Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru - Episode 454: Jim Reviews AEW Redemption

Episode Date: August 1, 2026

This week on the Drive Thru, Jim reviews AEW Redemption! Plus Jim reviews WWE Unreal, continues his list of the Top 20 Wrestlers In Their 20s in 1994, and talks about Evansville, wrestler tattoos, and much more! Thanks to our episode sponsors: ULTRA:  Don’t sleep on @ultrapouches. New customers get 15% Off with code JCE at takeultra.com! #UltraPouches #ad 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.

Yeah! Hello again, friends, and you are our friends, and welcome back to another edition of Jim Cornett's drive-through. Jesus, I'm your host of the great Brian last, and here's the man who will lead us through the promised land here today. The leader of the cult of Cornette, the yelling stops now, Mr. Jim Cornett. Whatever you say, just don't hurt me. For God's sake, you came through the screen about to snatch me by the goosele pipe and squeeze my breeches full. You were so proud of yourself for not hitting the one ear piercing shrill note that always sends a dagger into the listener's hearts and minds. You've sounded like a chipmunk on amphetamine, just running all of this.

That's kind of my sound. That's kind of my sound. It's happened. Are you all right? I've been listening to a lot of commander Cody. So I decided I'd play a little boogie-woogie. And then I realized I can't play boogie-woogie, so it happened like that.

You're one of the airmen that's circling the lost planet right now. I have a feeling. You know, that's who they ought to have put together. In AEW, while Cody Rhodes was still there, they ought to teamed him up with commander, and they could have called him, Commander Cody. I like it.

We're narrow casting now. Does anybody even know what the fuck we're talking about? Commander Cody, obviously not his real name, he had kind of a stoner, not rockabilly, but stoner. He was stoned is what you're saying. Boogie-woogie kind of rock and roll thing. Boogie-wuggy dance hall material. There's amazing footage available of him on a

Letterman, like in the early days of late night with David Letterman where he does a song. One of the sods was, we're drinking, we're nuts. That was like the chorus over and over again. But he does interviews, and he's just such a character that you can understand why he had such a devoted following amongst the people who were

into that kind of scene. And the Lost Planet Airmen who were there to cheer him on. And it's from the old serial commander Cody and the lost Planet Airmen, you know, the rocketeer later was like... You don't mean cereal like you pour milk over in a bowl in the mornings. You're talking about them because remember, Brian, some of our listeners aren't 80 or 90 years old

or are versed in the pop culture as we are and they don't know what the fucking movie serial. The perils of Pauline! Where do you think they got the idea to tie people to the railroad tracks? It invented a sodic TV before there was a thing called TV. yes it was just episodic oh and then along came john all right anyway before we go anywhere today i got to do this i've been meaning to mention on any of our programs here for the past few weeks the new book that sean delaney put out on evansville indiana wrestling history and things just keep a popping up And he's like the last guest on the 90-minute version of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

He kept getting bumped. Golly, we don't have time for Shawnee. If he'll come back tomorrow. But I must mention that he has, and you have seen this as well, done the history of professional wrestling in Evansville, Indiana for 1972 and 1973. And he's expanded his coverage because, as he gets, gets into the golden years of the Goulos Welsh office, etc. He's comparing the cards in Evansville with the cards in Louisville.

Louisville was on Tuesdays most of the time. Evansville on Wednesdays most of the time. Both towns had been opened up by Jerry Jarrett and Christine Jarrett, Jerry's mother, Taney, was the promoter for the towns. And so he's comparing the Evansville. cards with the Louisville cards and then also the goulous welch office was running Owensboro, Kentucky in some periods on a weekly basis on Monday nights as a sea town because Monday night was already Birmingham, Alabama and Memphis, Tennessee.

But there was still a live event in Owensboro every one. week and Phil Golden's All-Star wrestling that we've talked about in the past that was about to start running opposition during this period to Jared and Louisville and other places. They had broken off from Goulis Welch because Phil Golden was originally Nick and Roy's promoter in Paduca and had broken off and took the town and was running his own show there. And this was also a period of time if you want to go even further. where Lexington, Kentucky, not the big Rupp Arena shows

who would come later in the 70s, but just shows at the local, I think it was the Lexington, it was either Henry Clay High School or Catholic High School, Jim. And they were on Thursday nights. So between Monday and Fridays, if you wanted to start in Lexington, Kentucky,

and drive 300 miles south, you could see, or 300 miles west, you could see five live shows of wrestling per week. So that's over 200 per year in just that little stretch of geography. Brian, have I lost you on the wherewithal and the locations of these things? I mean, in terms of the actual locations, maybe a little bit, but I have a general idea of the area, specifically from being, a wrestling fan. A lot of my early geography knowledge came specifically from professional

wrestling. Well, but that's the thing is that he's done a great job here of pointing out not only the cards, but the difference is, as I mentioned, Evansville in those days was a sea town because the entire Goulis Welsh Empire, Birmingham and Memphis, where Memphis was Roy's pet town and Birmingham was Nick's pet town. And on Wednesday nights they also ran Nashville. So Evansville was fighting Nashville at the time and they also had Bowling Green, Kentucky as a weekly town. And Jackson, Tennessee, for a lot of this period of time, ran on Wednesday nights.

So it was just a ridiculous number of live events that they were. They ran and that's why they had incredible numbers of different wrestlers in the territory at any one time because they had to put on two, three, sometimes four shows a night. But with Louisville, since it popped and it was a money town, Louisville got more attention. Whereas in the early days, Evansville, that's why Jared pressed into service some of Bruiser's talent because since he, as we've talked about, got strong-armed into paying Bruiser and Snyder when he opened up Louisville in Evansville because they claimed that they were their towns, he would get some of their underneath guys to come and fill out the cards.

And you'd see odd matchups of guys from two different territories facing each other. But besides the business, which I'll come back to that in a second, the business aspect of the number of shows and the number of wrestlers. He's also uncovered with the Paducah, Phil Golden events, because we talked about Angelo Pafo, was involved with the Golden promotion and later on put some money in it. And these are the same towns that he and his sons, Randy and Lanny, would open up when they started ICW wrestling several years later. Angelo was, which Angela was backing at that point, Angela was fixated on the idea of running this loop of towns.

But during the, and Brian, you said, what is the 1973 baseball preseason or whatever it was that is training? This is where Savage was wrestling his first matches. What was the baseball situation at that point? Well, there was a holdout. that was a, you know, that was when there was a big thing in spring training was delayed. Remember, we had a guest to program show from Racine, where there was a wrestler, a masked wrestler in the main event when Angelo O'Poffel in a tag match,

and based on the picture, seeing the physique, it looked to be a young Randy Savage, because I've kind of seen other pictures of him, his physique stands out, because he was skinny, he was slim, just, whatever, it looked like Randy Savage. Right, right, right. And in this case, some of the Phil Golden shows that were running around this period of time, because Savage was still trying to make it in baseball, and he didn't want anybody to know, any of the baseball people to know that he was starting to break into wrestling, but he worked without a mask under the name Jim Pride.

And he was jerking the curtain on some of the Golden shows at that point. as baseball was getting screwier, he was starting his next career there. And anyway, it's fascinating. The history of professional wrestling in Evansville, Indiana, 72 and 73, it also has, as I mentioned, the Louisville Cards, Owensboro, Paducah, backstage stories, or behind-the-scenes stories, rather on the different promotional changes and things that were in the newspaper at the time. But think about this.

Brian, again, for the people who say, wrestling is so much more popular now, and well, you just hear about it more, they were running Memphis, Tennessee, in 72 and 73 on Monday nights, that's the period of time where Jackie Fargo and Al Green had the first Coliseum sellout. And then in 73, it was Lawler and White as a tactical,

tag team with Sam Bass against Tojo and Jarrett and Fargo, those guys that were setting the attendance records where they sold out one week and came back and sold out the next week, $11,000 plus. They're also running Birmingham on Monday nights from the Gulles office. Jarrett booked Memphis, as we've said, and Gullis says Book Erdle in Rossi usually booked Birmingham. They'd do 3,000 people a week or better in those days, and 6,000 seat sellouts were not uncommon. And that's why that Birmingham was always looked at more finely on Monday nights than Memphis until Jarrett took over, moved to the Coliseum, and started out drawing it.

And then they've got a spot show in Owensburg. Did they draw 500 people? What to fuck? It was only six guys to referee on the card. So then on Tuesdays they'd be in Louisville and draw in those days the average weekly average was hitting around 4,000 people.

And they'd also have another town on Tuesday. And Wednesday in Nashville, that was some of the glory years. They were doing 3,000 plus people a week at the fairgrounds. But also Evansville from newspaper accounts, 1,200 to 1,400 people is the average, says the Coliseum Manager.

And then another Jackson, Tennessee, maybe they had 1,000 people. And then again, Thursday nights, they had two or three towns. We're not even taking into account Chattanooga on Saturdays that would regularly do 3,000 or 4,000 people. and sometimes the bigger crowds for sellouts. So in these same towns all over the territory, they were drawing selling, what, 30,000, 40,000 tickets or more on any given week.

And then you hit the hot points in 74 Memphis alone. So 400,000 tickets. Everybody in these towns knew what the fuck was happening with the wrestling. Well, like you said, the book, The History of Professional Wrestling in Evansville, Indiana by Sean Delaney. This is book six in his series of books. And Sean, I give you some credit, and thank you for sending over a copy.

Very nice handwriting. Oh, and he also found Savage worked as the graduate. Wonder what... Well, that makes sense. Prompted that. Angelo Pafo, one of his gimmicks was... which Lanny kind of offshot later on as the genius, but it was Pafo and Chris Markoff were the graduates, right?

With the mortar boards and the robes and et cetera, and Angelo would do his promo where he used big words and would be smarter than everybody. And Lanny took that gimmick and turned it into a fay poet later on. But no, it gives Sean credit to the book. You know, it sounds like a little thing, but a lot of people put out wrestling history books and the font is off, or it's too light and you can't read it,

the reprints are useless, makes you wonder what they were thinking. This looks good, he did a good job with this. So, once again, history of professional wrestling in Evansville, Indiana. It's available on Amazon. And Jim, on that topic, real quick, another book from a series of books we've plugged in the past. The latest book from New England wrestling promoter Sheldon Goldberg is out. The Warmth of the Sun.

the final sequel from the series of books that Sheldon has put out. This is wrestling fiction. And again, we've plugged it in the past. So those of you who got turned on to it and checked it out, the final book is out. The Warmth of the Sun. Which, and that's a play on words because it's the Sun. See, this is a fictional wrestling promotion

and all the backstage maneuvering and wrangling. And it's the sun of the guy that is. So the warmth of the, the son is a, because Sheldon is a very well-read and literate fellow and often has these double entendres. He's the Stephen King of Wrestling. You know what's weird? He has his bio here on the back, and it brings up all of his actual accolades. No mention of Matt Marketplace, the fine newsletter he published in the 90s, which for a lot of people, was actually kind of a inroad to find where cool wrestling memorabilia was, or rare items that weren't around. It was. It was a

a, you know, it was very much of its time, but it was an important newsletter, especially for collectors. And then everybody started figuring anything with the word wrestling on it is valuable, and they go on eBay and try to sell you a chewed-up Tito Santana trading card from 1986 for $500. We've lowered it to $400, but let us know if you are interested. But once again, check out these books are available on Amazon, and thank you to the authors for sending over copies.

Oh, boy, we got a lot to cover here today. course, Jim, there are lots of other great wrestling books and other great wrestling memorabilia and merchandise available right now at Jim Cornett.com. Literally so many that we can't plug them all in the same breath, so we will just say that it's books, it's DVDs, it's pictures, it's autographs, it's action figures, it's t-shirts, you can cover your body up in, it's all kinds of things at Jimcornet.com, and next month will come the news on a fascinating and wonderful thing that we're going to have on sale for our Christmas season along with many other surprises.

Jim Cornett.com A fascinating and wonderful thing. You're really building this up. I can't wait to see what this is. It's fascinating and wonderful, baby. All right. Bill Aptor in a box coming to you very soon. Jim, why don't we move on here with the show?

It sounds like a Saturday night live sketch that they left on the cutting room. floor. We have a lot to get to here today, and we have a lot of things to follow up on, for instance, Unreal. We have the 1994 list to return to and lots of other things, but why don't we start with the main event here today? A big AEW pay-per-view event from Montreal, Quebec Canada, AEW Redemption, where the original plan was for Kenny Omega to redeem himself by winning the world title at this pay-per-view, but change of plans. no one redeemed themselves on this pay-per-view but there were highlights and low lights

and in this case barking like a dog let's talk about let's talk about the AW redemption boy howdy well and I didn't watch the pre-show shockingly enough because the rest of the show was the real show was enough show

for me but do you want to talk about the barking like a dog at the beginning before we just move on any further because I don't know where it came up in the show. Forgive me, I'm an old man. I don't have much longer left to live. Whatever a match is over with,

I'm going to fast forward five minutes see if I can skip these entrances. I've seen them walk, right? So I missed the backstage pre-tape with Mick Foley and Megan Brain and her partner, the giant, I don't know, Plow Girl, Fraser. I don't know what her fucking name is. But we talked about this, Brian, the other day on the show,

about McFoly, even if he's not going to be wrestling, is still a megastar in the wrestling world. Everybody knows who he is. Everybody knows his name. Everybody, you know, they used to all love him. Although after appearances

like these, I'm not sure. But the thing is, why use him to interview mid-card talent when you could maximize, you know, having a guy of that stature on your show? And here he was, again, doing a backstage pre-taped interview, interviewing the girls' tag team. And obviously, he was wholeheartedly in favor of this and wanting to do this, which is sometimes I can tape from experience you need to save Mick from himself.

If he's not trying to fling himself off something, then he's being too nice. He's trying in some fashion to get these girls over or to just get him noticed or to himself to fit in this crazy program. I don't know what he's doing, but the point is, they're out there and they have memorized, it would have been more emotional if they'd have read it off a telepromp. Because they've memorized this dissertation they're going to give where the one girl talks

and Mick says something, and the other girl talks, and Mick at least put some feeling into it. The other ones are just robots. But then they've already put him in a chair, have a seat. Hopefully that's not a shoot that he can actually stand for a two-minute interview. But he's sitting in a chair in their giants anyway.

Okay, that's fine. But then they tell him to bow down to them. And I guess they put him in the chair because maybe he can't get down on his knees these days. I know how that feels. But he started barking. Instead of bowing down, he bow-wowed and started barking like a dog. Bow-wow, rough, rough, ruff. He was, and it went on.

And they were just standing there looking at him and he's barking and roughing. And then he actually said, well, guys, back to you, because this is going nowhere for me. and this it went on the internet apparently and it trended on Twitter and the people are like what the fuck Mick? What has happened? This is Mick Foley?

One guy said he looked like Captain Lou Albano. But I don't Well you know and some of the feedback we saw and I don't agree with it was look at what AEW has done to Mick Foley. Look what Tony Khan has done to McFolly. This isn't a Tony Khan idea.

This was suicide on the air, not homicide. This was Mick Foley. Mick Foley wanted to do this. And again, the bad joke that I'm sure in his head would have played out better, I don't know how, I don't know what this did to help these girls. But the joke of bow down, meaning bark like a dog. Wow, wow. It's the stupidest thing ever.

and it was really awkward, slightly creepy. Cringy is the kid's word, right? And again, if the idea is we're going to use McFoley's Star Power to host a pre-show with Jeff Jarrett and Renee and then interview people coming up to help them, this doesn't help them. The story coming out of this wasn't, Megan Bain and Lena Cross did a great promo,

or they look great or they were imposing or Wayne, do we see them against the brawling birds? It was Mick Foley's a bit of a perv or, you know, whatever people thought. That was the story. It did nothing to help the girls, did it? Well, I mean, look at the comments on Twitter. A legend who has given it all for our entertainment diving off cells, taking crazy bumps,

has been reduced to barking. Mick fucking Foley. To me, that was a bit weird. It's weird. It's weird. It's weird. Folly cut ties with WW due to politics, but then goes to AEW to do trashy tasteless things. That seems like a segment written by Epstein for Trump.

Apparently, the United Kingdom shipping in, I'll say, Foley, what the fuck are you doing, son? making a tit out of yourself, which that's why I have a feeling he's from the United Kingdom. I see a bunch of things here. This is what A.A.W. has turned McFoly into. I see they've given Mick Foley creative control. Yo, is Mick Foley okay? And no one seems to, uh... How about would I like either one of them to sit on my face? Sure. Should Foley get paid untold money and bark like a dog and do it on TV? Not so sure. Uh, yeah. I don't know.

And this comes on the heels of that Willow Tecla segment that he was in the middle of. Maybe no more segments of Mick and the women for a while. How about if Mick Foley is going to be brought to Montreal for a pay-per-view? Introducing him to the crowd, have him wave and leave is better than have him do backstage interviews that are bad comedy. Like Vince would have rejected this. Oh, my God. This was Mick Foley. This wasn't Tony.

