My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 55 - WRESTLEMANIA 36 RECAP FEATURING JIM ROSS

Episode Date: April 6, 2020

Robbie Fox, Jared Carrabis, and Brandon Walker break down the WWE’s first ever TWO-NIGHT WrestleMania, which went down in front of absolutely nobody at the WWE Performance Center, and they actually enjoyed the bizarre show quite a bit! Then, later on in the episode, the boys are joined by AEW Commentator, WWE Hall of Famer, and professional wrestling LEGEND Jim Ross to discuss his latest book, ‘Under the Black Hat: My Life in the WWE and Beyond’ - OUT NOW, the amazing work he’s currently doing in All Elite Wrestling, and more!You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

Hey My Mom's Basement listeners, you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. We have a special guest later on in the show, none other than Jim Ross, when we'll even discuss WrestleMania with him as well, because we did that interview after the whole event had concluded. But, we're here to talk about the whole empty arena thing that went down this weekend. Overall, what did we think fellas we could start with you brandon yeah overall i think it was better than i anticipated i i think the relief of seeing wrestlemania actually happen and new content happen and and a time that we desperately need some entertainment was uh it was overwhelming to me and i i really appreciate wwe putting it on

the empty arena matches i don't know that they're something i will ever watch again the cinematic matches i will probably go back to over and over overall yeah overall i would say it was it was good it was considering the circumstances it was really good yeah yeah jared i think uh the same thing with like with the cinematic type matches. I thought those were outstanding. I'm sure they got mixed reviews online. I haven't read anything about what the reaction was to Cena and Bray Wyatt. But watching that, I mean, that was for the first time during our WrestleMania live stream,

everyone forgot that we were streaming we just stopped what we were doing and we just locked in on this whole thing here going on and it was awesome like I really appreciated the effort that they put in because they could have absolutely

mailed it in and I think that they got super creative with it. And I think it also opens the door in the future to have matches where, you know, like we talked about last night on the stream. Now you can do Undertaker versus Sting and no one has to worry about, you know,

an injury or aging or whatever. If it takes 50 cuts, then you can do 50 cuts. It is what it is. But yeah, I think that it really created a new Avenue moving forward. And I think that the WWE did the best they could with, with what they had. And I think, I think what I would have done is I would have postponed WrestleMania. Like I wouldn't have called this WrestleMania,

but the idea of still giving the fans something on WrestleMania weekend, like, yeah, sure. Go ahead and do that. I think that was the only real issue that I had with it was that it should have been called something else that WrestleMania, because like, you know, like the moment with Drew McIntyre, you know, we talked about this with, with Jr and the interview, how it would have, the moment would have been that much better if you had the crowd reaction.

And for, for his story, if you go watch the special that WWE network did on Drew McIntyre, you know, you can't, it's, it's almost like, this is the moment that he's been waiting for, but you feel bad for him in his, in his great moment. Cause like, you know, he's up on like the turnbuckle looking out in the crowd and i'm sure he's picturing what that moment would have been like like there's no way he's 100 enjoying what just happened he's probably just like in his head trying to picture all the

fans like going crazy for him and and you can never you can never have that moment back like it's not something where it's like all right so now i have to lose the title and then yeah at next year's wrestlemania i might main event again like what are the odds that drew mcintyre is gonna you know uh have a a wwe main event title match at a wrestlemania again like it's probably just not gonna happen but um yeah it sucks and you only you only get one You do. And I echo a lot of what the two of you said in that I went into this pretty skeptical. I forgot that I had therapy at 11. So that's my take on WrestleMania.

Follow me on Twitter at Jared underscore Karabas if you have any other questions. Have fun, pal. Thanks. I echo a lot of what you guys said in that I went into it pretty skeptical, and I came out of it enjoying the product that we got. I enjoyed the two cinematic matches more than anything.

I think you and me agree, Brandon, in that the best pure match we saw was probably Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins. Would you say that? I would say that, although I think last night on the stream, I kind of shit on the Charlotte-Rhea Ripley match, and watching that back, that was an excellent bell-to-bell match. I didn't like the result, but bell-to-bell, those ladies really brought it. So I would still say Owens-Rollins was the best in-ring match

followed by Charlotte and Rhea Ripley. So just looking at night one now, we'll talk pros and cons of night one quickly. The Undertaker versus AJ Styles styles match the boneyard match which we touched on that's the standout event from night one definitely we saw the undertaker come out almost in biker taker attire he had not the limp biscuit entrance music but metallica and aj had a phenomenal entrance coming in on the coffin with the club the way they shot it was so perfectly campy in that i don't know if a non-wrestling fan would watch that and enjoy it but if you could buy into it it was really enjoyable in its ridiculousness i think it starts with the buy-in of the wrestlers

and watching undertaker and aj out there you could just tell you can tell when a guy is into what he's doing you can tell when a guy is having fun doing what he's doing. And Undertaker walking around, punching AJ Styles, talking shit, picking him up, talking more shit. You could just tell they were having a ball out there. And this is probably the best use of the Undertaker at this point. Putting him in front of 60,000 people is going to show his limitations. But you get him in that setting and you let him be Undertaker

and you let him, come here, AJ, I heard you talking about my wife. Say her name now. And he was talking like Mark Calloway. He wasn't talking like the Undertaker. It was just the perfect use of those guys. It surpassed all my expectations. And, yeah, you have to watch it with like a little wink.

You can't go in thinking, all right, well, I'm going to see an Academy Award-winning performance. You're not. You're not. But you're going to see something Academy Award winning performance. You're not. You're not. But you're going to see something that's just fun. That's all it is. It was fun, and the key to it is what you said in that it's better than anything the Undertaker could do in the ring at this point. You and me, two guys that are not super high on the Undertaker at this point, I said if I never see another Undertaker match ever again, I'd be okay with that.

