Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru - Episode 448

Episode Date: June 20, 2026

This week on the Drive Thru, Jim reviews Jade Cargill's wig mishap on Smackdown, and The Bloodline's drama on WWE Raw! Plus Jim returns to his list of the top wrestlers in their 40s in 1984, and looks at issues of Matwatch from March 1989! Also, Jim talks about retro figures, the gorilla press, Heenan Family or Callis Family, injuries now vs. then, and much more! Thanks to our episode sponsors: SHOPIFY:  Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/jce WILLIE'S REMEDY:  Order now at drinkwillies.com and use code JCE for 20% off your first order + free shipping on orders over $95, and enjoy life in the high country. 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.

Oh yeah. Testify. Oh shit, something must be wrong. Bravo! Hello again, friends, and you are our friends. It's the Bazaarro. He's happy with the music, and you're listening to Jim Cornett's drive-thru right here

on another seemingly pleasant day. I'm your host, the great Brian last. I'm yelling, but the yelling will stop, and we will have a good time for the rest of the program with this man, the leader of the cult of Cornett. Mr. Jim Cornett. Bravo, Brian, Bravo.

Encore, encore. That is the best job you have ever done to play with your organ. It brought the sun is beaming in the windows. It brought it even more in in a golden fashion. Just like a golden shower coming through the podcast earphones out there and podcast land into the people's heads you've given them. It's amazing. Bravo.

Wonderful musician. What a wonderful time to be around. I guess it's a good point to mention. Now, this episode is sponsored by Willie's Remedy, and obviously some people started early here today. But yeah, it's a great day to be around. Well, no, I haven't even had a sip of the remedy. I haven't had time, bright up, I've had pressing time issues on my hands

because I said we were going to have a big announcement. Might as well go at the top of the program here. I said we were going to have a big announcement this week here on the drive-through. I did not want to say anything before this has been in the planning stages for a number of weeks now, but I didn't want to say anything to let actually happen because I didn't want to jinx it, as Mama Cornette would say. I didn't want to put a mojo on it, as Bobby Eaton would say. I didn't want to in any way cross anything up. But now that the event has taken place, I'm proud to announce that it is a blessed event that we have had here at Castle Cornett.

And there are two new members of the Cornette family, the two princes, the heirs to the throne of the castle, Cornet, ladies and gentlemen, and I will let you decide who named who, because I named one and Stacey named the other one, but they are brothers from the same family,

Alfred Puddinsworth Cornett, and Nature Boy Buddy Cornet. And they are a dead. adorable. Alfie's got Buddy by eight ounces, three pounds even to three pounds eight. But Alfie is the grappler and buddy, as you would imagine, is the high spot artist. But we have, we have increased our family by 50% Brian. Well, Mazel Tov, this is a wonderful occurrence. I saw some pictures. They are mighty cute. Mighty, mighty cute. I think everyone's very happy for you.

And in terms of the names, Nature Boy Buddy Cornett, I'm assuming that's a fan of Buddy Rogers. Well, and here, actually, there is a deeper, a deeper wrestling connection than that, because, of course, you'll know this. What was the name of Lance Russell's longtime companion

and best friend? His longtime companion and best friend? His dog. What was his name, Buddy? Lance's dog's name was Buddy. And that was the- I almost said Dave Brown. No, God, I'm done talking.

Jesus Christ. You imagine if Lance had to have Lance named his dog, Dave, Brown. All right, now he made me hurt myself. That's already in a good mood to begin with. But no, Lance is,

Lance Russell's dog's name. was buddy and and and and they were it's just such a great name for a dog so that influenced me and when you think about buddy and i think about you have to i didn't want to go with landel so you know nature boy buddy after nature boy buddy rogers and buddy russell but nevertheless and he said high spots i knew it wasn't buddy landau but also you were going to ask about Stacey's name choice. Yeah, what's the name again? Alfred Puddinsworth, Cornett.

Alfred, because Harley Quinn from Batman, well, who is Batman's trusted English bootler, Alfred, and we called Harley Puddins because of Harley Quinn has the Puddin's. It's all, it's just, it's so interconnected. It's a diagram on the wall with the pins and the strings. and they all fit together. And they're Pomeranians, by the way, both of them. But Alfie is black and white and buddy is,

I don't know if it's a brown or a gray and white, possibly a mauve. I'm not sure, but just enough to be able to distinguish between the two of them because the way that they move around, you have to know by color because they, it's a goddamn old shell game three card Monty whatever the fuck's going on where they're just rotating I call them the demons or the brothers grim

at some various points but they're wrestling constantly and that's why Alfred he's got the eight ounce weight advantage so he's good on the ground but buddy can fly and I've seen headlock takeovers I've seen German suplex

and Buddy did a cross-body frog splash off the couch. When we did not, when we got Harley as a puppy, we were not aware until years later that she had a bad hip socket, which was why that she never jumped up or down, right? She stayed level. Well, these fucking maniacs, it's like I got two Darby Allens and they weigh within a couple of pounds of the same thing. So you can imagine when they're just flying off of whatever you put them on,

we're afraid to leave them on the bed because we don't know what their mental state is. Do they realize we can't jump off the goddamn cliff? Are they how derbyish are they? So we're keeping them low to the ground to determine how acrobatic they are. But they wrestle constantly and play constantly. And they've got 46 toys on the ground. they love the same one and they have a tug of war over it and one will steal it from the other and thus begins the wrestling.

But they're just adorable little things. I feel 15 years younger, Brian. As soon as those kids of yours get 18 or 20 or whatever it is and you can kick them out of the house legally without getting taken to court, get you some puppies. It'll make you 15 years younger. And of course, stay tuned for some puppy wrestling videos with Jim Cornett Commentary. coming to the official Jim Cornett channel. You know what?

Now here, hold on. Hold on here. Oh, and you can smell it down the road, boy. They're little poop factories. But you just hit on something there. You may have buried the lead. If the cult, it gives us some feedback.

If they demand it, we will shoot video of the dog wrestling and I will commentate over it and put it on the YouTube channel. Well, who's going to film it? It has to be shot well. Well, Hotchkiss is going to bring the high definition who could fucking 4,000 K fucking camera we got over here

and he'll do it right, but only if people would want to see because we can't just spend all this fucking money in the editing process and the blah, blah, blah, to have two dogs wrestle and me talk about it unless anybody would want to see it. I'm not the person who would just slap people in the face with my kid's pictures. Here's buddy and here's Alfi. I'll just talk about them on my podcast.

All right. Well, find out what's it all about, Alfie. But they've already got like 3,000 likes on fucking Twitter from the picture where we introduced them. So we're thinking of actually Stace tried to make them. Was it a Twitter account or an Instagram? Whatever, she tried to make them an account, but she put in their shoot birthday and she got like some kind of notice. They weren't old enough to have this account because they're like fucking 10 weeks old.

There's a 10 week old baby prodigy at the keyboard trying to set up his fucking Instagram. All right, well, we'll hopefully get a pleasant updates about this in the future. It sounds like a... Yeah, you may hear them by the end of the program here today. I may have to watch them while Stace runs an errand because they bear watching. their chewers also.

See, Harley was so timid that we just got used to that, you know, but these two, being boys, you ought to see their little balls. These cute little balls. Would you like to kiss their little balls, Brian? What the hell is the problem? Anyway, Harley wouldn't do anything wrong with anything,

but these two, they're trying to chew on cords and turn the table lamps over. I'm having to take that tape and go around and dress all the goddamn electrical wiring in the house. for these two Tasmanian devils. And you will be getting them neutered, correct? Well, what did? That's going to be, Jesus Christ.

It's a yes or no question. It's a yes or no. Yeah, I don't want to think about that right. When we had Harley fixed, and it's fixed, it's not whatever the fuck you said. That's not what Bob Barker would say. Bob Barker didn't say, get your pets fixed. Well, Bob Barker was a vulgar lech on daytime television. was abusing his position of power to fuck those fucking girls on the show that are 40 years younger.

So I prefer the delicate term that I could use around Mama Cornette that she always used, which was we're going to get him fixed or get her fixed or whatever it was. So did you get fixed that she was using this all the time? Well, we got a couple fixed. And she would talk about other people's pets as to whether or not they'd got them fixed or not. But the point is, Harley, she was a year old, and I was a nervous wreck for fucking a week beforehand and several days, however long it was afterwards, the idea of my little baby being operated on. And since they're both boys, we don't have to really worry about anything unless it's a, if the vet tells us it's a health benefit or something. but otherwise I don't want to think about somebody taking a knife to these cute little fluff balls

as soon as I've got them. They're going to start marking territory all over your house, peeing here, peeing there. Do they pee at the same time? Do they go to the bathroom at the same time? Oh, no, no. And they're pretty good about peeing on a pad already. And because they've been in the house with the people that raised them to this point. and then they've the example of the older dogs, etc.

But they'll just just poop when they need to poop. But the P-Spot is like a size of a silver dollar. We have oxy-clean spray at every room of the house along with a stack of rags. And there's only certain areas that they're allowed in right now that they can be trusted with supervision or they're into playpen. But I've had custom made, had the Monroe brothers come over and custom make dividers that we can slide into little hooks that blocks off all the rooms that just have open airways instead of doors and things so we can contain them in these certain airlocks. It's a whole system here, Brian. We got a whole system worked out. But anyway, you drove

to Kokomo to get these little babies also, which is, remember last year when I went to the Fephyr collection in South Bend. Yeah. And it was supposed to rain, and I was hoping I was going to beat it. And I drove all, as soon as I got to the most dangerous part of the entire journey, the loop around Indianapolis, 465, with the construction and the chaos and the traffic. And that's where it began to pour rain on me, where I ended up having to pull over and had to piss out the fucking door while I was being rained on in a parking lot

in the middle of nowhere, Indianapolis. You remember that? I do. Same direction. It's overcast all day, hoping I'm going to beat the rain, and right as we get to the loop, it's when it starts raining. But it did not become a deluge like last year,

just a steady drizzle, and all the way to Kokomo, and as soon as we got to the place and met the lady and got to puppies and got back in the car, sun came out shiny clouds past all the way back beautiful weather it was a sign brian a sign from from pluto god of the dogs all right once again willie's remedy link willies dot com used the code jCE for 20% off and clearly have a great time we'll talk about them later on in the program this is your show but i've got to

ask you a question. I'd asked you earlier if you'd seen anything in the news lately, this is where we went on the air. And you didn't know what I was talking about. I'll say, but I've got to ask you, this has been because I've been getting the puppies and we were tied up with the puppies for a few days. This is probably by the time the people hear this, it'll be a week old or whatever. But have you seen the footage of the bungee jumper? Oh, that's one of the worst things. That's what we're going to talk about? I'm asking you if you've seen that.

You're talking about the girl just died? Yes. I've seen it all over the news, yes. How the fuck did that happen on any level? Anybody? There's six people that pick this girl up over their head and throw her head first off a clip. the girl herself who was being picked up by six people and thrown off a goddamn cliff,

the person that's holding the video camera that is watching six people pick this girl up and throw her off a cliff and not one single solitary son of a bitch bothered to mention, hey she ain't tied to anything has anybody explained how this fucking happened i've just seen this clip on twitter of these people calmly picking this girl up and throwing her off a cliff on camera i assume it's i was not able to pick out any english being spoken or much of any talking going on but i assume it is somewhere else But how have you heard any update while I've been dealing with puppy poop of what happened here? I'm looking for something I saw a little bit earlier, and I can't find it, but there was something I saw that was even, I shouldn't say more disturbing because it couldn't be, they killed this girl.

And apparently she wasn't dead when they found her. She was still alive. What? Yeah. Would it like 150 feet? But apparently before they threw her, I guess one of the main throwers bungeeed himself holding either a baby or a small child. So the whole, I'm trying to find there's so many awful stories in the newspaper.

Jelly Rolls getting divorced. Who was this a do-it-yourself deal? I mean, over there, it's not like an official goddamn bungee place where these, did these people just show up on the edge of a fucking mountain with ropes or cords or whatever? they use and say, hey, let's all do this? Here's a headline. A terrified woman backed out of the same bungee jump stunt that a Brazilian student took just before plunging to her death without a cord.

One of the instructors revealed. Wow, so this is just a regular thing they do in Brazil, I guess. There was an instructor of something there? What was he an instructor of, does it say? Uh, hold on. A terrified woman had an incredible escape by backing out of the bungee jump that moments later saw a Brazilian student plunging to her death without a chord one of the instructors revealed.

The jumping instructor, who was only identified as Gustavo, said he was putting the jumping equipment on his customers in Sao Paulo when one of them got too scared to make the leap, according to TV record. The quote, The girl got scared and gave up. Gustavo told Jesus

Gustavo told the local outlet with the instructor then moving on to equip 21-year-old student Maria,

Eduardo, Rodriguez de Fraitas. I hope I'm getting some of that correct. And I gotta scroll down, Gustavo said

his back was turned to work on another customer when his co-worker lifted Rodriguez de Ferretas up over their heads and tossed her

off the 130-foot abandoned railway span known as Skeleton Bridge. Of course it was. There were six of them. There were six of them that picked her up while his back was turned. Would any individual that might be picking this girl up would have to see that she was tied to nothing?

And they just calmly held her up and pitched her. And she's not screaming. Brano, do you, if you're going to do this and and here's this why i have little sympathy because if i think you're a complete goddamn moron if you're going to let anybody even NASA tie something around your arm or your leg or your dick or whatever they think will hold best and fucking throw you off a cliff fuck you there's goddave you're just getting in the way of fucking people in traffic and you're wasting oxygen you're an it's a it's a

idiot. But to not be aware that you are not tied to anything if you were going to commit to this stunt and go through with it before the people throw you off the cliff, what am I supposed

to think? And if there's somebody with a camera, he's shoot what the fuck? He's not, I know it's in Brazilian, as Lance was, hey, Hector, tell him in Mexican to get off of there. It's in Brazilian, but still the cameraman is not waving going, no, stop!

What the fuck's the matter with these people? Well, here's the- I apologize. Here's the article I was telling you about before. Apparently it wasn't the same day, but from the New York Post, video shows Brazilian bungee instructor performing terrifying stunt with child before arrest in untethered woman's fatal plunge. And here's one of the instructors.

and he's holding a small child in his arms and bungee jumping. With, just like holding, like, rather than strap to? Wrap your arms around my neck and I'll hold you at the waist is what it looks like here. Oh, not even like when they're, firemen are rescuing somebody and they strap them to their back or whatever, like a goddamn backpack. There appear to be some straps on the kid, but I can't tell, I don't know, either way, this looks dangerous as far. This is the same skeleton bridge or whatever the fuck from before, so it's not a pleasant location. I don't know if you saw a wide shot of this.

And then as I'm looking for this, hear from today's paper. Second woman in Brazil plunges 100 feet to her death and freak hiking accident after bungee tragedy. People just dropping dead a little over. 59-year-old hiker plunged 100 feet to her death after slipping on a steep Brazilian trail while applying bug spray.

Well, at least she's not going to get that Rocky Mountain spotted fever. What the fuck? Are you 60 years old? What do you just, if you're not in a goddamn some type of licensed competition, what are you doing putting yourself in position to fall 100 feet from anything?

And while applying bug sprays, spray. Was she being swarmed by goddamn murder hornets at the time? What is the matter with everybody? Stay home and play with your puppies. Yeah, we started off on such a nice note.

Now you really took it down to the bungee traffic level. See, I feel even better now because nobody threw me off a fucking cliff. And I didn't fall on my own. A lot of people fucking haven't vertigo these days.

but I got both feet firmly planted on the ground. One hand in my pocket and the other hand on a Pomeranian. But there's still time in the workday to get stuff out from Cornett's collectibles at Jimcornaut.com. You couldn't wait to get that started, could you? Boy, howdy, I'll tell you, and again, I'm not up to date. Hotchkiss is coming over tomorrow to see the new additions to the family. family and he'll have more information for me. But when we did the show a few days ago,

we were passed, I believe, 140 copies of heroes and friends that is all for the month of June, the proceeds of which at Jimcornette.com, are going to the WHAS crusade for children. And we will have, obviously, the first week of July. We'll have an update on what that total was because the day, we've still got, as we sit here, two weeks in the month or a little bit less,

by the time the people hear it. So anything could happen. And again, pass the word around amongst these cretiness blotches on humanity that don't like me, and they can try to cost me money at the same time. And there's all the other fine products available at Jim Cornett.com, including the T-shirts and the videos and the books and the collectibles and the all sorts of things. But heroes and friends proceeds this month for the Crusade for Children

and more details on the count as it continues to rise next week at jim cornet.com. At jimcornaet.com. I said those things. Well, Jim, as we move on here with the show before. Oh, and by the way, I understand we have a bunch of fans at WHA. They included us on the WHAS crusade email with the totals and everything, because they appreciated our plugging the telethon and everything. and I understand that their bow-tied 14-year-old weather man is a member of the cult of Quartet at large.

