Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru - Episode 446: Mask vs. Mask

Episode Date: June 5, 2026

This week on the Drive Thru, Jim reviews El Grande Americano vs. Original El Grande Americano, mask vs. mask, in AAA, as well as WWE Clash In Italy! Plus Jim reviews Raw highlights, and talks about AEW's Dennis Condrey tribute, ring noise, Vince McMahon as a commentator, Ric Flair's posts about David Flair, Meltzer's comments about Randy Savage, Vivid Video, Mickey Poole, and much more! Thanks to our episode sponsors: RIDGE:  One thing to pack, five ways to power! Get up to 40% off @Ridge during their Father’s Day Sale at https://www.Ridge.com/JCE #Ridgepod HELIX:  Go to helixsleep.com/jce for 20% off sitewide FACTOR:  Head to factormeals.com/jce50off and use code jce50off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box, with a new subscription only SHOPIFY:  Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/jce Send in your question for the Drive-Thru to: [e-mail]  Follow Jim and Brian on Twitter: @TheJimCornette @GreatBrianLast Merch! https://arcadianvanguard.com/ Join Jim Cornette's College Of Wrestling Knowledge on Patreon to access the archives & more! https://www.patreon.com/Cornette Subscribe to the Official Jim Cornette channel on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/OfficialJimCornette Visit Jim's official site at www.JimCornette.com for merch, live dates, commentaries and more! You can listen to Brian on the 6:05 Superpodcast at 605pod.com or wherever you find your favorite podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What is happening? I messed the whole thing up. That's his elbow, kids. It's gone completely off the rails. Hello again, friends. You're shouting. There we go. And welcome back to another edition of Jim Cornett's drive-thru right here.

Wherever you are, wherever I am, wherever he may be. Well, he's in Louisville, Kentucky. I'm your host, the Great Brian Lest. And here he is because it's going so well so far. The leader of the cult of Cornett, Mr. professionalism himself, Jim Cornett.

Just pitch it right on over here, Brian, because we'll just take it and run with it from this point forward. Are you, were you having some type of seizure there? Were you playing the keyboard with the backs of your wrists? Were you epilepticking in some fashion? I don't know if that's how you verb that.

Well, it just depends on which verb you're one to verb. You know, Elton John, Billy Joel. Mozart, whoever it may be, every now and then they just mess up. They just need a retake, but I decided we should just plow through and move on with the show. Ladies and gentlemen, that's the first time those English words

have been said in that order together. Elton John, Billy Joel, Mozart, they all mess up. First time ever in the history of mankind. That's what you get on this program here. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know what else you're going to get out of it today. The host is Are you tippling, Brian Laird?

Are you imbibing here? I'm not. The Willie's remedies in the other room, but, you know, I'm talking Billy Preston, Chico Marx. I'm talking Jimmy Smith. You know, it's a different energy. How about, how about, how about, how about, it's a different energy that us masters bring to the table.

And if every now and then we flub, the flubb itself is genius. How about to kill her, Jerry Lee? You know, those, the stuff of him before he got really old and didn't give a shit and was possibly imbibing on a regular basis. But the stuff in the 60s, he was so practiced, he was flawless. He fucking, it made the shit up as he went along in the way that he sang the song. He never did the same thing twice. And it sounded good every time.

He could play the piano effortlessly without looking at it. And in his whole life and legacy went to. And he murdered a bunch of women, which made people, that about marrying his teenage cousin. You know, you can't follow a shooting with a stabbing. You got to keep going up and up with the, did the cousin ever have really anything bad to say about him? I don't know.

I haven't seen too many interviews with Myra Gail. I think that was her name. Well, poor Myra, it's been so long since I read the book. But I think later on, the ones that weren't around to say anything bad are the ones that probably have had the bad stuff to say. say about him. His nickname was the killer, so he killed a bunch of people. I always say my favorite story.

Allegedly. Allegedly. From that amazing Nick Tosh's biography, Hellfire. The best story, the book begins with him showing up at Graceland, true story. Like, in the middle of the night, just shooting off his gun because he wanted to prove Elvis, he was the king of Memphis and of rock and roll. But he couldn't get past the gates at Graceland. Can you imagine if you're like the guy Elvis is scared of?

You know, like, oh, fuck, it's Jerry Lee Lewis pulling up again. I don't know whether if the king was down in the jungle room, I don't know whether he would have been alerted to this whole thing until after it was over with. I can't remember was the Elvis was or was not home at the time. Because Jerry Lee didn't know either way. I'm trying to remember the story. Keep that man away from my teenage bride.

And then they parked his plane across the street and charged you a dollar to go. Me and Big Bubba Rogers and Bobby Eaton and Stan Lane went to see Elvis's plane and Graceland one day. We didn't go in the building at that day because we didn't have time, but we went and saw the fucking plane. I've never been there. I didn't know about that. They have his plane on the property? Well, many years, many years ago, like in the fucking late 80s or whatever this was, Graceland is a beautiful estate in Memphis,

but it's not what you would imagine a billionaire would live in, which Elvis wasn't at the time, but like the biggest star in the world, but it's a beautiful place. But it's on Elvis Presley Boulevard, which got it, I can't remember what it was renamed from, but it's a commercial strip of road

going through Memphis these days and or not through the suburban Memphis. And across the street, they had a gift shop, an Elvis gift shop, and it was a big parking lot where they parked the fucking plane. He had the TCB Lightning Bolt plane. And you got to go up the stairs and sit in Elvis's plane and for however much it was.

But a handful of Perkinson for $10. Across the street from Graceland was a big parking. lot, goddamn tacky gift shop. It is a four-lane highway, people whizzing both ways. And so it wasn't like he lived in this gated community. It grew up around him, obviously, since the time he had bought the place. How far was his house from the WMC studio? Oh, geez.

Now, try to remember my Memphis geography, you had to go up. It was south of it, but it wasn't as far as the Mississippi line so, maybe driving six, seven miles, something like that. I know the Memphians will probably correct me, but maybe that says the crow flies. All right, the show's going great, like I said. Well, I'm answering the questions why I thought you were leading somewhere, like with a famous story,

or Burns introducing Benny's famous cigarette bit, or the famous story of Elvis went to Channel 5 with a shotgun. Well, that's the thing. You always hear the story like John Lennon and Paul McCartney, were hanging out, coincidentally, the night that they had the offer for the Beatles to reunite on Saturday Night Live, and they thought to themselves, why don't we go down there? Wouldn't it be funny? Wouldn't it be funny if we collect a $3,000 check that they're offering? Well, same thing. If Elvis saw Lager on Memphis TV some Saturday morning, how far was he if he said, you know what,

let's just go down there right now? No, it was imminently doable to answer to your question. regardless of the mileage, no, he could have been there in 15 or 20 minutes. And the live show lasted an hour and a half. So, but that, that was not going to happen. But remember we were talking a couple weeks ago about. Oh, yeah, Mickey Pool. Lawler making Mickey Pool his manager because Mickey's father knew Elvis's,

her family knew Elvis's father Vernon and they were trying to set up a karate versus wrestling match at the Coliseum. and unfortunately Elvis left the building and it didn't happen that's when Lawler ended up switching baby face I think they were holding eye off on the hopes that it might happen

so I've seen Lawler with Danny Davis and Babyface Lawler with baby face Jimmy Hart and in both cases neither guy said a word from the stuff I saw they just stood next to Lower while he talked did Mickey Poole ever talk on TV? Did he ever say anything?

Yes, but only when only when fed a line ahead of time by Lawler and asked a question that needed a definitive answer. And now this is while he was with Lawler, right? I just say, you know, yeah, king, that type of thing. But this was, again, when he was with Lawler, and but then they made him a manager. he managed the Samoans.

And it just, it was, it was, I don't know if you could expect by looking at Mickey Pool to, that you would expect what he sounded like, but he was everything you expected, that he sounded like. I got a card here in front of me. This won't be guessed of program. I'll just tell it to you.

Evansville Wrestling. August 31st, 1977, 8 p.m. card. The Gladiator versus the Blue Inferno in a masked men match. Dr. X versus Terry Gibbs. The Exterminators versus Chief Bull Eagle and King Cobra. And the exterminators were Jim Dalton and... Oh, God damn it. I'd have to refer to notes.

But go ahead. Tag team action, Brinard and the Angel with manager Homer Odell versus Jim Garvin and Bruce Swayze. And then after an intermission, the main event, Lawler's title versus Dundee's Cadillac, Mickey Pool in a cage, Jerry Lawler versus Bill Dundee. Yes, that was indeed from Evansville.

And here's another thing. There was a lot of names on that card. Later on, when Jared had been in business longer, Evansville got five matches and maybe a tag match on the card, they cut down a number of talent because they realized Evansville on Wednesdays was what Evansville on Wednesdays was.

But when he had first started his company, and that was summertime, going into summertime, he had a lot of guys in the territory, and the Brut Bernards and the Angels and the Hollywood blondes and the whole nine yards, they had a lot of fucking, names on a card. But nevertheless, the best Mickey Pool was when, as they were building the Lawler and Dundee grudge that ended up doing that record business the summer of 77 in Memphis and

Louisville, wherever Jarrett ran, but especially Memphis. They sold, I think in 12 shows, they sold almost 100,000 tickets. But Lawler put Mickey Poole's hair up against Dundee. And fucking, it was part of these weekly stipulations with the Cadillac and the $5,000

and the Southern Title Belt and one guy's hair, another guy's hair, but Mickey Poole's hair was in there. And they shaved his head in the middle of the ring, right, in the Coliseum, to humiliate poor Mickey because, you know,

it wasn't anybody in Portain's hair. And then the next week on TV, Mickey Poole comes out with this long head of hair and a fucking baseball cap or something on or whatever. It was obviously a wig. And Lawler cut to promo said, you see what people don't understand.

Oh, Mickey Pool, he's of Indian descent. And his grandfather was a Cherokee Indian or whatever, and he got this little bottle of Indian hair restore and rubbed it on his head and look at it. He looks better than ever done. And the people are screaming, you, mother. Well, not on TV, but you know what? I mean.

That was Mickey Poole's most famous moment. Well, Mickey Poole, a fascinating character that there's very little video footage of. One of the last guys, I guess, so you could say that about that. That's because he didn't last long. Well, how long was he, World Wars Manager? Six months? Oh, not even. No, certainly not.

I would have to go back and look at the history books. Mark James' fine Memphis Wrestling History Book, but no, I can't. believe it was more than maybe three months he was around and then like I said Elvis died Lawler Switch baby face they let him manage the Samoans I think maybe he even

got to work for Nick Goulis a little bit and and then Mickey found another line of work is he still alive? That is a good question Google Mickey Pool and see if he's dead what do you get when you Google Mickey Pool

Does Google tell you who? Hold on, let me... See, these are the questions that we ask on this program. Mickey Poole. There's a photo of him here with a tracking line across his face. According to fandom, which is some sort of Wikipedia site, wrestler who was briefly active in the Memphis territory in 1977, if this is true, I don't remember this part,

then again for a one-off appearance in 1994, Oh, good Lord. Probably. It may have been. According to this, Poole reappeared on Monday, July 11th, 1994 to distract Lawler in a match with Tommy Rich, allowing Rich to incapacitate Lawler with Ether and win.

He did not appear on the following TV show, reportedly because his mother had scolded him for attacking Lawler, leaving Rich to explain that Poole was still angry about having his head shaved in 1977. and then he made no further appearance. I have no memory of that whatsoever. Wow. His mother scolded him. Could that be real?

You know, yes. Having met Mickey Pool, I can believe that. It's not out of the bounds of credibility. Anyway, it's your show there, pal. I need to see that. If anyone has that 1994 footage, send it over. I probably do on one of the full episodes, but if anyone has it isolated, let me know.

Jim, before we get going, we have a lot to talk about. We have some of the best wrestling I've seen in a long time to talk about. I'm excited about it. But why don't we talk about the exciting deals at Cornett's collectibles? Well, as a matter of fact, since you mentioned that, I mentioned a few days ago on the last program that we did, that I had announced that all the proceeds from the sales of my book, Heroes and Friends at Jim Cornett.com during the month of June

was going to the WHAS Crusade, for children, and that is this weekend, as we are talking here now, June 6th and 7th, here in the Louisville area, but they take donations anytime at WHAS crusade.org. However, I said some people, their hearts were in the right place, but their ears went on vacation, and we had a sudden spike in sales the last week of May when I made the announcement or whatever, so we're donating the last week of May and June proceeds of the sales of heroes of friends to the crusade for children. But a member of the cult of Cornett, Justin from Kensington, Connecticut, we've talked about him here before in the past, I believe.

He wrote me a letter and he says he's already mailed as a good, a good Christian gentleman does, writes letters on paper and mails donations. He's already mailed his donation to. for this year, but he had a question and I wanted to answer it because now he's a paying customer, right? He's got cash in this. Yeah, you could say that. I don't know if I'd call him a customer. Well, you know what? I'm pimping myself out for the crusade for children. If you send them money, I'll do odd things. Right. I don't know any other way to describe it. But anyway, I'm answering an odd question from Justin, who's quite odd. He happened to be at Penn Station the other day, which, as you've mentioned recently, is on top of Madison Square Garden.

No, under Madison Square Garden. Or on top, I can't see it'd be hard. Well, now, when they got the hovercraft that come in on top of this, see, they got it coming and going. It's around the area. And he was standing there to look at MSG, and he saw all of the major historic sporting events that have occurred. Ali versus Frazier, the 1970 NBA Finals, 1994 Stanley Cup finals, and of course, the first WrestleMania. He said, I'm struck by how you must have felt the first time you were in the world's

most famous arena. Do you remember how you felt before your first MSG show? Has there ever been a time when you've been awestruck by the magnitude that some of these venues carry and the fact that you're backstage at a place that most people only dream of visiting was his question? And he also gives his regards to you as well as Stacey and Hotschkitt. And I know I've told the story before, but as we, as we have looked before we started recording, because I asked you about this, if I told this story, we couldn't find it on a YouTube channel. So you've got to be an old fucker to remember me telling it.

So you've probably forgotten it, so I'll tell it again. but there was two times was supposed to be my first time in Madison Square Garden to begin with, which I'll start with, but my first time actually in Madison Square Garden, not just in the wrestling business, but as a human being, I was managing the WWF champion in the main event at WrestleMania, which some people find disturbingly ironic because I had never particularly had an opinion either way on working in Madison Square Garden to that point in time. It just happened that way.

And it's like I wasn't nervous or anticipatory or, you know, the first time I worked in the Mid-South Coliseum, I was shitting my pants. which, by the way, also the first time I was in the Mid-South Coliseum as a person in a wrestling business, I was managing Dutch Mantel in a Southern title match against Jerry Lawler in the main event. That was more nerve-wracking. And the first time I went to the Omni, I got a kick out of it. And to be honest, also the Greensboro Coliseum, because of the, you know, just the magnitude of things that had gone on there in the Crockett territory.

And also in the gardens, obviously, because that was where I grew up going to, you know, the matches. But by the time that I, since I was in an era where, you know, before video, I wasn't growing up a WWWF fan except seeing pictures and magazines. you know, by the time that I got into business and there was ever a chance of me working in Madison Square Garden, I'd already goddamn worked in enough buildings that I was more worried about the parking. Does that make any sense, Brian? I've rambled on long enough. That makes sense.

And that's the thing is that I wish I could give my goddamn experience to somebody else who mean more because I know the kids in New York are like, oh, my God, I wish I could have been the, you know, but it was a big deal for me to do what I had, go where I had dreamed of or seen as a fan and as a young person. But the point is, my first time was not the first time I was booked there, though. And that's the thing. Do you remember the story of the first time I was booked there two months beforehand? The first time you were booked, was that the snowstorm? Yes. I'd started with the WWF in what late July of 93 at the raw tapings.