I would actually like to see more cinematic Undertaker matches. That's the way I would use him and it would have been fun to be in Tampa watching that on a big screen, reacting to it with that WrestleMania crowd. So I think even if that wasn't the plan for what you were originally going to do, yes, that's what you should be doing with The Undertaker

going forward. No, the things you can do with him now, even if it's not a match, even if it's just a wrestler visiting him in this graveyard setting or these, these settings, the character you unlocked the other night, this, this kind of grizzled backlot brawler that just, you know, does whatever, still has the undertaker kind of mythos behind him, but it's just this swashbuckling 70 style action star.

That's, I mean, that's unlocking a huge a huge uh thing down the road that could be interesting so two thumbs up two thumbs up sticking out of a grave from uh robbie and brandon walker here let's talk about now the only the only shot of that old thing that i was like well the the the gloves sticking out of the grave come on ridiculous absurd i i thought that was okay the undertaker moving the vines out from the grave to reveal like a brand new aj styles uh tombstone that was a bit much for me let's talk about the title like like at a at a casket or no at a i don't know who sells tombstones right a tombstone place saying all right it's aj styles i believe he's born in 77 yeah and getting all the particulars and paying the money and then going down and it was just you know it was just fun like the druids uh the the

club now i do feel bad for the club because the club had to just show up and get the shit kicked out of them for nothing yeah but you know what are you gonna do hey i know those guys those guys definitely loved doing that like they're the most ridiculous goofy personalities they've got let's talk about the title match braun stroman defeated goldberg for the universal title braun finally got his moment in front of nobody they struck while the iron was hot with that guy yeah it's two years too late but you know this is one of those where the result was right, even if the product wasn't. You know, it's obvious that Goldberg, they made a mistake with Goldberg. Let's just be honest.

Goldberg should have been brought back to put over the fiend. They didn't know what would happen, so they got stuck. They couldn't have Roman Reigns take it. It was all about Goldberg showing up to Mania with the belt so he could give it to Reigns. That's what the plan was. It's obvious. Plans changed. Braun Strowman's a the plan was. It's obvious. Plan's changed.

Braun Strowman's a great fallback. It's two years too late. He would have been a main man if he won it two years ago, but now he's got it, and I think that's okay. Yeah, I think it's okay. The match stunk. It was just finisher spam, Goldberg not being able to do a jackhammer as we anticipated.

Yeah, so it was just Spears, and then Braun picked him up and hit a bunch of his finishisher so i thought that stunk hopefully braun with the title is going to amount to something it's tough to give anyone a title now i feel bad for him andrew to try to create some momentum out of nothing here but yeah like you said right result what this has done is braun had so many times where he didn't break through he He's now broken through. He's now a world champion caliber wrestler. So I assume he's going to drop it to Roman at the next big event that they have because that was the plan. I assume that's going to happen.

But you now have former heavyweight champion or heavyweight champion Braun Strowman, and I believe he will have more. He'll have title reigns down the road. This will be the start of something for him. I hope so because I like him. have more he'll have title reigns down the road this will be the start of something for him i hope so because i like him do you think uh it was an issue doing goldberg and reigns in the first place because i think that was also a big like i i can't imagine a wrestlemania crowd enjoying that match who are they rooting for i think using 53 year old goldberg in any capacity was a mistake I I don't think there's an audience in 2020

clamoring to see Goldberg I I I know Vince probably has a better read on things than I do but I just when I saw him I've never been as disenfranchised by wrestling as I was the day I saw that he beat The Fiend one of their hottest acts in years and you can say the fiend doesn't need the title whatever but he had the title yeah and taking it off of him with goldberg of all people in saudi arabia too like to do it there on the shows that we've been sort of made to believe don't matter as much like not don't pay attention to these they're on in the afternoon we're not watching most people are at work you've got this star that you're building up and you take the title off of them with a 53 year old part-timer and you do it at 11 o'clock in the fucking morning it's so ass backwards when you think about like wrestling booking but talking about something that was good that we mentioned kevin owens versus seth rollins

uh this was really good they started the match going balls to the wall like insane sequences back and forth back and forth back and forth and then Rollins hits him with a ring bell and we were all disenfranchised with it because we were like get out of here you're gonna finish that great match with that finish but they got us hook line and sinker Kevin Owens got in the ring did the classic uh-uh we're not gonna end it like that get back in here let's finish this no dq and he did that dive that everyone's probably seen at this point. If you're listening to the podcast right off that WrestleMania sign, he said later on Twitter that he wanted to dive off the giant pirate ship in Tampa that I would have feared for his life if he did that. But this was a great match, the best

match across both nights of WrestleMania, where I could sort of forget that we were watching an empty arena WrestleMania and just be like, all right right this is a wrestling match well these are two of the best wrestlers in the world and when I was watching it almost almost every time I watch him really study him in a big match I always think of myself oh wow Seth Rollins is a really really fucking good professional wrestler people forget that because the character is never connected as a baby face and he's made to be like a whiny shitty heel that's what he is now but when he gets in the ring the guy can just fucking wrestle like Kevin Owens you know he's gonna bring it those two guys made magic it felt like I don't know we haven't talked about this but later in the show we'll talk to Jim Ross about

some things with AEW and how one of their strengths is they just let the guys go out there and be themselves and kind of feel their way around it felt like that this feud and that match was just Owens and Rollins going out there together and making something it didn't feel canned or created I agree and even the promos leading up to this when they were doing the empty arena promos about the Wrestlemania moments how Seth had had so many Wrestlemania moments and Kevin Owens didn't really have his I thought that was all really intriguing stuff and I was like oh shit all right they're they're getting me interested in this match another good match we saw on this card John Morrison versus Jimmy Uso versus Kofi Kingston weird circumstances this was a triple threat ladder match for the tag team championships strange it had a bizarre finish where they all kind of grabbed the titles

out and then uh john morrison took a massive ladder bump and came down with the titles i liked the match as a whole though and another one where like you said about kevin owens and seth rollins kind of seemed like they let the boys just be the boys they had a crazy spot fest it lasted as let's see the actual runtime on that felt short. Yeah, about under 20 minutes, 18 minutes, perfect runtime. So the idea, the concept was terrible. You have a singles match, and I know why they added that. You have a triple threat match of singles for the tag team titles.

