Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru - Episode 464

Episode Date: October 9, 2026

This week on the Drive Thru, Jim reviews WWE Raw, previews Money In The Bank, and plays Guess the Program! Plus Jim answers YOUR questions about Vince Russo complaining about The Rock, Lou Thesz's Hooker, Jerry Valiant, 6 man tag championships, Paul Heyman not being a "manager", what if the Curtain Call had never happened, and much more! Thanks to our episode sponsors: HELIX:  Get 20% off sitewide exclusive to our listeners at helixsleep.com/JCE. RIDGE:  One thing to pack, five ways to power! Get 10% Off @Ridge with code JCE at https://www.Ridge.com/JCE #Ridgepod FACTOR:  Head to FACTORMEALS.com/jce50off and use code jce50off to get 50 percent off and 1 free breakfast item per box for 1 year, while supplies last until 10/31/2026. Send in your question for the Drive-Thru to: [e-mail]  Follow Jim and Brian on Twitter: @TheJimCornette @GreatBrianLast Merch! https://arcadianvanguard.com/ Join Jim Cornette's College Of Wrestling Knowledge on Patreon to access the archives & more! https://www.patreon.com/Cornette Subscribe to the Official Jim Cornette channel on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/OfficialJimCornette Visit Jim's official site at www.JimCornette.com for merch, live dates, commentaries and more! You can listen to Brian on the 6:05 Superpodcast at 605pod.com or wherever you find your favorite podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'll roll back over here. And you are our friends. Welcome back. I don't know what the groaning is. Welcome back to another edition of Jim Cornett's drive-thru right here where we review the grunts and groans of the professional wrestling business. This has already gone off the race. I'm your host, the great Brian last.

Here he is the star of the show, the leader of the cult of Cornett, Mr. Jim Cornett. Yeah, the solo went off the rails is what it. It was once again a frantic cry for help from some possibly some mental health agency. It sounded like a fucking instrumental from the hands of Orlack. That's a deep cut, kids.

Look that one up. It's spooky. But you have an, you have the hands. of last. Nobody else could have ever owned those hands that would play that type of dissertation there. You know, no one sounded like Chuck Berry, even if he was out of key. Some of us masters have our own sound that is ours, uniquely ours. Eddie Van Halen, that's Eddie Van Halen sound. And I think it's the same thing. Did Chuck Berry ever record any, any jailhouse recordings? No, just bathroom recordings, from what I understand.

Bathroom recording. Well, the echo was better in there. I spent some time in a bathroom. I made a mistake last night. I ate popcorn. What's wrong with that? Popcorn's awesome. Well, yeah, I used to eat a lot of popcorn. If I'd go to the movie, I haven't been in the movies in a while,

except last movie I went to was the one I was in. But there's home popcorn. You may have, it's a recent invention. You may have heard of it. But I haven't had it because it's got some, I like salt on the popcorn, Brian. It's got salt in it already. And I like to add a lot of salt, and I tried to cut that out.

So I had not eat popcorn in a while, but I had a bag of popcorn last night and salted it to the gills. And it wasn't the salt that got me. I spent a half an hour this morning flossing my teeth. Was it just stale? What are they making the popcorn out of the, has popcorn been recalled and I didn't hear about it? when you said you have the home popcorn microwave popcorn stove top popcorn or something that's already been badged well no the the home microwave popcorn see now in recent years see before you had you had to go to the movie theater to get to popcorn but now much like the pudding pops they have the popcorn that you can pop at home and you just put it in the microwave there they've had that for a year or two now and that's what i had but boy half of it got stuck i'll tell half of it got stuck i'll lost weight, flossing my teeth from that shit. Well, I was more, I'm like, wait, what the fuck is?

I kind of gobbled it down right before I went sleep. Was it Pop Secret or Orville Redenbacher? No, I don't know the brand because it was dark in the kitchen when I went in there. But it wasn't Orville Redenbocker because the name wasn't that long. See, he'd have a hard time passing a name test, too, to get him on the marquee. He just looks like someone who would make Popper. and sell it. Hey, try my popping corn here. Yeah, he looks like somebody would hand you out some kind of free treats at the fucking

mall. I don't know if it would necessarily need to be popcorn or what. All right, so it wasn't over... He drove up in that panel van. It wasn't Orver Redenbocker. You don't know if it was pop secret or not because it was dark. So it was an off-brand or a mystery brand of microwave popcorn. I don't know. Stace goes to Aldi. And sometimes, and comes up with brands of shit. I've never heard of.

Like Fred's donuts. Who the fuck is Fred? And how did he make the hole in those donuts? See, I don't like brands that I've not heard of in common everyday polite conversation. What are you laughing at me for? They got to start somewhere. I mean, every company has to start somewhere.

Well, they can practice on somebody else. I want my donuts made by a craftsman with years. years of experience. Well, we're talking about popcorn. You went to the donuts. Well, the same thing. If they're going to grow the pie, I want them to know how to grow the popcorn and not

poison it, not put some kind of chemicals, pesticides on it, not put fucking apparently shrapnel in it. Did you enjoy it? It just, well, I enjoyed it, but I was sleepy and it was dark. So you didn't have any problems until this morning, and you had some kernels in your team?

I just wanted something. a stick in my fucking stomach down my neck that was quick that I had to fuck with and I just stuffed some popcorn in my mouth while I was finishing up the last part of history's greatest mysteries on Stonehenge. Did you make the bag? I woke up, it felt like I had eaten some of the gravel from Stonehenge. Did you make the bag or it was already made it and on the counter and you just took some out of no, I made the bag, I'm not going to eat just goddamn old fucking already pre-made

and sit around goddamn cooled off popcorn. I've got that I can't live like a savage. What's the matter with you? What are your thoughts on Jiffy Pop? Oh, I love, that's what Mama Cornette used to make. And that was the big fun. It was watching her shake that thing on top of the stove, and it would blow up like a bullet.

Do the kids even know what we're talking about? Oh, they have to. It's still around. I don't know how popular it is, but it's still around. I haven't seen any. do any jiffy pop in ages or a commercial or anything. But kids, it was a metal aluminum foil pan with a cover, with an aluminum foil on the top of it and a handle.

And you would shake it and shake it back and forth over the heat. Because if you left it, sit there, it'd just burn the corn. But you would shake it back and forth as the corn popped. And the balloon-like aluminum foil on the top would expand into a giant fucking basketball-shaped thing that was cool to watch when you were five years old in the 60s. And then my mom would take, she didn't care, she didn't believe in long fingernails because it hampered her yard work, which was her favorite thing to do.

But she'd keep one fingernail a little longer than the other because that's what, her popping fingernail, she'd pop that dagum, the country's coming out and be now aluminum foil and the steam would come out because if you just stuck your finger in it, it would burn you, but she had to vent that thing or it'd get soggy. Boom, and there's jiffy pop.

What were we talking about? Look, I'm a jiffy pop. I did it for the kids like a year ago, and I didn't remember when I was younger and I would try it, but my parents would do it. I didn't remember that handle just being a pain in the ass. Oh, no, no.

You'll be crippled. You'll have carpal tunnel syndrome because it's just a coat hanger bent in half. I keep getting these ads on Facebook because they must know I like popcorn. It's like this giant pot. It's like, it's the popcorn pot or whatever it's called. That's not the real name. I don't remember what it is.

But you put it on your stove top. You put all the popcorn in there. You add some oil. You close it. And then it has like a built-in thing at the top. You stir it. You go around and around and it keeps moving it around as opposed to having to shake the jiffy pop. You just have to do that.

I'm like, man, even that seems like too much work. I just want it done. I talked to Suzanne by getting one of those like movie-style popcorn machines for the basement. Oh, come on. Now, then you're just all going to have high blood pressure from fucking sodium. Is popcorn high in sodium if you don't add a lot of salt? Well, is popcorn worth eating if you don't add a lot of salt? Well, I think butter is more important than salt.

You could have good popcorn if it has some butter, you won't mind the missing salt. No, no, no. What the butter does is make it. soggy and reduces the crunch and also gets all over your hands, henceforth, all over your clothes, and henceforth, depending on what age group you're in, in the movie theater, all over your date's boobies. So you stay away from the butter at all cost. I learned that at a young age. I used to love going to the movies of butter tits. No, I think if you master it and kind of like as you push down the butter, if you masturbate, what? I said if you're masterbate, what? I said if you're

master it, you push down the, it being the butter thing at the movie, if you push it down and you kind of shake the bag and you can get some sort of distribution of the butter. Yeah, popcorn. Yeah, popcorn. Yeah. What would it take to get you back to the movies? What would it take to get you back to the movie? And then you got to have a special tool to cut that hole in the bottom of the popcorn bucket.

Yeah. Again, you know, whatever unsolved. crimes from the Louisville movie theaters they were 40 years ago. I think we're finding out who did it. No, there was no nothing that was no well, it depends on

if there was a law on activity and private vehicles and the showcase cinema's parking lot. But I got an email here, Brian, which actually, I think he sent it to you too. I think everybody's got it. But from

Kevin and where is Kevin from? I want to bring this up. Kevin is from Celebration, Florida. What do they got to be so happy about down there? Where's that? I have no idea. I've never heard of. Is it in his own mind? Does he exist in a world of his own? Come with me and you'll see a world of imagination. I just watch that Willy Wonka show on Netflix with my kids. They love it. Where they do Willy Wonka competitions. They get the golden tickets. They do Willy Wonka things. Do they have a special deal where they stick a fucking air hose up some of the kids' asses and see which one floats the top first, like, what you call it, did?

They have a chocolate river, and they have all sorts of games where candy is kind of covering things, and I watched this one, I don't know how to describe it, where you had to jump over, like a candy candy. Candy is covering things? These people, I don't even know how to describe it. They jumped over a candy lake kind of thing, but like the wet goo of the candy was everywhere, so they couldn't climb up to rescue their partners. It's on Netflix.

It's wonderful. They tape that in Celebration, Florida, is what you're saying. That's what I'm saying. Kevin may have worked on the crew. Kevin has too much time on his hands. It's what Kevin's problem is. Kevin may be actually institutionalized in some fashion. Because what he has done,

only a sick person with a lot of time would do, but he has gone back through the guess the program omnibuses omniby and the 10 later sessions of that we have done since that omnibuses has happened the next omnibus yeah

and he basically kept track of the guesses the cards and the scores the statistics here are remarkable for something that took so much time and is yet so fucking mean meaningless. And so I thought the people would like to, we'd like to hear how pathetic Kevin's life is. Oh, come on now. Let's hear what Kevin. So we're going to, no, we're going to bring us all out in the opening here. Here is what Kevin had time as apparently a grown adult with an internet account.

He had time to do this. There have been 55 games of guests the program and 263 guesses. Wow. This is as of drive-through episode 460. And here's how the records came out. Now, comparing mine and yours, there should be some caveats here. I've only done it a few times. It's all been you, really. Well, exactly.

Because I have a 27.5% win rate. But now it gets better. 68 wins, 120 partials, and 50%. 59 losses in 247 guesses. You have a 37.5% win rate, six wins, seven partials, and three losses in 16 guesses. So you got the higher percentage, but... Batting average.

I got at least partial credit on 188 of the 247 guesses at 76.1%. I got the city or the territory right on 172 of 241. That's good. That's really good. But I only got the year right on 83 of 247, which is 33.6%. The year was usually the sticking point, but again, it gets better. Of the 201 times that I picked a single year, 601 times that I picked a single year, 601, 6,000, were exactly right,

75 were only one year off, and 65 were two or more years off. I missed by one year more often than I got the year exactly right, but if you combine those two groups, then I'm within one year on 136 of 201 guesses or 67.7%, baby. That's really good.

You think or our boys, our friends, our lifelong pals over at prize picks, going to start doing more or less of me, you think? I don't know. I mean, it's a hard game to do. You know, if you really think about it, what do you think would be the hardest thing for a wrestling fan? Is it the year or is it the town?

I think it's, well, year or town, I think it's almost got to be for the older stuff the year. Well, we'll get to that in a second. For the older stuff, the year, for the newer stuff, the town, because as the territories, especially with the 80s,

they started running the same lineup or nearabouts in so many different towns. But nevertheless, I don't have the email open. Does he say how often you got the town wrong, but you were like within the territory or within X amount of, miles of

Well, hold on, well, because there's a lot and I don't know if I can read all of this, but I wanted to get to you. Oh. Well, and my wrong year guesses leaned more recent than the actual card. 82 were too recent, 58 were too early, but you were usually close on the year too. Seven exact answers and five one-year misses put him within one year on 12 of 16 guesses for 75%. I'm hitting 750. How about that?

Yeah, you're hitting something else too if you think you're but nevertheless. But listen to here are my win rates by decade. 1930s. Zero of nine for zero percent.

How could that be? We've done he said nine. We've done a lot of those. I can't believe you've never gotten to 30s? No, we've only done nine of the 30s. according to. Huh. Because in the 1940s,

I got three of 15 for 20%. See, that's what I've said. Back there, it's tremendously difficult unless it's a famous event, famous show, whatever, to get that far back to get the year right. Yeah.

1950s, 9 of 64, 1960s, 17 of 64, 26%, 70s, 18 to 49, 36%. 80s 20 of 44 for 45.5%. And then we've done two in the 90s. I got one of them, so 50%. And then Boston was a problem for me.

I got the city or territory right on all late Boston cards, but the year only once. There's some other details here. Oh, my biggest year, miss was 12 years. I guess Paducah, 1968, and it was Bowling Green 1956. Huh. I remember that one. But anyway, and the cities

that we've done and et cetera and things that we'll get into later on, and Kevin, I'm sure you'll still be listening because you're obviously in a straight jacket. You're a madman. But there's a lot of a lot of work that went into this. Oh, the oldest dated program was Los Angeles, 1928. Yeah, it makes sense. Wow, there you go.

But there you have it. But you know what? I got one more piece of mail, Brian, to read from one of the listeners. And unfortunately, it's not as, it's not as good. It's not, it's, we've caused a serious, problem. We got a problem. This is from Chris from Aurora, Illinois. And Chris says, Jim,

my wife recently confronted me and asked me a question I never thought I'd be asked. Why the fuck does it say hooker on our calendar? Of course, in an effort to remind myself that Lut-Thes' autobiography was going on sale, I wrote Hooker in all caps on Saturday, October 3rd. My wife thought I was looking for a sex worker. Fuck Scott Teal for almost ruining my marriage. Scott Teal is such a nice guy. He's probably cringing and blushing right now. The last person to say that was Jackie Fargo.

Hey. Which of those things? Why the fuck does it say hooker on our calendar? My wife thought I was looking for a sex. All of those things might. You know... Applied, but nevertheless. I remember when that book first came out, and I had the same thought.

Notwithstanding his reasoning and what a hooker was, really, but at that point in time, it had already kind of been firmly established as meaning something else to the point where there was no coming back. So, I mean, a great book. Everyone should own it. Everyone who cares about wrestling history should purchase a copy. Scott Teal has done a fantastic job dressing that thing up. and of course they're available at court as collectibles,

but this guy's right. I mean, Lufet is going to pick anything. The fact that he went with Hooker was a bad decision. Well, but see now, he definitely, in his generation, fit that description. When did Hooker come into favor in terms of a lady of the evening? It's what the nom de plume used to be. Was that, what was that?