And I was only because I was still running Smoky Mountain Wrestling, I was only doing WWF TV tapings and pay-per-views. I didn't go on the road for the house shows because I couldn't. So they had not done a TV taping or a pay-per-view in Madison Square Garden until 1994. they were doing a big house show with a Royal Rumble and they wanted the bodies in a Royal Rumble and wanted me

because I was managing the bodies at the time also in both places. So we were booked on this big Madison Square Garden show is January of 94, whatever the date was. And

we were all living in Knoxville at the time and I actually I was in Morristown, which is like 30 miles outside of Knoxville, you remember, and the Knoxville airports on the southern side of Knoxville. Point being, we had a show the night before that we're supposed to leave the next day to fly up there, and they're calling for snow in Knoxville.

Oh, fuck. So, after whatever show that we goddamn had, I went, got a hotel room near the nearest the Knoxville airport that I could, because our flight was early in the morning, snow was going to be overnight, blah, blah, blah. Tom and Jimmy,

and that was the bodies at time, was Tom and Pritchard and Jimmy Del Rey. Well, Tom is, you know, has thought about Madison Square Garden quite often. And Jimmy Del Rey is thinking, what the fuck? He's only been out of the Florida outlaws for six months when he's been a heavily body

and he's booked in goddamn Madison Square Garden. So he's shitting. So they all I either live close enough or they got hotel whatever but we all got to the airport that morning to go to this goddamn show

and there's like at 1994 there's three gates in an Knoxville airport and the fun and snow has already been coming down and it's coming down worse and we're sitting and they're spraying that shit on the planes that supposedly de-isces them

and it looks to me like goddamn, you know, redneck from Maynardville with a fucking fire hose. And I'm starting to get trepidacious, right? Because you know me in airplanes. So anyway, as it contend, they're delaying the flights. Some of them are canceled. Some of them are still just delayed. Ours is delayed.

We're sitting there. Tom and Jimmy are, as you can imagine, thrilled, and I'm getting fucking more and more nervous. And they're still milking. us that our plane's going to go but this weather looks miserable outside and nothing else is happening and i reached my breaking point if if this fucking plane goes i don't need to be on it so i told tom and jimmy i said look here i'm going home while i can still get home to morristown i said if this plane takes off and you get there just tell him you never saw me i'll i'll take the heat i'll figure out

oh my God, I stuck on the side of the road, whatever the fuck. You guys just go on. But if it gets fucking canceled, call me and I'll call the office for all of them. Call me at home and I hope I'll be there. And as I recall, normally what would have taken me about 45 minutes

in those days took me like an hour in 45 minutes. And I found I got in a fucking house and I think they sat there another two hours that was canceled. So they didn't make it either. but that was the first time we were supposed to be there. So technically I wouldn't have the record that I have if I'd have made that booking, but I wasn't about to get on that fucking plane, whether it left or not.

And then the debut was WrestleMania 10, because that was the next time they ran Madison Square Garden. And the bodies were in the opening dark match, and I managed Yokozuna in the double titles. Zabada. So actually, I was on first in the middle and last. They spread me out quite then over the course of the night. And that was, you know, again,

it was wonderful to be in Madison Square Garden where Ali fought Frazier, but to get there. We go with that we flew into whatever fucking airport that they had us flying to. I don't even think it was Newark. I think it was like LaGuard. or whatever. And we had to rent a car, and because we were on the loop,

the next day we were going to Poughkeepsie or for Raw, and the next day we were going for the syndicated taping, like in Glen Falls or whatever. So we had to have a car, so we'd drive down and find fucking the hotel that they've got us at. Brian, I can't remember the name of it. you might even know, but WrestleMania 94, it was a hotel in downtown New York that wasn't a major fucking chain.

I don't know. Oh, that's where they put us. I don't fucking know. Because I only, we get there, we check in, and we see there's no place to fucking park anywhere around this goddamn place. And maybe they were picking our hotels up at the time. So maybe they stuck us somewhere different. We get to the gardener.

We've already been smartened up. We've got to park across the street for $20. What's that in today's money? Like $60. Plus, you had to tip the guy another $20 that was running the underground lot, or he'd block you in with other $20 suckers. And you wouldn't be able to leave until everybody had left, right? So then we get in the fucking building,

and by the time we go through all that shit, you know i walked out there and it was very impressive but so was every other 20,000 seat building i'd been in at that point i was stressed to fuck out and didn't really have time for any joy to sink in and then by the time that we got out of there that night and got back to our hotel there was plenty of places to park right there next to the hotel and i asked two grown adult men that were with me. You see a goddamn sign anywhere around this son of a bitch that says no parking.

How is this too good to be true? We can park right next to our hotel on the street in New York. It's Sunday night. Maybe they've all got the night off. So we parked the car there in the next morning. I get up and the goddamn car's gone. And the people at the front desk told me, Oh, yeah, they

told it. Well, why did you call me and tell me? I was pounding the desk so hard my watch fucking band broke and the watch flew across the desk and Jimmy Del Rey goes and scrambles and picks it up and I almost threw it back at him.

Apparently, Brian, can you testify to this that for some reason, in one city and the country or possibly the world, New York City, there are not signs that say no parking, there are signs that say no standing. Well, there's both. There's both.

But not, not together. Sometimes it's no parking then and sometimes it's no standing. Well, because parking means you actually leave your car there and take off, but standing would be just idling there waiting for someone. So we should have been good. can't stand, you certainly can't park. That's a no-no. The point I was making at the time was we weren't standing.

We were parking. If a person stands, a car parks. We weren't standing in the fucking street. There was a space there, and we were parking in it. Who says no standing when they mean no parking? So then we had to get a cab to go to the fucking place that they tow the cars. and between and we got there probably

midnight 1230 maybe in the morning, right? And we're trying to leave at 10 o'clock. They had put six parking tickets on the goddamn windshield by the time that they towed the thing before 10 o'clock. What is with these people up there?

Well, it's a racket. It's a way to generate revenue. It's a complete racket. How many times in your, life, because you've rented so many cars, have you had a rental car towed? Bad one. That's the only time. Wow.

It's the only time I've ever had car towed, except if it was broke fucking down. That doesn't count. That doesn't count. No, that's the one and only time that anybody has ever towed by one of my fucking vehicles, any fucking where against my will. And we had to take a cab to that place to get it and then pay whatever the fuck. And then I took those tickets and as I fucking exited the law. lot fucking deposited them in their fucking garbage can because I wasn't coming back to that

fucking place and off we went to goddamn TV so by now we're late but and that was before cell phones but that we had a number I don't remember it was on the booking sheet they give you the building numbers in those days or whatever we'd called the office relayed the message whatever it was and when we got there that's when fucking Vince and Bruce and Pat and those jolly jokers had stopped at like a truck stop to get gas or whatever on the way to Poughkeepsie and bought a little toy truck at the gimmick aisle and put tape on it, a New York City tow truck.

No standing fine for parking. and set it at my goddamn place when I got to the production meeting. Anyway, so I didn't really have time to enjoy my goddamn first experience because my nerves were racked from having come up to New York, got into Manhattan, gotten into the garden, gotten out of the garden, gotten back in possession of our fucking vehicle, and goddamn gone on. Were you happy with your WrestleMania 10 later night of Legends,

Tuxedo? I was probably happiest with the outfit that I was anything that happened that night. Oh, I get into, do a little deal with Piper, but remember when Lugar hit me and I wound up for my big WrestleMania bump and I was going to take a punch like, or take a bump like Lawler punched me in Memphis,

and instead he gave me the little, little Lugar shot on the bicep. Punched my left fucking arm. Oh, geez. And I took the bump anyway. I should have known. One thing the package couldn't do was throw a punch. That was Jim's Madison Square Garden debut, and again, that WrestleMania, the Heavenly Body's dark match,

Yokozuna versus Lex Lugar, where Mr. Perfect is the guest referee, where he turns on Lugar. And then, of course, Brett Hart and Yokozuna with Roddy Piper as the referee. So you main evented. You were part of the main event for WrestleMania 10, the big anniversary. And that in hindsight, obviously,

it wasn't all, you know, misery, as I just described. The biggest thrill for me was getting to work with Piper and doing something with Roddy and the garden. That was the highlight of the night. It wasn't all misery, and I shouldn't give everybody. I shouldn't give people more ammunition that I'm the most miserable son of a bitch on the planet. But boy, it just, it...

Back in the days when I was young and had that much energy. Well, Jim, of course, perhaps one of the reasons you were so cranky was you were on the road, you didn't have the right food. You didn't have the right meal. You didn't have something prepared by a chef. That's important. To give you all the healthy options that you need, the protein you need, and of course that deliciousness is delivered.

This is awful grammar by our friends at Factor. The delicious sassity that you will be delivered to of Porthwith and Haste Wise. No, folks, I'll tell you in English, here's the thing. We didn't have back in those days in our hurry, scurry lives, we didn't have today's modern conveniences, we didn't have factor. And together, that adds up to you don't have to starve to death while you're on the road or at home if you're busy. Because now you've got microwave ovens.

Try to find a microwave oven at a hotel back in 1994. Brian, I'd double dog dare you. But now they're all over the place. And of course, they're in your own home. As a matter of fact, every day when you microwave yourself in your own home, you're exposing yourself to massive amounts of radiation that could cause mutation. So why not have a delicious meal while you're doing it?

Because the factor, meals are ready in two minutes, and it's not just some kind of truck stop microwave slop. This is factor meals that are crafted with functional ingredients like lean proteins, colorful veggies, whole foods, healthy fats. And I'll have you know no sawdust, Brian. You know that's a big ingredient in like some of these country places, the sawmill gravy, based with sawdust, no sawdust with factor. No sawdust, no mildew.

Fresh, never frozen. That's why I see you get the mildew when it thaws out. You don't get mildew. I just said there's no mildew, not you'll get it. That's why I'm saying. It's fresh, never frozen, because you get the mildew when the shit thaws out. Not this. When you say shit, we have to specify what shit is and what it is.

Oh, I'm talking about the good shit, not the bad shit. The bad shit will give you mildew. The good shit, no, no, see, you don't want just soggy shit that's hanging out on your front porch. de-thawing, you'll get mildew, but you got the fresh never-frozen stuff with Factor. The hundred rotating weekly meals, they're spinning right now. Globally inspired flavors. The new launched, newly launched, just freshly launched.

See, everything's fresh. Ready to eat salads with vibrant ingredients like the elote corn and the misoidamami. See, I just, I just, it was. Well, your mommy. Eta-Mami. Well, what did you do to her? And who's mommy? The name of the food which you may or may not have ever seen her had is etymami.

Ah, well, see, I just, I like the filet with that garlic parm shrimp, but that's just me. But they've got 70 plus add-ons to round out your nutrition. Folks, you can just stay away from all of the steroids and the testosterone and eat good, fresh never frozen factor meals. Try the salmon. And right now. Say again? Try the salmon.

Oh, yes, and try the salmon. Because Brian has a deal. He's got 10% of the salmon population. Hey, let's not reveal things. You had to buy half of Alaska to get that. Head to factormeals.com right now. Factor meal. F-A-C-T-O-R.

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as Frank Morel used to say, when I would complain about going all the way to a hot, miserable spot show for only $50. Boy, have you ever seen $50 worth of ham and eggs on a plate? Right there. Once again, factormeals.com slash JCE 50 off. Jim, before we move on, we're going to talk about Lucha Libre AAA momentarily, a bit of a follow-up from an earlier segment. I have something here from the Wrestling Classics message board from 2008, posted by the late Scott Bowden, my former podcast partner on the Kentucky Fried Wrestling podcast, about Mickey Pool. Here's what he wrote. Yeah, Mickey was a bit of a simple-minded mark who Lawler chose to use on air for some reason. It always amazed me

that guys like Lawler and Eddie Gilbert surrounded themselves with the goofiest hangers-on to do their bidding, hey, wait, I manage both of those guys. Maybe I need to take a look in the mirror. I was working as a manager in Memphis when Mickey showed up out of the blue backstage at the Coliseum in 1994. Lawler hadn't seen or talked to him in years. So, of course, they decided to use him in the main event. Yes, I'm telling you, sometimes they would figure out what was going to go on in the main event, about 15 minutes before it went to the ring.

As I distracted the ref, Mickey approached ringside and gave Doug Gilbert or the Dream Machine a fire extinguisher to use the knockout Lawler. Before we did the angle, Lawler asked Mickey repeatedly. Now, Mickey, you will make it to TV Saturday, right? We'll need you to be there to explain this. Promise me you'll be there. Mickey nervously assured Lawler he would be. So we get to TV Saturday and Mickey calls Lawler to tell him. and we can't make it because his mother was mad at him for attacking Lawler and causing him to lose the match, she won't let him leave the house.

No joke. What a great return to wrestling that is for Mickey Paul. Oh, my God, I'm telling you. I'm telling you. The idea of a heel not being able to get the TV because their mom is blocking the door is the funniest thing ever. Well, now, but hold on a second. You're not getting out of this house to go to TV. Because also do the math.

Mickey Poole was at least in his early 20s in 1977. So in 1994, he would have been a 40-year-old man, but probably still living at home and being possibly cared for by his mother, who apparently was a little slow on the uptake that 17 years beforehand, her son had been in a wrestling business and she still didn't know it was a work. Hey, Mickey, we haven't seen you almost 20 years. You want to be in the main event tonight?

That's crazy. I'm telling you. The king loved to do shit on the fly. I found in my files one of his TV formats, that literally it's not in his handwriting literally i think it's it's jimmy hearts but he would literally come to tv and get there you know we went on the air live at 11 he might be there at 10 or so and he'd go sit in that little office of the bathroom that they used as a booking room and he would either produce a piece of paper with the handwritten show or

or elsewise, he'd just look at some shit and dictate it to Jimmy Hart, who'd write it down segment by segment. My format just has segment one, so-and-so versus so-and-so, interview desk, break, seg two, no times, anything. That's what we had on the wall. And we went on and did a live TV show in front of 300,000 people for an hour and a half with sometimes that preparation. and Dundee would come in with with everything written down, you know, again, not typed or anything,

but at least it'd be written down, but Lawler would make it up sometime. And that's why sometimes they'd have Segment 2 in the room with Lawler him telling him what they should do while Segment 1 was in the ring on live television. Anyhow. Well, that's the Mickey Bull update. Yeah, maybe we can get them to return to wrestling sometime soon.

Jim, let's talk about AAA, Lucha Libre AAA. They just had their big event on Friday. And I called you, and I raved about this to you probably more than I have, maybe anything in recent memory. And a lot of the listeners felt the same way. They were dying to hear what you thought. So let's talk about the mask versus mask match, and anything else you watched on this two-hour episode of AAA. Well, first of all, you raved, ranted and raved, as a matter of fact,

unlike anything I've heard in quite some time. And not to ruin anybody's suspense, no, I'm not going to take the piss out of this thing. It was great. And we'll talk about the reasons why it was great, but to just not bury the lead there, a part of it was the atmosphere. Part of it was the, you know, the crowd being incredibly hot because they've still, they've been able to protect the business in Mexico, not necessarily from people knowing

that it's work or that, you know, shallow understanding or whatever, but they've been able to protect the business from the people who just want to go to watch people fall through furniture or see stars enter. They still have wrestling fans that like to get into the fucking wrestling match. And so part of that was, the atmosphere was this, but also these guys being turned loose to be the athletes they can be and to show how they will do it if they're being featured and can simulate a goddamn fight, athletic contest, mixture of the two, however you want it,

instead of doing the goddamn, all we get in the United States these days is either the WWE big match, big show, big star style of, okay, we're going to do some shit for a while, and then we're going to have a bunch of carefully planned stunts and falls and furniture breaks and everything where we'll do, you'll get a 10-minute stretch where they'll do 30 or 45 seconds of action culminating in one of the stunts and then they'll sell for a minute and a half. You know what I'm talking about, Brian. with the just

they they make up for people who say that modern wrestling they don't sell by selling but classic wrestling matches did not have multiple periods where both guys were selling down immobile

with nothing going on for a minute at a time did they? Did I just miss it? No, this was a different pace this was a different feel, different atmosphere. And I'll say it here at the top because, you know, I thought one of the refreshing things about this,

and Lucha Libre in general, and AAA traditionally, there's a lot of silly things. Dwarfs and furry outfits or just crazy stuff. But everything I saw in this two-hour episode, specifically the main event, was treated seriously. and that's the thing that a fan like me is always complaining about. And what this main event was

was exactly the kind of wrestling I still want. I think there is an avenue and there is a demand for a product that is serious promos, angles and promos and characters that don't insult the intelligence of the audience. If comedy happens, there are ways,

and you've explained it so many times in the past, you could do funny things on shows without it being comedy, without it being written by someone, hey, let's do a funny segment. Or silly. And you have to be committed to what you're doing. We've seen Gable and Ludwig Kaiser

as themselves, and specifically as these characters on WWRA. It was never played seriously. Never once. No. And then you see the reaction here on this show, this is exactly

the thing that wrestling fans like me are screaming for. Big main events that are treated seriously, that are booked well. I wasn't crazy. I thought Corey Graves

did a phenomenal job and I even said that they should just have him do AAA by himself like Gordon Solie would because you wouldn't lose anything and it was that good. And if you need a translator,

hire Alex Abraham because Ray Mysterio, and I guess previously it was Conan and previously Savio Vega, but Ray Mysterio wasn't the guy. Ray Mysterio was a perfect example of just because you can speak the language and have knowledge of the product doesn't mean that you're an announcer. And JBL, who I've never been a fan of, but specifically here, what bothered me was he was introducing a slight comedy element and playing along with the, almost like a raw commentator more than the way

Corey Graves was playing. Yeah, he was trying to take up for the heel too much and it was obviously because that's what you're supposed to do and this was so much more of a serious issue otherwise. When he took the mask off and he goes, that's Chad Gable. I'm sorry.