This was good. Hey, now, he wasn't. opposed to bark like a dog for me, but he would have had it the other way around and had one of the fucking underneath girls barking for the top star. But it's still, it's, it's for himself. Or for him, yeah. But it's just sad at this point. What the fuck? He's trying to be nice to these people, but somebody needs to save him from himself before he's meaningless. You know, I said it to the other day, and I know Mick Foley's a kind-hearted man who likes to laugh.

But we haven't seen serious Mick Foley on wrestling TV in forever. Because even like every now and then he would come back his Cactus Jack after like, you know, 99, 2000, or whenever he would have one of his comebacks, there was always just bad jokes, bad puns, weird Santa shit, just, there was always other things around it, not just like, wow, this guy seemed like he really kick some ass. After a certain time, the story was just how much punishment he could take, not like the way it was it kind of in the 90s.

Like, you know, I hate to say a modern bruiser Brody, but it was kind of like, he's going to go and he's going to cause a fight. There's going to be a wild fight. Yeah. He's tough. It's not just, we're going to watch someone fling him off objects and precipices. It was this guy's going to kill somebody. and then it just became beat that carcass.

Now he interviews the heel stable, making the center of the promo, his socks. And then this, I don't know what they're doing. If you have Mick Foley, there's got to be, what was the last time he was in Montreal? You know, big star of the attitude error. When was he there last? I don't even know. They had to be more to, they had to be a better way to use him than this. But it's Tony's money.

well and it's tony's time and i started to say i didn't watch the pre-show uh that interview where mick was barking was on the main show but i understand they had matches on the pre-show brian i don't have them in front of me does anybody care when we report i'll take that as a no when we report on the star ratings we'll talk about what the matches were i did not watch the pre-show this time except for like the last five minutes or so which were all introductions for the match that was going to be this first match on the pay-per-view. That's the point. They had a one-hour pre-show

followed by a four-hour and 54-minute paper-view. But at least they saved us about 10 minutes on pay-per-view because they brought the guys to the first match or in the first match to the ring during the pre-show, which was a one, two, three, four, five, a six-man ladder match where the winner of this

will face the winner of the international title match later on tonight that they're going to have who was that who had the international title, not the continental title or TNT title. Kyle, yes. So the winner of this gets Kyle. And it was Commander, he's back, L. Clown, he's back, Hong Kong, Fouy,

who's from Montreal. That proves the French. Canadians will cheer for the garbage truck driver if he's from French Canadian. Because they loved Bailey there. Have you ever been to French Canada? I love Montreal. I think Montreal's a fucking fun city. It gave me a headache trying to drive around because all the signs are in French. Do we go Nord or do we go Sud?

You're going to rue de Saint Laurent. plan to have a good time well you i went to rue today and i certainly did so it was commander and l clown hong kong fooey nick wayne is back but his mother and her large upper frontal protuberances were not uh jungle jackoff he's in this and rigor mortis and i thought that this would be since they've just been announcing that they've re-signed Perry and that, you know, he's coming back and blah, blah, blah.

I thought, well, he'll win, right? Oh, no, I forgot. Tony considers hometown over money-drawing potential and or perception. But nevertheless, you know, I've come to the idea

that maybe Bailey should be on Broadway. maybe in an Andrew Lloyd-Weber musical because they sang for him there and it, you know. Well, I would think with those kicks, maybe Radio City Music Hall might be more appropriate with the Rockettes. The Rockets, but he'd have to,

he'd either have to get a tan or work on his calves because his legs aren't that sexy. So I was watching this live because I knew, because of our recording schedule this week, I needed to get it done, I figure I'll see how long I can stay awake and it I'll watch the rest this morning, which I did.

So I'm watching this live. I can't skip it. And God damn, we've got we got the Western swing dancing combined with the aggressive parkour mixed with the gymnastics in a random kind of wrote by the numbers mode of execution. That's why I'm thinking Andrew Lloyd Weber, some kind of musical for all these guys.

They're great dancers. And anything not involving a ladder looked like either a video game or a kung fu movie. At one point, for no reason, everybody, all six guys just fought simultaneously to the entrance stage so that Bailey could climb the ladder and stand on it with his back turn. to everybody else in the fucking building forever and then just trust that if he back flipped off they're all, which they were, they were standing there a slack jawed waiting to catch him.

And once he back flipped off of it, then old jungle Jackoff said, well, oh well. And he climbed up and did the same thing. To a smaller pop. To a smaller pop, because it's the same fucking thing. And he's not French-Canadian. He wasn't born in French, Canada. And then they just all went back to the ring once they were done there.

And then everybody took more bumps on a group of people and hit each other with ladders. And the fans, every once in a while there'd be like applause, like, oh, he returned the serve. And then they're sitting there. And this was a thing all night. they didn't come to watch it like a sporting event and to root for somebody and to hope somebody wins and somebody loses. They just came to, it's not a, it's not a car race crowd where they're into the race. They're into waiting for somebody to hit the wall. And when somebody hits the wall, then they pop and they cheer.

And then they sit there and wait for the next wall hit. am I lying, Brian? No, it's really awkward when it gets really silent. Like when you see someone climbing the ropes and there's no sound, you start asking yourself, like, are they saying to themselves, why am I doing this? Why did I get involved in this? It was a weird crowd all night.

Now, with that said, they may have been as into this at times as they were anything on the show, but they were also as silent at times as they were, the quietest chain match ever. We'll talk about a little bit later on. And then the other thing I hate, now that we'll just talk about things I hate, here's another thing I hate. Yeah. Yeah. You know, one of those things you pointed out years ago, and once you see it, it never ends. Two guys are in the ring, where are the other four? Yes. And it kept happening where two guys would have their thing, and the other four just disappeared. They're all laying on the floor, waiting for their spot. And, yeah. But then, well, but then they can help set up the furniture,

Because it went to have a jungle boy, oh, Jungle Boy, he pulled out three tables and then a couple other guys just came and helped him set them up in different places so they could use them. And that's when Nigel said the crowd is in stunned silence at what they're seeing. Holy cry, yeah, they were stunned all right. How much did this cost? and then Jungle Boy Hurricane Ronna Rigormortus

off the ring onto one of the tables that didn't break but he landed on the ladder and hurt his leg and El Clown double stomped Hong Kong Fooey

through another table and commander rope walked buckle to buckle and dove off into a triple Lindy or whatever the fuck

on Nick Wayne through the table but then they just all kept taking bumps. And they built a bridge with the ladder that they could fight on. And then Nick Wayne, who has already been splashed off the top through a fucking table, but now he's back to splash the clown off a ladder through a table. And then Jungle Boy gave Nick Wayne the Canadian Destroyer off the ladder off the ladder. onto another ladder, but by that time, Hong Kong, Fooey was back,

because he just got double stomped through the table. And he did a double knee-drop backflip off the top rope onto a guy that was laying on a ladder and then got the contract. And I'm thinking, what the, jungle jackoff must still have heat. or they just wanted to put this guy over because it's his hometown. But now this fucking little goblin motherfucker is going to have a match with Kyle Feltcher that's a foot taller and 50 pounds bigger and who knows how far ahead he is in testosterone,

although the way they're dressing Kyle these days, I think he stole one of Megan Brains headdresses later on in the program. but we'll get there when we get there. So this was this was what it's like when I can't skip one of these, apparently. Was this pretty much like they all are? Yeah, we're going to have to do more quick recordings

after paper views to get you to watch some of these matches, I think. Speedball Bailey was the right pick to win this. I know they re-signed Jack Perry. I have a tough time believing Jack Perry's ever going to mean anything ever. He'll be there, he'll be in the middle of the card. Every now and then he'll get a main event because he's buddies with the bucks. But the fans don't react to him like a big star. They like his music. They like everyone's music. Yeah. You could argue it's closer now to when wrestling first started using music that ever before

where the music, anyone who comes out with music, that's it. If you have a woe or something people could sing, they will sing it. Well, but I was there when they started coming out to music. you are wrong, sir, because the only guys that got music were the ones that was already over. Yeah, that's true. And so they were already cheering and it just made it bigger. But I will agree with you that then about a few years later

when they just say, well, everybody gets music. Then on the undercard, it started covering up for a lot of sins when you could come out and there was some fucking noise going on, even if it was only from a tape player. But yeah, I don't think Jack Perry's going anywhere, doing anything. Can't do a promo still. Commander and, uh, hologram and clone.

Was hologram in this? No, it was just clone and Commander. And Mortis. And Mortis. And, uh... Yeah. Yeah, the right guy won. Especially in front of the home crowd, got a big pop.

That got a big pop. They were quiet right before it, but that got a big pop. I don't know. If Bailey was from my... hometown, I'd move. To hear what happened to him last time he went home, State Farm told him to find a new neighbor.

All right, I don't know. Anyway, official notice there. The next match, got you more than I thought it would. The next match on the agenda was the Hardley Boys against the team of Dick the Boozer

and Will Osprey. kid again the whole this whole thing just this whole thing but can we all agree regardless of whether we think that the buccaroos or the trampoline cowboys and the smarmy little self-obsessed fucking children that they are or that they're the greatest tag team in the world do they need a makeover are they starting to i mean people blistered to Rock and Roll Express, some of the old SmartElek fans did when they were still wearing the Rock and Roll Express stuff in the 90s and where are we at? We determined that the Buccaroos are older now than Ricky and Robert were when they

were in Smoggy Mountain Wrestling. That was three or four years ago. We figured that out. Have they approached out of where are they at on the Bruiser and Crusher scale, the Hardley Boys? Can they just do something? different, anything? Get a new bandana?

They may be a little toner, but they're as skinny as ever. Nick Jackson is as skinny as ever, so it looks a little ridiculous when he's out there doing things. The big thing I would say is that they've aged at on using the word young. Well, it depends on what you're talking about now. If you're talking about the human race, you're correct, but a Gallipelago's turtle or something like that, they could still squeeze it in. so the announcers were talking about how Moxley has made Osprey

the most dangerous fighting machine in ACW so they've admitted that the hero of their stadium show that's going to be their next world champion that overcame the career ending injury etc was so stupid and ineffectual that the top heel needed to train him to smarten him up to show him what to fucking do so that he could beat the broken down washed up previous best bout machine in a battle of the goody-two shoes.

Special referee Adam Ant. Goody-to-goody-to-to, goody-duty-to shoes. Can't work, can't talk. What's the matter with you? Can't work, can't talk. What's the matter with you? Lowered expectations must come, because it's going to sign. All right.

So Osprey is a great athletic baby face when he's against a rough heel that will cheat and make him sell and he can fire up and come back. But when he's against Flippy McFlippy do, they're just another pair of guys doing the same shit we see. Osprey and Nick at one point they collided head first and you bought it for about 10 seconds. until you realized, because they sold it, is the only they could imagine they really sold. And then you realize Osprey was fine and he took half of it. And Nick, they were over-calling attention to Nick being out of it, which to me, he just looked like Tommy Rich in a normal match.

And that was the story of this match, the idea that Nick Jackson had this head injury. And the spot looked good. But like you said, it quickly went from, oh, did he really? get hit there to, oh, they're playing into this whole thing. This was part of the guy. Yeah. It was obvious. They telegraphed everything. So, you know, meanwhile, the referee is asking if Nick can go on and Moxley's telling Osprey, get back at it. And Schaefer interfered and beat up Maddie and they got

long heat on young Maddie there. Moxley at one point, again, the guy that Nick that just suffered the brain damage. He piled him on the floor. So, gosh, he'll be confused for 15, 20 seconds. They did more big stuff to Matt, but then Matt made his own comeback

and reluctantly tagged Nick in, who was still dazed, but Nick made come back 100 miles an hour and tagged back out. And then they double-teamed on. They done a lot more shit. Every,

Everybody did more, more, more. And then Osprey flew in and hit Moxley with a forearm by mistake, but the buckaroos took that opportunity to two-on-one Osprey for a while, but then they foiled the bucks and everybody hit a finish on another guy, but nobody even had time to cover anybody because they were like, boom, boom, boom. and then everything came to a halt because when Osprey and Nick squared off Nick suddenly got woozy again.

Had he been goddamn doing shit for the previous five minutes, Brian, or did they splice something in? He was doing his thing. And then he, oh shit, that really made me dizzy. Like when I bend over and stand up too fast. Only he did that for four. five minutes straight.

So then he staggered, he went down to his knee, but then they started trading forearms. And then Osprey just kicked Nick Goofy and Moxley was telling Osprey to hurt him.

But that's when little Mattie came in and covered Nick up as like, don't hurt him anymore. So then Moxley tagged in and threw Matt out of the ring and leveled Nick and covered him and got a two count. Then he got a choke on him.

Then he started pummeling him. Then there were more false finishes. Why are they ever going to goddamn just go? And then Moxley DDTed Nick. And again, and a third time, the guy with the brain damage, right? Remember him? Three DDTs and then got a chair and bumped the referee down and he's going to fucking lay waste to poor Nick with the chair but that's

when Osprey well I've had enough I mean it was one thing to just repeatedly pummel him over and over in the head when he's already concussed but it's another thing to get a goddamn chair and he jerked the chair away from Moxley and Matt came in with a super kick kicked the chair which went into Osprey's face and boom down he goes and then the Nick's fine again

and they give the double knee lift to Moxley but he he no sold it just looked up and flipped him the bird with both hands and then they super kicked him ten times and pinned him one two three what the fuck was this

yeah I was a little surprised by what happened there at the end, happened all very quickly. The Love Triangle Drama with Osprey and Moxley and Omega, another chapter who will continue to play out throughout tonight. The Buck's a big surprising win after, I mean, what's the concussion protocol over there? I'm not really sure, but after a head injury, the Buck still overcome it and kicked themselves. Man, you watch Matt Jackson.

Fortunately, they damaged his head, but there was nothing. in there to be hurt. You watch Matt Jackson do his super kicks when they were doing him in tandem. It's the most obvious slapping of his fucking thigh as he's doing it. Lazy little troll. You know, good match. All things consider, because at least it told the story. And then, of course, eventually everyone was a story.

There's a man with a head injury. That can outperform any of the goddamn greatest athletes in the Olympics. I didn't say they told the story. Well, I said at least there were, you know, those elements of a story that they had an idea. He'll get hurt. And then we'll win. And now we got Edge and Christian

against the bucks at Wembley. That should be a mighty big match to some. Back to you, Jim. Well, let's go back to the show, Brian, because now the international title was on the line. The winner of this match is going to face the winner of the six-way ladder match that happened here just shortly ago. Kyle Feltcher came out wearing a crown of flowers and skewers.

Was that it looked at a pink statue of liberty? That's what it looked like the stuff that Megan Brain wears. What are they doing to him? He looks ridiculous in these outfits. What is the gimmick? what why does he come out with a shaved head with a with a tiara of flowers i don't and like all heels kyle wants to do this on his own with no outside interference he's told the rest of his guys to stay away he's goddamn going to win this honestly christ almighty he could have been a prodigy

but he's I think at this point he is into this never never land that they live in of indie rificness and he's going to be another guy slapping his fucking leg and doing the same shit

only slower and with more effort in 10 years in these fucking indie style promotions and I zoned out on quite a bit of this and also the puppies were in the room, so there was bellies that needed to be rubbed.

But finally, toward the end, it had to be well over 20 minutes. And I did not pay a lot of attention, but finally I realized, God damn, this is going on forever, because I don't give a shit about Bandito and his stupid fucking move, as I've mentioned before.

But finally, there, Kyle assumed the butt-fuck position. He, knowing that the most dangerous weapon that this guy has is if you purposely stand up, bend over, grab the second rope with both hands

at a complete 90-degree angle and hold yourself rigid, you're going to be in trouble. So guess what he did? And Bandito gave him the German suplex, got a two-count. and then Kyle hit a clothesline and turned him inside out, hit a knee lift, hit a brain buster, got a two count. And they did more stuff.

And Kyle did a Mitchinoku driver off the top rope, got a two count. And then finally Kyle hit him with a kick, picked him up and gave him a brain buster on the top turn buckle, one, two, three, and I guarantee goddamn T you 25 minutes. Does the heel ever cheat? Do the baby faces ever wonder why that they're not over and that nobody gives a shit because they always just get beat all the time? Or do they think that's the way it's supposed to go?

I can't explain a lot of the Tony booking or modern booking philosophies that have come from Tony and his disciples. I can't explain it. This is exactly what I thought it would be, and I liked it. At a certain point, though, it's kind of ridiculous. And by the way, all night, Tony Chivani, even when it was quiet, he'd be screaming,

This is great! I'm loving this! Nobody cares what you're loving, Dodo. It was a fine match. Now we got Fletcher versus Speedball, a big match. It's like David versus Goliath. a big height difference there. And, you know, once you think about it,

and it happened a few times in this match, the bandito move, the setup, the guy having to stand there bent over, it gets more and more ridiculous, the more you think about it, and it happened a couple times in this match. And, you know, it seems like you could see the guy coming if you just bent over and look between your own legs.

That's just me. Anyway, moving along, Brian, the next match was one. that I'm sure that Ron Wright and Whitey Caldwell be proud of, or maybe Ivan Koloff or, well, any of the deadly Russians that were practitioners of the Russian chain match or the hillbillies that practiced the Tennessee chain match, now we had a double, where were they, double Montreal chain match.