What was that? Like the 40s, the 50s? I don't know. Whatever, right after a hoochy-coochy dancer, I don't know. But do the kids know, Brian, I'm wondering, do the kids know these days what Hooker means in a wrestling context? I think the kids probably have no idea what it means because it's not used, and it hasn't been used in that context in a long time.

It's before Thess put out the book. Do you think we have, since my definition of kids, is anybody under 45? we probably have some of those listening. And guys and girls, I'll explain then, everybody still knows what a worker is. It's always been in wrestling that a worker was a guy who could work a wrestling match.

And everybody still knows what a shooter is. That's a guy who is the real deal on the mat or in the ring as far as he's a shooter. he can fucking fuck you up. But a hooker was the step above the shooter. And this goes back to the, obviously the same thing as Thess, the 30s. And before him were the guys the George Tragoses

and the Ray Steele's and the Strangler-Lewis and the guys that taught Thess. But it was a... And I mean, there's some wrestlers exaggeration. probably, well, yeah, I was a hooker, you know, but these guys were the real deal, as time has shown. And the hookers were the guys that knew the shit that the, even the shooters and the good amateur wrestlers, either it was outlawed in amateur competition. It was breaking bones or tearing the shoulder out with the double wrist lock, the

Camura, that these guys were using before Camura was born. and he prided himself on being one of the last generation of real hookers. And what was the subtitle of the book going to be, Brian? Do you remember that on the manuscript, which we've got, and I'm trying to. Yeah, have it in the other room. I'd have to grab it, but I have it in the other room. Well, basically it was the subtext, which once again was, or subtitle, which was too long for the goddamn cover eventually, was the,

the wild adventures of a dangerous man in the crazy world of wrestling or something like that. And so Hooker, the Wild Adventures, etc., etc., etc. And it became just Hooker, because what the fuck? But that was, and, you know,

that's why that even when, even when Luthez was 60, and I saw the guys in the locker room were out of there, yes, sir, no sir hey leu how are you sir they were very polite and nobody wanted to fuck with him because even then it didn't take much for him to just take your arm and go someplace with it you wouldn't work for six months but anyway you can read the book about this individual who can no longer

take your arm and go south with it but can take your mind back to the pioneer days of wrestling as part of the holiday sale at Jim Cornett.com at Cornett's collectibles. And the update on the portfolios, both great wrestling champions and Memphis Wrestling Legends, is there were down to about the last hundred of each out of 250 after the first 48 hours. So if you want them for Christmas to make sure, I would suggest going ahead and making the plunge. But while you're there, I will remember.

you that if you buy a copy of heroes and friends, my outstanding book, then you can get a copy of the graphic novel behind the curtain for only $10, because they make great stocking stuffers. If your lady that wears stockings has some really

fucking deformed thighs, because they'd have to be real wide and real thin at the same time to really... But nevertheless, and Santa Corny, the action figure for all occasions, but I'm wearing in a Santa hat, baby, and it's red and green themed. Santa Cornies for Christmas are only 2995,

along with copies of Hooker and all of our usual foolishness at Jim Cornett.com. Cornett's collectibles holiday sale. I mean, the book could have been, we can do this the easy way. Dot, dot, dot, dot, the story of Luthez, or, you know, champion. The Story of Luthes. and Don Fargo already took the hard way. Not with Lady of the Evening by Luthan. Well, yes, not a rent boy. What was up with Dusty bragging and promos on TBS about spending time with Ladies of the Night?

I'm sorry now? He was bragging. I remember he did promos where he would be like, I'm with Ladies of the Evening, whatever he said. He said it on TV. Oh, I thought you meant it was telling some story about some night he spent with a hooker or whatever. He was talking about Luthas.

No. No, that's a little bit more of the superstar Billy Graham jive, maybe a little Tom Schaft influence that he was I've wined with kings,

dine with queens, slept in an alley and eat cold pork and beans. I've spent time with the latest of the evening, that type of thing. That was when, And remember in 76, 77 or so, that's when he was wearing the brightly colored felt hats and the fucking,

and he'd have the, you know, and even the first TBS promo that I saw him do live. So I was at my uncle's house for, and they had cable, a primitive version of it. And he said, psychedelic camel lady, smooth in here on my putty face

and my beautiful hat and let me show you my million dollar smile and then he just grinned and framed it with his fucking thumb and hands and just held it for like 10 seconds and I'm like this fucking guy is great but nevertheless I love that clip of Cody Rhodes on Unreal

where he's in front of the truck and his dad is on the truck smiling and he goes my dad used to call that his million dollar smile but the thing is Nobody smiles like that. Yeah, it looked like he was being electrocuted. Once again, Hooker, available at Coronet's collectibles, Jimcornet.com, certainly a book that every wrestling fan should have on their bookshelf. And by special arrangement with Scott Teal's Crowbar Press,

who is now, unfortunately, the, I guess he'll be named. What do they call him in the divorce? proceedings, not the respondent or the complete, but the fucking co-conspirator and the love triangle. He broke up the guy's marriage. He broke up whose marriage? Oh, that guy. Oh, the guy from email.

Oh, that guy. I was thinking of Fez. I'm like, he's dead. No, no. Scott, Scott was always just merely platonic with Charlie. All this hooker talk. All those nights they spent together in the Super 8 over in. This is the Super 8. This is getting out of hand.

Ladies and gentlemen, and Cordets collectibles, Jimcordet.com. Jim, you brought it up. Yes. Why don't we get some guest to program here at the start of the show to put us in a good mood? Well, there you go. Oh, yeah, because we're so somber right now, but I won't argue with you. Today we'll do nothing but programs from the 20s because obviously.

Oh, God. So well. No, we have a bunch of programs here. Of course, guest the program is where we go through programs from my collection. I will quiz Jim by giving him the card and some other details. and he will tell us everything he can conjure up. We're looking for the date. We're looking for the location.

Maybe the venue. The price of the program, we will see what happens. Let's go to this one, Jim. There's a big card. The first main event will be 7.30 p.m. The first main event. First main event 7.30 p.m. The Great Bolo versus Tom Rice.

Good Lord. Preliminary bout. Carl Davis versus Johnny Demchuk. The second event, Joe Blanchard versus Johnny Berend. We have a special event, Vic Christie, versus Jungle Boy.

Good Christ. An added attraction. Perry, I wouldn't have thought was that old. An added attraction, the Cisco Kid I was a friend of mine versus Johnny James Johnny James

the brother of Jesse James I'm getting ahead of myself but he really was go ahead the semi final event Juan Humberto versus Jesse James

and finally Jim the second main event Bo Bo Brazil versus wild Bill Longson. All righty then. Good God. Here's the great bolo in the first match could be anybody or anything.

Tom Rice, why am I feeling that he, is he the guy that was a politician in Alabama after he got out of the business or am I being an old person and transposing his name was someone else. I'm not sure, so I can't help you either way there. Johnny Dimchuk wrestled when people still saw in black and white.

Joe Blanchard is on the card, so that means this is somewhere more recent than like 1948. Now, with handsome Johnny Barron on the card also, he was one of Buddy Rogers' guys, Barron and he and the magnificent Marine, Reese were a top team in Madison Square Garden and the Northeast in the late 50s. Vic Christie, Joe Blanchard would be noted for Texas,

except that this is too early in his career where he was not there yet. Vic Christie was a noted personality with his brother Ted in the Los Angeles territory in the 50s and they were big ribbers from what I understand I think is as some stories are in Luthez's book Jungle Boy, that would have been the Jungle Boy that Mula seconded Tony Olivas, only Olivia's Bobo Walvus

I can't help you because there are no pictures of him in the program but I could see that as a fair assumption The Cisco Kid was definitely not the guy that was starring in the TV show, but that's why they ripped it off. And a Cisco Kid was one of the hot westerns in the early 50s, the James brothers, Johnny and Jesse,

Juan Humberto. How can we overlook a superstar like that? So we come down to Bobo, Brazil, and Wild Bill Longson, and this wouldn't have been when Longson was NWA champion or world champion or elsewise Bobo Brazil wouldn't have that name it doesn't seem like it would be a card that would be in St. Louis

Longson may have still been traveling could it have been Alabama that long ago I'll give you a clue The program is 25 cents Boy, that's expensive for those days All right, I'm not going to dither any longer I'm going to say the year

Just based on Bobo Brazil and Bill Longs And being in the main event, the year is 19 Ooh, but wait, there's more He pulled Thunderball Patterson out there Do you hear that? I think it's, oh, but wait. If I only had time, I'm thinking the James Brothers and Christie in California could be San Francisco and Bobo.

Work for Joe Mancowitz before Roy Shire started promoting. Is this the San Francisco Civic Auditorium in 1953? Jim, it's another. Cal Eaton Sports Enterprise. Son of a bitch. The Olympic Auditorium, Los Angeles, California, Wednesday, March 2nd, 1955. Well, I got the year wrong, too. You know what, the way you tried to put that together, though, was great in terms of the

Cisco kid being on TV. You know, that's kind of a real good clue right there. That I didn't pick up on it. And I didn't think they'd have the guts to fucking rip off the intellectual property, 15 minutes drive from the goddamn studio where they're shooting the show. It's before people really enforced or understood intellectual property, but who knows. Inside the program, a photo of NWA World's Heavyweight Champion, Luthez, International TV champion Wilbur Snyder,

former junior heavyweight champion Wild Redberry, and also former junior heavyweight champion Danny McShane. All right, Jim, our next one here. The opening contest, Mike Hammer versus Dan Davis. Jim Nidehart and Davy Boy Smith versus Scott Ferris and Hubert Gallant. David Schultz versus Mike Shaw. Leo Burke and Brett Hart

versus Duke Myers and Kerry Brown. And finally, the main event, The Great Gama, versus Dynamo. a Mike kid. Okay. We are back in the 80s and out of the country. This is Calgary.

Don't need to go in it. Well, unless you're slipping in a fucking program from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan on me. But it's the Calgary Stampede Wrestling Territory. Mike Hammer, I remember

he came to Tennessee for a brief period of time in like 76 was on a couple weeks cards here in Louisville as I recall and we never saw him again but didn't he have he's the guy that they told a lot of strange stories about let's just put it that way Wayne St. Wayne yes he used to tell a lot of crazy stories about his behavior he would tell them and then of course if you'd run into the heart family as I did and you bring up, hey, I know Wayne. I had Bruce, Ross,

and yeah, I guess it was just them. Student didn't really say anything. Both immediately go, degenerate, complete degenerate. It was a degenerate. This is before Degeneration X, by the way. They were using that word. I guess that's where Brett heard it. Degenerate.

Just wanted degenerate. I liked Wayne, though. I thought Wayne was a nice guy. But apparently a different, unique type of individual. and he's wrestling Danny Davis my the major domo of Ohio Valley wrestling and an owner, founder, operator and manipulator

until it went to shit after he retired and the inmates began running the asylum obviously Jim Nighthart and Davy Boy everybody knows who they are and Scott Ferris was the can he work at one point, possibly a little bit later than this, his earthquake Ferris, maybe in Kansas City. He was not related to Wayne Ferris.

The big, big guy. And Hubert Gallant is one of the, I can't remember the first God. I've seen his name for 40 years. I can't remember the first fucking Hubert Galant match I've ever fucking seen on tape or anything. David Schultz against Mike Shaw, who would later become

mock and sing and we've talked about his run in in Calgary being great as a heel and working with Owen Owen's rookie year and then them turning him into Norman the lunatic in WCW and all that went to hell. Leo Burke was a member of the Cormier family in Canada. The Beast was a brother and Leo Burke was and Rudy Kay, and it was a whole family that both promoted and wrestled out of, I'm bad on my far eastern Canada geography, but was it New Brunswick, possibly Newfoundland?

It wasn't Nova Scotia, that was Al Zink, and anyway, Duke Myers, I managed in, he was a fucking hell of a worker, and nobody would realize who the fuck he was. was these days. But he was a big guy that when he worked in the Tennessee territory in the early 70s, he was partners with Terry Garvin and they were managed by Jim Garvin when Jimmy first got to business. When he turned 18, they let him bleach his hair and go on the road with him, Ron and Terry. And then Ronnie got a singles gig in Florida that paid money. And Terry got Duke Myers as a partner for a while he was like 290 or 300 pounds and a head like a goddamn medicine ball and he was in the territory i remember when i first started watching the show and then went other places and he spent

a lot of time in calgary was there for years and then came to tennessee in the first part of 83 and you've seen the picture brian of when i was managing duke mires and jimmy was managing duke mires and jimmy was managing Bobby Eaton and we put them together as the super team so that the fabulous ones could kick the shit out of him for a month or so. Duke had lost like 50 pounds and was still like six, three or whatever and had that giant head. He used a headbut as a goddamn like a heat spot. and then Carrie Brown was Bulldog Bob Brown's nephew that was actually, from what I remember, better than Bulldog Bob Brown was. So they were the heels, obviously.

And again, Duke Myers, what a fucking worker he was. I wish more people could have seen his shit. And then Dynamite Kid, everybody knows, and the great gamma was because it was Calgary. and the great gamma of types always worked his heels. That's why Mike Shaw became muck and sing. So the question is, what year is this? I'm trying to remember when Danny was,

because later on, Danny and Ken went as a team, Jim Nidhart was in the business, but it was before he went to Mid-South, so this is definitely pre-Hare. mid-83 Schultz was there so was Duke Duke came to Memphis but he didn't stay for long

in early 83 would this but then Knighthart was lower on the card there but I mean they rotated Danny was here until he was out would this have been 1982 in the Calgary Pavilion

Come to the pavilion Jim the date Tuesday December 7th 1989 How Regina Saskatchewan Canada You son of a bitch

You did slip me a goddamn Saskatchewan You know I think you said the terror I mean you started honing in on Calgary I mean that was your fault but uh yeah I mean you're talking about the territory here Well I didn't know that the people outside Calgary in that territory could even read so they'd sell them a program. I mean, we're talking moose jaw and lockjaw. Well, here it is.

All those fucking places, they're covered over with ice nine months of the year. They don't fucking read. They use the fucking programs to line their, their fucking igloos. What's the name of Stu Hart's column? You guessed it, for your eyes only. All right, there's that program, Jim. Where you see provocative photos and he tells ribbled stories about how they made Dan and look like some kind of hoor. All right, Jim, here's a good one for you.

This is probably pretty easy, but still, it's an interesting car. Are we going to do a real show today? I hope not. Go ahead. The opening contest, Jim Backland. I was, Jim Backus. I think it was Sherwood Schwartz in the opposing. versus, funny enough, Mr. Magoo, no, versus Chris Champion.

Good God. The Falcon versus the Smasher. A taped fist match with lumberjacks with Kendo sticks at ringside. Kendall Wyndham versus Kendo Nakasaki. A title I will not name is on the line. two referees, title Can Change on a DQ. Cowboy Ron Bass versus Barry Windham.

Lex Lugar versus Mr. Kareem Mohammed. Oh, yeah. Humberdink will be handcuffed to the ringpost. Anyone interfering will be suspended. And finally, Jim, a lights out. New Zealand.

Steel glove pole match. No one. rules, no time limit, the fabulous one, Steve Kern and Stan Lane, versus the sheepherders. Oh my God. Okay. I'm glad you brought this one up because ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present my case on hot shotting. This was the classic example. It's the poor beleaguered Florida territory. It is the year after Eddie Graham committed suicide, it is falling apart.