That was unnecessary. It's a serious moment. The whole thing's being played seriously. JBL took it. I shouldn't say he took it down a notch because it was that good. He didn't. But he wasn't needed and he didn't help. Corey Graves did just a spectacular job.

But now we're just, I don't know if we're just talking about the main event now or what we want to talk about. Well, that's what I was saying is that they didn't do the traditional WWE big match style of working these stunts and then selling forever. And it's just because they kept a pace up of a fight.

I said that was more like wrestling than what we see today. And the easy way that they didn't have to sell forever was they didn't do a bunch of goddamn big things that they should sell forever from early in the match. They built, but it was more of a struggle still than a stunt show. They did their stunts, but it didn't overwhelm the thing. And they also didn't do what you get in AEW or the indie-minded wrestling of the world where they just do every goddamn move like they're in a video game

and don't sell any of it and don't fucking register any damage from that later on when they're up and doing other things. They didn't do that either. They had a fight and they threw each other around and they did enough, but it was aggressive action with a crowd that definitely wanted to cheer one guy and boo the other guy, and they're athletic and their cardio's off the charts and their shit looked good. And that's, again, this is just, maybe it's just if you're inside the United States border and under the control of either the evil Stanford TKO empire or the, you know, the billionaire boychild from the

Sunshine State. You can't just have logical, sensible wrestling with guys that can work. But this, again, was just lovely. So that's the thing. People can say, well, Cornett, they

used a table. Yeah, a ridiculously short table, by the way. Did you see the table? Was it five or six feet? It was shorter than usual. it had to be like a five-foot table.

And the only thing I could think is that they don't have, and this sounds silly, but they don't have big tables in Mexico readily available. And this, my God, 10 years ago, easily more, when I was at some indie show. And they were practicing. And it wasn't just a random indie show. it was it was either NWA, Ring of Honor, MLW, something that I've done in the last period of time.

They had doors. They had doors from Home Depot with holes for the knob and the pattern on the door, just raw wood, unfinished underneath the ring. I said, what is happening? And they said, well, they don't have the good table. that you can break at Home Depot anymore. They're not selling them,

or they only got the short one, six feet or so we got doors. I said, well, why would unfinished doors be under the ring? Tables is a stretch, but it's what we've got to have the doors because we go through them. It's like they have to go through something. But they made, they did one bump through a table, and with the magnitude of this match,

I'll give them that. And it nearly killed themselves, but maybe they only had one little table. So maybe that was a blessing in disguise. But there wasn't bullshit furniture. There wasn't the walk fighting, just the fake fucking walk fighting around the arena to give people the impression

you're out of control and it's wild. They went for the mass because that was the stipulation and they worked it. And the people understood it. And Gable was able to get tons of heat on Kaiser and just beat the shit out of him. And yes, they were on the floor for quite a period of time. But this, as the big main event blow off, no disqualification, et cetera, they could be on the floor because they made it work. They weren't. wandering around the floor while somebody's sales being run into the stairs,

while they arrange furniture or clean off the desk for their next stunt, it kept going. There was a struggle to this. And did you notice the AAA ring makes noise like a real wrestling ring and has bounce instead of the fucking WWE rings that they still haven't got right? you could hear it a mile away when they stomp the foot it sounds like somebody hitting a

tin barn with a sledgehammer did you notice Brian it makes the bumps yeah I noticed that I also thought the ring itself the apron being so white looked great during this main event because there were just little spots of blood in various places I was again I can't really say anything negative

about it the whole thing The whole presentation, even the way the arena looked, it wasn't overly lit. There weren't just giant flashing billboards everywhere. It looked great. It looked great. Well, it was like, that's what actually I have disliked about WWF television starting in the 80s and really carried it through to this day, but it just became commonplace. when the match starts

turn the fucking crowd lights down as long as we've seen they're there beforehand it was distracting especially in the old days before the high definition TV but I don't see the whole goddamn crowd

you've proven to me they're there I wanted to look cool like wrestling and boxing used to with fucking ring lights and blah blah blah so they had that atmosphere it's an arena there's a fight going on in the ring rather than

we got to light up everything or Vince will get mad at us. And again, you know, both guys got color. I don't know, Kaiser's may have been a hard way because his head looked like it was swelling up a little bit. It looked like it. If you watched Gable hitting him, it looked like they must have agreed to that. It looked like you hard weighed him. Well, I think he agreed to,

Yeah, you know, I won't move and do the best you can, but I don't think that they actually agreed to go ahead and potato me full on. He was just trying to throw those punches snug. But nevertheless, Gable got some good color. The only thing I didn't like was the Creed brothers in the mass coming out and interfered and slamming Kaiser on the desk because one, they had to do it twice let broke. Those guys are snake bit.

remember when everybody said, oh my God, the Creed brothers, they're amazing, they're incredible, they're going to be the next generation. And I said, these fucking guys are the shits? Who was right in that assessment three years ago or whatever that was, Brian? Or let me ask you another question. What have the Creed brothers done lately besides to take two tries to throw Kaiser through the desk? Again, I never thought they were as impressive as some people made the best. out to be. I think it was a lot of wishful thinking

from people who saw a brother tag team and NXT that didn't have a gimmick. With that said, obviously the table spot was an issue, but considering this was the big blow off, I think... I've already said that. They had to be there. They had to be there. They had to be there.

They've been in it. Okay, so they fought off. So they weren't there for very long, but it interacted... But it got the other guys. But it got the other guys also involved briefly, and you got to... Well, yes. That's what I'm saying. And then they fought off with the baby face and the heel stooges, but it interrupted these guys flow here. But nevertheless, they went on and a red-haired guy hit Gable with a guitar. I'm not sure what was going on there. It's all part of the story. That was one of my favorite parts of the match, actually. That's Pimpanella, who's one of the Exoticos, I believe. Hopefully they still use that term, and I'm not offending anyone. But Pimponella had previously been attacked by El Gron. day Americano OG.

And this was the big comeback. This was the big, all right, we're finishing all of this off here in one night. So Pimpanella, to come full circle, Pimpanella kind of had to do something. And when the mass came off, the place erupted. It was kind of really, it was cool. It was a cool moment, I have to say. They loved him.

And then Ludwig's girlfriend came out. subject of so much debate lately. And she started leading the cheers for Ludwig. And Gable gets out and starts menacing her. And she shows, I bought a ticket, you motherfucker, whatever she said. I don't know she said it like that, but she was great at ringside. Just being there and being in it, we've seen plenty of girlfriends or wives stand there and they don't know how to act or what to do.

She was completely involved. Yeah, no, well, and to be in, you know, her benefit, she's been doing interviews. It is not like first time she's ever been on television. But yeah, that's the thing is she had to be like into this rather than some of the laughing, you know, aunts that have showed up at recent times with. That's right. Who was that? I'm trying, that's why I'm trying to remember who these people were, but we had laughing family.

That was AWW, I think. one of the mothers was supposed to slap somebody, just tried to do it three times, whatever. Nevertheless, back to this one, they, again, they just had a great fight. They tied all this shit together. They did a big, yay, boo, back and forth, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing.

And finally, the finish was Ludwig hitting a super spear where he just hit the rooms about two or three times, and bam, one, two, three, it got a big pop. What was the headbut? It was a super spear headbut. Ah, well, whatever. I'm so used to the super spear, but he super speared him with the headbutt.

But nevertheless, no, I know people think I'm going to shit on something like this, because first of all, no, it was lucidly bray in the environment. And some of the stuff, as we've mentioned, to the people in I don't know, fucking Cleveland or goddamn, you know, Roswell, Georgia or wherever the fuck, it may look goofy,

but part of this is they're, they've grown up with it culturally and they've still managed to keep the people where they're reacting to shit and they're into this instead of our jaded, uh, well,

I'll give that five and a half stars that you see sitting there. And to be honest, I've always thought American wrestling since kind of, even though there's always been wrestling, we originated the somewhat worked professional aspect of it. But American wrestling is in between what Lucha became in Mexico and what Japanese wrestling became in Japan. Brian, think about this.

What was the one thing when Japanese wrestling was legitimately the best in-ring wrestling in the world back in the day before it went to shit over there like it has here? What was the one thing that those TV shows that you wanted to see those tapes and you waited for those tapes? What didn't they have? They didn't have angles or promos typically. Exactly. Because it developed in a different way, because Ricky Dozan was a national hero, they wanted to keep wrestling as a sport, which is why they always had the more legitimate feel. And they didn't do angles because it would have been kind of preposterous. and the

the those cultures are not normally braggadocious people it wasn't about trash talking it wasn't about a bunch of fucking loud mouth of Americans mouthing off at each other

before they have a fight it was all about ah we bow to you and do the Japanese kata before we begin now martial arts whatever the fuck so it evolved that way and it was straight lace So they had the best in-ring wrestling.

And when all of their guys were top athletes and were trained to be serious, badass workers, and they had the pick of all the top talent in America, that was where you went to see the matches. But over here, at the same time, if you'd taken the same product with our Americans and their Japanese and put it on, it would have died a horrible death,

because there were no angles and there were no promos and there was no trash talking and the American fans wanted to see that but I will finish the other half of my point and then you can respond Brian Lucha evolved as part of the colorful pageantry

of the culture and you go back to the fucking cave drawings of ancient Mayans with elaborate headdresses and it became instead of Ricky Dozan being the hero of the country that saved him from the evil Americans after the war

it was the masked superhero thing with the color and the pomp and the pageantry and they developed the style that they developed honestly as much as anything else the rolling flowing type of thing because they were working

in fucking concrete boxing rings. And that became the thing that was accepted in Mexico and in South American countries or Leuch of Titanus del Ring in

Argentina whatever. And if you do any of those things out of their normal culture, it doesn't really get over to the population as much as it gets

over to the goddamn talent that likes it and is doing it? Does that make sense to you? I think so. Also, it's important to note that as crazy as some of those things are, you know, you see Titanic's and O'Ring, and what Martin Cardagion put out there was as gimmicky as anything you've ever seen. It was Vince McMahon on steroids. Imagine what that means. Yeah. But they treat, again, I go back to with... They still played it straight. They played it straight on the show. It wasn't like after a match.

All right, well, that was silly. That clearly wasn't a mummy. Let's talk about something else over here. Let's tell you how we're going to expose the business. It was none of that. It was all in that one hour show, everything was real. Everything was played like it was real. I just, you know, that's a thing is that I think that-

People want to lose themselves and stuff. Yes, especially the Americans and the American wrestling fans, but the American wrestling talent and the American wrestling promotions, TKO, because they don't give a shit, they're going to do what they continue to do. And Tony Kahn, because he's one of the niche wrestling fans

that like that kind of thing, they think, oh, we want all styles and everybody to get out, all styles. The guys, when I got in a business 40 years ago, they'd been of business 30 years, would say all styles don't work. and it's hard for some styles to work with other styles and you end up with a fucking mess.

How come all styles means the American style gets stomped out? Well, yes, we've got to do everything from Japan and let's take the flying from Mexico, the strong style from Japan, and the fucking furniture from the Indies and the outlaws, and put that all together and just ignore that still the most successful, pro wrestling ever was the style that was done in the United States from, say, the late 40s

through the late 80s, just to, you know. You could have gimmicks. You know, you could have wacky characters. My thing is that if you play it all serious, it all works. A lot of the people who I'm a big fan of from, let's say, the 80s, if they were in wrestling now, I don't know if I'd be as big a fan of them, if they were on a modern-day raw or dynamite. behaving the way modern wrestlers do. If you treat everything serious,

funny things can happen within that, but it pays off this AAA show. We didn't even talk about the Post-Mash yet. Noche de los Grades was the best thing I've seen in forever. This was the best match I've seen all year. These guys deserve a ton of credit. Undertaker and Borash apparently deserve a ton of credit.

This was the best thing. in wrestling and was on YouTube for free. Well, and let's talk about the post match because Gable then, they came to the middle of the ring, Gable cut a promo with his mask still on because they had a Spanish interpreter for the crowd, but it sounded like the crowd kind of knew,

many of them knew just to what he was saying anyway. Yeah, they reacted to him before he was translated, so I think they did. But he said he put on the mask to beat all the luchadors that he hated and blah blah blah but he learned all about the mexican culture and the mexican people and lucha and now he has to say tonight he couldn't overcome the mexican spirit but he will always be the original grande americana acano but now the other guy is the only grande americano

know, and so he kind of, he did the, he kind of turned baby face while still keeping his, you know, his edge to him. And he had his wife and kids there in the ring. Oh, his son, his son took off his mask when his dad took off his mask. Yes. And so, I mean, they were setting us up that, okay, we're going to soften this up. And he took the mask off and he said, I'm Chad Gable from Minneapolis. Of course, the fans were already chanting Gable, Gable, because they knew. But that's the tradition. When someone is unmasked, they have to say their name and give their hometown.

And birthday. Well, he gave some qualifications here like I wrestled in the Olympics, et cetera, et cetera. But the tradition is name, hometown, an age, correct? I believe so. And see, that's something in Lucha that again, that was the deal in American wrestling from the in the days when masked wrestlers first became a thing is if any masked wrestler lost a match,

it didn't have to be a mask match. If the masked wrestler got beat, he had to take his mask off, so we'd see who he was. And then later on, as not only masked wrestlers got more prevalent, but also guys started working, more regularly and especially in the TV days

when you were on TV, then they couldn't, you couldn't get away with having every masked man be undefeated to lead to their runs. So then it became a thing that only when the mask was on the line would they have to unmask, but originally back in the green shadow days, Pat Malone, whoever was unmasked had to, they had to announce to the crowd,

this is so and so, so Brian last from Long Island, and he's 23 years old, or the length of your time as a pro. Sometimes it was like he's a 12-year veteran. And that was, to me, more, again, cooler because part of the unmasking process, even though everybody already knew who it was, that I always wanted to see as a kid was,

who are those guys? When the infernoes got unmasked or whatever, I went, oh, who are they? Who are they? That's the big thing. And then they're made to admit who they are. That's the whole idea. It was basic pro wrestling at its core.

This was the best of pro wrestling. This is exactly what pro wrestling could be. And it was a lucha match featuring two non-lucadors, who became the most overguise in that company. The thing was great. His family standing there. And again, everyone played it seriously. No one fucked up.

No one did the wrong thing. And then walking out with him somberly, and then I don't know how much of the post-Metrel Ludwig celebrating with the fans, and just, it's incredible. But see, now here's the thing. Neither you've made a good point. Neither Gable nor Kaiser is Hispanic. They're neither one, an actual luchador.