And so, well, I know I'm trying to say I appreciate that the young man's get up and go. Because, you know, I'm an old man. My get up and go has got up and went. But he's got get up and go. He was on the crusade. He was holding a microphone, you know, interviewing the various fire departments. And he's out there given the weather when he's only seen. like 13, 14 seasons of weather.

All right, come on. How could he really, he's a child prodigy. When he hits 18 and starts shaving and his voice changes, he's going to be a fucking, he's network. Network all the way, baby. He's going to be on the weather champion. Well, once again, I think his name is Austin Evans, and he's a member of the class of Cornett and very proud to be,

so we don't want to say too many bad things about him. That's why I'm putting him over. Can you imagine once he gets. a driver's license. There's going to be no stopping this young man. He's got, he's the American dream, baby. Well, once he gets to network, if you get to New York, look me up, you get a free hot dog and a Coke. But Jim, look you over is what he ought to do. I don't know what the hell that's supposed to mean, but once again, thank you WHAS for your sense of humor. I guess we should say. But Jim, as we move on here, want to make mention of something, Jason Ocarado, who

is, of course, one of the most important members of our team. He recently suffered a loss. His grandmother passed away at the age of 93, and we're terribly sorry to hear about that. And, of course, we send our positive thoughts to him and his family, but wanted to make mention of that here, Jim. Well, and Jay says you said, he is the biggest part of our flywheel, let's put it that way. And, no, we hate to hear that, but what an amazing. that's an amazing

lifespan and so he's got that to be thankful for but Jase we're thinking about you and hopefully you will be mentioned in the will I know that oh come on now stop you know well I know there was some infighting amongst the you know members of the family they just found out about a few years ago

you know when back when the old guy was in the merchant marine and what you know once again we send our positive thoughts His grandmother was a nurse and, you know, blah, blah, blah. You know. To Jace and to his whole family. But Jim, as we move on here with the show, we talked about Matt Watch last week,

the old Steve Beverly newsletter, which had a different look at wrestling news because it was coming from the angle of a television, I don't know if executive is the right word, but someone who was in the field, someone who cared about ratings. Go ahead. And, and, yes,

And you can't even say he was on television and did news programs and things of that nature. But he wasn't necessarily a personality, but just someone in the television business and later taught broadcasting in some fashion. I can't remember what his exact title was, but for that type of television inside person. It was in some fashion. I believe it was Italian shoes. But what we have here, Jim, last week we talked about, I believe, March of 1990, February 1990 into March. Let's go back a year, and I have some issues here. And I want to thank a couple people.

Jamie Ward and Joey Image are two people who in the past have sent me, who in the past have helped me get copies, I guess I should say, of issues of Matt Watch that I needed. But this is from March 20th to 26, 1989, Matwatch, Volume 1, number 39, Steve's sidelines by Steve Beverly, in the midnight hour. And there's a quote, if one goes, we all go. Jim Cornett, TBS, February 18th, 1989.

Some weeks, something just has to be said. For several weeks now, the prospect of an NWA without Jim Cornett in the that express has been the subject of perpetual rumor. With their existing contract expiring April 15, that prospect has taken on more than subtle overtones. Let me preface my remarks by saying, I have talked to Jim Cornett all of about five times in my life.

So he hardly qualifies as the brother I never had, or my running buddy. This past week, TBS took a pie. positive step by offering the Midnights and Cornett a new contract, not for the $225,000 a year each Jim Crockett inked them for, an unrealistic figure based on house and pay revenues, but for a respectable salary figure nonetheless. Yet, the deal is not as certain as one might think or hope. Matt Watch has learned from sources outside the company that questions, remain as to how the Midnight Express

will be used and whether their exposure will be worthwhile. We have even been told that some elements within the company believe the Midnight's major days as money draws are over, and one influential party

still holds either a grudge or at least ill feelings with Bobby Eaton over a situation many years past. Let me stop there for a moment, because I don't know what that references. I don't either.

Who would have been an influential person at that point in time? George Scott, Jim Barnett, Jim Crockett, Jr., Jim Hurd, Jack Petrick, who would have anything on, you're going so fast, but see, here's the thing is Steve, because he mentioned he'd hardly talked to me five times, and truthfully, I was more accessible than probably. almost anybody else on the roster in those days to talk to because I've started getting the newsletter and, you know, most of the guys weren't at that point. I was, I was, it was easier to get the numbers that we were doing, the ratings and et cetera from Matt Watch than it was we worked in the fucking company. Nevertheless, Steve was talking to the Jim Hurds and the Joe

Petesinos and the other people who considered themselves TV people. Heard thought Steve Beverly was smarter and better than Dave Meltzer because he was older and a real person rather than David

always been in wrestling. Pedicito had been a program executive in Atlanta so he had some TV, he had some credibility with Hurd and Beverly. That that was an entire click of people in that orbit, right?

And so I don't know necessarily, while Meltzer at the time was usually getting most information from talent rather than office, Beverly was getting more information from office than talent. And I don't know what the story was going around in the office, but our issue became that, when George Scott was hired as Booker, and I've told this I'm not going to go through it

because we've got other, you know, Matt watch stuff to get to, and I've said, told us story a million times. But George Scott didn't want to give us the time of day, me and Bobby and Stan, didn't have any plans for us. It told us to our face when we cornered him and said, you know, what are your plans? I don't know what I'm going to do with you guys.

And he'd actually never spoken. to Bobby Eaton, maybe that's where it came from. Because that's a twisted kind of version of Bobby. George Scott, the whole time that we were working there, and they brought him in his booker, never spoke directly to Bobby Eaton once. What do you mean? I ignored him like when they were right next to each other, like in the same room or anything? Yes, one time Bobby opened a fucking door for him, but George Scott just walked right by him.

Bobby came and told me about it. He addressed us as the three of us in a few brief times that we talked to him, but he never even spoke to Bobby. Maybe that's some convoluted version of that. But the point is, we quit. We quit before the negotiations with Heard. We quit because George Scott was Booker and wasn't going to use us. And we said this motherfucker is going to fail dramatically.

and we'll just quit and we'll do something else and he'll be gone soon enough. And as we're about to find out, the prophecy came true a little bit quicker we thought, but what was your question you were going to ask? Yeah, real quick on this. Obviously Bobby didn't like George Scott's son, but that's a different thing because what it said here was ill feelings of Bobby Eden over a situation many years past. George Scott looked Mid-Atlantic, Leroy McGurke, eventually Vince McMahon, did he ever encounter Bobby Eaton before 89 that you know him?

No. No, I'd never met him either. Dennis, I believe, probably had met him in the 70s when he wouldn't have give a fuck who Dennis was possibly. But, but no. And say, that's the thing. His son Byron was the referee who Bobby Eaton, of all people, said, that some bitch looks like he's on heroin. And Bobby didn't hardly knock anybody, right?

but Byron Scott was a mealy-faced-looking stooge. And but that was when we were coexisting there, but to, you know, that brief period of time. But that's the point is, is that we were still on the contract. We'd signed with Crockett that TBS had assumed to earn 25 grand a year apiece. And when that was coming up, which was the middle of April, we saw that this was before I did a renegotiation with herd we saw that

fucking Scott wasn't going to use this and we gave our notice and then as we'll about find out the timeline George Scott gets fired before we even work out the notice and that's when they asked us to come back Jim Ross on behalf of the booking committee but where Steve says a new contract was offered, yes, it was, but there was no amount set to it at that point. It was just like, you guys come back and we'll refigures out, no, we're still going to go because we need a break.

But go ahead. First, from this corner, it may indeed be true that the Midnights cannot draw ZNWA World Tag Team champions as they could in 1985. But then again, the Rogue Warriors aren't exactly. selling out houses in 1989. But unless an Owenhart Brian Pilman combination is available, I can't name you a team to match the buoyancy, work rate, and precision of Lane and Eaton,

and you sure won't find it in Vincent Young and Steve Casey. And by the way, Vincent Young was fucking Strongbo's kid that George guy was doing a favor for because they'd known each other for 30 years. the breakdancing buffoon. Second, this is 1989. And I'm sick to nausea of people in the pro wrestling business letting old grudges serve to foul up quality performers.

That and ego is what finally ended the NWA stewardship of Dusty Roads and has no room in a contemporary media organization. Besides, the NWA is already minus the Fantastics and can ill afford to lose a counterpart baby-faced team. It's important to note you guys were baby faces at this time. As for Mr. Coronet, he may have his detractors in and out of the NWA, but they are few. Since 1985, Jim Cornett has been to the NWA what Don Knott's was to the NWA,

what Don Knotts was to the Andy Griffith show, what Alan Ludden was the password. And by the way, I should say the Steve also hosted some local television and later on did radio on, he was an expert on like 60s TV sitcoms and local news programs and various old television trivia. As he shows here in his sentence, once again, since 1985, Jim Cornett has been to the NWA, what Don Knott's was to the Andy Griffith

show, what Alan Ludden was the password, and what B. Benadarrett was the Pedicote Junction. When those performers left their respective programs, the show's continued, but without the verve and spark of the past. Such, I feel, is the gem-like quality of Cornett. who, in my view, is worth at least half a national cable rating point in the midst of a sea of televised mismatches. His win as Matt Watch 1988 outstanding TV personality is hardly essential, but, as a past TV news executive, I can tell you managers would be fighting over anchor talent

with that kind of following. Let's stop there. That may be the greatest, the nicest things that he was ever written about you all in a row. Well, he certainly didn't endear himself to Jim Hurd with all of that flowery verbiage there. You know, it's flattering, but again, Steve was seeing things through the eyes of someone who's obviously well-versed. television and television history and was just a wrestling fan because he was from down south

and everybody was. But he looked at it as the television business. That's why his bulletin only covered the TV aspect of things. And, you know, I was consistent. I was pretty good and interesting. It never got boring.

So as a performer, you know, I was like when fucking You know, the plate spinner showed up on Ed Sullivan. Or maybe, you know, fucking, I started to say Rip Torn, but who was it? Rip, Rip Who on the Gong show? God damn it, what was his last name? Rip Taylor.

Rip Taylor would come out and smother his face in J.P. Morgan's boobies, whatever. I was, you know, there was something going on while I was on TV, so he appreciated that. True. Polly Dangerously is being built into a managerial star. And he is one of my personal favorites. But while no man is irreplaceable, there is only one Jim Cornett. To think of an NWA Saturday without him is like Lawrence Welk without bubbles. Jeez, what a reference.

Plus, the Midnight Express ought to be showcased in places other than Chalette, North Carolina. shallote excuse me when the rest of the gang is in the big towns I'm not privy to what problems may yet exist

but as painful as it is for me to say we've seen people come into the NWA with far less star quality recently than the Midnight Express and Jim Cornett money is said not to be a big factor and the threesome is not said

to covet working for Titan sports so whatever the remains hanging hangups on both sides of the fence. Let's get them settled for the sake of people who buy tickets and possess rating service diaries. Oh, so wait a minute. Now, this was the end of March, right? This was March 20th to 26th, the week of. Okay, so they hadn't fired George Scott yet. No, because the crash hadn't happened yet. That's right. That's right. So, So yes, okay, then technically he was right. I wasn't saying he was technically right,

but they had offered us a new contract and we had not discussed money, but we had said, no, we're not going to stay here and let this guy beat us into powder. And we were betting that if we left and took time out, the boys went to Japan, whatever, that sooner or later they'd get rid of this fucking idiot. and we didn't know that again we because in the middle of April was our last day and the clash was what like the 6th of April and they fired him by three days later so that's when Jim Ross on behalf of the committee that heard it installed I said okay well God well just don't leave well no we were already booked in Continental Dundee was booking we had a few dates there we wanted time off

and so we agreed that we would come back in June, which happened to be for the, when they were doing the NWA World Tag Team title tournaments, so that's why they brought us back that specific week. And then I had to start talking to herd about the fucking contracts. And that's when he pissed us off even further. And that was a whole long, goddamn drawn-out process. We have a part two here, but real quick,

because we did the 1990 ratings and at that point you were on the booking committee just getting ready to end your run on the booking committee. I think it's interesting to note where they were a year before, cable ratings for March 11th of March 13th, 1989. WWF Primetime Wrestling

USA Network Monday, March 13th, a 3.7 with a 5.7 share, 1.732 million homes. W.W.F. All-American wrestling, USA, March 12th, a 3.2, 8.6 share, 1.498 million. NWA. And by the way, we should bring up again for people who didn't hear the first segment. In those days, that's homes. That's not viewers. They considered the viewers per home at like 1.8 something around this era. So basically a couple of people per home. to get total number of viewers. And that's why the, and again,

the cable numbers are different than network broadcast television, but that's for the universe that the cable systems had at the time, the fives and seven shares and things of that nature meant that 7% of everybody, a 7 share meant 7% of everybody watching any television was watching your show. Well, again, All-American Wrestling 8.6. NWA main event, TBS, March 12th, a 2.8, 5.5 share, 1.353 million. And the main event was the Sunday show, right? I believe so, yes.

And so that was a 2.1? A 2.8 with a 5-5 share. Well, a 2.8. One year later, Flair would have the Sunday show up to the height of a 4.4. NWA World Championship Wrestling, TBS Saturday, March 11th. A 2.2

would a 4.2 share 1.06 million homes. And that would be the February of 1990 Flair and Pilbun Saturday night made a, or Saturday night WCW show,

did a 4.0, so he doubled it. And I have an analysis is here from Beverly, but NWA main event AM, the morning of March 11th on TBS, did at 0.8, with a six share, 386,400 viewers. So that was the replay of the fucking Sunday night show from the previous week

or whatever the fuck, early in the morning on Saturday, but it's still doing 300-something thousand homes. Here's the analysis from Steve Beverly. the WrestleMania 5 build keeps primetime wrestling hopping along. The 3.7 Monday night was even higher than the face-to-face special. The Red Flag is with the NWA Saturday Night Show, which hit a low for 1989 with a 2.2, even with Rick Flair competing.

The 705 AM show posted its same rating for the fourth straight week, but interestingly, Gunsmoke, was averaging a 1.4 before wrestling was moved into the early slot. So, you know, you're talking about your issues with George Scott. The other issue was George Scott was killing the TV shows. Well, yes, and that's the thing. George Scott was killing the TV shows and killing the houses, and he was booking us to kill us,

and we were going to fucking put up with it. And that's what, we were the only ones to say, fuck this guy, we'll quit and go away and we'll come back when he's gone. Well, I'll go to the next issue and we'll end with this. Obviously there's other things than not at other issue, but I wanted to finish this story.

Matt Watch, volume 1 number 40, March 27th to April 2nd, 1989. Steve's sidelights by Steve Beverly, The Clock Strikes 12. There's a picture of Stan

you and Bobby. I don't know, where this is from. Stans looking down in glasses. You're waving with a big smile on your face and Bobby's covering his face. I don't know. I have no idea where this is from. Looks like you guys are getting into an elevator

and it's closing. Lawrence Welk has turned off the bubble machine. Oh, boy. And Saturday nights just aren't the same. We have found your biggest fan, I think. Now, bear in mind, these references were only like 15 years. old at the time.

Another vestige of the Jim Crockett NWA era was peeled away last Wednesday. When Jim Cornett and a Midnight Express made the decision not to accept new contracts and 125,000 per year each.

The decision? See, I don't know where he's getting that because it, okay, but that's, if we ended up, I got, I got, as I've told the story a million times, I got more, and the boys got that, and we had to fucking argue about that. The decision, so Matt Watch has learned from sources outside the TBS organization, was not based

on a money problem or a desire to work for another organization. Cornett, sources say, could not get assurances that the team would be used in a fashion other than to lose matches to get other teams over. The collective feeling of the trio is that they would be placed in a scenario which may have killed the Midnight's career within a year. Jim Hurd and Jack Petrick, both NWA executives were out of the TBS offices Friday when we tried to reach them,

but we will endeavor to contact them next week. As for me, I am sick. Sick because both sides were unable to come to an agreement. I have been told by reliable sources that the company wanted Cornett to manage other T. or wrestlers, but he was unwilling to break up the Midnight Act, a decision which may have placed him in an untenable position with TBS. However, I disagree with some elements of the NWA who have...

See, here's the thing. I guess he's getting this from Hurd because Hurd already wasn't a fan of ours, and he's talking to the office, but it... we didn't give a shit and I don't know besides Jim heard nobody else disliked me nor particularly me them but the point of there was no untenable position we were not going to stay while George Scott was in charge of the booking matchmaking creative or whatever the fuck we were going to do and that and we because I was working with JR and most of that said, look, here, no, no, we will see you.

Well, back to this. However, I disagree with some elements of the NWA who have rigidly stuck to the view that a babyface manager can't get over. In my view, the change in style of the Cornette Midnights combo last October freshened a focus on one of the profession's most talented tag teams, and pop crowds for the effervescent cornet on shows when few other feuds were doing so. Let me stop there. Who was complaining about you as a baby-face manager? Who was using that as the excuse?