Dusty took all the, well, it didn't take all the top guys that don't want to slander anybody, but I don't have the whole talent list. But Dusty took a lot of the top talent when he went to work for Crockett in 84. Then Eddie was gone in 85. And Vince is marching

across the country and the TVs are down, the territories down, the houses are down. They're about to sell to Crockett and all Crockett wanted was he didn't want to run the towns, he just wanted the TV markets

because they did have such a good TV, they had television in every fucking place that had a television station in Florida and other parts. But

nevertheless, this is what hot-shotting is when you're going to taped fist lumberjacks with Kendo sticks in the third match. And by the way, the Kendo sticks came from, it's a martial arts weapon. Kendo Nakasaki had a Kendo stick. They didn't just, everybody didn't just use them indiscriminately.

It had something to do with the actual guy, so even in hot-shotting, there was some type of logic. But then you've got the title you wouldn't name. And you've got the fucking Lugar and Kareem Muhammad with Humberdink with the stipulated, blah, blah, blah, and the lights out, New Zealand, steel, cage, glove, whatever the fuck is going on. And this is when, as we've mentioned, Stan Lane was like, what the fuck is going on here? We were one of the hottest tag teams in the business a couple of years ago, and why are we here?

And Steve Kerr was thinking about going into real estate. And fortunately, throw out the lifeline, throw out the lifeline. And the poor sheep herders, this was, my God, well, they would go to, they would go to work for Watts and have another good year. and then the territories were gone and they were gone. So this is either very late 1986 or very early 1987 just before Crockett bought the company and Stan started with us in the first week of April, 1987.

And it's in Florida, and my God, this could have been and, you know, Fartwell Springs by that point. But just to pick a town, would it have, would this have been Tampa or possibly Orlando? Jim, Tuesday, September 30th,

1986, the Spartan Sports Center, Tampa, Florida. There you go. I think you can win on that one. But that's what it is, Every match had a stipulation, and it wasn't like in the old days with you, oh, the Superdome show and every match has a stipulation, you could almost feel the desperation, right, in all of this.

And by the way, I didn't even talk about the talent, though. Jimmy Backland is Jimmy Delray, who would start with us, what, seven years later, as one of the heavenly bodies. I don't know who the fuck the Falcon and the Smasher were that was still the original Kendo Nagasaki correct? What was his name? Well, the original one in the States. We always hear from British

Yes, the British fellow was, but the original the original Japanese gimmick kind of Muda-esque Kabuki-esque Kendo Nagasaki. But what was his name? Sonata, was it, or was it? I think so. He's the one that got killed in some type of air disaster. No, not Kenner. Or am I thinking? No, no, no, no. Kendo Nagasag. You're thinking of

the magic dragon. I'm sorry. Because he was the partner with the fucking wasn't he with Gary Hart as Dragon Master? Or that was a, that was, oh, fuck, nevertheless. See, that's why they ought to let people keep. the same gimmick, whatever they travel around. Kendo was the Dragon Master.

Kendo was the Dragon Master. All right. Nevertheless, my old pal, Oliver Humper, Dick, Kareem Muhammad was Ray Candy. And that was, he would be pretty much in the 90s doing Indies because after the initial little run

with WCW is, what was their gimmick? The, oh, for fuck, say. Oh, you're talking about him and Grizzly Boone? Yes, the commandos. Commandos. I was after him and Leroy Brown had teamed up. Yes, but the commandos always tickled me because there's no way they could have passed

any goddamn armed forces examination. That's like 450 pounds apiece. All right. Who's who next? All right, this next one here, Jim, interesting card. A tag team match, George Becker and Johnny Weaver versus Al Green and Don Green. Wow.

Reggie Parks versus Jack Vansky. The semifinal Hans Schmidt versus Guy LaRose. No, I'll fuck you. It does not say that. That's what it says. Guy LaRose.

Okay. All right. I'll go with it. The main event. Pontchovia versus Lenny Montana Good Lord talk about the world's colliding

everybody on this card is a misfit George Becker and Johnny Weaver were for years the top baby face tag team in Jim Crockett seniors Mid-Atlantic Wrestling and Johnny Weaver was the young hot shot that would make the tag to the wily veteran George Becker

who had been in the business since the late 30s, and he was still the Booker and working in 1972. Alan Don Green, the mean greens, the heavily bodies, probably one of the top three in terms of longevity and box office, heel tag teams in history of the Tennessee territory and they stayed there so long and were so dominant back and forth for the various people that promoted the Tennessee territory but

I would have bet money that that match never happened and I'm thinking it happened when Alan Don were more toward the Carolinas than Becker and Weaver were toward Tennessee but We'll get there in a minute.

Reggie Parks was not only a wrestler, but the guy that made all of the title belts for a period of time in the business. This was before that. He was just a young whippersnapper with a hell of a set of abs at this point in his career. But Reggie Parks is the guy that Dave Milliken looked up to and took over for,

was mentored by whatever. Tiger Jack Vansky was a longtime journeyman heel. That's why I'm leaning toward the Carolinas here because of this. And also, Han Schmidt was the first major network television, early 50s, German heel, just six, seven years after World War II. and he didn't go so far as to have the insignias or the signage or whatever. He didn't do the Nazi salute or anything like that, but just that he was a big fucking German guy named Han Schmidt with a bald head

and an ugly face and was kicking a shit out of people was enough. And he had nuclear heat. And I think, and I've seen this reference because I remember talking about it years ago, at least once, but he was one of the five highest paid athletes in the United States in the early 50s because of him being on top in Chicago, Brian, on the Kohler TV and blah, blah, blah. But the reason why I said, you're bullshit and is because Hans Schmidt, the German heel, his real name, he was a French-Canadian guy. and his real name is Guy LaRose. It's going to be an interesting match in a semi-final, Jim. Well, it makes me think that this is on the,

I don't want to say downhill. I saw Han Schmidt on the Sheik's TV in like 1972 at Nailola's house. He was still working, and he worked for the Sheik, remembered him back from the salad days. This is later in Han Schmidt's career, but it's not that late. It's after he was on network television, but still a name,

and they probably just booked him to be a draw, and as a rib, George Becker, who may have been the booker then. Probably said, fuck it, I'll put him against some fucking schlub. And Poncho Villa and Lenny Montana. Lenny Montana was obviously,

he transformed himself into an actor. I don't know how far the Godfather was along in his acting, but he was a wrestler and he was also legitimately a, shall we say, a persuader for the fellows up there. I don't want to make you uncomfortable, Brian, but I know you've said before that there's no proof of the mafia. It's just all Hollywood. But, well, he was doing it in New York, though, for the guys that Hollywood studied.

And then they hired him to consult on the Godfather, right? And then he got a part in that and had an acting career also. But this was before Hollywood and just, you know, talking about the fellows and the wrestling. By the way, everyone brings up the Godfather, they're naturally one of the greatest movies of all time. Then one of them brings up that he was in The Jerk with Steve Martin. You know, I forgot about that until just you reminded me because I hadn't seen the jerk in 40 years or whatever.

But yeah, and Pancho Villo was just a wild gypsy fellow. So the point is this is somewhere in the Carolina's territory. And because Becker and Weaver being a team and I think Weaver didn't start there until 1959 he was working for Barnett in Indianapolis before then as Johnny Ace. That's where Dusty, as a rib named

John Laurenitis, Johnny Ace, because Dusty loved Johnny Weaver and he was wanting to pop him. And he didn't think Johnny Laurenitis was going to go anywhere anyway. So this would be an Alan Don Green were a team in Tennessee territory in 57, but

they wouldn't have been personalities to be booked out. This is the early 60s in the Charlotte Park Center in 1962. Oh, good God.

What? Jim, the Charlotte Park Center Monday, February 26, 1962. How? Bull's eye, Jim Crockett. Wait a minute, hold on. That's not celebratory.

Ooh, who, who. Well, that's, all my other sound effects, your goddamn noise filter fucks them up. So at least I can grunt like a pig over my victory. Championship wrestling is a weekly sports spectacular under the management and promotion of Jim Crockett. Matches are presented each Monday evening at either the Charlotte Park Center or Charlotte Coliseum. This program is subject to. change, the promoter is not responsible if contestants failed to appear in the ring due to

conditions beyond control and reserves the right to change the order of events. When possible, substitute matches will be arranged. A few interesting things in here. One, A new tag team makes its debut in the number two bout tonight. George Becker, Long A favorite, joins forces with a newcomer who has been very impressive in recent weeks. Johnny Weaver So this is the first time he teamed up. Good Lord. And this next thing opens up the mystery. Yeah, I just keep your finger on where you're going.

But when Johnny Weaver was doing the color on Crockett's syndicated show, the BNWA Pro, and he was doing it. We were doing it live to tape and the commentators were right there at the table at ringsides. So I'd go over and needle the commentators every once in a while, right? One day I went over there and I said, Weaver, shut up. George Becker carried you on his back for 20 years. Oh, my God.

And that was the rib because at that point, Weaver was the young, fresh-faced, like 20-something-year-old. Becker was. He got-deam, he was as old as the fucking hills when electricity came to Arkansas. Another interesting thing. And let's see what we can find out. Maybe some listeners will get in touch from the program here. every so often wrestling fans are on the scene for a genuine died-in-the-wool-grudge match.

Tonight we will see two of them. Two weeks ago on television wrestling, Guy LaRose lost in a match against the tough German, Han Schmidt. Schmidt won the match outside the ring, even resorting to the use of a metal folding chair, which he used very effectively on La Rose's head. How dare he? These things don't happen.

After the match Schnitt, after the match Schmidt, denied that he ever used a chair, even though thousands of TV fans plainly saw the action. He was in a snit about it. Well, LaRose gets his chance for revenge

he so rightfully deserves in tonight's semi-final action. My friends, that bout should be one of the all-time great grudge battles. However, it's only the beginning because the main event will feature another, and Let's stop there.

So who was Gaila Rose programmed against the real Gailer Rose? Now I'm dying to know. Was it a friend of Schmitz that came in to work a program with him? I have no fucking idea. Well, Jim, I know we usually end on a bullseye, but one more program here. Sure. Well, I'm hot. I'm hot, baby.

The opening contest, or at least the first bout listed here, Buddy Austin versus Tony Marino. The Miller Brothers versus the love brothers. Which two? Hold on. It does not list them here. Let me see if there's another place in the program that says which Miller

brothers. I do not. Well, it would probably be Bill and Dan. But we don't know for certain, but you may be right. Yeah, I don't see anything that says it. For a tag title, I will not name. Dominic Danucci and Tony Parisi. versus the fabulous Fargoes.

For another title, I will not name. Bo, Brazil, the champion, versus Johnny Valentine. Bruno Sam Martino. Good Lord. Versus Luke Graham. And the main event for a world title. In a German boot match, the champion Waldo von Erich versus Hans Schmidt. Jesus Christ on a cragger

Hans is everywhere Um okay this is a novelty Uh buddy Austin was a top heel in the late 60s and early 70s He was over in Florida and killer buddy Austin

killer buddy Austin And didn't he have some type of major injury? What happened to Buddy Austin? I don't know. He was a star in California too. He was a star in the northeast at a time. And then he kind of something happened. Yeah. Then Tony Marino, again, I was just talking about Hans Schmidt working for the Sheik a lot. Tony. Tony Marino was a top guy in the Midwest for the Sheik and also in, oh, let's say places like Cleveland or Buffalo for the Pedro Martinez promotion.

Bill and Dan Miller there was also Ed Miller, he was the big one, but he wrestled more briefly and earlier than this took place, which is the early 70s. Bill and Dan Miller against the Love Brothers, Reginald and Hartford,

who were a top tag team coincidentally for that Pedro Martinez of what It was, they didn't, they didn't call it the NWF before Inoki bought it. Did they? What was? I can't answer. But it wasn't the I-WA because that's when he was involved with.

Right, that was 75, 76. Yeah. But never, moving on, Danucci and Parisi again, Dominic Danucci, who trained Mick Foley and Shane Douglas, Brian Hildebrand, and was apparently for what we heard in the Observer last week. and we know this to be a fact, but it just went on and on about it, was the hottest drawing baby face in the 60s that Jim Barnett ever had in Australia.

Because there was a big Italian community there. Tony Perisi, same thing. Big Star in the Midwest, North Ontario area. The Fargoes at this time would have to have been Don, obviously, and his brother Johnny, who was Greg Valentine,

before Johnny Valentine, wanted anybody to know he was old enough to have a son that looked like Greg Valentine. And coincidentally, Bobo Brazil and Johnny Valentine are in the next match. And the title that you were not going to name would have been the end, it was either the NWF or what, the North American.

I'll give you the title. It's for the U.S. title. U.S. Oh, wait. Wait. This was Bobo's U.S. title.

This was Bobo's was the champion. Yeah. Well, but was it Bobo's U.S. titler? Was it Sheik's U.S. title? Hold on.

I'll get there. Bruno Samertino against Luke Graham on this card tells me that this was in between January 1971

and December 1973 when Bruno was not the WWWF champion. And Waldo von Eric and Han Schmidt being in the main event tells me that this was a Cleveland or Buffalo big event in 72 or 73 that except Johnny Powers is not on the card. so that doesn't quite click but it still has to be that it was that territory in 72 or 73 that would come that we know is the Pedro Martinez territory

Buffalo Cleveland whatever the fuck help me you got to pick a town and a year you gave two years and two towns you got to pick one of each oh well shit okay um 19 because of the Fargo's together and Johnny Van Bobo 1972 in Cleveland, Ohio. For the first time in show history, we have back-to-back bullseyes. Ah! Jim, the Parade of Champions, Cleveland...

I got to say that in English. The Parade of Champions, Cleveland Arena, Cleveland, Ohio. The date May 4th, 1972. Okay, and the reason why I asked, Bobo may have been the United States champion for the Sheik in Detroit at that time and since they were neighboring territories he may have

Martinez and Johnny Powers maybe he was hurt whatever he was usually his Booker but may have brought that over as an attraction because there was TV overlap Bruno obviously was doing a favor because this was when he was working part time between the first time he lost the belt and the second time he won it back.

And he only worked for the promoters that he liked and only shots, not like regularly. And just Hans Schmidt, I think that's where he finished his career. And as I've said, I saw him the same year on Sheeks TV up there in the Midwest and around Canada because he was Canadian. And... It's crazy having the two Germans feud in the main event. a German bootman.

But Han Schmidt, by that point, would have been a baby face. See, because Waldo was the new fresh, you know, heel guy and Han Schmidt's, the guy. We were watching him 20 years ago. He'll kick Waldo's ass. But the thing with Bobo, that's with the U.S. title, in the Northeast, that's what they gave Bobo in the late 50s, early 60s. I don't even know if there was a belt to it. Or it just they made because Bobo. was a bigger star in Washington, D.C., especially,

but in a couple of the heavily African-American markets they had than the WWWF champion, then Bruno. So they made him the United States champion, and I don't think he ever lost it, and they only defended it in the places where he was more over than the world champion, but he could have used it to other places. That's the point I was making.