Apparently nobody fights with chains in Montreal. at least they got I mean these had to be I don't know what the material would have aluminum because I can't say plastic they put enough pressure pulling them that they weren't just plastic

but they had to be some lightweight metal because they were 20 feet fucking long and yet they were just swinging them around and et cetera and they weren't legitimate chains So it wasn't a legitimate match either. Are the Connors Finley team of the dogs a legitimate team?

Was any of this legitimate? I don't know what kind of question that is. I don't know what to say. This was a match. I didn't care about. A part of a feud. I don't care about. Jay White got the big return pop a few months ago.

No, no, it hadn't been a few months. Was it a month? I don't know if it's been a month he's been back but here's the thing they had the quietest chain match in the history of professional wrestling well and I

popped for the fact that gin and juice are back old J. White light switch and Juice Robinson it's been as long as I've said his name I just call him juice but they they had that one

banger with FTR years ago and then they, Jay White got hurt and had to have a spleenectomy or whatever the fuck for a year and a half. Ed Juice was hurt. They're like, okay, there's a team you can kind of build on, except they're naturally a heel team. But they've been put in this position that the nerd fans like whatever they've done in Japan and the, and Connors and Finley, the match with Edge of. Christian wasn't good.

This match wasn't good. The reason why is not that Connors and Finley aren't at least as good as some of the other people on this roster. It's that they just showed up and nobody gives a shit and they're assuming

Tony was assuming that people, oh, they've done this in Japan so people well no, the one guy's puny and Finley's a little bland and together they've done nothing to make people give a shit except angles where they've beaten up whoever they're about to be booked with next like they're already a main event team

that should be at a top spot and so people just sit there and gawk and I watch this basically for juice because he entertains me and after all this time, five years later or whatever it is, he's still the one they're beaten. Everybody else gets to do shit except Jews.

They tried hard in this, but the crowd was deathly quiet, propo-falled. I think if you'd have stabbed them in the fucking ass with a knife, they probably would have just taken it rather than emit a noise. and they quit using the ring for a long period of time. This gimmick is hard to work a double chain match,

even for veterans in a territory days. I think it was unnecessary here, except that the Booker's a mark, or one of the boisterous match is a mark, and suggested it to the Booker, but either one, I don't know why they thought they could have a good double chain match. Or if they didn't, how can they not be able to tell Tony?

Look, Tony, we'd love to have a goddamn match where we're all human piñatas hanging over the Grand Canyon, but we don't know if we can make it good. Babyface has made a long, boring comeback, heels took back over. I wrote the fans are pulling pocket knives to slice their own wrists. Finley gave Who was it? One of the guys

A slam on top of his head Juice That was juice I thought Juice Yes Was it juice? No, it was Jay White It was Jay White, yeah

And I was some I don't know what the fuck But then he sold it too He's like fuck And then they took a bunch of awkward bumps And the baby faces whipped the shit out of Finley forever with the chain and then

juice went for a big chain punch but there was oh Wheeler useless and Danny Garcia and they pulled white out to the floor and beat him up but the music played and the gun boys came out and they had a fight

on the ramp Marina Schaefer gave Finley his shalele and he hit Juice and beat him one two three and again the only interesting guy and there's still beating him. And boy, this was hard to get through.

And the fans could have give a shit. Yeah, this sucked. No, this sucked. And the fans weren't into it. It's weird when there's a gimmick in a match for a feud that really doesn't matter. It has barely been kicked off. Nobody cares about whatever history there is. And all of a sudden they have this big gimmick match to dead silence.

Because the dogs haven't meant anything over there yet. Maybe when Gabe kids back, it'll mean a little more. And I guess that's the connection with the death riders. I don't know why the death riders would have been involved otherwise. But yeah, and I don't give a shit. Do you have like one of those fucking things on the wall with the pins and the strings and everything to be able to figure out following Tony's mind who all is mad at each other because of things they've done here to each other previously

or in Japan, where everyone reads the Japanese daily newspapers to keep up on that. The highlight of the match for me was, which one's the shorter one? Is it Austin gun? You know, I don't know. I think so.

Rick Holton was the bigger one, I think. But when the guns came out with Ace Austin, who again, another guy who hasn't established himself, he's just like hanging out with them. Yeah, he was in the group, and now whenever they come out for a save, they not only equal the odds, but now the baby faces have the,

uneven odds, go ahead. But Austin Gunn did this thing where he ran down the ramp and he jumped and he kind of went flying and it looked really good. Like the save was the highlight of the match. The one moment during the save where Austin Gun jumped on the death riders was the best thing.

Otherwise, this stunk. This was a bad match. So bad, Jim. Bad, bad match. Such a bad match that we are going to take a commercial timeout right now. All right, making up notes, having a good time. We're back here on the drive-thru, Jim. After the double-chain match, you should have just gone,

wah, wah, wah, wah. Well, there's still time to redeem themselves for the ADW. to redeem themselves with this card. AEW redemption. Let's find out how they did. Well, we are two hours into the program. And I know it's going to be much, much longer. And the next match, it was 9 o'clock Eastern.

And the old man was getting a little sleepy. The puppies had worn me out. And we came upon for some championship or another, Hikaru Shida versus My a world and I said you know what you're welcome to it and I'll pick it up tomorrow morning and when I picked it up this morning apparently the new champion is Maya world fill in the blanks Maya world new TBS champion she of course is coming off that really hot match with Mercedes-Mone so good Meltzer won't rate it's how good it is

She's been getting a push She's been getting over with them You know, I think more and more It's a good idea to jump on someone who's getting over And give them a chance to get a push But then again, everyone in the company has a belt She wins the TBS championship from Hukaru Shida Who I'm not a fan of

It was an okay match though It was an okay match New champion, Maya World Did they keep it under 20 minutes I believe so. The only thing I will say is a complaint, not even about the match. You know, I guess

she has a backstory where her brother passed away right before she debuted for AEW or something like that, which they referenced over and over and over again on a commentary. Eventually they got away from it, and then Chavani dragged it back to it.

You know, let everyone know the story, but don't harp on it too much. Well, it's, it's, you've got to, as Gary Hart used to say, repetition is the key when dealing with goops. And for the casual television viewer and not people who dissect this shit, you've always got to reinforce what's going on. But that's repetition in terms of week to week television. Right, right. When you start saying something at the start, lay it out. logically and understandably it's beginning,

maybe reference it later on in the same match, but when you keep going back or don't even get off of this one particular thing, then that's when they know that you're trying to shove it down their throat rather than just imparting this information and letting them go, well, that's cool or whatever. It's on, oh, you have to know this, remember this. And then they start to kind of half-assant, resent it, right?

Is it like, okay, I got to fucking picture. Let's get to now. She's in this big match. Talk about this. So there is, there are the lines of those things. Yeah. But nevertheless, the next match, what was, this was the tag team title, I guess, because everything's a title match, Agent Christian against Claudio and PAC.

Was this the tag title? Yes, obviously, it had to do. That's right. yes so therefore i started zoning out again because it's claudio and pack and it's edge and christian there's stars but anything with the death riders or these other minor japanese assemblages and groups that tony keeps thinking that everybody's into you know there wasn't anything wrong i didn't say i was playing with the pups for a good portion of this, but I didn't see unnecessary blood.

I didn't see furniture. Claudio and Pack, I'm a fan of Claudio's. Pack, I can go either way. If he'll stay off the top rope where he takes forever and a blah, blah, blah, that's one thing. But who cares at this point? They're in this fucking group that won't go away. They milked a tag to edge by getting heat on Christian,

but that was kind of flat. And Edge made a comeback. That was kind of flat. They were trying, but that's where I really started reinforcing, in my mind, the thought and the emotion that I had earlier, the crowd came to see the car wrecks.

If you're not going to break some furniture or bleed or jump off some shit or something's going to blow up, they don't care who wins. they're not rooting for anybody in a match. So they're just sitting there staring at it. And Edge at one point fired him up milking a spear on Pack.

And he's Canadian and he's the Edge and they're in, okay, give us the big spear. And he goes to Spear him and Edge or Pack leapfrogged it and he missed it. And I was like, shit, Jesus Christ. They would have blown. and then there was some more slow-paced shit where two guys will be on the floor and they'll come in at the right time to make the save

and then you won't see somebody for a while. And then out of nowhere, finally Edge did spear pack, but it didn't get to pop the other one would have because it just kind of, oh, boom, boom, boom, boom, oh, there it is. One, two, three. Eh?

Yeah, I mean, again, I'm not a fan of Edge and Christian. I've said that before. I'm not a fan of the Death Riders. I've said that many times before. Interesting start, where they jump edge, before Christian has a chance to come out with his big grand entrance. Yes, he is. Which just points out how ridiculous it is that they both get giant entrances as a team.

It was all right, actually. I mean, it wasn't great. I'd say good slash all right. not terrible but not good slash all right good slash all right but now wait a minute is all right

better than good or good better than all right see that's what I'm trying to like in my head as I'm doing this system live coming up with this brand new system to take over wrestling I don't know uh I think all right comes before good I'm feeling all right uh huh I'm not feeling too good by ourselves

uh huh I think all right good, great. You have to see this. Oh shit, I just came in the Tokyo Dome. Like, that's the scale. Can we change that to my pants? Tokyo Dome.

Tokyo Dome or bust? Bust your nut. Well, that's what, that's what Dave's pants make whenever he watches this shit is a Tokyo Dome. All righty, well, the point is, stop it now. Very good. Well, we got to be serious here.

We got serious wrestling to review here. We got a no-holes barred match coming up. Now, you may think to yourself, what the fuck else if they'd not done already that they can't bar, right? the no-holes-barred match with Chris Jericho and Tomaso Champa. But in this one, Jericho's pulling out all the stops. He has reinvented him as his alter ego. Bray Wyatt had Uncle Howdy and Finn Ballard got the demon. And Chris Jericho has the pain maker.

where he comes out in a Homburg hat, a bejeweled face mask, hiding evil clown face paint, and carrying a black barbed wire-wrapped baseball bat, he looks like a goddamn wrestling versus Gene Simmons T-Mew character. And this is supposed to make him more violent, Brian, right? Because he's going to bring the pain, or is it just the pain of the viewers that have to watch this?

Where is the pain coming from? If the painker is so good, why isn't he always the painker? Why isn't you have to settle a score? Why not win some matches? Because he's almost 60 and he looks ridiculous dressed up this way? Would that be one reason? or is that entering into the conversation? Can you imagine if Dick the Bruiser

had come out in the 80s and started painting his face? How old was Dick the bruiser in 1985 when they had the infamous bruiser and Crusher versus Road Warriors match? We had just done that. He was in his mid-50s, wasn't he? We had just done that for 1984.

No, in 19, yes, in 1985, he would have been, would he have been 56 years old? How old is Chris Jericho right now? Do we know this off top of our heads or can you type that in that quickly? Chris Jericho's 55 years old. Boom goes down to Mike. Imagine Dick the Bruiser

dressed up like a fucking BDSM version of a fucking Stephen King character. Imagine Dick the Brewzer going up to young wrestlers in 1985, like, you gotta listen to me, I'll tell you how to make it, kid. Here's my booking ideas. But no, it's a different generation. Older wrestlers now.

well nevertheless they started out jericho had the bat and tomaso had the chair and they hit each other well they hit each other's gimmick three times and the bat flew away i don't think did we ever see it again i can't remember if it came back and then jericho got sand and threw it in champa's eyes and they immediately went to the floor and again i wrote the crowd is dead silent Tomaso pulled out a table two minutes in, it took forever to set up. But Jericho foiled him by shooting him with a fire extinguisher. And the pop for the fire extinguisher was even a little mild. But then at Jericho, he shot it all over to the point where they were like, motherfucker, now we need to breathe at this point. He was shooting it straight up in the air, so it spread everywhere.

Yes, and all the, and there's two kinds of fire. extinguishers. And this, I assume, because nobody died, was not the toxic kind, but we did, you know, I will admit, when there was things I didn't know, that I didn't know what I didn't know. And we did a fucking angle one time

with the fire extinguisher and Smoggy Mountain, and they had the wrong kind, and it was that shit you're not supposed to breathe. And fuck, you don't want to breathe for a while. after that shit gets sprayed. I don't know the chemical formulations. I'm not a goddamn chemist.

But there's, so you had, from then on, I always check. Now, make sure this is the kind of shit that's not poisonous. Anyway, it was like watching a match in a library. And Champa then gave Jericho that, Daniels,

Chris Daniels used to do that as the Angels wings, but he gave it off the apron through a table. and then I notated that buddy was playing with my toes and jumped up in my lap at that point. And what a little cuddle buddy he's turned out to be, by the way. So then they finally woke up. They pulled out a hockey stick and Champa was beating.

So the heel was beating up the baby face with a hockey stick, but the crowd started singing the hockey song. Or the song that they said, at the hockey up there. And then... A hockey song. Well, you know, Ola, Ola, Ola, because they do it for soccer

or football over there, but they do it for fucking hockey, whatever, they're doing a goddamn song. It doesn't have anything do with whoever the fuck they want to win this match. And then Champa gets a trash can and pulls out a helmet, a hockey

helmet, and put on on the opposing hockey jersey. I don't know who they were either. and pulled out a stuffed mascot of the Montreal team and beat up the stuffed mascot while dressed as the opposing team and got more nuclear heat than anything that happened on this show all fucking night.

That's when they woke up, oh! And then he tried to pin the stuffed mascot, but Jericho made to say, and then he piniazza with the hockey stick while champa was wearing the can and then kissed the toy mascot. So now at least we know we, who the baby face, who the heel is. And then Jericho got a bag of thumb tacks and hockey pucks.

And as you know, at this, I'm fucking done here. And I fast forward in five minutes. I'm like certainly to God. And no, now they're both bleeding. And they've set up a table covered in barbed wire, rolls of barbed wire on top of it, which you see in normal everyday situations. And Jericho gave Champa a Death Valley driver off the apron through the table of the barbed wire.

Did you see a little bit earlier when Jericho went under the ring, it may have been for the fire extinguisher, I'm not sure. you could see the barbed wire board. It was there. It was so visible and he didn't go for it. It was so visible that Nigel and Chavani had to reference it. Like, oh, look what's there.

I guess we know what else is there. Like, yeah, why didn't he just take that at that point? If it was there and he knew it. Well, because it wasn't time for it yet. Because the other's all laid out. So after the fucking Death Valley driver off the apron, and I said, certainly to God, they're about ready to fucking end this thing.

So I fast forward another couple minutes. And that's where they had set a big mirror across, in the middle of the ring, across two chairs. And Jericho was stabbing Champa in the head with a spike or a screwdriver or some shit. But then Champa gave Jericho his finish off the top. rope through the mirror sitting on the two chairs into the ring cover two count at that point i said fuck it and i read the next day and saw on the next day today and saw on twitter this morning that jericho won when he took the power drill that tamaso came up with somewhere

and drilled him in the head with the power drill until Tomaso gave up and they rang the bell. He gave up pretty quickly once he started getting drilled in the head as, you know, one would. Most people do. Most people, you know, when you're getting a frontal lobotomy in the middle of a mesh, it's like, ah, I'm out, uncle, uncle, that's it. It's only those goddamn rotten KGB agents

that can hang on for any length of time and under those circumstances. Jericho also hit him with the Judas effect wearing an elbow pad with thumbtacks. And he had a thumbtack stuck in his head throughout this match. You know, I think maybe we've been harsh, too harsh to Jericho. If you look at it through the guys of he is maybe the greatest comedy wrestler, the comedy wrestler, I can't even say it, he may be the greatest comedy wrestler of his generation. And this all may be just a gag.

The joke may be on us. He's the Andy Kaufman of wrestling, is what you're saying, that he never breaks character. The pain maker. It's like his Tony Clifton. It's just ridiculous. He doesn't break character, and maybe we'll get it one day, but in the present day, his stuff sucks.

Stuff just sucks. This show is awful. What's next, Jim? And now, in all honesty, I'm going to be interested to see if not only if the, inner web universe has any backlash toward redemption or if the head mouth organ of the company, Uncle Dave, can possibly rate, even by their standards, are these good matches? Is anybody giving a shit about these matches and are they as good, quote unquote,

as what their normal idea of good or great, what their normal idea of great matches are? this one, a clinker even for the people that like this kind of thing? Yeah, again, if it is based on how a match gets over in the room and the house is dead silent, although maybe they'll give you a pop at the finish, or when someone does something so spectacular that the natural inclination is to go, holy shit, wow. Break furniture. But that doesn't mean the match is good, so let's see how these star ratings are, because this was a sleepy crowd, and correct me if I'm wrong, Montreal.

is not known for their subdued audiences. No, no, they're not shrinking violets by any man. You know those damn French Canadians from French Canadians. They'll just tell you their feelings right out in front of you. All right, I'm going to tell you my feeling

right out in front of this. Andrade versus Mark Davis, can you imagine the four words that I wrote underneath that? Oh, hell no. That's three words. Hold on. no fucking three words

I'm not watching this you were you were headed in the right direction not a fucking chance Andre did come out with four models that looked like they were hired by Jim Hurd

it may be it may be more excusable today because it It was a joke when WCW kept trying to upgrade their goddamn productions. They wanted to have models come out with Flair because he was a ladies man or just way to put models in the audience or whatever. They were hiring these girls that not only were addressed and appeared from their demeanor as they were obviously, as Mama Cornett used to say,

tits on a boar hog, that they were totally out of place. and completely plants and not there on purpose, he'd get girls that weren't as pretty as the girls that sat in the stands in all the towns. And now I guess there's an excuse because are there any girls sitting in these stands in these towns? But I don't know if it did André did any good here. He also did the thing he does in every match now

where he has a girl that's been planted at Rigside. It's never explained, because obviously it's a plant. You don't see this person throughout tonight. You don't see them after the match. You never see them again in another show. And he walks up to them, he gets a selfie, gets a kiss. He knows where to go to also. Takes off his pants, so now he's in just trunks.

