Episode 634: Bored & Disgusted

I like the midnight and the rocking roll I ease in a fight for wrestling I ease in a fight for wrestling He never backs down from the fight He never wins the pony Because his mama raised him right It's time to prepare Your mind Get the experience Get the experience Get the experience Jim Corenant Hello again everybody and welcome to another exciting episode of the Jim Corenant Experience Today the four horsemen biography will tell some stories they didn't tell Plus, Thriller is no thriller Rook is a kook and more All kinds of classic wrestling talk and joining me in all this and more Hawaiian Brian, the podcasting lion, the king of the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network. Mr. cohost to you. He's the president of the Peter Rosenberg fan club. The great Brian Last, everybody. Hello, Jim. And how dare you? What kind of thing is that to attribute to me? What a disgrace. But it's a pleasure to be here. You told me you're holding the annual meeting in a phone booth on a corner of Fifth and Main. My God. You know, whenever we put down people like him and that shoemaker guy, and it turns out apparently years before, you know, wrestling podcasting became a big thing, those two had a podcast together. What are what are the chances? The surface level wrestling fan podcast, I guess you can call it. And you're saying podcasting became a big thing even after they got finished with it? Well, yeah, I mean, there was kind of a different era of podcasting now it's big business. But whenever we put down like a Rosenberg, put him down by repeating what he said and pointing out how idiotic it is. We hear from like hip hop fans who hate Pete Rosenberg from being on hip hop radio. And then we hear from sports fans who hate Pete Rosenberg from B because apparently he's just like a random Peter for hire. What what what about Peter Rosenberg screams hip hop at when I'm because I don't know him from the radio I know him from these fucking shows. And what what does he have to add to the world of hip hop? He's a big fan, I'm sure. Is he a big or a hopper? But if he's a big fan of hip hop, like he's a big fan of wrestling, then I would take all the hip hop fans probably hate him too. That's what I'm jibberish. See, that's the thing. Like he appears on these wrestling documentaries because WWE wants him there. That's why they've hired him to be this guy. The same reason they hired Todd Peddingill. They hired this guy. It's different kind of radio performers, but it's the same thought process. They even not only were they paying, by the way, on a side trip here. A long strange side trip. They were paying Todd Peddingill more at the time than probably 75% of the guys on the roster in 1995. And they even went so far as to put one of the before all of this modern technology made audio recording remotely so easy to do. They put like one of those dedicated lines in his house so he could do voiceovers without coming to the studio. That's how much they like Todd Peddingill. But Todd Peddingill is a great example because here's someone who was certainly a talented guy and could do well as a host if you can get past the haircut. He was a good song and dance guy and could do a wonderful stand up comedy sketch because he was a radio guy. In wrestling, he was like in quicksand. Just help me. But that's the problem. As a radio guy, it was the lamest most awful shit in the history of radio. It was just hard. I see I never listen to him on a radio either. And then years later after he pushed out Scott Shannon who actually has a wrestling connection because I think he went to school with Lawler, didn't he? Is this Scott Shannon from Memphis? Yeah, he was on WPLJ. Lawler even named a job guy after him. They had a job guy named Scott Shannon. Well, he pushed him out and then he took over the show and then it went like completely went away pretty quickly after that because again, there's certain people that are in radio, they're radio professionals, but they don't really have like fans or talent. Or I shouldn't say talent. They don't have fans or the ability to come across authentic or genuine. And again, I'm bringing this back to Pete Rosenberg now. If he talks about sports or hip hop with the authority and also the ignorance that he talks about wrestling, you could understand why other fan bases wouldn't like him. It's surface level fandom being treated as expertise. It's what's he that's the problem. It's wonderful that anybody's a fan, but I shouldn't be on a documentary talking about the production of Family Guy. It's, you know, because then when you are held up as an expert, people expect you to actually know some shit and just the one line of his, which we're going to get to later on in the horseman that one line of his of my God, Jesus Christ, anyhow. Oh, don't make me get too excited today because I'm sore every muscle in my body. I feel like I've been beat by a sack of wet hammers, but Brian, I'll have you know that not only has everything in my garage been moved and sorted and labeled and every