What did you think of the Sheiks belt, like the actual look of it? The one that had the gold outline of the United States, right? Yeah. I thought that was genius, actually, for the United States title, and they had the same one. See, that was a goddamn Kamikov belt. So they made that same one for the Carolinas also. Because I saw somebody on Twitter the other day was freaking out, asked the question, well, how can this, I thought that was the sheik's belt.

How could this guy have it? He was looking at the Carolina's belt somebody had. That's, I liked that. It was different and it made sense. Well, there it is, guest to program, two bullseyes. And of course, just to answer your other question as we end this, all bouts under the direct supervision of the National Restoration. Federation and President Wallace Dunk.

Wallace Dunk. Wallace Dunk. He was a local entrepreneur. He was in charge of the dunk tank at the county fair. What name does Dory Funk Jr. used checking into a hotel, Wallace Dunk. Well, Jim, congratulations. A successful guest to program. And before we move on here with the show, you know, that went pretty long.

maybe a good time for a nap. And of course, nap time makes you think of sleep time. And sleep time makes you think of the need for the right mattress, one that you will love, your family will love, every one that you get one for will love it. Our great friends at Helix Sleep have great mattresses like those I described. It sounds like you're in need of some sleep. You've been working too hard lately.

Maybe so, maybe so. But if you are starting to babble just on and on without putting a period on on anything while circling around the point, but never actually hitting it right on the head, folks, we've got a remedy for you. Get a good night's sleep. And that's how I got a good night's sleep last night. That's how I was able to win at guest the program because I've got all my faculties about me. But if you're not sleeping well, then you may not have all your faculties about you. And if you don't have all your faculties, then you may do stupid things like falling in the fountain at the mall, while you're looking at your phone.

So, our friends at Helix offer premium mattresses and bedding that are customized to fit your personal needs and ship directly to your door, or as we've mentioned in the past, if you raise your window, they can kind of shove the box in. You've got to take it from there, though. But Helix has over 20 unique mattresses to choose from,

as well as a variety of mattress toppers. and Brian, you know, you just can't trust the ingredients in some of the mattresses these days. Now, Helix, they're good. They know what's going in these things, but you, just like the food that's been recalled, you see all the news stories now about the mattress recalls for broken glass and bits of some disgusting genetic matter, DNA, you know, they're actually, they're going to all the mattress testing stores now they're collecting people's DNAs. That way, if they've laid down on them and they get the DNA, that way they can,

it advanced, solve crimes. So if you don't want your DNA in the hands of the federal government that's going around to all these mattress stores and picking that up, just go on helixleep.com. That's the way to do it. That way you don't leave any genetic material on a mattressesleep. that can be used against you in a court of law. That's a good loophole, in it, Brian? I hate to call it a loophole, and kind of what you're saying is partly true,

but maybe not the best direction to push people or... Well, now, you know, when you go to one of these mattress stores, you lay down on one of those testers, you're mixing your DNA with the DNA of a thousand other souls. And possibly the souls of some people's shoes. because so it just depends on whether they were walking on it or not. So if you're happy with doing that, then you might as well be happy with giving it to the federal government

or just order a clean mattress that's never been used by quality professional people and know what they're doing. And they ask you the questions about how you like to sleep and whether you like it hard or whether you like it firm or whether you like it on top or whatever the case may be. and then they direct you in the area of those mattresses. And they can cool you off or they can heat you up. And as a matter of fact, some of the mattresses have a built-in tanning bed also

where you can not only get a good night's sleep, but you'll wake up a whole different color. You don't, and tanning may be a little dangerous for you. Be very careful, ladies and gentlemen, but they don't have that. They don't offer that, and I don't believe they will. Did they discontinue that? I think they had an ordinance against that. What is forever continued as being part of the catalog or the fine great mattresses that are comfortable and, like Jim said, soft or firm, depending on how you like it, and give you what you want, our friends at Hilley.

They really want to give it to you hard, though. They really want to give it to it. But also, free shipping and seamless delivery and the 120-night sleep trial and the limited lifetime warranty. They limit it because, let's face it, folks, nobody lives forever and you're not going to. so they're going to limit it to your lifetime, and they're just going to roll the dice and hope that you're either old or sickly. And folks, also the happy with Helix guarantee means that you can rest easy, no pun intended, with seamless returns and exchanges,

because the customer comes first. But remember, it's only where you get on a mattress where the customer has already come if you go to the store. if you order them from helixleep.com, they haven't been, nobody's come anytime on. Helixleep.com. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. Slash JCE. That's the code you need to use because you're going to get 20% off. Now, see, if you go to the mattress store, the only way you get 20% off, you have to take off at least some of your clothes.

At least that's what my experience has been. But you can get 20% sent off at helixleep.com just using the code JCE. It's just kind of like the special knock. The code JCE is your

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Once again, everything else aside, a great mattress for you and me, we love them here in my house, and I know they love them at Castle Cornette. And once again, ignore some of what you heard, but pay attention to the part about how great the mattress is. Jim, one final time, Heelix Sleep. Well, I don't know why they'd want to ignore anything. Helixleep.com slash JCE and also get at least one of the kids mattresses to put down at the bottom of every staircase in your home. I understand that reduces serious injuries but up to 40%.

Just lay it right down at the bottom of the stairs. Helix sleep! All right, we're back. There's a neighbor's gardener somewhere in the distance and you hear a buzzing behind me. It's not me and not my people. It is something else. I hear somebody buzzing.

Well, Jim, are you hearing a lot of buzz about WWRWA these days? Yes, as a matter of fact, I heard a loud noise because they were in St. Louis and Sam Muchnick started spinning so quickly in his grave that he created like a 5.6 on the fucking Richter. Sounds like you watched Raw. I watched Raw, yes, yes, from St. Louis.

What is it, the Enterprise Center now? Oh, Mr. Keel. He took his name off that fucking thing. By the way, did you know that Keel was a politician, in the St. Louis area is what they named the Keel Center and the Keel Auditorium and all those keel things after. I was not aware of that until I read that somewhere. Yeah, I didn't know that. You don't give a shit either, apparently, do you? No, I think it's interesting. You never think about it. You just kind of accept these names, the Keel auditorium. Who the fuck is Keel? The Kobo was the one that

got bad. The mayor of Detroit apparently was his name Albert Kobo. The Kobo arena. It always sounded cool, but where else do you find a co-bo? Bill Shea was one of the guys who spearheaded getting National League baseball back to New York after the Giants and the Dodgers left and finally the formation of the Mets. And for that, they named Shea Stadium after him. See, you just always, you just take it for granted. Well, it's Shea Stadium. There was a Shea. He said one day he was there and he heard a couple people talking about, who's this Shea guy?

And the other guy says, you know, he's a guy who got killed in the war. So they're in the stadium, and he's like, yeah, see how much good it does me? No, it doesn't even know who fuck I am. Well, but no, it's better because fuck, instead of just being some guy that helped baseball, he's a war hero. See, look at it that way. Anyway, Sam Mutchnik was in the war. And then he got out of the war. And then Martin Fez took off.

Yeah. No, I had a little bit more patience than normal on this one because the pups watched it with me. But again, it's impossible to watch this show live for me because I will go out of my mind. I've certainly got something else to do than sit through the commercials where at least they put the timer on it for you. now add one of eight three minutes 259 258 so what are they thinking people will take a sprint to the bathroom or the kitchen but when they come back it's a travel log it's a drone shot it's another commercial with with some of the WWE talent eating food that you know that they can't eat and still look like that. Or they're trying to sell us something they're doing or advertising the next big pay preview. By the time that you're just, and there's no on screen fast forward on my Netflix.

I don't know what to tell anybody. I've heard that it exists somewhere, but it don't work for me. And I'm watching a thing after it's already over with. So I'm skipping some things because elsewise, I would lose my fucking mind. This is a goddamn infomercial on public television at 2 o'clock in the morning with 20 minutes of stars of wrestling doing angles mixed in it. You know, you're not... What do you think? I think maybe you should start watching it as painful as this is on the computer instead of the TV,

because then you have the scroll bar for Netflix and you can kind of scan forward, maybe keep a better eye on things than not having any ability to fast forward. I spent all my life trying to make enough money to where I'd have an 85-inch television, and now that I've got one, you want me to watch this fucking computer?

Well, they were in St. Louis, and the bloodline last week was hurt, and attacked, and scorned by nine, which now is not their area code, it's just the first three numbers of their zip code. But how are they going to get their mail? Now it's an incomplete number. Nobody will know where to send the cards and letters.

I can't take this shit seriously. Did they really say that? I didn't hear that. Is it the first three? Yes, no, that's the first. Because there's several zip codes that encompass like Oakland and fucking Wartberg.

I don't know what the fucking geography is, but it's all their home area. And they edited, apparently,

running over Jacob. Now, again, I didn't watch it live last week, but I saw the car run over him. But then I've also

seen people tweeting clips where it was blacked out where that when who's he what's he opened the door to hit him in the head that went black for a second and then when the car ran over him that went all the way black until car had finished running over him

so that Netflix is censoring and editing and they there was a statement it may be due to worldwide partner requirements or whatever the fuck but weren't they just talking about when they went on Netflix. Well, now we can say shit. Yeah. No rules. No more censorship. Instead, it was more commercials than they had previously somehow. And it's as censored as ever. And black and white, if it gets bloody. So I don't, I, but I think the key was more commercials

everywhere somehow. So anyway, Jacob got run over. So if the back, the back, of the building again, Roman pulls up at Showtime. Fuck it always tardy. And he meets the Usos and says, well, we need to talk. Like, how's Jacob? Oh, like,

I got run over last week. How's Jacob? And suddenly, LA Knights' music starts playing and LA Knights going to the ring in the building. And so Roman's like, they get interrupted, right?

But first off, again, how is Roman so disconnected from this whole goddamn thing that he needs to pull up at showtime and ask his stooge cousins what's going on or tell him we need to talk? These crazy kids, they do a thing on their phone now called text where they type messages to each other.

They don't have to talk on the phone now, Brian, it's goddamn, it's amazing. I'd never do it, but I've heard about it. You know, despite this awful thing happening, WWE did put it on YouTube, so one of his cousins could have sent him the clip. Hey, look what you missed.

Something big, something you may want to know about before you come back to work. It said he rolls up like, what have I missed? Where is he? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bring me up to date. So poor L.A. Knight went to the and got the chance and the cheers,

and he cut a good promo, as usual, about to match with Roman and money in the bank. And the thing that I was thinking is, the only thing missing in this whole thing is that the way he has been booked does not let the fans believe him. And some of them can want real hard to believe him, and they still cheer because they like the promos because he sounds like a wrestler.

And he's just got to bullshit. But they haven't booked him in a way that anybody, and remember last week or whatever it was, he had to actually do a promo, like a lot of you people probably don't think I win the big one. No, because you never do it. It's not your fault. But this was a good promo,

but I don't think anybody believes him, do you? I don't believe anyone believes them. And also, I don't, unfortunately, I don't think at this point they're going to do anything bigger with them. So I think, you know, sadly, you don't believe what he's saying. Yeah. Well, and I don't mean that they believe anything like he's saying, and it's sunshine out today. I'm talking about believe he's going to beat Roman, is what I'm to let me clarify that.

And then Roman's music plays. And here comes Roman. Slowly he walked step by step. and he still gets the OTC chance. He's a heel, but somehow for whatever, it's just, that's, they don't care. He's what's going on. It's like the Rocky Horror Picture Show at this point.

And he cut to promo on LA night. And, you know, he's like, you, you, you, you about here, you've said way too much. You're just going to be another egg in the omelet, which I kind of, I got a kick out of that, to be honest. but Roman does a good promo too when he's not doing it in the middle of a match with no microphone we have to just listen to the announcers

layout while he but nevertheless he cut a promo on LA night and then he told him in St. Louis to acknowledge me and he started to walk off and L.A. night spun him around and said you're the most manufactured corporate puppet ever and he knocked his fake team and I kind of like that too

and say I'm going to beat you at money in the bank and I don't he ain't going to do that but that was the opening segment between the two of these fellows and there were some pointed comments made about broken eggs and omelets and fake fucking teeth so I think it's somebody

somebody may be hospitalized out of this and L.A. night is over but Roman is much more over so it was a weird reaction where you have two baby faces and there was dueling chance, but it was pretty clear the Roman chance seemed to be louder. Yeah, and the thing is, you don't have two baby faces. You have a fucking

healed dick who they just cheer for because he used to be a baby face and then turned without anybody really noticing when he started telling his fucking Stoge cousins what to do again. And they just reset the whole thing and nobody picked up on it until

they boo him whenever he's being a dick to like punk or a really over baby face. But I'd, it's about time someone called them out for those teeth, too, because they're so bright white

that it stands out, why wouldn't one of his opponents make fun of it? You know, it just seems like a natural thing. Yeah, he'd come out there and say, you know, Roman, you got the whitest teeth I ever came across. See, he didn't say that, thankfully. I was afraid he was going to go there. I was like, oh, no, don't say it.

I'd have said that. He could have said that on Netflix. except for their international commitments. Vince could have said that. Vince probably has said that in the past about a variety of... This is my Roman reigns. The egg. That was more raw, Jim, more raw.

Yes, more raw that what could be more raw than an egg. Okay, so you, you said, oh, last week you didn't watch Javon Evans and Pinta's match. with Hoosie and what's he and they had a real good match. Well, now Javon and Penta were wrestling Bronbreaker and Austin Theory. I said, I'm going to fucking watch this

and there wasn't much to it. They do the same thing now here that AEW does. They can have a jumpstart on the floor and have a big four-way and guys can be hit with sledgehammers and pneumatic drills and whatever the fuck and cripple each other and break bones. And as long as two guys roll in into the ring before they bleed out,

the referee will ring the bell to start to match. When did this become a thing in wrestling? I don't know, but you said it before. We see it all the time now, both companies. And one would think at least this, one of the last vestiges of, any kind of rules in wrestling is the WWE, they'll fucking

disqualify you for looking sideways at somebody. And they are now doing this horseshit. So they just they had a fight that was kind of the same old boring shit on the floor where they run each other into the rail and do stuff. There's no there's none of the Dick Murdox

to show people out of fight around on the floor anymore. They do the same. shit. Then they rang the bell and then they just stopped Javan. He did a couple of things but then they just stopped him. It wasn't like a heel heat spot, a two on one behind the referee's back, whatever fuck. They just cut him off. And Braun as usual, very aggressive, gave Javon a belly to belly over the top rope to the floor and they went to the

break. I don't know if they were two minutes in or whatever. I'm all that. Because when they went to the commercial break right before the match, they announced the match was coming. I went to the kitchen to grab something and Suzanne was in there, so I gave me a minute or two to catch up with her. I think I was in there three and a half minutes. And when I came back,

it was add one of seven. So I went right to another cycle of commercials. You missed one of the segments and got back to see the next commercial break. Ridiculous. You're not running fast enough. you really got to get in there in the middle now. So they came back, they got more heat on Javan, the Steiner Bulldog off the top, that was nice.

Then Braun speared the post, going for the spear on Javan, and Javan just looked up and nobody was trying to stop him any tags pent. Cold tag. I hate Penta's comebacks, these fucking headstands and goddamn forward rolls, and bullshit, it looks awkward.

That's what Bobby Eaton, I talked to him one time I was in Knoxville and he was still in WCW and they were just using him part of the time and do jobs for people, whatever. He said, corny?

