking that since he was the manager to have been in the corner, but you're absolutely correct. Hey, Jimmy Hart says in this that he went to high school with Jerry Lawler. I never heard that before. Did they go to high school together? No, they went. to the same high school. That explains the age discrepancy there between these two classmates.

Well, but that's the thing is that Jimmy was, I think, four or five years ahead of Lawler, but they went to the same high school, but with Jimmy being a big wrestling fan, Jimmy was at the fucking Sputnik Monroe Billy Wicks match in 59 as a teenage kid. So they knew each other because Jimmy's a wrestling fan, but he was also a celebrity from Memphis, and he was, has still had the gentries together and was playing, you know,

gigs around the area. So they had known each other for a while, but they didn't go to school together. They went to the same school. All right. They definitely said they went to school together at this thing. Well, I know he said that, but, you know, he's trying to, he's trying to,

He's trying to compare himself to Lawler to make himself look more youthful. I'm like, Jesus. Hey, one more question about this period of time before we move on, and obviously there's a lot to cover. We'll see if we can get to everything today. But to the best of your knowledge, was it what he saw the Crusher do randomly? Was it Dusty? Was it Lawler? When did Lawler start pulling the strap?

And who did Hogan, to the best of your knowledge, get hulking up from? um luller was pulling the strap in he started trying to think where he started what 76 or 77 depending on actually hold on here

he started pulling a strap when he turned baby face in 77 um and the the idea of hoking up accompanied by that you would be Loller would have been selling his ass off and the heel would be on him and then he would hit lawler and loller would turn and sell it but

he would get an expression on his face and his body would start to stand upright and that would cause after the people were trained to it that would cause the people to come up and then the guy would hit him again and he'd sell it but he'd sell it quicker and less and he'd stand up straight again and that type of escalating fucking I've had all I can stands moment but that he didn't invent that that is in has been done in various ways by baby faces since the dawn of

goddamn at least you know the Tuts Mont's Wild West type rest Western slam bang wrestling the 30s you want and not everybody can pull it off and you can't do it in the preliminary matches if you're a preliminary guy

they don't give a shit but your main event baby faces wanted some way to portray to the audience that they'd been had the shit kicked out of them but they were about to fucking turn the momentum and some guys just like to go right into

the fucking heel fucking up and the baby face getting his breath and his space to mount a comeback but the ones that could get by with it wanted to, you know, whether it's dusty or it's

slal or it's fucking Bruno would have a way of starting to fire his body up and they were individual depending on the person but those type of territory dominating baby

faces had the way to start showing the people to get them to cheer and the more the people cheered, the more that they would, and finally there's the goddamn shaking a finger in the face and a boom. You see what I mean? Yeah. It elongates the, it gets the people into what you're about to do before you even do it and it gets them to cheer it on and they cheer it louder because it looks like that they've had a part to play in it, psychologically. Were you surprised the way they handled Andre? Like, they didn't really bring up anything about it. I mean, we're not even up to the WWF run yet, and he'd already worked with Andre.

It was already something that people were putting together. They didn't even mention that. Like, anywhere in here that they, it's a pretty big thing, if you think about it. They took this rookie who had size and a look and put him in there with the biggest touring drawing card in the country. And that ended up being his future for the next few years. And I can understand them not, you know, going deep enough because, again, they only had four hours.

So we, you know, we got to get a lot of, a lot of stuff in. So I can understand I'm not saying, my God, you know, Hulk and fucking Andre shocked the world when they sold out the Dothan Farm Center in Dothan, Alabama. which was a real thing they really did. But to not say they faced each other at Shea Stadium in their first, you know, major league encounter underneath the Bruno Zabisco match, you know, but again, if we're going to talk about what they left out in this time period,

apparently he never went to Japan. I was surprised, you know, again, like the Andre thing, I was like, okay, they're going to eventually have to introduce the story with him and Andre because of WrestleMania 3. They'll probably talk about the fact they had been working together since the beginning of Hogan's career. And like you said, Shea Stadium, they were in a Superdome, even though they didn't draw it, but they were there for that. But Japan, I kept thinking, eventually this is going to have to come up that while all these things were happening here, he became one of the biggest domestic, domestic, one of the biggest foreign stars technically in Japan, one of the biggest Gaigian. and New Japan ran with it, he beat Anoki.