But they worked enough of the style with the athleticism and some of the dives of the moonsault, it translated, it worked. It wasn't what you'd see if you had gory Guerrero facing El Santo. It wasn't pure lucha, and it wasn't with the other matches. And I didn't get a chance to yet peruse

in any detail, anything else on his show, because this was the main part, and those YouTube ads kept popping up, but the pure luchador still work differently than these guys, but this shows that if you have a personality that is appealing to the lucha audience with the masks and the costumes at a personal issue that they can understand that that's a universal thing, personal issues,

that two guys who, one works American style and one at best, you can say it was trained on a European style can still have an athletic contest. It gets over in that market. You've got to have elements of something to your presentation that will get over in the particular market. With the Japanese fans, they always like the big brawlers like Brewzer Brody and Stan Hanson.

That got over to them. And the big Texans and, you know, rough heels like that. Or the fire throwing sheik, they like that thing for Baba. or the more shoot fighter, you know, styles for Inoki, but those guys could get over without the people speaking the language because the visual look. It's just when you try to bring something in like,

you know, only a very small portion of the audience is going to get Okada in the United States when he brings no look, no person, and not a earth-shattering performance in the ring. You just, you've got to be careful when you mix cultures in wrestling and give the people that you're primarily marketing to something that fits that category. Well, again, we see a lot of quote-unquote high-quality wrestling nowadays. My argument is always you need the story, you need the emotion.

It was a different crowd, too. no enchanted what? You know, the fans were fully into this. Yeah, but also the guys in the ring, the performance in the ring, they were actually aggressive and like they meant it rather than just, we got to take some time to set up the next stunt. Let me move this table over here a little bit,

or it'll be sideways. I lost myself in it. You could lose yourself in it as opposed to the match type necessitating you sitting there and almost watching it like an examiner to grade it. You know, there's a big difference, but this was just a tremendous home run.

A great night of wrestling. I watched it live, and I watched the entire show. I really like Ray Phoenix and the Laredo kid. I really like the entire show. Corey Graves can't stop raving about the job he did there. And I went to bed. I think I said it to you after, when I called you.

The next day, you said, I went to sleep happy. I went to bed happy as a wrestling fan. I felt fulfilled. I saw a wonderful thing, and I was optimistic about pro wrestling. And it was a serious thing. I loved it. And then I went to sleep. And of course, Jim, to go to sleep, you need the right mattress.

Well, I agree with you there. We have a wonderful mattress or two or three. We have several mattresses here, and I know you have them there from our fine friends at Helix Sleep. Well, it's not just several Helix. They've got them. 20 plus. mattresses, folks, and a variety of mattress toppers. Actually, one of my

cousins used to moonlight as a mattress topper. She raked in all kinds of money. All right, let's get back to the Felix. Yes. She was like, you know, whipped cream on top of the Sunday. Folks, right now, you may be sleeping in a biohazard. You're probably laying there in an old dirty mattress that can you imagine all the skin flakes and all the times that you've farted in your sleep. You know, the average human being farts 37 times a day,

Brian. Well, a lot of that could be when you're laying on that mattress. And who knows what other kinds of fluids have been spilled and you might have a pet. And who knows what puppy's been doing while you sleeping. So therefore, I'd advise you to get up immediately, pour a can of gasoline on your mattress and set it on fire. Only after throwing it out in the backyard, or better yet, in your neighbor's side yard, because why let, you know, anything happen to your house? Set it on fire and go to helixleck sleep.com, where you'll find a brand new mattress free of bodily fluids and unstained by animals, including a variety of your exes, spilling their sauce all over it. Brian, can you imagine what it? The average person should just go and

take and stick their nose in their mattress and just take a big and just see what that smells like and think do you want to lay with your face in that all night wouldn't you like to have a clean new mattress you should take our word for it you want and need a clean no go ahead go and snort a big line of your mattress right now let's not do that but like i said at the top here we trust you in sleep mattresses in my house from me and my kids and i know you trust them in your house Well, you can trust them because they come hermetically sealed. Because these people that build them, they're hermits, ladies and gentlemen, and they don't ever leave the house to get any diseases. So when they wrap a mattress up, that's why they call it hermetically sealed, because these people haven't been around any of these communically unvaccinated son of a bitches.

So they send it right to your door. It's free shipping. And it's a 120-night sleep trial and limited lifetime warranty. Now, the 120-night sleep trial, you can sleep on it for 120 nights, decide for whatever strange reason you don't like it, and, well, they'll take it back. And they'll, you know, they'll, I'm sure, send it on to some other sucker who'll probably like it better. But meanwhile, you're not at any risk, because that's the happy with Helix guarantee. You can rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges.

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No. You cannot name another one because they win all the awards. right now go to helix sleep.com slash jCE because the summer savings sale is now in effect it's followed the super summer sizzler series and from June 1st to June the 11th as I sit here and speak right now you can get 20% off sidewide if you go to Helix get a small mattress for the kids get a medium mattress for the mother-in-law, get a large mattress for you and however many wives you may have,

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Mattress one more time Jim that promo code for 20% off sitewide Helixleep.com slash JCE folks when it gets here just stick your nose in it and take a big old sniff and it'll smell like purty flowers That's right Jim Helix Sleep we love them you will too but with that we shall return after this short commercial timeout with our trip to WWE's clash in Italy. Well, we're not taking a trip, but they did. We'll be back.

Oh, God. I'm just hitting all the wrong notes today. Ladies and gentlemen, we are back. We are back. That sounded like a four-toed sloth running across the keyboard. Just everything's going great. Yeah.

Well, when it comes to bad grammar and bad music, let's head over to Italy. WWE's clash in Italy. God damn. Just, it's, it's, It's not to their fault that they can't speak of the English. No, no, we're talking about Clash in Italy in Torino, a wonderful city I have visited in the past, a beautiful, beautiful city.

I used to know a guy that had one of their cars. Well, let's go to Turin, Italy, and talk about the Clash in Italy. The Grand Turino. I got it. Have you ever written one of them? What are you? You didn't. nevertheless

boy howdy this again for God's sake we have a situation here where you watch a big show from one company and you can't hardly find the matches and you watch a big show from the other company

and you can't get the matches to end but with Clash in Italy they gave us five of them and the two things that you would consider the main events, well, I guess three, Obafemi and Brock Lester's in there, Jacob and Roman, but the W.W.E.

title, Gunther and Cody, I thought, well, that's going to be a good match. And it was a good TV match for about 11 minutes, and then Cody just beat him, kind of out of nowhere. I mean, I hate to, again, spoil the result on this, but there wasn't much to talk about with Cody and Gunther passed that, did they just put it on the card? Because it was a title match and say, okay, you got 12 minutes, make it good, boys.

What happened here? And now Cody's beat Gunther twice, beat him in Saudi Arabia, too. Maybe their attitude is if Gunther loses on another. continent, it doesn't matter in the States. I was surprised. I was surprised. Not that I expected Goonther to win or win the title here, and also not that that would have been the worst thing,

but I was surprised the way this went. Well, yeah, not that there was anything wrong with it. They're both professionals. The work was good. Cody's trying to challenge for the Ricky Morton-Selling championship. Again, everybody's professional and all their shit looked good,

but it was just kind of a match, and then Cody made it come back and hit the crossroads one time. Two matches later, we've got like seven fucking finishes, don't beat a guy, but one crossroads, boom, and there you go. Kind of out of nowhere. I was kind of, but that was what it was. I, you know. Don't you feel like Goonther's kind of been directionalist

ever since he beat AJ? Like, they don't know what to do with him next? He just appears here, he appears there. Well, there was, what was going to, he was one of the fallout of people getting hurt and plans changing, and I can't even remember you'd need a goddamn, a pie chart with graphics. And then, of course, then I'd be eating the pie and I wouldn't be paying attention. But, yeah, he's, he's right there.

He's what, that's why I wanted to see him and Brock. I thought maybe that would be a. If they had, again, if Brock really did take his boots off and everything and decide to quit at WrestleMania, and then they saw, you got to come back, then they could have switched him baby face for Minneapolis and let Gunther fucking have a victory. And, you know, I don't like usually beating people in their hometown, but some way or another, we, Gunther needs a big win over a big guy to be really what he can be. But that's what it was, was that, what we just said.

Well, just like they do, we just kind of went right into the first match, and that was the review of Cody versus Gunther. Jim, what was the next match? Well, and having said that, also I'll mention, you know, same thing, the, the crap. It's an international crowd. They were somewhat forgiving and they love to sing and they were excited that the show was in their area.

The next match was Jade and Ria Ripley. And it started 13 minutes. The bell rang for the second match, 13 minutes after the first match was over. This is going to be a pattern. And I, I, I, I, I, I don't even know if I want to critique this or not as a match. I think Jade started too late.

She didn't know the product and she didn't really learn anything in AEW. Kind of like the, you know, she got the Hobbs principle. She looks great. She's got plenty of personality. It's all heel personality. I don't know that she doesn't know how to act like a baby face because she's so seemingly enamored of herself, but as a heel, it works. She's not the worst ever, but I think she may be as good as she's going to get.

Because, I mean, does she want to, how old is she now? Did we ever figure that out? I mean, we could look it up. I don't know if we ever looked it up. Hold on. I'll find out. Well, but the point is at this point, she's been there for a couple of years now. and 33.

Okay. She's independently wealthy, I guess, for what we're told. She's buried to some big millionaire fucking basketball player. Baseball player, Brandon Phillips. Baseball player, whatever. Pro athlete.

I wanted the Mets to get him for a while. He was a really good player. Well, see, you should have called Jade. She could have put the word in. But what I've said, is she is she going to get any better than she is now? I could understand an AEW because she was just coming out

and doing the same seven minutes every fucking so often. But now she's been in the program, et cetera, et cetera. She's like especially a lot of the girls, but some of the guys, but a lot of the girls. If they haven't got instinctual product knowledge, it's athletic people doing athletic things, but there's no element of I'm wrestling you, I'm fighting you, I'm, it's, hey, hey, cooperation, boom, swing, reverse, duck.

You know, it's by the routine. And she's like a female version of one of the bodybuilders we got in the 80s when everybody was trying to copy the Road Warriors. I guess that's the closest description I can give. anyway, is she made to come by, Ria, I should say, made her come back and hit her finish,

but Jade's Stooges were out there and put Jade's leg on the ropes. So then Charlotte came out and attacked the Stooges, and Jade hit her finish, but Charlotte put Ria's leg on the ropes, and then Ria hit Riptide, one, two, three.

They went five minutes longer than Cody and Gunther. and that was that. What did you think about that? I don't disagree with a lot of your assessments about Jade, but I thought she actually did pretty well in this match. I thought her and Ria kind of, it was better than the previous match they had.

Well, yes, yes. Yeah, I thought it was pretty good for a Jade match, maybe one of her better matches. Well, because... That may not be saying a lot, I understand your point. Well, yeah, Ria is big enough to move her around a little bit, but I'm just saying that I... She's the female Batista.

She started late. She's got a great physique. Yeah. She just hasn't become buddies with AAA-H yet. There you go. That's what, well, I don't know if it's going to work the same way that it did there. Maybe she could become Stephanie's friend.

She could go to Stephanie's places. That's right. And fall asleep. All right. Stephanie's talking about herself. No, but I thought Jade did good here. I thought Jade did good here. And Jade has and has always had limitations.

And, you know, there's no pure evidence, but it does seem like what you said is true. Just the amount of time in AEW where she was right away put on TV and never progressed really from that. is she that much different now than she wasn't her first match in AEW? Not really. Not appreciate. She's got people that can point her better in the ring to work with.

It can point her in the right direction better. And she's better at working the camera and doing her business, but I don't get the idea that she's Lilani Kai or anybody. No, I don't think anyone would ever say that ever. but good match. I thought it was good. Well, then we'll give it a thumb and a half up, because I'm always ready to get at least halfway up for Ria.

Thumb and a half, Jesus Christ, all right. Well, thank God we don't have a spot now, ladies and gentlemen. But there's more... We will move on. We will be proceeding here, Jim. Yes, yes. What else did you get it up for on this show? Well, I'll tell you what.

You know, who else went up was... Oba Femmy for about 18 Fives. Oba Femmy and Brock Lesner, or Brock Lesner, as Paul would say. Or Brock Legner, as Paul has said. Or as he has said before. This was the third match.

This bell rang for this match 14 minutes after match number two was over. And speaking of over, so is Oba. again, the big chance, and of course, it's an international audience. They love to chant and sing and et cetera, but I mean, oba's over everywhere. But Brock jump started it to bell and hit it F5, F5, F5, F5, cover, one, two, kickout. Well, they've certainly made a state. mat there and this is kind of like and brock's match has got down to where it works for brock and this is

something it's hard to explain but when you've got an attraction like brock or somebody that's has a unique style it doesn't matter whether they go short or long it matters the intensity and remember the famous story about Watts, Fire, and Ernie Ladd as Booker because he tried to make Y.D. go 20 minutes to a draw and knew. There's certain, you know, so this big impact, short, high explosive match for Brock because of his personality and everything works. But at the same point, at some level it becomes predictable. Do you see what I'm saying?

I see what you are saying. Yeah. You know what I mean, Brian? I know what you mean. You know, I knew they couldn't just work a match. It had to be something. And this was a Hayman special. It still was a little weird.

I don't know. It was a little weird seeing Oldefemi lose this match. And again, it kicked out after however many and then did it again. And Brock is a, Brock's the best seller in the business. Everything is facial expressions. Oh, yeah. Every bump he takes over the top rope to the floor. floor, it looks like he's going to just roll down a hill like a boulder, just flying over the top

roof. But it was, I don't know, it was a little weird. That's, that's what I say. That's the, I don't mind the short explosive matches from Brock and it like the Sheik. Remember one, one time they said the Sheik went to a 60 minute draw with Bobo Brazil for the U.S. title in the Kobo Arena. And I can't imagine. No.

I mean, I, there's a lot of Sheik tricks. he would do install and he'd go crazy and wander through the audience and everything, but not for a fucking hour, no. And so you don't want everybody just put in a classic feature length match, but I think they've taken the, even if it's Oba, when you give a guy four and he gets up and then they continue the match, I think you've started taking some of the specialness off of a guy doing that. Then Brock got him in the double wrist lock and the body scissors,

but Oba picked him up and gave him a spine buster. And Brock kept going back to the arm, but Oba'd run him into the fucking turnbuckles or try to get away, but Brock slipped him and got another F5 and got a two count. And that's when they did the, well, Oba hit a clothesline, and then the close line where both of them went over the top rope, and they posted each other. And Brock F-5ed him through the announce desk.

And Oba got up and walked back in. And Brock was ready to take the count out. He was like, what the fuck? And Oba gave him three of the running uppercuts and the toss. And Brock foiled a power bomb and hit him with the F-5. One, two, three, a little over six minutes. Unless there's a... third match.

Oh, there has to be. I mean, at this point, it has to be SummerSlam or something. Well, unless there's a third match, I think they're crazy. And to be honest, to not plan something better than three straight matches with Brock and Oba, I'm not, I don't know.

But what are we going to see that we haven't seen now twice? The third match has to really be something. And if the whole idea was you have to put Oba over, which we thought was done in the first match, it really needs to be done in the third match, definitively, right?

Yes, yes. But I'm just wondering if there's no other way they could, I don't know, I would have, I would have let Oba beat Brock, redeem Brock, and then let him fucking put somebody over on the way out if that's what they wanted him to do. And we keep saying way out,

who knows how much. longer he's just going to come and do this. Here, I'll go six minutes for $2 million twice a year. But yeah, it was a little, okay, it was great while it lasted, but at the end of it is like, wow, that was quick.

I'm just, I'm afraid they're taking the, the cachet away from kicking out of these big moves, even for these guys when they just do it time and time and time again. But that's just me. Does it also hurt the guys who do it right?

not that there's a right way and a wrong way, but referring to, like, for instance, Cody and Goonther, whatever you want to say about the match and the match length and who went over, whatever. Cody won, hitting his finish, one time, pinned him. That's it. I mean, that's technically the way it should be.

That's why finishes or finishes, and that's why they work and they're over, not because people kick out of them every time you see them. But when someone kicks out of a move seven times, does it hurt? Yeah, well, the guy did it one time? And we said, you know, bam, because now they've got the reaction that I had when Cody hit him Crossroads, One, two, three. I thought, was that it?