Probably Jim Hurd. And remember he came from St. Louis. Sam Muchnik used Bobby Heenan. And that was it as a manager at St. Louis. Was Barnett in his ear yet? well see that's the thing Barnett was little Sir Echo at that point in time

Barnett was telling Hurd he wasn't going to die on my hill because Barnett never liked me when I first met him because that's what I was cussing the office out for running that bunkhouse stampede and the Nassau Coliseum and it's all laying a turd

to fucking punch bowl but he if if Hurd was for something Barnett would find a reason for him to be for it. If he was against something, Barnett could find him a reason to be against it. So, again,

this is the office's version of whatever's going on. The Coronet-Paul E. Dangerously tensions have been so hot that not even the departure of Dennis Conjury for the Loser Leaves NWA showdown of Midnights versus Midnights at Chytown Rumble could kill fan enthusiasts.

for this much underrated program. Plus, has it dawned on you that the two teams responsible for broadcast match of the year, according to your Matwatch votes in 1988, are now gone or headed out of the NWA only one year after the classic Midnight's Fantastics matchups? Did they decline that quickly? I hardly think so. but someone in the TBS organization obviously did am I blaming the company totally for this state of affairs

no it made a respectable money offer to keep cornet in the midnights and they made the decision to reject but what bothers me more than anything is the distinct feeling that an influential element within the NWA hierarchy and I'm not referring to Hurt or Petrick obviously did not want them as a serious force, and Cornett, not reputed as a complainer, came away feeling as though this same element had no desire to communicate with him, Bobby Eaton, or Stan Wayne.

George Scott. Yeah, and also, at that time, I was not known as a complainer. Because I didn't think anything to complain about until TBS showed up. except what I was cussing the office about the bunkhouse stampede in the Nassau Coliseum. Regardless of where the Midnights and Corny End up. And by the way, in our defense, we just did a segment on the Midnight Express and Tully Blanchard-Arne-Anderson matches, talking about the business coming back in Crockett promotions right before the sale of the company to TBS. point being this is we're talking we're in March 1989 going into April 1989 in August and

September of 1988 in world tag team title matches the midnight had been involved in record houses in Richmond Virginia and six figure houses in goddamn Charlotte and Baltimore and the list that we went down and suddenly these fucking hatchet heads come in and go oh well fuck you so we went no fuck you regardless of where the midnights and corny end up right now they plan to work as in these but bet the house they'll be and by the way by the way we forgot to mention a name that was kind of Jim Ross was kind of a wrestling person, but kind of a TV person. He was trying to straddle the chasm between the wrestling side and the television side.

And Jim Ross and Steve Beverly had numerous conversations because they can relate. Television, ad sales, blah, blah, blah. And JR is really the first one that started. Maybe Bobby, I can't remember which one first started calling me corny. right now they plan to work as indies but bet the house they'll be in titan a place they don't yearn to work in short order my question to the n w a is the same one as last week who do you have out there better true a positive move is being made with the incoming brian pilman but who do you team him with and anything less than owen hart chris ben wry Brad or Scott Armstrong or Tom Pritchard is, in my view, no improvement.

You know the worst of it? I can't help but feel this could have been avoided with better communication and a little more give and take. But unless something better is on the way, it will not be regarded well by NWA fans. I, for one, don't feel cornet at 27 is a candidate for AARP. And there it is, an interesting look in real time

as to how it was being reported in the infancy of wrestling inside media. And basically, you know, to finish it out, as I said, what was it, the three or four days after the early April clash of champions, which was flare and steamboat in the Superdome that drew, what, 1,200 people at a 60,000 seat?

and the ratings were the shits and George Scott was the shits and they fired him. And JR called me on the phone as well, George Scott is fired. Would you guys stay? And I said, no, we won't stay, but we will come back. And we did, but we still had to deal with fucking hurt. So, but we, George Scott got three months in total employment there. We got a two-month vacation. and worked there another year and a half before we left on our own again.

The photo I mentioned to you from the cover, it was courtesy of Dennis Brent and pro wrestling projects, Dallas, Texas. And of course, Dennis Brent worked, well, we worked together with him for ages and ages. He was good friends with Jim Ross and Dennis did, even in Titan in the WWF office, he did programs and worked in the office and his wife Lynn did. too, and he would do, you know, photography for the things, and we would make funny faces. I don't know what to take. In the section of strongest comments of the past week, things that were said on TV, Jim Cornyn on

TBS, there's a bunch of people in the NWA who have no business being here. Well, that's exactly what I said on television. You were consistent. You were very consistent. Hey, real quick as we wrap this up, King Haku arrested. That was the story we talked about years ago where he asked a woman to bow to the king.

Kevin Von Erick fired as world-class wrestler. Dallas. Reliable sources have told Matt Watch that former world-class heavyweight champion Kevin Von Erick has been fired from the organization by WCCW owner Jerry Jarrett. The apparent dismissal stems from, von Eric's failure to make several recent shows for which he was booked. One source told us, quote,

Jerry simply had enough, and he warned Kevin several times. The firing comes on the heels of Von Eric's recent personal troubles in which he lost a luxury home to creditors. One source told us a reconciliation could occur but would have to be initiated by Von Eric. That's interesting just because, you know, we just watched that documentary where they, I think for the first time, really openly talked about Kevin's problems financially in the early 90s, late 80s, early 90s. Well, yeah, and I don't think that his heart wasn't in it anymore after the issues with his brothers and Jerry Jarrett did actually somewhat turn business around in that time period.

and but it's the same point. It still, it wasn't a gold mine. It might not even been a copper mine. He turned it around from them losing money and having no direction and the talent was just the same as always to, okay, now some crowds have come back and there's more structure and more fiscal discipline. So I've cut the, he didn't have to just draw more people. He had to cut losses, et cetera. So you know, Jerry Jarrett would squeeze a nickel to. a Buffalo farted.

And they got more talent because the Memphis crew where they were taking a bus down for the Friday night shows and then overnight driving back for Memphis TV on Saturday mornings, Jared had some success in not making it a hotbed again, but bringing some people back and losing less money. But they were always on the outs because Kevin still owned some element of it, and I can't quote it chapter and verse, but Kevin wasn't motivated.

The documentary, you know, explained a lot of that, and Jerry didn't want to put up with it for the goddamn troubles that the syndication or the TV and the distance and the return on it. After a while, it just, he pulled back out. I don't remember how the, do you, how the actual split game, but they just agreed not to do all that anymore. One final story from here, Jim.

Atlanta, WVEU TV, home of the Saturday Night's Superstars of Wrestling since September, has been sold to the Home Shopping Network Incorporated. The sale, pending FCC approval, could affect the future of the seven-hour superstars the station's highest-rated block of programming. Superstars co-host, Bonnie Blackstone, told Matt Watch, nothing firm has been decided. So there is the beginning of the end for the Joe Pedicino Wrestling Block. But you know what?

Back when I was young and didn't need to sleep in things, that was the summer I lived in Atlanta, we would make the Atlanta TV, the TBS show on Saturday morning, and then Saturday night was Columbus, Georgia. So it was only like 90, 100 miles. So I would set my VCRs, and by the time I got back from Columbus, it probably wasn't even midnight yet. And I'd rewatch the TBS show, followed by six hours of Joe Pedicito's

wrestling from all over Memphis and Dallas and Mid-South and blah, blah, blah, and didn't have to go to sleep until about 7 o'clock on Sunday morning, and we were either off or in Mariette on Sunday. It was just, it was lovely. And pizza, there you go. Well, this has been our look at the wrestling news as it was covered by Matt Watch in the spring of 1989.

And with that, Jim, we shall return right after this short commercial timeout. We're in a good mood. You're wearing down on my good mood about your organ fiddling. Oh, come on now. That was just fine. And of course,

There was a lot of just fine wrestling action this past week, and I know you saw at least a few things, and one of the big topics of conversation online has been Jay Cargill because of a mishap in a match on Smackdown. How much of this did you get to see? Does that count as a wardrobe malfunction? Is it, would that technically be a wardrobe item or? Technically, yes.

Well, for the people who don't know, and yet, I, I watched, you asked me to watch the thing, the match, and I'm wondering, why is he asking me to watch this? It's a match with the girls and they're going for the queen of the ring or whatever. And I forget who else was in it besides Jade and Charlotte, but at some point, right before they were about to go, they got up on a corner, Jade's sitting on a turd buckle, and Charlotte gets up and grabs Jade's head

with her left hand by her hair like she's going to draw her back and punch her to face and she pulled her fucking wig off and I mean off off and then Jade immediately grabs it and pulls it back on well now the thing is shot to hell

because everything else they've got to do Jade has to do one-handed while she's holding her fucking wig on top of her head with the other hand and it it didn't come all the way off anymore but it was back and forth

and hither and yon and you could tell that she was just freaking out about it and I mean she's it's like somebody hit her in the head with a hammer and she had to sell it like in the cartoons by holding her head the whole fucking time while she's throwing a kick

or she whatever right we mentioned before she I guess was wearing a wig because there was some type of not to this extent but there was an issue before a while back right where it was it was frompering around a little bit

or something I think maybe I'm not exactly sure I mean the Mercedes Monet one is the one obviously no Mercedes it was Mercedes then that had the wig issue that's right are all these women secretly bald we don't fucking know

but anyway the point is it didn't jade's hair in this particular instance she comes out she's got some nice looking long hair and it may be blonde or it may be silver it may whatever the fuck it is but this thing looked like a goddamn possum's nest fell out of a fucking tree to begin with

it was bright blonde and about three and a half feet high with curls hanging down and something in the front that looked like they just taped it, maybe they did, I don't know, but how can you wrestle with something like that on your head? I don't know. I certainly don't know how you could wrestle holding it onto your head. I felt so bad for her. You know, I've always had a soft spot for Jade,

ever since she debuted with the greatest segment in AEW history. Yeah, yeah. And I think she tries hard and wants to be something. You know, like, there's something there that I find rootable, even though she's this despicable heel. There's something very sweet, I think, and this person who puts that everyone, it calls them bitch or she's the bitch, whatever it is.

A lot of bitching. When that thing came off, it was her face the rest of the man it wasn't even that she was holding it on her head she was selling like baron mckelles leclucuna everything was her head yeah it was the defeat the defeat and the frustration she yeah yeah i felt i felt so bad i felt so bad i still feel bad i well i but again what do you it never worked for the guys who was the guy in um Dallas got his head Rod Price

Oh yeah with Chris had a wig Had a wig Sown on his head or a hairpiece Or whatever they call it And Chris Adams pulled it off his fucking head hard enough that he like lost Massive amounts of blood Because this thing was connected that

tightly and firmly or whatever It tore his scalp off with it And there was, what, wasn't there, was there an out-of-the-ring issue there that required police intervention or there are a lot of threats or what was going on? Do you remember that story? No. Which story? When Chris Adams jerked Rod Price's hair off, head off.

I don't remember that being in, I don't remember anything out of the ring, no. I think Rod Price wanted to kill him at one point. There was some story about at least talking about. getting even. I care. But nevertheless, Arne Anderson. Apparently, Tony Zane told me this, the first couple of times that they worked outlaw shows in Georgia when Arne first started, he wore a toupee. And it fucking, like on a sunset clip, it just started flapping in the fucking breeze from the back. And it was a big, and he never did that again. I, I don't understand. how that that can be anchored to one to where you could ever get away with it

with a heavy weight of a girl's long hair type wig. Shouldn't she just grow her own hair out? Because you have to, how short would she be have to be, would she be have to be? A lot of people don't think it'd be like it is, but it do. How short would she have to be cutting her hair to be able to fit what hair she has remaining under all these goddamn wigs. I don't know.

I don't know how she could grow it out. I thought you took a course in hairdressing. I don't know. You know, again, it's a weird thing. She acknowledged on social media. She said, I think it was like, you know, her worst nightmare come true, as I'm sure it is. Makes you wonder who else is wearing a wig that you know. I don't know. You live a pretty good life if that's your worst nightmare.

Yeah, having your wig rip. off on national TV, that's pretty bad. It didn't cause any blood like Rod Price's. Her scalp didn't come with it. Well, she couldn't see what was happening. She may have felt. My worst nightmare would be goddamn, you know, plummeting from six miles in the air

in a flaming airplane or goddamn being the, you know, in the middle of a goddamn major explosion or some shit. That's your worst nightmare. Get creative. Zombies. That's your worst nightmare. If when you go to bed at night You go, oh shit,

worst thing it ever happened to me. Somebody pulled my wig off on TV and it didn't even hurt. I'll take that. And of course, she now enters the wrestling wig Hall of Fame alongside such luminaries as Mercedes-Money, Bruno Sam Martino, Killer Kowalski, and although Ron Fuller has a gnarly wig on his head

that makes him look ridiculous. He did not win. That's right. So he is not technically a wrestling wig Hall of Famer. It's his post-wrestling career as a grifter or whatever the fuck he is. Oh, come on now.

But he could say he wears a wig. But yeah, that's the Jade car. Any other thoughts in a match? Well, let's, I mean, what else was there? It was fine. Sal Ruka. She's fine. We're all fine.

We're fine here. But like I said earlier, Mama Cornett used to say when somebody'd get mad, well, he flipped his wig, but I've never seen anybody suplexed out of their wig. That's nothing. After she pulled it off with her hand, they double suplexed her and she fell out of it again.

And I read about it before I saw it, and I just saw who was in the match. I didn't see yet that it was Charlotte, you know, that actually was the person who initiated the mounting of the wig. Well, but it wasn't like that she did it on purpose. No, I'm not saying. Well, I'm just saying, you know, of all bad as Charlotte,

but she just grabbed her to do a thing. And suddenly it was like, you know, we did that as a spot in OBW on television with Charmel, Booker T's wife and Sin, Stacey, because Charmel had a wig. And remember what she would dress up as the beauty queen type of thing? And she was managing. I think it was, was it the suicide blondes, Jason Lee and Derek King or I don't know, and Stacey had the disciples of sin and the Charmel goes to interfere and is doing something and Stacy goes to grab her from behind by the hair and jerk her down and jerk her away

from the guy and the fucking way. And this was a planned spot. The wig comes off and suddenly the look on sin's face and Charmelle pot. pops up and go, ah, like she's naked. And look, the people blew, it was fucking great, but we made a goddamn, it was the most visual thing you could imagine. And the people hit their fucking feet, and they both sold it great. Because sin didn't expect the hair to come off, and Charmel didn't know what to

fucking happen, like she'd been unmasked in Arena, Mexico. But yeah, this was just the shits. But I first read about it before I saw it, like I was saying. And I saw Saul Ruka was in it in my head. I was like, oh, please say it was the Saul snatcher. And she just snatched the wig. Well, she had to take it. That's the only time the wig didn't come off because Jane had her hands on it, holding it.

Should they make that her new gimmick? She wrestles with one hand on her head. Like she's doing the pokey, pokey. No, you buried the lead here. That's her new gimmick. is every match she has, how is she going to lose her wig? The wig gets pulled off at a different spot every night. People would look forward to it.

I think it would increase at least half a rating point, certainly. Oh, on a national basis, yes. On a national basis, absolutely. She's on Smackdown, that's a national show. Well, that was the review of Smackdown. Good luck, Jade. I always will root for Jade. There is some sort of star quality.

there. Whig or not. But Jim, after a night like that, Jane may want to just drink some Willie's remedy and forget about it all. Well, that's right, because I'll tell you what, ladies gentlemen, if you'd just like to kick back and relax and unwind and not have any

bad effects like bad decisions from alcohol or a hangover or, you know, incleasing, that means making worse, your blood sugar, all of that stuff. You want some Willie's remedy, THC's infused social tonic. Because Willie's remedy is, if you want to be happy,

it's the next best thing to puppies. And it doesn't smell nearly as bad as puppy poop. Folks, Willie, he's lived to be, what is he, did we establish? He's 97 now, 98, 92. He's way older than he ought to be. And look, my God, it looks like he's a piece of desiccated fruit.

But let's not. He's still around. Jim Cornett's comedy is not for everyone and not, he doesn't speak for everyone, especially, well, I think how old he is he, every time he,

every time he eats tacos, he farts dust, he's so old. Are you kidding? His social security number is one. Willie's mother charged the light brigade. I could go on. But the reason why he lives long,

like this that he does is because he comes up with shit like this to to make you live a longer life and a happier, a stress-free life. You know, it's the heaviness, Brian, it's the stress that's going to kill you in life. But the Willie's remedy gives you that social uplifting buzz without breaking any sobriety. Sobriety goals. It makes it impossible.