It's every match, and it happens, it usually feels like it happens halfway through the match, and it always happens like 15 minutes into the fucking match. These matches go on for a long time And uh Well that's what he It's what he needs a break I'm fascinated with their investment In Andrade he has new merch

They're really trying to get How You Know over as a big thing That's what's on the merch Is how you know And again the idea that He has models But they're not good looking models The idea that they give him women to come out with

And it's like yeah You know at the end of the night Before the bar closes what the fuck? What of these girls look like well maybe she's the one that brought the eight ball but I don't know what the hell is and they look like they don't know what to do

they're like all right we just awkwardly walk with this guy that we just met two minutes ago that we never heard of before that there's there's clearly a physical connection between these people they look like they're looking at him like he's a different species he is

again he is another one of these guys I enjoy his stuff because I find it hysterical because he keeps getting chances everywhere. This is the biggest chance he's ever gotten. Actually, right now in AEW, where Tony's using him as a baby face who the women buy tickets to see and sit ringside for?

He's doing everything he can for Andrade right now. Almost like he's Tony's son-in-law or something. He's doing everything he can for Andradi right now. Is it a plus to the women that they wouldn't have to argue with this guy because they'd never understand what the fuck he's saying. It just nod. The giveaway is Chivani.

The giveaways when on a few different occasions, Andrani came out in Chavani, who, when he's not using his own dumb thoughts, is being fed stuff by Tony Kahn. He's so cool. Look at how cool he is. What? You're a grown-up.

What the fuck? He's a modern-day Fonzarelli is what he is. He's so cool. Well, Andrade Fonzarelli. Monzarelli won the championship. Which championship was it? This one was, yeah, for another. Was it confidential?

National. National. National. National. They've got the national and the international and the continental. But they don't have the intercontinental. I mentioned they'd love to. Well, Brian, the next championship on the line, the long-awaited, only the second girls' title match we've seen tonight.

Willow Nightingale versus Thetla and you, young fellow, you've got me to say, oh, watch this, or to say I would watch it, right? You're right, oh, watch this. You remember saying that, don't you? Yeah, I should have told you to watch the Maya World versus She to match.

Well, see, you can't take things back now. See, shoulda, woulda, coulda. If as Mama Cornett would say, if a frog had wings, he wouldn't bump his butt on the ground. and I watched this for you. It was three hours and 45 minutes into this pay-per-view, plus the pre-show for the victims in the room sitting there. Every time that AEW pulls their equipment out

and they leave one of these big shows, the cops have to come in and draw chalk outlines on every seat. And I do, okay, I guess they're, say, well, the girls get equal rights because they went to the floor for minutes at a time without being counted out. The girls now are giving each other vertical suplexes, flat on the floor and just getting right up and continuing on. Veclav was biting Willow's injured ear. She'd had her ear stitched up from a previous attack on television, and they had it bandaged, and you could see a splotching of blood or whatever,

but at least you could tell who the heel was, but the crowd continues to be in a coma. They should have taken the pieces of broken mirror from the street fight and held it up in front of the people, see if they were breathing. And these girls were not in a hurry. You have a girls match four to five hours, depending on your perspective, into a fucking show. It's the death spot anywhere.

way and they went a while and a while and there was a lot of back and forth but then finally blue sky came out but Willow power bombed her on the floor good lord and then backslid tecla one two three and Willow's the new champion but tecla's her drunken demeanor in the promos is a hoot and works, but I don't know when she looks like she's been tippling before the fucking map, maybe was it a style clash? There was a lot of stuff here that was either paint by the numbers or

golly, we went outside the lines. It was late in the evening. It was late in the evening. And the shitty work was showing through. You know, that is one of the more underrated Paul Simon songs, because you never hear it sighting. as being one of his best ones, but it has a great sound. It's a great recording.

Great song. What about this match? Oh, um, getting back to that song. You know, it was really late in the night. I watched everything live as it happened. I started dozing off a little bit. Luckily, it kind of also woke me back up. Good moment seeing Willow.

I was surprised that Willow got the title from Tecla, but they wanted to set up Willow versus Mercedes more than they wanted to set up Teckla versus Mercedes. That makes sense. And... I wish somebody would recall Mercedes. I hate to say it, but I feel like Teckle... You know, I know we did the Luna Vashon comparison the other day.

I feel like Teckle would be like an awesome manager. There you go. You know, just I like her promos and I like... Like you said, the drunken... The sway, the way she moved... Just there's something there. The matches are okay. It's not that she's not, you know, good in a ring or anything, but...

you just don't want to see it. You know, I'm trying to conjure up any memories I have of this other than I'm falling asleep. Willow seems so nice. Does a little finger thing and then are kicking the air and another one who likes to kick. And it's so terrible when people beat on her and when they hit her, when they hit Willow, hit Willow, hit Willow. Yeah, well, are you ready for the main event? See, this is the pay-per-view, review, the likes of which you can't get anywhere else, ladies gentlemen. main event of the

redemption festivities here that was supposed to be originally, it's public knowledge now, was supposed to be MJF versus Kenny where Kenny would redeem himself and win the title for all of his little followers and everything, and then they moved it up to TV,

and all of a sudden they're stuck with a fucking pay-per-view, and they're like, oh, God damn it. So this is what we got. Hey, that crowd at the beach was hotter than this crowd was. this wouldn't have been a good crowd for MJF to do his thing. I've seen crowds in the fucking Arctic Circle that were hotter than this one was. You know, when they used to work on the prow of Admiral Perry's boat, you remember those days, Brian, back in the Gold Rush days.

Anyway, for the AEW World Heavyweight Championship, Kevin Knight challenging Kenny. And I knew that this was going to be. be a bit of a schlog and possibly some falderall and shenanigans and baby tom foolery going on because they they rang the bell there was still 40 minutes left in this show and we were well past four hours and why did why did they do the thing where Kevin night the heel jumped Kenny from behind before the bell and beat him up a little bit and in the referee so don't do that and waited until he was done beating him up and then rang the bell

and then Kenny was up and fighting right back so why the fuck did you do that? Why? The sense of urgency and surprise and oh my gosh and the kind of the hook of a jumpstart back in the day depending on who was doing it was to hook well it always whether it depended on who was doing it or not

it was to hook the people from the start and you would hear the jump start would happen the referee would go oh shit there's starting to ring the bell and you'd hear the bell and now the people are up and there's this wild action

and it could be the heel coming across the ring and blindsiding the baby face while he's taking his jacket off and or it could be the baby face is so anxious to get even. Then when he charges down the aisle, he rolls right in the ring and fucking, here we go.

Or it could be that both sides at the same time said, fuck you, we're going to fight. And oh, shit. But you start the match on an up note and you better have something to follow that. And it's not recommended to do that in most cases if you're going 30 or 40 minutes because now you've set a pace. But you can hook people like that on a good. great when the baby faces used to come from the front of the building instead of the locker room area, the misdirection play, and roll in behind the heels and give him a taste their

own medicine. That was wild. People go crazy. But if you, if the heel jumps the baby face and the referee watches him beat him up and then when he stops, then rings the bell. And then the baby face is fine and fighting back. did you just do any of that? They went to the floor for minutes.

And why does everyone act like that Kenny is flawless in his execution of everything and just is this incredible freak athlete? He was throwing a fucking windmill punch like an unnatural movement, his basic shit. He's performative with all the gestures and the. prancing and the turning and posing, you can't take any of this seriously. Am I the only one seeing this? Am I the only one with Roddy Piper's Peeper's here?

His punches don't look good, whether it's the windmill punches or just attempts of punches. They never look good. But I mean, it's not even just that, but just the overall movement of him. And is he got scoliosis? Is he hunching over more? every day. But the, the, the, it was every AEW TV match, I think.

Kevin Knight was trying hard. This is his chance. But I wrote on and on, what can they do that hasn't been done? And it lasted a while. And then finally, Kevin Knight hit the Coast Coast drop kick again and then rolled out and got both title belts. It were his and Kenny. and he set one down and then got up on the apron with one and the referee came to him and it was

supposed to throw the belt where the referee would have okay turn around like a dip shit and walk over and get it but when he tried to throw it he fucking fumbled it and fell right in front of them so he had to pick it up and throw it again and then the referee falls for it and then he gets belt number two and charged Kenny, but Kenny kicked him and hit the rock bottom on a fucking, or was it Kenny hit the rock bottom or night hit the rock bottom on Kenny? But that was a two count, regardless of what it was. And then it went back and forth some more. They just, it's over excessive and confusing and

cluttered and just on and on because they come up with all these brilliant ideas and they have to do them all at the same time. And then finally, when they were done, Kenny hit the one-winged ferry, one, two, three. And I knew there was trouble because we still had 12 minutes on the air according to the little time counter.

And I'm thinking, well, there must be an extensive afterbirth. Well, they teased it too because there was a backstage promo a little earlier with Osprey. and Moxley, where Moxley gave him shit for not finishing the Young Bucks. Oh, that's right. I did see that where he said, Moxley said to him, said, if you won't pull the trigger, I will.

Right. So it kind of teased that something absolutely has to happen tonight with Moxley and Omega. But at the same time, there is Moxley already telling Osprey, well, you need to run in and fucking attack this guy and hurt him before the match next month. But before we get there, your thoughts on the match, and my thought is, Kevin Knight is good, he's very athletic, and he was trying very hard. But the sight of Kenny at this point, to me,

and his unnatural, weird, awkward movements is so off-putting. And just the excessive amount of everything that I'd seen to that point, I just, this was a TV match to me. And what did I say to you the last time when he wrested? MJF, I complained about it there, I've complained about it before. Every match with Omega has this long section battling on the floor when no countouts. It's every time, it's every match.

It's a crutch. It's unneeded. You don't have to go 30 minutes. You could just shave those four minutes out and go in the ring and wrestle. I agree with you, night look good. Omega looked... I'd say Omega looked good. you know, he got to do kind of his Kenny Omega Greatest Hits thing for that audience. And they... He looks odd to me.

Well, he's an odd guy. The hair and the shape of his head, the shape of his skull is odd to me. I said that a while back he didn't even react, just the idea that he, his head has gotten, I compared him to huggle from the movie Labyrinth. It's just become like a giant head. Well, I didn't react because I'd, I've never seen that movie, but I'll agree that potentially does he have some, can't really say swelling of the brain because it can't be that big to begin with, but there's some type of expansion going on there.

I don't know, but of course, like you said, a big post-match, and that really was the story, it almost felt like that was the most important thing, actually, on this entire pay-per-view card, which was unnecessary, to say the least, this post-match, a big part of the ongoing story, the love affair or the love triangle, I should say, between Omega and Moxley and Osprey. Yes, and James Taylor should write a song about it. So then here came. Our friend Dick the Boozer, John Moxley, and the Boor Horseman.

And Kenny has just hit Knight with the deal, and he's won the match and blah, blah, blah. But they jumped Kenny. And Knight just, he was, He was gone. They jumped Kenny and they start kicking a shit out of Kenny. And here comes the Buccaroos because they're Kenny's boys. But they stop them too.

They just beat them up because there's too many of them. The boy is there too many of them. And then they, you can tell they meant business, Brian, because there's five of them and they're these hand-to-hand combat masters and these badasses. so they stopped to put a chair over Kenny's head

to where they had to put his neck in it to where they're going to some intricate goddamn wrestling bullshit instead of just visually trying to hurt a guy. But Osprey comes in and he's, whoa, just stop it, just no, you guys got to leave, get out of here, no, you can't do this, I don't want it this way, no, what the hell's a matter with you? He even went so far as to shove Claudio down and swing a chair at the rest of them.

Get the fuck out of here. And that's when Moxley stands up on the apron and starts making his weird movements that he makes and comes in with his hands by and his back and that mope face. It's like when Dracula hypnotized his victims, so they would have run when he's stalking them so he's going to bite him on the neck. Moxley looks at you with this moat face and Osprey just stood there

and let Moxley talk to him and oh you got to do this and he took the chair from Osprey that he had run off the rest of Moxley's guys with and he talked to him and he pulled out a plastic bag did Moxley and he gives it to Osprey and now he said now you got to do this

and Osprey's conflicted folks Ospre. Can you tell the drama, the tension? You could cut it with a knife. Sort of smelled like somebody cut it like a fart. And this was taken so long. And then Osprey looks, he's going to, for a second, I'm thinking about it, I'm offending about it. I'm going to put this bag over Kitty's head and that's going to win me the title. I don't know if he suffocates him and kills him, I guess he could just walk out and wimbly and they hand him the belt. I don't know why I can understand weaken him, but don't you think attempted murder has gone too far in the course of you maybe screwing your own self out of a title shot. But nevertheless, they got to pull the trigger.

But then, and Brian, this was my favorite part. to signal that Osprey says, no. It's like in Planet of the Apes, no. And he's breaking free of his captors, and he's going to defy John Moxley. He's going to rip the paper bag in half. Brian, did you see that he couldn't rip the paper, or the plastic bag?

The plastic, he couldn't rip it. He couldn't, it wouldn't rip. He's trying to rip it. It ain't ripping. I think it finally he got to. piece of it on the third try. That was my favorite part. I could sympathize. I tried

to squeeze a fucking egg in the palm of my hand, just a regular, just uncooked egg on Memphis TV live one time and realized that the ergonomic design is made so it withstands the trip out to fucking

chicken's asshole and it's hard to fucking crush it that way. But he could have ripped the fucking bag. Why were you crushing an egg on Memphis TV? Because my, it was, oh, God damn, what were all the stipulations? My hair was at stake against the fabulous ones, but their hair and the titles were on the line and blah, blah, blah, but something about where you're going to look just like this egg and we're going to crush you. And then I started squeezing and Jimmy Art standing next to me.

I said, Lance is holding the microphone. and this is I've been in the business like fucking six months and this is one of my brilliant set piece ideas where I bring a prop and I do something memorable and I started squeezing that I can't pop that fucking egg just squeezing it. It wasn't hard bouldering. I didn't know like dig my fingernail in the break the seal somehow.

I just think it'll just go, right? And it took me one, two, and I'm thinking I'm not going to be, it might be even better if I can't break it. and Jimmy Hart is going, come on, Jimmy, come on, Jimmy. Rewing for me to break an egg. And finally I squeezed out. I mean, it popped it. It popped all over Lance's fucking suit.

Lance jumped. He's like, oh. God damn it. Live television. Anyway, back to this horse shit. So. he ripped the bag and punched Moxley and then the other heels ran at Osprey but he evaded him. He boosted one over the top and they just all, they took their own bumps out and he,

and then they just gave up the fight because that's all you saw of them. They took off. and then he picked will osprey picked up the title belt to hand it to kenny but kenny was being wary of osprey and Kenny had picked up the plastic bag and like what because he i get maybe he didn't see osprey ripped the bag i don't know what the fuck they're trying to get across here but osprey or kenny ain't trust in osprey but then they shook hands and they started posing on the ropes, standing up on the rovier.

We're coming for each other at Wembley. And then Kenny just stood up underneath Osprey while he was standing on the ropes and gave him the one-winged fairy in the middle of the ring, boom, and pointed to the plastic bag like you were trying to do this to me. And then Kenny started pose a buck's, ran back in and Kenny started

fucking holding the belt over Osprey and then he posed and the bucks are now like reluctant well should we should we do our pose that signifies we're still friends? Well of course we have to it's a contractual commitment

so they're flexing their non-existent muscles on the other side of Kenny while has he turned heel now on Osprey? because Osprey's the one That would really make Osprey the biggest sucker of all time wouldn't it if he's just a limpid baby face

going into this match after all this? He finally punched the one heel he's been sucking up to for six months or whatever and then the other good guy turned on him. The most Casper milk toast son of a bitch in the company decides he's going to get some balls right then and there and turns heel on him. Well, the road.

to Wembley Stadium is paved with cobblestones. All sorts of stones. Cobblestones, bricks, manure. Kidney stones. You never know. That was AEW. Redemption. Any final thoughts on redemption? Yes, the last thing I wrote in my notes was all this for that. Well, let's see what the fans thing. Fifty dollars is $50. Of course, cheaper if you have HBO Max. But Jim, maybe it wouldn't have been such a milk toast feel if Tony Kahn had spent some money and gotten everyone in the crowd hooked up with Willie's Remedy.