I mean, he was a major, major star making a lot of money, making a lot of money. He had early merchandise over there. I don't want to rush too far ahead, but Linda Hogan later on said that in 84, as the expansion was happening, her and Hogan were living on $3,500 was it, a month? And I'm just like, how could that possibly be? Well, no. Because of Japan money. On top of anything he was doing in the States,

he was making a fortune in Japan. Well, here's the thing. Hogan also said, you know, about when he was in Memphis, he was like, but gee, brother, I was making $800 a week. No, he wasn't. Yeah, what was that? No, because even though they put him in a couple of main event spots and tried to push him,

they were not for example the the time that he and his brother eddie did before he became dizzy hogan before he became beefcake worked with ron bass and pete austin for the southern tag title or whatever Jared put him on in the main event but it was after the fargo's match and after loller and dundee and the freebirds and the people started walking off that was the w fia convention was yeah yes exactly they'd see jacky and ruff house Fargo tear the complete house down with Wayne Ferris and Larry Latham and Danny Davis, and then Lawler and Dundee against the Freebirds and the Freebirds debut. And then this match got in the ring and it hurt the fans' feelings. I'd never seen the people used to come to the Coliseum late in Memphis to sneak in on the

main event. They never walked out during it, right? So anyway, he would maybe make $400 or $500 a week because Jared had booked this big guy is a favorite Eddie Graham to see if he could teach him anything. And he did remain somewhat loyal to the Jarrett family. Hogan did for that for some years. Yes, he always agreed to take their money without working in the future. One question for you. Well, hold on. I was going to ask you, but the thing about Japan is this is a documentary on Hulk Hogan and what he and I hate to sound like Dave Meltzer,

but what about Japan? But legitimately, Hogan, before he was even a major star in this country, besides a big heel that they used in the WWF, you know, for a run, he was on top for anoki. He beat anoki. He was one of the highest paid and best used Americans, even $10,000 a week or thereabouts. because at that time, you know, that was top pay for one of the Japanese companies.

And he was there for a run of a couple of years. You know, I mean, not straight, but going over for the tours. He was there for several years. And again, he won the first IWGP, which was super hyped up for a long time. And that was a big deal. It wasn't the championship at his now. It was a tournament with the big. biggest stars from around the world, and Anoki put Hogan over.

And that was a big deal. But I'm just saying that even if they weren't trying to appeal to the wrestling nerds amongst us, that made him look like a big star even before he became a big star. I would have thought they would have put that little thing in there. More importantly, it gave him a leverage. Like, they don't discuss that at all. He had the Rocky Three thing. He also had Japan.

he was coming home to the AWA. You know, the stories always were and who knows what's true and what is, and he came home and discovered that Vern was selling Hokomania T-shirts behind his back. Because he was in Japan making all the money. And he had merchandise over there, and you look at photos of his wedding.

That's the first time I ever saw a video of his wedding. I would love to see more of it because the photos I've seen in the Japanese mags, Inoki was there, Vince Jr. was there. Vern wasn't. And he hadn't walked out yet. But Anoki flew in from Japan for the Hogan wedding in California, which is kind of crazy. But yeah, he was a major star in Japan, and it affected the company because they made that

million-dollar booking deal with WWF in 1985 right before WrestleMania thinking they were going to get a lot more Hogan. I mean, that's what the deal was for. I mean, sure, it's great to get Bob Orton Jr., and we want Andre, we expect Andre, but they wanted more Hogan. Hogan was the Golden Goose. And also just for the kids out there, in addition to getting a million dollars in 1985 from Crockett for the TBS time slot,

Vince also got a million dollars around the same period of time from Antonio Anoki on a booking agreement that Anoki would have access to Vince's talent to book in Japan. and that's how he financed all of those various things called WrestleMania, et cetera. Yeah, continued relationship, and that relationship would end a short while later. One thing to go back to with the Memphis stuff, I don't know if we would say smart fan, but you were pretty informed at the time and you were obviously doing your thing. Were you under the impression that the Boulders were brothers,

and secondly, talking about things not really talked about much in here in the friendship of Brutus Beefcake? of yeah that that didn't get much coverage at all for beefcaking if only that dadgum misty hadn't uh uh what i'm trying to think back no because i'm pretty sure i knew they weren't brothers at the time and i can't tell you chapter and verse on how that i knew but to be honest, it may just have been that, you know, we already knew that, oh, Hokes coming back and he's bringing a buddy from Florida. I may have just heard that or whatever.