He said, I don't know what I mean? These guys I want to work with anymore. He said, because this is when Conan had first come in down there. And he said, he said he worked with Conan and Conan shot him off and as he shot him off he called clothesline and he said corny when i got to the ropes by the time i was hitting the ropes turned around he was doing a forward roll at me i didn't know what fucking did

and then he found some of the forward roll and when you stand up you can close line harder or something or other he's like i don't know what the fuck they're doing anyway where was I? So then theory stopped Evans. Oh no, Penta, after he did his awkward comeback, he just tagged Javan back in. Just gave him a flat-footed tag, like, here you come back now.

And then theory stopped Javon. They really are making him the underdog. And the girl drew the referee, and Logan Paul tried to slide the nucks into the theory, but Javon, he slid up. him too far and Javan got him and did a nice piece of business. He nailed theory and put him in his trunks and hit him and cover one, two, three. So at least Javan got to fucking win for the team.

And then Bronson Reed came in and demolished both of them and splashed Penta and went to splash Javon, but Oba came out. And he made a come, he made two comebacks because he made a comeback. then the heel stopped him and then he came back up and made it come back again and cleared the ring on everybody and he cut a promo on read for money in the bank

so that was quick and exciting and good but as far as match there wasn't much of match there to have or to see now last week's was better I raved about it to you I really liked it it was better than this this was fine It was just fine.

The Bulldog looked really cool and the fans barely reacted to it, which isn't good when you see a spectacular move like that. But then again, it's the heels. There wasn't any furniture under it. Yeah, plus it's the heels doing the cool move. The Steiner's with the baby face is doing cool moves. Yeah.

But it was just fine. Javon is maybe the most impressive or one of the most impressive in-ring guys in the company, I think. Yeah. And again, I just I'm wanting to see Javan and Oba as a fucking team. I think they would, that would main event a pay-per-view to me

against any two main event fucking heels in the company. And it's not just because Javon can sell and give Oba the tag, but because I think they see him in that he's exciting. And he can, he can definitely sell when Oba doesn't. need to. And Oba can make a big power, strong man come back when Javan doesn't need to, but Javan can be quick and smart and resourceful and get a win out of nowhere when that's not the way Oba would work. They would compliment each other. Anyhow, here's a mystery that came up that maybe you have the answer for now. After this, I'm trying to.

again to avoid the spots and the travel logs and the drone shots and the commercials, whatever, and the fast food. That's why I wanted the popcorn. No. The Uso's were in the back and Roman again was, you know, saying, what the fuck? These, nine, four, six is getting one up on us. Where's Jacob?

That's what he said, where's Jacob? Like, he didn't just get run over last week. And he said, I'll handle this. And that's the last I saw of Roman Raines on this entire show. Did he just promise to handle it and he's going to handle it at money in the bank? Or did he handle it in 30 seconds that I missed trying to avoid the commercials? I'm going to have to check because if you missed it, I missed it. I don't remember seeing him again, but maybe.

Did you hear him say? He said, I'll handle this. Yeah, he'll handle it. I don't know what that means. Is he going to get on the phone? Right. we didn't see 9-4-6 in the building, did we? Just videos.

Well, so it remains to be handled. Guess it'll be handled on the pay-per-view. But in the meantime, there was girls' tag team match. Ethan Page wrestled Ray Phoenix. Not in the girls' tag team match. It was after that. And then Ray Mysterio and Dragon Lee wrestled J.D. McDonough and Dominic Mysterio,

who apparently they feel need more experienced than anybody in the company. When is the last time that JD and Dominic did not wrestle on this program? They may be the best tag team in the company right now. Well, yeah, they're the only ones that ever actually gets to work. But basically, Ray was about to tag Dragon Lee and Big Cass came out. Where he beat Dragon Lee up a week or two ago. well, he beat him up again.

And then JD headbutted Ray, which now he's using as a finish. So at least he's capitalizing on the, you know, the John Merrickness of his head. That's a bit unfair. The John Merrick is the elephant man of his head. Well, I'm saying, you know, Elephant Titus?

I don't know what the technical term. is for what JD. I'm not his doctor. Not JD, but the John Merrick condition, the famous elephant man. I'm not his doctor either. I didn't have anything to do with it. All I know is that it's nice that J.D.'s using a

headbut. And that, and Big Cass is fucking useless and he came in and beat Dragon Lee up again and Ray Mysterio. And I don't even like Dragon Lee, but Ray doesn't deserve this.

Big Cass is fucking. horrible. He will never get over. Nobody will ever give a shit. The name is rotten. The presentation is rotten. He's done nothing to do something new. And no, he just, and the eyes. No. What do you mean the eyes? Just making the big eyes like I'm staring at you mean. he's not going to instantly will him over into the top echelon of the fucking wrestling business have we seen him win a match we've seen him attack people but he's had a few matches i don't think he's won any i well i don't watch any of them so i don't know

because i'm like most people i don't want to see him he hurts the fans feelings every time he's on the air they're like awall like going to a funeral for a of a second cousin. You're not really broken up enough to want to be there, but at the same point, it's fucking miserable. I'm also getting a little sick of run-ins at the end of every match, but whatever. Well, now, I would say that the WWE only does it about 65 to 70% of the time instead of 90 to 95 like AEW.

So we can't take it out on them. They only do it two-thirds of the fucking time. other times it's just a commercial break nevertheless so paul haman is getting too old to speak like he did on this show because i was afraid he was going to have some type of medical emergency a man with obviously a tenuous grip on what health he has left at his point in life with the way that he looks and the fucking girth of him should not be engaging in activity like when you've got one foot in a grave and the other on a banana peel, there's no sense in trying to go over the top

just to make a point on a wrestling program. Brian, were you worried? Did you start to call any type of ambulance or authorities? He is carrying a lot of weight for an older man, but... With the way that he was just the way he was talking to Bronson, because he was cutting that promo.

He put Obafemi over is how dangerous he was. But when he was telling Bronson read what he would have to do to stop him at the pay-per-view, he says, tsunami, tsunami, and more tsunamis. I thought he was then going to go, oh, mommy, I'm coming, Elizabeth. But he said what Obafemi did to Brock Leicester humbled him. That's what Paul said. and unless you fucking hit him with tsunami after tsunami after tsunami et cetera, et cetera, he will humble you.

So it sounds like, again, this is all part of the plan smithers, that Paul Heyman, Paul E. Danger Heyman to his old friends, is going to take up for Obafemi and be some part of Obafemi's life going forward. Yeah, I don't know. Heyman's kind of been lost at sea for a little while, and I think we're supposed to be intrigued by what will happen with Obafemi and whatever their relationship is after Brock left, but I don't know, something feels like it's missing.

Trust me, what Oba, or Oba, first of all, Paul Heyman is lost at sea like goddamn Lex Luthor was lost in the fucking, you know, villains' lair or whatever. he knows exactly where he is and he's re-emerging and peeking up whenever he wants to this is all part of a master plan but i'm some people are ev again have said on twitter well people like paul anyway he can manage oba i think somehow this is going to be part of him being paul haman will be to oba femi what bobby heenan was in the early years of hulk hogan he'll be like the guy that eventually is his thorn and his side.

I'm hoping, because that'll be great. Yeah, me too, because Hogan used to throw Bobby over the top rope. Your turnover. Well, no, we don't want Obie to be injured this early at his career. My God, a double hernia at this stage of the game could finish him off for good. No, but I'm just saying this is going to be part of Paul trying to, I don't know whether it's going to be the old, you know, lull Oba into thinking that he's got his best interest at heart

and stabbing him in the back or this is all part of a tough love program on Reed and Bron and all those guys to get him to take Oba seriously or whatever it is, but hopefully they will always be at odds with each other. But nevertheless, Brian, then we got a big main event. And I watched to the end. I didn't watch that. I skipped to the end of the main event because I was thinking still that somehow

Roman Rains was going to do something. And the main event was Becky Lynch against Liv and Roxanne and Rochelle and Stephanie Vacher all interfered and involved and got disqualified. And then Stephanie beat up Liv and Becky. And when Adam Pierce came out and she was shrieking at them in Spanish, and she said to Adam Pierce said, I wrote it down. I won boat Saturday.

And Adam Pierce said, I swear to God. So what you're saying is you, and then he repeated it, that he made a three way for money in the bank on Saturday between the three of them. But I won boat Saturday. was what she said. And I swear to God, who was that? I've done that a couple of times doing the announcing in various places, whether it's OVW or Ring of Vod or even back at, you know,

when I would sometimes do announcing in WWF, WCW, when I'd be interviewing somebody and they would, and especially it was even worse when I was the Booker and I knew what it was. us, right? And they would say something in such a convoluted way that I would have to say, so what you're saying to me is that you, and then repeat the whole thing the way it's supposed to come out. But that's the use of an interviewer, a show host, to clarify these things.

Anyway, that was the show as far as I know. Becky and Liv was good And I thought it was really getting good And then Stephanie ran in and attacked both of them Which was a really lame finish She was dressed like Max Payne She was wearing a triple X shirt She's looked ridiculous

And yeah I guess it'll be a three-way So it would have been better If she'd have been naked is what you're saying I mean we've seen her out there in angles and stuff All of a sudden she's wearing like a giant t-shirt I don't know it was a weird choice Maybe she's come down with

the heartbreak of psorias. And my thought was Max Payne because despite the fact that him and Mick Folley were kind of cool together in 94, no disrespect to Darrell Peterson the person. Max Payne, when he showed up in WCW, was the cheapest looking, like, oh, this company sucks, like just the hair, the outfit, just everything about it, oh, he plays guitar, big deal, look at him. I just didn't like it at all. Well, and imagine what Mr. Blackwell said, that year. Mr. Blackwell, yeah, I don't know. But back to the match, it was... No, it's, well, it's over. So we can't really get back to it. Well, Jim, that's WWE Raw. And while we're talking WWE while we're in this neighborhood over here, why don't we preview

money in the bank? Boy, what's happened to this neighborhood? I'll tell you. Gone to hell. Money in the bank coming up this weekend as we are recording. One of your favorites every year. I, well, money in my bank is one of my favorites, but they're money in the bag. Ladders and chairs and tigers, oh my, we are going to have to watch not one gender, but two groups of two different genders try to climb these Faca ladders. Does that get bleeped on YouTube? That was one of Howard Finkle's favorite words. I don't know if it's dirty or not.

It's allowable. But we're going to have to watch two of these things as they try to climb the stairway to heaven to get the invisible brass ring and glory and fame and blah, blah, blah. I just... Do you think they should mix it up one year? And like instead of a ladder, you have to climb a rope.

Something that's a real challenge. I'd just like to see them have a content where somebody has to piss up a rope. Has anybody ever actually tried to do that? It's not easy. When you say, ah, go piss up a rope. It'll take you a while to do. It'll keep you busy.

Somebody's going to get fucking paralyzed. I'm just telling you, sooner or later with all these ladders and bullshit that we have to... But is there more? There's more, isn't there? Would there be more? Well, there's more.

There's a card, actually. By more, you mean, is there a card? Yes. Jim, of course, this is coming from your old stomping grounds, New Orleans, Louisiana, at the smoothie king's center. Oh, good God. And by the way, the only reason I was stomping is because I was running from the people that were trying to kill me. But I don't, I think that's kind of incongruous. When we had Mid-South wrestling at the downtown municipal auditorium, well, you just knew somebody's going to get to.

ass kicked. But now it's world wrestling entertainment from the smoothie king center. Sounds like everybody's going to get free ice cream. I'm pretty sure nothing's for free with WWE. Jim, let's go through this card

here as it currently is laid out. And ready to have words spoken over it. In a men's money in the bank match for a future championship match, Braun Breaker. versus Javon Evans, versus Tric Williams,

versus Penta, versus C.M. Punk, versus Kevin Owens. Jesus Christ, wait a minute, that's one, two, three, four. Oh, I thought we had seven there for a minute. I mean, the only wrestling bookers would not want to do this. because for a variety of reasons. One, all in one match, you've got angles that you could have three or four programs out of. And I know that some of the writers have been told,

oh, well, this way we save the big matches for the big shows and you don't have to have the single match. Well, that's lazy booking because then you've just put six of guys, of your top guys that you'd like to use in there in this stupid match where one of them might get their leg broke. So a wrestling booker would never want to have this thing because the chance of injury to the talent, because it's fucking up all your programs,

bring the singles back with different stipulations or make them tags, but this is just throwing shit on a shingle like that is the standard WWE way of doing things these days. Who do you predict? So having said that, I don't know who they want to. It's too early to give Javan a briefcase to carry around or a title shot that people know he's not going to win or whatever, but he doesn't have to get beat here either. So at least, you know, it's something for him.

And the same thing, it's also lazy because nobody has to get beat for everybody to lose and got to win. Should Punk and Owens nullify each other in some fashion so that Braun gets it? Or should Owens get it and then punk

is upset because he's trying to you know, jump ahead in line. Some combination of punk, Owens and Braun is going to figure in what happens and they will

continue to build on those issues, I think. All right, and of course, Godspeed to those involved. Jim, in a women's money-in-the-bank ladder match for a future championship match, Saul Ruka versus Lola Weiss, versus Jacey Jane, versus Roxanne Perez, versus Lash Legend, versus Tiffany Stratton. good Lord and so it's Saul versus Lola versus

Jane versus Roxy versus Lash versus Tiffy I don't know who's going to win and I don't care and I'm not going to watch the match that is inseminated out of this thing but I just hope nobody breaks their leg

and I wish that for once they put the men on first so at least goddamn people wouldn't including me wouldn't be tired of ladders by the time that they have the ladder. Who do you predict? I don't know. I don't know what they're doing with any of these people, and I don't care. All right. I think that's probably what most people think.

Jim, the next match, Oba Femi versus Bronson Reed. This is going to be good, I think, and Oba doesn't have to win, but he ain't going to lose. They might do something screwy, who knows, DQ, whatever. But this needs to be brief, and I'm sure Haman will be involved in the setup. What I'd like to see him stay away from is Oba trying to sell like everybody else, either being held in a hold for any period of time, or he needs to be selling and fighting, selling an injury where he got run into the post, and he's selling his arm while he's fighting with the other one.

He can sell, but it needs to be, I think I said this on one of the shows not long ago, more active and more about impact shit rather than being held down in a hold. That's not going to do any favors. And a triple threat match for the Women's World Championship. Of course it is. The champion, Stephanie Vakere,

versus Becky Lynch. versus Liv Morgan. Because she want boat dat sat day. It's another multiple person match, and this time it's the women, and I could give just slightly

a little bit more of a shit about this than the latter match because it's for the actual title, but I don't really care at this point. It's like watching a modern episode of glow these days. days. It's women's matches, followed by women's interviews, followed by women's packages. There's, there should be more of the packages and less of the fucking matches.

You know, you can also use the women and not have them in just silly, bad acting backstage segments. That's where you get the direct comparison to glow, because, yeah, it's a bad written segment. Yeah. Yeah. That's what, again, I've always said women's wrestling with top women's wrestlers can be an attraction. I don't want to see the fucking backstage, goofy shit that the men do to, followed by the in ring, followed by the fucking more backstage,

followed by somebody else's mad. Because that's not an attraction. That's when you, they give you a goddamn steak dinner consisting of a one-ounce steak and a mutant giant baked potato. Any predictions? Yes, I want a bigger steak.