I don't, that's a terrible idea. Why would I want to watch that? But then you look at it and you got Kofi Kingston, you got John Morrison and you got Uso. You got three great workers in there and that's going to work. You get those three guys in there. That's going to work. Kofi, any high stakes match, any, any ladder match, anything that involves acrobatics, he's going to be great at it. John Morrison, the same way.

And then I think both Usos are criminally underrated for the way they can bring it in the ring so they get together and I didn't like the finish I thought it was a little bit of a kind of a hokey finish a little too too much of a fake finish yeah but I like the result I like John Morrison I mean I think he worked his ass off and it was a very good match yeah I like the finish I just like when you get creative with a ladder match finish especially and this Wrestlemania my big thing across both nights it was like get weird with it try new stuff get wacky um some other stuff that was on the card just mentioning quickly on the pre-show we saw Drew Gulak versus

Cesaro we saw Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross defeat the Kabuki Warriors. It was a very fine, okay opener. Nothing special. Nothing you would go back and re-watch. Elias defeat Corbin. I would say the same thing about that. Sami Zayn defeated Daniel Bryan. Both my guys, but once again, I would say fine. It was watchable.

Not necessarily bad, but not the most captivating. And a title match we saw was Becky Lynch defending her title successfully against Shayna Baszler. This was another match with a finish that you didn't love. No, I think the two, well, there were three women's title matches, but two of the women's title matches I thought had the wrong result. I just think they're overcooking their grits here with Becky. She had her big moment last year. It has been a year. It feels like she's treading water. It would have been a nice time It feels like she's treading water. It would have been a nice time to have a change of pace.

You build up this monster, Shayna Baszler, and this would have been great. If you take it and put it on Shayna, she's an established monster. She made history at the Elimination Chamber. For her to walk in, take this title, and now you've got Becky without the title looking around, what do I do, what do I do? You can build her back up. You can do this redemption story. You can do a chase. Instead, they just do a fluke roll-up, and now you've taken that monster

and what? What? Who has improved off of this result? Becky is still treading water. Shayna is now – she looks like an idiot because she can't get it done in her first big shot. I think that was a terrible result. Yeah, I think you have a decent point. The more I think about it,

the more I sort of agree with you. It's tough because I think they booked themselves into a corner with this one where they wanted to keep the title on Becky. They didn't want to give it to Shana, but they didn't want to have Shana get beat in front of no crowd because that's obviously going to be a moment when a baby face finally like definitively beats her. So they gave her the roll roll up it didn't really work for me either especially in the way they structured the match and that it was a lot of shana just beating becky down beating becky down

and becky didn't seem to get that fire up she just got a roll up and won so i don't know where the like what was supposed to captivate me about that match was it just supposed to be a surprise was it supposed to be a shock that it finished before we expected it to i don't know i i'm sort of with you leaning in on that i think that might have been the wrong call but becky's becky's character is the man right yeah the man doesn't escape wrestlemania with a flute roll-up pin she i mean that's true that's that's not what you do if that's your character especially Especially if she's coming in on the 18-wheeler airbrush for herself. That's who she is. Stone Cold wasn't winning matches, but he was stunning people.

He was fighting them, and he was brawling. He was punching them. He was solving a mud hole, and he was stunning them. He wasn't getting fluke victories. Yeah, so that was night one. Overall, night one, I think night two was better. See, I think I disagree. Oh, really?

I think night one was slightly better. All right. Well, I preferred night two was better um but night one i think i disagree i think i think night one was i think night one was slightly better all right well i preferred night two i think night one for me though i probably went in with such low expectations that when we came out of it we had a good time on the stream it was like all right that was watchable we could do that again tomorrow the last hour and a half of night one was outstanding yeah that that was uh the ladder match that was um ladder match on pretty much everything on that ladder match owens rollins you had a title change and then you had undertaker aj styles that's that's four good things happened at mania and that was a great hour and a half yeah so moving on to night two we touched on a little earlier drew mcintyre and brock lesnar

main evented it was four minutes and 35 seconds and and Drew got his moment. Another match pretty much like the Braun Goldberg one. A lot of finisher spamming, a lot of Claymores, a lot of F5s. The match itself, I don't know. I'm not – I like a quick sprint. I like the Goldberg-Lesnar match from WrestleMania a few years ago. It's overdone at this point, though. Yeah. Yeah, you can't do it with every Lesnar match.

You can't do it when you do back-to-back title matches. Like, we didn't get a good title matchnar match. You can't do it when you do back-to-back title matches. Like, we didn't get a good title match at WrestleMania. How crazy is that? Brock is good enough, especially in that environment, where they could have taken breaks and edited together a match. Brock is good enough to have a good match. We know this.

Drew McIntyre is obviously in great shape. I don't know. I know why Goldberg and Brock had a sprint. I don't know why McIntyre and Lesnar had a sprint. Well, now is it getting to the point where that's like Brock's thing and you can't not do a sprint if you're in a match with Brock? That's not a good thing, though. I'm with you. That's not an entertaining thing.

That's just, okay, Lesnar's going to be in the ring. He's going to suplex twice and then go straight to his finishers and then two minutes, we'll have a finish. I know. I don't like that. No, I don't know that anybody would. And I and I do say this though it was the right result and I know Drew didn't get his moment and that does suck but Drew deserves to be the champion and when it comes back whenever it comes back that first raw he's going to walk out first he's going to hold that belt up

and that's going to be the substitute for his moment. Drew has worked his way back to a level. He's he's, I said it last night, you know, skinny drew when he debuted, had all the potential in the world. Well, last night potential was realized. This guy just looks like a star. He wrestles like a star. The Claymore is a star move. I think it was a good finish. It's a, it's a great finish. And I'm just happy for Drew McIntyre. No, he didn't get his moment, but I'm satisfied as a consumer of this product of what I saw. I'm satisfied.