But that was the thing is, I mean, beefcake with go back somebody. And if you can't find any pictures on the internet, by the time I get finished scanning my negatives in the next near future, they'll be all over the place. I'll be flooding the market. But look at what Beefcake looked like with the long, blonde hair in 1979, posing next to this giant bodybuilding looking cool guy

that even though he was starting to be bald even then, all the fans laughed at him. They were calling Beefcake, or what I calling Eddie Boulder like Hogan's sister. It just didn't work. he looked like the classic little brother in a situation comedy that would get beat up

and then the big brother would come so when they tried to make him a team they'd have Eddie Boulder sell and Hulk would get the tag but Eddie Boulder couldn't sell any better than Hogan could come back at that point so they could Hogan could drop the leg

and Beefcake could drop an elbow and that's basically what they fucking did I watched Eddie Boulder in his rookie year versus Sunny King do a 15-minute draw at Evansville, Indiana one time. How about that? Fucking hell. Anyway, so that's the thing is that, and also, Brett Hart was in this, a few places, but.

He's the best. He's the best. He should be in everything. Yeah, again, it was great. I mean, he puts him over as being a major box office draw and blah, blah, blah, blah. but when he talked about working with him in Atlanta, he said, I knew more about wrestling then than he ever knew in his life. And all he could do was a bear hug.

Because that's kind of, you know, where they were at that point. But then we're going back to the first heel run in the WWF in 1980. It was just, he explained it, Vince called and wants you to come to New York. Okay. I mean, he has a story for every goddamn thing. He couldn't even make one up if he didn't think that, you know, the real one was worth it. In terms of him going back after, you know, you're talking about when he was fired and he went back? Or what do you talk about?

No, no, just the first, because then the second time was even more preposterous. But just the first time is he just said, yeah, Vince called. He wants to come to New York. not well you know so and so hooked me up and blah blah blah and we had the meeting and we talked about oh yeah okay and by the way Michael Hara was the president of the Hulk Hogan fan club and the story he always told was that yeah was that he put the tape in right he went to the office he actually literally went to the office and dropped off the photos and said you should bring this guy in I just saw him in Memphis at the WFIA convention yeah so I mean everyone has a little part to play

I'm sure Andre must have said something at some point that he was going around the country. That's what I'm saying. At some point, you know, Andre probably put a word in for Vince, and Vince had Pat or whoever was handling things for him at the time call. He and Oly, they didn't hate each other then. It definitely wasn't Pat back then. It wasn't Pat back then. But whoever was handling things for him in the office,

and he and only didn't hate each other at that point in time and well, Vince Senior. It was Vince Senior anyway. And he had a relationship with Jared Jarrett. So the promoters would call each other. Andre put a word in, hey, can I get a date on so-and-so? Or I'd like to bring blah, blah in. But there's none of just, I said, call Vince.

And the Rocky 3 timeline is all over the goddamn place. Which is what you were talking about is that he again claims that Vince Sr. said, you're fired if you do Rocky 3, which was years off and already, I thought, had been debunked. There are elements of the story that I think have been debunked. He was fired, he says, from WWF because he wanted to do Rocky 3. The story we always heard was that Sylvester Stallone consulted, I believe, Terry Funk. Terry phone. Was given a few pictures,

Guerrilla Monsoon, maybe Big John Stud, and Hulk Hogan. Maybe there were others. Those are the names I always heard. And he picked Hogan, and Hogan went out there, and Hogan did it.

The story Hogan's always told that Vince Sr. fired him. This would have been, I guess, 81. And then he immediately went to work for Vern, and Vince said, you'll never come back. And, of course, he was working for Vern, and I think he had already turned baby face

before the movie came out in what, 82. Yes. But here's the thing. No Eye of the Tiger. You want to talk about big omissions in this thing? No Eye of the Tiger. Oh yeah.

Hey, they leased ACDC and all these other tunes to make a creative video montage at some point in a program. And they didn't acknowledge Eye of the Tiger, which was his original music and what got the whole thing over. Yeah, which played into Rocky 3. It was the main song for the soundtrack of Rocky 3. So it reminded everyone of that giant movie he was in. but it didn't even get a mention here.

Well, here's the thing. Of course Vince Sr. finished him up. If he's going to shoot a movie, he can't be working six nights a week in the territory, right? I doubt very seriously if Vince Senior said, I don't even know if Vince Jr. would have said this. You'll never work here again if you go make that movie. You'd have probably figured out of ways of some way to get in on it.

