Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru - Episode 455: Jim Reviews SummerSlam 2026

Episode Date: August 8, 2026

This week on the Drive Thru, Jim reviews WWE SummerSlam 2026! Plus Jim reviews WWE Raw, continues his list of the Top 20 Wrestlers In Their 20s in 1994, talks about retro wrestling figures, and much more! Thanks to our episode sponsors: RAYCON: The Everyday Earbuds Classics are a great option for everyday listening. Go to buyraycon.com/jce to get 20% off. Thanks to Raycon for sponsoring! HELIX: Get 20% off with early access to Helix's Labor Day Sale at helixsleep.com/JCE. FACTOR:  Head to Factormeals.com/jce50off and use code jce50off to get 50 percent off and free daily greens per box, with new subscription only, while supplies last. 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.

That's it. It's always the one. Occasional backlash. And a little kick in a balls. Will you talk? Will you again destroy? Oh, hello again, friends. And you are our friends.

And welcome back to another fun-filled edition of Jim Cornedge Drive-Thru. Whatever you want to say about that organ? Better than SummerSlam. I'm your host, the Great Brian last. We have half a house here for this big show. Let me go now to the leader of the cult of Cornette, Mr. Jim Cornett. You got me there.

Brian, you got me there. I was going to engage in some quick-witted and witty retorts. And then you said, well, regardless of what you can say, it's better than SummerSlam. And you got me there. That's how you shut it down, folks. Shut it down like a flower. Oh my God. I forgot how the song goes.

It's coming up. I just shut it down. Well, shut it down coming up. You never know. These things, what goes up must come down, said Alan Parsons. The music video that revealed Paul McCartney knows who sparks are when he was dressed like the keyboard player from Sparks.

Actually, I think he just thought that that was fashionable. What was that guy's name anyway, that odd ball with the little mustache and the rolling eyes and the fucking pair? with the Shalak. It's Ron Male and the other one is... Where the other one's female or male? The other one is a different... You ever see them on Saturday?

Ron is the male, the other one's the female? Hey, did you ever see you may be... It was 82, so you were either on... I don't know if you were working yet, but it was Saturday night. Complete one sentence out of that cacophony. They were on Saturday Night Live with Danny DeVito as the host. I remember that. It's a cool episode because I think it's the week that taxi got...

thrown off TV or thrown off TV canceled. So there was no goodbye. Get out. There was no goodbye for taxi. So he hosted that week, Danny DeVito, and he had the entire cast come out to a big reaction. And then he introduced Sparks, which is one of the more unique performances ever on national TV. They play the song Mickey Mouse, where they sing all about being Mickey Mouse and owning Disneyland and all the other animals. It's one of the most absurd and fascinating musical interludes in the history of Saturday Night Live.

And then the keyboard player... When Merrilloo Henner came out and dropped her top and showed her, that was incredible. And then the keyboard player comes out and does a dance in the middle of the song. And it, again, one of the more incredible visual performances in Saturday Night Live history. Well, I wish we'd had an incredible visual performance. We did on Saturday. We had one or one and a half of those. Sunday was a little, a little bit drier, but that's, I don't know,

you're going to have to get me up, Brian, here, because I don't know whether I'm, I'm in a relaxed mood because I had a warm, furry puppy sleeping in my lap earlier, right after I spoke to you briefly on the phone, and then Buddy just crawled right up on my lap and went to sleep and put his little, put his hand on my shoulder. actually it was more like on my upper thigh and approaching my balls, but,

and he was just so cute there, whether that relaxed me or whether having watched a weekend of wrestling in slow motion has just got me kind of, I got the hypnotized by it. I'm wandering around now like I'm underwater, because that was the pace of so much of what was going on. But, you know,

I remember, Brian, I thought it was, I'm trying to keep up with the kids, you know, to keep up with the younger generation, these these happening, these with it, cool hep cats. And one of the things that they always say to me is that, Jim, you're out of touch, you're behind the time, you're stuck in the, whatever decade they think is way far back. Some of the 90s, 80s, 70s, you're stuck back there with your 15-minute headlocks and your son. low-paced wrestling. Nothing ever happened. It was just holes, sweaty men laying there in holes. Well,

Brian, what, isn't that what we just watched was a lot of 10-minute entrances and sweaty men laying there and selling shit? In between the times where they actually got up and did something? Have we come full circle, the

territory days, I don't remember them looking like this. Could it be that all that gaga about old school wrestling being slow-paced is just kind of bullshit? And also, there's a difference between two wrestlers who are over

working a headlock, working it for 10 minutes, versus you know, Big John Stun holding Andre the giant and a bear hug for five minutes. You got me there. I'll give you that one. Sometimes Andre would go to sleep, and then there wasn't much you could do.

Yeah, but, no, this was a long, a long, boring series of events for the most part. I mean, in a way, I kind of liked this time having the long breaks in between matches. Like, my family got to see me and stuff. It was kind of nice knowing I have time. They're going to tell me what the next match is at the end of this segment, and then I have plenty of time to do whatever. and come back, AW, a match ends,

like a guy could be paralyzed in the ring. As soon as the match ends, they go right to the graphic for the next match, get them right out there. Scrape him up, get him out, but what do you do in the matches? When, let's have a flurry for 15 seconds,

do a big finish, and lay there for a minute. Let's give Roman and Seth 10 or 12 minutes to come to the rail. Oh, they got to milk the entrances or the introductions, rather. So let's give them another four or five minutes for the introductions. I don't, I remember some matches back in the days, back in those halcyon days where people still saw in black and white,

where they would grab a hole for a minute or two. People were still screaming, but I don't know if I would, I'd rather see somebody grab a headlock for two minutes and see somebody take eight minutes to walk to the fucking ring. But would you... I think we ought to try to dispel the myth to the children now who weren't alive in the before time, in the long, long ago. When they actually had wrestling matches one right after another

and you did have to fill some time, but God damn, I don't remember a... in any NWA world title match, much less a Rick Flair NWA World Title match, taking so fucking long to get to the point and so many people moving so fucking slowly as Seth Rollins and Roman Raines. You know, I know timing is everything

and every great angle and every great moment it's all about timing and you want to kind of nail it. And I also understand the philosophy of milking things. It's not something unique to Vince McMahon, but I have to feel like this is the result of Vince over milking things, and now it's got to the point where it's almost like they try to get away with giving you the very, very least

that they can, and they get away with it, and they get away with it. But they milk the milking now. The milking is being milked, because once the milk is out of the cow, then they're restraining it. and when I first got into business, and I can testify to this, the tendency is when,

at least it was back in those days, when you're doing something with a sense of urgency to rush, to rush and to either throw it away where the fans didn't really see it before you were done with it, whatever it was, or stepping on the thing previously to you because you were hurrying. And the old time of,

milk it, kid, milk it, kid. And that is a valid point in some of the most sage, wise advice ever given to wrestling, and it's always given. Milk it, milk it. Don't rush, don't hurry, make sure they see it, hit your timing. Some guys even go as far as say to new kids, if you think you're going too slow, slow down. But now it's gotten to the point where you've got to hold a mirror in front of some of these guys' mouths to see if they're fucking breathing.

And it's not just the time in between the matches and the milking of the goddamn entrances and the singing and the milking of now they've trained the audience for the chance or the choruses of the songs or the sound effects or whatever. But in the match, I find myself screaming to people, get the fuck up. Turn around. He's there. He's ready. or just or if you have to lay there and and we always blister AEW guys for not selling anything they got like a guy on the clip of video that you've seen a million times or the old days where they shot him in the stomach with the cannonball and they show it the slow motion and boom he goes back but Jesus Christ

you've got to sell things but don't do so many big things. things that you have to sell for 45 seconds every minute and a half. Because then you got a fucking 30 minute match where 10 minutes of it was you laying on a goddamn ground. There has to be some happy medium between the bullshit, unrealistic, incredulous video game style. of AEW where it's impossible to stop a person until they run out of things due

and then they just quit, lay down, or the WWE where they've got to give the people the big moves and then they proceed to lay there and sell for minutes at a time, or they milk turning around, or they milk standing up, or they milk everything before you're like, God damn it, my life is. almost over.

Yeah, get to it. I've got, my Medicare card is in the mail, please. Release me from this. And, you know, SummerSlam was a great example. They're guilty of a lot of the same things we complain about with AEW.

In terms of guys not selling, in terms of guys doing multiple finishers, fighting on the floor with no countouts, you want to talk about an old-fashioned thing I like? Rules. Every promotion had them Some were uniform

Some were different You know Over the top rope Was different in different places The amount of time you got on the floor Was typically 10 But Japan was 20 Pile driver may or may not be legal

There's slight variations Holy shit At this point you don't have to worry About being counted out Why not just pin the guy on the floor Every match Well that's a You can't distinguish

No holes bar to no disqualification To street fight Anything goes from anything else anything goes is anything else they've already established that even though there's no need all the multiple person matches are no DQ anything goes

and then most of the stipulator match or any of the stipulation matches are also no DQ and then in AEW especially they have matches where you can't tell the fucking difference

because they're doing the same shit so they might as well and then in the WWE's biggest title match, they just decided to say, well, fuck it, I do what I want. Respect my thought, tie. So they've just diminished all that and made it meaningless. To the point where if you've asked to people what the rules of a normal match are,

they don't think there are any. And that's why it all looks the same. But nevertheless. Well, this has been happy talk. Well, yes, hey, and real quick, I'll tell you what I'm happy about. You know how many miles I put on my vehicle last month, the month of July? Total miles that I drove in the month of July on Black Beauty. In July.

When did you get the puppies? Got the puppies in June. See, not a trick question. Okay. 35 miles. You son of a bitch. Ha ha ha ha ha. 36.

Messy! I figured you'd at least say like 50 or something like that, so I get a new low. That's been my desired life. That is right. This is a new low number. It's been my desire in life for many years now to drive as little as possible, and I've succeeded and bumping it down to just under nine miles a week on average. Kind of proud of that.

Congratulations. Thank you very much. Maybe one day you'll be good enough to get to 35. You didn't have to just almost nail it and come one better. You didn't have to do that at all. If I said 37, you would have felt like a winner. It would have been at least better than beating me too. Well, of course, Jim, the listeners can keep beating you with orders at Cornett's collectibles,

Jimcornet.com. Well, see, that's one of the reasons. why I don't have time to just flutter around town like a goddamn social butterfly because I'm busy servicing the customers at Jimcordet.com and once again folks, Hotchkiss Feather Bottom is standing by ready to take your orders and give them to me for my signing and official blessing whereupon I kiss them, hand them back to him and he packs them up and ships them out. And you can get T-shirts and action figures and pictures all manner of plethora of goodness

including my book heroes and friends that continues to sell at a crisp pace and within a couple weeks when we get a few things buttoned up we are going to be making the major announcement on what you're going to be able to purchase for the holiday season coming up soon, Jimcornett.com.

That's right, Jimcornet.com. And from there, Jim, on the topic of commerce, why don't we go to Minneapolis, Minnesota, the place where Vern Gagne went out of business to talk about WWSummer Slam, 2026, two nights of almost action. Two nights of jam-packed of, how would you say that?

You would say a big night of wrestling action jam-packed into two nights. That's what you would say. Yes. Because I think it was seven match it. Take the seven top matches. and that would have been a heck of a card. Do it one night. You would have sold maybe 10,000 more tickets for just everything all in one night,

but then maybe you would have sold 20,000 less tickets because the same people wouldn't have gone both nights. But then you would have saved renting a giant goddamn stadium that you didn't even halfway fill up for two nights. But then again, you're providing constant. for all these FACCAQTA streaming services, six hours on ESPN2 of pre-show show, six hours on premium live event on whatever the fuck that app is.

I have to click on Disney. It's right there next to Dumbo Does It Donkey Style on the fucking listings on the Disney app. That's not an official Disney movie. It's a, well, it looked good. It was, Ubiworks was really fucking pissed at Walt that week. He had nothing to do with any of that, these cartoon legends. And then they, and then they did six hours of other, you know, so it's all its content.

It's just being pumped out, pumped out like a flubia from a septic tank. So I don't know whether it was a good business decision or not, but the part of the crowd or the part of the stadium that they, a shot looked great. And they were, I thought, quite good at not shooting the part of the stadium. They shouldn't shoot. You had to see one whole end of the stadium blocked off for the entrance set. You couldn't avoid that.

And you can see the seats up the top there. But from what I've seen on the social media webs, they the other side, the hard camera side where the camera was shooting away from that side, it looked like they had plenty of room left. Let's just say that. I mean,

we don't know how many, we know how many tickets were out. We don't know how many were sold. It jumped like, what, 15,000 in the last two or three weeks, which per night, which seems odd. distributed jumped and we heard they papered the hell out of this

well that's but it would seem like that the word would start getting out if they just went to every McDonald's in Minneapolis and said here put a stack of these tickets on a fucking counter how did they do this you know we saw a bunch of photos we saw some videos I saw there was one going around where Randy Orton ran in and everything behind them was empty I saw a video where someone was just filming all around the arena. Upper deck, lower deck. So you got to see where it was filled,

where it was almost filled, and where it was empty. Even when they did the wide shot, they couldn't hide it on here. And it's interesting seeing like the WWF defense mechanism kicking in for a lot of people on social media the way it does for AEW.

Like, why are you filming this? Can't you just watch the matches and enjoy them? DefCon, 4, DefCon 4, empty seats filmed. And this is their own fault. This is their own fault. And I think at some point the question needs to be asked, even if they want to stick with the two nights for major events thing,

maybe some of these can be indoors again. Everything wasn't in stadiums before, I don't know, a few years ago, maybe that's running out for a lot of this stuff. Well, but now, see, they built the expectation. You can't expect people to have lowered expectations. Because also they're selling, they're getting more money from everybody else instead of the fans. I will try to explain.

Think about this. Between the TV rights fees, when they go to shoot these television events, right? and they got the TV rights fees coming from wherever, fucking Netflix, goddamn USA Network and Disney or ESPN, whatever the fuck is going on, right? They're getting rights fees to shoot that content.

And part of the fucking content that they're also selling these local municipalities on is, oh, we're going to give us, us this $5 million tax break because we're going to bring 50,000 people a stadium event to Pittsburgh and all the people will go to the restaurants and blah, blah, blah. So part of the attraction here is that they're doing this mega event in these stadiums.

And so is it going to become that now we need a studio audience, just goddamn let everybody in free? because nobody's actually buying a ticket to see shit, we're just getting paid to do it. Am I being too alarmist? It'd be an interesting idea. If you know you're going to do $150 a head, just let everyone in for free.

Free WrestleMania and pack the place. I don't know. And then... I think they've done long-term damage. I mean, it could always be repaired kind of quickly if something really takes off, but they are training their fans to know what these weekends are going to be.

Did you have to be there? If you were a big WWE fan, did you have to be at this SummerSlam? I didn't. I'm not, you know, the traveling WWE fan, but I don't see it. I don't see the poll right now. But also a bunch of people are starting to figure out for both companies.

Don't buy the tickets when they first go on sale. Wait until real close to the show because if it's one of these big shows, they're either going to be on sale for, Who did the $25? Was it Wembley or with, well, $25 sounds more like SummerSlam. But Wimbley had some. Wembley had a deal.

I don't know if it was 25. I thought it was 50, but maybe I'm wrong. Well, but it might have been pounds. They had a discount ticket that they came out with, is Porta, Megan, and then even real close begins the, hey, I know somebody, you want some free tickets? They're going to get smart to that, too. in Memphis at the Coliseum every Monday night. Some of them figured out that if they would stop at 7.30 bell time,

after 9.30 quarter to 10, they stopped watching the doors because the show was almost over and you could sneak in and run up top and see the main event. It's the same thing. You could wait until last minute if you live in or around the area and you can get there easy and just sneak in and watch it for free. anyhow. Well, that was night one of SummerSlam. Yes, it was.

How many people did they end up having? And we'll actually talk about the matches. Oh, I don't know. Let me pull it up. I think it was around 34 maybe, but let me check. Something around there. Well, and then Saturday night, in retrospect, ended up for me,

they could have just done that show without Sunday, and I'd have been mostly fine, but... I actually try to sit down because it was on at an early decent hour, especially because they were on central time out there. And I try to watch the first part of both nights live before I got burnout on it. And the first thing you see, the stadium and the blah, blah, blah, it's time for a SummerSlam and the music and here comes E.O. Sky.

It's a fucking, I'm, I've rescinded my Waller rule, Brian. Grace Waller, as I said on last show, we did after that promo is my new favorite wrestler. But I've still got the E.O. Sky rule. I wrote, oh, come on. And then she's working with Liv Morgan. Who is a star? And we love lovely lives.

She's just, she's painfully small, but she's got a ton of personality. She's got pep. She's got spunk. But I had buddy sleeping on the couch with me. And I watched a bit of it, and then I kind of skipped ahead a bit. And basically, you know the drill. They did what they do. E.O. did what she did.

And then E.O. German suplexed her on the fucking apron, which was a theme of the weekend, as a lot of people doing shit on the apron. And then did the double knees into Lepron. live into the ring post but hurt her own knee. So, I mean, obviously in match fashion. So then she went for the moonsault, but Liv raised her knees. But Eo kind of went over him anyway. And then Liv hit her finish and then a code breaker.