Some of us are drinking it right now, clearly. Impossible to pronounce words, apparently. Apparently. But if you're sober, we don't have to break that away from the alcohol because you can socialize with willies and the taste buds will explode with flavor when you, you've never tasted anything. It tastes like willies. It's an alcohol alternative. And a lot of them promise a great feeling, but don't deliver. But with willies, you'll feel relaxed and euphoric in only about 15 minutes. Now, if somebody just hit you. It halls off and hits you over the head with the bottle, you'll feel pretty fucking relaxed pretty instantly, but it's better to drink it. So if you want to take the edge off, relax without alcohol, want to avoid the hangovers,

replace the alcohol on weekdays or weekends, or other days that don't involve one of those two. Or if you want to have a creative session, Brian, we ought to sometimes have a little willies and have a creative session about the program here instead of just pulling it out of our ass as we go along. We can play music. Well, it's it.

And second thought, Willie's makes almost everything better. I mean second thought. It's inspired by Willie's way of living. See? That's what the copy says right here. That's why I was saying, where peace flows freely and hangovers are a thing of the past.

Peace flows freely. He's the brother of noted author, IP Freely, who penned that great classic, Golden Rivers. The Willie's social tonics come in 5 milligram and 10 milligram doses. So smooth and balanced, you barely realize that you're drinking a THC product at all. It's so smooth, it's slick, it's somewhat of a mixture of castor oil and 10W40.

It'll just shoot right through you. It's not like that at all. It's not like that at all, and that is not the combination. It's very smooth. It is smooth, yes. the example of smoothness you used is inappropriate and not acceptable. Well, how about a baby's butt? Would it be smooth as a baby's butt?

I don't see. You know, you don't know. It's third-party lab tested for accurate dosage, so it's not like you're just going to freak out and start seeing colors all of a sudden. It's a unique blend of THC. I guess you already do see colors. Maybe you could hear colors. or see noises.

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All right, Jim, well, let's move on here. We're having so much fun to barely contain it. But Jim, puppies. W.W.E. Raw. Used to be the home of puppies. And, of course, there's a lot of action and superstars to contain in a show that has no ending really in sight, just it ends whenever they want.

Yes, it just goes a while and then it's over. WWRWA. Yeah, kind of like doing your laundry. Just goes a while and then it's over. Again, we've been taking a holiday, a bank holiday, if you will, from having to watch these long-ass boring WWE programs. But in this instance, there was a couple of things involving the bloodline Jacob Fatu and et cetera that we thought we'd keep up on, you know,

they're going to go back to Saudi Arabia shortly. They got a big pay-per-view coming up over there. Roman Raines, he'll go to Saudi Arabia, he'll go to the White House, he'll go wherever they'll pay him. He's just an attention whore. just a fucking goddamn I'll go anywhere

and lend my credibility to anything he's a big enough star he could have said no fucking way to the White House so we now know he's one of them

and what he's all about boring and questionable values nevertheless are you about as sick of this goddamn every time forever to the ring forever to speak minutes and minutes of the,

and the people are more than willing to work with him on dragging his thing out. They'll chant and they'll sing, but nothing ever gets goddamn done. And then he starts speaking and still nothing gets done. Go ahead, I'm sorry. I was a little busy, so I came to were all late. It started like, you know, started at 8 o'clock and I got to it like 8, 10. and when I said watch live, the bloodline were in the ring and I said, oh shit, let me just see if I missed anything.

So I went to play from beginning and then fast forward to today. I missed nothing. Ten minutes. It was ten minutes a show before they said anything or did anything. And then basically, Roman, in the way that he does, where he takes forever to get to the point, he put Jay over saying he was going to be the king of the ring, acknowledge him, after Roman was acknowledged himself. And then he put Jimmy over as they acknowledge him.

And then the fans started chanting Fai 2, Fai 2. But Jay took the microphone because the deal is that Jay is not really on the Fai 2 bandwagon here and they've been having these problems. And he started firing up at Fai 2 a little bit saying he needs to acknowledge us. And then there was more Fah 2,

fattu chants so again they like to yeat so they like jay but and they like to chant o tc and sing roman's name so they like him but these people have been treating jacob like shit but they like jacob so they chant fatu fattu who can be the heel who are the and then the usos are in the middle of a goddamn issue with another baby face and we'll get to shortly. Does it pay to be a heel anymore in the WWE? Because all the main event shit involves the baby faces. Roman is so much better as a heel, even if you're tired of him, and I'm a little tired of him too, but he's better as a heel, but him as a heel just means the people are going to

sing to him while he stands there. Yeah, it takes forever. takes forever. So then Roman faced off with Jacob, and there was more chance. And Roman asked Jacob, say, you don't want to acknowledge the twins? And Jacob snatched the mic and said,

I don't listen to them. The only person I acknowledge is my tribal chief, Roman reigns. And there was a lot of milking and faces made and everything. And then Roman said, well, good, we don't need yes men around here. okay so then Roman calls for the guy with the box and you know Brian any necklace that comes out of a box is over

and he told Jacob and everybody scared that the bloodlines back together but it was always together it was the Samoans Yokazuna Rikishi Amaga me and your kids and my kids in 20 years that's the bloodline and you're on the inside now so welcome to the bloodline

and he puts a necklace on Jacob and Jimmy and Roman and Jacob put the finger up and Jay was like all righty, he put the finger up too. We're 20 minutes in for a guy to get a necklace. And again, I guess we've lost any aspect of people giving a shit about whether somebody is a prick or cheats to win or whatever. They're just going to chant for people

and sing people's names, because that way they get to be part of the show because they know it's all bullshit. Yeah, the fans were very happy. No matter what happened, they were just happy to watch it and be happy. They said they used to buy a ticket in Baltimore to come and see three hours of mayhem

and carnage and wild action. And now they buy a ticket to see three hours of people talk to each other with long breaks where they show you videos and then have matches with the underneath guys. I remember being in crowds when boring chants broke out. I can't remember the last time I heard one.

And that's when it wasn't really boring. That was right. Think about it. You might have a hold for a minute. Some wise ass boring. Whereas now these fucking, thing they stand around in the commercial break for fucking 10 minutes. There's no boring. Well, that wasn't...

Anyhow, that was my thought on that. Did you see the walk away from the ring with Eric Andre? No, when they were walking away from the ring, I fucking goddamn skipped ahead to the next thing. I'd already been there fucking waiting for, are they going to walk all the way back or what? So you missed the entire angle they did after... What? I didn't know they...

They did a goddamn angle. They did. It was over. They were playing music. They were walking out, and the comedian Eric Andre was sitting at ringside. He's in a new movie with John Cena. And whatever we want to say, you know, greeted, acknowledge the bloodline as they were walking by. And for some stupid reason, decided to aggressively pat Jacob as he walked by, and Jacob pulled him over the rail and started beating the shit out of him and then put him in the ring.

And was going to splash him when all the security guards had. and everyone came out, and then Roman jumped on the apron and told them not to, and then when everyone calmed down, Roman told them to do it, and then he splashed and he beat up Eric Andre, a couple splashes, and... A couple of splashes. One wasn't enough for a comedian. I don't know what Eric Andre is in or has been in or whatever, but I would assume he's not built like Lugar.

Oh, no, no, no, no. no no no no no no no no no nobody should splash a comedian more than once nobody can do booking like they should well no once they play the fucking music i'm out of there god damn it been long enough already but i hope eric's all right and that's the problem he's going to be all right he gets splashed on raw and he'll probably show back up at some goddamn industry deal and he'll be fine in a day or two. It's all bullshit because they're owned by the same corporate overlords. What else did you watch on Raw? Well, that's a deep subject.

Speaking of the bloodline, there's another baby face, L.A. Knight that's got problems with fucking Uso's and it's been going on for a few weeks now. And again, I'm like, where are the fucking heels? where are all the heels when all the baby faces are constantly mad at each other L.A. Knight still gets chance and pops on everything. They know his lines. And of course, he's from, I don't know if he's actually from Baltimore, but he's from that part of the country.

And he cut the promo, I'm out of King of the Ring, but I had to get to Baltimore because now I'm home. But they're with everything he does. and he cut a promo. Basically, not only was the rest of the bloodline out there, but Solo was out there on Friday Night Smackdown when they all ganged up on me so Jay could advance into King of the Ring

and Solo's the one that gave him the spike and everything. And in Jimmy's music plays, because Jimmy has been told by Roman to handle this L.A. night situation. so Jimmy's trying to make the P, A, it's different now. It's not the same blood. Solo's not part of us.

We don't want anything to do with him. And L.A. Knight doesn't believe it because because of solo, your brother is going to the King of the Ring. You mean that wasn't on purpose. Well, then Jay's music plays. He comes out and he's not happy. Because he tells L.A. Knight

that he wants L.A. Knight to acknowledge him, because he won one-on-one fair and square, and L.A. Knight says, oh, what the, I acknowledge, you can kiss my ass. And M's fighting words. And boom, boom, boom, as L.A. Knight and J. Uso are rolling around,

Jimmy has to help the brother, so he super kicks L.A. Knight. But then Jay goes to get a chair and beat shit out of L.A. and L.A. J. Jimmy stops J.

with chair, but L.A. Knight gets chair and beats up both Uso's. So thanks a lot, brother Jimmy. But then Jacob comes out. I thought this was the Jacob Vatou angle

of the night. And he Tongan gripped L.A. Knight and put him down and left. So three of the baby faces just beat up another one of the baby faces. Is this why? it's kind of boring because in the middle of a three-hour show, we got a 20-minute promo

and a Tongan death grip? This is definitely one of the reasons why it's boring, yeah. Well, there you have it. Who are you pulling for between the Uso's and their younger brother? Who am I pulling for? I'm pulling the cord. I don't know. You know, L.A. Night is still so popular, but they've never really.

elevated him past a certain point. And it's remarkable how he's retained his popularity. Yeah. But who's wrong? But other than the tension between the Uso's in Jacob Fatu, or mostly Jay in Jacob Fatu, and technically

Roman and Jacob Fatu, are they feuding? Is the bloodline involved in anything with anyone not in the bloodline? I... I don't know. Right? There's no top baby face. You're like, oh, I can't wait until Roman runs into this person.

Who? No one. He's got to wait for them to play out this Jacob. I guess they're going to try to turn him baby face again at some point. Well, yeah, he kind of already broke free of being a flunky, did he not? So that, but he did it so quick. And they said, oh, well, shit, we should have milked it longer. So we'll make him a flunky again, and then we'll milk it this time.

Well, he was never. Romans flunky he was only solos. Well, he's still a fucking flunky. He's not flunky like a monkey. Did you watch anything else on WWE Raw this week? Well, Liv Morgan walked into Danhausen's workshop. Did you see this little

segment in between? Dan Housen, he's got a whole workshop, he's got his cloning machine, he's got some type of table where apparently he does experiments in gynecology. He's got the computer set up there. He's working, just working away. And it's a whole kind of dungeon-like. And Liv goes in and tries to flirt with him

because she wants him to curse somebody for her. And I didn't pick up at the start who she was trying to get curse. Who is she trying to curse? Do you know or care? Was it Obafemi? Because Dominic was wrestling Obafemi? I bet you that was it.

Well, nevertheless, he gave her a list of demands. He wanted human monies. He wanted to be in her video. He wanted more human monies. He wanted a song about him. He wanted magazine covers, more human monies. And when she touched him at one point, and she laid her hand on his arm, and he's like, oh!

And then he'd been over, over picked up his jar of teeth. There's my jar of human teeth. And Liv finally just rolled her eyes and gave up and walked out. He's all good, she's gone. I got to work now. I mean, it's, at this point, it's amazing. All they have to do is just have a little segment like that. And he sells millions of T-shirts and all this.

Oh, they had a thing on the show that it was like, you know, WWE and the Knicks together are now selling Dan Housin' Nix T-shirts. shirts. I mean, they're making money from every fan base that exists at this point. Danhausen and Hello Kitty. Tony Kahn signed him and put him on TV about four times and could figure anything

out and just sit him home. And they've made good Lord, they've made five wrestlers paychecks back on Danhausen's merchandise to WWE alone in the last six months. The problem is the two and a half minutes at the very most that he's on the show

may be the most entertaining two and a half minutes of an entire raw as they were here. Obafetya Dominic was okay, but, you know, again, a lot of stuff took a long time to play out and... Oh, yeah. But I would say Danhausen is worth half a ratings point nationally. Anytime. Well, nationally, we're talking worldwide streaming.

Imagine how much he's worth in that aspect. Well, shit, in that case, you know, talk about a golden stream. Well, he's just raining down on all of us. A WWE without Danhausen will be like Lawrence Welk without bubbles. Oh, he's the, he's the Don Knott's of the Andy Griffith show. Was that the ultimate compliment to you that it was? From Steve Beverly, yes, it was. from Steve Beverly, if you knew anything about his writings

or his areas of expertise, that was the ultimate compliment. Mayberry enthusiast, Steve Beverly, really put Jim Cornett over, but I'm guessing you didn't see Dominic and Obafemi. No, I pretty much, I had bet some money on it, so I knew who won. Should they just give Danhausen a show? Like a half-hour show doing something? something other than, like just hosting something, doing something?

No, well, now, a show, a hosting show, or doing wraparounds, 30 minutes of Danhausen, no. But a 30-minute show with Danhausen doing wraparounds, intros, outros, pitches to and from some type of subject, that could work, but familiarity can breed contempt if some of these type of gimmicks goes to law. Well, again, the wild success of Danhausen continues, and that was WWRWA. Jim, as we continue on here with the show, let's get some questions. This one was sent to corny drive-thru at gmail.com from Rich in Richmond.

Preferred way of taking the gorilla press. The handful of dick and balls method, or the handful of tights front wedgy method. Now, I've got to be honest, that is the one thing. Well, there's a couple of things, but God, I hate it. And the only people that, because let's face it, I was not a wrestler, the only people that ever press slammed me were hawk and, and I say the press overhead, whether it was a press slam is debatable.

I'll explain a second. But the press over the head, the only people have ever done it, Road Warrior Hawk, Road Warrior Animal, Dr. Death Steve Williams. And I'm trying to think, Hercules Hernandez, when he turned on me in,

and we worked a program also in Dallas, he picked me up for like the hangman and did some things, but didn't press me. But with the Road Warriors, Dusty came up with a spot. And see, normally, guys that big wouldn't really get their hands on me because I should be then hospitalized and never seen again, right? And we've talked about how Dusty liked to,

I took regular bumps and was beaten by girls and, you know, et cetera, but not just pulverized because it would take the heat off of me. So he gave us a spot one night where he said, okay, who was first? it was hawk hawk picks you up and presses you and i'm already thinking like oh shit and throws you to animal an animal catches you and presses you

and then whether it's dennis or bobby came with the racket and would hit animal in the back and he would drop me so it was a big tease twice that i would get press slammed but then the heels would pull the rug out at the last minute the people go, oh, and they would grab me and we'd scamper off, right? And that was kind of like another version of dusty scaffold match finish where he was like, just kick your feet out, baby. And they catch you like they catch the girls at the football games, the chillies.

Because Hawk was strong enough to press me, an animal was strong enough to press me. But then when you're pitching somebody, Brian, can you imagine this from one person to another, even with they're only four or five feet apart, how are you going to grab that person to do? You see what I'm saying here. The problems began, began being obvious. So first,

when Hawk got me up, he had his hand in my balls, but it wasn't that bad because he had like his thumb around to one side to where he, okay, but then when I got thrown, an animal caught me, his hand was completely mashing my balls and dick up into my goddamn crotch

while he's got me by the chest and kind of the throat with the other hand. And I'm trying to post up, there's a picture of it. George Napolitano took as in one of the magazines, full page color picture of me trying to post off of animals' shoulders to get the goddamn pressure off of my balls. And then boom,

and he just dropped me in. I could take the bump from there. He'd let me take my own bump. It was safe. They didn't hurt me either on purpose or from recklessness. You just can't really get that all the time. And I wasn't wearing, they couldn't grab the ass of the tights like a lot of the guys did because I wasn't wearing tights.

I was wearing dress pants. I might have ripped out of the whole thing. So Doc, on the other hand, Dr. Death, I don't even, He never hurt me. I don't know how he did. I think he just grabbed my leg and he was strong enough. I was up there before I knew what to fuck had happened. When was this?

When did Dr. Death do us in mid-south or in WCW? No, this would have been WCW. When after I'd, was it one of the times he came in, he worked with us as partners in our six men's when we were baby-faced against the freebirds. Right, on your side. But when. when we turned, what was he doing? I can't point is at one point.

A bad Jim Duggan impression. Well, we did the same thing. Doc was a baby face. We were heels and Doc pressed me. And one of the boys, they would stand by this time, would come from the back and use the racket. And Doc again, he kind of just got me by like my shirt and tie and the neck of the shirt and just grabbed a leg of.

leg and just hoisted me up there and held me because I told him before I said, Doc, please watch my balls. And when he got whacked with the racket, instead of just dropping me, he brought me down and kind of reverse curled me like a barbell so as he went down, he could put me flat down too. And I wasn't like at my fattest ever then, but I had to be 240 and it was just like I was in a a fucking bucket lift machine. There was no struggle or effort that he made whatsoever. So he took great care of me. And nobody else, probably at some point,

somebody would think, I'd try to press slam cornet, but he's a tub of goo, and it would make me look like shit. You never took the ultimate warrior guerrilla press, but what did you think of the way he did it where he would lift the guy up and just drop them and then, you know, give him the splash?