surface painted and then almost everything's put back, which of course the Monroe brothers handled the painting. I'm not exactly at our teased, but I had to move a lot of the shit because I knew what the fuck it was where it went. And now the new window screens are in. See, this is again, this is my goddamn joy. In my in my declining years here in my golden age, when all of my other contemporaries are trying to figure out why they bought those Ferraris, I'm just proud when I get the new window screens in. And those are it, but I've also I helped with that on the inside of you. You got to have a guy on the inside and a guy on the outside. So I was the inside guy and I've done a lot of bending and carrying. So I'm trying not to get too active here today. I don't want to hurt myself. Don't make me laugh and tell me that any bears have dropped out of the fucking trees on you lately. Yeah, and apparently, by the way, you bring this up. It's a good time to talk about this. Not as silly as you thought. It hurt from a lot of people in Australia. Apparently dropping bears is a big thing. Koalas just wait for people and. Oh, go Koalas. But now we're not talking grizzly bears from the fucking Rocky Mountains or goddamn black bears, brown bears from the National Parks. It's a koala bear. It's a cute little koala bear. A bear. A bear is a bear is a bear. That's what I say. It wants to jump out and land on your shoulder so it can kiss your cheek and ride you home. Oh, someone book him in Australia, please. Oh, my God. Jim Cornette's Australian adventure with the animals alone is what with the little koalas. But anyway, really, many of the trees. No, many. I know bears climb trees, but they're not doing cross bodies on a regular basis out of the fucking trees like you insinuated. It was happening in your wildlife preserve there up in Jersey. But the point of the people have have ridiculed you and wondered about the safety and security of your neighbors that you're out screaming at invisible bears at one or two o'clock in the morning and thinking they're going to be dropping out of the trees at you. There was no invisible bear. I have video evidence. I have proof. Well, you had video for the bear when you weren't there, but you had. No, you couldn't see a bear while you were there. There was no bear there. It was on the property. That's where there is. And all the other neighbors have been posting their videos of various bears. I think it's the same big bear, but they have the videos. Cubs, cubs falling behind and they're going garbage can by garbage can house by house looking for things. There was just a thing in the news about bears living under someone's house. They found them like when they just. They found him at how long did it take them to get a court order to get him to move out because squatters got 90 days, right? But no, but the. I'm not sure to be aware of and you think it's all just ridiculed. Just all I'm not denying the existence of the bears. The cult of Coronet seems to many of them seems think you were taking the potential presence in the area of bears a little too seriously and or. That you thought that they would dive out of the trees at you. While you were because one guy did say, you know, any tree, any bear that comes out of a tree is over. So we might have. Over my dead body quite literally. Well, you've had a good run. Listen, it's a real thing to be. It's like the idea that you haven't heard. I'm not a flying cross body. Just a drop, just a bear drop. You haven't heard about this in the newspaper. It doesn't mean it won't happen. It doesn't mean a branch won't break while the bears up there. And just all of a sudden it's a coincidental tumble. It's a double tragedy. The branch breaks. The bear falls on you. Both of you are killed. We got two funerals to go to. You know, the other day we had a small issue. I'll talk to you about this real quick. We're getting the pool ready for the season. The people have to come. They have to open it up, get everything ready. And they worked on it. And then the next day I woke up and I look out the window and the pool is empty. Someone stole the water. All the water is gone. And I'm like, how could this be? Suzanne sees me looking at the pool out the window. She goes, oh, does it look clean? I was like, yeah, in a sense. Has no water in it. So we call the pool people. I don't. I'm embarrassed to ask them because I have no idea what they did. But I have no idea what they did. The water is gone. I don't know where it went. They had to send over five trucks of water to refill the pool. Five trucks of what have you got an Olympic training facility over there? It takes a lot to fill up a pool. It's not a terribly big pool. What did they say about where the water went? I didn't ask them. Suzanne's been dealing with them mostly because I'm busy. Wait a minute. Hold on here now. Slow down, Cap. Pump the brakes. If they brought you water back, then it had to be an error on their part that your water was gone. Oh, yeah. Oh, no, no. I'm fully expecting them to pay the bill