And in her finish again, one, two, three. I should hope that would be enough to finish this diminutive. dwarf in about 12 minutes which is going to also be a of a fucking running theme go ahead I was surprised it's what finished her I know it sounds crazy but I was like wow she just definitively beat her like just like that I thought it was one of the best matches of the weekend the crowd was hot for this and I remember thinking wow they've got a hot crowd

no they were hot for this for whatever reason they were hot for this match? Maybe because it was first? I don't know, but I thought there's a pretty good match. Well, it was because it was first, and it was because of a lot of what came fucking second, and then they woke back up for, but nevertheless, we'll get there, but I just, good match. To quote Jackie Fargo, what have they done to my business? This is why we need you to watch these events live, so you can't skip these things. well i didn't really skip that much i you know i was mostly watching i was petting the puppy your i skipped the tv i mean it may have been on it doesn't mean you were watching it but nevertheless

um that's why i say if you had taken off the first couple of matches off of this night and take a couple matches off sunday night you'd have had a just a heck of an all-star card and it was celebrities were in the crowd Mark Henry was there, Sean Waltman, Danny Spivey for whatever looks 110 years old, then Jimmy Hart who is 80 and looks 40. He got a big pop. It was nice to say.

Well, yeah, because it's Jimmy. It's poo-poo. I know, but the last time he was out there was waving a flag with Hulk Hogan and they boot him out of the building. It was nice to- Well, they had goddamn the most unpopular man in the Eastern Hemisphere next to him.

him. I don't think even Jimmy's poo-poo magic can overcome that. Did you see some records as putting out a new gentry's album? They found apparently a bunch of unreleased old recordings and that putting out a brand new I ordered it. And I retweeted

the other day that Jimmy had tweeted that he had just heard about this. It's, um, because I guess do people, everybody knows, right? That Jimmy was part of the gentries, which were a singing group that were signed a son records in the

early mid-60s and actually had a hit single. What year was Keep on Dancing? Was that 66 or 65? Oh, no. I think it would be 65, if anything. I think. Okay, but anyway, they were on American bandstand, the whole nine yards.

Anyway, Sun Records has apparently gone through their archives. One would have to wonder how many archives they got that it's taken them 60 years from their, days of glory to goddamn go through it, but nevertheless, they have found new Gentry's tracks that are releasing a new album. I think he said he was, and something in his tweet, he recorded those vocals 60 years ago this year or whatever.

I hear there's a bonus track. It's called Resolicious, baby. Reesolicious! No, but he's still negotiating with him to try, to get Eat Your Heart Out Rick Springfield as part of the collection. Because she's my girl and she always will be the only one for me. Ain't no rock and roll singer gonna take her away from me. Did, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de.

All right. Well, that was better than the next match. Let's get back to the W.W.E. Somerslam night one. well it was the six-man tag team match and they tied this in apparently there's some was this the video game or there's another one where there's a movie made

of a video game and they're sponsors of the match so yes so the USOs had to enter on a stage with smoke machines billowing around a bunch of fucking junk the video game takes place in a junkyard or a battle

field or hoarder's house or I don't know what the fuck. The highlight of the weekend we'll talk about later maybe in terms of product placement. The mug root beer mascot celebrating with Chad Gable.

Oh, Christ, I know. In front of his family. In front of his family. My God, that's scarred his children for life. They're going to have this image

of their father holding his championship belt up in in glory. And suddenly this goddamn seven-foot fucking weasel or rodent of some description comes out in a taxi anyhow the Uso's

who I give up who are we supposed to be cheering for here because the Uso's come out they've got their entrance toned down because they're with Jacob and they were kind of in a heel position so that Jay can't do the yeat

but still use some of the yeat for the music, but then Jacob comes out, and then he clearly takes the lead to walk to the ring with them behind him while he's wearing the fucking werewolf mask, which is cool, and he's the center of attention in this deal, but he's still in this group

when six months ago or whatever it was, they were, everybody, the fans, everybody, considered him in the main event title picture. And he became a baby face because he was so cool and werewolfy. But now he's in a fucking mid-card six-man tag where we're not sure whether we're supposed to cheer for his team or the other fucking team. But he's the star.

He is the, he's the biggest turd in the fucking toilet. What's going on here? Brian, who were you rooting for? Well, L.A. and I got the big baby face pop. Yes, but that was negated by one of his partners getting absolutely nothing but dirty looks. Well, Solo, I feel like... Or Royce. Well, Solo is becoming a baby face now and he's getting sillier, so that's obviously a sign that you're a good guy.

Royce Keyes... I thought he was a gangster and, fuck, he had taken over Al Capone's place with the black leather and the gloves in a gloomy black room with the fucking henchman. I don't know if you had seen on Smackdown or her. Oh, no, I know. That's, you know, now he's a jolly joker, but I mean, three months ago, he was in the goddamn villain's lair. And his former giant Tongan, Talatanga, and who's the other one?

Tomatanga. Other Tonga. They're now managed by Hakku. So he doesn't even have his bloodline members anymore. Now he's just a wacky baby face. and Royce Keyes. Again, you know, I hate to say it. It starts with the name.

Yeah. They brought him in, they gave him, they told him he had to pick a new name. He picked one that means something to him, but it's not marketable, and it doesn't stand out at all. Let's go, Royce. Come on, Keyes.

No, it doesn't work. Well, but besides that, in all honesty, and we've championed his, you know, potential. for some time now, but one, he was stuck over there for some of the prime athletic years of his life. I'm not saying he's broken down and ready for the glue factory, but he's almost, we established he's either 40 or almost there, right?

And one of the things that he would have hopefully either been, I can't say been taught because it's something you can't teach, but that he either would have gotten enough experience and enough coaching to bring out of him, he is not explosive. He's not aggressive. Possibly it's a lack of confidence based on he's scared in what is his spot, you know, but he needs to produce more emotion and more aggression, and he needs to stand out more or be more electrifying, if you will,

in Pellick in the ring. And secondly, well, he's got the great story and they started it out. They certainly didn't give him a mega push. And part of the reason why possibly they may not have given him the mega push is because Obafemmy has blown past him and has got his, he's got his fucking lane. And before somebody says, oh, goddamn now, Cornyth, that's hard. terribly racist.

In these days and times, promoters can push more than one black guy. Of course, you morons. I'm not saying Obafemi got Javon Evans' fucking lane. I'm saying when a guy's marketing value, it is

based on an appearance he's supposed to be, and in AEW he was because of the size of most of the competitors, he's a big muscular powerhouse that should be explosive and doing power moves

and beating people and this Obafemi is just a little bit bigger quite a bit more explosive from what we've seen can cut a better promo and is younger so if you had

regardless of race creed color national origin it looks like if you had a casting call for a part in a movie that those two guys would both apply for the same part Javon Evans wouldn't be in a conversation I don't know I mean again I think part of the issue may be beyond the name he's missed and the name sucks he's a miscast I know he has a backstory And I know it's a good story.

You know, the WW has tried to tell on Stephanie's podcast and they've done videos on SmackDown. But he's miscast as a baby face, as a hapless, due to booking circumstances, babyface. He should be a killer heel. He should be aligned with someone that's over. He should be their muscle. Maybe it should have been him and Stark's reunited.

I don't know. But... Well, but conversely, the thing is, while they told the story at the start, then they just drop the, you don't drop the story, you perpetuate the story, you expand on a story, possibly the first major singles program he could have had with a heel rival, the heel would insult or somehow denigrate his grandmother or his growing up, his childhood, something that figures into his backstory would become part of the bone of contention.

So as the announcers are calling it as it unfolds week to week, it reinforces not only the backstory, but the reason why he's met to this other guy, blah, blah, blah. But also, to their defense somewhat,

he doesn't seem confident. He doesn't seem he doesn't look like he's just ready to go out there and fucking get over the top. And part of the of that may be a lack of direction, part of it may be a lack of confidence, part of it may be a lack of experience, but at some point, we got to catch the fish or cut to bait.

But since he's come up, Javon Evans, Obafemi, Tric Williams, Ethan Page, and as probably other people I'm forgetting, have been brought up from NXT through the system, even though people like Ethan Page were obviously established in other places already. Yeah. Every single one of them has surpassed him in terms of fan interest. Yeah. And really every other way you go look at it, he could be valuable if he's used right.

They haven't used them in any way that he's friends, he's former friends with Jacob from years ago, and that's what ties him to this second-tier bloodline feud that no one cares about. No, forget it. Well, anyway, that was a six-man tag match. No, they had a six-man. It's L.A. Knight, it's hoist keys and solo against the Uso's,

and Jacob Fatu, and you're right. L.A. Knight got a huge reaction. He always does. And I think they're scared to pull the trigger on him anymore than they have based on either his age, his propensity forever wasn't a while

just fucking slipping and falling on his ass, but it's part of the endearing part of the character. And I don't know if he just rubs people the wrong way or what, but people love him. So anyway, who are the baby faces? I don't know. They ring the bell within 15 seconds. L.A. Night and Jimmy got lost on a spot and just started going around in a fucking circle like,

who's supposed to be where? Solo called for the music run back to run back Jay's music and got a pop. Jacob's a star. The Uso's are over. even though their work is often shite. LA night's over, it is work's okay. Hoyce ain't over and as we talked about solo is kind of now of happy go lucky baby face.

And then later on Royce tried and I almost didn't but got Jimmy on a power slam off the turnbuckle. And then there was a tagged out. LA Knight, that got a pop. He made a comeback. Jay Speared him got a two count. LA Knight hit a superplex. Then everybody hit all of their moves.

And then the one cool bump that I like, Royce Power Slam Jacob over the railing into the public address, public address pit or whatever, where they put the sound guy. But they took a nice little bump there. and then Jay speared L.A. Knight and Jimmy hit him with a splash and got a two count. But Solo spiked Jimmy, so the heel moved to Jimmy and then L.A. Knight hit the BFT on Jay Uso,

one, two, three, in about 12 minutes. Almost everything, about 12 minutes. But that could have worked on Raw or SmackDown and I'd have been just fine with it, wouldn't you? I mean, no, I probably still wouldn't have really cared for it. I don't care for any of this stuff right now with the Uso's and Jacob Fatu. And it's fine for a SummerSlam card to get a bunch of people on the show. They used to always have six-man matches where, you know, oh, look who's surprisingly teaming up. I mean, this one is at least a little bit of a feud

in the segments we skip over on Raw. But yeah, I give it somewhere between Dudd and two stars. Two stars. Well, a little pitchy for you, dog. Okay. There were two matches. I'll go ahead and say this now all weekend

that I was glad that I watched. And the other ones I did it out of duty. And can you guess what those two were? because one of them's coming up. I think the one coming up, if it's what I'm thinking of, is my favorite match of the weekend. Gunther and Nick Aldus?

You are correct, sir. Yes, sir. And the second match, you said, what are the parameters? The match you are surprised you have? No, it was not surprised. Just that I actually, I didn't mind that I had to watch.

I watched for enjoyment rather than goddamn duty. Oh, punk and Cody. There you have it. And coincidentally, They were the two actual kind of professional wrestling matches of the weekend. But I told you, Gunther and Aldus, all things considered maybe my favorite, I told you ahead of time, if people were poo-pooing this or whatever the fuck, it's a personal issue, and it was going to be,

it was going to mean as much or more than most everything else, and it was going to be better than most everything else. And wouldn't you know who won the pony? Gunther and Aldus. They both got a pony, Brian. One's named Gunther and the other one's named Nick. But Nick Aldus

looks better than most of this roster. Next to AEW, he looks like a goddamn alien from another world. And he got a big pop. And again, they had signs. My favorite one was Aldus and a bag of chips. That was kind of a clever play on words, Brian.

I see it popped you. That was all right. You can't breathe because of your guffawing. You know, nevertheless. You say he stood out in terms of the way he looked compared to AEW or anyone else. It stood out against Gunther, actually, that he was in such good shape. And it made Gunther look, I mean, Guethe's lost a ton of weight, but it was the least imposing Gunther's ever looked.

Well, and we're not saying that we want Gunther to get. on the sauce now because that's the thing is gouther has a heelish demeanor a heelish facial look and a heelish look in general in that he has lost all that weight he's committed to to his business by doing that and transforming his body and he doesn't need to be jacked up and muscular because he can still he's jean kineski

because he's so tall and he's got those long arms and the big hands and everything and he's in great cardio shape. It's still, in a heel context, it's a heat getting body. But nevertheless, Aldous looks tremendous. He looks like he's never been out of the ring. And they started out wrestling. And it was so refreshing that for the most part, that's all they did.

And again, I guess a lot of people may not have seen Aldous, but he has years of experience. He knows what he's doing, and the fans were with this. It was almost every, I mean, especially at one point when Gunther had got some heat and Aldous fought from underneath

and then Aldus broke Gunther's sleeper, and they went back and forth, and Aldus hit the Superplex, and he got the You've Still Got It chance. Anybody come back and power slam, elbow off the top rope, they were going throughout the whole match trying to tell the story that Aldous was trying to go for his clover leaf.

I can't remember what the name of the town is. Kings cross the ferry, cross the mercy, whatever the fuck. But the clover leaf is his finish. And he kept trying Guthr kept trying to escape frantically. And finally, when he got the clover leaf, the people came up. And Aldous pulled him away from the ropes one time, got a big pop again,

but Gunther fought and got a rope break. So they're having a fucking wrestling match, and they were serious about it. Two fucking adults that had a goddamn disagreement, got in a fucking fight. And then Gunther slipped a slam and got a sleeper, but Alda slipped and got a sleeper, and the fans went bat shit. and Guelther finally hit him with a suplex and power bombed. He got a two count. But then as Guethor got the sleeper,

Aldous was fighting it and he got up to his feet, but Guelther brought him down and body-sizzered him, where he had to fucking tap out. About 12 minutes, which are you noticing a pattern here? But that was a great fucking match, and it didn't overstay its welcome. Both guys were, as professional, as anybody on the fucking show

and the fans that woke them up. So when Guinther left, the fans gave Aldous a standing ovation and then Mickey James was

there and I guess their son and they came in and had a nice moment. But yeah, he got over live to the people in the building. Aldous did when I'm sure most of them had probably never seen him live,

and everybody's seen tape of everybody. But I thought this was really the highlight of the show because you expect Punk and Cody to be good. But for whatever reason, there were some people that were like, ah, this is what they're doing to Gunther. Hey, he's having the best match on a show and beats the guy. Now, this was great.

They got Oasis, what's the story, Morning Glory? for Nick Aldous's entrance and that was pretty fucking awesome, I have to say. I did not know who that fine. Great song. That song was being performed by. Great song, great album. But the thing that stood out was, holy shit, Nick, all this is in better shape than the entire roster.

And again, Gunther, Walter, when they first signed him, he wrestled the way he wrestles now, but he was obviously just girtied. just gigantic. Well, before they ever signed him, I've seen pictures of him when he, early years into business, and he was a fat, a fat little Walter,

a fat big Walter. And I'll tell you what, his face may have been in the Mason Rook category when he first started from the pictures I've seen, but he took it seriously and knew there had to be, a change is going to come. Well, I hope he stops dropping ways.

I guess that's my point. And also, get another haircut. The haircut's not helping either. He's not going to go the killer Kowalski route and become a complete vegetarian. You know, but no, I think he looks great because he's going for the cardio

and he could fucking wrap those big arms around people. I see what he's going for. But yes, this was lovely. Just lovely. And it seemed like a lot of people were familiar with all this his work, maybe from TNA,

because a couple of things he did in the match, like when he went for the Cloverleaf, it got a reaction, like not just he's doing a move, but he's doing his move. Yeah. So I think there were some people there pretty familiar with him.

But I've said most of those people had probably not got the chance to seem live. Well, now they have. And he's back as general commission manager or whatever the fuck his title is. but he proved his point. Anyhow, they had celebrity, more celebrities, Brian, in the audience. You got Michael Chandler, who's from the UFC.

You've got Zach Brown, who's from the music where you've got my gardeners outside because we're recording a day early this week. So Brian, don't cush your gardeners because mine have beat you to it. And did you see the? all of a sudden now the busted open radio crew gets on. It's all part of everyone fitting nicely into the propaganda machine, isn't it, Brian? That's exactly what it is. It's the WWE propaganda machine, and of course that show had no credibility before this,

and now it completely has no credibility, and everyone knows what this is. Everyone knows what this is, and I don't know. I wonder where they have. Anyone will listen to that garbage. I really don't. I wonder where they got the game plan of let's just buy all of the news outlets so that they'll only say nice things about us. I wonder where they could have.

But nevertheless. You had Chris Van Vleet get a front row center ticket? I'd like to know that. I didn't know. Was Chris Blinblis that there? No, it stood out. All of a sudden, I don't know what he looks like. Johnny Bravo front row center.

Yeah, stood out. Was he wearing a disguise so people wouldn't buy? for autographs. I don't really know what he looks like. No, but, uh, yeah, those are the celebrities. That's summer. Well, anyway. So then we had a six-man girls match with Paige and the Bella twins versus fatal influence, although another sign, and again, maybe the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the wit in signage is starting to come back. Fatal flatulence. That was... Then their leader should be... Their leader should be diarrhea Ripley. Oh, come on now! If they're going to use that name. Well, possibly they'll...