Because it takes so much more to beat everybody else now. So think about, yes, it should be, and it should be hit your finish and win. With Gunther, I thought they could have built to more of a back and forth seesaw thing to where, and Cody did pull the leg off the ropes, I think, at the end or whatever. I don't think we mentioned that, but it just boom, you know, that all there is. They could have had something more going on at the, before the finish that didn't involve Cody having to give him seven finishes. It's just all about excess to the point where when we get a actual match with a

finish, it leaves a deflated feeling, Brian. Yeah, see, that's a problem. That's why it's like systematic. It kind of has to to be changed across the board. Like, however you talk about, you know, I think you said about Javan recently, whatever it was, he should be the one guy

doing that. I know everyone else can, and we see everyone else doing it. No one else should do it anymore. One guy does it. It would almost have to be enforced across the board. Finishes, finish matches. Yeah. If you hit a finisher, the matches over. we keep the finisher over.

So Cody and Gunther technically the match, they did it right, but if everyone else is doing it wrong, it hurts the guys who are doing it right. And who's the guy that's going to get beat by 1 F5 now? Well, Oba's a big giant. It took seven F5s

and one through a table for him, so maybe the next guy only needs four. I don't know. I'd rather take those F5s than that one WrestleMania where he, German suplex Roman reigns over and over and over again. Yeah. That got a little fucking disorienting, I'm sure, but

nevertheless. It sold a lot of shirts. That's really what matters. So we, I guess we'll find out if there's a third stanza to go here in the Brock Lesnar Obafemi controversy. I gave Becky Lynch and Saul Ruka another shot. and by the way, since we're relating this information, the fourth match started 15 minutes after the previous match was over.

So they've filled up like close to an hour and just in between match shit. I'm thinking Saul Ruka has even a more inexperienced Jade Cargill. she's and even more athletic not as big not as great of a body but you know more athletic with her spins and turns and wiggles and flips and things she works her ass off but we talked about it the other day when somebody had said he said in the clip where she was doing the interview and she said yeah i got the call from w wwe i thought it was like UFC and fighting and shit. And then I, oh, well, this sounds like fun.

She had no fucking idea what this shit was supposed to look like two or three years ago. So she's very athletic and she's trying as hard as she can. But there's still, there's so many extraneous movements involved to show her flipping and her dexterity. that I think is she concentrating on that and trying not to screw that up? And it just seems like somebody, again, doing these things as a routine rather than, that's why they had Becky and if Becky was calling it, it's just you can practice those big spots where there's the cartwheel round off into the duck and the flip and to whatever. you can practice that,

but it's hard to practice emotional reactions to things going on in an actual match. Brian, does that make sense? Well, you need to have actual matches. How many matches do you think Saul Rooka's had? Sol Ruka, excuse me, people are getting upset. I mispronounce her name. I call it Saul. It was Saul Wenger off Saul Ruka.

But anyway, I zoned out after a while on this, but it was going at a quick pace and at one moment, point, people are sitting this clip out. Becky had put Saul down and went to the top rope, she's going to drop the leg. Well, the way she had, Becky had positioned her was correct. Originally, all Saul had to do was kind of roll her legs over a little bit like she's selling and she'd been right in a perfect place. But as Becky is climbing the ropes, she started putting her legs to the other direction, like changing her instead of head to leg, left to right,

it was left of, leg to head, left or right, whatever the fuck. You see what I'm saying. She's turning around. And now her legs are facing Becky. And Becky's tries other way, other way, because she's trying to drop the leg. So then Saul thinks she means completely the other,

and goes that other way. And that was, and then she has to go back. and the camera was positioned only on Becky, so it looked like that Becky was just trying to stand there forever, but there was a fan cam, cell phone video, whatever that they put out, of Saul squirming around because Becky was up there going, other way, other way, and you could hear it.

And people were saying, well, that's unprofessional of Becky. No. It's the opposite. Unfortunately, when you're in there with somebody so green, they don't know which way to turn to get a leg dropped on them that she was being kind instead of just coming off and killing this girl. Because you can't just pick which leg you drop.

If you drop a leg, chances are you're dropping the right leg. Maybe sometimes somebody might drop a left leg, but even Bobby Eaton couldn't just decide on the sperm of the moment which leg to fucking drop. It's the way you do something. And if somebody's turned the other way, you're going to land on them and kill them. But anyway, so then

they had a back and forth and kind of an exchange, and old Saul hit the Saul snatcher. One, two, three. That was 15 minutes. The girls' matches have been the longest on the card. But your thoughts on poor Saul and her lack of directional capability? I actually like the match, much better than their previous match.

She hit the finish. She hit the Saul Snatcher. And yeah, they did a great job of hiding the thing on TV. I mean, when you see it after the fact, it's really embarrassing. Well, that's the thing. And I had no idea until I saw this. you say they did a great job of hiding it they did a great job of hiding saul they poor becky was twisted in the wind because you were left to think well she just can't climb

those fucking ropes that's a kind of thing when you go back and watch your own shit that's what makes you matter than anything else when you know that you are powerless because somebody else is doing something wrong or you're waiting like what was that king of the ring when I was waiting on China to give me a nut shot so long that I was standing stock still threatening one of the smoking guns or somebody with a goddamn, I'm like, oh, well, I'll hit you. I swear I'll hit you. And I'm waiting for this nutshot.

And I'm looking, and there's fucking chine on you. In my eyesight, running around trying to figure out how to get behind me. And I'm a fucking wait for it. That's the kind of shit you hate. when you watch your own stuff back and you go, oh, fuck. But nevertheless. But nevertheless. Saul Ruka is super over with the fans right now, it seems.

Yes. She's so peppy and cheerful and blonde and peppy. Well, there was more pepping your step. One more match here on this show. Did this match have enough moxie for you? Well, enough of the moxley, you say? and Moxie. The tribal combat match,

new disqualification. And by the way, just so we make a clean sweep, this match started, the bell rang 22 minutes after the previous match was over with. And before we talk about the match, people were talking

as if Jacob Fatu might not be able to wrestle the match. Apparently they, they're in Europe for, I don't know how long. Next week, Raw is from France. Gay Paris. Are they not getting to fucking go home?

Because as we're sitting here, they've been over there since last Friday. That's several days. They're next week. They're in. How fucking long must they be over there? But nevertheless, they were saying that Jacob got a back injury. And, honestly it was hard to tell here because in some places you would think he wasn't moving like he

usually moves but in other places you'd think well it doesn't seem like they'd do that if he had a bad back but there was all this speculation that he wouldn't be able to make the match or they were even talking about bringing Drew in bringing him back from limbo if Jacob couldn't go or whatever, but I don't know whether this was a back injury or just a poorly laid out match, but this brought to my mind everything that I don't like about modern fucking wrestling, all in the same match. And I don't understand why the fans love Roman Raines because he's such a condescending dick. And now the

usos have kind of turned heel into process by wanting Jacob to be a good little lap dog and bow down to the fucking king heel. So I'm not sure why, but they love him.

They fought all over the arena in the bleachers, in the fake walk fighting that I talked about before. At one point, Jacob ran Roman reins his head into a chair

and he stood up and Roman stood up and pulled his pants up and just kept walking. It's just they pulled out a slim gym table. I hate the slim gym table. The fact that the tables that the people break are sponsored

they're doing stunts with the chairs or the whatever where they'll do a big move and then there'll be a long cell where nothing will happen. As I mentioned earlier in the program, but I'm not a fan of. Then they'll fight on the floor at a slow pace. And then the gimmicks, it just, they're not dressed for tribal combat. and I know I always say

it's ridiculous when they dress the ring up like these fucking balloons and all the bullshit, but if they're going to have a tribal combat have some old Samoan guy out there put the fucking leather strap around each of their wrist and give them a torch or whatever the fuck. This was a indie fucking wrestling match with big names the toolbox that's spotless and has no dents or scratches.

And he hits him, he hits Fatu in the hand with the toolbox so he can't work the tongue and death grip. But then the heat with Roman Rains' matches is at a glacial pace, almost non-existent movement. And then they'll go through the barricade. And it'll throw him back at a place. the ring and spear him again. How does the spear in the ring follow up the spear through the barricade? Obviously, yes, Jim, well, he can't win on the floor. He has to pin him in the ring.

My problem is, how the fuck can he get up from the goddamn spear through the barricade, but he can't get up from the spear in the ring? But nevertheless, they get a two count, and then I timed this. Nobody touched for one minute. Roman trash talked and ripped off the turnbuckle pads for another one minute. And then Jacob got the grip, but his hand was bad so he couldn't hold it. And then he, again, I wrote, did they have a 15 second exchange and do nothing for one minute? Am I over, am analyzing this or am I magnifying this? No, no.

Or did you start noticing this? No, I certainly notice it. It's the pace of room and reigns matches, but also. I liked every match on this show up to this point. Even the women's matches that you didn't like. I liked everything. I'm having a great time from the Lucha Show to hear. I'm thinking, what a great weekend of wrestling.

I like some of the things on the AEW show last week. I'm like, man, what a great week of wrestling. I hated this main event. And then Jacob Fattu, of all people, is in a boring match. I hated this main event. And I don't think Jacob Fattu is the problem. I think it's Roman Rains. Who's the most over guy there.

But his matches suck. even that he Jacob is in one they've managed to figure out a way to make this fucker boring which we'll get to further in a minute but but also the thing you said earlier drove me crazy when he got hit just turned around pulled him his pants and walked I'm like oh yeah what is that amateur hour and then the the finish again Roman had pulled that turnbuckle pads off he ran Jacob's head into the bare buckle a bunch of times speared him through a table, then hit him with another spear, one, two, three. And I wrote, kind of bullshit.

And then the Uso's came out and presented Roman with the Lola Falana. And the announcers, who was it that said, something like the Samoan werewolf has been neutered? Jesus Christ, and the announcers were building that tomorrow, Jacob will have to pay homage to Roman Reigns. And Jacob, they had him right there, and I don't know if he's there no more. Are they trying to course correct by bringing him all the way down

before they try to send him all the way back up? We'll talk about Raw shortly, but you would have to think that's part of the equation. You know, you say course correct. You said it early on that he should have been in the role of solo, and he wasn't, and solo ended up being really successful in that role, more successful than he is now. It's easy to forget

how over they got solo because of the way he is now. And he ended up being a part of the post match briefly. I'm sure you saw that. Yeah, and then, by the way, just make a comment without trying to interrupt you, if Jacob had been solo all along,

they could have drawn some money turning Jacob solo on Roman, not like the thing where we saw Roman in Solo and as the but now you're going to have Jacob as the crazy subservient cousin to Roman and at the same time having issues with at least Jay Uso but maybe the Uso's maybe some of that stuff will be good the Uso's and him

but I'm not looking maybe I'm a little burned down on Roman Reigns and you know someone pointed out the other day and I was like wow like this bloodline thing has now been going on longer than the NWO, which is kind of crazy to think about it, because by the end of the NWO, is really sick of the NWO. I think somebody said it'd been going on longer than the Korean War. Maybe so, maybe so.

But that's the thing is now, if that's what they're trying to do, and when we talk about raw, which we will in a second, but they took Jacob, he was a wild man, that's what got him over. He was different. and he uncorked that shit. You're like, wow, look at this guy. It looked like that, do that stuff and talks like that. This is the real deal. And then because he got popular, they cleaned him up.

Remember, became the do the right thing version of the original Fatu. And then it was stuck with solo for a while and that wasn't good for anybody's health. and now the people still wanted to see him and Roman but I don't they've even if if Fatu is doing this because he's a man of his word I just he's back as a stooge in the group

well this will be building up to something that's for sure and obviously we'll have now bloodline versus bloodline again briefly because they have to get past solo in his group they referred to them Roman Raines told them well, you know, let's take care of these guys next. And then eventually Jacob will have to

turn baby face, hard baby face again. But underwhelming main event, Roman Raines is so super over, especially over in Europe. But I am tremendously bored with him. I'm bored with his matches, the talking interludes in the middle of matches. I just wish somebody could get him

one of those hover rounds, get him to the ring quicker. I don't know if that'll happen, but that was the clash in Italy, and of course, Jim, a lot of wrestlers over in Europe, may be having to deal with powering up all their devices. They are from home, they are on the road, they all have iPhones, and they all want to share their thoughts on Twitter,

but they need to power those phones and those devices, and we have friends who can help them with that. Well, I'll tell you, well, while they're over there in the wilds of Europe and things like that, you know, all day, electricity is screwy over there. Do you know they have people in tuxedos and tails actually bring the electricity to your hotel room on a silver platter? I don't know if that's... It's amazing the European customs that they still have over there. You don't want to wait for room service to charge up the Dillator Mach 3 if things are going on. And as well, all the plugs are screwy over there, Brian,

why you plug in your telephone and it might become a suddenly of what those barbers are shires things where it'll cut your fingers because the voltage is different. It makes things do different functions. And you got to have something that you can use good old-fashioned American electricity for where it knows how to run these things. American electricity. That's right. Ladies and gentlemen, of course, you don't have to worry about any of these problems with any

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You've got the rich power bag. You're advocating for the wrong audience right now. I think, Jim, we want to talk about it. Well, let's say, let's say that you're a prostitute that's been dumped on the side of the road to the John. Why would we want to say that? Why would we? Because your phone is dead and you can't call for a ride from your pimp, but suddenly you realize in your purse you got the Ridge Power Bank. And you just plug it right in because the Ridge Power Bank folks has as enough power for three full phone charges.

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it'll broadcast you all the way to the edge of the parking lot. But the five and one travel power bank has the built-in cables so you don't have to worry about plugging things in. They're incompatible. You're not trying to put a square peg in a round hole or your dick and in an unwilling receptacle. Because you can plug yourself right into this thing, folks. And it's got free shipping, a 99-day risk-free trial, a lifetime warranty. And like everything Ridge makes it's built to last.

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And again, folks, and every once in a while, if you have a, you know, a small car or anything Mazda or smaller, and you need a jump start, just plug into this thing. It'll help you out. And I don't know if that's the best example. But why don't we focus on the everyday devices that you have in your pocket? Because just about everyone out there on the scene has one of those devices in your pockets. One of those devices in your pocket, like a telephone, for example, or possibly earbuds or potentially, maybe, you know, those electrically powered condoms that take themselves off.

Electricly powered condo. Yeah, they take themselves off and walk themselves to the bathroom to flush themselves. It's amazing. Usually I would try to stomp right past your perversions, but I just want to point out that's not a thing. How could that ever be a thing? Well, they're only good for one use, though. And it's, but folks, it's one thing to pack and five ways to power. And right now for a limited time, you can get up to 40% off during Ridge's huge

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Endorsed by Jim and myself. We love our Ridge products. power yourself up today. One more time, it's ridge.com slash JCE. And Jim, why don't we continue on this route and finish up talking about

WWE in Italy. What did you watch this week on WWE Monday Night Raw? Well, I opened the show and closed the show because I wanted to see again what in the world they were going to do with Jacob Fatu and Roman rains in that situation.

And then also I wanted to watch the main event because my boy, Braun was in it. We'll get to that. But again, I'm telling you right now, these fucking foreign crowds, I know they all think they're Pavarotti or whoever the fuck, but the opening of Raw after they recapped the pay-per-view and what went on, was Roman and the Uso's making their entrance, and they had the building was packed,

no stage, just the small entrance way, the narrow aisle. Did you see Roman doesn't carry the belt with him? When he got out of the car, some, you know, guy ran off from the side and handed him the belt. Yeah, because apparently he's, you know, got stooges to hand him the belt. That's what I'm... I don't know.

But that's the point. this whole thing is he's heelish he is that not helish they're the heels eminuosos the way they've interacted with jacob fatu they're the heels but when he comes to the ring between the walking and the chanting and the singing and then him milking the chanting and the singing brad do you know how long it took from the time they started their entrance until he spoke his first word how long was it take a guess Oh, six minutes. Seven and a half minutes.