And more than anything relieved that Brock Lesnar made the, you know, made the right call, put, put Drew over. Um, before that, we saw the firefly fun house match Bray Wyatt, the fiend versus John Cena. It's weird even saying Bray Wyatt versus John Cena because I don't know what this was it was a cut scene more than anything but I think there was one wrestling move loved it I loved this I think even more than the Boneyard match because it was so much crazier I tweeted am I on fucking acid during it like the Mr. McMahon puppet with the macho man puppet like calling the match having

john cena go back to his ruthless aggression attire having him go back to his dr thugonomics attire and then having him come out on nitro as nwo hulk hogan this was fucking batshit crazy and i loved it this was absolutely everybody made the joke but, but I tweeted out, is this what drugs are like? This is insane. I still don't get the NWO reference, but watching Cena come out in an NWO shirt with the belt and playing it like Hollywood Hogan, we talked about the buy-in of Undertaker, AJ Styles. It goes double here.

Triple maybe. Bray Wyatt is always bought into his character. Whatever Bray Wyatt's character character he's 100% in but Cena and his goofy facial expressions and his punching air and his doing the Hogan thing fighting the puppet too when he when he's like doing ground and pound on that pig puppet John Cena is just such a star and the fact that he absolutely dove into this 150% and bought into the absurdity and did every facial expression and every action just pitch perfect. John Cena did Bray Wyatt huge favors last night. And it was great. I don't know how it's going to hold up over time, but in the moment, I was captivated, and that's what wrestling is about.

Definitely. It was a WrestleMania moment. Twitter exploded full of memes full of gifts full of everything it was like fun to watch wrestling at that moment so we're all for that Bailey defended her title successfully in a five way against Lacey Evans Naomi Sasha Banks and Tamina right before that this match went 13 minutes and it felt like 13 hours I wasn't the biggest fan of this one yeah i it was just uh it was heatless uh and obviously it's an empty arena match so a lot of them but but other matches were able to maintain heat and this one just kind of felt like we were just we were all captivated during bray wyatt and john cena but this one we were just having separate conversations because

nothing on the screen was really this actually went Oh, shit, this actually went 19-20. I'm sorry. I read the John Cena runtime was 13 minutes. This one went 19 minutes. That makes more sense to me. Yeah, this one went too long, and still nothing really happened. Bayley's had that belt, what, since May? She's had it a long time. I didn't even know that. I don't think I knew that.

And Sasha Banks and Bayley are still threatening turning on each other. That's been going on for, what, two years? I know, yeah. I'm thinking back to the Elimination Chamber when when sasha was like hitting bailey's foot off the lion king style i i don't know what they need to do because bailey isn't necessarily bad as a heel but she she doesn't have momentum with her right now and they probably should have given the title to someone else or done that turn last night i don't know and we'll see that that's the definition that matches the definition of characters who are very good wrestlers just kind of treading water right now yeah once again just

quickly going through some of the stuff that we don't need to dive into allister black defeated bobby lashley it was a good match allister black had cool entrance attire it was fine not something you would go back and re-watch street profits defeated angel garza and austin theory that's right another one good match, not amazing. It was six minutes long, so you're not going to get anything crazy out of that. Otis defeated Dolph Ziggler. We got a nice feel-good moment at the end where Otis got to kiss Mandy Rose finally. Everyone liked that.

I know that Drew McIntyre's moment is the one where we go back and say, he didn't get to have his moment in front of a crowd. But the eventual Otis kiss with the girl that that needed to be in a stadium probably more than anything yeah you're right you're right about that are they gonna oh yeah they did that that needed to be in the stadium more than anything true and then what we could end this night to uh recap talking about is a longer match the match i think we were all looking forward to the most leading into WrestleMania edge versus Randy Orton in a last man standing match,

a tour of the performance center. Pretty much. We were given, they took us to every room. We were in every meeting room, every weight room, every conference room. I really enjoyed this throughout the entire thing.

I saw a lot of people on Twitter were saying it went too long, especially if it was a match that you could have edited down since it was a pre-tape. I liked it. There was no point where I was watching it where I was like, all right, let's get this show on the road, boys. It was brutal. It was a fight. It was what we needed it to be. I like that we gave Edge the victory, even though it wasn't in front of the crowd. It wasn't that big return moment for him. It was good. I'm going to side with the internet a little bit on this one i i do think it was good i i think it was a match that uh of two guys i enjoy but it was the second longest match in wrestlemania history it clocked in i believe at 38 minutes i think they could have told the story in 20 i think i i think a match

where two guys are trying to kill each other and are trying are hitting each other with chairs and bells and everything they can find and throwing each other into windows and tractor trailers i think that match logically doesn't need to go more than 20 minutes i think logically somebody's going to knock the other one out in that time i think you're right i think they were going for the epic and they they i understand that and. I think you're right. I think they were going for the epic. And I understand that. And I do think the finish was right. Getting up on top of that trailer and then the Edge being

morally twisted on what to do. Should he do it? Should he not? And he ends up doing it. And he brings the storyline right back to where it started with Randy Orton kind of hovering overhead. Should I have done that? So it was good. It was a good story. It was just a little bloated, and they probably could have done it a little quicker. Yeah, I won't necessarily argue with that.