You know, it could be just like a wet fart rather than the whole shebang. She bang or she bop or whatever so. here's what I did, Brian, with Page and the Bellas against the fatal influence in the six woman girls tag team match, the first three matches had been about 12 minutes. So I said, I'm going to fast forward about 12 minutes because by now I've paused it enough to get up and clean up a little poopie and get a fresh sprite that I can do this. So I fast forward it 12 minutes see if they hit it and guess what they only they did they did it in only seven minutes

and 30 seconds i had to back up to see that jane wayne gasey a pair beat page one two three and then after the heels left then the bellas turned heel and beat to shit out of page so the whole thing took 12 minutes but the match was over in seven and a half terribly exciting i think it's time to move on Well, in that case, let's do that. So now they've had another video game sponsor tie-end. All this one I wrote is a movie about a video game. So the wrestler is wearing the mask from the movie about the video game. Street Fighter, which whenever I think of Street Fighters, I think of Cody Rhodes, right?

Not Wild Bull Curry, not Roughhouse Far. But Cody rose. But he likes to wear a skull mask. Is there a skull and street fighter? Is some street fighter, does he carry a skull around with him? What is the tie in there? But the haircut, I think, on the skull is what tied it to the street fighter character he

plays. Well, I thought that was Cody's hair on a street fighter skull because he's got the blonde hair. He always wanted to be an actor. Before he wanted to be a wrestler, he wanted to be an actor. He still wants to be an actor. Why did he get the fucking neck tattoo? How many hours does he have to spend a lot?

makeup covering that thing up. You're saying if he gets a part in a movie as like an accountant or a goddamn handyman or whatever, he probably wouldn't have that tattoo on. Handyman, I think you could pull it off. Well, now how many handymen have a red, white, and blue tattoo on the side of their neck as a tribute to their father? That's not a tribute to his father. The tribute to his father is the small tattoo on his chest.

that says dream. That one's a tribute to himself and it's crooked on his own neck. Well, but his American nightmare is an homage to his father being the American dream. Well, you could argue it's an homage to Nikita

being the Russian nightmare. Well, his father just didn't have an ugly logo. He just had a big belt buckle. He had a splotch. He also had a splotch. Where's Cody's splotch? On his neck.

There you go. All righty then. So now we were ready for Cody who had came in and got the entrance, had the big whoa. And then they did the long walk from the locker room. So the people with with punks, the people can chance see him punk, and he goes through guerrilla,

and he goes to the stage, and he crouches down, and he gets the big, it's clobbering time in, and then and only then, like Mussolini, at summer slammy. He's going to the ring to save the show.

Oh, God. He's the cult of Brian Last is so low. Why did I get pulled into this? You're just so low. You're feeling mighty low. Your vocals are so high. Well, we had the big introductions, and here the WWE title is on the line,

the undisputed WWE championship. But as George Carlin said one time, If it's undisputed, why are people fighting about it? Cody, I think, got a mixed reaction here. You could hear, and punk, punk did too, but punk got chance of his name that covered up some of that. But I'm thinking that Cody was more interspersed here with the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, he has been until recently. And then when he leaned into it later on in a match, which we'll get into, I'm thinking that Golden Boy Cody Rhodes could be the hottest heel in the business.

I couldn't agree more. I've been saying that forever. I think that's it. But nevertheless, did you notice, and this is the first one-on-one match they've had in 18 years. That's what they said on the television. did you notice what punk did in the opening minutes or opening seconds rather they just going back and forth chopping and fighting did you see what punk did i've not seen in 20 years i'm not sure a flying head scissors and the announcers i don't know whether they called it they certainly didn't make anything out of it they might not have known what it was and i don't know it was and i don't know it was was in the flurry of everything.

I don't know if the fans paid attention, but Funk was just entertaining him and Cody didn't do it a flying head scissors. He thought he was Robert Gibson. Anyway, why don't they do the goddamn fly? They do all these have-a-coronnas and Hurricane Ronies. I don't know why they don't do a flying head scissors anymore, just to change shit up.

Have you ever waited on that controversy? I hadn't thought about it. I hadn't thought about the lack of, of flying head scissors and when is the last time you gave somebody a flying head scissors in public in public if you will i can't discuss that there's still pending all the case is still pending litigation all right the leg scissors case they opened this like an n w a title match and they were actually wrestling and then cody got his dive in and threw punk into the the sound pit but punk fought back did the clothes line off the rail and tweaked his ankle.

And at first I was like, oh boy, but as we later find out, later on as they're going boom, boom, boom, punk hits a drop kick, sells the same leg, and Cody starts working the leg. And this was brilliant because Cody, just by working the leg and not necessarily doing anything that's illegal and certainly as we talked about earlier how do people know what's illegal anymore anyway they see mayhem constantly but cody just wrestling stomping kick and work in the leg the body language that he used the manner that he did it it got aggressive or aggressiver more aggressive and a little

bit healish to the people and the fans started booing him did you see that part there where they really started getting on him. I did. And you could tell he expected that he grabs punk. He gives him the headlock punch. Boom. He puts a little more oomph into the stumps. And just that subtly the people picked up on what was going on.

So then punk could fight back and he's still selling the leg. And he gets the elbow off the top in. he gets a two count and then tried to go for the GTS but Cody foiled it and hit the cutter and got a two count and Cody with a kick and a two count Cody with a super cutter and a two count big pop on that one and it wasn't that they were doing these things as quick as I just said them boom one right after another but Cody was putting a fucking pressure on him and at the same time it wasn't

what we talked about earlier in the program also where like with Roman and Rollins everything had to be sold for a minute at a time they kept a wrestling match pace on this they sold the stuff they needed to sell but they didn't have to goddamn lay there forever and they were turning

it up as they went. Cody foiled the go to sleep and got the figure four. But punk fought to turn it and did turn it. Got a big pop on that. People understood it because of the way they sold it. And punk got his

vice, but Cody got the ropes and punk was all over Cody. And back and forth got into the vice again, but they did the double bridge out. The old flare spot that he liked to do with everybody. That was he wanted to see how deep he and steamboat or he and wind him or whoever

how deep they could get in the match and still pull off the double bridge and this way they kind of made it their own where they did a double bridge out of the fucking vice into a crossroads and the two count got a big pot and then punk trot of moonsault I think the problem was there was something magnetic in the stadium that pulled his compass off

a little bit to the left. Yeah, that was not good. He shouldn't have done that especially considering it's not something he does and unless you know you're going to hit it for the first time ever, don't whip that out at SummerSlam. Yes.

It's not, it almost looked at the kind of Moonsault even though he hit it, Terry Funk did on Bob Armstrong. I just kind of to the side and over. Like, you know, how's this going on? Well, no, we'll know,

remember Bob was supposed to miss that when Bob moved. Terry landed on the chairs. That's right. That's right. That's right. But in this case, I know he was trying. We've got to give him something special. Maybe not that.

And then Punk hit the GTS, but he hurt the knee that he'd been selling. I got to cover, got a two count. Then they went to the floor just for a bit. where they cleared the desk off, and then they both got back in the ring because Punk hit another GTS and covered, but Cody got the ropes. So then Punk put Cody on the desk and milked it,

went to the top, hit the, went for the elbow off the top, and Cody moved, and punk went through the desk and sold the leg big time. So they're, even though they're putting the modern, we have to break some level of furniture,

into this thing. They're still keeping the body part, keeping the story of the body part, and they're still doing almost everything in the ring. Cody drugged punk to the ring and crawled in and went for the super cutter but wiped out the referee. And that's where Punk hit the GTS again, and Cody fell into the ropes and bounced onto Punk's shoulders.

But as he went to give him another one, Cody slipped it and hit the, crossroads so punk could roll out to the floor the referee still down suddenly from out of nowhere randy ordn appeared and hit cody with the fucking rk o'clock and a place went ballistic and ordain just rolled out and left and on the other side punk is it was beautiful because punk never saw orton punk had rolled out on the floor after he got the fucking crossroads or whatever so that he could try to recover he doesn't know what happens as he crawls back in he gets Cody for the GTS boom the cover the referees come around one two three they put 30 minutes in and they needed it for that

but that was a title match. And they told Astoria still did, as I said, enough of the other shit. But then here's the problem with two nights. I swear to God, Brian, what do you think the odds makers in Vegas? Who does the betting odds on wrestling? What moron publishes that?

What are the odds that in both of your world title matches on two consecutive nights involving completely different people that the referee would be knocked out of commission in both of them. Yeah, that's a problem. They did the same goddamn thing

only worse as we'll get there. But they have only one way to have a world title match, apparently. But otherwise, I'm not penalizing these guys for doing it first

because they did Saturday night and that was first and they had a great match and that and and Gunther and Aldus to me and but but you you go ahead and praise how wonderful this one I thought it was really good the Moonsault really looked bad

that shouldn't have been done I personally you know I guess maybe because I'm not looking forward to Randy and Cody again I kind of hated when Randy ran in there and then that ended up being the finish but it kind of had to be if he was going to do that and you're going to go forward with it Well, but now, let me ask you this.

Would you like it better if Randy's the baby face and Cody's the heel? I don't know. I like Cody as the heel. The question is what Randy, I don't know. I'm curious what Randy can do. I mean, he was around for a short period of time. He got hurt again, left. Changed a lot of plans.

Now he's back, and they're going right back to him and Cody. The fans are going to cheer him. They were cheering him at WrestleMania, even though he had Pat McAfee. Remember, they booed McAfee and cheered for Randy Orton. Yes. I forgot McAfee was a part of this whole feud. Hopefully that's not coming back. I don't know.

We'll see. I mean, maybe they can convince me. I don't know. The booking sucks right now. The booking sucks so bad. Cody should just be a maniacal heel. That's the golden boy. Maniacal.

And they took it all away from him. And now he's mad at the world and he's going to go after everyone. This is a super villain origin. story is what you're saying. Yeah. The way everything was perfect until he got the belt in terms of the creative and everything. And then once he got that belt, it's just been a

slow roll downhill. They've driven him mad. He's gone to his mountain layer. Well, Solo ain't using that room anymore. So he's got the dark room that Solo used to be in. And that's his villain's layer. And he is going to become maniacal and take over

the WWE. Golden Boy Cody Rhodes. I'll go. I'll go for that. And just all the frustrations he's had for years at fans, at Tony, and I'm serious, I'm very serious, let it all out and just have a fucking classic run. Hey, and he changes his interview fucking line to every week when he comes out to vent and air somebody out, he tells the people, well now here's who I want to fucking talk about. He changes his entrance to music to just be, there's one royal family. Give him holly. as a bodyguard.

There you go. Just something. I don't know. I'm not looking forward to him and Randy. Punk was really good here. We know what's coming next for punk. I am looking forward to that. I am looking forward to those promos.

Punk and Owens. But this was a good... I'm not your jump in the good... That's a spoiler. That's a spoiler. We haven't got there yet. I really like the way they each had an injured body part

and that played into everything throughout the match. I really enjoyed that. Yes. And more people should have injured body parts. I know a few people I'd like to fucking just pick a few parts. And that was night one of SummerSlam and...

No, it wasn't. No, there's more. But you know, Jim, for some of us... Some of us. We were thinking about sleep already. We were thinking, you know, this isn't exactly AEW and six hours of non-stop matches. but I'm still kind of tired. I need a good night's sleep.

I'm so tired, I don't even remember what the next match was. But luckily, I have a great mattress from our friends at Helix Sleep. Well, you know, what I've found is when you're watching some of these programs that just drone on forever and ever and ever, folks, go to Helixleep.com right now, H-E-L-I-X-Sleep.com. Don't just take my word for it. Go there right now. They have a bunch of these mattresses.

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front door, set it in front of your television. And when one of these programs either last six hours and there's no sign of it stopping or in the case of the WWE, there's 30 or 45 minutes in between matches while they give you travel logs, drone shots, commercial spots, and announcements. and you can just take brief naps, set your alarm for every 15 minutes and just wake up and see if somebody's punching somebody in the face. If not, we'll just hit the snooze

and go back to sleep. Of course, now sometimes, depending on your family, Brian, or the neighborhood you live in, the building you live in, if you wake up and you see somebody punching somebody else to face, it may not be a wrestling match.

It may just be Tuesday, and they're your brother and, laws pissed off at your goddamn cousin again, in which case you can still hit your snooze and go back to sleep, right? I presume, but again, let's talk about sleep, good nights of sleep. Well, I wanted to talk about people getting pushed in the face. Why don't we talk about things that relate to the mattress? That's what we should be focusing on.

That's the thing is normally, to get a good night sleep as you'll get in a helix mattress, you'd have had to have somebody punch you in a face and just knock you just stone cold out. just like you were ready to be laid out and have words spoken over you. That's the only way you can get a good night's sleep in some of these off-brand, cheap, poorly manufactured mattresses that they sell you in some of these, you know, backroom mattress outlets. You know, when you go in the front, it's one kind of store, and then you go into back room past the curtain.

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That's like four free months. And... Well, you're not going to need that because you're going to love the mattress and want to keep. Well, you're going to love it. But, you know, some people, you know some people. There's an SOB in every crowd. But the happy with Helix guarantee offers the risk-free customer-first experience designed to ensure you're completely satisfied on your new mattress.

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all right jim time to wake up we have another match a big big match a big match a big match a big match yes ladies and gentlemen it may have been the biggest match in terms of interest just because it was the the biggest match in terms of these two big fucking guys that uh brock who like him or not or the manner in which he has done it has made himself the biggest box office attraction and wrestling over the last how many years because he almost never appears and when he does it's he's the beast and oba who is the new big thing and a hell and a cell and they oba had his entrance and the big pop and the chance and everything and brock came out with paul lee and they introduced oba and before the hell and a cell lowered was the introductions right

Did you see Paul? He's supposed to take the microphone and get up on the desk at ringside, the announced desk, and do the big introduction of Brock Leicester. He struggled. Did you see the momentary struggle to get up on the desk? Again, for the average person, let alone someone Paul's size, taking a big step like that is difficult. Well, and I guarantee, because I've been there, he's on live TV,

and I guarantee you whether it's trying to get up on something or whatever there's a moment in everybody's life that's on live TV where they think, oh my God, I'm either not going to be able to do this or I'm going to fall once I do

and I guarantee you for about one second he had that fucking thought but he pulled it off like the goddamn professional that he was and did the big introduction and then they had the big match, you know, they got about 12 minutes. 12, it sounded like Baton Rouge, what was the house?

10-6. But they had the big explosive Paul Heyman special, and it worked. They didn't, they didn't really need the cage because they just did what they were going to do anyway. but obviously the stipulation of, you know, the death-defying nature that added to it. But it was, you know, each guy just did a bunch of shit to the other guy that they barely sold, boom, boom, boom. And Brock wore him out with a chair a number of times and chokeslammed him a few times and Oba with the same thing. And finally, Oba made his comeback. and choke slam and the pitch and a pop-up power bomb got a two-count.

And then Brock hit an F-5 and another one and another one and got a two-count. And then Brock wore him out, like I said, with a chair about four times and ripped the canvas up. Now, the canvas, the convenient little flap that was ripped that Brock started kicking with his foot that was ripped on the canvas, that can happen. That is a goddamn tent canvas. I don't care if he was Brock Leicester or goddamn Georgia the jungle. You can't rip a tent canvas like that.

So they gimmicked it in some fashion. But he peeled that shit up and peeled up the padding and exposed the boards underneath the ring. And of the, okay, and he picks over. Oba up and gives him a tombstone on the boards and Brock doesn't wear knee pads. So to me, that was the fucking amazing thing. Not that he got Oba up as 300 pounds and gave him a tombstone, didn't kill him, but that he didn't break both his kneecaps.

Two count. Big pop. And then here we go. It's right there. Brock picks up the chair and goes to swing it. Oba punches the chair, the old big show spot, and picked Brock up, and right there, Brock has positioned himself.

When he nailed the fucking, or when the Oba nailed the chair, and it flew out of Brock's hands, Brock has sold that and turned right around, and all he's got to do is piggy him up and power bomb him on the bare spot, which was obviously the fucking finish. and Oba picked him up and power bombed him

and they landed right on the pad next to the bare spot that had been undisturbed and Brock realized what he, you've watched the video back. Yeah, yep. He lands on the padding and he looks over to his right

like, motherfucker, we missed it. One, two, three, that was the finish. The whole point was nothing could stop this motherfucker. but then Oba gives him his finish on the fucking bare floor that Brock himself had exposed poetic justice. And instead, Brock just did a job for a fucking sit-out power bomb. It was that look right after the power bomb where you see Brock's eyes. The camera was right on him.

And you see him look to see the boards. And it's like, fuck. Because he knew what he landed. What the fuck? That should have killed me. literally for real and he was mad that he got power bombed on the fucking pad instead of the fucking bare wood because that was his out and and the lesnar jobs don't come around that much so they did and i i bet you i i don't know i bet you oba apologized before brock in

the back before brock got a chance to say anything about that but we will probably not see that part on unreal. But anyway, then Brock huggedoba. In this case, if this was his last one, but he hugged Oba, like everybody else does these days, raised his arm,

got the microphone and said, here's the future of the WWE, congratulations, I'm the past, this is the future. So again, that was, I, because it's his own words, I guarantee you, nobody told him to say that.