You know what? That, Brian, last would be the perfect idea of what he should have done, what you just came up with there is when they came in the door and they gave their ticket to the ticket taker, they should have handed the fan back a bottle of Willie's Remedy, whether it be the 5 milligram or maybe even the 10 milligram. might have worked for this crowd or for this show a little bit better. But that way, the fans could have enjoyed themselves, regardless of what they were looking at,

because if they didn't enjoy the show that they came to watch, they could have a show in their own mind. Silver Stage's golden curtains fill your head plain as can be. Folks, Willys, the remedy, that is, is a premium THC-infused social tonic. that means that you're going to be more social. You have a drink of willies. You're going to want to talk to your neighbor or your friend or a stranger or possibly even

an enemy. You're going to want to be social. Everything about you is social. You're going to go out and be social. You're going to socialize. You're going to be part of the social crowd. You're going to eventually one day have social security. And who knows, statistically, you're probably going to get a social disease.

but folks willies social tonics free from disease they come in the five and ten milligram doses so smooth and balanced you barely realize you're drinking a THC product at all Brian I can tell you the first time I had a sip of willies it didn't taste like THS I had never tasted anything like that before there was nothing to compare it to so therefore you know with a unique blend of T's HC, CBD, CBG, and most importantly, the L. Fianine, you're going to be calm, you're going to be clear, you're going to have euphoria, not the television series, but the state of mind and relaxation. And Brian, that's the important thing. Whether you're sitting alone after a hard day, trying to some to take the edge off before you fall off the edge, or if you're out there socializing with friends.

You want to be calm and relaxed. Just if you're socializing with any of the enemies or the strangers, bear in mind now that after five or six shots of willies, they may be just picking your pockets. So don't do that. Again, don't do. There's a lot of things not to do. What you should do is be safe, be cautious,

whether drinking willies or just everyday life walking down the street. You know, actually, just keep your head on a swivel. All the tip. If you go out in public these days, folks, just fucking look at everybody like they're a goddamn potential danger. There's a fucking enemy agent, some type of alien creature,

or just some rogue person on their own mission is all around you. A vigilante. Wouldn't that be a vigilante? A vigilante. You know, and whether it's right or wrong, you can't say, folks. So what you need to do is take a shot or two of Willies

and walk down the street with your head on a swivel. and instantly analyze every son of a bitch both visually and whatever you can. If they're talking to themselves, that's a red flag. And you'll be able to hear better with Willys too. So replace the alcohol. So let's again. Well, yeah, because you're concentrating. Do not promise things that we absolutely positively know are not going to be.

Well, it says it delivers a feeling of clarity. You can, you know, you can concentrate on your, on your senses that you want to use. because you'll lose use of some other senses. Once again, let's talk about the sense of feeling good, feel good and have a good. Now, maybe at the end of the day, you want to unwind a little bit. Well,

people got five senses anyway. They can get by with three out of five eight bad folks, but you know, you don't want the regret and the hangover that comes with the alcohol as well as the various offenses that you can commit by using alcohol in public. well, Willys,

you're just right out in front of everybody. His face is on the label, and everybody knows what's going on with Willie. So wink, wink, wink. Right now, Willis is shipping directly to your doorstep in over 40 states. What?

No, everyone knows about Willie. Wink, wink. Yes. He's making no secret of it. And right now, Willie's, as I said, is shipping in 40-plus states as soon to be all of them, but in the meantime, just drive across state lines. It's not a violation of the Mann Act unless, well, I don't know what you're doing with that chick you got in a car, mister, but you're in for trouble.

But go now to drinkwillies.com. Drinkwillies.com. Drinkwillies. Drink willies. Drink willies. dot com and use the promo code jcee you're going to get 20% off your first order and free shipping on orders over 95 dollars and you can live like a legend like a 90-something year old legend like willy he's got to have something going for him and look at all the shit he's seen and done good heavens they i'm surprised they didn't stuff him with formaldehyde 25 years ago but he's still cooking. Okay, let's get that. And so, Ed, he must have the remedy, and you can have some too.

Drinkwillies.com, promo code JCE, 20% off your first order, free shipping on orders over $95. And actually, from what I understand, if you're over 95 years old, you can get some kind of discount also. From what I understand, we don't understand that. I have not heard anything about that, and I have nothing in writing saying. Well, you ought to try. It's not promised deals here at the end that do not. What have you got to lose? You're 95.

Try it. Try anything at 95. Somebody will give you something just because they're amazed. Once again, Jim, that promo code and that link for a great deal for the listeners. JCE is the promo code. 20% off is what you get. Free shipping on orders over $95 is what they're going to give you. Drinkwillies.com is the place to go.

And 95 is the magic aid. If you're 96, you're going to be able to get a lot of free shit. Once again, drinkwillies. Drinkwillies.com. I don't know why I yelled that. Drinkwillies.com promo code JCE, a great deal for new customers. Well, Jim, this email was sent to Corny Drive-Thru at gmail.com from K.P. in Atlanta. I'd love to get Jim's take on wrestlers tattoos. Recently I noticed Kyle Fletcher's hideous thigh tat

He just did that because I was noticing that on the pay-per-view And I said has that always been there? That's brand new It reminded me of the Cody Rhodes tat That he tries to cover up under his suits In the territory days Did the bookers have any say over this

Could a guy be cut If they didn't like it And what was the worst tattoo Jim ever saw on a guy and just to expand upon KP's question here, like I remember when not everyone had tattoos, let alone tattoos everywhere. Like Harley Race stood out.

He was like an old sailor. He had tattoos on his arms. Well, and that's the thing. Some of these guys actually did, you know, the guys who were in their 20s in the late 40s, early 50s, Korean War or whatever, they got their tattoos in the service.

But you hit the thing. One of the answers, and I didn't take notes on all the sub-references in that question, but one thing is not everybody had tattoos. And the guys in wrestling that had tattoos generally looked like they should have tattoos. Bam-Bam Bigelow, when a motherfucker's got his head tattooed in flames and looks like that the rest of him, you didn't see that every day.

But by the same token, a lot of the baby faces, It was more of the, you know, the cute era, the 70s and 80s where you wanted the baby faces to be cute and not look like motley crew or whatever the fuck. As far as the bookers having control, no, they didn't. Because if you were an underneath guy and a booker didn't like your look, because why does he get that fucking ugly tattoo, he just wouldn't book you? and if you were a top guy, Don Fargo looked like he should have tattoos, right?

If you were a main event guy and the tattoos were part of your gimmick and drawing money, then, you know, fine, I'll bring you in. And by the same token, if a top guy, you just innately knew in those days, if I, Jerry Lawler was not going to shave his back, go out and get a giant skull tattooed across his, shoulders and then surprise Jerry Jarrett with it because that would have been ridiculous on everybody's part.

The top guys knew if I'm going to have this successful gimmick and I'm going to do something that completely changes my look, well, that would be a stupid thing. You only change your look drastically when you're starving and making no money. So I don't remember a time where a guy in the territory is tattooed, toot himself out of position. But now in modern times, where it's not only become more prevalent,

but guys don't understand, you know, the spot they are supposed to be shooting for or that the promoter wants them to be in, Brock went out and got that giant, what is it all over his back or his shoulder, the dagger and the fucking, I don't know, a rose in a fisted glove, whatever he's fucking wearing over there.

while he was an OBW without telling anybody talent relations, whatever. And they were at that point, now you're going to say, well, it looks fine. Well, yeah, now Brock's fucking 50 years old or whatever he is

that he's been over for 25 years. But they thought they had this Olympic gold, not gold medal, but Olympic level NCAA champion, an amateur wrestler baby face. It's 24 years old. And now he looks like he just joined a biker gang.

So that's when they orb, when guys would do something where they had merchandise out. But the lead time on it was six or nine months or a year for the figures or whatever it was. And motherfucker, by the time that shit comes out, you don't look like this anymore. That's where in modern days with the micromantic, management of the WWF and the bigger companies, that's where that came into play.

What was the other parts of his question? Hold on here. It was also about the bookers have a say in it. Could guys be cut if they didn't like it? What was the worst tattoo you ever saw on a guy? Oh, here's what I was going to say is, I mean, worst is subjective. And there was many of them that I'd never knew what the fuck they were. What did you think of Johnny Marlin?

when you were a kid. Johnny Eagles. Well, that was kind of cool because it was, he was like one of those pirates with an accent that I saw in the movies when I'm fucking 11, right? On TV or whatever.

I didn't know you were just a salty old British guy that probably got tattoos when he was wrestling people into carnival or whatever. But that was different because he's, he's exotic. He's from England. But a lot of times, you know,

unless I'm standing there staring at a guy's anatomy, I don't know what to fucking, they all blur together to me. But I remember the poor guy, they made fun of him because Lance Archer, when he was Lance Hoyt, in T&A,

whatever he had, what are the kids call it across the bottom of your back, a tramp stamp? A tramp stamp, that's right. He had the tattoo that I guess is traditionally in the spot and kind of resembling what

one of these young ladies who wear the low slung hiphuggers and live in a trailer park would fucking display and all of guys was, he's got a tramp stamp. So I don't care. Why did he do that? I don't know. It did stop me from ever taking him seriously,

like when he was young in TNA or after that he added more tattoos to it, so it just looked like there was a giant tattoo from head to toe, not a tramp stamp. Yes. I mean, whatever. The Cody, when we went over, that's probably on YouTube. I remember we talked about that at length, because what, I don't even mind the design as much as the placement.

It just looks odd, as I believe Brandy reinforced our opinion. It looks odd on him. If he had it over his heart, I would probably, you know what, that gives him a little something. But just on the neck, it's like, fuck, it just got stuck and wouldn't go in the right place. they left it there. It's not even centered. It's just like plop down crooked a little bit.

It's got a little Dutch tilt to it for you cinematographers out there. Yeah, you know, I blame Goldberg. I feel like he made it so acceptable in society for, like, everyone to get tribal tattoos, and that kind of opened a lot of doors. I blame Goldberg, Henry Rollins, and Axel Rose for making everyone in America think they should get tattoos. I blame Hervei Villeshizze. For being tattoo?

He was... Oh, get out of you. He was the first one I ever saw. I think we've referenced almost every decade in the 20th century so far here on this program today and they'll be more. But what do you think about the idea

of Kyle Fletcher, he's kind of established right now? He's overdoing it and he's young. He's going to run out of fucking space. And then, you know, that's... He's a good-looking young guy with a nice physique, but he looked so young.

Remember at the start, he looked like he's 12 years old and that accent and everything, that doesn't help. But at first they tried to go with the floppy blonde hair on top, and that, at least he was going for a look, I believe was what our statement was. At least he's going for something. but then they shaved his head they've put him in this ludicry

these series of ludicrous custom made outfits and what the fuck is this and the and now the tattoos all over the place they're before they hit on something that's actually going to fucking work and stick they're going to

muddied up the whole canvas and I think at this point for a guy that young to have that many tattoos all over the place but he's got a nice body you just have somebody punch him in a face a couple times and scar him up and he'll age and look older but you don't need to make him look like

a fucking human ink blot and let him have some kind of goddamn hair that big of a body that tall that big of a body etc he looks like a peanut head with no hair his little head's a little pea well Jim on that note we'll let the answer audience take a little pee. We'll be right back with WWE Unreal

after this short commercial timeout. All right, there's anger in my hand today. You feel it. Jim, let's pick up from where we left off on the experience. W.W.E. Unreal season three out right now on Netflix. It escaped. Everyone has so much to say. Yet everyone wants to hear what you have to say. We have to talk about episodes three, four, and five.

Well, in episode three was Rise and Rumble, because young Rumble, young man Rumble, because we were coming up on the Royal Rumble. And after the first couple of episodes, I mentioned this, the folks can go back and listen to the previous reviews if they so choose on YouTube, but they're kind of filling time on this show.

It's a contractual commitment and at the same time an opportunity to tell us how brilliant their creative force is to be able to just twist and turn and pivot on a dime. And otherwise, with a couple of noted exceptions, by the time we got into episode three pretty good and starting on four and five, it was starting to drag. and did you notice that this may have been the tipping point this episode here where it was starting to drag a little bit? Well, again, we're post-Cena now, so there's a lot of other people to focus on.

And I thought episode three, I don't remember specifically what was on three, but there were still good moments and things that I was interested in for the other. Well, yes, there was, you know, there's other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play? No, there's still some good things to come, but they're coming up on a road. Rumble, they wanted Braun to win the thing, but they were afraid there'd be a backlash for the overpush. They remember die, Rocky, die.

Which doesn't work. Which, you know, honestly, the Bronbaker pushes never felt like the Rocky My Vio one did before the chance started. So it doesn't even seem like a, it doesn't even feel like when Roman Rains got rejected. Because that was after a heel run with the shield. Well, and the thing is, from the. the time that we first saw Rocky, he was pushed to the moon, whereas we've seen Braun for a few years now, and it was in NXT first. It was a soft launch, as they say. But they sent Seth to Birmingham

to get his shoulder fixed. That's my apologies to all the people in Birmingham, Alabama, but that was the phrase that every wrestler has dreaded for 40 years. We're to send you to Birmingham. Because now I guess, God, Dr. Andrews, if he's operating now, I believe I would probably not want him to do it on me because he's got to be 80. But it's the, he's the clinic is named after Dr. James Andrews, but he's been the guy that put everybody of any note back together into wrestling business for the past 40 years, right? But you got to go to Birmingham. Yeah, not just the wrestling business all throughout sports. Yeah, because he's the preeminent sports clinic in the country. And they showed Becky, discussed it by the surgery footage,

as I didn't even attempt to look at it. And again, they were at the Survivor series, the war games, where they had wanted to feature Braun there. And it was the doomsday by Punk and Cody, where he landed on his head. Remember we talked about at the time, and they were going to make the call, just have Bronson Reed do all of his shit.

But he was okay. But that led to them looking to NXT for the new stars, the next new stars. And boy, people have just hate Bruce Pritchard. I can't even remember whether this was the episode or not that he said it, but it got out online that the clip going around and Bruce said,

well bring up trick and bring up oba you know they're not going to be fucking ready but you know and they crucified there's a lot of things you could crucify bruce for but that's not really one of them because anybody that comes from nxte is not going to be ready completely ready completely you know we know everything we need to know here it's still a learning process but there's times where they're ready to take the next step and, you know, they were. Part of the issue is he cited two guys that hit the ground running. Yeah.

They were ready and they have been ready and there's been no signs of them not being ready and they weren't NXT a long time. But also Bruce is just so overbearing. Yes. Anyway, so they had footage of Trick Williams showing Lash Leroux an elephant at the zoo. And I kind of skipped ahead.

And they had a piece on Trick Williams, and I was distracted because I had puppies in my lap vying for position. But then we got to Oba. And again, this is the kind of thing. They could do it. They did it with Braun. They noted that he was a track and field star, and they had footage of him throwing a shot put.

but at the same time he was a kid in Nigeria that was watching the WWE. That's the kind of shit if you want to be a shoot program and tell the truth. And well, there you go. It looks like he's somebody. And when he tried out apparently in 2021, they knew they had a star looking at that video you can tell. And even Triple H, love him or hate him. He said it's not the moves, it's what you do in between the moves. And that's at least the shortest way of putting it, I think I've ever heard,

if not the most profound. I don't know how profound it was. I mean, I guess he shortened this statement about the little things. Well, it's not the moves, because a lot of people can do the moves, but how do you look in between the moves? What's the expression on your face? How magnetic is your personality? How invested are they already to the point where you've done that move that they react?

It's the intangible shit that a person has to look a certain way or have a certain type of charisma or perform with a certain level of aggression or urgency or, emotion of some description. And that's what, you know, you can teach the other shit, but you can't teach that. So anyway, and then Chelsea, Chelsea Green was in the concrete block house that she's been building for three years, I guess, down there in Florida to absorb the hurricanes or whatever. the last season, she was, she just showed off the interior of the blocks, and now she's living in the house with her husband, Mr. Green. I don't know if I caught his first name.

And at that point, I sensed another segment on celebrities' home life and I skipped ahead. Did I miss anything? Not really. No. Or then we saw a lot of the girls in Saudi Arabia, which is, boy, I tell you what, that certainly has reversed itself real quick from, God damn, we all have to go and wear burlap sacks and we're fearing for our lives to now they're just traipsing around and enjoying themselves.

And then they did a package on the men's rumble in Saudi Arabia that Roman won. and that's what a lot of these shows started becoming packages of the big events and then, oh, what are we going to plan next type of thing? Hey, what do you take away from the fact that Romans not involved in any of this? I'm thinking that maybe Heyman suggested that he didn't want to, he might not want to be involved in this because it creates or doesn't create, but it maintains some kind of mystique. around him. Remember the biography

of Roman Raines was a Paul Heyman directed cinematic masterpiece that still well they had to do things that admitted at some point the business was a work. It still presented Roman Reins

like he's one of the biggest fucking celebrities on the planet and his fabulous backstory and it's all part of the plan smithers do we want to put him in that atmosphere, this atmosphere of the unreal. He'd be the unreal one.