Like you said, it's the second longest match in WrestleMania history, 38 minutes. I can't sit here and say I needed every second of that. But for me, it didn't drag in the moment. And if I go back and watch it, I can see myself enjoying that. I liked also, like you said edge sort of showing should i do that should i not it's teasing later on when edge eventually comes back as the crazy oh my god i'm throwing my hair back for the spear edge so i'm down with that edge is one of my favorite wrestlers of all time so just seeing him back was cool seeing the wwe 24 they put on for

him i recommend to everybody that was phenomenal the one thing i would say about the internet on this is guys chill the fuck out we got edge on wrestlemania yeah we got edge back wrestlemania went on like we didn't think it could go on we didn't think it would be good and then it wound up being i think most people said above average like in in terms of what we were grading it on it's a different scale you're not going back and re-watching this wrestlemania years from now but in the moment it was entertaining I think it's going to settle in as a mid-tier Wrestlemania and I know we won't watch it years from now because the empty arena matches are hard to re-watch but we will we will never forget it you're right it will stand the test of time as something that hopefully hopefully we never have to deal with again and it is unique

and I kudos to them for doing it because the number one thing I need in, or we all need right now is something to take our minds off where we're at and what we're doing and WWE gave it. I know Vince took a lot of heat and a lot of people said they should have postponed it. He shouldn't be doing this. Well, he did it. And I, I enjoyed it. Yeah. I enjoyed it as well as a skeptic, like I said,

so that was WrestleMania. It was a two-night affair. I hope going forward they continue with the two-night thing. It was pretty refreshing to watch. I can't imagine watching all of these matches over the course of one night. But when you spread it out among two nights, it was fun. I liked the two-night thing. Two three-hour shows is very easy to take in.

Definitely. So up next, you will hear our interview with Jim Ross. Jared Karabas joins us for the entire thing as well, so you'll get the rocket back for that. And we'll talk to you next week. Thank you for tuning in. Here's Jim Ross. Jim, how are you holding up?

It's a weird time, first and foremost. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for asking. I don't have any symptoms of the virus. I'm in the high-risk group, which is why I'm not flying for AEW right now, but I'm feeling pretty good considering the state of our union, and I have much more empathy for others, and I'm not worried about me, quite frankly, but that's good. My book's doing great. AEW's getting more of a foothold, so life is pretty damn good fellas yeah the book i think is very interesting the last book slobber knocker this one picks up right where that left off right around that wrestlemania 15 area and i was reading the prologue of it a little bit and i wanted to ask

you as a guy that's been involved in so many wrestlemania so many legendary moments does one stick out above all others we're in wrestlemania season we just wrapped up you know one does one wrestlemania stick out for you yeah 17 was in the astrodome that was the second uh rock austin match and it was also the uh unfaithful night that stone cold came aligned with mr mcmahon and became a villain which i was you read in my book i was spirited conversations about that because I thought that was a mistake, and I still do. I said it would be like John Ford casting John Wayne to be a Nazi. It doesn't fit.

Especially in your home state, in your home market. But we did our best to pull it off. But 17 was big because my dad and I were big football fans, and that was one of the things we did together religiously and the nbc affiliate in oklahoma carried the houston owners from the astrodome my dad loved bum phillips redneck loves redneck so uh and earl campbell love you blue all that great stuff so to go in that arena and set an all-time attendance record uh was pretty extraordinary because it brought me back home to my when i was a kid so that's kind of where i'm

thinking they're 17 18 had that amazing uh hulk hogan versus the rock match that a lot of folks still talk about uh but i guess 17 from top to bottom another Another reason, fellas, is because we had that if you guys can recall, I've seen it since then, the tables, ladders, and chairs match. Of course. Hardee's, Edge, and Christian set the bar. And I don't know, they set it in a very dangerous

area. But boy, was that a piece of work or what? I'll always remember that. So 17 is kind of special because if nothing else the my the region i grew up in and the region the event was held in here in the central time zone my favorite moment of 17 was uh when bobby heenan and gene oakland came out and you introduced bobby heenan and you did so with such admiration i've always been a big heenan guy. Yeah, me too. I love Bobby. Bobby was just... I don't know if there's anybody I've ever met in wrestling.

I've been in it since 74, making 11. That had more overall skills than Bobby Heenan. He was a great wrestling villain. He took the best ass whipping than anybody I've ever seen. He could bleed with the best.

He was a great manager, as we all know, maybe the best ever. He was a great broadcaster, color guy. He could be a studio host. The most naturally funny, glib guy I've ever worked with. And he just was so much fun to be around. We used to back in my younger days when we would, they'd have a delay at voiceovers at Stanford. He'd say, let's go take a drive. You got that chocolate cake with you.

So chocolate cake was our code word for weed. Hey, you got any, you got any chocolate cake, J.R.? So now there's a T-shirt out. Chocolate cake T-shirt. But Bobby was just a – we had so much fun together. I loved him so much. And the sad irony of this whole story was how he passed without being able to talk with a cancer. It just broke my heart.

But he's the best man. Nobody did more things great in wrestling than Bobby Heenan. Jim, I was given one question, but I'm going to take two because I want to get in Jared's way. How much fun are you having with AEW? I just watch AEW. I love it. Dynamites every Wednesday night, 8, 7 Central.

I absolutely love AEW. I think it's the most refreshing thing to come along in wrestling in years. You're back with Tony Schiavone, and you guys just seem like y'all are having the time of your lives out there. We are. And thanks for asking. It's been a blessing for me. You know, uh, in 2018, this year after my wife got killed, I, not even a year, I, uh, was very depressed and I didn't leave the house a lot.

Uh, McMahon and company booked me twice. I went to New York city to do a Raw 25 show, I think it was. Then I went to Saudi Arabia. Well, that's a vacation spot for you. But nonetheless, I only worked twice. So I felt like that dude, that aging quarterback on the sideline with a little bit of a belly, a big belly, and a clipboard and

advisor just walking around. I didn't like it. I wanted to play because I knew that on this back nine and alive, you guys are all young. You'll get it somewhere down the road. Mortality is real. And we're hearing that every day. Unfortunately,

good people dying of this virus. We're hearing it every day. So I wanted to play. And I've met Tony Khan a couple years earlier, and we had a nice little chat. He's just a big fan. I met him with Alex Marvez, who's another, you know, SiriusXM NFL broadcaster.