And it may be fun for the arena, but it's getting old to watch it on television. And then he did the acknowledge me, and they got more chance out of it. So it's really eight and a half minutes until he started the promo, except then they started chant a little bit more, and then Jay took the microphone.

and all Jay said was, you see, Roman, the first day on the job, and Jacob's already late. And then they turned and watched the entrance way for Jacob's music. And he made his entrance. And he was dressed like a mechanic. It looked like Colt Cabana

when he wore the fucking oil change overalls with his name and pro wrestler on the fucking thing. and by the time that Jacob got to the ring and they did some more singing and chanting 11 and a half minutes after the start of the first entrance they finally started speaking to each other and then the story Roman and Jay both told Jacob you know what time it is you know what's going on. You got to do this now. And Jacob even went up to Jay

and like he was pissed at Jay and Roman had to say, I'm over here now. And then Jacob cut the promo. I knew what I was getting into. I knew what would happen if I lost, but I've been taking L's all my life. Taken L's brought me here.

That's a funny way to back into a guy. And And so that's why I wrote, Are they trying to make the Samoan werewolf a sympathetic underdog here? And then Jacob admitted to Roman that he beat him

in front of the world and in front of his children. He said, I lost to my tribal chief, but I didn't lose to your punk-ass, Jay. But Roman, I acknowledge you. And then he took a knee in front of Roman and reached up to him

and the crowd was chanting OTC, OTC. And when Roman took his hand and shook Jacob's hand and pulled him up, they cheered. They cheered the baby face admitting that the fucking heel was a better guy and joining the people that have been wanting him to be under their thumb. I don't understand. And then Roman said, Jacob, you don't understand this all now. But I love you, this condescending motherfucker.

And they all raised the one finger, including Jacob. In 18 minutes, 11.5 of which was people walking to the fucking ring. There's a plane going overhead, but let me just say, you know, Roman again, super over. These fans were not just singing, they were jumping and dancing. But then again, they also did the exact same thing for Jacob. just about everyone else who they knew, who was on the card. Roman in the past, I've always, you know, with the bloodline and its peak, I thought he was so good in that role.

Yes. I don't buy a minute anymore. You know, it's kind of like, this isn't the best example. I'm trying to think of a better one. Like, season one Happy Days, Fonzie, you kind of bought. Towards the end, when Henry Winker was like 40 years old or whatever? Yeah, yeah. I don't know.

I don't know. Well, the thing, in the bloodline, as the heel, as the guy on top, legitimately that everything was focused around, this whole story worked. But once they dissolved the kind of thing where everybody went their separate way and Roman is kind of taken as a baby face. And it's he's not the guy anymore. He can't really say he's the guy. He wants to maybe be the guy. guy again. But just them going, and I know Jay had a shelf life as the eat guy and Jimmy was, you know,

poor Jimmy. Get him back together as heels. I understand it. I don't. But again, Roman just is not, he doesn't have an exciting fucking, we can't just all slow down for Roman anymore. Things are happening now. The bloodline was the thing.

you slowed down for. There's more exciting shit going on now. Very slow. Slow is a word I'd use, Brian, slow. Yeah, and that opening segment took forever, and the fans sang, and there was a lot of just nothing happening. You know, Roman, I think, is just so much stronger when Heyman or someone else was doing a talking for him mostly. But what else did you see on Raw?

There were other things. Obviously, they referenced that, I think Roman there was a lot of, a clip. It may have been from the pay-per-view of Roman telling Jay Uso, now you go get the other world title. So we'll see if that goes anywhere, but what else did you see on? Yeah, good luck with that. By the way, the main event is what I saw that I referred to earlier. Seth Rollins and Braun Breaker, I always want to see Bronn. And I got to, again, there was endless singing and chanting for Seth. I was trying to fast forward to the bell because he was just standing there at one point like that

statue of Jesus that hangs over the fucking cliff somewhere that you see pictures of with his arms outstretched, just letting people sing to him. Man, you know, you always hear about like these film festivals. We heard about one recently, like the rock it happened to. John Travolta just happened to where like they got a 13-minute standing ovation and they just stood there and people clapped at them for 13 minutes. You see these European audiences, you get it. they want to do their thing more than they want you to do your thing.

I get the opportunity to go to the fucking hot dog stand while it's not crowded if they're going to do 13-minute ovations. But Seth Rollins and Braun Breaker was the big angle, if you will recall, months ago where Braun turned on Seth. And he was, Seth was the leader of the vision and Braun turned on him. And between everybody getting hurt and them already haven't had this on the pay-per-view here a few weeks back, this is kind of, eh, it's lost all the heat that they might have had for this thing. I can't imagine a, at one point, that was going to be a big fucking match.

Now it's kind of, well, they've done it. I think besides that this was a WWE television match, so they went a minute at the start and then Braun threw Seth over the barricade into what obviously were hopefully fake planted fans if they weren't then they're independently wealthy now because he threw Seth into their fucking laps and everybody took bumps and went down but the announcers did just oh Seth over the barricade not oh my God Seth has hurt those innocent fans. Why have plans to take bumps if the announcers don't even, what would happen?

And I'm sure it does. And it has in a football game when somebody on the sidelines gets wiped out. Do the announcers just say, looks like third down? Or do they go, oh, my God, that poor photographer. They would reference the photographer that went down. They wouldn't ignore it. Anyway, they come, but they had two commercial breaks in this. So the bell, Tween, let's see, what was a total time?

I don't even think I wrote down the total time, but there was basically with, in 20 minutes with two commercial breaks totaling five minutes, they had this match. And I think the idea is that I just don't, Seth is too modern of a style for me. I want to see Braun against a more, I don't want to say better, but more traditional pro wrestling worker because he can do it. Seth is going to do all this goddamn repeated dives

and the superplex into the Falcon Arrow and all this other shit. I don't, I'm not liking their fucking match. Braun was better here with the Breckensteiner. because when he went up, he stayed more upright and he waited a beat. And that gives the person orientation. And that's what we said a few weeks ago he needs to do. Just go more upright, don't lean back before the fucking legs go up

and slow that rotation down. That's what he did. But this was again, it's a modern style match that Seth, have sometimes they work sometimes they don't seth hit him with a power bomb and got a two count and then both of them just rolled to the floor and Seth spent time setting up the stairs but then he picked Braun up on his shoulders and was walking up the stairs to do what I have no fucking idea because he had moved the stairs away from the ring but Braun slipped out and ran Seth into the post conveniently Seth was near the post

That's what I'm saying. They just set shit up to whatever. And then Braun went to the top, but Seth caught him with the superplex, and then rolled through, and they both tried the Falcon Arrow. And you're killing your superplex. They went back to the floor on the desk. Bron went for the spear, but Seth caught him with the pedigree through the desk. Was this a no DQ, no countout match also, Brian,

or do they just, because it's modern, they didn't notice? I didn't think it was, but I don't know. Well, they were out there a while. And then finally, Theory came to the apron, and Seth tossed him into the ring and clothesline him out. Theory is a human ping pong ball. He goes in, he bumps up, he's in the right place, he bumps out, However, this was all right in front of the referee.

So guys in the fucking ring. No call with the disqualification. Braun went for the spear and speared the post. But Paul Lee drew the referee and then Theory hit Rollins with the belt. Well, then theories down on the floor, Montez Ford runs out and slides into the ring in front of the referee to run and dive out of the ring onto, theory on the other side, but went over the top of him, actually.

And so it's a cool dive. Looks great. But it was totally unnecessary for the motherfucker to take the route that he did to get to the guy if he was trying to help. And then bronze speared Ford on the floor, forward on the floor. And then bronze speared Seth and got a two count. But Seth came back and hit the kick and a stomp and got the cover. but Paul Lee put bronze leg on the bottom rope and that broke the count.

And by the way, if anybody noticed for all the aspiring managers out there or anybody who's going to do the leg spot and you know, I understand a greenhorn like Paul, he doesn't have my experience. You know, he's a young rookie. He'd fall victim to this. Did you notice he reached under the bottom rope. and grabbed the leg, Brian, and tried to put it on the rope, but the toe got stuck on the rope,

so he had to point to the referee when Braun's leg was sticking underneath the rope. Braun was holding it up so it would touch the bottom rope. Yeah. How could you miss that? You have to reach over the rope. I learned this in a small town in Tennessee back in 1983. If you reach under the rope and try to put your guy's foot or leg on the bottom rope to break the count, you're going to most of the time fuck up because you're trying to push it up,

but there's a toe or a boot, and depending on how it's going, it can catch the rope and then you've got to reach under and blah, blah, blah. If you reach over the bottom rope and grab the fucking ankle, then you've got it every time. but nevertheless. So then Seth came after Paul. But they had to milk. It would have made me uncomfortable as a manager for as long as everybody milks everything these days.

Because I understand that you're not supposed to outrun the baby face when he's chasing you or you're supposed to be backing up to put him in position. but it takes so long now that I would be uncomfortable. I would be like obviously everybody knows I could get away if I wanted to. But he comes in a backs Paul into the corner of the barricade area because Braun's going to come around a ring with a spear. But as he came with it, Seth pulled Paul in front allegedly.

And bronze speared Paul through the barricade. Did you see the way Paul took covered up with his arms and folded into his sides? and took that bump. I've never seen anyone take it like that. No, because he just, he was like, oh, God, I've wanted to be over. What, and I'm not revealing anything that any trained eye couldn't see.

Braun, and Paul didn't turn to take the spear like in his stomach. Paul just put his arms in, closed his eyes, as he usually did, when everything physical was going to happen. And Braun reached around Paul with his right arm and shoulder tackled the barricade with his left shoulders so that they could go through the barricade without killing Paul.

Because as you could imagine, if he'd really spirit him, he would have busted out into 5 billion cholesterol cells. But it's just funny me watching Paul try to take buffs now because nothing has changed in 40 years. He was always scared of. But they go sideways through the deal and then Braun is shocked, but he gets back in the ring and goes to spear Seth

while everybody else, including the referees, pay attention to Paul's dead body. Seth has got the tag team belt and is holding it in front of his stomach. When Braun runs for the spear, he bam, he ran head first out of the belt, knocked his own self out, Seth hit the stomp, one, two, three. The finish was kind of exciting. but the match I didn't it wasn't yeah he just wasn't a fan

and now there's footage wandering around on Twitter of Braun in the hotel room probably after this match or sometime recently not in the hotel room hotel lobby if there was footage circulating of him in the hotel room they'd probably have a meeting about it

but he's limping so did he hurt himself now sometime in here at some point? I don't know. But I don't know that this was a main event that was worth the time that it took to fast forward through the rest of Raw. Well, that was another banner episode of WWRWA. Good main event. Good main event, all things considered, as long as Bron didn't get hurt.

But it's always wonderful to see Heyman take a sideways bump through the barricade. that was raw in Italy Jim Yes As we continue on here I wanted to ask you about I've sent it over obviously Have you seen

What are your thoughts on If you have the latest Rick Flair Twitter stuff Or social media With David Flair Well I didn't understand it At first until I read people explaining it

He tweeted it He tweeted something with, there was a logo of a company that titled Green Flair. And he was tweeting that, you know, copyright infringement. I owned my trademarks. And, you know, something about your wife runs your life. I had no idea he was talking about his son, Dave. I have a few things here. I think they're in order.

Because several of his messages were deleted after the fact. but again as it was happening live on social media in front of the world people were sending it over this one was a message on facebook unfortunately there is someone i'm very familiar with using my own trademark flair i would like anyone who is using my trademarks which are impossible to own and i own mine to know that i'm well represented by a reputable one thousand dollar per hour attorney that makes a living suing people that abuse my trademark. But it's so great, it's like a promo. I got my $1,000 an hour lawyer right here, baby.

You know who I'm talking about. I hope you clear this up by Monday. And if we can't resolve this issue, read the penalties. And then he screenshotsed penalties for brand that trademark infringement include court-ordered injunctions to stop using the mark, destruction of infringing goods and significant financial restitution. And it goes on a little bit from there.

So when that first came out, no one knew exactly who he was talking about. It was posted in the Cult of Coronet Facebook group by Tio. I may get this wrong. Tiodore Stanimirov. Oh boy.

One of our international members of the Cult of Coronet. and he wrote... You think? I thought he's from Euclid, Ohio. And he wrote on today's episode of Reasons to Take Rick's Internet Access Away. And then that was followed up by one where he had an image of himself in a robe

and next to that a picture of seemingly David Flair and I'm assuming his wife. They're kind of hugging and looking towards the camera. I'm obviously not suing my son. Just reminding him that you can't have the best of both worlds. Use your God-given name, Fleer, which isn't worth a cup of coffee. Or your wife's name. Who has had three generations of success? Also, please don't sell my robes that I let you use during your career, as you have already sold one. You're 47 years old.

Now stand on your own two feet, please. what he's got his own fucking business there what is he also can i borrow five grand oh come on now but that was message too and that's where it kind of came out i believe that it was david that was the target of this ire and that left a lot of people questioning things uh david flare has kind of not been around wrestling to the best of my knowledge in a very long time now that's the thing green flare is apparently he still lives in the carolinas around charlotte he's got a recycling company there that recycles something of some description. And apparently it's been there for a while. It's not like he just started this business yesterday and Rick found out about it today. This is an established business he has had for a while, I believe. And then the final message I have here, again, some were deleted. It's a picture of Rick smiling, just posing outside of an emergency room.

I'm sorry. I shouldn't laugh at that, but who doesn't? Doesn't everybody have a picture of themselves posing, smiling outside the emergency room of a hospital? If you... I got to contain myself. If you understood the health issues that I deal with and am currently dealing with,

you would understand why I get frustrated in life with a lot of people. I'm sorry for the frustration. I'm taking time to focus on my health. And that was the close of it. Why is any of this gym necessary on social media? I don't know. I don't know. And it's hard not to talk about it when everybody's talking about it.

But at the same time, I feel bad at this point because I don't, I don't know if Rick understands how he has come off to people for the people. passed however long that this has been going on, from the Egyptian to the, everything. Normal people don't get in this many public issues with other people, whether it be strangers, friends, or family members, and this has been regular. And I don't think he understands what people. He could read the comments and understand what they're thinking,

but I can't imagine he's reading the comments and still doing the things that he's doing that people are commenting on. But it's sad. I hate to see this. I don't enjoy it because of what I've thought of Rick in the past and as a talent and a person. But it's just he's bringing it on himself. I mean, again, one of the messages was also, The relationship was gone nine years ago.

I'm sorry and sad that it has come to this. I've tried my best to fix things over the years only to be rejected because your wife runs your life. That's the one I saw. Yeah, but nobody knows this shit. I don't know this. He's putting it out there. He's the one putting out there.

He's telling people. Then nobody would know there was any goddamn issue. good, bad, or indifferent, as Mama Cornett used to say, except you're telling on yourself. Obviously, David Flair never became a big wrestling star, but you had him for a brief time in OVW, right? What was he like? Yes.

No, he's a nice guy. Wrestling wasn't for him, not only the impossible task of living up to the standard that his father said, but he just wasn't a natural wrestler. but a lot of people aren't. He only got horribly criticized and run through the wringer because he was used in WCW before he was ready.

And then he got an opportunity because of, you know, who his dad was, but he didn't, you know, he wasn't a prick. He didn't act like Tiger Ali Singh or somebody. He was a very humble guy and worked hard. It just wasn't for him. and he moved on and he's doing other things. But Rick's mad about it. His son has a goddamn business of his own.

Rick's mad about it. I don't. I don't know. Yeah, and you can't say, you know, I wasn't going to sue my son when you literally put out a tweet saying, I have a $1,000 an hour lawyer just ready for this. But hopefully someone does take away his father. And you know what?

We actually could point him in the, direction of cheaper attorneys that could give him still full so without paying a thousand dollars an hour that's the thing it's a status symbol to rick how he has taken his wrestling promos to heart and this Rolex watch costs more to your house see these shoes you could live in these shoes my lawyer's a thousand dollars an hour well it sounds like david flare should be okay to continue on with his business that he's been doing and apparently independent of all this. But it doesn't mean his business couldn't use some help. That doesn't mean his business couldn't use a partner to help with online sales.