Well, everything that I saw, the warrior do, I always said I would never take, because it just looked like an air of lackadaisicalness that I didn't particularly appreciate. All right, Jim, our next question sent to corny drive-thru at gmail.com is from Cornett Fan 420, allegedly. Hi, Jim. I'm a regular viewer of both WW and AEW. The Don Callis family kind of reminds me of a modern-day version of the Heenan family.

What are your thoughts on this and which family do you think is better? Was this sent by Don Callis? What? I was about to say out of those two, I would think the Manson family was better than the Callis family. The Brady family, perhaps. No, I don't see any comparison except possibly in Don's mind or in Tony Conn's mind or whatever they're going for. Don was from Winnipeg. the AWA, the Heenan family, whether it was in the AWA or in WWF or a brief time he was down in Georgia,

he had, for example, for Vern, he had the singles champion and the tag team champion. And in the WWF, he had main event guys. There was never, what, Brian, any more than four probably wrestlers in his group at the same time. unless maybe a guest came in from another territory, whatever. But they were all main event guys, and they were all interchangeable at the top of the card in terms of this guy could go for the world title or these two guys could go for the tag title or whatever.

Or they were meaningful featured talents. And obviously Bobby was acted as a regular real manager. He cut the promos for them. Didn't do all the talking, but the most of it. and interfered at ringside and worked the crowd and blah, blah, blah. Don Callis has, what we counted one time, 13 guys at the same time. Some of them don't get along with each other. Some of them are preliminary guys you barely ever see.

Some of them are the guys they use in the main events, whether their main event talents or not may be subject to debate. Don never works ringside he's always sitting at color which I did in my day during job matches during squash matches where it was so obvious

that the Midnight Express was going to beat up whoever that I didn't have to be at ringside I didn't care I'm running my mouth and we're laughing about how dominant we are but if it was a competitive match, I didn't go to yell at the announcers. I was at ringside every step of the way. And Don just does the color.

He never interferes. Almost never. He's never really involved in a fucking finish. You can't take it seriously when he is because he's pulling a fucking screwdriver out, a glowing fluorescent screwdriver. And every promo is a tongue-in-cheek. Kind of wink-wink-haha thing. So no, I don't think there's any comparison whatsoever between the Heenan family and the Callis family.

Brian, am I missing something? No, it's insane to even think that. Obviously, that was what they were putting out there when they first teamed up Don Callis with Kenny Omega, the idea that in their eyes it was Bok Winkle and Heenan, which was ridiculous. In my eyes, there was two guys spinning in their graves in. Because I don't care, even if you like Omega's physical style and the things that he does,

can anybody, can anybody with a straight face and a calm mind compare him to Nick Bokwinkle? I can't. I mean, it's just ridiculous. But that's another thing, though, with Bobby Heenan, if you're talking about the Heenan family in the AWA, you instantly think of Bach Winkle, you may think of Ray Stevens, maybe Black Jagalanza,

Bobby Dunkum. If you close your eyes and think of the Don Callis family, who are you thinking of? Lance Archer, Rocky Romero, Trent, like it's just, it's a rag-tag group of every heel that has nothing going for them.

Put them with Don Callis. and I just it's and then and then a couple of Japanese guys who don't get along with each other and make mean faces not good you know there's certain people that got back into wrestling just because their friends were like hey I really would love to hang out with you and have you around but yeah no it's a silly question the Indian family was much better maybe he did the show one time years ago that may have been before you even and I said what the fuck he just said it'd take 15 years off yeah then one of his friends got in a position where they could hire him, but that's exactly what happened. Well, a couple of them, as a matter of fact, he had friends coming from every direction. Well, that's the answer to that question. Thank you for sending that in. Jim, this next one was sent to cornyidivthru at gmail.com from Darrell McIntyre, County Tyrone, Ireland.

I heard Brian say that wrestlers are doing less and getting injured more. Having been in locker rooms across multiple eras, do you agree with that statement? My impression is that wrestlers in previous generations may have been getting hurt just as often, but because they were paid by working many wrestlers work through injuries, instead of taking time off. A lot of guys also relied on painkillers to stay on the road and keep earning a living, which may have hidden how injured they really were. would you say wrestlers today are actually getting injured more

or are injuries simply more visible now because talent are encouraged to get treatment and take time off to recover thank you for all the great shows there is some element of all of this but the definitely guys get injured more often today okay just it depends on what you call an injury is a black eye an injury. But we've talked about the other week on one of the shows

that I would go months at a time in seeing guys not only just in the matches that I managed, but all of the guys on the card, the heels would come back in the locker room every night. And sometimes the baby faces would be in the same locker rooms. They'd come back. And you didn't see all these people come in busted open, hard way from the head or the eye or the cheek or there's somebody bleeding the referees putting

the fucking gloves on all the time there was nearly not nearly as many hard ways okay and yes there's always been fat lips or god damn if somebody got a tooth doctor whatever but it wasn't it wasn't this it we'll go back and look at the goddamn if you know the difference between intentional blood and hardway blood from a guy taking a potato or getting hit with something or whatever, then if you look at tapes from the 80s, even the 90s, it's the vast majority is obviously meant to be. And now you're seeing guys busted open all the time.

And also, I don't think that in the case of these people that are breaking their fucking femurs or are coming down with these horrible injuries where no, you got to go get this done. Yes, guys worked through some stuff in the old days, but you can't work through a broken femur. So when, you know, somebody tears a muscle and they're just dead, the quad or whatever,

and they're just down and gone, that didn't happen with the frequency. So the, yes, there was an element of guys are working with injuries they can work around, because they have to, and often they were quite successful. The pain pills were a problem, but if you notice the pain pills were more a product of the 90s when the schedule had slowed down from the territory days,

but the use of furniture picked up. Because I, in the locker room until the late 80s in a Memphis locker room or even a Mid-South locker room. I don't know if you could have found five painkillers. Could have found five bags of cocaine a lot easier. But so do you agree with what Brett Hart has always said that it was a mistake to outlaw or enforce a prohibition on marijuana in WWE, that it was good for the wrestlers to be able to smoke a joint or something after a match.

Yes, instead of going out to the bar, getting drunk, getting in a fight, getting in trouble, or taking pain pills, or whatever the fuck, of course, yes. And the whole reason the drug testing got started was because the steroid scandal. But even then it was a PR thing on Vince's point. It wasn't medical, but you can't tell me that marijuana is more dangerous than injecting goddamn synthetic chemicals into your bloodstream on a regular basis. But anyway, so injuries now versus them. When you take into account that guys were wrestling multiple times more often,

30 and 40 years ago than they are today, you can't just say, well, that's because guys were working through injuries. And that's just, you know, what they had to do. No, because, God damn, they weren't working through injuries. through injuries every goddamn week of their life. Look at these guys, they're either all hurt or they're all claiming to be hurt and not being booked because they're supposed to be hurt. But there's a lot of fucking people hurt.

And even if you were a gutsy son of a bitch, you couldn't get around it all the time. There's many famous stories, but there's also the list of, you know, the list of, you of guys that at one time in the 80s that you could say, well, there was a famous time where so-and-so broke his leg. In the entire hundreds of guys that worked in the territories, you'd come up with, well, Larry Henig and, you know, Wahoo and Andrei Zank. You'd come up with eight or ten. If the wrestlers back then had the schedule of today to negate this argument

or look at it from the other side, I guess it would be a better way to say it, Would they have been wrestling crazier matches? If instead of having to work seven days a week or six days a week, you had one match every two weeks guaranteed money, would it have changed the way they worked, or would they have still worked the same? Well, hold on, don't say guaranteed money. Say if they'd worked once every two weeks

instead of 14 times every two weeks for the same amount of money. Look at it like that. Because if you go in knowing a guarantee, that's different. but you're going to make the same amount of money, that would be a big match and you would have a big match goddamn match. But I don't think that it would not have been necessary 40 years ago

for the guys to take the risk they do today because the people were accepted actual goddamn wrestling matches instead of stunt shows. So the wrestler still would not have been just trying to dive off the balcony because they could and their opponent would have probably said, what the fuck?

I'm not going to catch you. So do what you want because you're an idiot. Whatever. They would have still, they would have got more blood or they would have taken higher backdrops or they would have gone 10 minutes longer or they would have hit harder

but they wouldn't have just fundamentally changed everything they were doing to bring in ladders and chairs and tables and. and fight outside the ring and all that stuff, it wasn't necessary. Jim, one more question here. This was sent to corny drive-thru at gmail.com.

From David, he attached a image and a video link to a 1993, I believe. Ludwig Borga versus Larry Croy, squash match. Jim, did you ever meet or know my uncle, Larry Croy He wrestled in North Georgia as Hoghead when he wasn't jobbing and he went by his own name. That's obviously

one of these images here. He's from Woodstock, Georgia. He was a jobber for WCW and WWF in the early to mid-90s. He would be a few years younger than you. There's a YouTube link to his match with Borga. He passed away about 10 years

ago. Just curious and thank you. He's younger than me and he's been gone for 10 years. Well, that's sobering. Memories of Hoghead from Georgia. I remember, well, I remember the name Larry Croy. I'm not going to be, you know, just because of the situation, I'm not going to lie and say, oh, my good, close personal friend.

I remember the name. I don't remember the name of Hoghead, except that's what the boys used to call Bill Watts. Every time he'd piss him off with something. Al Hoghead. obviously Ludwig Borga didn't last long and that was right about the time that I first got to the WWF

so I may or may not have worked with Mr. Croy there with Heavenly Bodies or Yoko that I was managing but I have no other recollection besides a vague thought of the name. Nothing like, you know, I was working in Georgia

and right before I discovered New Jack and Mustafa I saw this other man, Hoghead. No, unbelievably enough, Sammy Kent did not have Hoghead in the North Georgia Wrestling Association at the time I discovered the gangsters. Or it would have been a package deal. I would have demanded, I got to have all three of them. Well, with that, Jim, we shall return right after this short commercial timeout. Pushing it. pushing it a little bit.

All right, we're back. It was better than last time. We're back. And we've got some retro figures to talk about before we get back to the 1984 list, Jim, where we... And you know, we've also got... We've been joined by the Brothers of Destruction. Buddy Cornett and Alfie Cornett are in the playpen behind me.

You may hear some yelps and squeals as they go over their match for later tonight. How many nicknames do they have right now? they're as many as possible and they're going to have more. We're calling them everything. Trademarking everything. I'm like Jericho. I'm just going to trademark everything. See if something sticks.

All right, Jim. Well, let's talk about some retro wrestling figures and let's have fun. Yes. You're talking about these retro wrestling figures. These are things that are put out by various independent toy companies. And we'll talk about them. We have some negative stuff to say today, too, I must say. But let's start with some positives.

the latest figure Let me get this here Don't wait over too far The latest figure from KWK K-Fabe Heroes There are three variants Dory Funk Jr.

In the Hasbro form There's Dory Funk in red trunks And a black cowboy hat And a MakeShift NWA type title belt There's also Dory Funk Funk. This one actually looks very nice, with a white hat and the light blue trunks you sometimes saw him in in the 70s, also the NWA title, and finally has Hos Funk with a lasso and facial

hair. Dory Funk Jr. in the Hasbro form. What's your favorite Dory Funk, Jim? Well, it wasn't Hoss Funk. I think they should have put the rope around his neck on that one. And that's, again, Vince McMahon did not understand the level of recognition that Dory would have had in certain markets around the country as he had been just 10 years previously the biggest star for the NWA. And, you know, Terry, I think Terry's a more regular name than Dory and also Dory, Terry had his own personality. so Vince is going to leave him alone. But Dory being the straight-ahead wrestler, not exactly a fireball personality, Vince had to monkey with him,

and who's a bald guy that's a cowboy from Texas, that actually not even from Texas, but just a bald big cowboy that you would remember if you were Vince, and that was Hoss Cartwright from Bonanza. So Dory became Hoss Funk. my favorite Dory would be the late 60s, early 70s, NWA champion because that was the state-of-the-art run. I think that would be the favorite.

You know, Hoss Cartwright had a lot of personality and charisma, even on the packaging here, one of these, it looks like Dory's falling asleep. See, that's the thing. Poor Dory got blistered because his younger brother, just came out with this wild personality and just reinvented himself a bunch of times. Dory was trained in the classic manner that the NWA champion was supposed to wrestle in for all those years.

You believed that Dory could out-wrestle anybody, could beat anybody wrestling. That was the whole idea. And as times changed, Terry weathered the storm a lot better. than Dory did because Dory, why would you change your style that much when you've already been as successful as Dory was? And truthfully, what he did kind of was what he could do. Whereas Terry was, since he was wild from the start, you expected anything. But it's like a smaller version of the Armstrong boys in that both Dory Jr. and Terry got

part of Dory Funk Sr. Dory Funk Sr. was a great technical worker and could make it look legitimate, but at the same time he could do the Texas Death Match and chairs and crazy and everything also. So each one, Dory was the better classical pro wrestling worker than Terry, and Terry was the bigger brawler and personality than Dory, but they both got it from the old man. once again KWK

K-fabe heroes these these came out really great these are really really good I really like them Jim next here we have from zombie sailor

wrestling's heels and faces in the Hasbro style Hasbro-ish PJ Polako as Aldo Montoya where obviously for trademark reasons they can't call him

Aldo Montoya but obviously can dress him in the garb of what he's the Portuguese sensation the Portuguese man of war what are your thoughts on PJ Polako as PJ Walker or Aldo Montoya of course later just incredible well and actually he was a PJ Walker himself was a good worker and a guy with a lot a potential. And I first met him when he was doing jobs on TV in the WWF. Because as I recall, he had trained in Canada and he was athletic and a good looking kid. And he just couldn't break in in the WWF at that point. But a couple of years later, Paul Lee saw something in him and gave him the gimmick and gave him the push. And it's kind of the same thing

Paul E, I think is, today, Austin theory is Paul E's just incredible. See, he's the same kind of thing. A young kid who is an incredible worker, natural movement in the ring, just needs to find the personality, needs to find the promo, needs to get the push, put it all together. And I think that's what PJ was. And PJ is also the guy that got me in touch with Lance Storm. Because after Lance had sent the video to me of him and Jericho,

apparently Lance was in Germany or somewhere, whatever the fuck. And PJ and one of the TVs mentioned that somehow or another, either he'd been in Germany or he was in Calgary, and Lance Storm had been in Germany, was in Calgary. I said, tell this motherfucker to call me back, because I'm trying to get a hold of him. And he was the one that got a hold of Lance. How long were you trying to get a hold of Storm to book him and Jericho before you got to him?

Well, I mean just a few weeks. I get, because I'd had the tape for a little while on top of that before I ever actually watched it. Because in those days, I only watched tapes that I got sent every so often because they were almost, almost without exception. it was either a rotten video of a rotten talent or a rotten video of an okay talent. I never got good video of good unheard of talent. And that's why Storm and Jericho stood out so much more. All right, Jim.

And once again, that's from Zombie Sailor, P.J. Palaco, Azaldo Montoya. Very tan, this figure. I don't remember him being this. Well, you know, it's very sunny in Portugal. Jim, from figure collections, there wrestle something, line of toys. Let me ask you about a few of these. There's two variants and an error that became a variant, apparently.

Perry Saturn, in red, in blue, and one without stubble, which apparently the factory must have messed up. What are your thoughts on Perry Saturn? Can you have positive thoughts about him, or is everything jaded by that? It's the eliminators, right? went to Memphis and you always have that story like they didn't. Yeah, well, no, Perry Saturn, was Perry Saturn one of the Eliminator? Yeah, it was Saturn and Kronus, right? That's right, yeah.

No, Perry Saturn was a good guy. Later on, he learned how to work. It's just, it was a funny story of the time when they went to Memphis in, like, the early 90s and had never been out of Philly and doing the early, like, Eastern Championship wrestling and good hard stuff. and they're trying to go over the match with the Rock and Roll Express. And Ricky said, okay, well, we'll lock up and I'll get the head. He said, well, we don't do that.

Don't do what? We don't lock up. Yes, and neither, neither to the boys. And Riggins said, how do you start to fucking match then? They just didn't understand. No, Saturn was a heck of a worker and very athletic. It unfortunately had, you know, a variety of issues in his life. and didn't have puppies to make him happy.

But he was a good guy, and he started getting it after a while there. But you weren't a thing of the Eliminators. A tremendous tough fuck, tough motherfucker with all the shit that he went through it. But you just weren't a fan of the Eliminators. Well, they weren't really, you know, my cup of tea. All right. Well, that one is out. They did a good job with this figure.