for the water that had to be brought over in five truckloads to refill the pool. So what did they just leave the fucking stopper out? I don't know if it's a stopper. I don't know exactly what they did. It drained somewhere. I mean, that's the other issue. I have no idea. Did you hear all through the night? Did you hear glug glug glug glug glug glug? Or it just didn't hear anything. And so you've given, is the chlorine and the water and everything, is that that's going into the sewer systems and the city and things? I've been looking all around on the property just for a wet spot. You know, I was kind of hoping it would flush the bears down the hill. But I don't know if that's going to be happening, but I have no idea what happened. Now we have a beautiful full pool of water. It's going to be 80-something degrees this weekend, the first pool day of the summer. It's going to be a lot of fun until something goes wrong. Did they check to make sure that there wasn't just a crack somewhere and you just, but then there was, that would seep out rather than just. Well, nothing is left since they refilled it. It is at the same level it's been. We have not had. Is there a round white thing with a chain on it connected somewhere? That's like the bathtub plug. They just forgot to put the stopper back in there? It's not like that. But why are you? I'm glad you got good competent pool people. Yeah. What is your show? Well, thank you for remembering that. I got a couple of people that I want to recognize. We got an email from Blake and his wife. They unfortunately lost their rescue dog Nikita after Nikita Koloff. But here was the quote from Blake because he talked about, you know, how they'd saved her from, you know, a rescue dog and one of her legs was bad. So she hobbled around like Paul Heyman running to a buffet. But she loved to wrestle with me as I would say, you want to wrestle me, Mr. Lawler? Memphis style, just like Andy Kaufman. And whenever I would play your show for some reason, whenever she heard your voice, her floppy ears would perk up and her head would tilt. So we'll miss her dearly. And we will too, Blake. And we're sorry about that. Very sorry. Blake and wife, his wife too. Anyway, he didn't mention what her name was, but he said my wife and I have just lost. So I've, it's a blanket statement. If you've ever been married to Blake, then we're sorry for you too. I don't know if that's actually if you've just been married to Blake and nothing else bad has happened, we're still sorry for you. But what if it's Blake Edwards? Hold on here. Wait a minute. It is not. He gave I won't reveal his last name, but he gave it to me. Blake Beverly. That's a K-fabe. You know, the best, you know, my favorite line though, or I don't know if you can call it a line and that Andy Kaufman promo is, is that the way you talk in Memphis, Mr. Lawler? He does a lot of noises. It's not just the word. Christ. And the thing is, and here is, by the way, you've seen the pool side interviews, especially, right? We're done in California, the series of those by Andy. But here's the goddamn thing. Some people watch them today and think, well, you know, this is a 40 year old VHS fourth generation copy or whatever. I wish I could have seen it back in the day. Andy Kaufman is a network television star. He was sending the goddamn stuff in on a VHS camera. It was just him and Zemuda out at his pool or whatever, shoot with a VHS camera and sending them. There was a VHS tape to begin with before they even aired it on television. That's why I live with was available lighting. It was so I'm the end the microphone on camera. I'm saying if I got compared to now, it would be and it would have a tenth of the charm, but be a 10 camera shoot. Yeah, right before that other line, too, I'm thinking he goes, you got to plow the fields at farm. All right, real quick, James from Cleveland, unfortunately lost their five year old golden retriever Riley, but he has adopted a new baby striker who he's in Ohio, but striker came from Louisville where they saved him from a shelter down here. So we appreciate James. You've you've lost a baby, but you've got a baby. So and that's what is, you know, thinking it's it was meant to be that way. He's saying, but this is a first one, Brian. This is a first one that's strangled grammar, isn't it? This next one is a first. How about that? Because we've talked about dogs and cats and there are a few horses and some miscellaneous small animals. Have we had a cockatiel? I don't believe so. No, first cockatiel. It's from Dwarren. D W O R I N. I have it. Is that one of those foreign deals where the D is silent that it's Warren or what's happening here? I don't know. You have you ever known it, Warren? What country is Warren? Well, he's not just saying, you know, here's my goddamn address. I don't know where he's from, but you know what American named Dwarren? What does he have to say? I hope this email finds you well. We just lost our pet cockatiel of 13 and a half years, two days ago. Buddy was a six month old, Latino cockatiel. I