I don't know if they sell anything, actually. Now that I think about it, we really don't know too much. The point is, we don't know anything about David Flair's business or what he's doing or what he's up to, but lots of you have businesses, and you need help. And the man to tell you all about what you could do is Jim Cornett. I'll tell you who needs help, and that's Brian last, ladies and gentlemen, but if you have an idea or a concept or a dream, if you have a vision, if you want to work your fingers to the bone and get more than bony fingers out of it,

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You'll get your little man in the boat. You'll get all the things you need to twiddle with to make yourself a success. Shopify.com slash JCE. That's right, Jim, and we shall return right after a short word about this. All right. All right, one of them sounded good today. One of them. One for three, but here we are at the end of the show.

That's, of course, Jim's favorite tune of the many tunes that we play here on the show. Jim, as we begin to wind down, we have a few questions. We got a few topics here. But I wanted to talk to you about something that obviously caused the listeners who saw it to sending questions about. It was all over Twitter. A.W. Collision in Huntsville, Alabama this past week, had a tribute to Dennis Condry,

where Tony Chivani talked over a video montage of photos, and you were thanked. Let's talk about A.W. Collision. Well, there's not a big controversy here as far as collaboration with the enemy or some type of inter-promotion. angle going on here. I got a message from the AEW office, like on, well, they left it on Thursday afternoon and everybody knows me knows I'm not really particularly good with the telephone

these days. I try to avoid outside contacts, so I didn't hear it until Friday morning. The show was scheduled for Saturday. So the message was, hey, we need some good pictures of Bobby Eaton and Dennis Condry because we're going to be in Huntsville. And, they had advertised that they were going to do some type of tribute for Dennis, but they're saying, we need some good pictures and know you'd have probably the best ones. I'm like, shit. At 24 hours notice also,

I've got every kind of picture in the world of Bob Eaton and Dennis Condrian could have gone through their entire career year by year, but how do I have these things scanned and some high-res capability, and get them to where they need to be to be on the air in that length of time. I couldn't because I don't know how to do these things. But I was able to call Hotchkiss, and he had a variety of the pictures that we'd used for the souvenir book that went along with the Midnight Express Action Figures and is still available at Jimcournett.com, by the way, with the Midnight at Four Pack.

So we had those sent. I had Hodgka send those down and they used those along with some others. They had more recently of Dennis visiting, you know, the AEW backstage when they would be down there. Everybody knows FTR or Big Midnight Express fans, as are a lot of the young guys, whether they know it or not, they do the Midnight Express stuff. They might not know where it came from. But so that's how I was involved in that. and I wasn't going to, regardless of what I think about the content of the program,

I wasn't going to let them do a tribute to Bobby and Dennis and use Polaroids or whatever if I could avoid it. So I appreciate them reaching out to me and I'm glad they did use some of the pictures. And more importantly, I'm glad that they included Bobby because he was from Huntsville as Dennis was living there at the time of his death, but as I mentioned before, Dennis was born in Florence, Alabama, not too far away. So I appreciate them, you know, asking me and letting me be involved and getting some good pictures out there, but more importantly,

they gave two minutes to two guys who had never worked for the company. But at the same time, we're influential to not only guys that work there, but guys that have worked in the WWF and everywhere else over the last 40 years. So that's the one thing that Tony Kahn, he means well and he loves wrestling and he loves wrestlers. And I've never said he's a horrible person. I'm just saying that usually good, good nice people can't run fucking wrestling companies. But it was, it was wonderful that they, and Tony knew Bobby and Dennis from their first

run in Crocket. So it was nice that he was able to do that. Tony Chivani, just to clarify. Tony Chivani. I'm sorry, too many Tonys here. Pronouns, pal. But Tony Chavani did a very heartfelt thing. They did a nice presentation, and I'm glad.

And I'm sure Teresa Condry enjoyed seeing it. And Bobby's sister still lives down in Huntsville. So it was a very nice thing they did. I'm not saying that AEW is incapable of doing nice things, especially for the legends of wrestling. Just sometimes nice things for the fans of Legends of Wrestling that want to see that same kind of stuff that we don't get too much of that. But that's how Jim Cornyard ends up getting mentioned on AEW in 2026.

What was that on the bingo card? You got a special thanks. You got a NASA special thanks. You and several other photographers. I think it's somebody, they had Mary Kate's name wrong, somebody said. Oh, I didn't even, I heard they said George Napolitano too. I didn't hear her. I think they said it Mary Kay or something like that, you know, but nevertheless.

I had it on on the monitor, on the, the small monitor here in the office, just to keep an eye on collision to see, I didn't know what they were going to do when they were going to do it. And I missed the beginning of it. I went back and watched it after the fact. But they had like Midnight Express music and a bunch of these photos where, because you're the manager, you're kind of in the middle, I almost thought you died. Hey, no, you would have seen a conga line surrounding the collision ring if that had been the case.

And the video they had with Bobby doing the rocket launcher and the flapjack, that was from the Ring of Honor Midnight Express reunion that we did in Philadelphia back in 2004. And as Tony had that footage because he bought Ring of Honor. So that's why the action footage was

like, why are they dressed their street clothes? It was an impromptu angle that we did. They didn't actually have a match that night. And I guess fuck, what do you think about it? Well, who owns the Mid-South footage yet? Did

they finally got that from Watts's wife? didn't they? WWE owns what Bill Watts's wife got from Bill and the divorce. But I actually think there is a question over what's public domain and what is in, but they certainly have the master tapes. And they bought world class from Kevin, Devon Erics,

and they've got the WCW stuff. So they do have, the WWE has, except for the things that I released back some time ago that were, that fell between the cracks. Oh, they just put one of the, those on one of their videos. I just saw the other day

they did like a big compilation of I forget what it was, but it was one of the, it was I think maybe John Studd versus Andre from the Mid-Atlantic tapes, right? You had a John Stud-Andre match, right? Oh, I thought you were talking about the stuff I did for the Midnight Express. I had

I had Japanese, I had matches that appeared on Japanese television and I had camcorder stuff from Philadelphia and from a few other places that friends of mine had shot. But you're talking about the Mid-Atlantic films and damn their eyes. They could have had the originals if they'd have bothered to talk turkey. Well, thank God they didn't get them. Let's just say that. But a nice tribute, like you said, you could say whatever you want about Tony Kahn's

preferences and wrestling or his booking style or every now and then how he freezes out someone. His heart's in the right place. But he certainly loves wrestling and he's a nice guy in his heart's in the right place, absolutely. Jim, let's get some questions here. Several people sent this over. I have one here. It was posted from Rob Barnetta in the official cult of Cornette Facebook group. I guess there was some sort of poll that was done about who is the greatest professional wrestler of all time. And someone posted, great showing for Randy Savage. I had him at 14th, sort of the perfect American wrestler. And what people wanted your opinion about was Dave Meltzer's response here.

He's an interesting case. High-end Randy Savage was like an Osprey-level talent and years ahead of his time. He has to goddamn slander people when he's trying to put him over by comparing them to someone who couldn't fucking hold their side of the jock strap up. Well, he may not. In any case, go ahead.

Remember when he compared the Midnight Express to the Young Bucks? Well, that's how he does it. If only go back, high-end Randy Savage was like an Osprey-level talent, and years ahead of his time, phenomenal. House show Randy Savage in no way would be top 300 I've seen. What? I can easily say that the worst House Show Paterson match I saw was better than 80% or more of Savage's House Show matches.

I think anyone who saw both recommendations, would say that. As for whether Savage should be higher or lower than Patterson, I have no idea. Both are great characters and excellent workers when they wanted to be. But that's the danger of trying to rank wrestlers while only seeing a few of their best matches and not their four to six day per week matches. That's also the danger of listening to a guy who sat in the seats and watched the matches in different places at different times and then wants to compare them together.

I've never heard of somebody questioning the validity of, well, now, so-and-so, if he was trying, he was one of the greatest of all time, but he was a lot worse than so-and-so because he almost never tried or whatever he's saying here. The house show matches that Dave Meltzer saw of Paterson would have been in San Francisco at the Cow Palace, when that would have been. was literally the Madison Square Garden of the Northern California Territory or the Tokyo Dome of the Northern California territory. And Patterson was a main event guy. He was the guy after Stevens.

He was always figured in. And that was his prime. So, of course, he's going to have a bunch of good matches. And maybe Dave saw him in Saccharacter. Permaneto or Stockton. Those were the other big towns in that territory. And Pat was an old-timer that you went out there and you had the best match you could in your regular towns, whether they drew or not, because you wanted them to draw.

And in the spot shows, then you, oftentimes you got by and made everybody happy. Dave watching Randy Savage would have been on WWF house shows. which were a completely different animal because now to compare that with Patterson and San Francisco, you'd have to say, okay, I only watched Randy Savage in Madison Square Garden or only watched Randy Savage on pay-per-view. The house show matches for the WWF with those tours in the 80s, they didn't give a shit.

They put the time in and nobody got hurt and they got out of there. the guys were on an incredible road schedule where they were all burnt beyond belief. Hogan wasn't going to go more than fucking eight minutes. So if Dave wants to compare Savage House Show matches, then he should have been in Frankfurt, Kentucky in 1981 in front of 300 people

when Savage would be Savage with Ronnie Garvin because he was young and he was fucking broke and he didn't fucking have anything to lose. How about Savage and Bobby Eden? Or Savage and Bobby Eaton in Nashville or Chattanooga in 79. That's the thing is you can't, you have to take people's body of work as a whole. You can't say, well, I saw this guy in his biggest territory spot ever where he was always in a main event in the prime of his career. and his house show matches were better than the guy working for the WWF

when he was, you know, then maybe somewhat past his prime and saving it for the big shows. Well, we have some more here. I see I'm going through some of these emails, and they pointed me in the right direction. Someone responded to Dave, is this a fucking joke, Dave? To which he replied, Paterson was a far better house show wrestler than Randy Savage,

so no, not even comparable. I saw both for decades, probably saw more Patterson matches live than anyone in my life. Wait a minute, he saw both for decades. That's what it says, yes. Okay, where did he see Randy Savage for decades? Well, as far as house shows, because ICWTV did briefly air in the San Francisco Bay Area. Well, but I'm saying House Show wrestler. He saw Randy Savage on House shows for the WW.

1985 when Savage started and by the early 90s when he left WCW, Savage was only working on the fucking big WCW shows. So he saw a lot more Patterson when he was younger. That's the point I'm making. You could Bill Dundee. But going by that logic that Dave has, Bill Dundee was probably one of the best house show wrestlers I ever saw. saw because even if it was a spot show with nobody there, he worked his ass off. He would be

drenched in sweat. He might not be taking the biggest bumps, but he would do something active to please the people that were in a building no matter what. And there was never anything like a boring build-undee match. Does that mean he was a better wrestler overall than Randy Savage? Some ways yes, but some ways no. Well, the person who asked if it was a fucking joke, replied, You know what I was talking about, Dave. High-end Randy Savage being a Will Osprey-like talent is comical. Patterson and Savage on the same level is debatable.

Savage and Osprey isn't. To which Dave responded, It's so cute people who still deny the talent of Osprey. Don't worry. Nice. As a kid, I saw Stevens and Patterson from row two every other week, and the guys in their 50s in row one, would complain about how Thess and Namalini were real wrestlers,

and these guys were acrobats. So that's a day... That's not even a real wrestler versus acrobat fucking argument. That's like, is Will Osprey the pro wrestler that Randy Savage was? And the answer is no. Will Osprey isn't as good a pro wrestler as Pat Patterson was. I'm sorry, that's the truth also. but where did Osprey come into this goddamn thing anyway?

I don't know how that happened. And for Dave to say that Randy Savage is not one of the top 300 house show wrestlers of all time. There's been a lot of wrestlers, but that's still stretching a little credibility. Well, there's a little more here. Someone responded, I've been a wrestling fan for nearly 30 years, and have gone back and watched an ungodly amount of wrestling from before my time. Will Osprey is the best wrestler I have ever seen. It feels uncomfortable saying that about a modern wrestler and not in hindsight, but it's true.

To which Dave responded, Believe me, I went through all kinds of stages of denial myself. Ironically with Randy Savage, and having to admit he was more talented than Stevens or Patterson, although Patterson was the better house show wrestler easily. and Jaguar Yucoda even more. Oh, good guy! I later didn't want to think anyone could be better than Flair. And as a 300-night-a-year wrestler, I still don't think anyone was.

But for the best match of the year modern times, guys have beaten Flair versus Steamboat. But it's a different world. I don't think for 12 matches over two weeks, they'd be able to do so. but who knows? Well, you think? No, of course not because the fucking idiots would be in traction by then, because they don't,

they can't tell an athletic story, they have to tell a stunt story. Wrestlers wrestle less than ever before and get injured more than ever before. And you know, here's another thing. I was trying to think the other day when I saw Darby bleeding from the back

of the head and whoever else got hard weight and it happens all the time, in the territories with all those matches every night, all those guys doing shit, you would go for months without seeing anybody get busted open hard way. And I just, I don't understand what the fuck. They're all thinking.

And a part of it is the furniture won't work with you. I understand that, but still there's guys getting busted open even without the furniture. and that used to be a thing in a locker room that would provoke heated conversation after his motherfucker, what the fuck's he doing? Now it's like, oh, it's Tuesday. Well, that's Dave Milcher's thoughts on Randy Savage, and I guess the skills he was lacking

as a house show wrestler, aka one of the biggest draws in WWE during that period of time. Yeah, and that's the thing. And Ray Stevens was a better wrestler than Pat Patterson or Randy Savage or Will Osprey or Bill Dundee. But at the same time, while Stevens drew a fortune, if you're looking at a complete pro wrestler with the physique and the fucking look and the promo and et cetera, Savage had a lot of advantages. I just love the philosophy of, I heard the old guys in the front row. putting down these guys as acrobat. So that means any fan who puts down

the modern style is always wrong. Well, I heard the same thing. One night, this was 1981 in the Louisville Gardens. Thes was still wrestling. He worked with Billy Robinson. It was a 10-minute Broadway. They just put it on the card because they were both in the territory.

They had respect for each other. But when fucking Robinson was leaving. And now Billy Robinson at this point was early 40s, right? Robinson's leaving some old guy that had been coming to Louisville since the days of the Columbia gym and the Allen Athletic Club is like, 20 years ago he'd a kick your ass, Robinson. Those new kids like Billy Robinson just couldn't stand up to the fucking the greats.

Well, Jim, let's get some questions here. this was sent via email to corny drive-thru at gmail.com from Zane and Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. How do you think Vince McMahon ranked as a commentator? I've heard varying opinions that when he worked for his dad, he had the talent to be

the next Gordon Solie. Oh, geez. But when he took over the WWF, he became unbearable unless he had someone strong like Jesse Ventura to work off of. What are your thoughts? Vince was a horrible wrestling announcer. During the time he worked for his father, it was okay

because he had the voice and he was tall and had the, but he basically started or at least widely perpetuated a lot of the bad, corny wrestling announcer tropes that went on. the colorful suit and the hair and the kind of fake announcer voice that he did. And it wasn't like he didn't invent those. A lot of the other old-time announcers and the AWA guys in the tuxedos and shit,

that was cornball as hell. It was from the 50s. But he still called wrestling to the best of his ability because that's what it was. when he became his own boss and became Vince and Tuesday night Titans and over the top and the whole thing, then it wasn't about calling wrestling. It was about being Vince and doing what Vince did. And every

WWE announcer that has started there, been trained there is like a little clone of Vinceisms or kind of Vince's demeanor. Yeah. When he'd get a Jim Ross, you could only customize Jim Ross so far. So he retained some identity. That's why he got over. But everybody else has been the, and he's going to the medical facility type of announcer.

Talking in a disingenuous way, just it became the W.W.E. style of announcing. It's why one of the reasons why I've never been a Michael Cole fan, because he still comes across as a guy performing as a Vince McMahon announcer more than genuine human being calling what he sees it he was never going to be anything like gordon soli because solely was so analytical and had his own gimmick you couldn't customize gordon solely that's what you got but he had an incredible vocabulary and was analytical and wasn't an over-the-top personality but at same time could sell shit and made it seem real and authentic and lance russell was folksy and so was Bob Caudill.