Liv Morgan is really good, and I know you don't like Stephanie Beckerra, but she's good, and Becky's a star, so maybe it'll be good. Jim, finally, for the World Heavyweight Championship, the buzzing in the background is the gardeners. Not mine. Roman Rains, the champion, versus L.A. Knight. Roman, Roman Rains. Um, this will be the ultimate.

only well i won't say oh there's oban reed this will be one of two of the only men's single actual just wrestling matches that doesn't require but i'm sure we'll still have the use of furniture and other devices uh and roman rains is going to win and and it's unfortunate because L.A. Knight is, you know, more popular than many of the people that are at his level, and yet that's what his level is. So, and I'm sure they'll have a nice match. And a non-finish or some kind of interference that causes the finish. Oh, no, there's going to be, there's going to be a finish.

It's going to be Roman Reigns 1, 2, 3, but there's going to be, who knows what kind of shenanigans leading up to that involving every member of Roman's family and whoever else they want to bring in on the other side. If the match goes 20 minutes, so using that as the scale, at what point do you think Roman gives his mid-match, not on the mic's speech to his opponent? Well, it depends on how long the referee has to be knocked out. If the referee's down less than three minutes,

Roman will do the speech at 15 or so. but do you think the referee being knocked down is a necessary component you don't think the speechifying would happen unless the referee's down well no the speechifying is going to happen in the middle of the heat when he's you know brutalizing l a night and trying to show his acting ability while he's beaten up his opponent but then later on when the referee gets knocked down so that every member of the bloodline and all the ghosts of the fucking samoan anewa family will come in. That's going to take some time. All right. Well, it sounds like a big pay-per-view.

And there's five matches. If we'd have handed Vince McMahon a five-match pay-per-view card in 1997, he would say, where's the rest of it? All right. In advance, how many minutes of wrestling do you think they'll be versus minutes of commercials? Well, a... This premium live event. the latter matches do take a while.

So I'm sure they'll give them about 20 minutes apiece. And then, you know, there's going to be entrances that Oba and Reed, it better not go 10 minutes. And Liv Morgan and Hoosie Watsy, they'll go a while. And enrollment in L.A. Night will go. So they'll probably get, I would say, 20, 40, 50,000, they'll probably get 70, 75 minutes of wrestling in that three hours. All right, we shall see.

That is money in the bank and of course, well, now I said wrestling. I'm sorry, they'll probably get 70 to 75 minutes bell to bell, but a lot of it will be singing and chanting and walking and talking. And it'll be jammed into a three-hour window. Don't forget climbing. money in the bank

2026 clawing and of course scratching yet of course Brian after watching this event and after rolling

and scratching we all need a good meal even the wrestlers you may see them in these commercials on raw eating all sorts of things but that's not the way it needs to be or is or should be they need good food food that makes you talk

good Jim for you factor yeah Well, that's the way I always heard it should be. You should eat good food instead of bad food. While the WWE is trying to get you to have garbage delivered to your home that you'll stuff in your gullet or eat candy and sugar-filled items, although I will admit Wingstop has the best ranch.

But folks, you want to eat good, healthy food, because you don't want to look like these damn rations. Wessler's all in shape and everything, but just think about what's inside and the dirty secrets that are covered up of how it got there. But you just want to be healthy and quick, healthy and quick. You don't want to spend your time slaving over a hot stove like Alice Cramden every day fixing the beanie ween for your husband to come home. You want to have a quick nutritious meal and you can heat up yourself. It's already been prepared by chefs,

chefs and dieticians. Brian, that's the wave of the future. You got chefs to cook the stuff that the dietician designs and then the plebeians to eat it. And that's where you come in, fellow plebeians out there. Because if you ain't a chef

and you ate a dietitian, then you must be a plebeian because all you're doing is eaten. So that's where our friends at Factor bring in the ready-to-eat-meals so you don't have to choose between real food and convenience. This is real food that's convenient. And it's salmon burgers. It's shredded pork. It's terriaki salmon. It's creamy parmesan shrimp and filet. It's soiled green, folks. It's amazing and dense with nutrients. Every once in a while, you'll find a fingernail. You will never, ever, ever find a fingernail, not once in a while. Let's make sure

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Well, I got you thinking about that terriaki salmon that you love so much. much. Wanted to ask you about several things. We got some questions, a few topics, but several listeners wanted to know your thoughts on the passing of Bart Batten. Oh, we had talked about this the other day, and it got, for some reason, got overlooked when we recorded, but I had heard that Brad had passed away. I think it was 10 or 12 years ago. I'd heard that at the time, and I was surprised because, you know, he was only, I think, 50 or so at that point. They're twins, so they should have been the same age. We're not. going to go down that road again about how old the twins are um and i guess

bart was what uh 60 62 three somewhere somewhere around my age again this happens but i just i hated to hear that they were nice guys twin brothers from by they lived in beckley they were from west virginia i don't know if they were born specifically in the town of beckley um But they broke in when the Pafos were running ICW. Because they did more business, probably ICW did in West Virginia or better business than a lot of the shows they ran anywhere else because they didn't have any opposition over there. There was nobody really running against them like they were trying to run against Jared here in Kentucky.

And they broke the Batten Twins in at that time and a couple of other guys. guys that, you know, we're good athletes, but the baton stuck with it. And after ICW, they had worked and had a long run in Kansas City. They were Central States champion. They had worked for me in Smoky Mountain Wrestling when I first started. And we got the TV in Beckley, well, in Oak Hill and we're running Beckley, the W-O-A-Y, was the station at Oak Hill. I needed them for that end of the territory and they, you know,

there wasn't a lot of other places to go at that point. So they worked for me for a while there and the people there liked them. They were a good tag team. It just, they were two other guys that the same thing happened when all the territories went away and the business constricted where, you know, there was no place to work. they were still, you know, in good shape and, you know, in the, at some point they'd only been into business like about 10 years and everything just dried up.

Well, very sorry to hear of his passing. I always think of him. My first exposure was in the 1992 end of the year Smokey Mountain video of all the wrestlers that have been on TV throughout the year. And they looked like a cool tag team. I think they did a double drop kick actually maybe in that video. Yes. Yes, and well, they did to double everything.

And that was their interest music, double vision. Well, once again, Bart Badden, we send our sympathies to his fans and friends and family. Jim, let's get some questions here. This one was sent to corny drive-thru at gmail.com from CJ in Virginia. Why did Jim Crockett promotions have a six-man tag team title when it was rarely even mentioned or defended while Dusty and the Road Warriors were champions. Wouldn't that title have been better on the horsemen?

Thank you. Well, the reason was the same reason as Nick Goulos in the Tennessee territory had a six-man tag title in 1975 so that they could put a belt on George. And they had an actual tournament of six-man tag team matches. And somehow or another,

George would always end up in the baby-faced team that would win the belts. In this case, I don't know why they did it. Otherwise, then, to give Dusty and the Road Warriors some connection

so that they could do six-man matches there. And, Brian, you may remember better than I do. When that was toward the end, of Dusty's run as the Booker, and then when he turned the road warriors, it was just forgotten about, or did they ever actually lose them for any reason? I believe it was the six-man tag titles.

Because remember the whole thing, the kerfuffle with Tenru was there, and Sting and Michael Hayes and a junkyard dog got locked in the dressing room and they couldn't get out for their math. This was awful. This was terrible stuff. That was an 88 clash of champions. That was really close. I think it was early 80.

Oh, well, then Dusty was already gone and they were trying to get out of the things of, oh, Jesus Christ. Yeah, but it, there was no good reason for it. And for the same reason as today, there's no good reason for it. Because the six-man tag matches at the time were based on

these guys are mad at each other. They've had a personal issue, a personal conflict. The horseman, have hurt Dusty, he's got to go get two guys to get even. It wasn't something that was sustainable on a regular schedule where you're having, if you've got a six-man tag team set of champions, that's three top guys. And then if they're not wrestling three top guys,

then why you've got a title on them, and then you've tied up six main event guys. When they could be in legitimate singles and tags, drawing issues with other people, it's just too much. And it would tie up too many talents to have credible contending teams for a six-man tag team champions.

It's not exactly AEW, but did 88 Crockett have too many champions, too many belts? That was the year the Western States Heritage Belt was introduced again. Yes. Or introduced again. there was no heritage.

It was just that was when it was introduced. Well, here's the thing. Again, Dusty was tremendous with big ideas and the big picture and seeing Dusty had better detail than Flair did. But when Flair was the Booker and Kevin and I were working for him, he had the big picture of the big idea. I want these guys to work with these guys in a program and I want to push these guys feature whatever. and then Kevin's experience as a Booker filled it out and then my ability to do a lot of fucking paperwork and take a lot of notes, helped it along.

With Dusty, he had the big picture, the big ideas, the Starcades, or the Big Bubba Rogers or Nikita Koloff as a gimmick, or the Crockett Cup, but he had J.J. Dillon as the guy that not only filled in the details, but also was impeccable with doing paperwork. And at the same, Dusty, it was for all different reasons, but he ended up with too many belts. They bought a territory. They ended up with belts that they had to do something with or retire.

And it happened in Florida and Kansas City at UWF. Then there was the Western States heritage title that Dusty came up with because, A, Crockett was moving the base of operations to Dallas, where they thought they were all going to be big stars, B, Dusty loves Western movies, and they were going to, he was convinced of at the time, run more on the West Coast or out west in the western part of the United States, and wanted something that those people might consider their own. But not all of anybody's ideas work, and we never said they did with Dusty or anybody else,

but there was some element of reasoning trying to have them or ending up with them, but most of them had to fucking go because it was just a mess. No Eastern States Heritage Championship, which is just wrong. Well, there's not a lot of heritage out there. I don't know about that.

But there it is. And of course, it made sense in world class, maybe better than any place ever before or since. But I don't know. I never, when they reintroduced it in WCW in the early 90s, it just felt like a jerk-off championship. You know, it didn't seem like one of the big ones. Jim, our next question sent to corny drive-thru at gmail.com

was sent by John Williams, the pride of Pleasant Hill, Missouri. Was this before or after he composed the theme to Star Wars and or lost in space? I don't think it's the same John Williams, but he's in Pleasant Hill, Missouri. I don't know how far that is from Blue Springs, Missouri, home of the pizza place. The pizza place. Yeah, check that out. Here's his question.

When discussing the history of the Valiant Brothers, why is Jerry Valiant often ignored? even the WWE ignored him when inducting the Valiant brothers into the Hall of Fame if Jimmy Garvin can go in as a free bird

surely Jerry Valiant can go in as a valiant brother Well Jimmy Garvin went in as a free bird because Michael Hayes was working in the office

and they were friends he wasn't really a real free bird let's just face it he had a better career as gorgeous Jimmy Garvin I'd stick with that. Same thing here. Guy Mitchell had a better career as two or three different people as he did as Jerry Valiant. And the problem became that Jimmy and Johnny Valiant, the Valiant brothers,

were scheduled to go back to the WWF and win the tag team title. They had been champions. What, they'd had two runs up there by then, right? 74 and 70, whatever. But the Valiant brother started as a team. Handsome Jimmy was on his own as a single working for Bruiser in Indiana. And then they found John L. Sullivan, who had, Bruno had broken him in in Pittsburgh,

and he had kind of a gift of gab. And he had a New York accent, at least they were, supposed to be from New York, the Valiant Brothers, but I think Jimmy was born in Tullahoma, Tennessee. But anyway, they started as a team for Bruiser in late 73. And they're the ones that beat Bruiser and Bruno for the tag team title, a WWA tag title for Bruiser in Indianapolis when Bruno had been working for Bruiser when he wasn't the champion any longer. he was just doing his dates and favors for promoters that he liked.

But then when Vince Sr. talked Bruno into taking the WWF belt back, the problem was he was still champions with Bruiser in Indiana. So he had to come back and drop, because he wasn't going to stand Bruiser up and drop the belts. So, and incredibly, the Valiant Brothers just, were in the right place at the right time, and they beat the super team,

Bruiser and Bruno for the tag team titles. So they started drawing money in Indianapolis. Plus, Bruno saw them and said, my God, this is the best bleached blonde heel team in the ring now. They were, you know,

they're tailor made for the WWF. They're like the Graham brothers or the Fargoes. They have the wild interviews. They take the big, bumps. So then they got the run up there. And then over the next couple years, really, Jimmy kind of eclipsed Johnny, because Jimmy got over as such a big star in Memphis, that was when the Valiant brothers were working for Bruiser again. And in 77, Bruiser's territory was on its ass. So they were not making a ton of money. But when Jimmy got booked and

got over in Tennessee, he was probably making more money. I know he was making more money in Memphis than he was working for Bruiser. But they still meant more as a team in New York for Vince Sr. So Jimmy had agreed to finish up in Memphis and they were going back

when that's when he got hepatitis and got horribly sick and lost a butt. His eyeballs turned yellow. and he lost a bunch of weight and to fulfill because Vince Senior books so far ahead and already had advertising, the Valiant Brothers, the Valiant Brothers. So they made a new Valiant Brother. And it was Guy Mitchell who had been working Indiana for Bruiser for ages

and was Stomper Guy Mitchell for the Sheik in Detroit in the, what, late, 60s, early 70s. But I was a kid people used to say that he was Bobby Heenan's brother. No, and that's ridiculous. Bobby Heenan, Guy Mitchell was one of the assassins along with Tiger Joe Tomaso

that was the first tag team that Bobby Heenan managed when he got in a business. And they had worked together for years and years and knew each other, but they weren't brothers. But Guy Mitchell, had been stomper guy Mitchell who was a baby face for sheik. It sounds like he'd be like the Mongolian stomper.

No, just I guess he wore the boots or whatever. He had been Justice had been tag team champions. He also worked as the masked strangler for Bruiser in what 70, 77, 78, 78, 79. I think that's the first time that, or the first time, the last time. the last time that Bruiser sold out Indianapolis when he had the final mask versus Bruiser will goddamn never come to Indiana again, money on the line,

belt on the line, and he beat him, but they sold out. The people wanted to know who the fuck that was. But as far as Jerry Valiant, he was, and then when Jimmy got better and, you know, was not sick.

more than they brought them in for six mans. But, you know, Jerry was, he was just a brother, a valiant brother out of necessity. All right. So you think it's all right that he wasn't included with the Valiant Brothers in the Hall of Fame? Yeah, because the Valiant Brothers, Jimmy and

handsome Jimmy and Luscious Johnny were one of my favorite all-time heel tag teams. But Johnny and Jerry Valiant together don't even crack the top 50. Johnny was five years younger and Jimmy made the fucking team.

And you've talked in the past about how much you love Jimmy Valiant, so let me just ask you this to wrap this topic up. Sell me on Johnny Valiant. What am I missing? Was it just that he's tagging with Jimmy Vali? It can't be that simple.