guess a kind of cockatiel. When I got her, I wanted an emotional support animal to help me through a freak accident I endured 13 years ago. We thought she was a he at first. No reasoning just assumed so. She was very quiet and only chirped when hungry. So we got her a partner to keep her company. Turns out the partner was a male that we again assumed was a female and the genders revealed themselves when Buddy began laying eggs. Her male counterpart, Phoenix, let's know this is the story. Her male counterpart, Phoenix, a gray colored variety is very loud and a little aggressive, but we taught him the Adams family theme song while Buddy would just do her usual chirp. The eggs hatched a white and yellow cockatiel we named Ducky and an albino cockatiel we named Dove. Ducky, who is a male, Latino started learning the Adams family song from Phoenix. Dove, who is a female albino just chirped and listened. The family became quite a household staple up until recently when I noticed Buddy's feathers were a little ruffled, but they never quite smoothened out. She was sick, but I didn't notice she still ate still chirped and picked it my wife's face for a gentle cleaning. I was wondering, possibly in English second language, the thing going to picked at my wife's face for a gentle clean, would that be cleaning, would that be like the cockatiel is cleaning his wife's face by picking at it or the cockatiel is picking at her like please clean my face? I don't know anything about what's happening with this email. It just keeps going too. He says, I came home May 5th, 2026 after a long day and found her laying on the floor of the birdhouse. Now this is Buddy, not his wife. Her children and mate were on their perches watching over her. I placed her in a box and buried her under a tulip in the garden. She watched me become a husband and a father of three as I watched her grow a family as well. Thank you for your time, Dwaran. Dwaran, we're sorry about Buddy and as well as your freak accident and that the two others couldn't learn the Atmos Family theme song, but we hope that your wife's face can somehow stay clean now that poor Buddy is gone. I'm sorry, Brian. I need a second. I need a clean next. This has been whatever happened to Reggie's corner. Anyway, so now that little news for there, you know, speaking of cockatiels, the crusade for children is coming up. As I mentioned last week, the WHAS crusade for children is coming up. The crusade weekend this year is June 6th and 7th for all of our listeners around the world, but especially in Kentucky and the southern half of Indiana. If you're not sending something to the crusade and what kind of prick are you? It's not like you haven't had enough warning, but if the rest of you would like to take a look, even at the website, WHASCrusade.org. But as I said, the crusade, they take money anytime. There's no reason to feel like you'll be turned away, but the telethon and the official crusade weekend, which everybody in Louisville is going to watch a piece or two of, is June 6th and 7th. So if you can help the special needs kids in Kentucky and southern Indiana, and I still didn't look up and says, is this the 73rd or fourth crusade for almost 75 years or whatever? It's been the largest local fundraising effort of its kind in the country. And you can at least read about it and see if you can help out. But that's June 6th and 7th, Brian. We got, geez, I don't know about 18 million big shows that were allegedly supposed to be watching between now and then. But you know what else I got a package in the mail from my friend Bobby Fulton. I wanted to mention this real quick. He and his lovely new bride. Well, it's been a while, not years and years, but not like since last weekend, but he's married. And they are, they are gone into the soap business because they have come to the conclusion from, from apparently from going to many fan fest and wrestling events that the subscribers and the fans both need is soap. And they are now in the soap business. I got a couple of bars of it here. Good old fashioned bars of soap that you can bend over and pick up in the shower. One is locker room legacy. That's the barber shop scent. And the other is ring rage, which is cedar wood and sage, but they got all kinds for men and women because apparently the women have different places. They're going to put soap to control different smells. And so they got their own stuff, but at official wrestling soap.com. That's official wrestling soap.com because it's I'm telling you, it's officially soap. And it's it certainly will make wrestlers smell better or the people who go to see them. But he's I'm we're just it's another of Bobby's projects to try to stay out of trouble. Make sure you don't go to unofficial wrestling soap.com. Don't make that mistake. Don't do that. No, because you don't know what you're going to get. And that's some of it. It's all lie soap that will melt your skin off and other stuff. It's just it's creepy over an unofficial. Why wouldn't he call it Bobby Fulton's fantastic soap? Well, he doesn't