JR was the high-energy kind of, you know, the Bill Watts style. And now they drops down and he's, oh my God, he's in jeopardy. Oh, my God, they broke it. That type of dramatic type of shit. You know, all the different announcers

had their own styles, but Vince was unique in that he was never a good wrestling announcer. Sometimes he was a rotten wrestling announcer, but he was the guy that he was Vince selling his product. He was the Barker. He was P.T. Barnum.

And everybody in the company has had to, in some fashion, remake that image. I actually like the Vince McMahon pretending he's Howard CoSell working for his bad commentator. But it's really interesting if you think about who was before him and who would come after him. You know, Ray Morgan was the person he replaced. and I was still hearing fans talk about Ray Morgan in the 90s. Yeah. You know, he, like, left an impact on him. They wish he hadn't left all those years ago.

Lance Russell was an institution, but Dave Brown, Gordon Sully, even to an extent, Freddie Miller. But you can go everywhere. Dick Lane. They all had some kind of bond with the fans that Vince never had as a commentator. Boyd Pierce. There was something. very impersonal, like very, you know,

I'm above it and I'm speaking to you and notwithstanding batting down the hatches. Just a whole subtle way of bullshittery that later on became just screaming at you. Look at this. Look at there. Which is why he can't speak anymore. Yes, the fans didn't like Vince and didn't want to sit down with him,

have him over to their house, be friends with him like they did with Lance or with Solie or with Freddie Miller or with Boyd Pierce or with all the people that you named and many more. He looked like kind of like a, maybe enjoys a drink or two, Mark Lawrence, you know, early on. It was just no personality there was just, I'm talking to wrestlers here and I show,

you didn't know anything about him. If you listen to commentary at the WWF and watch those old shows, you didn't know anything about the guy. No. And that's why he didn't have a connection, I guess, with the fans. It was a public persona. It wasn't him doing a job of announcing.

He was creating a, gimmick for a character for himself. Jim, our next question sent to corny drive-thru at gmail.com from Rick in Pittsburgh. My question is, can Jim explain why the WWF and WCW rings had a different sound? Is it the size difference or the materials used possibly? I don't think I've ever heard this question asked. I personally like the way the WCW rings sounded. Boom goes a dynamite.

and I've told the story about when I got them to remake the rings, but part of it was the sound and part of it was the fury, the bumpability. The differences are all of the above. The old WD, I'll try to make this brief because I know some people have heard the story, but I'll try to throw some new stuff in as well and explain why the AAA ring sounds so much better. The old WWF rings were made with these giant sheets of like, not even raw plywood but like

oh god damn what's that old time but four mica like smooth pressed shit they had no give no bend and they had the big spring in the middle which is the classic hallmark of an old-fashioned northeastern ring the spring didn't do shit

you could drive 18 wheeler over that spring it wouldn't bend it because it was big around as a human it was all bullshit and the boards didn't go all the way across the old WWF rings which is what leads to having no give they were the big plates that only went halfway across

I mean you could have used it for a stage and coming from the south where they had the rings like the AAA ring or the old WCW ring not only is there a metal undercarriage that goes all there's metal cross beams that go all the way across in both directions

and so that way when you hit the plywood or the one of the two by 12 boards whichever the flooring of the ring is it bows down and it those metal beams hit each other and that's what makes that bam that's also what gives it some give because you have a suspension ring instead of something with supports all the way across it where it doesn't have room to give in the middle. That's why everybody says the apron is the hardest part of the ring because that's where the cross beams meet the frame. There's no give.

In the middle of the ring is where you're supposed to take bumps. That's where the most give should be. And I got them to change the ring because I told Vince, I said, we got the worst rings in the business. These guys are killing themselves. Because they went from Hulk Hogan and Andre and big guys that didn't take bumps to Michaels and Brett

and all these other guys that are killing himself on his fucking frying pan ring. Vince, of course, we have the cleanest rings. Yeah, you've got the cleanest rings, but you don't have the best bumping rings. And I found an old spot show ring that somebody had in Massachusetts

and I had the engineers come and say, this is the way it's supposed to go, right? So you got to give here. and a, well, that won't last. I said the ring you're looking at a guy bought from somebody in North Carolina 40 years ago. He's left it set up in his fucking backyard

in Massachusetts. That's why it smells like mildew. You're saying it won't last. So they modified it, built it, the first time they set it up. They couldn't get the ring post to square up. But they got the idea of the suspension ring down and then Kevin Dunn stuck his fucking nose in

and said the noise was too loud. And it would throw the microphones off. And they went through and they put blankets in between the crossbeams so it wouldn't make the bam. And I don't know what they're doing now. I don't know if they still do that. But it has always since day one driven me crazy that you can take the biggest bump in a WWF ring

and it'll sound like poof. But you take a bump. in a real wrestling ring and it sounds like, and that's the way it's supposed to sound for the people in the building. Fuck the microphones. It works for every other promotion. When you're given a slam or a backdrop or all this stuff, the sound makes part of the fucking ambiance.

And that's what you can't hear. You can hear the referee slap the mat like he's slapping a baseball glove, but not like he's slapping a side of a fucking. 10 woodshed. Everything should be louder. It's just, it took me, I've never gotten used to it, but when I was actually performing there,

it just, it drove me out of my mind. It was like wrestling on a fucking mattress, like cotton, no noise. What do you think about AEW's rings? They are, again, more like a real wrestling ring because they have the same type of structure

and they're built the same way. I think AAA was still even using ropes, real ropes, which I hate, but I believe AEW uses cable. Last time I paid attention. And that's easier also for a variety of reasons. And then sometimes the sound is just different due to the television production. And a lot of times the rings look different because I think AEW still uses an 18-foot ring, don't they?

Like normal? I don't know. I couldn't say for sure. I've always said, again, the only 20 foot rings in wrestling were used by Vince Sr. and Vern Ganya because they were holdovers from the 50s.

And the Sheik and Coco, I think that ring had to be a 24 foot fucking boxing ring. I don't know what was going on up there. The Olympic. And the Olympic Auditorium, that was a boxing ring because they had boxing and wrestling at the Olympic and that big wide apron.

That's a boxing ring. But all of the territories for the most part, especially everything south of Indiana and all the way west of Texas, used 18-foot rings. That's why the WCW ring looks smaller than the WWF during the Monday Night Wars, but the action in the WCW ring looked quicker because every time they crossed the ring, there and back, they were four feet shorter. Is that a tough adjustment if you have been wrestling? Yes.

Ring like that for a while going to the WWF ring? It, yes, not only for the boys, but even for me. If you're used to work in an 18-foot ring, which everybody that ever went to the WWF in those days probably was, you got to get your, you get shot off in the road. you've got to get your turn down better. It's a different fucking step you've got to get. Things are not, when you're looking at the ring and you think it ought to be behind you, the rope,

it's two feet farther away. Going turnbuckle, turnbuckle, it's a timing thing that you got to get down. And again, the real ropes too. It threw off, that was Al Snow's demise. When he never recovered from being, what was his first gimmick? Avatar. Yeah, Avatar that fell off the rope the first time he tried to slingshot or the springboard.

Because it was ropes, not cables. What the fuck? Nobody was doing that shit in the WWF then. Guess what? There was no need to try. You couldn't do it. But it did the first time that I was in a 20-foot ring with real ropes, I sat down. down on the middle rope and started to spread the top like I usually did for my boys to get in the ring, I almost fell backwards out of it because the ropes were so much looser than what I was used to. And I could never be thrown over the top rope properly into WWF, those fucking ropes, I couldn't do it. Fucked up every time. How often was there differentiation between placement of the ropes in terms of like, you know, where they were or the distance between

them? Was it pretty uniform or were there ever any differences just in terms of it? No. It depends on the ring post. Who made the ring post? Did he measure right? I guess that's the thing. The ropes have to hook into the post wherever the goddamn eye, is. Right? So there have been some rings. Memphis, the Memphis Mid-South, Coliseum ring had the lowest bottom rope I've ever fucking seen. And you couldn't roll out under it practically. And then sometimes you'd get spot show rings where the two top ropes were a foot apart, but the second rope to the bottom rope was two feet or the turnbuckles were off kilter.

It just, you know, it was always an adjustment in the territory days going from town to town because every ring was a different ring, built sometimes by a different person of a different age with different fucking shit on it. Even Crockett from town to town in the Carolina Territory because all the buildings had their own ring

because they ran every week or two. You know, some things you could do in some rings you couldn't do in others. Well, Jim, one final question here this week And again, we've had a lot of wrestling to watch. Next week we'll have more questions on the show. We'll get more classic topics as well as a song or two. More submissions have come in to corny drive-thru at gmail.com.

But our final question here this week was sent in to cornyidivthru at gmail.com by Leon. My name is Leon. And my fiancé Chelsea and I... He shall be Leon. And my fianc, I, fie, I can't speak. And my fiancé, Chelsea, live in Virginia Beach. And we are longtime listeners of the podcasts. We love listening to your takes on the current product.

And for me, as a lifelong, mid-Atlantic fan and overall fan of the territory days, I love the old stories. I was reading the Midnight Express scrapbook, number 17 of 50. and read that after... Wow, he got one of the... The first 50 were autographed by all four of us and went for a premium price and were signed and numbered, and he got that one of those. That's a big deal.

Leon's got one unless Chelsea runs off with it. But he read that after the NWA debut at the forum, you and the Midnight Express went to dinner with Steve Hirsch and a couple of Leon's adolescent dream girls from the VHS tape days of pornography. Before all, the click here, download that Google this porn of today. I was trying to draw a connection, but I couldn't find one. How did you become friends with Steve?

Was it as simple as writing a self-address stamped envelope to join the Vivid Vixen fan club? A make-a-wish that was granted? What gives? I'm dying to know. And that was sent in by Leon. Oh, but let me try to figure out, because it's getting late in the show, how to do this without boring everybody by so-and-so associated with so-and-so. Years ago, one of the biggest fans in the Philadelphia area was Walt Wolanski Jr. And he was a pen pal of mine and Norman Dooley's and everybody.

He sent out programs and the Philadelphia results. And he was also an early source for me to get jazz. Japanese tapes, the Inoki and Baba TV shows. And Walt knew a guy from Philadelphia named Paul Fishbine. Do you remember Paul Fishbine, Brian, or was he gone by the time you... I didn't know him, but I know who Paul Fishbine is, of course. Well, Paul Fishbine was a big wrestling fan who later on started the magazine Adult Video News. And Paul became, where he was, you know, just a fan in the wrestling industry, he became a mover and a shaker.

in the adult film world because of this magazine, which all of the big companies, you know, worked with and got involved with. And the owner of Vivid Video was a guy named Steve Hirsch, who was also a wrestling fan and had spoken to Paul, you know, about wrestling before. And I can't remember the exact way that we got hooked up or introduced. but the point was that Paul, when we started going out to California, Paul was relocated out there at that point and said, hey, it was either my friend Steve Hirsch wants to meet you

or you'd like to meet my friend Steve Hirsch or whatever. And Steve was only, gosh, I was 25, 26. Steve was maybe a couple years older than me. His father had been in the business with another company, but Steve had started Vivid Video, and he brought like he brought a newfangled Hollywood system style

to the adult film industry where they signed the Vivid Girls exclusively and had contracts and everything. So it was a big company at the time and so one of the times that we'd gone out to dinner after the matches or whatever we'd met and so one of the times we were going to the forum

Steve Hirsch had said, hey, if you want, I'll pick you guys up at the airport, bring you out to my offices in, oh, God, where were they? Some valley in California around, well, you know, they got a lot of valleys in California. But brown in the valley, we got the office. We'll bring you out to show you that, and it will go to the matches and we'll go to dinner. Okay. I swear to God, Bobby Eaton was scared. He didn't want to go.

He said, I don't want to go to the porn place, corn? So Steve's limousine picked me. I said, Stan, you want to go out to dinner with these guys? I said, they're bringing Ginger Lynn and Jamie Summers, and I'll be there. So he picked me and Stan up at the airport in the limousine and took us out to their office. And Steve was there. And he showed us around in the warehouse, we picked out like. 30 or 40 tapes.

And he said, here, I'll have these ship to you. Just pay out what you want. And it's still in the colorful boxes they had back then. I've still got most of them. They're collector's items today. Most of them. What'd you do with the other ones? Actually, Rick Flair wanted to borrow some.

I never got them back. That was decades ago. But in all seriousness, as a matter of fact, he called me up. I think I was still, I was either living in Charlotte or I'd just moved to Tennessee and he said,

oh, you're a son of a bitch. He had somebody come into his extra room in his house and moved the bed or whatever, moved some furniture. And there was stacks of vivid video boxes. So anyway, so then we went to the matches. And Steve Hirsch had,

you know, him and his friend and the girls that came, it was Ginger Lynn, it was Jamie Sun. Lani Sanders was Steve's girlfriend at the time. She had been a star. So they went to the forum club, which was the little bar they have in the forum and we're down in the locker room.

And Tully Blanchard comes into a locker room and says, guys, guess who I just saw up at the forum club? Ginger Lynn and Jamie Summers. And he's looking around for the pop and he looks at Stan because he's thinking Stan's going to pop. And Stan's like nodding like, what did you see him stand he said no i didn't i know they're there how'd you know well we're going out to dinner with them later and tully's how'd you work that he said cornet invited me and that was the

fucking tully blanchard is looking at stan lane to find out how he got invited to dinner with the hottest porn stars in the business and he he fucking credited me that was tully's mind almost exploded. And then we went to dinner at an Italian place. And Stan got Jamie Summers's number and kept up with her for some time after that, as I recall. But nevertheless, that was how all that happened. And then I ended up, Steve Hirsch was doing the 900 numbers, the phone sex lines. He was early in that. But I've got him, unfortunately, to hook up with the LPWA. Remember Torberg, the promoter, to do the super ladies 900 number.

And he loved the idea and it had all the potential in the world and we were writing it, etc. He put out money up front and was going to do a big deal with this. And then Tor went under because the magnificent Mimi's rich boyfriend in Las Vegas wouldn't bankroll it anymore, even if she was the world champion. and then I felt bad because poor Steve Hirsch lost money on the fucking deal and I moved and we lost contact. But there you have that. You know, I know the magnificent Mimi, you know, had a good body and, you know,

I'm sure like up close she was beautiful and everything. But when I was a kid and they had her in the magazines, she looked like not old, but there was something, I don't know. She looked different than it wasn't even really. And she wasn't horrible. but that was from what I understood from Scuddlebutt was that Mimi's boyfriend had money and was helping finance the tapings. But Mimi's boyfriend was under the assumption she was going to be the world champion and et cetera. And that didn't pan out and that got lost.

And is that all you want to say about your friends in the porn industry? Is there any more to the scene? Oh, well, no, there's no one. What do you want me to confess something? You and the Dark Brothers. What do you have to say? Well, one was dark and one was light. See?

So they went together. No, but that was how that happened to happen with the crossover with the Midnight Express and the adult industry. All right. I got a picture on my office wall of me and Stan with our arms around Ginger Lynn, Jamie Summers, and Lonnie Sanders. And Bobby was scared to go to dinner, too. I think he thought Donna would be mad.

No, Bobby didn't. That's, Bobby didn't go to dinner either. He had to think Donna would be mad. Did he just think, like, their porn stars, they're going to throw themselves at us? Like, what did he? I don't, he was just embarrassed. I don't think he thought, you know,

his mother might be ashamed of him if he went to dinner with the porn girls. I saw that photo because you had it in the book, man, Stan Lane looks like he looks like he feels like he's Stan Lane. You know, he just, if there's anyone I wish I could go back and just live a year and the life of, Stan Lane must have had the greatest fucking life for a traveling wrestler, I'll tell you.

But Jim, with that, on this preparedness note, the drive-thru closes. All right, we'll be back in a few days. Another episode of Nightmarean. We'll be back in a few days. on the Jim Cornett experience. And next week back here on the drive-through, of course you can go through the archive.

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But until the experience in a few days and next week back here on the drive-thru, For Jim Cornett, I'm the Great Brian last. Tally-ho!