So he just bailed me out. Man, I didn't even want to shave. I didn't even wear my watch. I didn't want to do anything but hang at the house. And sometimes old JR, left to his own devices, doesn't make all the best decisions. And I know, I was telling my friend Steven here that I'm drinking every day a little bit. And I'm not just on alarm. I'm not getting drunk. But I don't know if I'm, I don't, and I don't, I'm not just on alarm. I don't, I'm not getting drunk,

but I'm sipping on a little light last night. I have a little crown Royal reserve and a nice little, uh, almost a little, what's those, what's those, those glasses night Yeti. Oh yeah.

I got a little Yeti. I got a little crown reserve and I sipped used to, when I was out with a flare or somebody in the nature war, there wasn't no sipping. Yeah. So gulping. So I love AEW. I love what we try to do.

I love the fact we have time limits. I love the fact that we're trying to replicate more an athletic presentation. And I love the fact that these young kids are 22, 23 years old are getting the opportunity to live their dream. And I happen to be at the right place, again, at the right time to help them do that.

So it's a joy, man. Wednesday nights, 8, 7 Central on TNT. I look forward to it every week. Now, unfortunately, I've not been on it for a while because of this damn virus, but that's temporary. So nonetheless, good question. And the best decision I've made in a long time for JR. If this pandemic had happened earlier in your career when you were with WWE, do you think that you would have taken the whole no-crowd WrestleMania

as a challenge, or are you glad that you never had to deal with anything like that? I'm glad I didn't have to deal with it. I wish none of us had to deal with this damn thing. I said in the interviews, I got some flack for it, you know, I'm knocking them. My first, before I saw what they did on TV, on pay-per-view, or the WWE network, I was skeptical. And I did miss the adulation of the reactions of the crowd

when decisions were rendered. When Drew McIntyre beat Brock Lesnar for the title, I wanted to hear a roar. I'm sure they did too, obviously. But I missed that part of it. I said publicly that I thought it should be postponed until they get back down to Tampa. The people in Tampa made a huge investment in this thing,

and they were planning on new money because WrestleMania brings millions of dollars into a community. I thought that would have been the decision, but when I saw it, I was very impressed with what they did from a production standpoint. They made, uh,

they made chicken salad. Yeah, they did. We were impressed too. I think all three of us, we, we watched it together and through this, you know,

weird zoom thing. Did you happen to see the two matches they put on the firefly fun house match in the boneyard match, I think all three of us, we watched it together and through this weird Zoom thing. Did you happen to see the two matches they put on the Firefly Funhouse match and the Boneyard match, which were very cinematic in scope? Yeah, I liked the Boneyard match much more than I did the Funhouse match. Interesting. Yeah, I didn't. I liked the – well, to me, it was straightforward and easy to understand. It was more down to my cup of tea.

It was in my demographic, guys. That's all. Yeah, and I even think AEW is interesting in talking about that. There's a lot of guys there. You might come from an older school mentality when it comes to pro wrestling, but you've got guys like Orange Cassidy. You've got guys like Luchasaurus who really pushed that new age wrestling boundary. What do you think about guys like those?

I love them because they have passion, man. Darby Allen, I love his work. We got young guys, Sammy Guevara, 22, 23 years old. So many kids, they're not even old enough to get their car insurance reduced. They're not even 25 yet. But they're so much fun to be around. It's not like being around a bunch of crassety, old, cynical guys that have been weather-worn and rode hard and put up wet

who don't like nothing. These kids are bright-eyed, bushy-tailed. They want to play. They want to do their gig, man, just like you guys. You want to play. You want to be on the air. You want to communicate. You want to create content. They're be on the air, you want to communicate, you want to create content.

They're not a bit different than you fellas. Jim, I wanted to ask you about the book because I read Slobberknocker. Slobberknocker is just outstanding. Now with the second book, I think you've entered, I'm going to gas you up a little bit for a second. I think you've entered that Foley Jericho territory where they had two or three great books, and now you've got your second really good book about wrestling.

You've got so many great stories in Slobberknocker coming up about uh paul hayman about your wcw time your mid-south time now this one is mostly focused about stories about vince mcmahon wwe what are some of the stories that somebody picks up this book they're going to read about vince mcmahon and wwe well they understand they understand better my tumultuous, seemingly tumultuous relationship with the most powerful man in the world in that field. And I told other guys this, that it was like I was the offensive coordinator and he was the head coach, and I wanted to run the wishbone, and he wanted to run the spread.

So guess what we did? We ran the damn spread and sometimes i didn't take a rejection real well and sometimes i was a little bit difficult to manage uh that's ego and i learned a lot through that deal but i'll talk about vince i talk about the original xfl i'll talk about the company going public and all that entailed i talk about the attitude era monday night wars a couple of bouts of Bell's palsy, getting relieved of my post a couple of times, moving from draw to smack down,

almost dying from a colon thing. And then of course, lastly, the book ends with my wife's tragic death. So it's a whole new set of circumstances, whole new stories. It's a continuation of my life after Sloggerknocker ended. It just picks right up.

And in three days on Amazon, it was number one selling sports biography in the world. Amazing. Love that. Obviously, you mentioned you and Vince butting heads a lot. Is there an example where you can look back now where you guys were on complete opposite ends of the spectrum and you can look back and be like, I told you so. Yeah.

Uh, not many because he's got great vision. You know, I didn't want to wear the damn black hat. Now, now I won't go on TV. I've got my AEW cap on here now because i'm a aw guy crazy about the hat uh but it worked and it's still working the greatest illustration i'll

give you real quick i wanted to hire mick foley because i'd work with mick uh and and wcw i got to know him i knew what kind of person he was, what a human being he was. And our locker room needed a Mick Foley in it. He was a mentor, a coach, team player totally. And Vince said, no. And I kept pushing. He said, he's already tried out here three times, two or three times, whatever it was. I didn't hire him then.