They always do a good job with their figures. Jim, there's two different Del Wilkes Patriots. One appears to be the 1997 version, and he carries an American flag, and I have to say they did a great job with this, and the flag is nice and sturdy. And it's also one in Stars and Stripes that matches up with this new Marcus Bagwell in Stars and Stripes from the tag team of Stars and Stripes. Imagine how that worked out with the Stars and the Stripes. You worked with the Patriot a bunch, but did you ever really get to see him and Bagwell team up? Well, I watched some of the TVs. I was always a fan of the Patriot.

I think I've mentioned before somewhere recently. Seems like just that I've known Del Wilkes. He was one of the few guys, the few males that the fabulous Mullah broke into business because he was from Columbia, South Carolina. And that was his inn and his initial training, but he had worked as the trooper. like a state trooper gimmick and the uniform and the hat and everything because he had that square-jawed look. I think that was in the AWA for Vern.

And I'd worked some independent shows with him in the Carolinas in between leaving WCW and starting Smoky Mountain when I'd work for Bobby Fuller, Greg Price, whatever. Can you hear the boys? We may have to set up a live cam on them. Actually, we're thinking about doing that. But anyway, is it a full moon? It's that they don't want to be where they are.

I love you guys. It's okay. Anyway, I'll try to jump back in. And Del was a, you know, a great worker, great look, great promo, had the size and the howling dogs and everything. And Bagwell at that point had gone through a bunch of, you know, mediocre gimmicks and I just, I didn't, I didn't ever really see Marcus Bagwell like I saw The Patriot. And loved the Patriot gimmick, colorful, and the mask.

He was, he was an American mosquerist. Well, I guess he had a few masks, that's for sure. But there it is from figure collections, wrestle something wrestlers. These all came out really nice. They always do a good job, like I said before. Gilberg also, or Dwayne Gill, as Gilberg. I guess WWE owns the rights to the name. Gilberg. That sucks.

But these look good. Jim, a couple more things. Title run toys, just put out a few figures. The first is Harley Race. One in red, one in blue. The blue one is a bloody variant. Gigantic hair on this figure. But the real issue, and I wanted to talk about this, Oh boy. Mike McGirk. They put out a Mike

McGirk action figure. And for those of you who are weirdo nerd completist like me, you certainly need the ring announcer from Wrestling Challenge for your collection. And Mike McGurk, for those of you wondering, was a female because she was the daughter of promoter Leroy McGurk from Tulsa, and he had wanted a boy, so when she was born, he named her Mike. And she ended up later on, as you said, becoming the ring announcer for the WWF for a number of years. Well, they announced these figures. I thought it would be a nice addition.

There's one in red. There's one in purple. They say blue. It's purple. Holds a microphone. Here's the problem. Typically with figures, especially like Hasbro's style wrestling figures.

One of the key things is you want them to be able to stand up. Standing up is an important thing because you can't just have a wheelchair for all your action figures. So I got these Mike McGurks and they did not stand up. They have heels. They. She is she. It's a figure. It has fucking heels.

And does not stand. So I'm trying to figure out what to do about this because now I just have a figure out I'm not to lay on its side. Now, wait a minute. I happen to know Mike McGirk. I don't feel like that I can stand by and listen to you disrespect her like that by having, you're going to have to lay Mike McGirk.

Well, my point, that's not, boy, you really make things bad. But what happens is this figure doesn't stand up, so I put it on a little stand I had for another figure. And, God damn it, this red one just starts leaning forward, and eventually it falls off the stand. The stand doesn't even hold it up. So I'm thinking, okay. Mike was a little bit, you know, a little bit busty, but I don't think she should be

that top-heavy. Well, again, this thing is very top-heavy, and it's just, it's a different, it feels flimsier than other figure. I don't know what's going on. The scaling, flimsy. Tiny hands. I don't know what's going on

with this figure, but I figure, okay, I support these companies, I'll deal with it. And hey, I got Mike McGirk. I don't have a Howard Finkel,

but at least I got Mike McGirk. So then I get an email from the company. Let's read this on the air. Now, I have not really seen too many people talk about Mike McGirk anywhere,

really this figure. So I didn't know that other people had the same problem, apparently. Dear title run toys family, I'm going to skip the stuff that doesn't pertain to this figure. It's our understanding that Mike McGurk has difficulty standing for a lot of people. Because that scoliosis she had when she was a child. Contrary to some folks' speculations, there's no apostrophe anywhere. we had no previous knowledge of issues with her standing, and are sad to see such a great icon

received poor feedback for her first figure. That's right, she was sober when she signed the contract. The factory samples we received were able to stand on their own without issue. Didn't need a goddamn dime from Leroy. We feel we have been very transparent with everyone up to this point. that means people are seeing right through them

so we have come up with a solution we do urge our TRT family to please reach out immediately to us via email if there are any concerns with our products so that we can immediately address the issues as of this time we have not received a single email with issues about Mike

official TRT stands are in the works and will be available within the coming months, if your Mike McGurk is one of the figures that is not standing, please email us with proof of this. And a free stand will be included with your next order. What are you supposed to give an action figure a sobriety test? What the... And a free stand will be included with your next order.

If we determine the claim is legitimate. I'm going to stop there. Because there's going to be all the tens of... thousands of people who bought the Mike McGirk figure are going to try to scam them out of a goddamn undeserved stand which is a, what is it?

Is it like a goddamn giant Sibian where it's just a pole that shoves up her ass? There you go. Now you've taken it way too far. That'll be a deluxe edition, I guess. Look it up kids. S-Y-B-I-A-N. Don't look it up kids. Let's not say that. Kids, kids between the ages of 18 and

50. Again, I like to support these companies. Not everyone hits a home run with every figure. And to be honest with you, a lot of these companies, the figures they fail with or have trouble with, a lot of the times are women, just because they're trying to figure out how to scale this figure to fit in life. And they've never seen a nude female form before. But this figure is one of the worst purchases I've ever made for wrestling figures. And I'm willing to deal with it.

But when you send me a fucking email, unprovoked, I didn't complain to them. I just got this email. So obviously the email makes me think that other. people are complaining. But when you send me this email and say, we understand some of you have a problem, send us proof. And if we determine it's legitimate, because obviously there's a lot of fake, what, just a photo of the figure, what did they want videos?

I think actually what happened is many of the fucking people that got the figure shot it in the foot so it wouldn't be drafted into the military. Again, I have this red one on a stand. I had a stand and it starts leaning forward and then it goes, like the tower. of fucking pizza. So. I thought it was pizza. How about this?

Send me proof that any of them stand. Yeah. Instead of saying, send me proof that you're... Show me proof that any of these figures that you sold a bunch of us could stand up. Prove it. And that's that.

They're Harley... On their own two feet. The Harley race is all right, and Adrian Adonis is on the way. I'm looking forward to that. And that's the Hasbro-style retro figures. of this week, Jim, one other thing I will mention here because several people have sent it over

and for the reasons they thought you would find it interesting, I thought you would find it interesting. I believe I know what you're talking about. The Matt Cardona group have in the past made comments about how badly they wanted to do your figures and how you needed them. And in the process maligned

the figures that I was in the process, of selling not only for myself, but for the Midnight Express. Ah, that's crap. We can do your figure. We can make you money. And I think the exact term was Jim Cornett needs us to make his figures. Well, those figures, apparently if you had said yes, if you had said, you know what, let's make these figures and let's do this. If you had done it then, you'd have a problem today with some of them. There has been chatter

that a lot of the figures they sold, the big rubber guys of various people from Road Warrior Animal, to Davy Boy Smith, to Andre the Giant, to Sergeant Slaughter, are changing colors. They're suddenly...

And we're not talking about changing their mind about their political affiliation or somehow modifying their their activities, that's not changing colors, they're actually changing into different fucking colors. They're changing yellow, and I can tell you I have a road warrior set.

I went and checked, and son of a bitch animal has a yellow tan everywhere. Well, now, remember, he did have that bout with jaundice. This is the special jaundice variant. There's been stories that there are yellowing figures. I've now seen this firsthand. And there are stories that some of the figures are developing. I don't even know what you call them red and blue veins, just weird.

Streaks. Lines. I've seen this firsthand as well. Some people were reporting mold breaking out on the figures. I have not seen that, at least yet. Well, now, to be fair, that was on the Bastion Bugger figure, so it could have come with it on purpose. There is no Bastion Bugger figure in that form, but Jim, I think the point is, if you you had done that early on. Right now, you'd have yellowing Jim Cornett figures that may or may not

be developing red and blue streaks all over them and possibly developing mold. And I would be having people that had bought them. Tell me about that. And I would be on the verge of committing homicidal mayhem. I've been sent a link and we've talked about this, where is this? We've talked about this message board in the past. They do a good job, the wrestlefigs.com message board where Matt Cardona is an active participant and there are fans trying to get straight answers about this whole thing and it appears they're trying, Matt Cardona is trying as hard as he cannot to directly address what's going on. They charge $50 plus for these figures. Matt Cardona just did an interview. We're bragging about, we're making millions of dollars. They have a

pre-order model and figures are now a couple years in turning yellow and possibly developing mold. Now's not the time to be smug with people on a fucking message board. Now's the time to start thinking of a plan. What are you going to do about people who a couple years in have figures that are fucking turning colors? God damn it, Brian, if only I had taken them up on their horribly worded offer to do my stuff that I now could have.

The Pineapple Express instead of the Midnight Express. I got the Latuni Antonio Inoki in the LJN style here on my desk. It has remained the same color that I purchased it, or that it was in when I purchased it. It has not developed any sort of communicable disease. Are these figures going to degenerate more? Do I have anything to worry about? What's causing this?

What the fuck? I mean, seriously, on this message, board, if I was someone, and clearly I am, who had a figure that after it was brought to my attention, I went and looked and I saw these problems, I'd be pretty pissed off in Matt Cardona and his attitude on there. I know you guys think you're high and mighty, and there's plenty of people will go along with it. But we get emails from people saying that you guys manipulate the market, that you guys scalp your own stuff, and now this shit.

So stop it. You're making rubber figures that have to be glued together. Well, here's the thing is that it has to be some kind of chemical reaction that is going on from whatever they've used in these materials. Is that something that should children be putting these things in their mouth or whatever?

What kind of fucking... Well, it's 18 plus and for adults, that way you get around it. Well, should adults be putting these things in their mouth? Not everyone's Vince McMahon, Jim. Well, I just, you know, I'm wondering how they're mixing up their rubber. You know, they do those novelty condoms at the truck stop in a variety of colors, but it's

on purpose. They don't just turn that after they get older. Well, again, I don't know what's going to happen about this, but I encourage anyone else who has figures that are turning different shades of yellow or brown or developing mold or maybe developing mold or developing veins, whatever this is. Or asbestos. What is causing this? What's causing all this?

I don't know, Arne. Jim, that was retro figures. Of course, if people want figures of Jim Coronet and the Midnight Express or just the Midnight Express without that Jim Coronet, you can get that from Coronet's collectibles at Jimcoronet.com. Yes, as a matter of fact, you can,

and I can tell you that we may have had a few issues with things being lost in the mail or damaged in shipping, but every single one of the action figures, whether it's me or the Midnight Express or the Heavenly Bodies that you have bought or are going to continue to buy at Jimcornad.com right now

is going to stay the same color you get it in for the rest of its life. Jimcornet.com and the Midnight Express four packs that comes with the collector's book and the 8 by 10 photo autographed and the certificate of authenticity and all that stuff's in color and the color that's supposed to be as well.

Jimcornet.com At Jimcornet.com, of course, Jim, if you are going to sell wrestling figures, as you are, but if the average mom and dad wanted to start selling wrestling figures, they're really late to the game. But if you could sell something else, whatever it may be, whatever you can dream of,

that you can legally sell, you need a partner online to help you with all these complicated things, like talking and getting to Jim. And transitioning to Jim. communicating ideas and concepts and advertising services, if you need help in any of that, much like Brian does, with his tongue has lopped over his eye teeth and he couldn't see what he was saying.

All you got to do is go to our friends at Shopify, because ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and children of all ages, if you're a mom and pop organization, let's say that pop wants to sell figures of mom. anatomically correct possibly or possibly inflatable. It depends on how mom looks with an air tube shoved up her hoochie. This is not the example we should be using here at this time. You don't know. Hey, do you know what the fucking...

Do you know what the inflatable sex toy market is worth on an annual basis around the world? And Shopify has 10% of all the e-commerce in the United States. that means they've got 10% of all the inflatable sex toy business in the United States. That does not mean that. It's math. It's mathematics. It's not mathematics. That's not how math works.

Math is determined by facts, not. Well, if you've got 10% of all. If you've got 10% of all the e-commerce in the United States, you've got to have 10% of all the inflatable sex toy business. It just makes sense. So, and they're the commerce platform behind millions. of businesses around the world and think how many inflatable sex toys that is. My God, the guy that blows him up, he's got to be ready to fucking fall over from

oxygen deprivation. But you can accelerate your efficiency. You can get the word out like you've got a marketing team behind you. You have a Shopify, a friend, a commerce expert with world class expertise in all facets of online commerce and e-commerce and you-commerce and all of the fucking commerce. And they're easy to get a hold of because they got award-winning 24-7 customer support. So let's say that your blow-up Vanessa del Rio, it suddenly has a rip for some unknown reason in the anal rectal region. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you can call them up, and you can call them up.

and you can ask them to somehow support you as you figure out a way to plug Vanessa's holes. Once again, let's just say that, that, no, that is not an example we will use. Vanessa Del Rio substitute that for donuts. We're talking about donuts, and you can make your donuts and sell your donuts to all sorts of people. You know, that's the thing. I knew a guy that operated a bakery, and I walked in one day while he was making the chocolate chip cookies. And he was taking the dough and he would press it.

He'd pull his t-shirt up and he'd press it onto his belly button to make that little thing that perks up at the top and he'd put it on the tray and put it in the oven. I said, isn't that kind of an unsanitary way to make cookies? He said, you ought to be here the day we make the donuts. But folks, if you'd like to sell any goddamn thing, whether it be your wife. Not your wife.

No, that is not allowed. Not any goddamn thing. Not any goddamn thing. And then the first example you give us the thing, we can't do. No, I'm talking about if you want to make your wife the model for the inflatable dolls, like Elaine was the model for that mannequin at the department store that time. So if you want to make images of your wife that can be inflated and used by millions of

businesses and people around the world, go to Shopify. Because they've got the best converting checkout on the planet. And it boosts conversions and less. carts go abandoned and my god it's a a cart is a terrible thing to waste so right now it's time to turn those what ifs and what the fucks into ching ching ching ching ching oh there it is into reality by signing up for your one dollar a month trial period today at shopify dot com slash jce $1 a month trial period they'll show you what they can do for you.

It's only going to cost you a dollar. And maybe you'll get a free inflatable Vanessa del Rio out of the deal as long as you can plug up its buttocks. Go to Shopify.com slash JCE now. That's right.

A great deal for all the listeners. If you need help online, we use Shopify. We encourage you to do the same. Of course, comedy and fun aside with that special Jim Cornett brand of humor. Shopify is there for you a great deal, Shopify.com.

And if you can't get a hold of them, Vanessa del Rio's not busy these days. With that, Jim, we shall return momentarily with part two of the top wrestlers in their 40s in 1984. The hell? We are in the future. We took a break for some puppy love, and now we are here in the future.

Sounds like we went to a funeral and then ended it with a slide whistle. I don't know what that... It doesn't sound like that at all. I don't know why you would say such a thing. That seems obnoxious and rude for no reason. But we're going to have fun here today, right? Plenty of reason.

Of course, we are already having fun. We just came back. We didn't just start. We've already had fun. Now we're going to have more fun. Fun, fun, fun. Three funds until Daddy takes the T-Bird away. Jim, we are going to return now to our look

at the top wrestlers in their 40s in 1984. Last time on the drive-through was part one of our putting together of this list, and here's who we have so far. On the list of no-brainers or certains for the top 20 in their 40s, Jack Briscoe at the age of 43, Antonio Inoki at the age of 41, Bob Armstrong at the age of 45, Blackjack Mulligan, 42, Ray the Cripler Stevens, 49 years old. Giant Baba. The original pitcher named Shohei.

46 years old. Harley Race. 41. Ivan Kolo, 42. Jimmy Valiant, 42. And finally, Mill Moscarus. 42, with question marks for Ken Patera. 42.

Rocky Johnson. 42. Alpha. 42. All of them older than Super Bowl. superstar Billy Graham at 41. That's amazing. That's amazing.

He's younger than all of these guys. And Dory Funk Jr. at 43. But Dory was born old. When he was a mere sperm cell, he was balding. And then the premise of this, obviously, we've said before, and you can go back and look, we did a top 20 in their 20s list and a top in their 30s list, because all of the main event stars were many of them.