They finished him up. He goes, he shoots the movie. He's still got the Japanese deal where he's going over there and being highly paid. And he comes back. And he gets booked in the AWA. And they brought him in, as you'll recall, as a fucking heel with, we just said this a couple of shows ago. Johnny Valiant with Johnny Valiant as his manager. And yeah, I'd quickly realized that they'd made a mistake in all these things and switched him

baby face, but hold on, we'll get there because apparently somewhere around this time he meets Linda and she doesn't know anything about wrestling or who he is, but he's on Johnny Carson or whatever the fuck.

So again, the timeline's all over the place. Rocky 3. I think she said she had just seen Rocky 3 or something. Well, there you go. but Linda was all over this and at least she was accessible and open. I liked her. I actually, I mean, I know this may be the only instance I ever will feel this way,

but maybe it's because I was hearing her talk about this stuff and not be over the top. I thought she was great in this thing. I still had a lot of questions, but I don't know. Well, I thought she came across goodness. Yeah, well, and here's the thing. I've never met her.

Never in my life. I've met this woman. But I've noticed several of, number one, she always had the video camera, whatever Hulk was home, right? Like she covered their entire lives. I've never seen such an array of people doing mundane things over and over. And thank God she did,

because it's good to see some of that footage of, you know, in the moment as it was happening, the way people were. I'm sure she has a lot more stuff, but I thought that was pretty cool. but I think who was it at the end toward the end of the maybe the last show said or when they were talking about the reality show said Linda always wanted to be in front of the camera instead of behind the camera and I think that I've I've had people who have had that I know who have had dealings with them said that she was just batshit fucking crazy. out of her mind. That's the only evaluation I've ever gotten of Linda from anybody's

ever met her personally. She does come off personal and beautiful and et cetera. And I bet she was quite a handful. Oh, yeah. But yeah, she's a different kind of cat, as some people say. She seemed like if you wanted to be married to someone who was just going to have a lot of fun with you, she seemed like the greatest partner. and she was just hot as hell in her in the 80s.

And even in the early 90s, you talk about her wanting to be the center of attention or whatever. When Hogan beat Flair, when he went to WCW in 94 at the pay-per-view in, was it Tampa or Orlando, I forget. But, you know, the big one where Shaquille O'Neal was there and Mr. T. She's in the front row with, like, her kids who were pretty young at that time. She's like, in an evening gown, and she's jumping around. You notice there aren't a lot of hot blondes in evening.

gowns jumping around at Rigside. So she really stood out there. But no, she, you know, I actually really thought her perspective, and we'll talk more about this from the Von Erick documentary on the next show, but hearing some of the female voices that were married to the stars talk about times and people is kind of a new thing. And we're getting different perspectives from people. Well, speaking of different perspectives, that's where I was about. to go is that apparently they tried to tell the story without just coming out and saying it in this many words that Hulk had a match with Jesse Ventura and suddenly just became the baby face and that and Jesse I'm sure Jesse you know if he remembered he didn't tell the story

that way but they had comments from Jesse and comments from Hulk and they but they of edited them all together with footage of this one match with Hoke and Jesse, where instead of Hoke saying, well, yes, he was a big influence on my look and my pose and etc. He just, well, suddenly I was against Jesse and they started cheering me. Because Jesse was a heel and Hoke had already turned baby face. I mean, did you notice this or did your brain just not process? If you didn't know anything, you would almost think that it was a double turn.

which obviously it wasn't. Jesse was a top heel there and one of the top tag teams with Adrian Adonis for a long time, East West Connection. And much like Hogan would, which would turn him, Jesse Ventura was comfortably a heel, although his promos were the story. And in Minneapolis, that's the story with Hogan. Sure, it's the energy and the charisma. But look at a promo from 79 or 80, or even look at one before he left the done.

WWF, and then look at even early babyface Hogan of the AWA promos, it's a different thing. And that's what connected was his way of talking to the people. And I don't think that's really said enough because his promos later became a character of themselves with the training and the senior pro, all that stuff. It kind of became the same thing and the same energy, but it was so fresh and so different, especially for a baby face that looked like that in the AWA, it bled. blew up. And that's the thing.