I'm not going to hire him now. I kept pushing. So it became an annoyance to the chairman. He said, all right, God damn it. I'll let you hire him because you need to know what it's like to have your heart broken by a talent. I said, I don't care what the terms are. Let's get him here and see.

So Mick Foley, Vince, that was one of the guys. And I remember Vince, we were doing that. I did a Mick Foley interview. You guys might remember in the studio where Mankind ended up getting me in the mandible claw and all that good stuff. We didn't know Vince was even there. We didn't have any writers. This is all Adelaide.

Mick and I kind of walked through what we were going to say. But when we got him hired and became Mankind in the shadows, we had to take a break in this interview it probably was a pee break for me uh and uh we hear this voice in the in a this voice very recognizable in the darkness couldn't see him he said god damn this is good shit so that was my that was the closest i had to say, I want to say, I told you so. But Mick was a great success story.

And what it did for me is it gave Vince confidence that my eye for talent wasn't bad. Right. And maybe we'll give JR, let him call a couple of plays here. So we brought a lot of guys in, as you guys know, a lot of guys like we signed them are our department became rich and famous but it's just a matter of instincts and hard work and uh but that's the only time i can think of where i could say i told you so vince because you didn't want to do that real often what were your main ways of finding talent back then when you were really

scouting for the wwf it was a different time social media wasn't around where you know you could go on Twitter and find a thousand indie wrestlers right now that could all do a great job in the ring. What were your routes back then? More standardized. I met with the NFL. I met with Nolan Harrison, the NFL Players Association.

I think it's the Players Association, but he's an NFL guy. Because I knew that there are a lot of football players that were not going to make the 53-man roster that had size and athletic abilities, and maybe they're gregarious and extemporaneous in their talk and extroverted. So we did that, and we looked at a lot of football players. We looked at – we had Jerry Briscoe of the famous Briscoe Brothers, Hall of famer,

a former amateur wrestler at Oklahoma state. Jerry got plugged into all the college coaches. We went to conventions, went to meets, went to tournaments. So he became a fixture in their eyes. And so we found some amateurs. Jerry Briscoe started recruiting Brock Lesnar when Lesnar was a junior in college.

We saw what he looked like. We saw his results. We saw how good he was being an athletic. Guys like Lesnar don't come along very often, quite frankly. You guys, you know. But nonetheless, so that's the way we did it. And then we would watch tapes of other organizations like Ring of Honor, whatever else we could find that was

available and and use that as also a potential source you know i signed a bunch of guys out of ecw back in the day taz dudley's tommy dreamer a lot of their staple guys standard guys we brought in and they had great run so various sources it's easier now as you mentioned because of social media and the uh availability of so much tape now you can facetime somebody you could zoom somebody and get to talk to them so that was kind of how we did that deal and also referrals you know you had we had guys that were former wrestlers or or family members of wrestlers that wanted to make a contact for their chosen one. So a lot of different ways. It was harder then than it is now simply because of social media.

I'm watching AEW every week, and I don't want to ask about specific storylines, but I can't help myself. It's kind of selfish. I'm just such a big fan. This Hangman Page, Kenny Omega, Young Bucks storyline, the match they had, I think it's one of the best tag matches I have ever seen in my entire life. Jim, just talk me through your experience just watching this unfold. It's an incredible story.

Well, you've got two great teams that have familiarity with each other. They're unselfish. They don't mind making the other guy's stuff look good, and that's easy to do with those four. That was as good good tag match. You know, I've called some Arn and Tully, four horsemen matches back in the day. You know, Dusty and Nikita, great chemistry.

But the way you have a great match, Midnight Express, Rock and Roll Express, all those great teams, you've got to have chemistry with your adversary, your dancing partner, and you've got to be unselfish. So you can't keep tally of how many times you got knocked down by him. Now I've got to catch up by knocking him down X number of times. It's not that way. It's all a part of the presentation.

But I thought those guys were as good a tag match as I ever called, anytime, anywhere. All of them are viable building blocks in our company. Young Bucks may be the best tag team in the world. I'm not going to argue that point whatsoever. Uh, Kenny Omega, when Kenny's on, he's really damn good when he's on and he's been on lately. He's been on since the last several weeks. He got back in his, he's found himself again, so to speak.

And Hangman Page, the youngest of the group, 25, 26 years old, you know, college degree, smart kid. He's got the biggest upside perhaps of any of those four. So we put all the ingredients together. The talents were able to strategize their own match. And because we don't have any writers in AEW, what you hear the guys say, they give it a little direction of what direction to go, bullet points, but the matches are much the same way. Here's what we want, and we've got guys like Dean Malenko and Jerry Lynn

and Billy Gunn and all these other cats that are really good coaches. That's what we call them. They're not producers. They're not road agents. They're coaches for us, which should indicate that we're trying to do a more sports-oriented presentation than simply sports entertainment, where it's heavy on the entertainment and short on the sports. I believe in more stake than sizzle, even though I will admit and have no problem doing so,

the sizzle is imperative. If you're looking at talent, you talked about the story with Mick Foley, where this was a guy in WCW and you're like, this is someone that I think we need in the locker room. Obviously, this is a guy that has a ton of charisma. Has what you've looked at back in the day for talent, have those things changed now? If you were going to scout someone for aew um have the boxes that you used to look to check are they different now from when they were back then no same boxes uh because

the most prominent trait when i looked to sign talent was not their how they looked in eight by ten was not how many tattoos they had not Not how much they could wet their hair. All those things. The things we see a lot nowadays. Same ass, same ass, same ass. I look for a unique look. It could be 6'5". It could be 5'6". I didn't care. It could perform.