Again, and people are talking about it as a passing of the torch moment, which it was, but I'm thinking that he just decided to do that in the moment. And whether that means that this time they're going to let him go home and fucking milk his goats in peace or whatever the fuck it is he does in Saskatoon, this might have been it. I think it's a brilliant strategy to constantly leave in the air that this could be it with TKO, who are going to want Brock Lesnar back every single time for more and more money. Really good match, fans were into it, the ending took away from it.

Brock looking and seeing it there, just Brock acknowledging that I'm awake and I'm conscious. That took a little bit away from it, but, you know, otherwise it was good. It was good. It wasn't stellar standout. I thought the first match may be the best one, because that was the shocker. Yeah. I don't even know if this needed to be hell in a cell.

They want to cut costs. Why they have to fly that cage over there and then haul it up? But I guess it kind of encapsulates SummerSlam weekend. A really good match, but something was a miss. just something slightly was off. Something was a miss. Well, there you have that.

That was night one of SummerSlam. All things considered a rather painless night. We brought up Helix sleep before. I got to go to bed rather early. I'm so used to AEW ending like 1 a.m. or whatever. Yes. I think it was over by 1030, right? I mean, it was pretty early.

Well, no, it was, the show started at 6 o'clock Eastern, so they were over a little after 9. Yeah. But that's the point also is they could have taken Brock and Oba, Punk and Cody, and Aldous and Gunther, and added it to night two's four way,

more on that in a second. And, I mean, for ticket sales, they had to have Seth and Roman. And, what else? And Gable's hometown feel-good moment, and just had one night, and boy, howdy, it would have been just swell. Because night two was, is kind of anticlimactic, all things considered. Well, that was night one, Jim, and now let's get to Night 2 of SummerSlam.

You might think it was anti-climactic. But, you know, climax is usually there's a build to a climax. climax out of nowhere doesn't really happen. And this was a whole lot of nothing leading to me. This was a whole lot of nothing. I thought you were grasping for a transition to a commercial spot, but you're just trying to figure out how to say that they brought us back for the goddamn undercard the second night.

I'm grasping to get the night too, because... Yes. You know, night one wasn't perfect. It wasn't a great show. It wasn't as exciting as an exciting AEW show. but, you know, kind of things happened and there were things to talk about. They were doing good.

Yeah, you didn't feel like, okay, I got nothing. It was a good show. It was a fine show. Night 2 sucked. Ha, ha. Well, real quickly, the opening of Night 2 was supposed to be Finn Baller

against Sammy Zane, number one contender. The winner would get a match with CM Punk for the title or whoever won that match. Well, no, they already had the match, so they knew. And then right as they were about to go, Aldus came out. And he's been reinstated as general manager. And he said, well, we need to add a competitor. And he adds Gunther.

And here comes Gunther. I'm like, yes. And they shook hands on stage. That may have been part of their gentlemen's. They've solved their issues and had it out like men. and I'm thinking, okay, because, you know, Sammy and Goethe have an issue, blah, but we've upgraded a little, even though I don't like three ways. Finn Baller looks tremendous.

He's ripped. He's a great shape. What a worker, but just, it's just blaze. It's just blazay. But anyway, Sammy's pissed. Finn was a blazay about the whole thing. And then Alda says, well, one more thing. I didn't say one guy.

Let's have one more. it's a fatal four-way and out comes Kevin Owens. Our friend Mr. Steen, after 17 months, I didn't realize it had been that long. And the place went bat shit. And he looks great. He's got his weight under control. His hair is groomed neatly.

And so now we've got a four-way. And whereas you could pretty well call Sammy and Finn, now we're up in the air. And again, while I have to say that this was like all multiple man matches, you know, they just do stuff to each other. There were so many issues between the people in this. Everybody knows Sammy and Owens are best friends, but they're going to fight through that.

And Gunther and Sammy and really everybody not involving Finn. And you've got one big heel, old Gunther, you got one big baby face, Owens. Sammy is over in his own way. And the crowd was even liking Finn, and especially because, you know, he was involved in all of this. But otherwise that, it was a four-way, boom, boom, boom. But finally, after the back and forth and the fans were with it, kind of abruptly,

actually, but in hindsight, this is the right finish. I thought it was going to be Sammy and we'd get some kind of you know, TV confrontation or something like that. But Owens hit Sammy with the stutter, boom, one, two, three. So now we're going to get Owens and Punk, and you alluded to that, Brian, earlier on in this broadcast we started doing, for the promos alone, this will be interesting.

And who's seen Owens versus Punk in this millennia? So that's kind of brand new. Yeah, as soon as they said Owens was there, I knew he was going to win. There was no way around that. It would have been booking malpractice for him not to win on his return. It would have been Tony Connish for him to come out on his big return and get beat. Got one of the biggest pops of the weekend. Sammy's shocked face was good.

Sammy holding it for two minutes straight may have been a bit much. Yeah. He said he had a cramp and it froze. As far as four-way matches go, I thought it was pretty good, actually. Other than, you know, the parts where people disappear, you know, the usual things in multi-man matches. And Owens and Punk, Owens, remember right before he went to the WWE, work some indie where he dressed like the young bucks. Like, they teamed up together and they wore matching outfits. That's right. He's an old friend of the Harley boys.

That's why every time his contract was coming up, people are like, oh, he's going to have to go to AEW. his friends are there and Tony will pay him so much. And now we get him and punk on the mic. It could be something if it's allowed to be something we'll know within seconds of either one of them opening their mouth on SmackDown, I presume. Whether it is something or not is what we'll know. We'll know.

And I think it'll be pretty good in the ring too. And it's news. So we got that going for us. Did you, on this program, did you get slides where not only did they have commercials and then the WW has the commercials and the plugs and the spots, but then every once while you'd get a slide that would just come up and say, commercial break, we'll be right back. Yes, of course, yes.

Remember when pay-per-view was the thing where, wow, we get to see like a house show where there's no commercials like on regular television? for the U.S. title Trick Williams defended against the returning Baron von Corbin. He's back and he's even more dangerous because apparently they plan on using him. What the fuck was this? And they talked about his background,

the fact that he has competed, I believe it was Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but I'm actually not sure, but he's been competing in the last few years. He's deadlier than when he's, He was here last time when he was a comedy figure and a bum, lost all his money, made mistakes. Forget about all that. He's back and he's serious.

I don't care if he's a master in Brazilian waxing. I don't, that's, maybe that's what they do to his head. Here's the thing. He tried, he's trying, nobody cares. He's got, he's the same. name, which is blah, the same look, which is blah, the same outfit. He's dressing the same way or close to. I didn't notice a major departure.

He's an athlete. He can do the shit. He should be the spoiler. Gary Hart's spoiler, Don Jardine, a big guy that can do a lot of good athletic shit. and you have a nice match with him and he's under a mask to cover up the face that ain't got nothing and he's got a manager to speak for him. Otherwise, what the fuck?

This was my wingstop match, actually, legitimately. Because they just, even though they're running these spots on the show, I'd already thought of it because they got just opened up a wingstop next to Kroger a couple of miles from me. and I've been waiting for wingstop to come to Louisville for just ages now because I accidentally had some 15 years ago. We went out to Texas. And I had my wingstop chicken fingers warmed up in the air fryer

and was eating those during this match. And finally, as you would imagine, the finish was somewhat fucked up where Corbyn gouges the eyes and then he goes to run. and hit the ropes so little Yadi could hit him in the back with the cane with the Kendo stick. But Yadhi was not ready. So Baron Corbett has been overlooking and he's like you hear Yadi, Yadi, Yadi. And then he starts to run, but he sees Yadi still ain't there. And then he stops.

And then he turns and just kind of stood there and leaning the ropes. And then Yachty hit him. And then Tric hit a Death Valley driver and got a two count. and then they went back and forth again. Corbyn got the title belt, but Yaddy got up on the apron to stop him from taking it in the ring, and they're side by side. And his trick comes over, he punches Baron Corbyn.

Baron Corbyn goes at an unnatural angle from the punch to bump into little Yaddy. And Yaddy, it looked like a trick shot in pool. And Yaddy bounces off even another direction to go through the fucking table that's sitting underneath him on the floor. So it was like a fucking combination bank shot. And finally Yadi went in the pocket in the corner. And while the referee was distracted with that, Corbyn hit Trick with the title belt and hit his finish and covered him one, two, three.

They beat Trick Williams with his fucking. bland, fishy, white, fucking boring motherfucker. Big mistake. You think Vince is back? No, I wouldn't be surprised. I can't explain. One of them. Somebody named Vince made that decision. Oh, did you see, uh, apparently Stephanie and Triple H's daughters sang the national anthem,

but they didn't put her last name up, obviously, because they didn't want people to react to her. I heard about it, but I didn't hear it. Was it good? It was all right. Or was it? It was all right. they don't pluck too many unknown singers out of the audience to sing the national anthem

it's just people I guess some people thought it was interesting that they would put their daughter there did they did they call her out of the audience no they called her out of the back well now they should have done that that ought to be what they should have done she'd have got over like at susan boyle on american idol if they just said raise your hand who's volunteered to sing the national anthem. Our singer didn't show up. And 4,000 hands go up and they pick her at random and she comes and she's even mediocre, much less good, the people would have gone crazy. Well, answering the question, what would Stephanie look like with Triple H's nose? Oh my God. Maybe that's why they didn't. All right. But interesting booking for Trick Williams.

We'll have to see how this plays out or why this is playing out the way it is. But new U.S. champion. I like trick. I wish they hadn't a trick, they hadn't a trick, trick like that. Anyway, speaking of tricks, a ladder match was next. They do a lot of tricks and o's for the interim women's title. Chelsea versus Tiffy versus Jade versus Charlotte versus Lash Leroux.

Here was a question that I had that came up to top of this, Brian. what if after every quarter all of the NBA teams or all the NFL teams have to take their male players off the floor and send out the girls for the next quarter and they just rotate like that so everything's half and half. Would that work?

No, wrestling is the only sport that does that. It is? Nah. Certainly somebody else in the world would have to think that's a good idea. Once again, Mr. I hate women's wrestling, Jim Coronet.

Well, I hate ladder matches too because they're preposterous, but this one at least got a big pop at the end because Chelsea Green who's been maligned

by Road Dog and said she shouldn't ever be the champion or whatever the fuck. And they just figured, we'll just, we'll play on this. because the people will be rooting for her. So they did a deal where she was about to win,

and suddenly Mia Yim and Kay Fabe, Jade Cargill's stooge's, come and take her out, and she's hanging upside down from the fucking ladder. And they roll Jade in and they help her up the ladder, but Charlotte dumps the stooges, and she goes up the ladder with Jade, and Tiffy and Lash went up the other ladder. But Jade shoved them over,

and Jade and Charlotte fell off. and all of a sudden the people realize there is Chelsea Green hanging upside down the same place she was from that ladder in the middle. And she does a sit-up and it was like they popped for the undertaker sitting up. And she climbed up and got it. So no, I didn't watch the goddamn five-girl ladder match

and I apologize to anybody who expected me to. But that was a cute finish and why not let Chelsea be the interim women's champion? Yeah, I'm all for it. At least she's got pizance. Hey, listen, Chelsea Green never dogs it out there. Whatever she's doing, she's always constantly in motion, constantly getting her reaction.

And if you're going to do this interim stuff, and I don't even like it, they should just have a new champion if Ria's not going to be there for a while. And then have Ria come back and want to get the belt back that was taken away from her. Right. But I'm all for Chelsea. Chelsea, I hate to use the deserves it shit.

But she's one of the women who I don't mind when she does skits and stuff. She actually pulls it off a little bit. So good for her. Nice one. Good for her. Did you enjoy the movie The Curse Father, Brian, Part 2? No. They do the history package of Danhausen and Judgment Day a la

comedic fashion like the Godfather movie trailer to tell the people what I'm speaking about. You didn't like it? I didn't like any of this next set. And I watched it with my kids, the prime audience for Danhausen. They've seen him a few times and they think he's entertaining. Even they were like, what's happening here? Why can't anyone reach the money? Which was on the lowest hanging pole of any poll match I've ever seen.

but I'll let you take it from there. Well, because look, you know, who was in, imagine poor Danhausen hadn't, you know, he's never worked for the telephone company. I don't know how he is at climbing polls, but they've taken this too far, I believe. And even though it was Dominic against Danhausen,

Dom's a star. Danhausen, when he's put in these positions to have to rest, and go a while and then they put all the other guy in at the end. It's not the short, the quick, the skits, the funny comedy, get in and get out. It's there for a while. And it's a human money's on a poll match.

That means it's no disqualification. So he gives Danhausen a flurry and then he stops him to get some heat. But when Danhausen has a little hope spot, J.D. McDonough comes in and just starts beating up Danhausen, writing for other referee to everybody. No DQ. Any moonsaults him.

But then here come the fucking minis again. And there's like four mini-housens. And they beat up JD, but then J.D. beats each one of them up. But the last mini,

apparently is what, El Torito, he's the good mini from Mexico that can do all the shit. And so he beats J.D. up. And then the minis try to form a human ladder so that they can get up to the top and get the money for Danhausen. But Dominic comes back and beats them up, except for a little mini Toritohausen who beats up Dominic.

And then JD gets back on Danhausen. But then the music plays and here comes Joe Hendry. And Joe Hendry hits J.D. McDonough with a guitar and knocks him out while Dominic and Danhausen. are fighting on the pole. And as Dominic has knocked Danhausen away from the pole and is going to get the goddamn baggo funds, Danhausen curses Dominic, and when he points at him,

the pyro blows up from Dominic's corner turnbuckle, and it knocks Dominic off the pole, and Danhausen gets the money, which he then began throwing to the crowd, you saw that it was Danhausen dollars, because nobody was coming over the rail. I can tell you for personal experience, you start throwing out real money,

I don't care whether it's the territories or not, they're coming over the fucking rail. Well, those are the people who pay thousands and thousands for their seats, so it doesn't... Then they should be the ones wanting to most wanting it back. It doesn't ring the same way as when it was a working class audience, but... Yeah, what a...

I think the problem is TKO saw the results of the Danhausen merchandise and social media views. And now it's Danhausen. There's a lot of Danhausen. There's a lot. And drag the judgment day into it. It's ridiculous. But I mean, on the bigger. Joe Hendry.

Of not even these particular people, but just the idea that now it's, it's, it's, it's okay that a finish of a wrestling match is a guy fucking causing sparklers to blow up a guy's crotch so that he can win or over an AEW, the improvised explosive devices or the power drills. But with TKO, they've just, they don't, they're not going to do a power drill. They're not the porn company.

They're the fucking Disney productions. They're just, I'm sure magic will be back on the table. what am I saying they've already done it in the past with Vince but this is just it's turning into a complete fucking sketch show comedy bit yes it is next match next cartoon for the intercontinental title Chad Gable versus Penta

Penta defending the title and I got to be out of again Brian at first I had to puppies around. I wasn't paying attention particularly because pentas the shits and I love Gable. They never let him be serious within the confines the United States of America.

So I had lowered expectations. But it says it went on and it seems like maybe they even realize Gable is so good. Maybe they finally realize. I thought Gable is so good. And it was his hometown. so the fans give a shit.

And maybe his work in Mexico has, you know, given him some kind of cachet with these people. And they had about as good a match with Penta involved as you could have. And it was about the same amount of time as the other matches, but they kept it moving. And of course, there was a,

again, I talked about apron spots earlier in the show they had to do a deal where Penta tried to give Gable the Canadian or the Mexican destroyer on the apron of the ring and it was right before the finish so the announcers could kind of say, well, if he'd a hit that right, because the guy just took his own backdrop

with Gable on top of him. But nevertheless, Penta went for another one inside the ring, but Gable ducked and caught Pinta's leg and put him in the ankle lock and tapped him out. And Chad Gable became the new intercontinental champion. And good, if they will let him be halfway serious and do what he can do, he's great. But again, I can't even keep track of who's on whose side.

But they had this match and they beat shit out of each other. and then Penta puts the belt around Gable's waist and hugs him. Everybody fucking hugs. Remember when in wrestling guys would fight and one guy would get beat and the other guy would be, yay, I won, and the other guy would be, son of a bitch, I'll kill you, motherfucker, I'll get even with you. And the guy would want to be like, no, you won't, motherfucker, because I beat you. Now we've got, ah, great performance, Chadwick, allow us to, except our curtain call together.

I'm happy for you. No, you. I lost, but I'm happy for you. I'm happier for you. So let's talk about the post-match. Nice moment. Hometown, Chad Gable and his family, we saw them at the AAA show.

Wife and kids coming to ring and that had to be his mom and dad. Nobody looks that much alike. And, you know, it really is nice because remember how good those matches, the revival and American Alpha an NXT that we reviewed years ago. Yes.