Well, back to Saudi Arabia. Well, that's where this episode ended, old episode three. It just, they got the Roman title match at Mania and they see money and Brock and Oba. And that's where, that's really what we got out of Seg 3. It was a,

eh, I don't know, help me. you know, were you fascinated, captivated, motivated? I don't think it's a well-done series. It's very well done. Nice editing. You know, you question everyone's honesty. You know, I quite frankly question, I bring up Roman Raines before. I question the motives of everyone who wants to be a part of this.

You know, they can't command Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch to bring the camera crew into the hospital. they wanted to do that. They want to show this side of them to the world, this side of themselves, I should say, to the world. It's very interesting. You know, less Cody this season than previously. But yeah, I mean, it's a good, it's a fun roll-haging hour. It's a good, it's fun, and they're doing, they're doing good.

it. Well, episode four of Unreal was even more of Unreal. That's the way we can say it, titled Life Happens. And this is the one of the whole series. I could have just watched the footage of Punk and A.J. Lee with Larry and the story of their relationship, and then it ended here it would have been happy because that was you know that's the only i don't care about people's married life or their personal life or their home life or any of that i just if i don't if you're not telling me about their dog i don't give a shit but poor and larry was the most famous dog in wrestling and this was where the show opened you know where punk was doing an interview and he was down or distracted or whatever and he hadn't told anybody why at that point and he and a j had

promised each other that they would late late they would wait to let people know that larry was gone but you know but that's why i remember when at first we didn't know why he came out with the larry's dad patch on his jacket and then we found out after the show but you know they they looked at him like a misfit that needed to find his people. And that was kind of like what punk said they saw in themselves or whatever. So anyway, that is all the personal life I care to see about people. Am I alone in that? Who gives a shit about people's meandering fucking menial personal lives?

You know, I liked it, actually. I thought it was really nice to see. And I think I said it the other day. CM Punk has never been more relatable and likable than he was presented in this. And it made me like AJ. I haven't really been a fan of her on-screen stuff. But as a person watching this, it really made me root for her. Really made me like, you know, think, yeah, all right, good for her.

I don't want to watch her stuff, but, you know, it was, it really humanized them. and I think CM Punk is one of the people that humanizing him doesn't hurt him because the authenticity is what he's selling. Yes, because he has a connection with people because they don't think that he's for good or bad,

he's not bullshit. And he talks to people instead of Adam, as we've said. Nevertheless, as the show moves on, life happens because things are going south, as they say. Triple H was talking about having to change plans at various points. I forgot about Naomi. So many other things have happened.

Where's that heifer been? She got pregnant, had to give up the belt. And she said, well, in nine months and some change, I want to see Naomi. I will watch Naomi whenever Naomi comes back. She was cutting promos and just switched heel. It was enjoyable. but then they replaced her with Stephanie Vacker, which...

She's good. See, this made me really like Stephanie Vakor even more than I already did. Her backstory. I like how serious she is. I thought that was some of the best stuff in this. She's serious like a third-grade librarian is serious. Oh, come on.

Not necessarily in a way that you want to fucking be captivated by for long-term storytelling. like. Third grade was a mean lady. She was mean. I was zipping over. Don't you say that about Myrtle Reed?

My first grade to teach. Anyway, I skipped over Stephanie. Because she wasn't going to call me by a heifer. Oh, come on. It was actually some good stuff. She got hurt in the ring early on in Mexico.

And that's why she paints half her face because that's where, whatever it was. She broke her nose and her orbital bone. It was like a whole big mess. and she didn't give up on her dream. She came all the way from Chile to Mexico because that was the clearest path to international stardom,

and now she was here, and her dad got to see her on the biggest stage of all. So she went from Chile today to hot tamale. I thought it was a nice section of this. Well, back to Braun Breaker. Apparently, he gave himself the hernia, it wasn't by flipping that big announce desk over. It was by screaming during the promo.

And when he went in the back and bit over, it was selling and realized he couldn't stand upright, they took him to the hospital immediately. And they showed Bruce telling Triple Age, he's got a hernia. And that was six weeks before he was going to be able to train and blah, blah, blah. So Seth was injured. and they pivoted to Braun and then Braun was injured

and then they said well Bronson Reed and boy howdy he's going to just be our guy and remember on that goofy looking save he tore his bicep and this is where they can isolate the audio they've got on those floor cameras and wherever the mics are placed around the ring so you can hear the guys talking to each other

it's clearer than a goddamn FBI wiretapping audio. And he's like, yeah, just fuck my bicep. And they've done that on a couple of different times in this show where you can, yeah, I'm completely fucked up, but you can hear it plain as day. So that is, as we've said, ridiculous, Brian, that everybody they tried to put in this group of young, guys to elevate everybody. They've been elevated all right. They've been airlifted.

And of course, after this, Logan got hurt too. Yeah, they weren't even there yet. They can't keep up with the injuries. But then they had the elimination chamber. Seth was hiding in a bus. Surprise, Moose Cholak didn't make a cameo as the bus driver in Chicago. Do you think that Ria Ripley should stop

appearing on television without her makeup and not in her gear. She looks like a normal person. She's so good looking like that. No, she looks. I'm not talking about good or not good. Normal. She looks normal. She has an aura.

If any woman in the world should walk around in the airport or goddamn show up on Jimmy Fallon like Hulk Hogan. did where he was always in the gimmick, it should be Ria Ripley. She can be bigger than life. We'll find out. I heard she's going to be in some horror movie that's coming out soon. So that means red carpets. That means interviews.

And if so, let's see what she's wearing, I guess. What are you wearing, little girl? What do you think, Mr. Blackwell? What do you think of Ria Ripley this year? Well, I'm just telling you, you know, she does wonderful things with chain mail and fucking and garter belts. Anyway, they did a package on the women's elimination chamber where everybody hugged after.

And then AJ and Becky where everybody hugged after. And then punk and fin and in a men's chamber package. And Seth invaded an Orton won. And Seth came out from under the mask and all the fall to all that we covered when it happened. But that's what I'm saying, the last bit of this episode four was just recaps on the big matches at the big show

and everybody hugging afterwards. Am I being too harsh? It feels like each episode builds to the end being some big show or some PLE. Where everybody hugs afterwards. That's right, claps, a lot of big standing ovations and, again, the creepiest champagne room of all time. Gorilla position.

Well, you know, Brian, it was all building to one thing. Episode five, the title gives it away. You can't hide from this title, the grandest stage. They got to be talking about WrestleMania, unless they're talking about the stage on the far right at the gold club. One of those would be the grandest one. And they had been talking about a lot of these guys and building things up and etc. and Cody popped in.

You said there wasn't a lot of Cody. He was at the WWE warehouse, looking at the old belts and robes and props and et cetera. And boy, I guarantee you a promoter in the old days would use the same belt if he could get away with it. And some did for 20 years rather than pay to have a new belt made. And they have a new belt made every time they goddamn switch the belt. They've just got boxes and rows of them up there.

And he looked at his old trunks and everything. That gave us a little history on Cody and Orton. And they, VTR, Stephanie, caving in Liv Morgan and Roxanne Perez's heads. That was good to see again. What the fuck? And then Braun kind of surprise returned at Mania, and I was kind of bored by this point. And they did stuff on Seth and Gunther and Liv and Stephanie and Cody and Orton.

There was the quote in there, we are interjecting Pat McAfee into this to help the people dislike Orton. It didn't work, did it? Not at all. They made them dislike McAfee more. Yes. And Cody had to say, hey, should Pat be involved? Well, the crowd said no.

So they got jelly roll and McAfee out of the way before the bell and then they got the match going and Cody's eye as we thought, you know, we heard that his not only was he busted open but his eye was swolled up that Orton got him with the shin of his boot on the way by. And then, you know, they went to WrestleMania night too where Cody was going to go from the top to the desk or whatever, and they packaged Oba and Brock and Trick and Sammy and punk and Roman.

And the last, what, 15 minutes of the show was packages on the last four or five matches on the show. The end until next season. Do you have any shows that you don't fast forward through? Yes. But none of them related to wrestling. Yeah, or any of them related to wrestling? That was my next question. No, no, not a single one.

All right. I mean, how can you, much can you, they're just, they're filling time now. They're filling time. They don't have a story to tell. They have a show to tell it in. And they're making a bunch of shit up, and I'm not particularly fucking abused.

Well, that was WWE Unreaching. the opposite of WWE real but that was WVE Unreal Season 3 will pick it up again when season 4 comes out Oh geez We're going to get to our list now

We're turned to this of the top wrestlers In their 20s in 1994 Trying to put together a top 20 list We're going to get a few more questions at the end But I know we promise retro figures Retro figures, definitely next week, new songs next week, guess the program next week. But we had a lot.

Also, SummerSlam next week. Oh, God, damn it. Yeah, huh? See? All right, well, we have to get the questions. People need to be heard. People need to be heard. Let's get to this list here, Jim.

Once again, this is part two. Begin last week, the top wrestlers in their 20s in 1994, our attempt to put a list together. Jim, let's return to the list exactly where we left off. And the one thing that we noticed is there's a lot of different names on this list that were not on the 1984 list 10 years earlier. But there's a lot more names, but there was a lot fewer places to work. Because basically the two main companies had gobbled up tons of talent. the rest of the guys were hanging around

and ECW were on the fringe of things. Well, let's return to WCW, not the fringe of things. Turning 24 in January, Marcus Alexander Bagwell. Oh, boy, howdy, the inimitable, often imitated, but never duplicated.

I never spent almost any time around him and we were always in a different place whenever, you know, since the time he's gotten into business, but obviously the stories and the tales and the fables live on. I can't remember what he was doing in 1994

because I know there was a period of time where they began using him well. But can Bagwell ever get over the stigma of kind of being the most attention-getting middle card guy with the weirdest out-of-the-ring stories? No, I think actually, what killed it. Not that it's like, I don't know, I'm not blaming him, but Jim Ross openly and with disgust talking about Judy Backwell calling the office for Marcus. That killed it,

I think, for anything else ever happening again anyway. That was one of the things, but you never can get past that thought. And of course, that match with Booker T on WWW.W.R. was a disaster. but 94, young wrestler in WCW, that may be the year that he got the infection in his calves for having fake muscles put in there. That's right. But I think he went from teaming with two called Scorpio to team with the Patriot and Stars and Stripes,

so tag team wrestler predominantly. Well, I remember when he was the handsome stranger for Joe Pedicino in that little short global wrestling federation run that Joe started when he thought that the Nigerian guy had millions of dollars. And Joe loved that gimmick. He had like a

a tuxedo jacket of some kind on, a little bow tie like a male stripper. And his hair was lovely. And he had this sparkly lone ranger mask. And he would come down to the ring and give roses, red roses to one of the women or some of the women in the front row or whatever. And Joe's like,

and the thing is nobody's going to know who he is. is. I said, that's because nobody knows who the fuck he is. And when you take the mask off him, everybody's going to say, who the fuck is that? Because nobody knew who the fuck he was. Well, again, he's the handsome stranger, not the handsome mystery.

Well, he should have been the handsome fucking, you know, unknown person. Well, I'm guessing not on your list for 1994. Probably not. His future tag team partner, who I believe wrestled for you in 94, he would turn 20,

in March Scott Stud Yes Scott Studd and I'm trying to think what his real name, real last name was his first name was really Scott Anton that's it I believe

but nevertheless the reason why he worked he was a good kid with a nice body and he could work he had just broken in but the reason why he came to be booked for me was because he lived in Atlanta and he was guy driving Jake Roberts to shows. And so that was obviously part of the thing.

And I used him a couple times even without Jake, I think, because he was a good kid. But he was the guy that when Jake got the $25,000 cash guaranteed to shave his head in Mexico, Scott Stud went down with him. They gave Jake, and this, because he came back and worked for me the next weekend in Knoxville, both of them did.

I heard the story when it was fresh. They gave Jake the $25,000 in cash, and Jake gave it to Scott Stud, and while Jake went to the ring to do the hair match, Scott Stud took the money and locked himself in their rental car in the parking lot. And when Jake was finished, he immediately went straight out the back door,

jumped in the rental car, dressed the way he was, and they both went to the air. airport and dropped the car off and went to the gate for the flight that was leaving the next morning. So they were actually in the airport in public view the whole fucking time and nobody could goddamn come and take the money back. So not on your list for 1990. Not on my list for 1994 though, Scott's Ted. The next name I'm going to say, but actually this should not be here because he's not in his 20s in 904, so not eligible, turning 19, in May, Alex Wright.

The son of the, is he German? Is he Austrian? One of those countries. German, I believe. What was he? Das Wunderkind. Stephen Wright was his father. And Stephen Wright was a wrestler from the 60s, 70s, early 80s at least.

Early 80s, New Japan. I saw him in Tiger Mask on tape. That was awesome. And that's the thing is that when I first heard you know, the son of Stephen Wright, I'm thinking, wow, because I've seen the tapes. And Stephen Wright, not the comedian, by the way, folks. But Stephen Wright was a hell of a fucking mat wrestler and a hell of a worker,

and he carried it off. It looked believable. And he could work with Tiger Mask or he could work, World of Sports style with a guy on the ground, whatever. He looked good. Alex Wright comes in, Das Vunderkind, but he's 19 years old, but they, how would you describe that gimmick they gave him? It was a cross between dancing and some kind of syntho, pop.

The dancing was the issue. The dancing was the issue. The music sucked, but you can get past that. It was the insistence on him going in there and doing a dance that ensured no man was going to cheer for him. Yes. Remember the match that got Paul Roma fired in 95, I think. Was it 95?

Yeah, it must have been 95. him and Alex Wright, Roma's the heel, and Roma starts getting massive cheers for everything he did to Alex Wright, and then he starts playing into it, and he went overboard. It was awesome. But Alex Wright was talented,

but he never stood a chance in America with that gimmick. Yeah, and I understand. I remember painfully thin also at that point in time, but yeah, the gimmick was death. It was worse than the break dancing son Strongbow, Vincent Young, I thought. See, that at least was of its time. I can understand why adults wouldn't like it, but if you were a kid,

he's breakdancing. Breakdancing was just a few years ago. It kind of works. Nobody was dancing like Alex Wright. There was no one doing that. Well, no, but the thing is, it was worse than the breakdancing gimmick, because the breakdancing gimmick on an underneath guy that wasn't going to get over regardless, who gives a shit?

but this horrible worst gimmick given to a guy that might have been good with any other personality, that's worse. Not on the list. Not on the list. He's a teenager. Jim, speaking of dancing, someone who danced in the ring and looked pretty good doing it, he was funky at one time, but this is before then.

29 in October, two cold Scorpio. Wow, and you know, he was only a couple of years away from achieving his greatest fame as Flash Funk. Scorpio during that period of time, they were using him and he was over. Correct?

94, they used him early on and then he left and he was an early guy to go to ECW in 94. Him and Sabu had some really good matches at the time. He had been more dominant in WCW in 93 then. It's what I'm thinking. he was a top guy there for a while.

93 was the year we got him and Barry Windham at the Clash of Champions. It was tremendous. You know, a lot of people don't, and he's got legal issues from what I understand these days with being a security guard that happened to stab somebody in a fucking convenience store. Oh, shit, I didn't know about that. You didn't know?

He was working as a security guard, and this guy came in and caused an issue, and he stabbed the guy a number of times. and of course self-defense was involved, according to Scorpio, and the other guy has a different story. And they're going to talk about that in court coming up soon. But for the size he had,

he could do the flips off the top. He could do the athletic shit. And he had some personality to him, and he could talk a little bit. And so that's why I think, you know, he's at least a question. mark here for this time period. And I think the only

he would have done better overall in his career had Vince again just said, okay, I've got this guy to Cole Scorpio. How could I use him instead of okay, this guy Charles Skaggs as a wrestler, let's come up

with something for him, pal. Because Flash Funk just, it was just bleh. and that's when, you know, Vince was, the attitude era for Vince meant, well, let's do, you know, even more funny, crazy things than I used to do. And, you know, so they even, they called Aunt Esther. Remember I told you that story? Or called her agent.

What was her name? Isabel Sanford? About whether she could do a skit on a pay-per-view with. Flash Funk. And fortunately, she was too ill to participate. All right. So on the question mark list, too cold Scorpio. I think so.

I agree. Turning 23 in April, Axel Rotten. Well, the better talent of the Rotten brothers by a long shot. Obviously not on a list. because he was a nice guy that had issues and his drug problems got the better of him, et cetera. But he was, I think, you know, for ECW and for the independent shows, he loved business.

I met him a couple times. He and Danny McDivitt and some of those guys in Baltimore ran Maryland Championship Wrestling at the start. But he had his problems kind of igged him out of that too. it's not his fault. He ended up with a fucking gimmick brother like Ian Rotten. So that shouldn't be held against him. But he never really got there, did he?

You know, he had talent. He would really break out and get noticed. I mean, they were on global as a tag team as a British brother tag team. And then they got over in ECW with the gimmick stuff, the Taipei death match, where they glued the glass to their hands and then he went to the USWA. He was there in 95 and, you know, he wasn't... Again, I have a soft spot for 1995 USWA.