You think Eddie Guerrero was a giant? No. He was 5'7". 5'8", maybe. Ray Mysterio, even shorter. So I didn't go by the size thing. My big deal was reliability and I believe in life, our life in general, I can guarantee your bosses will say reliability is imperative. It's not negotiable. If I can't depend on you to be at work on time,

to be physically fit and mentally alert and ready to perform and give your best effort then i don't need you i don't need you quitting on me in the ninth inning i don't need you to quit on me before you're headlining a main event because i can't handle the pressure so i'm a big fan of reliability so all those boxes stay the same and uh uh but athleticism and looking like you can fight is important, but reliability is the number one trait that's not going to change. Who would you say you've met throughout your career that encapsulates that the most, that reliability that you talk about?

Oh man. How about Undertaker? He's still doing it. Yeah. Undertaker and AJ Styles and that boneyard thing was amazing and it may be a trend and it may be something uh that's uh going to be something we see more of in the future for wrestling companies as long as this virus is like it is where you can go out in a closed set in a safe environment and pre-tape uh a a match so to speak and And, you know, I love the creativity of the Firefly Funhouse.

It was very creative. A buddy of mine who's a big TV exec that said, man, there must have been a lot of good dope smoking when they created that thing. That's what we were saying, yeah. I don't know that I used to use jokes. But the bottom line is that these pre-tape things may become more prominent.

Those guys did a good job of that thing. And, you know, we do the same thing in AEW, but we're focused more on the ring. We don't do a lot of things that are the ninth-grade class bad acting. We don't have somebody that doesn't know how to write a promo or they think they understand the character they're writing for uh to uh to write because we don't have any writers so it's the talents being motivated to create their own content as i mentioned earlier and guys like jericho john moxley you know among others you know brody lee former luke harper they get to create their own content yeah There's governance monitored, but it's not limited,

and it's not restricted. But for the first time in their careers in years, they're calling their plays, by and large. And I think that's a great atmosphere for Tony Khan to do. Tony's very influenced on established wrestling. Back in the day, when I worked for Cowboy Bill Watts in the 70s and the 80s, the top talents were required to help book their own angles and their own storylines because the simplicity of that is

if you have skin in your own game, you're going to give me a lot better effort. If you've got the ownership, then you're going to put out a little bit of extra effort and we're going to make this thing work, and you're going to buy into what we're doing. It's not my idea. It's our idea. And I think that's what we see in AEW a great deal. That's why I miss going to work, man. Being in this high risk group is not fun. That seems like a really good mentality of having the boys have input on their own things. I didn't even really think about that, putting two and two together and being like, yeah, they're going to care more

if they're actually the ones putting this forward and they're the ones coming up with their angle. Yeah, you're right. So it's simplicity in that regard, but it's a good mix there. We have a good locker room, and that's so important. That was one of the reasons I was so motivated to hire Mick Foley. I knew he would be good in the locker room and would be a positive influence to young guys that we're trying to bring into the,

to the business, so to speak. And, uh, and he was, he did, he did a hell of a job. So,

uh, uh, but I think that's what we're, what we're doing. I think we're on the right track guys. I really do. And I, and I love working for Tony and,

and these kids being around these young guys, it's great for old dude like me. You know, I love that. I love working for Tony. And these kids, being around these young guys, it's great for an old dude like me. You know, I love that. I love the energy. I love being able to answer questions. I don't mind. My massive ego doesn't get offended when some kid 24, 25 years old says, Hey, JR, you know, you were the voice of my childhood.

I can't wait for you to call my match. That makes me feel good. That gives you some self-esteem. I'm 68, and i still got some worth and uh so it's all important that i i said this before tony khan saved my life i really believe that because i had lost my will to be involved and dusty roads told me one time guys when you turn your jersey in you can't play no more you're not on the team you don't have a jersey so i didn't i felt i had a jersey It was hung up in the

closet. It wasn't being used. It wasn't playing in it. But when Tony came along and my contract ended at the end of March of 19, I didn't want to renegotiate. Vince and I talked. He understood. And I was very supportive, very happy for me that I signed a three-year deal that was the most significant contract I'd ever signed. Yeah, I think we're all happy to see you in AEW. And like Brandon spoke about before, the combination of you and Tony Schiavone together has been amazing. Excalibur as well. I've been a fan of Excalibur going back into his PWG days. So seeing the three of you together, it's like the perfect combination. We could see how much fun you're having on television.

That goes for the entire company, not even just the three of you. And we really appreciate you joining us today. So as we said, under the black hat, My Life in WWE and Beyond is out now. The three of us would recommend pretty much anything written by Jim Ross at this point. So thank you very much. We appreciate your time. I want to remind you guys that if your producer will send us a, an address, I'll get you guys some sauce and JRS. Oh, we would love that. And for the, for the other citizenry of

the world watching this broadcast, uh, JRSBBQ.com, JRSBBQ.com. We have an offer where you get free shipping and you get to personalize your book, whatever you want it to say, and not even within reason. Just lay it out there, and you'll get it. That's where we also have our chipotle ketchup, jalapeno honey mustard, hot and original barbecue sauce, beef jerky, and seasoning. So I've got a little cottage thing going. My mother was an influence of that. It was her recipe for the original, and then my wife, Jan, was a big proponent of the ketchup and the mustard.

It was a family affair. And we've got a little warehouse here in Norman. So JRSBBQ.com. And within three days of my book being released, we were the number one selling sports biography on Amazon in the world. So we're doing good. This book's a story that you should read because it's about life.

A buddy of mine got this book. He was out of town. His wife was there when the book came. She wouldn't give it back to him until she finished it. And she said it was a love story. I never thought I was going to write a love story, gents.

But whatever it is, we appreciate everybody's support. And thank you, fellas, for having me on. I appreciate you all. Thank you.