It seems like everybody was talking about in the business are in their 40s. And so we went back and examined, well, what was the cream of the crop like in 1984, pivotal year? And when we went through the 20s and 30s lists, these are Hall of Fame names that were already main event guys in the major territories, drawing crowds being featured on television. And when you get to the guys in their 40s in this list, as you can see from some of these names,

these guys have already been major stars for most of them for 15 or 20 years and are still featured on top, but it wasn't like it took them that long to get there. And the guys that we didn't include so far on any list, or on either of the list of no-brainers, the list of question marks, just because they were either not really ever there to begin with or on the downhill slide, 84 on,

was not going to be kind to them, Jimmy Snooka, Pedro Morales, Angelo Mosca, Afa, fucking, hold on here, Oli Anderson, Plowboy Frazier, bless him. And by the way, Oli Anderson, of course, was due to inactivity in 1984 as a wrestler, which... Yeah, he had retired and become the promoter by then. He didn't know he was going to come back out of necessity

when the whole thing went to shit. Well, we ended the last time with Plowboy Frazier. Let's pick up this time with another interesting one, especially with what we just said about Oly Anderson, turning 40 in June. Terry Funk. and 1984, Terry Funk. He would still yet have more time in Japan, obviously,

even though he just retired the previous year, but he would also have a run in the WWF. He would have the talk of the wrestling world program with Rick Flair in 1989. In the early and mid-90s, he would not only be working on top in Smoky Mountain Wrestling for me, but in ECW for Heyman. He legitimized ECW. Well, yes.

And at the same time in the mid to late 90s, the run in W, well, a couple of runs in WWF curtailed by a couple of sick horses and spent time in WCW. And in the 2000s was the goddamn one of the biggest draws on the independent scene. So he'd been a star at this point in, what, 1967. So I think he's a check mark, right? Terry Funk is one of my favorite wrestlers ever on the shortlist. You know, if it's just five people, he's one of them. But 1984, I don't know.

What? He retired at the end of 83 in Japan, goes to the WWF in 85, doesn't go to the WWF in 84. the only thing I could think of of him in the States, did he work a mid-Atlantic taping once? Did pro wrestling USA have their first taping at the end of 84? He worked out one show. But now, wait a minute.

But now, wait a minute. We're going to have our first Meltzer Alvarez moment here, because if we haven't gone into the minutia of just this specific year, even though the guy's going to be a main event star for the next 25 years after that. For anybody else, why do it for Terry? And again, this is the year Terry turns 40. I would argue he'd be on this list for the 40s

every other year just about going forward. But it's the O'Leanderson principle. Inactivity in 1984. It's specific to that. Because if you were making this list at the beginning of 84, coming out of 83, you probably... You realize everybody's going to start lighting torches and getting pitchforks out of the barn

and you're just, you're just, I'm giving Terry Funk a checkmark. I don't care what year it is. It could be fucking partying like it's 1999 or whatever the fuck year. Terry Funk gets a check mark. As soon as he came from the womb, Terry Funk got a check mark. Once again, Oli Anderson slighted.

Jim turning 43 in July Thunderbolt Patterson He always looked old to me part of it was the eye business I think

What do you mean? Whoop the one eye that didn't I don't know if he was blind in one eye or it just didn't it didn't match the other eye It didn't look the same direction. It didn't.

Sort of like a fucking Edgar Allan Poe goddamn type of situation. But just the eye and also Thunderbolt Patterson drew a lot of bunny in the places that he was featured. Georgia, Florida, I think Texas, right? He was big in Texas.

When he was a younger fellow in the what would you? And Detroit, Sheik used him in Detroit, right? And from what would you say, the late 60s through the mid to late 70s, and especially in Georgia for much of that time, but these other territories as well, they always said, and I never saw him if he did have a prime, because when I saw him without context, he's one of those guys where when he just came into Memphis and you just saw him after the talent we'd seen when he was, okay, if he was 40,

I saw him when he was 38 rather than 28. He must have aged fast. When he worked for actually Jared or when he worked for ICW? What would he work for Jared? I didn't say, he didn't start working for ICW until they were, I was already in the business. and they were about to go out. Because he was there, I think, or around when the Dundee Savage thing happened.

He was with the ICW crew. No, because I was there, but he was on the show that they had in Memphis. Was he? Oh, oh, in Memphis. Oh, well, see, he didn't work this end of the territory in those days because nobody would have given a shit, but they were trying to go for a black baby face in Memphis.

But when he worked for Jarrett in 79, point is stunk the fucking place up he was rotten his shit looked phony nobody gave a shit because they didn't have the context of seeing him when he was young in a featured position given a push allowed to do the promos drawing in the massive african-american audience that we are told that he drew in those places which is why that he was able to get away with all the bullshit he did later on. But just to watch him by himself, like at this point in time, in the ring without seeing

that years of build and understanding the whole thing, no, new. Rotten. Rotten. Jim's full up to here. I'm full, you understand. And I can't, oh, if I could only talk about it. The original censored man, Thunderbolt Patterson, wasn't allowed to talk about anything. He never said a goddamn thing.

That's the thing. I've heard he was more coherent at his younger days. And then it became like he was just doing the greatest hits of the interview and also the time had passed the, you know, the, you know, the, the, the, Southern black preacher fervor, whatever the case, it just, it didn't, it didn't work. And he didn't stay here long, thankfully, and he got worse by the time

the 80s came around. And again, 84, I don't think he was really on the radar until Oli started championship wrestling from Georgia to compete with, to be on TBS after Vince took the Georgia championship wrestling and was grasping for life, reservoir is wherever he could find him. So no Thunderbolt.

Here's an interesting one. Turning 46 in June, Chief Wahoo McDaniel. I got to be honest with you. He's another guy. I don't care what year it was. The man, the worker, the personality that Wahoo McDaniel was,

especially at his prime, there's no way he can't get a checkmark. We'll have to take somebody else off if we run low on them. And again, it's an interesting period of time for Wahoo, too, because he's still somewhat featured in Mid-Atlantic, but he has the big heel turn, which goes into 85. He has another run with the U.S. title. So it's not like he was off the radar.

He was prominently used in Mid-Atlantic still. Well, and besides that, he's another guy that I think gets not, he gets a short shrift as they used to say by the modern fans because they're watching the 86 on TBS stuff and at that point I'm

boy howdy I got some residual heat on Bobby and Dennis one night for a promo and for the match in Raleigh with Wahoo and Ronnie Garvin I swear we were going to be working with Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble

and god-dan, they chopped Bobby Eaton and Dennis Condry into fucking pork chops. Oh, my God. But the thing was, people see Wahoo at that point in time, and he's overweight, and he's not a flashy guy, and he was old enough at that point that he didn't have the fire on the promos that he once had. but my god the mid-atlantic films that I saved were a revelation and a revolution

for me on Wahoo McDaniel even after I'd gotten to work with him personally because in 1976 he's getting shot across the ring and doing the upside down bump better than Flair did on his best day and okay when was he born 30 that means he was 38

at that point in time And the chops are legendary, not by the fans necessarily, as much the boys in the business, because when he turned heel and the fans would try to attack him, he would hit them with the chops. Fugging Hitchcock in Greensboro said he saw Wahoo chop a guy in a backhand chop in the chest so hard, it knocked him over a row of chairs. He cleared the chairs without knocking him over. and that's the way he would defend himself from people coming at him as a fucking shoot and the everything that you've heard about Wahoo was true the running the 26 miles from

Norman to Oklahoma City and then drinking a gallon of not a gallon but a quart of motor oil on a bet for $50 after that and he made the papers in fucking Charlotte what people would mouth off to him. One night, he, we read something, wasn't it? Here a few years ago

on the in the news thing where he pulled a fucking guy's head through a bicycle rack. Remember that at the mall when he had mouthed off to him? So, I mean, this way,

what a fucking personality. He played golf with Lee Trevino. He was a pro football player, a great wrestler all around athlete, I mean, and a stand-up guy, even when he got an office position, he was the same fucking Wahoo and he would roll his eyes at shit right along with you. So, no, he was one of the biggest stars of wrestling. All right, we have Wahoo on the list. Here's another interesting one,

Jim, 43 in January, Abdullah the Butcher. let's examine this because Abdullah the Butchers, one of the all-time most recognizable wrestlers in the history of the business. And he's a Hall of Fame name. And he's drawn money and worked on top everywhere. But what was he doing in 1984? That could be the only drawback.

I'll give you this one. What was Abby doing in 84? Star in Japan. And obviously by this point in time, Japan was the big focus for him. and obviously he would jump to New Japan, which was a big deal, and that kind of triggered a bunch of things, which led to Stan Hansen jumping to all Japan,

but Abdulah the Butcher, big star in Japan, in America, in 84, probably didn't have to do anything with the deal yet with Bobadillo, opened his fucking chicken and rib restaurant. I mean, he may have done some stuff in Georgia. I think he may have done some, was 84 when he did some stuff with Paul Jones in Mid-Atlantic? He didn't do much in the States, but he was a player.

I think he was there in 85 when we got there. He was, and Abby was on, 84. He was there on Starcade 85. So I mean, he's a checkmark worthy guy. Do you want to put a question mark down to just see where we end up? That's your decision. I'd put him on the list. Do you want question mark or list?

Well, let's put him on the list. And it will see where we get at the bottom. Dula 43. Jim turning 41 in October, Bad News, Allen. Again, a big-time name that just got put in the WWF Hall of Fame. E, whatever. But up against names, the Terry Funks, the Abdullah the Butchers, the Wahoo-McDaniels,

the Mil-Moscuruses, the Ray Stevens's, the Bad News had a good career in Japan, Calgary, brief run in the WWF, and his career overall in wrestling was not that long because he started late because he'd been the silver medalist in judo and et cetera. So does he meet the qualifications that these other automatic or even questionable guys do? I don't think he does for 84. Well, he certainly had New Japan tours and stuff, and I don't remember exactly what his schedule wasn't 84. It was the end of 83, where he was a part of an angle that really helped kill Stampede wrestling for a while. That's right. He got him kicked off the well. He did. He was doing what he was told. Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, he was, so maybe his year wasn't so good in 84 when he'd gotten his

territory closed down in 83. I think I'd put him on the list for 83. I don't think I'd put him on for 84. Okay. Jim also turning 41. This time. in June, former AWA world champion Otto Vanz. Did you get to see him at all? I never saw him live, but I've seen him on tape. Did you see him on tape then, though? Not after the fact.

Oh, yeah, no, concurrently with what was happening, I would, yeah, and I hate to offend our German and Austrian audience, but just as the promoter that brought you the catch over there. You know, I'm sure he was a fine fellow, but Jesus Christ on a cracker, put him Plowboy Frazier and Big Daddy in the goddamn ring

and have the world suckoff championship. At least Frazier could drop the leg. All right, I don't, Vaughn's not on your list, talking about people who may stink the venue up. I shouldn't say that he was a big star, but turning 40 and he was a big star, but turning 40 in April, Tiger Jit Singh. Wow, I mean, you know, we laughed about Otto Vons.

Tiger Jit Singh was a star in more than one market. He got Toronto in Japan, and maybe Hamilton even, in the loop there. I don't know that we can even explain if we have time here. If I only had time on the show to explain Tiger Jit Singh to anybody who's not seen him, go on YouTube or wherever you can find it and look up his Japanese stuff from the late 70s, early 80s, Tiger Jit Singh, because probably not much of the Toronto stuff is out there, and you've seen him. And that's it.

But because of the gimmick, the, he was at, a different nationality chic takeoff gimmick but since he was actually even more legitimately Middle Eastern than sheik was he got over with the and we I do this every time

whatever his religious affiliation or ethnicity or whatever the group is called there's a large bunch of them in Ontario Canada and Toronto was already prone to like that kind of gimmick from the Sheik himself and from Nanjo Singh,

who was the top heel in Toronto and it went to the 30s and 40s. So that's kind of, and they loved him in Japan because it was kind of like the Sheik, but with a sword. I believe he has a school named after him in Ontario. He's one of the few wrestlers that actually has a school named after him. Yeah, not a wrestling school, but an actual school where they teach, but because he became a multi-millionaire businessman up there. Through the, through the rest.

He made more money out of wrestling and almost every other wrestler that was not over anywhere and didn't work anywhere except two places. He's one of these guys, and maybe I need to go back and revisit some of his stuff and give it another shot, but you said go watch Japanese footage. If you watch Japanese footage of him and like that, it, I'd be surprised. However, I would say go watch or go find Japanese photos.

Because in photos, he looked incredible. Him going after Anoki with his saber? Looked incredible. Him having the saber in his mouth as he's storming through the fans. Incredible. His matches? Then you watch the match. Not credible.

Exactly. Exactly. I wouldn't put him on the list for 84. What are your thoughts? we're moving on 42 in February Jim meanwhile Masa Saito Wow

I mean a great talent and was over a tremendous degree in Japan but had great runs here in many territories in the United States in the 70s and early 80s until the unpleasantness but on just on

this list of I'm questioning You know, whether just with all the other names, he was a featured guy in the United States, but he was never a money draw on his own in the United States. He was in tag teams. He was in heel groups. He, you know, not a long-running mainstay of any particular territory. Bigger in Japan, obviously on his own name, but just the competition here. What do you think?

84 is in the AWA. Of course, that's the year of the McDonald's incident, goes to jail in 85. Does business in New Japan, you know, after the fact. But we're talking here, this is a couple of years after him, as Mr. Saido was teaming with Mr. Fuji, tag team champions with Al-Albano. I don't think he makes the list for 84, but that's not a knock on him in any way. He was a really good wrestler. Yeah, it just, this is crowded.

And another guy may be about to be crowded here, but go ahead. Well, again, also from the Land of the Rising Sun, also turning 42 in February, C.G. Sakaguchi. Boy, see, that's a, it's almost unfair to Sakaguchi and a guy like Saito that we don't have our own Japanese category because then they, you know, they would blow past a few of these other names, but if we're United States centric, which we are, these, are the names that were making in 1984

featured on main event or featured matches in the territories and Sakaguchi was Baba's right-hand man for years. Was the number two guy on the roster for some period of time in the early days until

Jumbo came along and Teneru and was a behind-the-scenes force in the office was an executive at New Japan for years and years. and did a lot of the traveling and meeting and et cetera. It's just, it's, it's crowded here. And based in the United States, Sakaguchi was featured on major shows in the United States

when he would come over with Inoki or with possibly Tiger Mask or anybody in the era that they brought over. They didn't just bring Sakaguchi because he was a wrestler. he was coming because he was the number two guy. Well, it sounds like we don't agree not on the list for 84. There you go. Jim 44 years old in July. Baron von Rashke.

Boy, um, Baron von Rashke himself obviously is a Hall of Fame wrestler and a memorable personality and drew big money in a variety of plays. places. At this point, this was the downhill point of his career. He'd been a main event guy since, what, 67, 68 when they gave him the gimmick. And thank God, Mad Dog Vashan thought they should name him Barron von Pumpkin. Because when Mad Dog was working in the AW way when they broke the bearer, in he was regular old Jim Rashkey and he was driving the ring truck

and he had sparse red hair he was going bald in his 20s and those big ears that stuck out and he told me the story himself his mad dog used to come by the fucking control room or if he was sitting in the catering not catering

but the break room at the TV station you look like a German and he go on and finally they made him a fucking German but his Instead of Baron von Pumpkin, it was Baron von Rashke. He'd been a star at this point for almost 20 years. Still to this day, the most people to ever see an event in Fort Wayne, Indiana to Civic Center,

or is it Civic Center or the Memorial, whatever the fuck, the building in Fort Wayne was Dick the Bruiser versus Baron von Rasky in 1972. Had a big run in the Midwest, but worked for crime. worked in Florida, worked in obviously for some period of time in the WWF, but that wasn't his finest hour. He's at least a question mark, but at this point in time, you know, he's already seen his biggest years on top, to put it kindly and politely. and one of the nicest guys backstage in the history of the wrestling business and Bobby Heenan said he probably the nicest.

I think definitely a question mark. I don't know if he would make the list for 84. He was in the AWA still. He would go to the NWA. Was it 85? I don't know if he would make the list. Sold a lot of merch on his own. I know that's because I have the records

from what he sold to Norm Kiteser, or from Norm Kite. Jim turning 46. in September, another AWA legend, Billy Robinson. Wow. You know, again,

Hall of Famer, I don't think that Billy Robinson translates to the modern audience like he should. And part of it, he, on his best day, his promos

were okay. and he kind of shunned and abhorred too much showmanship in the business and when he was at this point in his career even when he came to Memphis the only I've said this before the only time that it translated the Billy Robinson thing the only time it translated was when he worked with Bill Dundee because Dundee could do all that shit Dundee could do world of sport Dundee could Matt Russell. Dundee had the cardio because Robinson then in 19, let's see, 81, how old is it?