Those are great. And then Vince McMahon completely dropped the ball on Chad Gable who made the best... Who tried to make the best of every situation, the fact that he was still on the roster after being short EG,

after all these things with the booking. And look at what's happened the last few months, it's nice to see, nice moment with his family, and then all of a sudden, you would almost think it was going to be an angle. It was like the judge auto dealer swerve. Like there's some guy in the ring dressed like a judge.

He's got to be doing an angle and nothing. All of a sudden, there's a guy dressed, well, not dressed like a dog. He just has a dog mascot's head on. Celebrating with the family. It's out of nowhere. I was like, what the hell is going on? Those kids have got to look up like, oh, my God,

an evil fucking dog is going to attack daddy. it's the root beer mascot and Gable does the fucking thing like Austin used to do with clinking the cans and guzzling the beer but he clanked the cans and guzzled the root beer for the root beer mascot that was getting more camera time

and closer to him that his own wife and children every photo they have this night they can have that dog yes they've sold everything they can pull everything they can possibly sell for goddamn sponsorships to the point where this guy's having the highlight of his career, the first singles title he's ever won, and his family's in the ring, and here comes the goddamn root beer mascot dog.

Oh, Christ. I always love when the British Bulldogs won the world tag titles at WrestleMania 2, and the postmatch was basically the Bulldogs trying to get themselves together because Dynamite was all fucked up while Ozzy Osbourne celebrated with Lou Albano. Like, they won the match. But I mean, yeah, they're selling everything to the point. At some point, they're going to come out and announce the death of some hall of favor and say, ladies gentlemen, we'd like to remind you that this death is brought to you

by Joe's Tombstone Company. Rest in peace. It's perfect. Totally time. The Undertaker of being the spoke. Hey, I swear to God, we're going to talk about this main event here in a second. That's all we're going to do here today right now. but I got to tell you that I may have told you this to the past,

but it just killed me. You know, I used to when I was doing work in the office, third party promotions, whatever, dealing with the independent promoters or whatever the case, there was this one time that somebody, I can't even remember who it was, but wanted to get some autographed pictures, some local promoter or somebody for this kid that was terminally ill,

and he had me and I went around and I got you know maybe Mick Foley's I can't remember the specifics but maybe Steve Austin or whatever went to the Undertaker I said undertaker I know tagger actually we're Mark I said can you sign this for this you know kid he's terminally ill oh sure but he started to sign it like all the other goddamn autographed pictures he signed to Chauncey whatever rest in P and then he's realized what he just I said, no, don't write that. I had to give him another picture. He tore up the rest and peace, and it was like, keep fighting or keep thinking those good thoughts or whatever from the Undertaker.

Why was I, why did I bring that up? Oh, the sponsorships, yes. Maybe they could have the Undertaker sponsor a crematorium. Well, new intercontinental champion, Chad Gable, and Jim, what's, continue on with pro wrestling crematorium, SummerSlam, 2026. Well, it's time to burn the house down. Burn it down. Seth Franklin Rollins is in the main event, baby.

And by the way, I just kept track of this, just as an amusing antidote, as the kids say, after the gable thing was over with, and they went to their other spots and things they do, eight minutes after we last left the ring, Seth Franklin Rollins' entrance began. And his entrance took about four minutes. And believe it or not, Roman Raines was hustling too

because his entrance took about four minutes. But then they had to do the in-ring introductions and they milked them for the crowd chants and the singing. And then finally did the introductions. That was another four minutes. So it was literally 20 minutes after we last left the ring before this fucking match started and 12 minutes of that was just guys

walking to the ring and getting introduced. And they may love to sing all in unison like the fucking Mormon Tabernacle Choir in the building, but it's a shlog watching on television.

But at least here we go. World Heavyweight title, Roman Reigns, Seth Franklin Rollins. And then Seth took a while I've seen matches that lasted less time than Seth taking his robe off. And you could tell they were going long because they were in no hurry. And normally if a match is going long, you'll conserve energy and then it'll really kick into gear and pick up speed.

This whole goddamn deal. And I said this at the top of the program. It's the last match of two nights, six hours, 12 matches. plus the pre-shows, and this match was the slowest pace and to me the least interesting. It's the same match that both these guys have with everybody. And for much of it, it was just in slow motion. There was no sense of urgency. There was no aggression, even later on at the end,

when they tried to fire up at each other and demand the other, fight them with every ounce of manhood they may have had. It was like, God damn, by this point, just get to it. And they did the spot where they went over the rail and they fought in the carefully prepared and obviously visibly guarded open space in the stadium floor that they had previously set aside to do that. Brian, have you ever seen a more well-behaved crowd making those perfect lines with with those people just standing there saying, stay back.

And how much more fabricated could this have looked? And then after they finish fight walking in slow motion and get back to ringside, then they do two power bombs through the fucking announced desk. Roman power bombs Seth through a desk and then Seth power bombs Roman through a desk. And then everybody sold forever. and jumped up, rolled in, and beat the count at nine. They'd been outside for five fucking minutes. Can anyone explain that to me, please?

I'd like to know how that worked. And then they got into a period of time where somebody would try their big move and it would get foiled with another guy's big move. Seth tried the stomp, but he got Superman punched, two count. Roman speared the turnbuckle, Seth hit the stomp, two count. These were getting pops, but at the same time, they would execute a move, get a two count,

sell for an extended period of time, get up and milk something else, and then have a flurry for 30 seconds and do the same thing. Seth at one point took a minute to set up a superplex that he gave to Roman Raines, and when he tried to pick him up and give him the falcon arrow, Roman just no-sulled the superplex and held on to the front face lock forever. And then there was the trash talking.

And then after Roman trash-talked says, says trash-talked Roman. And then Roman with a buckle bomb and a stomp, two-counts, sell for a minute. now extended double trash talk. Then they did a big yay boo. At least they laid it in a bit. But as Seth finally sold a shot, he barely nailed the referee. The camera angle was very charitable to them.

And they didn't bother to show a replay. But the referee gets kind of sideswiped and goes down. And then here's what happened. Roman hit a double-armed DD. is a tribute to Dean Ambrose, wonder whatever happened to him, and went for the spear, but then he speared the referee. So now the referee, maybe they might have called that as an audible because the first one was not so kind.

So then Seth hits a stomp and all of them sell forever. And then it was like they were walking and sleepwalking. Seth goes to the floor and sleepwalks over to the title bell. but he passes that and gets a chair and he sleeps walk back or sleep walks back but Roman decks him and slowly gets the chair and thinks about it. Should I hit him with his chair?

And Seth is holding still waiting to see I guess whether he's going to get hit and then Roman tosses the chair and Seth turns around and they have a face off and a hockey fight and then that slows down. down. And then Seth hits a pedigree, but misses a stomp, but gets another stomp, but missed another stomp. But Roman hit a spear and another spear. And then they looked at each other, and then he hit another spear. And then finally, the referee got up six minutes. And actually,

I've lost track. It was six minutes and 50 seconds from when he got wiped out by seven. and then he was speared 10 or 15 seconds after that. So he was down for six minutes, but right then he got up, one, two, three. And then they laid there selling while during the replays. And then I'll say this and I ain't going to say no more. Guess what they did when they stood up.

They fist bumped each other. so now that's all settled it was it was the shakes fist bumps whatever the fuck it was now they're hugging each other but yeah a six minute fucking reference

you could have called the hotel where everybody was staying and got one of the earlier referees to come back and changed by the time that but was this the slow motion slow motionist slowest, ploddingest,

overproducedest main event you've ever seen. It was one of them. It was everything I thought would be but worse. I knew it would go slow. I knew they would fight forever on the floor. That went a little longer than I thought it would. And I hate that. I hate it in AEW. It's just as bad here if not worse. And then the

speeches from Roman Rains mid-match or towards the end of the match, I knew it. They slow everything down so the floor can pick him up giving his little speech. I don't like this. This sucked. This night two sucked and this main event sucked.

And they called Michael Cole on commentary as soon as it ended, called it an instant classic. Fuck you! No, it's not. Utterly forgettable. Terrible. Well, Michael Cole also the first night said a couple of

different times that we have a capacity crowd here and then the second night I mean I skipped a lot of the mid in between match horseshit but I didn't hear anybody say anything about the crowd I heard that too

capacity crowd it was a capacity crowd for the seats they set out if it was in another building it would be capacity based on who was there I mean I don't know how they justify it but underwhelming

night one at least like I said it wasn't you know the most action-packed show ever. You got three really good, interesting things that something happened in that you were worried about or concerned about or want to know about. Oba and Brock and Punk and Cody and Aldus and good. Yeah.

Now imagine the person who bought a ticket for Just Night 2 if that person exists. You would feel like you got ripped off. That sucked. I mean, maybe I'm being too harsh, but I thought it sucked. Well, be as harsh as you want. there. We're going to start calling you Brian harsh. Well, Jim, there are harsh thoughts. Yeah.

And there's harsh music. And sometimes you don't want to share your harsh music with the people around you. They may look down on you if they just knew what the kind of screaming you were listening to. What the hell are you doing? I don't know. We need to get there somehow. My

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The lightweight design with the multi-angular hook means no matter how deformed or disgusting or repugnant your head, your cranium, the size of your ears, or possibly the number of your ears. It'll fit anything, no matter how grotesque. And with the multi-point connectivity, you can connect to multiple devices and you can be your own DJ and your own head. You can connect to a turntable in one ear

and a turntable in the other ear and you'll have two turntables and a moron to just scratch your own music. Why are you putting down people? Again, it's no. It's 36 hours of battery life so you can go without food or drink, just sit there and listen to

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B-U-Y-R-A-Y-C-O-N dot com slash J-C-E-O-E-O-P-E-O-N, and you're going to get 20% off. And if you had the Raycons right now, then you'd be able to drown out the sound of my loanmowers in the background as I say this. But hurry now and get them and don't suffer this fate again. Go to buy raycon.com slash j-you. JCE Open to get 20% off the essential open earbuds or just just any old other fine thing that you find at that website that you'd like to purchase buy raycon.com slash JCE open 20% off the lawnmowers will be gone soon. Raycon! And with that, Jim, we'll be right back after this short commercial timeout.

Oh, boy. False finish. All right. We are here. That's one of Jim's favorites right there. And thank you for all the compliments I've been receiving from the new Zappa to the new Manfred Man. I mean, I'm just getting them every single day, and I really do approve.

Who's the new Zappa that's been giving you compliments? Well, let's move on here before this turns into an insult. Hey, have you? have you heard from Linda Blair lately? Linda, have you checked in with Linda? Is Linda doing okay? I haven't had a chance to talk to her in a long time.

I had not thought about Linda Blair in many years. I don't know the last time. Well, I know you guys, you know, you broke up and moved on, but did you hear what's going on with Linda Blair? She is apparently running a dog shelter on her property, her property in where the fuck is it's it's got to be California one would think I'm trying to see the goddamn it doesn't tell me the city but nevertheless she has been she's been violated she's she's got trouble with the law because apparently she has a two and a half acre

kennel area her house is surrounded by these various pens and cages and tarps and there's a drone shot of it on the internet, the aerial deal. And the authorities say that they issued an investigative warrant to search the place because her permits expired in 2023. She's ignored 24 attempts for them to contact her. And when they did the search to, this is a quote, to ensure animal welfare and check code violations, how many dogs you think they found on two and a half acres? 10? Keep going.

20. Oh, you're way off. Keep going. Okay. Now I'm just going to go high then. 50. I keep climbing that ladder, baby. all right you say two and a half acres i'm going to assume they're not packed with dogs but now

maybe that was a bad assumption a hundred dogs two hundred and fifty one dogs oh shit i love dogs i was just telling you that my little buddy this morning while i was on the couch in the tv room trying to suffer through a bit of raw just crawled right up in my lap and curled up and just went to sleep and he was so cute and i love of Alfie as well. But two and a half acres is almost as big as my property here, and I cannot imagine, along with a house and all these outstructures, 251 dogs.

But they say that law enforcement says no dogs showed signs of illness or injury, and they didn't seize any. But how the fuck, she would have to have a full-time fucking staff. How would you feed? And the vet, just not even paying for the vet, but the vet checkups and things. They said when the Blair saw how many dogs were there,

her head spun. I don't know, maybe she got left the dogs from the Rick James estate. Wasn't you at Rick James for many years? They were not, they were an item at one point, but not, I don't think, for many years. I think they were two ships that were snorting in the night. That's right. That's exactly right.

But boy, howdy, the neighbors say they hear cries and howls from dogs sounding like they're in distress. But I can understand. With Buddy and Alfie, you would think when they're playing that they would try to kill each other. And if you look close, they're making all the noise and the high-pitched yelps when they're not even touching each other. so that could be misconstrued, you know, the sounds in some fashion, but holy mackerel. Apparently she lives there. There's a house in the middle of this place. I don't, it's called a sprawling compound.

Anyway, we'll stay up to date on more information in that genre later on. I hadn't seen this. Where did you see it? It was on the actual. It's on the interwebs. type in Linda Blair's dogs. I bet you'll get something. Oh, this is a nude phone.

On Linda Blair's puppies, you'll get something else. That's right. All right, well, we will stay on top of the Exorcism News in the weeks ahead here on the show, folks. Hopefully she doesn't spew any vomit. The power of the veterinarian compels you. Jim, speaking of vomit and lots and lots of animals, Let's talk about WWRWA or anything you watch.

This is a big one typically, the Raw after SummerSlam. One of the bigger ones you think of things are going to happen. They're going to happen here. Well, it was typically a big one in years gone by, but now this was a longer one than they have the past few weeks. But I had buddy on my lap, right? So I couldn't really make notes. So I just kind of started zipping through to see if things would catch my attention.

and now it's been two hours since then and I don't know that I remember almost everything that didn't catch my attention. But we did get to see L.A. Knight and Roman Reigns apparently that's the next direction. We've been bitching and complaining that they didn't do anything with L.A. Knight. But at the same time, was this the thing to do first?

where L.A. Knight's got his promo and he's got good energy and the people like the cadence and the whole nine yards and there is much homage to Stone Cold in the presentation. But should he be out there doing the same thing to Roman reigns? Should he be doing the same stick about, ah, everybody knows I'm greater than you? No, this is maybe a one, small step for the creative team, but it's a giant leap for L.A. Knight going from where he's been presented lately to be a nose to nose with Roman Raines and potentially trying to be viewed as a threat. Do you see what I'm saying to you

here when the words that are coming out of my mouth? Maybe. I mean, I think he's the unique guy there and that fans were ready for him to be elevated or wanted him to be elevated a while ago. And it didn't defeat the fans. Like, they still kind of want that. So despite the fact that Roman, he's either baby phase or a benign heel. I mean, I don't know what you call.

A benign heel. It's like, heels and tumors should not be grouped together. Right, because I mean, but no, what I'm saying, I'm not saying don't book the match, but L.A., they did the same thing. They just came in and had two guys, fucking talk meaned each other without anybody in between them. I agree.

I agree with that critique. And then if, if, if, if, if L.A. Knight had done his normal promo about fuck you, you, you jabrony and a Roman raid, Roman Rade. Roman Rains had made his, what did he call him, his screwy faces and said, fraud, you call him a fraud. And it had ended up with L.A. night fucking BF.E.ing him or BF. him bum-fucking wear whatever the fuck hitting his finish and putting roman on his fucking face

maybe i'd feel different but they just again they just came out and talked meaned each other and l.A. didn't do nothing yet yet i agree with you that there should be a force separating these two security agents whatever well that that's overdone it they should has established some goddamn level of protection for the general managers or the announcers and let them do it, but go ahead. Whoever it may be. But I thought this worked

because L.A. Knight's a little different than everyone else. The fans still want him to be elevated. So it was one of those cases where Roman was putting him down and you could tell the fans were like almost gasping like he better have a comeback. And L.A. Knight had a comeback that made them happy. Some of the writing for this over who's a fraud and this and that. I mean, I don't know about all that, but that's not these guys.

But L.A. Knight, the fact that he overcame Bray Wyatt that feud, the fact that he overcame the male models, the fact that for two years, give or take, fans have been ready for him to be used more. even if he doesn't wrestle every week, just promos and a good placement and treated like a main eventer. He's never been treated that way and the fans still want it and there's something to be said for that. He's a cockroach. He can't be killed.

He can't be couldn't. He will come back every time. And someone should for Roman, you just got to do the old Don Morocco promo. You're boring. You're just so boring. Oh, well, I know. And again, that took up some time. There were a variety of matches, none of which I watched.

Oba Femi came out and I like his promos. He was dressed as, I believe I referred earlier off air. He dressed like Thalmas Rasula line, Blacula. But what else happened on raw? Oh, the return of big casts. Big cast. Why? Why?

Why? How long has this guy been gone? Well, they made that a big point every time they talked about it. You really didn't pay attention. Eight years. Yeah, eight years. Well, that's why I'm saying it was kind of a rhetorical question. But if you were going to say eight years, I was going to say in eight fucking years,

he couldn't have come up with or they couldn't have come up with or nobody couldn't have come up with a better fucking name and gimmick. eight years. The guy comes back, he may be in better physical condition or cosmetically pleasing. Maybe he's learned to talk a little better. Maybe he's adjusted his attitude.