Yes, it was. It was. You said he had the Giff or Gab. He talked. I don't know if everyone understood it What he was saying I still don't know what he was saying In a lot of those promos That I thought I would understand when I became an adult Well see that's that's the thing

He talks to gibberish and he doesn't And it's under his breath almost So you could barely make out what he's saying Before he could rewind it and see it a second time Should there's plenty of time people didn't know what the hell he was saying He was doing the fills for Jimmy Because handsome Jimmy would come out my sister San Mideka, handsome, Jimmy,

Luscious, Johnny, with a valiant brothers. The only difference in us is he's not handsome, he's just luscious, and I'm not luscious, I'm just handsome, baby. And then Johnny would go, yeah, that's right, right, right, a minute, and he was blonde, and they had the jackets, and Jimmy did the fucking

Marcel Marceau pantomime in the ring, and Johnny was there for the double knockout, Jimmy, it was Jimmy's thing, but he, it was like Lawler, the Stoge Heel manager. He needed the guy to bounce off up. And they worked together.

It was, and with Bobby Heenan. It was just, he was there. When I first became a wrestling fan and I found that I had a tape of WrestleMania 3 because my dad, for whatever reason, recorded it and taped it, which I think speaks to how big a deal it was, the people didn't like wrestling. And I watched it. And, you know, some of the promos on there seem

pre-fab, I guess, Ricky Steamboat, you know, talking about New Horizons and everything. But Johnny Val, I mean, just does this bizarre promo with the Dream Team

and Dino Bravo, including the line, Parley Vu, Scramble Deggs, Grandma. Like, what? What the fuck is he talking about? Well, I remember when you played the interview, the chain gang, when Don Fargo and Dillet,

was that wasn't, that wasn't Frank, that was, what was the original guy it was the original it was so i was frank yeah okay but they were just talking over each other and just doing crazy shit it wasn't quite to that but it was handsome jimmy would do most and when heenan was the manager and see that's the thing heenan was originally their manager because hean's the one that got handsome jimmy valet over as a single star in indiana and they had done the angle where Jimmy turned on Strongbow

to get him over in New York in 71. So Jimmy was an established heel, and then the brother came along that nobody had ever heard of before, but because he was with Jimmy and managed by Hinen in Indiana, it got over. But he was just, again,

he was the blonde guy that was the partner of the wild guy, but he did the fills, he tried to do that shit, and it worked in the package. But on his own, no, it never worked. And even as a manager, he's a big guy. Like, him with demolition didn't work as well as Mr. Fuji with demolition. And him with the dream team, he was as big as them. And then I guess because handsome Jimmy or boogie-woogie man, Jimmy Valiant,

was so over, is that the reason Vince took the name Valiant? from him, he became Johnny V. Probably. And probably because Valiant was a big star on the other channel. And I'm not trying to tear Johnny Valiant down. I mean, it is later years he did stand-up comedy, and he was never, ever funny, ever. He, and, and, but he was a personality that existed on,

he got the name by being in the Valiant. brothers and then his brother went on after he split up with him and got over in memphis to carolinas etc johnny valiant was doing indie shows for you know the sheikh in ontario or whatever but he by sheer will of i'm going to go out and be johnny valiant and talk and do things he, you know, he kept doing shit, but he never got over any other way except in the Vagant brothers. It just didn't work. In the late 90s, there was this commercial that used to air. I have it on videos somewhere because it was on all the time.

They used to air it like during Howard Stern. It was for a CD of TV theme songs. And for whatever reason, when they would play the songs in the commercial, you know, one after another. They would show people like on stage, acting it out or doing karaoke. And they played the theme from Batman and there's Johnny Valiant at this

fucking commercial. Oh, no. Like acting out, you know, Batman on stage. If anyone has that commercial posted, I don't know where it is. I have it, though, somewhere. That's the thing he tried to do stand-up comedy. He tried to be an actor. He got head shots

taken. And at the same time, you know, he would have kind of a menial job somewhere that he was trying to moonlight from. And poor old Evan Ginsburg used to help him out with his stuff in later life. And then the way you'd remember he got killed, he got run over trying to cross the street. Some of got him over when he was on his way to work or whatever. Yeah, that was a tragic end. I'm glad you were.

But that's, you know, he was a name that you remembered in wrestling for years and years, but he only ever actually was a main event person in wrestling when he was partners with Jimmy from what 73 to 79-ish. And that's the last, when they did that Jerry Valiant run, that's the last time that Vince brought the Valiants to New York because after that, Jimmy really didn't need it and the other guys really weren't necessary. Well, there it is.

Jerry Valiant and much more here on the show with Jim, a topic, a article that was sent to me by a bunch of people from ringside news. The headline, Vince Rousseau says he got nothing from the rock despite helping create his character. Did you see any of these quotes?

What? What is he expecting a truck now too? No, I don't know anything about this. I will say that I've seen proof now in the last week or so that Vince Rousseau is only slightly less popular than necrophilia, but I was not aware that he was now blaming the Rock for not giving him what? What was he supposed to get from the Rock? Well, I have some quotes here. I will read.

Apparently this is from a podcast he did with Jonathan Coachman. Glad to see his career is going well. I've never seen a Rock. movie. I take it very personal that I actually started with Dwayne Johnson. I was there with Johnson. MSG match, bro. That's where he started. I was there for the transition over to the rock. And I put him in a lot of those storylines. And I had the discussion with him to go out there and refer to himself in the third person. I was there. So I'll stop there. That's the first section of quotes. Any thoughts on him giving the Rock the idea to refer to himself in the third person?

Well, boy, I'll tell you one thing is I'm glad that he wasn't fucking Davey Boy Smith or else I wouldn't have one of my favorite quotes because he never says, I wasn't there. He was there. He was just to convince people he was in the room. Yes, he has to. Davey was trying to get out. I wasn't even there. It was Owen. Bruce's like, I was there. I was there when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor. I was there. Let's get back to this.

So getting back to this. Look, again, what is he wanting? Is he wanting the rock every day to start the day by announcing, by the way, remember Vince Russo once wrote promos for me? Well, let's go back. There's more quotes here. then I leave and Brian Gowertz comes along

Bro, seriously How much money is Brian Gowertz made off the rock Bro, I've not made a dime off the rock Oh, here we go now, here's the problem, okay Downtown Bruno At least he got a car I got nothing Here's the word in Italian

Baddadi But dadae Whatever the hell this is potatoes I've got nothing from the Rock zero so let's stop there for a moment the second set of quotes

holy shit all right well I the Rock got Bruno a car or a truck or fucking paddy wagon or whatever he got him because Bruno actually like let Rocky live with him

in Tennessee everybody who saw the TV show has heard that story well for those of you haven't. It's still a true story. Bruno took care of Rocky when he was starving in fucking Tennessee his first territory. That's why he gave him a truck. I could be wrong, but wasn't it even before that, like when Rocky Johnson, like the last run he had there in whatever, 87, was it that a young Jane Johnson, like Bruno helped him out or was nice to him? Yeah, that's what I mean. When you said his first run, I thought you meant 97. Well, I guess it was his first territory too he was nice to him then but no it was when

fucking rocky johnson said oh yeah come here and live with me and then fucking say okay i'll see you later when they were in nashville he was a teenager he let him live with him there too i should but that was also his first territory and bruno was still there and also bruno helped him out in the w f in ways other than writing promos for him but to put okay i saw rock's first tryout at the studio and called vince and said hey here's your future w wf champion and i was right there on commentary bro as the manager of the goddamn opposing team when he made his debut in the garden, in the garden.

Oh, you should be asking for a car. And won the fucking match. And I was the manager for a number of his first TV opponents when we did the thing where I said, I offered to manage him and he blew me off so then I led a series of people to try to beat him so that we could have a reason for him to wrestle on TV every week. And I didn't get a car or a truck or even a fucking,

little red wagon. You know what? I didn't think I was entitled to one. Because we were all doing our fucking job that we were getting paid for. It wasn't like Vince Russo again, like Bruno, when Rocky was a fucking teenage kid

that was broke and stuck in Tennessee with his father not taking care of him and help him out. Or I didn't fucking save his marriage. somehow by giving him personal advice or whatever

Ritz Rousseau was a writer I noticed I didn't say Booker his job was to fucking try to get the guy over just like mine was just like everybody else's was so he didn't go above and beyond the call

of duty to help this poor young man at a crossroads in his life if he did suggest that he's talking a third person, which that one's still open for debate. Well, we have more.

Oh, there's more. He's not finished begging. I don't want to call it bitterness, but there's a part of me that doesn't want to really support his movie career because Brian Gowertz, who came in after me,

has made millions of dollars off the rock. Well, there's the problem is that I don't have any, I don't know this Gerwitz fellow. I don't have anything good to say about him based on the fact that he's one of the fucking modern comedy writers that we've heard always wanted to do comedy. And I heard that he gotten a goddamn argument at Titan Tower with Paul Heyman, and neither one of them would hit the other one.

So they both must be fucking somewhat gutless. But that's the problem is that Rock found this guy to be a stooge for him and carry his piss bottle and drag him around instead of Vince being the stooge and carrying the piss bottle. He's like, bro, wasn't I good enough to be your stooge? Well, back to this. Probably because

Rocky did not want to be around Vince Rousseau as often as he would have to be around Brian Gerwitz to give him a fucking job. The rock started with Vince Rousseau's pen. Oh, Jesus Christ. When the words came in, he inherited the rock coach. I know GoWitt's a lot longer

But my God What is this a plantation mentality You can just inherit Peter I'm going to give you the title of this fucking guy They should have bought him from him What the fuck is going on here With the transfer of personal property

Being human beings I know go where it's a lot longer But my God Rock throw me a freaking bone For crying out loud Give me something my friend It's not a jealousy thing. I'm not jealous, bro.

No, it's a begging, desperate thing. What does he want? Just throw me a bone. What are you begging? Does he want... Please feed my children for a week? What is he asking for? I don't want Brian Goward's job.

But coach, here's the reality of the situation. When I was not in creative, he was Dwayne the Rock Johnson, bro. They booed him out of MSG. If Vince Rousseau is not a part of the equation. Wait, wait, whoa, what, ho, wait, whoa.

Wait a minute. I think he's getting confused between Rocky Miavia and Dwayne the Rock Johnson. Well, besides that, hold on, let me try to go back in my chronological time box here. Vince Rousseau started on creative four or five months after Rocky Miavea. debuted. So how was he not a part of him goddamn booed him out of the fucking building until

Barack finally talked Vince and let Vince McMahon and letting him turn heel. Go ahead. They booed him out of MSG. If Vince Russo is not a part of the equation, bro, there's a possibility there may never have been a rock and nobody would have presented him

and maybe they would have went on with Johnson until thank you for your future endeavors. Oh, I'm saying, bro, that's worth something. I'm really pissed off, though. Let's make that clear. Well, I think it's clear. He's going to be pissed off unless the rock gives him a gift. What do you think of this? Can you imagine if I went to fuck?

fucking Glenn Jacobs and said, okay, not for me. There would have been no cane. If not for that, you wouldn't be the governor of Tennessee about to be or whatever the fuck. So give me Maynardville. That's all I wants Maynardville. Run everybody out. I'm going to put a fence around it, build a house in the middle of I just want

Maynardville. But if you're the governor of Tennessee, you wouldn't be without Jim Cornett. So give me Maynardville. What the fuck. Do you think the Rock owes Vince Rousseau anything? No. From what you witnessed, how involved was, how much credit does Vince Rousseau deserve specifically for the Rock?

He, look, he might owe him a Christmas card or he might, you know, Hey, Vince, good to see. You haven't talked to you in a while or that type of thing, but he doesn't owe him a bone of any kind. And like everybody else, Rousseau was incessant with that, bro, here's your promos, bro, bro, bro, bro, bro, bro. He was working hands on with everybody, which is, again, as I mentioned,

that's probably why that the Rock didn't hire him because he'd have to be around him on a regular basis. But as far as no, the Rock deserves the credit for the Rock. because he was a genetic freak to begin with. Look at him. Nobody looks like that. He had the look. He had the size.

He had the genetics for it in terms of the wrestling business being in his blood and him understanding what it was supposed to look like. And he took to the in-ring, as I've said before, better than maybe or quicker, earlier in training. than maybe anybody but Kurt Angle, and I think probably including Kurt, because Kurt was still a little dry the first few months. And as far as the promo,

you couldn't tell anybody to cut promos like The Rock. It had to be him. He was doing it. He brought it out of himself. So you can tell the guy what's saying, and you can give the guy ideas about to be, about how to be more of what he seems to be turning into. But Vince McMahon wanted to push him as a baby face first

to the moon too quickly and put Paterson on the case to come up with every angle and finish that a baby face had ever done to be successful, but it was too much too quick. And the people didn't like it. And that's when finally, you know, Rocky convinced everybody, including Vince McMahon at the start, to let me go this way because it ain't working the other way.

So did Vince Russo give him ideas? Yes. Did Vince Russo give him the brain that gave him the ability to speak like that or the body of that or the working ability of that or the knowledge of how to get along in a wrestling business because of his father being involved in it since he was a kid. No, he didn't. And real quick, Jim, before we move on here, what does John Sina owe you?

And any gifts that you like to request? Um, yeah. Let me recreate that fucking movie scene with Amy Schumer. Really? Yes. Oh, boy, maybe we got to talk. But Jim, shooting a scene like that

requires power. You got to be plugged in. There's all kinds of holes and you've got to be filled. Where you got to you got to plug in various cables and implements into sockets and receptacles.

And you know, as a matter of fact, let's just go all the way and say, let's do a five and one scene. You had to do a five and one scene, Brian? A scene. when it comes to power and plugging devices into a power sort, ladies and gentlemen,

if you haven't figured it out yet, and why would you have Ridge? We're good friends at Ridge. I'm screaming. Well, yeah. And why are you just, you're excited and you're yelling and you're calling people's attention to the fact that instead of plugging five different things into one item,

you'll plug one item into five different things because the plugs are going into reverse direction, because elsewise, it's giving the power from the receptacle rather than the other way around. Folks, if you travel a lot, now I'm screaming, or if you just have a lot of things, you have to plug in, whether it's your phone or your laptop or your Apple Watch, or your mag-safe wireless charging thing. See, I just plug things into the wall. I could have existed in 1912.

but I know that everybody else in the world has all these modern ideas and modern devices and they all need a different cable. And instead of all these cables and all these plugs and all these adapters and all this big bunch of horseshit that people have tried to foist on you to live your daily life, Ridge has dumbed it down into one device that'll charge everything. It's got 20 watts of power. got a 10,000 battery

where you can get three full phone charges wherever you go, you could go out in the Sahara Desert, and you could order Grubhub and call you a fucking Uber to get you out of it. And you can also plug in the USBC

and the lightning charger and the Apple Watch charger and the MagSafe wireless charging. It's got built-in cables for everything. See, y'all. you got all you got ladies gentlemen boy all you got is just the one

power bank that has all the electricity you can make Lon Cheney electrified out of it you ever see that movie Man Made Monster where he he's on a bus and he crashes into a power pole and he's the only one that didn't get electrocuted because he can absorb

it baby and by the time that Lionel Atwell finishes hitting him up with the juice he's just walking around glowing making fucking plants die when he walks past him and electrocuting people that he touches.