I think it's kind of the last time it was really just a great wrestling television show week after week. And a lot of it was the people. It was the Smoky Mountain Infusion. Billy Jack Haynes was unbelievable as a heel. Brandon Baxter was the most promising new manager in forever.

when he still had hair. And Axel Rodden was on the baby face side there, and he was pretty good that year. So, again, that's a year after this, but not on the list. Jim, and then we got a certainty here, turning 29 in June, Cactus Jack. Yeah, I think we'd go ahead and put a checkmark down for Cactus in 1994 because he had come to everybody's national attention

by 1989 with that first run on TBS. He'd already left and come back. Booking aside, he's only going to be more featured. He's going to do ECW. He's going to do all the stuff in Japan that got him noticed. Then he's going to go to the WWF and tear the place up. So, I mean, we don't need to go through his entire itinerary. his best years are ahead and he had a pretty good time at that point.

In 1994, he starts the year in WCW. He's an over baby face. And then him and Max Payne and him and Kevin Sullivan had back-to-back wild tag team matches that you didn't see every day back then on pay-per-view with the nasty boys, Slambury and Spring Stampede. And then he left WCW, went to ECW and Smokey Mountain Wrestling. So he had a busy 94, and he had a busy 94, and he was.

He was a player, and this is kind of the beginning of the reinvention of Mick Foley. I mean, we didn't know him as Mick Foley. Only thing we knew him as is Cactus Jack back then as fans. So on the list. On the list. Jim, we're going to mention this next one, and I could understand the problem people would have, but we're talking about 1994, so we have to look at everything. Turning 27 in May, Chris Benoit.

I don't have one of the problems that people have with this in that I don't feel that you should ever just overlook the existence of anybody and or you know all we just can't talk about him well no just talk about him if a guy did rotten shit

you can talk about him as well as if he did good shit you can't just say well we don't mention him because then everybody forgets about the wrong rotten shit that he did. With Bidouin, there's also the extra element of it wasn't the same person.

If ever a case can be made for extensive brain damage leading somebody to go fucking out of their mind, this would be it. And you're really to, I mean, insanity is a defense that's been

overused, but when you're talking about almost two different functioning people between 1994 and 2006 or whatever year that was, this was the guy that everybody loved. This was the most polite, reserved guy who was respectful and dedicated and worked harder than anybody and had a chip on his shoulder to prove that he was the best. And the other guy was a fucking nut and had delusions and was driven to do what he did by some type of, I don't mean to air people's medical history, but it's same as my cousin that I've mentioned, has been in and out of a rehab center because he's got not only Alzheimer's,

but issues to where he is convinced that people say or do things that they don't do or say. So I'm not in any way excusing what Chris Benoit did when his brain melted by saying that, no, the guy in 1994 was the guy that I just described. Having said that, he would certainly be a question mark, but just for the year 1994, he was way before he would make a real fucking splash in a wrestling business. I would say that if we're evaluating 1994, he should be on the list.

And let me just preface this by saying, I've been pretty vocal about what a piece of shit I think Chris Benoit was. And I don't think he belongs in any wrestling Hall of Fame. But we're evaluating 1994. That's denying history to pretend that he didn't have that great year before, years before. Yeah. He was a monster?

What was 94 that great for him? I can't remember. 1994, he wins the Super J Cup, which was the biggest... Oh, that's... Well, he was a big deal in Japan. Biggest junior heavyweight tournament they had ever done, and it was an amazing series of matches that he had on that course. hard. Well, I remembered 95 he was at loose ends, as they say, because Owen Hart had talked

whoever, Paterson, Vince himself, whoever, into giving Benoit a dark match and wanted to work with him. And I was managing Owen. So we had Benoit's first dark tryout match and Owen bummed for him and I bummed for him. And we put him over as best we could. And Bruce came back on instructions from Vince said, well, give him a deal, he can just work the Canadian shows. Like, well, he might be a special attraction there. I'm like this fucking, ah. So that's why it took another five years to get him in the WWF.

But 94 again, big in New Japan, when it was still doing big business. ECW, AAA pay-per-view, he was on that show. At a minimum, I would say question mark if we're evaluating 94, but I'll say question mark You know what? Because I still think Sean Waltman should be on the list and he's on the question mark list so if he is

I'm going to go down there too We'll come back to that Jim turning 29 in July Public enemies Johnny Grunge Yeah I mean all the boys liked him I never spent that much time around him

I think I met him a time or two but yeah I don't see him being on a top 20 list. Pauli was able to get something out of a lot of guys that most everybody else couldn't get anything out of, but a lot of it had to do with the timing and the placement as well. And this was the timing in the place. 94, the year public enemy really took off with ECW

and became a cult favorite for those fans, which shockingly led to them going to WCW. It was kind of one of those things that seemed like would be an ECW for life act, not someone's going to want this somewhere else. But then when they went there and couldn't do what they did to get there, they didn't stay there. All right, so not on our list here.

Jim turning 27 in April, J.T. Smith. I remember him. He was a nice kid, but he was most noted for, on one of the high profile early E.C. nobody shows doing some kind of dive off the top rope and landing smack dab straight on his head on a concrete floor and giving himself an egg the size of a cantalope and that is really all I remember about poor J.T. Smith. That, to me, from what I remember, was the kickoff moment for the you fucked up chance. Yes, that's exactly right. That was the one. And then they started

playing into it where he was a clutz and he was doing you know silly things but not on our list for 1994 but he worked for Joel Goodhart on some of those shows I was on up there in Philly before that he was a local young man but yeah we'll forever be in the you fucked up Hall of Fame for starting that

yet the wonder if maybe his concentration would have been better if he had been using ultra pouches maybe you'll have a couple of cool mint or fresh mint whatever it is they have lots of flavors and i love the winter green the blue raz he can he can stick some watermelon in there and just any of these flavors would work that's my personal favorite of course and ultra pouches are something i use to help with editing and we think the listeners may like them too jim well that's right because folks you know the thing is you want to get away from bad habits and from things and do damage to you. Some of these pouches they got out there these days, they've got caffeine,

or they've got nicotine. You can get addicted to these substances and then you can get withdrawals. And then sometimes you'll just be shaking and sweating and a blob of protoplasm laying in the gutter and people will come by and spit on you and kick you and pick your pockets and wipe their feet on you. Their dog will piss on you on the way by. Do you want to live a life like that where you're just laying around in a gutter being shit and pissed and kicked on? Or do you want to take? Well, no, nobody wants that. No.

Only a real massacist would want that. Or do you want to take the high road? Derby Allen. Ladies and gentlemen. Darby Allen would like a thing like that, especially the pissing and the pooping upon. But if you want to take the high road, folks, stay away from the caffeine,

stay away from the dicotine, but concentrate. You need to. concentrate, you need to calm down, you need to have a steady flow state focus. You need to work on your memory and your mood balance. You need to be even goose fraba all the way through the day. All with zero nicotine and zero caffeine, and that's our friends at Ultra Pouches. You stick one of these bad boys in that they are loaded. They are packed up with Infinity PX, which is a cleaner, smoother energy boost than caffeine,

the famous L. Theonine, you know, I just take a big swig of L. theonine when I get up every morning because it's an amino acid that promotes calm, energy, and attentiveness. And also, if you use it undiluted, it takes spots out of sweaters. Nope, let's get away from that.

You don't have to do that. Well, not in this. It's diluted here in these with the Alpha GPC, which is a new tropic. for enhanced mental processing, and then you got the vitamins, the B6, the B12, the balanced energy, the mood, all designed to sharpen your mind, folks,

all designed to lift your energy without all the nicotine or the caffeine or the withdrawals or the Joneses or the shakes. You know, if they lock you up for 72 hours on an involuntary hold, you're going to miss that caffeine and nicotine, but you won't have a problem missing the ultra pouches because they don't have all those nasty ingredients.

And if you break out, then you can get back to them quicker. Just pop one in. If you go to the gym, a little extra push, or if you're sitting in front of your computer, and you're thinking, my boss, I hate my boss, I hate my job, I want all these people to burst into flames. I can't wait until the day is over so I can go to my miserable home and be miserable.

But you pop one of these in, and son of a gun, you are more aware of how miserable you are. You concentrate on it better, and you can think of a bunch more reasons of why you're miserable. That's what they'll do for you. And right now, as we've said, in the cool, mint, wintergreen, tropical blue raz, or watermelon, it's the ultimate guilt-free pouch,

delivering the instant focus and mental clarity, zoom in folks, zoom in, tune in, turn on, and drop out. No, don't do any of those things,

Dr. O'Leary, and of course, we're talking, I don't even have a point this year. I'm trying to tell you, what? All you got to do is go to take ultra.com. That's what you need to zoom in on

and tune in on and turn up and, drop in and just pop in to take ultra.com and you're going to get 15% off with the promo code jCE just pop on in 15% off take ultra dot com the promo code is jcee they're going to send you more pouches than a kangaroo has in their whole family and then you can take the and if put six of them and a side of your cheek and the heat vision will allow you to

bend spoons. Don't do that. They recommend one, two or three for season pros. Don't remember Yuri Geller. He was a fraud. Yuri Geller used these for all of his

no, he was the, this was how he was able to bend spoons because he could concentrate his will magnetically because of the take ultra pouches.

He was a big Elfionine fiend. A Welsh rare, but in the evenings and L. Fianine every morning. He was a con artist day in and day out pretending he bent spoons and forks. Ladies and gentlemen,

what we're talking about here is something that I personally enjoy and we think you may as well. One more time, Jim, without any news of added features, what's that promo code and the link for the listeners? Just pop in to take ultra.com

use the promo code JCE for 15%. off. Ultra Pouches. And now back to the list, the top 20 in their 20s in 1994. Jim turning 21 in

December. Hack Myers. I don't know that I ever met Hack Myers. I know that he was a, how would we phrase it? In the early ECW, he was one of the cult figures to the local following. Perhaps you can tell me more, but I don't know anything else about him.

Yeah, eventually they started calling him the Shah VCW, which all began because he was this, you know, kind of, I don't know, scuzzy-looking guy losing matches. And then all of a sudden, the fans there, to make themselves laugh, started saying Shah every time he did any offense. And that's all Paul Heyman needed. That was the little bit of life that Paul Heyman needed to see or hear from that audience, and it went from there. All right, so not on our list for 94.

Did he was only 21 years old. He looked that scuzzy. And did he ever wrestle anymore after? After ECW, I'm not sure. A lot of it may have been the haircut. But Jim, turning 21 in June, an interesting one here. Mikey Whiprek. On the topic of Paul Hamon creations,

Mikey Whiprack. You know, if if 1994 was the year they did all that stuff with him, I can't imagine a year he was moreover, you know, in ECW, they definitely created interest. I, you know, again, I'm not sure I met the fucking guy. Now if he's out there listening, I, son of a bitch, I met you in 1997. He always says nice. He always says nice things about you.

Oh, come on. I don't make me feel bad. But, you know, it was a gimmick. It was the loser gimmick. And he was, but he wasn't portrayed as like a losing streak. He was just a big loser, just a loser at everything. And they got that over. They literally used the song Loser by Beck for unlicensed video use on ECWTV.

But he was one of the guys that, you would see on ECW losing. Because back then, in the early days of Paul Heyman's ECW, they would do the big show at the ECW arena. Maybe they would get a thousand at the most, and who knows what it was at that point. But then usually, like, the next day or something, they would do another taping in the ECW arena

and it would be almost empty. So you'd see a lot of these job guys there. There was another one. He was named after, what, Dennis Whiprecked, And then it was another one, Joel Hartgood. Like everyone had our name. And Dennis Whiprek was an independent promoter at the time up there that Paul E. wanted to fuck with.

So he named the big loser Mikey Whiprek. So Paul E and IcW in 1990 had the wrestling school dropout. And it was kind of working as much as you can for Mario Savaldi's 1990 ICW. And then Paul had a fight, went back to WCW. but he started doing that again in 94 and ECW with Chad Austin and it was kind of abandoned and given to Mikey Whiprek

and it worked a whole lot better no disrespect to Chad who have always gotten along with but he's certainly a character he's certainly a character but Mikey Whiprek got that gimmick and it worked and it happened pretty quickly because

whatever the reason was that Terry Funk pulled out, whether it was the NWA tournament with Shane Douglas throwing down the belt, or whatever it was, Terry Funk pulled out of a match where it was going to be him and Cactus Jack against maybe the public enemy. I don't even remember. Terry wasn't there. So who's Cactus Jack going to pick as his partner? He goes in the back and he comes back out dragging Mikey Whiprek. Who knows he's a loser? He knows I shouldn't be in this match. And they win, they win the tag titles. And it worked.

And I would say, at a minimum, I know it's crazy, I would say a question mark for 94 and serious consideration if we did this in 1995. And I know that's crazy because, you know, he wrestled in a t-shirt, he wasn't a big guy. But he was super over. and they kind of let the gimmick grow so that he developed the skills of a wrestler or could have these competitive matches

and you know then he went to WCW and the party was over there you go because it's all about placement and timing all right so Mikey Whiprek on the question mark list 21 years old Jim 23 in September Osamu Nishimura Help me

NWA title tournament Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Son of a gun, well, I was there. I guess I met him. Lost in the first round, I believe. It probably did. Bless his little peep-and-heart. All right, not on your list for 94.

I'll do these two together, although they should be considered separate for 94. Pitbull number one, who turned 27 in March, and Pitbull number two, who turned 27 in July, I say they should be considered separate because Pit bull number two was out with an injury for a lot of 94, if not all of it, or the majority of them.

What was it? Gary Wolf and what was... Anthony Durante. And Anthony Durante. And it was Gary Wolf was number two because he got the neck injury, right? Well, no, he was number one, and number two was injured,

and he was just the pit bull in early Paul Hayman. ECW and then his long-time partner, they've been wrestling New Jersey Indies and stuff for years, came back and they became the Pit Bulls tag team at that point. And then the Gary Wolf neck injury, I want to say that was 96. Ah. Well, I don't know what they were doing in 94, but I do remember because I was in Connecticut and was able to actually see ECW on television in 96 when the guy got a legitimate neck injury. they put a halo on him and they did an angle where they were out there jerkingy brown

by his fucking halo a legitimate halo and it got legitimate heat believe it or not amongst those fans the cynical fans in ECW they got heat well but anyway otherwise i'm not well versed on the pit bulls career all right so not a lot of BCW talent here well jim turning 27 in october a one-time Smoky Mountain talent, and I mean it one time, I think. One time. The Tasmaniac. Actually, it was one weekend.

He came down for the whole weekend. The Tasmaniac wouldn't be on anybody's list, but whenever he becomes TAS, then we would start talking. But, yeah, if anybody was a fan of Taz in his Taz Human Submission Machine Days and saw the Taz maniac that looked like he was an extra

on Gilligan's Island. Yeah, no, it didn't work. But I used him because it was, again, Kevin Sullivan said, hey, these guys are coming down from Jersey and this kid, Pete Snerchia, the Tasmaniac. You don't take a look at him. But he wasn't there about 94, was he? Probably not. He had a good little run going on in ECW.

He tagged with Kevin in ECW. And then him and Sabu had some. early matches that were pretty good. He was being used fairly well. I had been watching him for years, because he was on IW, CCW TV, and one of the few good things on that show that got replayed a bunch was him and Surfer Ray Odyssey. So I'd been watching him, and I knew he could actually have good fun matches.

But he was not one of the top guys in ECW, and, again, things would change in 95, going into 96, but I would agree not on the list for 94. Turning 23 in October, Stevie Richards. Wow, that means he actually told me one time that he was at the Philly Civic Center when the Midnight Express beat Tully and Arne for the tag team titles, and that night... That's 88.

...was what convinced him he wanted to be a wrestler. And he would have been 17. So it's your fault. It's my fault. No. I always like Stevie as a person, and I think he's a good worker. I think he got a spot in ECW where it was the comedy group, the Blue World Order, him and the t-shirts with the meanie and whatever else they were doing.

And then when he finally got the chance to come to the WWF, it was always again in some kind of middle card funny gimmick, the censor group. is the job squad, whatever the case. But Stevie himself was a good worker, always worked hard and nice guy. So I can't put him on the list, but, you know, if there had been other places

to go or work or whatever, he might have actually been a regular, a regular wrestler instead of always in the fucking fun group. As far as as a performer, I think you could argue that he, deserves some thought for 95, which was kind of as breakout year as the clueless Puts character, I guess we should say, to Raven, because Raven didn't start as Raven until, you know, after this.

He was still Scotty Flamingo or Johnny Polo or whatever he could use on the English. Yeah, he was Johnny Polo in, wasn't he, in New York? That's right. And, you know, he was at the end of 94 looking for something to do, and he became Raven at the beginning in 95, and that really is what put Stevie Richards on the map, so I would say, not for 94, no. Also turning 23 in February, Jim, also from ECW, Tommy Dreamer. Boy, howdy, if we have to analyze people by name going down the list, we come to Dreamer,

does it seem like he was ever 23 years old at this point? I mean, again, hate to knock him. He was over in ECW. This was a period of time where, what, from 93 to 97-ish or so, eight, Paul could get guys over that would then go on to get jobs and you would go, how the fuck were these guys ever stars for this guy? and I'm not trying to bury Dreamer, but if he hadn't started an ECW

and gotten a name from that, Tommy didn't necessarily have a great physique or a tremendous promo or a over the top charismatic look, he just was dedicated enough to let all those heels in ECW beat the shit out of him for real with all kinds of objects,

for a couple years until the people loved him. But then unless you go back and repeat that process in every promotion that he goes to from that point on, when you just saw Tommy Dreamer show up and you hadn't seen him before, you're like, hey, timing and placement. What do you say? Heyman Magic.