You know, then they had the montage of the promos and he really turned it up. He got it at that point. And he had the concept of the superstar Grams and the Dusty Roses and the Jesse Ventura's and the Austin Idols and the people that he had seen. But he was able to put more base at his voice and have more conviction and make it more his. and Keith Elliott Greenberg, bless his little heart. He seems nice, but he's a nice guy. But the fans basically, in the AWA, turned Hogan baby face by starting to cheer for him because he was cool, as we just mentioned. But Keith's comment was the fans were writing the plots.

He's been around a business 40 fucking years and he still talks like that. Bless him. I just, you can't really. in some people's innocence. He seems like a very, very nice guy. People I know who know him say he's just the nicest guy in the world. Yes, he is a nice guy, but writing the plots from a guy my age around the wrestling business, it just disturbs me to hear that type of terminology.

Yeah. Unfortunately, a lot of these things with him, it's just, it's always a, and it's because of where he grew up, obviously. Not that there's anything against that, but it's a WWF. It was a bad neighborhood on the wrong side of the track. It's a WWF-centric view of everything, almost like the way they wanted at times. And I've read some of his books, and obviously there were some factual errors in that WrestleMania 3 book, and he did a fluffy book for AEW.

And, you know, I don't know. They need someone. He ain't bad. But he's more of a poet than a historian, I think, at times. You know what I mean? He's not, he doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. But anyway. Very nice man, it seems.

Very nice man. Great hair. Just great hair. And just, he'll never go gray. But so then this episode is about to come to a close, as probably as is everyone's patience. It's listening at this point. But then Hogan tells the story where he was inspired to do the patriotic gimmick by Ronald Reagan. Is this, was this a new one?

it's a new one the way he phrased it because this is all happening in real history and also the way they were framing it here as he was becoming the most popular thing in the AWA again ignoring the fact he was a massive star in Japan already yes becoming a big star in the AWA he said now I knew I needed a gimmick

what what are you talking about and then it's like my gimmick was he already had three he already had three he already had three hats on at that point, didn't he? And then the whole, like, I love America thing. I never thought of it as, like, his gimmick, despite real American and him carrying a flag

every now and then. I just thought it, like, he's the top star and he loves the country. I never thought of it, like, his gimmick is he's Hacksaw Duggan or something. But he made it sound like his career would have been over if he didn't get that patriotic gimmick at that point, and that's just, it was a thing to add on top of everything, and it made sense, but it was never like his gimmick. well yeah and that's what he's he was like yeah i could talk and i could wrestle but now i needed a gimmick i needed something he was already a big star but he's the hulk he's the fucking hulk i know he's the

fucking hulk but the the patrioticicity patrioticity of the thing came because that it again was vince's plan to put this guy if vince junior's plan to put this guy in the fucking top spot, and he wanted him to be a superhero champion. And he's already got, Bob Backland has the belt, but we're going to take care of that. Who can I have win the belt from Backland

that can then put Hulk Hogan, my new champion over. My God, the Iron Sheik, well, he's from Iran and he's anti-American. So my Hulk Hogan is going to be an American hero. I am a real American and they even stole fucking Windham and Rotundas

U.S. Express music, right? Eventually, again, it was Eye of the Tiger until mid-85, at least late 80s. Yeah, but I'm just saying that's Vince, the start of the patriotism well, Hogan had was waving the flag in the AWA because at that time was not

Adnan Casey's heels. Yes. On the other side of and sheke, KZ, had the heels, Ayatollah, Blackwell. And Ken Patara sold out his country to join them, that's right. Yeah, so he's done it in the AWA. Eddie Ardy is familiar with the idea, and now here Vince wants him to beat an Iranian and market him as the All-American hero.

That's what inspired it was the fucking wrestling angles. And Iron Sheik, more than likely, it was the best possible option. if you look at the heels that were there at the time, Ivan Koloff was just about to finish up if he didn't finish up, mass superstar, which has always been a big rumor. Morocco, who was the Intercontinental Champion still, I think.

Sheik had more heat. The sheik, it was perfect, and him and Blassie. And then after that, a few months later, Sergeant Slaughtertern Babyface, that was the patriotic gimmick against the Iron Sheik. That was literally about America versus Iran. Hogan beat him, and then to get a pop every now and then

he would lift an American flag and waving a rat. It wasn't like, Hogan's here to defend America. I mean, every now and then it was a match with Nikolai, but that was Slaughter's gimmick, and then it was Corporal Kirshner's gimmick.