You don't want to do that. You want the ridge power bank so you can do it right. This is the last power bank you're ever going to need, ladies and gentlemen. That's what they say because most people, after they have this one, they get fucking fried

with this thing. They're not in the mood for another one. No one's getting fried with anything. You'll be in the room. Well, unless you plug yourself in, but if you have a socket on your body that one of these cables will fit, you need to see a doctor. But folks, right now, we can save you money on the badass, five-in-one travel power bank by Ridge that's all you'll ever need to charge anything that you need to get a charge into or out of. And they're available in Burgundy, Matt Olive, Base Camp Orange, Matt Black, and Phantom. again phantom that color just kind of gets lost in the shadows it's easy to lose track of and if you don't already have a ridge wallet well you should so right now you can go to best buy

an amazon to get the ridge power bank or you could save money by going to ridge.com rindgege and you're going to get 10% off with the promo code JCE. 10% off the Ridge 5 and 1 travel power bank. Electricity and current on the go wherever you need to go and whenever you need to go there. Ridge.com promo code JCE 10% off. It's a shocking price to pay for this much electricity. Lots of power, no shocking.

once again, ridge.com slash JCE, our good friends at Ridge. I was shocked at the price. Eh. Messed up a few times, but you know what I was thinking and what I was trying to get... Yeah. We have a few more questions. We know what you're thinking. All right, well, before we wrap up here today, let's get a few more questions.

These have gone so well, so far. Jim, this question was sent to Corny Drive-Thru at g-mail.com from Brian Muir, Muir, M-U-I-R, Brian M-U-I-R, Brian Mier, M-E-R. The ghost and Mrs. Muir. Mure. My question to Jim is, was the name Smoky Mountain Wrestling always the intended name when you created the company, or were there other names you were possibly thinking of?

No, that was it. because that for people who are either not familiar with the United States geography or whatever, that kind of said where the territory was. Smoky Mountain National Park is not only the biggest, but one of the most popular national parks in the country, and I think maybe the most visited east of the Mississippi, especially East Tennessee, which was always intended to be the home base, is that's the Smokies to everybody.

But what we were trying to do was go from Knoxville and East Tennessee and Eastern Kentucky into Western North Carolina, including Asheville, and Western South Carolina, including Spartanburg and Greenville. That was originally what I viewed as the, and West Virginia with Beckley, and we wanted Charleston and Huntington. That's a little bit out of the Smoky Mountain area, but the main part of the territory that we wanted to cover

was adjacent to the Smoky Mountains. So that was the reason for the name. In terms of, you know, the name fits what you were doing, before you settled on East Tennessee's Perfect, did you have the idea ever? Like I could have a territory. And I mean, was there any other name that ever came into play for a Jim Quintaget territory?

The reason for that location was because we were living in Charlotte and Crocket had gone out of business. Turner had taken over and become WCW. And when we went to Knoxville, it still drew. All of they'd killed all the other towns. but Knoxville still drew. There was still wrestling fans that were interested in wrestling in Knoxville. And I knew from working for Crockett for so long, Johnson City in 1986 for the Great

American Bash, did $102,000 in Johnson City, Tennessee. That was a hot town as well getting up into West Virginia, Charleston Huntington, was an underserved market for wrestling at that point. And Crocket had had tremendous success there. I think the 86 Bash in Charleston did $115,000. And people are saying, well, yeah, well, that was Crocket and Dusty into Road Wars and blah, blah, blah. Yes. But also that was these small and mid-sized markets with buildings that were affordable.

And Sandy Scott being involved. He knew the building managers. I mentioned the rent we got on the Knoxville Civic Coliseum was a 6,000 seat building. And we were paying like 1250 plus expenses. Freedom Hall, we got cheaper than that. Sandy knew a lot of these building managers. They needed more events. They liked wrestling, wanted regular wrestling.

So it was not only a matter of, I'm seeing these people. still liked wrestling in these markets, but the buildings were affordable. And the managers were amenable to having wrestling shows. And they had missed the ones that had gone away over the last few years at that time. So it was a business decision as much as, you know, I just think the people here like wrestling,

it was an area that had recently supported a wrestling territory. had a history of wrestling fans in the area, affordable buildings, TV stations that as it turned out, it wasn't as easy as we thought, but we could still get on and deal with. We weren't going to get on in Chicago.

And if I'd have had my druthers, I'd have said, fuck, I'll just stay where I'm at and run Charlotte. Because that has a great goddamn history of drawing for wrestling too, but the TV stations were too expensive. The buildings were too expensive. So we just kind of went slightly west into a territory that was equally as enamored of wrestling, but was more affordable and was possible to do on a budget.

And we did it for a while. And once again, the only name you ever considered was Smokey Mountain Wrestling. Yes, I mean, I've told the story before where I sat in the backseat with the Midnight Express. We were making no shows for WCW and looking at the markets that lined up with Knoxville and how that it might be a potential to do a driving territory with guys that were available, that were not signed to the big two companies that lived in the South, and still have a crack at it. And that seemed to be the place.

And I don't think we would have done as well or lasted the four years we lasted if we'd try to do it anywhere else. Florida was burnt. Charlotte was getting to be a big major media market and too expensive and also still had a lot of other independence around. and Paul Jones and those guys had tried it just, you know, with South Atlantic wrestling just a year before this, there wasn't a lot of major markets in Alabama.

It just seemed to be the right place to try something. Jim, our next question was sent to corny drive-thru at gmail.com from Shea Kempler in Israel. In a recent interview, Paul Heyman explained why he said, why he dislikes the term manager, claiming that everyone, including Jim Coronet himself, told him that it was a dying role.

Heyman mentioned that ever since, he has always tried to be something else, effectively doing the work of a manager, but without carrying the actual title. I would love to hear Jim's thoughts on this. Well, I didn't say that managers were dying because of the name manager. I said managers were dying because Vince doesn't use him

and nobody's fucking good at it anymore. And Paul, you know, that's, it's admirable on his part that he's trying to be an advocate or a wise man or an Oracle because it does set him apart. It makes him different. But if he was the manager, he'd still be different because there's no other fucking managers. And, you know, it obviously was an important part of wrestling for so long,

and it's what made a lot of people want to be involved in the wrestling business. Bobby Heenan, for me, it's just that it's one of the things that went away, one of the abilities to use guys who weren't athletically standouts, but who could talk to make up for the shortcomings at a guy who was the opposite, who was athletically a fucking standout, but who couldn't say Suey if the hogs had him. And managers are as old as the hills in boxing and wrestling,

managers or seconds or trainers or whatever the terminology was, the guy in the corner that's the business mind and or the mouthpiece and or the hype man. So Paul is doing the same thing that somebody's been doing in combat sports for 100 years. He just calls himself different things. But the reason why managers went away in wrestling is because the big companies narrowed down to just two and nobody was using them. And then we lost the art. Nobody now would know what to fucking do if they wanted to be used.

Yeah, AEW of Don Callis, who has a stable of 40 people, and he's bigger than most of them. And never manages. And doesn't do anything at ringside. Doesn't cut the promo for his guys in any effective way, does nothing at ringside. And it's just, no, it's just nonsense. And Stokely's not real. They never gave him any credibility. At the first, they just put him out there to fucking say funny things.

And who was the other guy? they had another one there for a while. Well, they've had a few other people in and out, but, you know, Alex, oh, the lawyer, the lawyer, Mark Sterling, which was always just meant to be comedy. And that's, no, you either find a guy that you want to make a top manager and start him out managing the absolute main event guy in the territory like Jimmy Hart did with Jerry Lawler and then carried the territory on the heel side for five years. or you already have a top manager and you put guys that you want to be main event stars with him

to make them top guys a la Bobby Heenan in Indiana or WWF. But you don't have underneath comedy managers just to put them on the card. There's no reason for it. And it doesn't have to be dead. It could always be brought back and resuscitated if done correctly. same thing with tag team wrestling, so... Yeah. It's still possible.

Jim, our next question sent to corny drive-thru at gmail.com was sent by Sean on Long Island. In May of 1996, what if the curtain call at Madison Square Garden never happened? The Stone called Steve Austin still find his way to the main event scene, despite not winning the 1996 King of the Ring. Do the fans take Hunterhurst-Helmsley seriously as a main event heel to challenge a baby-faced champion Sean Michaels in 1996? And that's his question. Well, Austin, Austin would have always gotten over, I think even without the King of the Ring,

as long as the decision had been made, that he was no longer the ringmaster, and he was now Steve Austin. that probably would have happened. You know what the big thing may have been? I mean, you tell me you were in the office. With all of the things that were going on, the big thing that probably helped them the most

was Brett Hart wanting to work with him. Because Brett wasn't around. Well, yes. Yeah, that's... Austin was such a talent, and everybody, JR, myself, Bruce, Michael Hayes, anybody that you asked except Vince, wanted to use Steve Austin more.

so Steve Austin would have happened whether the people would have taken to Hunter or Hurst Helmsley as Hunter or Hurst Helmsley in the original incarnation instead of Triple H as a bigger stretch but he was already starting to be able to worm his way out of that the blue blood gimmick

somebody tweeted a picture the other day of this stupid video that they had us do, and I remember in Wheeling, West Virginia, where I was managing Mantar for three weeks or whatever, and Triple H was Hunter Hurst Helmsley, the blue-blooded snob,

and they took us to a restaurant to shoot a video of Triple H Hunter Hurst Helmsley trying to teach Mantar table manners. And I ended up getting a pie in a face or whatever. And we had to do that at this TV taping in Wheeling, West Virginia, at this empty restaurant downtown next to a hotel somewhere

and then go over and do the TV taping, and I had fucking cream in my fucking hair. But it was ridiculous that that's where Triple H was at that period of time, and then he got out of that gimmick and nipped up, and we got rid of Mantar, and I've washed my hands of the whole business. But no, Hunter Hurst Helmsley would have never gotten over. That was a horrible gimmick.

You know what? That would have been an extension of everything that was kind of wrong with WWE in 95 and 94 if Hunter Hurst Helmsley, who was getting pushed beyond the fans accepting him, was all of a sudden the main event heel against babyface Sean Michaels who did not, despite what people think of him now, did not light up business at all. No.

At that point in time, that would have been a disaster. everybody was miscast and that's where somebody griped to me one time he said hunter hurst helmsley would never draw any money hunter hurst helmsley never did draw any money triple h did later on it was in a spot but Vince had miscast the even the good talent that he had Sean Michaels instead of being that insufferable douchebag prick asshole sexy boy heel was living his childhood dream because that was Vince's childhood dream. And Triple H was a goddamn snob from Greenwich, Connecticut, because that's what Vince was, that was his alter ego.

Why do you think he was from Greenwich? The whole thing was a rib. But sooner or later, either Austin just got to be Steve Austin, because Vince gave up on the ringmaster and didn't give a shit. Or Mick Foley got over with Vince enough as a person that instead of being mankind, he could then be dude love and cactus jack and all the other shit. And then Triple H just started hanging out with enough people that had Vince's ear that he got to be whatever Triple H is rather than the snooty guy that did the curtsy.

Well, that's an interesting what if. What if the curtain call had never happened? If the curtain call hadn't happened, those guys were still leaving, they would have left anyway. Triple H would have won the king of the ring, but it wouldn't have helped Hunter Hurst Helmsley, but maybe if it was more of a departure, you know, then that would have helped him.

And, you know, and I would have had less reason to fucking, cuss the four goofy assholes in the boys club for the last 30 years because they wouldn't have exposed the business in Madison Square Garden. Well, Jim, our next question sent in to corny drive-thru at gmail.com was sent by Phil. Phil from a small town Jim has frequented a few times in his career called Lenore, North Carolina. Oh, I remember Phil from Lenore, Phil McCracken.

is his name. Let's go to Mr. McCracken's question. Recently, Jim lamented how terrible an in-ring name Stephen Borden is. And I have to agree. Because of this, I've taken it upon myself to come up with a list of new names for Steve the tryout. He would like to get Jim's thoughts.

Oh, wait a, this is like creative services, except they're in Lenore instead of Stanford. Well, you are the person who has popularized the name test, so you will decide if any of these pass the name test. All righty Sting Jr. Only if he becomes a luchador. El Hijo de Sting.

Ditto. He wrote De Sting. El Hiro, El Hiro de De Sting. Any thoughts on that? I think it's same thing. If he moves to Mexico. Well, no, he's an AEW. I can see Excalibre being excited about pronunciating

thing, I can't even say it, about saying things in Spanish on the show. When Tony Chavani just wants to say, it's Steve. What about Scorpion? Ooh, but not, it would have to be the Scorpion, wouldn't it? Does Scorpion Steve work? Can he use Steve in any fashion, or does he have to just... Well, wait a minute, Steve Scorpion. That's his name.

First name, Steve, last name, Scorpion. Not terrible, not terrible. I'm not against that one. What about Stinger? Just Stinger, calling him Stinger. I think until you get to like Madonna, Cher, you know, just one name. I think Steve Scorpion is best one I've heard so far.

Steve the Sting, wait a minute, Steve the Stinger Scorpion. That, I mean, that certainly is hammering the point. home. Steve the Stinger Scorpion versus Stone Cold Steve Austin. Sounds like it works. Jim, what about bored? Kind of like Coke.

So we know it'll be AEW approved. So instead of bored and just bored. I think that's more of a description of the audience. What about the artist formerly known as Steve? See, somebody's ridiculous. What about Bruce Springsteen? Hold on, hold on now. Formerly known as Steve, the problem is he hasn't been known long enough to be formerly known.

And what was this one? The Bruce Bruce, Bruce, I can't even say it. Bruce Springsting. Might be a little tough for the kids. Stung. What about stung? It's like he has a weird list here because some of them, it's like, okay. And then the rest of them, Sting Borden.

Just giving him the name Sting. Sting Borden and finally Nature Boy Buddy Borden I'll take that one What do you do? I mean he definitely does not have a name to me that passes the name test but he's already been introduced and people know who his dad is

What do you do now? I honestly You know if it just if it was just Steve Borden instead of them trying to get the Stephen thing over because again it sounds like somebody is admonishing young Stephen Borden

for misbehaving at recess. I think the Stephen is awkward even though they know who he is, he could be Steve. Or maybe he just, maybe he just don't need to be doing this. I don't know. All right.

Well, we think we have at least one name that could potentially work. I think Steve, what was it, Steve, the Scorpion? Steve the Stinger Scorpion? It was Steve Scorpion was the name you settled out of it. Steve the Stinger Scorpion, that might work.

I don't know. Either that or just goddamn brawn breaker. How's that? Well, there it is. And with that, Jim, the drive-thru has closed. It's been stung. Oh, now Phil. All right.

Next week on the show, we have a lot of things to talk about a big WWE pay-per-view. Also, our look at the top rest of it. wrestlers in 1994 will continue reconvene next week here on the show. Of course, you can go through the archive, patreon.com slash cornet. $5 a month gets you access to the archive going back to 2013,

patreon.com slash cornet. The official Jim Coronet YouTube channel go and subscribe today. Full episodes, Clip City episodes, omnibus collections, that great George Levinitis artwork, just go to YouTube and search for Jim It'll come right up.

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oh, I fucked up the personalization. Or I was so panicked, I wouldn't get it. Before it was sold out, I forgot. So we are sorting everything tomorrow. And over the next few days, things will become more clear. And then we will start fulfilling these fine orders the week of October the 12th. From Jim Cornett.com. You got you, baby.

And we're open for business. That's right. You damn skippy. Just like your favorite hooker. Of course, ladies and gentlemen, the drive-thru is brought to you by the law office of Stephen P. New, 8775-0, Steve. Get Even with Stephen at newlawoffice.com. But, until next time for Jim Cornett, I'm the great Brian last. Tally-ho!