You're the ECW expert. Yeah, Heyman Magic. Another guy I saw an IWCCC. who was like, oh my God, this guy's never going to go anywhere. Can't do a promo, doesn't have a physique. It's just a kind of goody, two-shoes baby face. And then Haman beat the shit out of him to the point where the fans they started to respect them.

And then Raven, the best thing that ever happened to him. And they got to do that ridiculous feud. I say ridiculous, because if you really think about it, I think the storyline is they were friends at camp, and they had a problem. And the ugly girl at camp was Buella McGillacuddy. who they were flying in to be Raven's girlfriend on these shows

and then Tommy Dreamer would pile driver which stopped when he got her pregnant I didn't know that the pile driver was performed in that fashion well and then it turned out the pregnancy I guess was a hoax because she was a lesbian with Camona Juanalea and then it turned out they had a threesome

going out again this was Paul Hamid's genius booking of the fucking 90s actually Scott Levy maybe. Here's the thing. Rousseau wasn't just copying fucking Jerry Springer. He was trying to copy Heyman. Nobody else could pull bullshit like this off. No, you're right. Well, again, not on the list.

Yeah. Jim, turning 20 in March. You would see him at the NWA tournament in November and Sherry Hill working for Dennis Carluso. Devin Storm. Well, I'd already known Devin Storm and Ace Darling. aka Mike Maraldo for a couple of years at that point because they had already started working for Dennis and were on some of his events that I was on. I'd manage them as a tag team by this point.

No, no way. I believe I had. By 94? I would later on. Well, okay, maybe then I managed him in 96, 97 when I was up there. Certainly. Okay. Yes.

Well, thank you. I'm glad you agree with me. I love Devin Storm as a game. He would later on become Crowbar in WCW. Great kid. Ace Darling ended up actually going straight and getting a legitimate job and having a real life. Devin did too and has wrestled in recent years

just because he enjoys it for the fun of it. But he's got gainful employment. but I wouldn't put Devin on this list, especially in 1994, he was still opening up fucking Vine Grove, New Jersey. Vine Grove, Vineland. I'm not sure if Vine Grove is a place, but... Vine land, Vine Grove. Vine, do you want to do this to me, Brian?

Well, Jim, let's go to Texas, a star for an empty Sportatorium's Global Wrestling Federation, turning 28 in November, John Hawk, who would become Justin Hawk Bradshaw. Hold on now. Big Johnny Hawk, old John Hawk there,

Big Johnny Hawk, would later on get an opportunity and become Justin Hawk Bradshaw. But then his real name is John Layfield. so later on he would become John Bradshaw Layfield and then just JBL because everybody's fixated on initials. But in this case, you're right,

he was a star in Texas for global wrestling, which is a universe that the stars could only burn so bright. But this was the year before, Brian, he almost got his big break. It would have been sunshine, lollipops, rainbows, and waterfalls, for him because guess what he was booked in Smoky Mountain Wrestling? December?

He was booked to start Christmas week in Smoky Mountain Resilly. We closed up Thanksgiving. I've been looking at his tapes and his pictures and I didn't have anything for him to move from Texas to Tennessee. But finally, I said, yes, I got to get this guy. I see something in him. I told him, I said, just you start on Christmas. and that was about the middle of November, and we closed up Thanksgiving weekend.

So we sent the same Christmas card back and forth to each other, like three or four years in a row after that, where he had written, Merry Christmas, Mr. Cordette, can't wait to start your territory. But then he got the spot up there, and then nobody understood Justin Hawke of Bradshaw, because there's so many of these metamorphoses of names,

and the kids instead of hawk, no, it wasn't the kids. It was one day they printed it in a program like that, Justin Hank Bradshaw. So I've, since to this day, I call him when I see him, I call him, hey, Hank, it's Justin Hank Bradshaw. Of course, then he would become a blackjack and a disciple. And there's a whole bunch of things happening. A D-O-A, the minister of darkness. How were you going to bring him into Smoky Mountain? As a baby face or a heel?

As a baby face. Really? Big Johnny Hawk from Texas and see what happened because that's what he was doing. You know, when you're trying to find somebody, you don't, I had seen him on tape and I'd seen the pictures and I'd talk to him, but until you get around a guy for three or four fucking days a week

and see how the people are taking, see his matches or whatever, if we'd have gone another year, year and a half, it might have been like Brian Lee, where he started as a baby face, and then I could tell he had a personality, unlike Brian Lee, unfortunately. And he could talk, so I'll switch him heel

and let him fucking be himself. But he was only 20, whatever the how old was he, 20 fucking eight years old or going to be or whatever. So let's see what happens. Well, Jim, if you were watching the GWF on ESPN and 4 p.m. Monday to Friday, you would have also seen this man turning 24 in June, Moadieb, who would become Ahmed Johnson a year later.

Good night. You know, sometimes even veteran observers can be fooled by a guy that's got all kinds of physical aura and the look and the intensity. And you fool yourself into thinking, well, it's just because he's in a shitty, independent outlaw promotion. And boy, if we took him here and put him in the big house, dressed him all up, and taught him a few things and shined him up, well, boy, howdy, we'd have us just a big star.

And then it don't work. He had all the tools and he had the look. And I can see why they tried it. and you know Vince's fascination predilection for big muscle guys, but he went straight up and he came straight down. On to Ron Simmons's liver or whatever. What was it? Was it his liver? Didn't he? I think it was his liver.

Made his liver quiver and his spleen turned green. All right. No Moadieb. Jim, someone who in. 1994 was a star in AAA during one of their hottest periods, as well as in New Japan under a mask. But Eddie Guerrero, who turned 27 in October. Well, it wasn't 94 the year of the Worlds Collide pay-per-views and the AAA shows in Los Angeles. That's right. So he was on top of bigger houses than anybody in WCW was drawn that year in the United States.

I mean, for what he was already doing and who he would become, that has to be a checkmark, doesn't it? I don't feel comfortable giving him a check mark. I feel comfortable giving him a question mark, because I think we'd have to evaluate his 94 versus a Jeff Jarrett. A Jeff Jared or a one, two, three kid. I mean, he's, he's doing well in Japan. He's a star in Mexico.

He's headlining the big shows in Los Angeles, and he's going to go on to become one of the great workers of modern times. Well, let me ask you this then, before we finish that one, Art Bar, a.k.a. Love Machine in AAA. He would turn 28 in October. He was the partner of Eddie Guerrero in that big match, the mask versus hair match when worlds collide. one of the most amazing matches ever, and then he would die. I'd say amazing matches ever, just because, again, time and place

and an amazing job of commentary by Mike today and Chris Cruz and the right audience and just tremendous. And he would die days later, and of course he had a pretty sorted past, but do you consider one, do you consider them together, or do you consider them separate? I think you have to consider them separate, Because the similarity they had was that they were tag partners at the time. They were one of the best heel tag teams in the business at that time. And they were on top of those AAA shows and et cetera.

But even though Art Bar was good, he was not as good as Eddie was or would become in the ring. And he hadn't been in the business at a high level quite as long, nor would he, as you just said go anywhere after that point. If you're just looking at 1994, maybe, but if you're looking at the totality of the two guys standing side by side, Eddie already was the one that people knew and would go on to become one of the biggest stars in the business. And Art Bar fucked up a couple things in his personal life and then fucked up big time.

You see, I think 95 Eddie's a, a clear-cut, even though he's getting to the end of his 20s, a clear-cut guy, because that's the year he blows up on his own in ECW, him and Dean Malenko have those series of matches, gets signed to WCW. He's now on a national stage for what is being used fairly well as a junior heavyweight division. So that's kind of where everyone notices him. 94, I don't know.

And again, Art Bar, that was Art Bar's year, if there ever was going to be a year. but you have to overlook the fact that he was wrestling in Mexico because he had to flee the United States because he couldn't get booked because he raped a girl. So, I mean, there's that dynamic, too. So what are we doing about Eddie?

I'll leave it at a question mark if you say so until we go back over this. And what are we doing about art? Question mark, we'll come back to it. Art bar, question mark. also was this. Jim, our final name today. Nobody's named Art anymore, except the guy hanging on the wall. Jim, our final name today, and we'll pick up this list next week. There's still a ways to go.

But someone who would be working for you throughout 1994, turning 22 in March, Chris Candido. and see now it's got to be a hometown decision if i you know if i say oh he deserves a check or a question because he was working for me but one of the top young guys that had burst on the scene because now he's on regular television people are seeing him at only 22 he's in smoky mountain his promos were coming along his work was tremendous everybody's always tell you how exciting he was to watch even at that point. And, you know, the next few years, he would have more high-profile spots, but really only in ECW would he get a chance to do what he could do.

I think he's a question mark, but not a sure thing, but he's not, he's not Hack Myers either, right? You know, I wouldn't have a problem if you had said, oh, of course he's on the list. I got to see him all the time. I booked him. He was really good. It's 22. I mean, that's incredible.

He was really good. I got to see him work house shows for Smoky Mountain. Every night he was really good. It was kind of the year that got him sold to WWE. Yeah. He was in big matches, Night of Legends, the tag title match with Ricky Gibson and Tammy at ringside. But all of these guys that were coming in,

not only the WWF guys. He got his Al Japan tour that year. The Funk's. The Funks were still booking guys for Baba. And so he got to work where the funks could see him when they came in. And the WWF guys had seen him. And just names that had seen him that would come in. It was sort of like in the old days when Bobby Eaton was in Tennessee.

And every once a while, some recognized star would come to work for Nick. And look at Bobby Eat and go, what the fuck are you doing here? But, you know, so, yeah. Yeah, but I just, I don't want to be the one to say it because I don't want people to think I'm playing favorites. If you want, we'll put them on the question mark list and give them a serious evaluation at the end, but I don't think it's outrageous. Again, we're talking someone day in and day out younger than everyone on the list, 22, working a territory. You know, Barberville alone, I think we have to consider him. He was the king of Barberville.

That's where we're going to end up today. Here's where we are. So far on our agreed final list for wrestlers, top 20 wrestlers in their 20s and 94, Owen Hart, Sean Michaels, Undertaker, Yokozuna, Dustin Rhodes, Lord Stephen Regal, and Cactus Jack. That's a murderer's row. Question mark list. And we're not, are we halfway through, by the way, of these names? Oh, I think we are of the 20s, yes. And here are the names we're going to have to evaluate the question marks. 1-2-3 Kid,

Fatu, Jeff Jarrett, Booker T, 2 Cold Scorpio, Chris Benoit, Mikey Whiprek, Eddie Guerrero, Art Bar,

and Chris Candido. And there it is for today. Jim, two quick questions before we wrap things up. Again, next week, a lot of the things we've been promising the last couple weeks will be next week. Plus SummerSlam.

Just going to be a job. joyous time. A joyous time. Here's a question that was sent to corny drive-thru at gmail.com from Zeb in Canapolis, North Carolina. Have you heard of Canapolis? Yeah, Canapolis is very, now they'd consider it suburban Charlotte probably, but it's very close. I've watched all three seasons of WWE Unreal on Netflix, and Michael Hayes is always giving

this weird fist bump. Is that a recent habit? Or did he do that back when you worked with him? Do you have any idea why he does it that way? It caught my eye, and I have been wondering about it ever since. That is the old Freebird, Neb-Nab. I don't know how it started, but the Freebirds, Hayes, Gordy, and Roberts, when they wouldn't come in and shake hands with guys,

and Naib-Nab. And it's not a fist bump. knuckle bump. They curl the fingers under, but you're bumping like your middle knuckles with the other guy. Naib, Nab, Nab, Bobby Eaton started doing it because he used to ride with the birds in Georgia. It was just, it was a thing that you just did. I can't explain it, but naib, naib, babe. You know, on Unreal at one point, Michael Hayes was just driving around in a golf cart. You know, I'm not saying send him to a queer eye, for the straight guy or something, but

what the fuck is? Why? Just why? What are, and even though the fashion choices, the colors and the silks and the satins and the hats and the feathers and everything, they could at least be tailored to fit, right?

I've seen him dressed like head to toe and pink on multiple occasions. I don't know what's going, his facial hair, just, I feel like someone needs to intervene. I feel like someone needs to intervene. The sleeves of the jacket, when he's hanging his arms down here, the middle finger barely peaks out.

So he got it from the Andre estate. I don't know, because Michael Hayes dressed like Ronnie Van Zant when I knew him, and then they got a little flamboyant on that late 80s run, but suddenly he's goddamn, he's super fly.

You know, if you don't have to work with him, like you could just be a fan, there's nothing funnier than Hayes and Garvin coming out with glitter all over that episode. pointing at each other. Well, there it is Michael Hayes and his fist bump. We hope we answered your question, Zeb. Jim, one more question here.

This one was sent from, or two, corny drive-thru at gmail.com, from Tiamen and County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Hi, Jim. do you remember I T-M. Do you, I don't think that's it. Do you have anything?

Do you know anything? Let me start this over completely. I don't know anything. Don't know much about history. Do you remember anything about your cancel? No. It's blank. Come on up.

Do you remember anything? Do you remember anything about your canceled TNA action figure? Were you ever involved in any discussions regarding the action figure deal or do you know any stories about T&A dealing with either Jack's Pacific or Marvel toys? There were almost 100 TNA figures and play sets that were announced

but canceled and never came to retail. Do you know any stories or reasons behind why they are canceled? Jim's figure was supposed to be in the Legends of the Ring series. That included others like Jeff Hardy, AJ Stiles, Samoa Joe,

Scott Steiner, and Andre the Giant, all of which were also canceled. Do you remember any discussions about T&A in time to sell Andre's merchandise? Well, I don't know about Andre. It wasn't my week to watch him, but they canceled the

T&A figures, as I recall, because the previous line didn't fucking sell. I couldn't give them some bitch's way. And is Jack's Pacific still in business. Because they had, I believe this was the time period, they had signed me to a contract for that action figure and paid me in advance,

not paid me in advance, paid me an advance, and advance against future royalties. And then they didn't make it. And as I said, I remember it seemed like they canceled the old goddamn thing. It wasn't just personal against me because the previous shit didn't sell. But they renewed me and sent me another check

for like the next couple of years so that they would continue to have the rights and never made dick. And then that when it folded up or the agreement ran out, that's about the same amount of time I started, or same era of time I started talking to figures toy and actually did figures.

So it was the same deal as I was at a TV taping one time for T&A in Orlando, and they said, oh, we've got to do motion capture on you for the video game coming out. How are you going to do? Oh, they put a cap on you, and they put these sensors on you, and they shoot you from all sides or whatever. And that didn't come out either. None of this shit came out. You did that?

You put the cap on it and ran around? I didn't run around. They were shooting me and standing me there, and maybe that was for the action figure. I don't know, but the point is, I stayed over, I was supposed to leave at 6 o'clock the next morning to drive home. And I went back over to the impact zone,

stayed till almost noon in Orlando, couldn't get home until the next fucking day to have this shit done, and they never made anything. But that was TNA. If you didn't get in the first fucking line of whatever somebody was putting out, you were fucked because nobody was going to buy that shit

and they'd cancel the rest of it. So that's what I remember about that. Have you seen the image of it, like the prototype that's gone around? No, I didn't know any of that still existed. It still exists and yeah, it's still out there. They never showed it to me at the time. I don't think, because I made it plain

when I was standing there that I could have been 200 miles north by that. point so please hurry the fuck up because i knew it wasn't going to be any amount of money i worked for t and a for three years was on their television and their pay-per-views etc etc and i would get checks quarterly royalty checks for like 17 fucking dollars so i wasn't there for the fucking royalties well we're not here for the uh duration with that the dry thither through has closed. Yes.

Fling a fling a fling. Come on, don't talk over these wonderful tunes that are being played for... We're not here for a good time. We're here for a long time. That's when... Well, of course, we'll be back next week here on the show, the Big Summer Slam Review, and of course another big week

on the Jim Cornett Experience, Dark Side of the Ring, and much more. Wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Of course, you can go through the archive, Patreon.com, Cornet, $5 a month gets you access to the archive going back to 2013, patreon.com slash cornet. The official Jim Cornett YouTube channel go and subscribe today. Just search for Jim Cornett. It'll come right up.

Full episodes, Clipsity episodes, Omnabus Collections, George Livonitis Artwork, and much more. The official Jim Cornett, YouTube channel. Cornett's collectibles at Jimcornet.com. What's going on, Jim? Fascinating merchandise. Wasn't that what it was? Fascinating merchandise. On sale now at Jimcornett.com. Click on it and read about it and then pay for it and then we'll send it to you.

Jim cornet.com. At Jimcornaut.com. The drive-thru is brought to you by the law office of Stephen Pino, 87750, 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 Telly-ho!