And, you know, it wasn't Hogan's, it was just a thing for Hogan. It wasn't Hogan's gimmick, in my eyes. Did you like the clip where they had a clip of Hogan at the time doing one of the press interviews said, brother, that's why the people love me, because I say that I take my prayers

that I train and I do this, everything I do is real and I never tell a lie. I'm like, if there was a test for a lightning bolt to come down, right there it was and it didn't, which means, you know, whatever you think it means. But that is the end of this first episode is he said he wrestled somewhere or he was somewhere in a locker room, whatever. A kid comes through the curtain and hands me a card.

Call Vince. and Hulk says, well, I'm already fired from there, he fired me. No, no, the son. He's fixing to takeover in New York. Oh, God. Now, you know what the real story is, right? Yes. It was Steve Taylor, the photographer, because Vincent started a magazine, and under the guise of, he wants to take photos of the AWA event in Chicago,

he was sent there to slip Hogan the note. and Hogan immediately called Vince and Vince flew out there, I believe. Well, then they were together in Japan right before he walked out on Vern. They were together in Japan. Vince was at his wedding. And important to note, that summer is when Vince offered to buy the AWA from Vern and was laughed off by Vern and Greg. So Hogan was the top star there when Vince tried to buy the company and take it over. But the point is the idea that Hulk Hogan, in his position in the business,

I knew that Vince Jr. had taken over the fucking company from his father. It was in Weasel Dooley's newsletter. No, that was known in the business by the time that this would have been that Vince Jr. had taken over and that some guy,

you know, just because Steve Taylor got in contact with him, Hoke immediately knew it was legitimate. It was like he was breaking news. Oh my God, Vince Sr's out. Vince Jr.'s running things now. And he's fixing a takeover in New York. He already had. But Vince vowed to make him a star.

And at different points in this series, we had the voice of Vince McMahon without actually having to see what has become of Vince McMahon. Well, I'm wondering where did they get the audio if they couldn't show it, if they couldn't show video. Where was that audio from? It was probably other interviews throughout the years.

I mean, again, they just Netflix did a documentary series about Vince McMahon, although I don't know if he came out of it enjoying what it became. But, you know, they have all that interview footage, and some of it he sounded younger, so that's from a different source. But, yeah, no Vince visually being interviewed, but a lot of other people. Again, they got a, Jim Duggan makes a cameo in the last five seconds. of the final one here, but that was episode one.

I heard that, well, just one other thing, I heard that Kevin Nash said he said was interviewed for three hours and they showed him for about 30 seconds. Well, let's hope he got paid. But that was episode one of the Hulk Hogan docu-series, Real American on Netflix. Jim, obviously, that was detailed and we went a while. So why don't we call it there? We will return next time. We have a lot of wrestling documentaries reviewed.

But if you want history and... We're coming up on the experience. We'll try to weed one or two of these things in there. With the Von Erick biography, at least part one, that has just aired on A&E, and I know there's a Sean Michaels one I keep mentioning, and it's more interesting than some of these actual wrestling shows. I'm hearing more and more complaints from people who attend. I just saw some video from someone who attended WrestleMania and Smackdown before it,

complaining about being in the arena during the commercial breaks. because they see them there. So they're getting commercials, nonstop commercials. They show them on the screen. They show the commercials on the screen in the arena. He was saying he saw the commercials. Oh,

son of a bitch. There's a lot. What did you? And by the way, update on Raw from Laredo a day or two ago, apparently the building air conditioning was broke. People were about to fucking pass out. The air conditioning broke and was off all day.

And they had the pyro and the lights. and the Zabod. Like back of the old territory days, all they needed was a bunch of cigars. That's another reason why all the arenas were smoke-filled arenas back then, because a lot of these joints didn't have air conditioning. So if you let a fart, it would hang in the air for about an hour and a half. What was the question?

Well, with that, there's no question, but the drive-through is closed. All right. I'm sorry. I just looked at the clock and we went an hour on one episode. I told you I had thoughts. You had thoughts. I know I promised retro figures. I have a ton of retro figures here on my desk that need to go away. But we will do that next time. We will return next time with more of all this. Of course, the Jim Cornett experience in a few days. And next week we'll be back here on the drive-thru. Go through the archive. Patreon.com slash Coronet. $5 a month gets you access to the archive going back to 2013. patreon.com slash cornet. The official Jim Cornett YouTube channel

just go to YouTube and subscribe today. Full episodes, Clip City episodes, Omnibus Collections. That very popular George Lavinaitis artwork, that great guest artwork

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