But he couldn't figure out something better for himself in eight fucking years. He couldn't have come up with, look you here. I'm a seven-foot fucking guy and I look this good physically, and here is my gimmick, here's my name, here's how I look, here's how I work, here's my fucking, to get very Howard Finkelish, here's my motivation. Instead, they just, okay, it's time to bring back another seven-foot guy, hey, you, come here,

you used to be here, we'll just do the same goddamn thing with you as when you were here before. What name is better? Big Bill or Big Cass? None of the above. I'd rather than legitimately call him none of the above. First name none. Last name of the above. What the fuck?

What is his gimmick? Who is he? Who is he? He's mad. He's determined to show everyone that he's mad. That he didn't really suck the last time he was here. And it took him eight years to bring him back.

He said he's going to start stacking bodies and Javan. Was it Javan? Who was it? It was Javan. Javan was just the first one. Javan had beat Jeter guy. And then here came Cass and jerked a knot and Javan. But point being,

the promo was, he was very careful not to fuck up any of the words. My God, it was like he was speaking in, of two-thirds play because he'd memorized it. He had the opportunity to come out and explode verbally

and talk himself over in 45 fucking seconds. He recited scripted verbiage in a scripted way. I sound like a Staten Island, Wayland Mercy. After coming out

and he hit Javan with the big move and blah, blah, blah blah. I want to see somebody come out and fucking get over. I want to see somebody come out and be so over the top of goddamn aggression that they don't legitimately kill the fucking guy, but they make the people think he's mauled him

instead of doing another big move. I want somebody to take 45 seconds verbally and scorch me as a viewer, goddamn telling me that he's going to be a force to be fucking wrecking with. And we got the same guy doing the same shit. There were rumors. And he's big. We know that. He's big.

There were rumors that they were going to bring him back with Enzo, who of course they let go of years ago at this point. I always found him entertaining. And if he isn't a problem and causing problems, or has any outstanding problems. Or warrants or anything like that. Or whatever it may be. I'm entertained by the.

the guy, but they didn't bring him back with him. And Enzo, it may be hard to keep him a heel. I don't know, with that crowd. That's such a weird crowd. You know, you're talking about he needs someone on the mic. Well, but no, he need, no, I'm not saying he needs somebody on a mic. I'm saying he needs to be somebody on the fucking mic. At this point, young fellow, you need to shitter, get off the pot, as Mama Cornett would say.

He needs to show everybody his fire and determination and goddamn. them go out there and get over, be emotional and aggressive and fucking quick-witted and all the things that we have not seen verbally and physically and figure out a way to get to fuck over. And Big Cass as a name sucks. And who is he? What is he? What's his motivation?

What is his look? How do we know this fucking? guy has come here to do this. He's not the ruler of the world. Well, the ruler, I think Sid was the ruler of the world. Obafemi's the ruler. He's the pro-trak. Maybe he ought to be the measuring stick.

Then they can fight about that. Who's got the biggest one? You know, you brought up over, over. You didn't bring up over. I wish this was over. You brought up Obafemi, Jim, a little earlier. Jim. I'm a doctor, Jim. Did you see the, at the end of his promo, the confrontation?

I don't know if you're going to get there or if you just missed it. Oh, well, and also with, they just, I gleaned it later on with Braun because I saw Braun and Heyman. And there's something going on there also. You didn't watch Braun's match? I did not, who did, what did he do? So Braun and Oba have this confrontation, and they get in each other's face. And Oba's bigger, obviously, but Braun, you know, looks mean and tough, so it works.

And then Braun walks away, comes right back, gets in his face again. And then Braun is just hyper-focused now in the Oba confrontation. His opponent's Joe Hendry. Oh, that's right. That's right. He was, Braun was staring in the back, waiting for, you know, or just thinking about Oba and theory got beat up at ringside in front of his girlfriend, and then Bron, speared Henry. Oh, but they did a spot.

I thought it should have just been Braun killing him, considering what the story was and, you know, was rather short, but still, they did one spot where Braun ran around ringside like he does to pick up. Oh, yeah, went for the spear and Henry leapfrogged him.

And he speared, shoot spear, because he had a giant mark that was getting redder and redder as the thing went on. He shoot speared the steps. It looked pretty brutal. and I'm like, oh, that look bad. And then when he got up, you notice, oh, boy, he's got a mark there. That'll leave a mark.

It's getting worse and worse. Hopefully he's okay. That looked brutal. Oh, yeah, that was just a mere flesh wound. Nothing to worry about, just to be a flesh wound. But now that's a theory, again, has been reduced to, Oge Hendry beats him up on the outside to get a little something before he does a job for Braun. but I don't know if either one of them should be wrestling each other

in a one-on-one match in the near future. You don't know my Joe Hendry and Austin theory? No, I'm talking about goddamn Bronbreaker and Oba Femi. Because they'll know theory that somebody has to lose at this point, and it shouldn't be Oba, and I don't think it should be brawn. and it also, it better be one of those quick explosive Heyman specials.

You know, I thought about when they had the face-to-face confrontation, it's just so interesting with Obafemi, it's kind of like Hogan. You have a baby face that's bigger than almost all the heels. Well, but it works, because he's the ruler. Well, you got to, it works if you believe someone else could possibly take him down. But yes, but think about all the,

insidious heels in the world. Let's see, there's, well, there's, and there's, no wonder all the baby faces are fighting each other in the main events and then hugging afterwards. Seth, Seth now loves Roman. That's a new sitcom appearing on the UPN network this fall. Punk and Cody had to get mad at each other 10 days before the match because they loved each other.

I don't know if they still love each other. Orton may not love too many people, but most to everybody that's fighting in a big important matches is baby faces. So maybe, you know, Obo will just be the biggest baby face.

Well, I'm going to assume you didn't watch any of the things that live Morgan and a confrontation with Becky Lynch and Stephanie Vicar. No, I was in the process of petting buddy at that point, time. And what about a...

I'm W-W-E'd out for the weekend. They came out in a building and looked the same as it usually does and they sent the same people out to say the same things and do the same things they usually do. And a few of them actually did those things well.

Well, that was W.W.E. Raw in Iowa. The wrestling hoppede of Des Moines, Iowa. Jim, let's move on here with the show. Let's talk about some retrofigure. I've been promising this for several weeks, and my desk is packed with stuff, so let's do this. You know, you could put those things somewhere else.

You don't have to just stack them right there until they fall over on you and crush you like a hoarder on fucking learning channel. Well, it's not that bad yet, but that's why we have to do this here today. Jim, I'll start with one of the more interesting figures. I wasn't going to get this. And then I said, this is so ridiculous I needed in my collection.

from Latuni in the LJN style as part of their wrestling giant series LJN style figures it's Rick Flair from Nitro wearing one shoe

no shirt holding a wad of cash a bandage on his forehead and in his other hand is a removable shoe and on the bottom it says made in Italy the bottom of the shoe the bottom of the shoe

because he wore Italian shoes of course this is one of the more ridiculous figures and I love it and you know this is one of the things I like about Latune he kind of does outside the box things that no one else would do

and it works so this is Rick Flair again one shoe wearing a sock his boxers are showing so this whole figure it's ridiculous any thought on this era of Rick Flair Well, that's, I was there at the studios that morning at TBS the first time that he did.

He got cranked up doing the promo. Eddie was dressed and had the sunglasses, hold out, whatever the fuck. And the people were yelling at him, but that's where he stopped. And he said, hey, fat boy or whatever he said, he pulled his shoe up and he said, my shoes cost more than your house. And in some cases, it may have been true. but that began Flair was known

to take various articles of his clothing and or accessories off and wave of them in people's face. He'd take his Rolex off and wave it around. I've got the Rolex watch. And as he would do that, I started mentally calculating

that he was wearing more than I had ever spent on the total of clothing and jewelry that I had ever owned all at the same time. Well, again, that was the 80s. This is 1990s. Crazy on nitro, Rick Flair in the LJN style. Crazy on nitrous is what you're... On nitro. He's not hanging out with Dr. Mike Laino. What are you talking about here? Well, I didn't know what you were... You know, they did some strange angles

they did down there in those days. Well, of course, you can get this. This is from Latunie, the wrestling giant series, also from Latunie. I have a whole bunch of these here. The WrestleMania series, it's almost Hasbro style, but it's a... a different scale and a different look and a different feel. Again, he does his own thing, and I like that. It's three different versions of the giant machine. Andre the Giant wearing a mask in silver, in gold, and in black, and also at the same time, two new Andre the Giants wearing Ultimate Warrior face paint from some of the matches and promos in the fall of 1989, the summer and fall of

89. He was a man of all seasons in 1989. Jim, what are your thoughts on the machines? Well, and that's why I'm starting to get some level of a clue as to why it's named the Giant Series. Because there's many, many giants there.

But the machines for those for the young folks, it was a thing that Inoki started or New Japan started in what was it would it have been 81ish was it that early I'm not sure but two ish something like that but the first one was who was the first of the machine with it was Bill Eady

right was the first one there's a Japanese there's a Japanese wrestler that's the super strong machine and then Bill Eadie was the original machine with Andre the giant in between mass superstar who was in Mid-South or slash UWF in early 86. After that, he goes into WWF. So between mass superstar and demolition acts,

he was one of the, the strong machine, I believe. The strong machine. And then it got ridiculous because they started adding machines, right? This is when Vince got the idea, around 83-ish. Well, Vince got the idea in 86. They did an angle where Andre was suspended.

Oh, that's right. That's right. Andre was suspended and he came back as the giant machine Bobby Heenan losing his mind, and the machines feated with Andre, not what Andre, with Bundy and John Studd had other matches too, but Andre, his back condition was already getting bad. So that's when all of a sudden there was a masked blackjack mulligan. I was about it, Mulligan, didn't they do Hulk machine where they actually had Hulk at one point for some big shows?

I think there was a Hulk machine, a Piper machine. I want to say George Steele, an animal machine. Probably a few others, I'm not remembering off the top of my head, but there were a lot of machines, and then they all just went away. Except for the one of New Japan. Yes, which was still over there because they didn't make a rib out of it. But all the parts of the flywheel, suddenly all the machines just went away. Yeah, well.

But now we have commemoratively, back to the subject hand, the Andre and the various forms of his machines. Giant Machine, persona. His machinery days, that's right. Once again, these... And the kids can win the trivia contest on, you know, did Andre the Giant ever wear a mask?

And people would say, well, that's ludicrous. Everybody would know who he was. Well, that was the point. That was the point. Bobby Heenan couldn't take it. He didn't understand why Jack Tunney wouldn't act on this. Once again, Latunie's WrestleMania series, check those out. Jim, I got this one yesterday. Let me pull this up. this is a limited edition one but it's a kind of a tease of upcoming figures

from title run toys this is exclusive to j and j figures it's nakeda coloff in the hasbro style this is early 90s let's say 1992 baby face nikita coloff you could tell based on the back of the trunks what are your thoughts on baby face nakita coloff in the Wait a minute. How are you identifying any era of Nikita Koloff by looking at his ass? What are what he saying? Not his ass, but the top of his, it's not a single it, the top of his thing. The top of it, you're able to tell what era is of Nikita Kolov it is by the top of his thing? Remember when all of a sudden it was a different flag on the back of it?

I think it's the Lithuanian flag, wasn't it? Well, Lithuania could be, possibly it was a, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, transatlantialialial. Pennsylvania. Possibly, but Nikita Kolo. One of those vanias over there. But Nikita Kowloff once again in the hand. He had a different kind of waistband

is what you're saying also back then. Because Nikita did come back for a brief period of time until they pretty much buried him in WCW2 and he said fucking quit's business again. And that's the area you're talking about. That's right. 1992. Let's say War Games, 92, Nikita

Koloff. In the Hasbro's And by the way, they did a great job with this. And I want to say that because I ripped on them for the Mike McGirk disaster. The Mike McGirk figure that couldn't stand up. Well, they've redeemed themselves now with Nikita Koloff after. Yeah. So that way, just put Mike McGirk on the ground underneath Nikita Koloff. People think that he rush and sickled it.

That may not be what we're looking to do here. Did you see the video that WWE put up in Nikita and Barry Darso talking about it? They did a whole little, like, eight-minute video about Robinsdale, Minnesota's wrestling connection. And they reunited Koloff and Darsoe. Not their real names, obviously, but they're sitting there and they're going through pictures and talking about it. Well, Darso's his real name. And actually, no, Nikita changed his name during that run, right? Oh, so he's no longer Scott Simpson.

I think he legally is Nikita Kola. Every single picture, Nikita Kola, thank God they edited it. but every time Nikita Kohl saw a picture, we turn to the door and go, look at this guy. Look at this guy. Say something, Nikita. Come on.

But there it is title run toys, Nikita Koloff. This is one of 200, but they have a couple more additions coming in the coming months. I guess we should say. Also want to make mention here from Hastel toys, Gimicks, or Grapplers and Gimmicks, I always get it wrong. One of my personal favorites,

I collect Sergeant Slaughter figures and Hastel Toys has put out a Sergeant Slaughter variant Best way I could put it in the original G.I. Joe colors. This looks really cool. And I plugged his other Sergeant Slaughter's in the past. Well, that would, original G.I. Joe colors would be a standard military issue,

government, G.I. Government issue. That type of the olive and the... Black? Again, it's not a shawl. shirt and now he just dropped all this. A black, uh, yeah, leotard. Or whatever he's got with U.S. A leotard.

What is he a valetard? What is he fucking wear? What is it called? Well, if you're going for undies, you'll have to ask him directly. Whatever it is, and as USA on. I'm not a broker of his goddamn undergarments. That's not what I've heard. He's got a flag here.

He's got glasses that come off a whistle, a hat that falls off every time I move this thing because I'm moving it all over the place. Hasdell Toys, Sergeant Slaughter. Check that out today. Yes. Jim, let's talk about epic toys. We love talking about tag team wrestling.

They've just put out two versions of the nasty boys in the Hasbro style, knobs and sags. One of these, I would say... It sounds like you're describing karaoke. When you say in the... In the Billy Joel style. These are...

One of these are, I would say, mid-90s WCW Orange, and the other ones, these are really nice. They come with black leather coats in their early 90s. Is it real, real leather, or is it pleather? It's leatherish. I'm not an expert. It's a leatherish substance that comes in a box-like structure. And it has a chain like they used to have, and the heads have magnets on the bottom so you could take them off and swap them back and forth. and these look really good.

They always do a good job with these epic tools. Well, leave it to the nasty boys to be the guys to lose their heads. Where do you put the nasty boys? Are they kind of like a team at the end of the glory days of tag wrestling? Where do you consider them? Because they need come around really into WCW until 1990, even though they had been around a few years. But when you think of the era of classic tag teams,

do you consider them a part of it? Well, I don't know about the era, you know, per se. because there were outside forces diminishing tag teams at that point in time. They kind of maybe bridged that. But they were

a great gimmick team, especially when they were younger and a little more mobile. They were the furthest thing from good workers in the classic sense or definition of the word. But with guys like Steiner's or the road warriors,

they could fucking just not not say, fuck it, I'm out of here under the smash mouth offense type of thing. They had the slobber knockers. And it was a great gimmick. But I think they, you know, physical conditioning maybe later on in the run was not uppermost in everybody's minds. And they had injuries and et cetera. But for that WCW period, I think they,

were certainly a top tag team. You were so upset at the office, you had been used poorly, and they wanted to put a pumpkin on your head. But at Halloween Havoc 90, did you get to watch Steiner's and Nasty Boys? I didn't sit there and watch it that night, but I always watched, I always recorded the pay-per-views, and I watched them, you know, at whatever point I got back home. But come to think of it, the next time I got back home would have been. been

goddamn right after I'd quit and come back home from Atlanta so. But as a kid that was one of the craziest matches

I had ever seen that looked like a real fight. It just seemed like kicking a shit out of each other and then the nasty boys were gone

almost right away and all of a sudden Jimmy Hart was managing him into WWF. And I you know what that's in

in my departure it's often overlooked and the nasty boys didn't last long either afterwards And was that a Jim heard disagreement beef that they had or what happened there? Do you even remember?

Because it wasn't my week to keep track of their business. Yeah, I might be wrong. But I think it was one of those cases where they were in there on a short-term deal and they didn't have a contract. Yeah, came in and got over on WCW TV and got a better deal from vets. That's right. I think. I think. But yeah, that's the news on that one land.

one I want to plug here. WWF just put out a series or a box with four figures through Target of Intercontinental Champions of the Past, CM Punk, Dominic Mysterio, Honky Talk Man, and Paterson, and I bring this up because I have... Jeez, that's one of every era. I have here the new Paterson figure.

And it comes... By the way, Paterson was never muscular like this ever. But it comes with the Intercontinental Championship, this is really why I wanted it, it has a little belt of the Intercontinental Championship as it looked in 1979. Why did some territories have belts that looked like shit? Specifically the biggest territory in the country? In terms of business, Vern had a lot of land.

Well, that's the thing is, for whatever reason, promoters, even promoters that were running successful territory, and demonstrably factual that they were millionaires as personal human beings, the various territory owners, most of them. My God, when I got belts made in 1991, they were like 1,500 bucks apiece, and they looked better than almost anything that the guys to territories were using that had, you know, 15 or 20 years before that were, you know, making thousands of dollars a night or whatever.