When was he born here? He was 43 years old and Dundee was almost 40. And they would go 40 minutes hard mat wrestling, switching moves, the fucking shit that Robinson did, covered in sweat, and Dundee could barely hang with him. And I, I never saw Bill Dundee blown up, ever. Didn't have, it wasn't possible. What about Robinson and Tony Charles? Robinson and, see, I enjoyed Robinson and Dundee more than Robinson and Tony Charles. And I'll tell you why, because Charles was so similar in the style that he was doing to what

Robinson was doing, that it was enjoyable. I'm not saying that. But it, it legitimately, with Dundee and Robinson, looked more. real because Dundee was doing his shit, Robinson was doing his shit, and they were meeting in the middle, and it looked like a fucking struggle. And plus Dundee was more, way more over and way more featured than Tony Charles ever was. So here in this territory, so Robinson and Dundee, the people were into it because they want to see Dundee beat Robinson for the CWA world title. But when it was Robinson and Tony Charles at a 15-minute time limit on the third match.

But anyway, but anyway, point is, but 84. He was, again, not retired just yet, but he had been a wrestler for, what, 25 years, and he was, the weight was catching up with him. I'm not saying he still couldn't run through the entire locker room without sweating, but he just looked I think his best days were behind him as far as a money drawing attraction

but I will say and before you tell me what you think if anybody wants to see if anybody wants to get Billy Robinson what was the fucking big deal there's a video on YouTube I retweeted this years ago

but I think it was titled Billy Robinson a wrestler's wrestler have you ever seen that off the top of my head I don't think I have I don't think I have somebody put it together but it was footage of Robinson

as a young man and all the way through his career there was even the legends match he had in Japan with Bach Winkle when they were both into their 50s but even going back to when he was training in the snake pit and there was

it was an amateur thing put together, but it showed you Robinson, and they even had footage from somewhere of Billy Riley. You know, walking, the old man that started this whole hooking thing in the snake pit and Wiggin, and he's in the hat and the fucking battered coat, and he's visiting the grave of somebody, I don't know what the fuck. But it showed Billy Robinson and all the shit that he did, and you're just mouthed. hangs open. And as a matter of fact,

Robinson, the cartwheel guard pass in mixed martial arts came off of Billy Robinson fucking a high spot. Anyway, I would check mark him just because he was so unique, but he

was one of a kind. But in 84, it was almost over. We can't really I can't full-throatedly make you do that. Yeah, I wouldn't put him on for 84, and I'm a fan of Billy Robinson, since I think he's a tremendously talented wrestler, any of the footage you see of him, and I've watched that Tony

Charles match specifically from Memphis many times, but I don't see it for 84, especially with such a crowded list of people who did do a lot in 84. He didn't do a lot in 84. That's the other thing. Yeah, and again, I don't know if they ever taped. any of the Dundee Robinson matches in their full length, because in Rupp Arena and Lexington, I know the camera wasn't there.

They went 35 or 40 minutes or whatever the fuck. But that's probably the best non-70s, non-AWA stuff I've ever seen from Robinson. And Vern kept him around because he wanted a legitimate wrestler because he was too at his day. and he wanted legitimate wrestlers as much as possible on the cart. And then mad dog into Crusher. Jim staying in the AWA, turning 49 in October,

he would have a baby face run all of a sudden wearing all white. It was an interesting look. Black Jack Lanza. Wow. You know, again, and I loved working with Jack Lanza as an agent in the WWF. was a funny guy and and he's the one like Austin always wanted Jack Lanzah he was the guy that the top guys wanted to work with he was he was easy he was smart knew what the fuck he was talking about he he had predated Vince Jr. by so long that he didn't mind every once in a while

you know talking to the boys about the the chairman as as one of the old guard would have. Just his, he'd been in the business so long. I mean, Jack Lanzah was so good and he and Bobby Heenan were so good as a combination that that's what made Sam Munchnik bring Heenan to St. Louis was Lanzah and Heenan, that combination. And they drew money together. And then when they found Robert Windham and made him Blackjack Mulligan, having the

blackjack name got Mulligan over. automatically is a main event guy because of Lanzah. And they had runs as the tag team champions for Bruiser, for Vince, Senior, for basically everywhere they went, they would win the tag team title. And then, you know, Lanzah after Mulligan went to the Carolinas,

and Lanzo went back to, Lanzo was originally from Minnesota. So he lived there most of his life. he would go back and work for Vern and was still doing it at this point in time. I think he might be a question mark just because he was almost ready to retire and become an agent for Vince Jr. at this point. I'll put him on as a question mark. Again, he has a baby face run all in white.

I keep saying that just because it stood out. He wore black his whole crew. He was wearing a white cowboy hat and white trunks. It was different. It was brilliant, brilliant, because it was simple. Jim turning 45 in March, Sheik Adnan L. Casey. Oh, well, and also Chief Billy White Wolf

for the fans of 70s, WWWF, he was Jay Strongbo's partner. And he was a name in the places that he worked. I don't know that he ever carried a territory either as a wrestler or a manager, but he was more noted for his connections and the ability to get promoters, those at least within the business, for the promoters to get those big money sold shows over in various points where he had connections. So, you know, just as a, again on this list,

I think there's a lot of competition. He was a big deal in the AWA that year, but primarily as a manager, not necessarily for his in-ring stuff. And of course, he had done some major shows in Iraq. He went to school with Saddam Hussein. But not on our list here. Here's an interesting one.

I assume you'll immediately say checkmark, and I tend to agree, but an interesting 84, turning 41 inoccurring. Superstar Bill Dundee. See, I can't say, this is one where I'm sticking to my rules. And I can't say an automatic checkmark for Bill Dundee because of the fucking precedence that we have set. All of these other guys were main event guys in multiple territories and drew money for

years and years featured blah blah blah blah Dundee while one of the best workers on this list if you come right down to it I never saw Bill Dundee have a bad match as I said he was never blown up and he worked harder than anybody on the show even spot shows and he had a unique and different style as a heel when he came to

when he came to the United States in late seven debuted in the Memphis Territory, early 75. Bobby Shane had gone to Australia, and one of the, you know, Dundee and George Barnes were a underneath team there. They weren't being featured, and they were on the small side. And Bobby Shane said, if you guys want to go to America, you ought to go to Tennessee because they'll, they like tag teams and they'll use smaller guys that can bump. And he said, you want to go work for Jerry, Jared.

you don't want to go work for Nick Goulos, right? And this was before Jared had split off from Nick. So basically he was telling him, you're going to work for Goulis Welch, but you want to be booked on the end of the territory that Jerry Jarrett books. And they came to that end of the territory, and they were selling the fucking Coliseum out

within the first six weeks that they were there. I remember it. I saw it on TV firsthand. I saw them at the Louisville Gardens. They got instant fucking heat. The accents and the way they worked and the, they've won the Southern Tag Team titles and then drug the belts down the fucking aisleway after them

because it was, oh, you stupid Yanks thinking this is garbage to us and they'd throw them in the ring like a bunch of sheds what destroyed the belts, as a matter of fact. And the people at Dundee still, has a scar on his chest from an old woman in Louisville with a fucking nail file. She was going down, but she came up a little bit short and just gouged him all the way down instead of plunging it straight in.

They got, and the bumps they took, nobody had ever seen anything like. And Jerry Jarrett took a liking to Dundee. And when Barnes got homesick and wanted to go back to Australia, he only stayed six months. And people years after still were, oh, Barnes and Dundee, what a team. Dundee floundered for a little while as a single heel, but teeny had told Jerry, he's,

he's so cute. He looked like Davy Jones of the monkeys. And the girls loved him. So they switched him baby face. And for the next, God, let's see, 76, for the next eight years, pretty much straight,

he was a main event guy almost exclusively a baby face in the territory, booked it, worked in most towns 52 weeks a year, nobody ever got tired of. And then he became, still to this day, I mean, he doesn't wrestle anymore, but Dundee can do appearances in Memphis and parts of Tennessee and they'll show up.

But in 84, as we've talked about a million times, they, Jared made the deal with Watts and he went to Mid-South to book. So he wasn't a wrestler for most of this year, but he was booking, which he already had booked Memphis a number of times during that time period. He was booking the record year for one of the biggest territories in the United States. And he would be an active wrestler for the second half of the year, at least September on, he started wrestling. And only over Watts's objections

because he didn't want the Booker wrestling. And Dundee, that's the thing. Dundee brought Adrian Street in just to work a fucking program with each other because Dundee didn't want to be in the main event. He just couldn't stay out of the ring. He was booking the whole thing, but he just wanted to go take bumps for 15 minutes every fucking night. He could.

Dundee would goddamn take bumps at a fucking empty pocketline. at 4 o'clock in a morning to have a match for three people gathering shopping carts. He just wanted to work, right? And then after the booking run was done, he went back to Memphis and he sold the Coliseum out. Remember the 86? He was amazing. Bill and Buddy Show. 85 and 86 Bill Dundee is some of the greatest shit I've ever seen.

Yeah, and he, but he, and point is, I can't give him an automatic checkmark, even though he was a great worker. he was a fucking successful Booker and goddamn drew money for years because he only drew money as a wrestler in one fucking place because he never had to leave. So how do you...

Again, 84, he was inactive most of the year even though he had sporadic matches filled in for a dream machine when he got hurt and the Bruce Brothers came to Mid-South but predominantly he was the Booker and then he wrestled the second half of the year. He'd be on my list for 85

and 86. I don't know because of that if I would put him on for 84. But a question. Yeah. And then some people saw him when he came to work, Crockett was on TBS in the late 80s, and they were using him as an agent also in various points. But by that point, he was you know, his mid-40s and time waits for nobody even Dundee was slowing down. So they

didn't see, you know, the, again, the, I've never seen a son of a bitch. not just take bumps like Bill Dundee, but actually take bumps like Bill Dundee. He would take over the top rope or any kind of upside down into turnbuckle or whatever, but a different way than everybody else did. His whole style was different.

Except for his working punches. They were the same every goddamn. That's where Ricky Morton said, Bill, do me a favor next time we work, I want you to draw back and punch me in a face as hard as you can. he said why punky because your working punches are killing me well Jim

continuing on here with the list turning 46 in November someone you were around in 1984 the big cat Ernie Ladd again how can you not give Ernie Ladd a check

how can you not give Ernie Ladd a check mark with all that Ernie Ladd is done I mean even though he was he was bopping around a couple of different places, Crockett to Mid-South, doing special appearances. He wasn't on just every spot show, and he was about to retire.

He was, and he was about to go work by 86. He'd be working as a scout for Vince. He's the one that called us when we went to meet Vince for the first time. So it, he was really retiring this year. but I mean, it's Ernie fucking lad. Not only for, as Ernie would tell you, he was the most publicized black athlete in the United States of America the year before Cassius Clay won the gold medal.

He was a high school star. He was a college football star at Grambling. He played for the Houston Oilers and the Kansas City Chiefs. And he left football against the, football teams' wishes or coach's wishes because he found out he could make more money in wrestling as an individual because they were already using him as a main event star in 1962 and he didn't leave football full time till like what, 66, 66, 67 season.

I mean, he worked on top everywhere against everybody and drew money in so many different places. And at one point, you know, he was one of Vince Senior's revolving trio of top heels that would just, you know, they would book the entire territory around Bruno and those three with Ivan and Graham, right? Then he went to be a major star for the competition against Vince McMahon with IWA. It was him and Milboscarus on top in Jersey City, I think. because the big cat was all about those payoffs as well. He needed to be treated fair. He was a Booker.

It was, here's a funny question. Nobody's asked us, and I've never thought about it, was Ernie Ladd, would he have been the first black Booker in anywhere in wrestling? Because who would have come before him? And are we missing an obvious name?

I mean, the Luther Lensies and the, folks at Bobo Brazil, they never booked. I think Ernie was the first Black Booker in wrestling. I can't think of anyone before him. And in his younger days, and I saw him work with Bruiser in the early 70s in Indianapolis, those tapes. So he would have been 33, 34, he was taking backdrops at 6-9 and 3-25.

he could take back drops, he could throw drop kicks, that big leg drop, he'd get six feet in the air. Again, a lot of people may have seen the last few years, early 80s stuff, where he still was dropping the leg, but he had slowed down from the cat in the 60s and 70s. But I mean, he's a checkmark, isn't he, just any time? 84 he returns to mid-south and he's not just there. He gets a run on top of the North American Championship.

I think this is his last year. I would... I mean, that's the problem. His promos were still good. A superficial thing. I hated that he shaved his facial hair. It just changed the way he looked. It didn't look as cool.

Yeah. Didn't look as cool. His knees were definitely shot. But, you know, again, he was... Oh, my God. When he would come into the locker room, he would, as soon as he'd walk in, he'd have his bag on one shoulder,

but he would grab a folding chair and he would lean on the back of it as he'd drug it across to where he wanted to sit down. And his knees looked like grapes on a toothpick. He'd had so many surgeries. And still not wear knee pads, but no actual braces. and was able to still do a lot of the shit that he always did.

Let's put him on the list. Again, North American Champion in 84. There you go. Jim, turning 47 in April, he would make a big comeback later this year. George D. Animal Steel. Oh. From the name and the longevity and the, you know, overness, at least a question.

Mark, the first part of his career, he legitimately only worked in the summertime when he was off from his teaching job. So even when Vince Sr. brought him to the garden and to the WWWF to work with Morales and et cetera, it was because it was summertime. And finally the business got so big. He was like, well, fuck I can kind of make a lot more money, wrestling than teaching. And, you know, he didn't work a ton of different territories.

He worked Detroit for the Sheik because he was from there. That's where he was located. He could go to the northeast in the summertime. and I mean, at a couple of points, didn't he make a few guest appearances, maybe on Florida shows or, I guess the point I'm making is George, the Animal Steel is a, in Georgia. 82, he was in Georgia, yeah.

I think it was 82, 81 or 82. George the Animal Steel was a huge name who was featured on top when he worked and especially in the 80s with the expansion when he went to work full-time for Vince, but over the period of his career, even though it lasted a while, he did not work that many territories. So if that's working against Bill,

let's face, Dundee was a lot better in-ring worker. Of course, George was a real legitimate college shooter and could tie anybody up, but for the gimmick, is he a question mark at this point just because he was big in one place and not for the longest period of time? I would say at best a question mark for 84. 85 is when he would really get his baby face run going after he was hypnotized on TNT. And he would become a big star.

He was a big part of the Randy Savage story for a long time. And, of course, he had merch with the Mind doll and everything. Yeah. I'll put him as a question mark. Jim also on the list here? He would begin the year as the World Wrestling Federation Champion, turning 42 in March, the Iron Sheik. Wow.

The only thing I could think, he did work in a variety of places on top. I saw him during his run in Memphis in 82, and it was, you know, it was wild. but he was on top in Texas. Remember, Hossein Arab, and he obviously spent a lot of time on top in the WWF. He also worked mid-South, the Carolinas. So the working a lot of places and featured positions is there. He was in it especially, that's the problem,

as Sheik was born in 1942. He didn't come to the United States and really get into business until 72. When he was already 30, that's what he had the washboard abs. I saw him doing TV jobs in 73 into Tennessee territory. Ali Viziri, he had a full head of hair, and he was introduced to 218 pounds. And then suddenly, you know, by the mid-70s, he bulked up and he got the gimmick, and it's an updated chic gimmick. but the only thing I think is

is longevity the only thing that might work against him because he was really only the Iron Sheik or a Hussein Arab version of that from what 76ish through the end of his in ring was late 80s and he was a manager no Iron Sheek wrestled past that point well but I'm on a major league basis

They brought him in in 901 to be part of the Sergeant Slaughter thing. They changed his name. He became Colonel Mustafa. But he was just a manager at that point. No, he wrestled. He wasn't. Did he wrestle? Adnan L. Casey was the manager.

Did anybody give a shit that he was wrestling? In Louisville, Kentucky, not a chance. No one gave us shit. I put him on the list for 84. Again, it begins the year as WWF champions. Well, yes, you know, that was probably his premier year. He's one of the biggest heel stars in the company that's now touring nationally. he is about to become one of the first merchandise

wrestlers with action figures. I think he's on the list, absolutely. All right, we'll put him on a list. And actually, you know what, Jim, we're going to end our list there today because we still have several more names and... And we know too much about these people. Well, we talk a little while.

We have the dossiers. We know everything, and if they don't pay up... Well, no, that's not what we're saying here. Well, that's what I'm saying. What I'm saying is next time on the dry... through, we will finish the look at the top wrestlers in their 40s for 1984. We will also briefly discuss

who was active in their 50s and even 60s in 1984. And that's how we'll finish up next time. But Jim, with that, the drive-through is closed. You know what? That was a good one. Of course, we'll be back in a few days on the Jim Coronet Experience.

next week back here on the drive-through. Go through the archive, patreon.com slash cornet. $5 a month gets you access to the archive going back to 2013, Patreon.com slash cornet. The official Jim Coronet YouTube channel, just go to YouTube and search for Jim Cornet. It'll come right up. Full episodes, Clipsity episodes, Omnibus Collections,

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Puppies! Oh, puppies! Of course, the drive-thru is brought to you by the law office of Stephen Pino, 877-5-0, Steve, get even with Stephen. at new lawoffice.com. But until the experience in a few days and next week back here on the drive-thru, for Jim Cornett, I'm the Great Brian last. Tally-ho!