I don't know otherwise than cheapness. It always drove me crazy. Here in Memphis, the Southern Heavyweight Title Belt, between 1977 and 1980, either 80 or early 81, just looked like dog shit. When they got it made, it was. nice for about three weeks and then the fucking gold goddamn applique fell off the front of it

of an eagle or whatever it was and they replaced it with a decal and just blah blah blah blah bruiser's belt he used the same belt in Indianapolis the world championship for over 20 years never

upgraded so I don't know otherwise than being cheap and but then again, you know, you had like the Nikita Mokovych belts from the 70s that we've talked about. Those things lasted. And if somebody had to run off with them, they never wore out. You might have to put new leather on them. And they were gorgeous.

And, you know, Vince Sr. always made the effort with his world or WWWF title and or tagger. titles to, you know, have something nice. But it just depended from from place to place. And the belt that they, the Southern title belt in Memphis that they used until 77 was the old Southern junior heavyweight title belt that they had crowned the champion, the first champion in 1952 in a tournament. And it was still the same belt, but it was gorgeous because it was completely different. and it was made out of a, you know, a shiny silver plated whatever,

so it was always shiny and it looked cool. But it was the historic first belt with the first six or seven people that held it engraved in the plates on the sides. And when they got that new one that didn't last three months, Lawler took it home and then somebody stole it later on from him at an appearance. but anyhow. But the Intercontinental Belt in 1979, do you remember when you first saw it? In pictures that like Walt Wolanski would send down that, you know, the photographers of the day,

George Napolitano, Frank Amato would take and we'd trade pictures back and forth. And I always say, you know, I can't, it was the green gimmick, right? Was that the first one? It was red. It's a red strap. Or was the red leather. And again, the plates just look like crap. But you know what?

That would have made some of the Southern Territories belts a Sunday face. See, it was all goddamn, at least it was shiny. It's all relative. Well, this has been retro figures, and we're still compiling the various correspondence we've received from people about the Matt Cardona figures, and apparently everyone's problems with them and the people making them. them, but we'll follow up on that in the future. But if you want Jim Cornett and the Midnight Express figures, they're available right now,

or maybe the Midnight Express without Jim Cornett, hey, they're available right now. That's my point at Cornets Collectibles, Jim Cornett.com. Well, they are available. And if you're going to buy somebody else besides me, I'd rather it be them. Then we at least keep it all in the family. Folks, again, at Jimcornet.com, the action figures abound, but we are running low on, I believe it's the breast cancer pink figure,

as well as the heavenly bodies are starting to dwindle, so act now to avoid disappointment, and also T-shirts and DVDs and books and sundry items. Coming soon, a line of Cologne. I'm going to mix up a special concord. coction and call it Oudy Corny. Available at Jimcornett.com.

Yeah, it sounds like a great deal, ladies and gentlemen. Jim Cornett.com, Oud de Corny. Well, my mother always did say I was a little staker, so I might as well capitalize on it. Jim, as we move on here with the show, we have a couple more things. So why don't we get through a bunch of the 1994 list once again?

This is where we are compiling our top 20 wrestlers in 1994 in their 20s. Of course, you not just active talent, a booker and promoter in 1994. So you have a very unique perspective on all this. Some of these people who made the list. I wouldn't have booked any of these son of a bitches. Well, on the list, Yokozuna, who you manage, Cactus Jack, who you booked that year. Undertaker, who you managed against that year.

Sean Michaels, Owen Hart, Dustin Rhodes, and Lord Stephen Regal. That is who has made the list so far, and we have a bunch of question marks, but let's get back to the list here, Jim, picking up from where we left off, turning 20 in November, Huvintude Guerrero. And you know, this is a guy that I am pretty sure I've never met in my life. And I remember he was on WCW television when they were started featuring the the cruiser weights and the luchadors and everybody made over him and he was just somebody that especially the hardcore fans were going nuts over and then later on apparently did he go nuts because again i'm not well versed on his career but there were a lot a lot longer

period of nuttiness followed a shorter period of overness i think there was one time where he caused some kind of international incident in Australia. I think it was another time where he got like jumped in. At least that's only a small country. He got jumped in the locker room, I want to say, in front of his girlfriend, all sorts of issues with him over the years, but very, very talented guy. And of course, this is very early on in his career and his first exposure in the States.

Not on your list, I could tell. Well, I just, I don't know that much about him besides that he was nuts. Turning 29 in November, the original La Parca. and again I'm not sure of the chain of command but I might have actually met did I meet the original LaParka in MLW in 2019 was the LA Park? I think he was a fatter older fellow by that point that was probably him because court Bauer was working with was he working with

AAA or CMLL? again you know these these initials fade in my memory because i was not paying as close attention at that point as i was when i actually gave a shit but nevertheless um and he had some sons wrestling but le parka was the gimmick that he had when he was the chairman and he swung the chair and he had the chair and that was into the point where his action figure even featured a chair with him I remember that much again, mid-90s, late-90s WCW. So otherwise than that, I know he was incredibly over in Mexico, but I cannot adjudicate that year in his career as to whether he ought to get a checkmark or not, because I don't know that much about it.

Well, not on your list. The next one's interesting, and actually I almost feel like he shouldn't be on here, although he turns 20 in December, that's the end of the year. So he was still a teenager for the majority, if not the vast majority of the year. Turning 20 in December, Ray Mysterio Jr. Now the question is, where was he at in his, had he made his WCW debut at that point? Was he starting, because that wouldn't happen until what, 96 or 97?

96, I don't think he makes his ECW debut in. until 95, 94. He is one of the top young stars for AAA. He was already having fantastic matches. Him in heavy metal was incredible. And again, AAA had a historic run in the States in California, also came to New York, Chicago. He was on the AAA pay-per-view.

He would really break out in 95. So, basically, with what he would become, would be a checkmark, but the only question is here in 1994, is that just too early? Is he a question mark because of how he had already achieved that much success early? I'll put him on the question mark list, but again, my issue is more that he was 19 for the majority of the year. But again, we have these rules we've been. So he might not even qualify. God damn it, you got to be this tall to ride the, oh, I guess I shouldn't say that.

That's not what I was saying. All right, Jim, one more name from the Lucha World at this time, turning 23 in May, psychosis. And I, you know, I've been told that I have a few of those, but I don't know that much about this young fellow's career as well.

Where was psychosis and who was he fucking rattling around in 1994? He was rattling around with all the other guys you didn't watch, so not on your list for 94. Jim turning 24 in June. You see it, turning 24 in June,

Ian Rotten. Oh, he's on my list, all right. What list? He's on the list, boy, yeah. Numerous lists. He's on numerous lists of the federal government, the various law enforcement agencies, and from what I understand,

after his stint working the window at Taco Bell down in South Louisville, he's on the watch list of the CDC. All right, so not on your list. They had him wearing gloves to punch the cash register because somebody stooaged him for having hepatitis. Well, thank God that someone did that. That is pretty nasty to be working with other people's food. Not on your list for 94.

Jim, All Japan Women's Star, turning 24 in September, Ajikong. Oh, Lordy, I defer to you, Brian. Where was she and what was she doing in 1994? I know that many of these people were making. appearances in the United States, but I wasn't paying close attention. She was a big star on all Japan women kicking a shit out of other wrestlers

over there, but obviously you did not watch it, and we're going to say not on your list here today. Let's get some interesting ones now. Turning 24 in November, Chris Jericho. Well, and should we... Because of the year... Yeah. I'll say it here, then.

Turning 25. in April, Lance Storm, and this, of course, is the year the thrill seekers would come to America, rock America for Smokey Mountain Wrestling. And that's why I say, should we group them together because I think this is a classic case of they would go on

to have, you know, wonderful careers in each in his own way, but for 1994, I don't know if they can make a list of the top 20, because I know the the box office that they were producing. But I mean, that was, you know, their first year here. They had all the tools. They still needed to slow down.

They both needed to learn to talk. And if people think I'm exaggerating, Brian, you can probably testify that Jericho's promos when he started were as bad or worse than Lances. because he would, Lance didn't want to talk and would shorten it up, but Jericho would just drone on for a while, but it still wasn't any more exciting. I don't know if you have any other evaluation, but Jericho, you know, but Jericho kind of looked like a star.

They both did. Yeah, but Jericho, Jericho with the long blonde hair, it stood out even then. Lance Storm, I remember an interview with, I think it was Bob Cottle. What was it, though? Was it after, I think it was Landstorm after Jericho, and whoever he was teaming with got beat up, and he kept saying it happened multiple times in the same promo. Oh, my brother, I mean my partner,

he kept saying brother and then correcting himself and saying partner. I always remember that. Well, you know, he comes from a large family, so he could really keep track. But, you know, these guys would be on a list for later years, but they ain't on a list for 1994 because they were greener than pepper trees. Would you go along with that? I would.

I think considering all the question marks that are here that are established, this wouldn't be the year for them. Well, Jim, what about turning 28 in December the Ultimo Dragon? Boy, howdy. And, you know, here's the thing for the people who were really into and bother, to watch and pay attention to on a regular basis, this is what I'm talking about when I say the average person, because I was the average person, I don't remember whether Ultimo Dragon was psychosis, was Huvintude, Guerrero, et cetera, because I was, you know, watching a couple

hours of the opposition's television program, and here's 10 or 12 guys doing all. as same kind of shit wearing masks. So again, I bow to your expertise and what the fuck Dragon was doing to be so El-Timo. Very talented wrestler, although I would say not 1994. I don't think that would be the year for him, but very, very talented wrestler.

Jim turning 27 in May, CMLL-L-Star Vampiro. Okay, this one, you've got to enlighten me a little bit, on because vampiro is kind of unique. I understand that his initial

wave of popularity in Mexico, even though he's from Canada, his initial wave of popularity in Mexico was because he landed apart or got apart in some soap opera

or popular television show over the time or whatever. Telanova. Telano. whatever the fuck it was. And that that caused him to be figured in, even though he was also, from all accounts, for what I can understand,

the absolute dog shits in the ring as a worker, he was a main event guy. And then after that hot period was over with, it was like the other guy, who were we just talking about, that there was more goofy, a hovintude Guerrera. There was a longer period where every time you would see somebody comment on the absolute worst of the worst match they ever saw, the worst commentary, or the worst whatever, or it was vampiro.

And what was the deal with him and what is, where is he and why? I believe he still works in Mexico in some capacity. He's a legend. and you're right, he got over big, he kind of had, I don't know if I want to call it the milly-vinilly look, but he had this look that Conan stole. If you remember, Conan went from being this muscular mask guy to losing the mask, to all of a sudden having like cornrows.

Oh, yeah, the gridlock kind of thing, yeah. Yeah, I mean, Conan saw what was up and stole the look and it helped Conan get over bigger than ever before. Got used, all things considered really well in WCD's. considering everyone that was there and again the talent. I mean, I don't know if he's

I'm not a big fan of his in-ring stuff, I guess, the best way I could put it. And I personally wouldn't put him on the list for 94. We had also, and I mean, like in recent years, there was a time he was, did commentary on one of the big, the big events in Mexico, AAA. And, and people were

passing it around on the internet as my God, this is a train wreck or whatever the fuck. It just, it's always something, an interesting fellow, but not on, not on this list, maybe on the most wanted list. He's on my list of the top 20 wrestlers who I like hearing about all the out-of-the-ring stuff more than watching the in-ring. Alberto del Rio, Vampiro, Jok Rugeot, just all these guys. A lot, a lot of O's.

See, it's always, it's those goddamn O's. Those O's will get you every time. Jim turning. 26 in December, Tex Slassenger. Well, now, oh, God damn it. I'm trying to remember, was Tex Henry Godwin or was it Phineas Godwin?

It was Phineas. And Henry Godwin was Shanghai Pierce. Shanghai Pierce. Okay. Tech Slashing or Slashingger, whatever the fuck, was the gimmick that as I said, Phineas Godwin had before he became one of the Godwens in the

WWF which would happen in what God? Probably the next year or 96 for sure. Pretty sure, 95. So yeah, he's a lovely fellow, a lovely fellow and a great guy and I wouldn't put him on the list for this year. But we used to call him penis Godwin because some of the kids had trouble pronouncing Phineas.

All right, Jim. Well, that's a heck of a transition to the next one. Jim here turning 21 in October, Taka Michunoku. Oh, well, you don't want to hear what we used to have to call him because the kids, we couldn't pronounce it. You know, everybody always gets on me when I'm talking about a preliminary guy a preliminary guy intermingling with a main event guy

and I said what are you fucking kai and tie and they said why did he ate these guys so bad I was just trying to illustrate that no matter and Takamich no guy and great kid and could work and was very dedicated and never eat trouble or whatever but even the fans

mistake that for actually being a main event fucking attraction or being used as a top guy. And he just wasn't cast in that role. He did not, he did not fit the director's idea, whatever the fuck for that particular motion picture. So, you know,

he was a good kid. I wouldn't put him on this list when there's, you know, names like The Undertaker and whatever, but he was, he was just a wonderful fellow. All right, not on your list for 1994, which was kind of the year that put him on a lot of smart fans' maps coming out of the J-Cup and his work with Mitchunoku Pro Wrestling. Jim, you have to wonder how different Taka Michanoku's career would have been with just maybe the different meal plan, maybe eating more, eating a lot of protein, eating better, maybe he would get bigger, pick up size, meet your approval.

This transition's awful, but speaking of me... Jim, there's meat, there's fish, there's chicken. There's all sorts of great meals crafted by chefs from our friends at Factor. Food stuffs. You don't gain weight eating factor. Factor can help you lose weight by helping make you eat healthier and wiser and better and tastier instead of shittier and fattier and fucking all the shit you eat by yourself when you're left to your own devices.

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with over 175 band ingredients, every factor meal is, you know, with 175 band ingredients, seems like that shit would be toxic. No, they worded this the wrong way. Yeah, you worded it. That's

healthy. Well, no, the every factor meal doesn't include 175 band ingredients. They've identified. I hope actually that chickpeas are one of them. That's just, it's a nasty, it's a vegetable that smells like a meat. What are you doing? What? A vegetable smells like a meat. What are you talking about? Chickpeas. Yeah, the garbanza beans. You don't like hummus? Do you eat hummus? No. Hey, if you want to get a hummus, you're on your own. I said do you eat hummus? Because it comes from chickpeas. No, I'm not.

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I like the terriaki salmon. We should talk about how delicious the fast of meals are. Well, yes, because that's not banned. You've got salmon, and then you've got terriaki. as two ingredients. That's nothing, no reason to ban those, folks. That's why that this is good, good, clean stuff. It's never been banned.

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That's right. Great food. You can request, just send you an egg, just a regular old egg. The food is great. The meals are great. We love them here in this house. I know Jim's family loves them as well. Factor.

One more time. Buddy and Alfie have gotten partial. No, it's... There's a terriaki salmon. It's for humans and humans like me and you, ladies and gentlemen, love factor meals. One more time, Jim, that promo code. Yes, because people are people, so why should it be that you and I can get along so awfully?

Factor Meals.com slash JCE 50 off. That's right, Factor! Jim, let's get more names here, see if they factor into your list. I'm going to guess this one's not on your list, turning 27 in September, Super Delphin from Mitch and Oakville Wrestling. You know, I'm fighting. as to whether that super dolphin should replace Eddie Guerrero or, you know, potentially, as I said, The Undertaker or I don't know, who. I always thought of a dolphin. Is that part of the gimmick? I think it is. I always thought his mask was kind of dolphin. I think he's super dolphin, but.

Where are you getting these names anyway? Well, that was his name. He's one of the wrestlers who was on the national, well, international stage in 1994. Jim, turning 28 in October from the eliminators, Perry Saturn. Oh, what was their status at that point in 94? I believe in 94 they worked USWA, and 95 was when they really broke out in ECW. You know, Perry Saturday was a heck of a guy. What an athlete. And it just, I don't know that. He ever got the chance to get beyond the spot that he got to in that WWF run.

And then, as has been reported, it seemed like he had not a checkered past, but a checkered future from there. But good guy, good athlete, and they were over at one point for a couple of years during that period. But it changed my mind or twist my arm or... I can for 1994. And while we're at it, why don't we just say, turning 25 in January, Eliminator John Kronus. Well, and they were kind of, they were at the same place at that time, but Kronus never got to the level that Saturn did actually physically,

athletically, or professionally. So you kind of go from there. Jim turning 26 in May, someone who had come into the WWF at the end of the year, man tar man tar oh god little did I know

when I was laying on the floor of the room downstairs in front of my mom's color TV in 1973 watching Yukon Moose Cholak that I would come as close as you could to manage your name in 1994 or whatever obviously not but a nice guy

sound like Lance Russell a nice guy there Lawler but nice guy but no all right Jim we're moving on here with the list turning 29 in November from WCW Ice Train okay

what was his real name or do you even remember oh I don't remember he was managed by Thunderbolt Patterson yeah he was like he was like a modern version of a now this is oh my God now I've lost the other guy's fucking name. Remember with Nighthawk Coltrane.

When Dusty found or somehow Crockett Promotions was alerted to, but Dusty was the Booker, they were alerted to this guy of, I can't remember what his first name was, but Nighthawk Coltrane. And they pushed him out of nowhere. They put him on television. They wanted a black baby face,

especially for the Atlanta market. And it just didn't work. And it was sort of like a, you know, search for a new Y.D. in Mid-South. You just couldn't do that again. It was too big. And then later on with ice train,

I believe it was basically the same thing, right? They took a guy that nobody'd really ever heard of, but had been, had some level of training. and here he is and then there he was. That's really what I remember. All right, so not on your list. 25 in June, Hector Garza.

Not on your list. All right, we can just say not on your list. And I know people are not saying, well, goddamn, on the other list, he could fucking tell you Wild Bull Curry's Social Security number. Because I was paying more attention in those years and also there's a lot more of these guys that just popped up out of fucking

Wartberg. Well, Jim, turning 29 in October wrestling mostly in Japan, Horace Hogan. Good Lord. He legitimately was the nephew of Hook, correct? Right, I guess he would have been the son of his brother, the biker, that they talked about in that documentary,

right? He kind of looked like him. And, I mean, I think they called him Horace Boulder at one point in Japan at first. Did they not? That's right. And I guess he probably got a spot in Japan because of Hulk

and then he got a spot in WCW at one point for a while because of Hulk. WWF2. When Hogan came back in 93 for that brief period of time, he worked a house show run as the predator under a mask, Horace Hogan. I did not know that.

Well, see, that's what they should have done because besides the fact that he was not Hogan or anywhere close to him, the first name of Horace sounds like, he sounds like a fucking moron to begin with. And they should have made him somebody else. And in those days, it would have been a lot easier to keep from the public that so-and-so was related to Hoke than it would be today,

which would be impossible. All right, not on your list. turning 26 in November Hayabusa Oh gee, did he not die in a ring accident? He was paralyzed in a ring accident or paralyzed, I'm sorry.

Obviously, after this particular year, he would be on this list. Not on your list. Yeah, I can tell you. I don't know what's... A spectacular dive in the J-Cup that look great in highlights that year. Jim turning,

And then was later on was paralyzed. 29 in January. It was an accident. It wasn't his fault. I know, but it's spectacular dive one year is paralyzed another year. Turning 29 in January, Mike Awesome. Boy, howdy. He had a lot of fucking potential, but it went south and quickly in WCW, didn't it?

Wasn't that where they kind of made him a goof? Or did he get to, was it WWF? Well, WCW, he was wrestling law for FMW, started working for ECW in 94, made a pretty big splash because he was a big guy and he could do dives. And he did that dive to J.T. Smith, they used it in the open for years where J.T. folded in half backwards over the guardrail. It looked incredible. Somehow J.T. lived. It was incredible.

and then he would finally get a run with ECW where I guess he agreed to give them dates and not go over to Japan, whatever it was, and then he jumped at WCW. And then it's when Vince Russo made him that 70s guy. That's right. Mike, awesome, very talented guy, but I don't know if I'd put him on the list.

And then he was run out of the business and shame after Russo got finished with him. If you ever watched the one-night stand, ECW pay-per-view event, the reunion when they did him and Tanawks. who had those brutal matches in ECW years earlier. That ECW reunion audience fucking hated Mike Awesome.

It was something to see. Jim, another one I'm going to just say in advance, not on your list, 28 in April, El Samurai. Adi! Saja! I don't know what the hell that was, but El Samurai.

I was using my sword to Volushi, the water villain. El Samurai, one of the wrestlers in the New Japan junior heavyweight scene during those years that I never got at all. But moving on, Jim, turning 27 in December, Eric Watts. You know what I'm starting to see? I'm starting to see that on our 1980, as I go through these names, our 1984 list, it was hard to pick people to give a checkmark to, because there were so many fucking top names that were drawing money at that time and that were being featured in main events across the various territories and that would go on to have Hall of Fame careers.

And now what I'm seeing 10 years later is there's a lot of guys, a lot of names, but maybe not everybody is either on top or drawn or going to go on to be a Hall of Famer. am I just imagine Aitin that or Brian or is that what you're kind of gathering aughton as we go down this list yourself? You know, it's hard, I guess, to see a lot of the people that weren't wrestling from WWF or WCW, not even talking about Japan, but just other companies in the States. A lot of these guys have not been, you know, no-brainers. We had a lot of no-brainers.

I mean, I remember going through. Like, the first names were like Barry Windham, Dynamite Kid. I mean, it was just, it was no-brainers. And we had several no-brain for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, literally seven and a bunch of question marks. It shows you a lot of the differences, but let's get a few more names here, Jim. Well, anyway, back to the name that Eric Watts, you know, bless the young man. It just, he wouldn't as, he wouldn't a complete George Goulis on the George Gullis scale. he was like two-thirds of a George Goulis.

He had a little bit, obviously, better physique and a little bit, obviously, better athletic background, but he didn't translate naturally and went on to pursue other endeavors. You never thought about bringing him into Smoky Mountain to see if you can get anything out of him? No. And not even because I'm not even saying he was that bad. that I wouldn't use him.

But just that of what purpose after he's been working for WCW, which before that I didn't know he's a goddamn wrestler to begin with, so I wouldn't have brought him in. And after WCW, he's been used to, they weren't drawing my crowds bigger than mine, but they were making a lot more money than my guys were making. He would have literally added nothing to the car that would have justified me paying him.

him more than the guys that were already on the card that were in some cases adding to the card. So why do that? I never heard, you know, by the same token, I don't remember when he was done with WCW. I assume sometime around the time that Bill was, but I didn't get a call either like I did from Oly. hey you know they screwed my kid around he wants to get some experience can he work for of course he can't but if you had gotten that call from bill watts would you have tried as long as he would have worked for the same thing that bryant was working for yes and would be able to drive to the fucking towns which bryant could because he lived in

Atlanta but eric i assume was either living in oklahoma or florida maybe he was still in Georgia, whatever the fuck. But I would have tried it and put him on underneath if, you know, if that was the case. But see, Bryant had not been actually featured on television. He'd been in the power plant. So he was just, and he was, and also his father had smartened him up, look, you dumb shit, you want to do this? You're not going to make any money. So he had realistic expectations.

I never got a call to tell me that Eric Watts would not expect to be used on top or have some level of pay like he had in WCW, and that just wasn't going to take place. All right, not on your list. A few more names here today and that we'll finish the 20s list next time. Maybe even put together our final list. Jim turning 27 in April, and I'm not sure exactly what name he was used. using in 94. Doomsday. Doomsday was one of them for sure.

Glenn Jacobs, the future Unabom, Isaac Yankham, and of course, Kane. Fake Diesel. And fake diesel. This was the year before I got him. Dutch Mantell was responsible for him this year. He was working in Puerto Rico.

And, you know, again, would go on to become a Hall of Fame guy, but at that point had been in the business, what, a year and a half, and almost nobody knew he existed. So by the strict rules, you know, we don't need to go down his history. Everybody knows from there, but at that point, he ain't nobody, Puerto Rico. All right, well, not on your list here for 94.

If we were doing 95, it may be different. Jim turning 28 in November crashed a Terminator Bill DeMott Hugh Morris and other fucking pun names that our friend

Mr. Rousseau gave him to liken him to a dick or a fucking clown or whatever that I crashed the Terminator I wasn't crazy about the name I didn't name him I booked him and smoked him and smoke him mountain a couple of times. He came over the guys that were with Victor Quinona's going to Japan and back and Kevin Sullivan.

He could move and could work for a guy that size at that point in time. And then after he got out of the rig and they made him the trainer and, you know, the tough enough, whatever the fuck. And I don't know, I haven't talked to him in decades and decades. I understand he didn't become a real popular individual and wanted everybody, I guess, to get the shit kicked out of him in training all the time.

But again, there's a lot of guys on the card here. Is anybody on the list? Well, again, very talented guy. I always enjoyed Crash Determinator, although he didn't wrestle that much in the States. He was wrestling mostly for IWA and Victor Canona's in Japan. Jim, the final name here today, an interesting one, turning 22 in January, Brian Christopher. At that point, Brian was already main eventing in Memphis, right? He was the next son to come up as a main eventer after Jeff Jarrett became Brian Christopher.

he would still have the best couple of year run probably in Memphis ahead of him. What really, 94, 95 to the time they closed, that was probably, you know, Brian's best stuff, but he was already on top there. And he was just, would he start in New York, 95 was it? Or was it early 96? I mean, you know, again, he was. doing as much as anybody could in the way of main event and territory. And he had an upward trajectory again just because it's 94.

Are we going to have to at some point put more question marks down? If you asked me off the top of my head before thinking about all this and having a list, I would say I probably would put him on my list. And thinking about it now, I still think I probably would. Again, we don't know how things are going to play out. Don't know what his future is. he was already a good worker, he was already a good talker. Oh, he was a great promo.

He was a great heel promo. And he was really good in the ring. And he was doing super kicks and stuff before everyone else was, or before everyone was doing it, I should say. He was really, come out to I'm too sexy. He had a whole thing and he was really good. He had the whole showbiz because there was so much of young, young Brian and Brian Christopher.

Young Roller, he was. Well, young. young Brian Lawler and Brian Christopher. That, you know, there was, he just, he blossomed as a personality, and he was, he was an over-the-top fucking guy. You knew when he came in the room. But here's the question for you. If he was the exact same wrestler he was, exact same promo, same height, same talent,

everything was the same. But he was more mature. But he maybe had Jeff Jarrett's head on his shoulders. Would his career played out differently? Because, again, we're talking about 94. Oh, good Lord, yes. I think he's a complete candidate. And I think if you took out a lot of his personality and his personal issues,

he would have been a great talent for the next 10 years in the business, at least. Oh, easily. Well, wait, about what's his birth date? Longer, I guess. Yeah. He would have been, he would have been only 40 years old in 2012 and have 2012 and have 20 years experience in the business. So, you know, if he had not been,

and I mean, he had plenty of experience in the business, but unfortunately for the last however many years of his life, a lot of them, it was all indie shows and shit around Memphis and working in parking lots. And he was a, he could have transitioned to commentary because he was so quick and the way he could talk. he could have been a little weasley manager after he wrestled his wrestling the size wouldn't have been a detriment as much as it was in his youth

because the guys all got smaller as we now know I got physique wise he looked like goddamn luger next to some of these guys today so yeah he would have been he would have been making money in some spot for a bigger company a lot longer than he was if he just had not been his own worst enemy. And we didn't know that was the way things were going to work at in 94. It seemed like, you know, from afar, you knew the people involved a lot better than someone like me. But it seemed like from afar, wow, this guy's the future. Yeah.

This guy's going to be the future. And again, he wouldn't... Well, and from up close, you know, yes, you didn't know what you didn't know that he would develop tendencies into at that. point. He certainly wasn't that way then. I remember when we went down there for Smokey Mountain USWA in 95, at the Louisville Gardens, they had a videotape, and I wanted it because I'm a Brian Christopher fan. I'm like, oh, what could be on the best of Brian Christopher? I didn't get it because it was

like a, I think it was a $25 VHS that they advertise as being 30 minutes. And I'm like, who the fuck is buying this? But obviously someone must have been there. But so I don't know. I mean, let's put it to you. Let's put a question mark down. Yeah, I think he's a legitimate candidate. I think this may be one of the last years he would be. He would never have a goofy.

He didn't have any goofy gimmicks yet at this point in time. Nothing. And he was a main event guy in one of the last territories. And you didn't hear the complaints that you heard about a George Gullis. Even Jeff Jarrett at times. Yeah. You never heard that about Brian Christopher because he could deliver. He was a great, like, snotty fucking heel that you wanted to see get his ass kicked.

He could deliver and also they didn't admit it to begin with. Well, Jerry Lawyer didn't want to let people know that he had kids that were wrestling, right? Exactly, that he was that old. But nevertheless, all right. Brian Christopher, 22 years old on the question mark list. And there it is. That's what we're going to do today. And no one has been added to the list.

Two question marks. Ray Mysterio, who turned 20 at the end of 94. and Brian Christopher, 22, and like you said before, it really stands out compared to 84. The wrestlers in their 20s. How many of them is just, it was clear cut. And here, not so much, but a lot of this, I think, is the shrinking business. The variety of places you could work, the variety of people that can get pushes, were down to the nitty-gritty here in 1984.

for shrinkage. All right, Jim, well, we went a little longer with that than I was anticipating today, but we were having a good time. However, with that, I'll get this. The drive-thru is closed. What a good tune. Where did that go? That went.

Oh, let me grab this. Ladies gentlemen, I'd like to apologize for the show actually falling apart while you're listening to it. and back to you, Brian. Back to me, Brian. You know, before we get out of here, I promise songs for weeks and weeks, so we've got to play at least one song here today. I hope you understand.

If that's okay with you. Oh, well, I guess I'll listen. All right, well, here is a song. Of course, you can send your parody songs or original songs. No AI to Corny Drive-Thru at gmail.com. Let's get at least one. Sent by Aaron D. Donato, aka Captain Corum.

let's hear this and then when everyone calmed down Roman told him to do it and then he splashed and he beat up Eric Andre a couple splashes and a couple of splashes

one wasn't enough for a comedian I don't know what Eric Andre is in or has been in or whatever but I would assume he's not built like Lugar oh no

no no no no no no no No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Nobody should splash a comedian more than once. Nobody can do bucking like they should. Oh, boy. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. to the ring like Fautus nobody talks really slow like Fartu's nobody splashes

comedians like Fautus nobody repeats angles like Fartu's and if once a moan splash can finish a big bad pro wrestler oh then who should splash comedians twice I wonder and so I asked Jim Cornett and here's what but he said to me, well, Corny told me nobody. No, Paul's crew, nobody worships Shittler, like Paul's crew. Nobody comes off with porno names like Paul's crew.

Nobody can't count splashes like Paul's crew. Well, Corny told me nobody. Well, there it is. Aaron D. Donato returning Captain Corman in Wilmington, Delaware with nobody but corny. What do you think of that, you? Well, and the links he went to. He got the Antioch Children.

choir there to do the backups and I applaud you sir for your creativity and the guitar solo was scorching I like the sound good job Alan D Donato thank you for once again sending in a song send more when you get a chance what does the D stand for Jim this was sent by Michael O'Dowardy County Donegal Ireland let's go to this in a smoky haze built like a bulldog lost in the A cheeky little cherub from Chernobyl town The radioactive rascal tipping 800 pounds Awesome rip, he's absurd or grand A pint-sized kid in the wrestling

Now let's stop for a moment here because I think this has to be AI, right? I don't know, but it would tickled me He drink swam A pint-sized kid in the full grown man Gravy Rivers. Well, it's it. They're your submissions, Brian. Are you speaking to me?

That's right, I was. But thank you, Michael O'Dowardy. Thank you, Michael O'Dowardy, for sending that in. Yeah, if that is indeed your real name. I think that's his real name. One more here, this one, it's always a chance. This was sent in by Stefan and Auburn, Maine. Let's go to this.

who are the horrible people and if it's I think he's saying the horrible people are the fans that go oh you shouldn't call it that but then he's saying that it's not up to him he doesn't care they can call it the motor driver but they get upset if he's been at much time on it he cares for one thing but what he's saying though is it's not me it's them they care who's them is it Tony or is it the box

no no it's horrible people in the middle somewhere but they're a not except today who are we the horrible he hears their voices jim are we the horrible people the horrible people the horrible people oh my don't the horrible people the horrible people the horrible people the horrible people the horrible people for kukabonga attack the peaches before we finish show show to becha but did you notice that there's something long change the drive handles

calls the heart the sound is the key forget it I'll let me stop it for a moment like most

I think I can hear my vocals better than theirs yeah I don't know if he's like doing this in middle the night he has to whisper

what he's doing but there's always interesting vocals from Stephan at Auburn Maine thank you for sending in that one more

from Stephanie sent this one in let's go to this Oh will you come to their land both hill and baby face

They even made a bet of their own The superstars impress Yet they're women underdress They've got you covered To each their own It begins, Lady Pink Has the powerless rest And the pyrotechnics

Ignites Walked around just to find H2O I can buy Saudi Arabian fights At the Korean Skathe At the Korean Skat So what?

What you're saying is nobody is ever going to request that we bring songs back anymore. I'm about to get an angry phone call from my music publisher. That's right. My music publisher over here. Well, thank you, Stefan from Auburn, Maine. And that will be our final song here today. And more, when we have more, but with that gym, we are ready to wrap things up. I can't even.

I've run out of words. You can hear more on the experience in a few days. Please run out of words. Next week back here on the drive-thru, of course, go through the archive, patreon.com slash cornet. $5 a month, patreon.com slash coronet.

The official Jim Cornett YouTube channel subscribe today. Full episodes, clips of the episodes, artwork by George Livonitis. Just search for Jim Coronet. It'll pop right up the official Jim Cornet YouTube channel. I'm yelling Cornett's collectibles.

What's going on, Jim? Sales continue. At Jimcoronet.com. Of course, the drive-thru is brought you by the law office of Stephen Pino, 87750, Steve. Get even with Stephen at new law office.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!