want to he doesn't want to trade on his name. You know, but no, think about it. He was a baby face almost all of his career. One of the clean wrestlers. So he goes hand in hand with soap. I see. Oh, they got a good one here for $69. The everlasting Mike Sharp model. Hey, that will see that's the thing is the problem is that's the reason why it cost $69 per bar because the bar is the size of the bathtub and it needs a pickup truck to deliver it because when you put that thing under running water for 10 to 12 hours a day, you know, that's the Mike Sharp soap. Did that just go by everybody when you said that? Or they probably they won't have a fucking clue. What are they talking about? He took a lot of showers. Long showers. Long as as the dream machine used to say long wide and repeatedly was how I'm going to cut you long wide and repeatedly. Where was I at on that thing? I wanted to bring that up. All right. And we brought up some others. You know what we haven't brought up yet, Brian? Is I can't tell you again how much time I'm saving in the course of my week and how much mental stress because already I'm pretty pessimistic about the existence of the continued well being of the wrestling enterprise with the corporate greed and the amateur stupidity meeting in the middle these days. But I've been feeling better without watching the the folder all on Wednesday nights. But a lot of people have said, well, we miss we miss you making fun of it. So we don't have to watch it either. But now apparently possibly this is a ploy of these folks to garner our disenfranchised AEW scoffers. But now Uncle Dave and his nephew Brian are arguing about and pointing out the inanity in Alvarez's case and a lack of logic. They're arguing about the AEW wrestling. Are they trying to take away some of our audience or are they just sacrificing themselves so we don't have to? You know, I've said it before. I think Brian Alvarez likes a lot of the modern stuff a whole lot more than we do. And I think Brian Alvarez also, you know, if you ever read his old newsletter, Figure 4, it was a really funny newsletter because he would point out the booking issues and TNA especially. But it was a funny newsletter. And again, even if you watch AEW and like the matches, if you're paying attention to logic or booking logic, you would have to choose to ignore what Tony is doing on that show. And Dave Meltzer, of course, typically thinks that booking should all make sense. And even when you've pointed out in the past some of the things. He will go, he will shuck the ear all of corn all the way down to the cob in telling you exactly why everything is supposed to make sense or used to. Well, we have some audio here. And I should mention to you that on Dynamite, they've been doing this thing. You saw a little bit of it at the beginning, I think, or maybe at least heard about it. Will Osprey? Well, I've kept up with Rita Osprey because he was, remember, I was keeping up with what they're doing with their two main event guys for Wimley Stadium. And MJF was beaten in quick fashion and in quick fashion and lost his world title and has been emasculated and etc. While Osprey was not only beaten in his return match, but then fucking the doctor called the fucking opponent off of him in his second match. And now he's training with the heels because he's an incompetent dipshit. Doesn't know how to do anything on his own. And he's a loser. But otherwise, go ahead. No, there was a really great scene on the show this week where they go up to the rooftop and it's daytime, so it's not too scary. And Claudio and Marina and I think Pack are playing handball. And the other guys are like practicing neck bridges. And then Moxley pulls Osprey away and kind of gives him a pep talk. Very nice scene. And then Osprey had a match. And of course, he couldn't beat the guy. Took him forever and he sold his neck half the match. On the same show where Speedball Bailey got a squash win. The top baby phase you would think of the future for them. Can't get a squash win. Did he even beat the guy at all? Well, he won eventually in the end. But let's go to this audio from Wrestling Observer Radio. This was tweeted out by Meltzer said what? Who follows the trials and tribulations of Dave and Brian over various formats of audio. Let's go to this right now from Wrestling Observer Radio about the AEW booking. We'll stop it along the way to get your thoughts. God, that match with Ace Austin. Like the match in a vacuum was good, but it was like, bro, this was your first match since A, you allegedly got cleared. B, you've been trained to be a killer from the death writers. C, John Moxley just gave you a speech about don't give so much just go out there and kill this fucking guy. 15 minutes to beat Ace Austin. Oh my god, dude. Glad you matter. He's got to be a killer, Dave. He's. Let me stop it there because there's one of the important things people notice Dave saying it doesn't matter. Oh, but just the way that Alvar it Alvar as sounds like he's on his last nerve like it has finally reached the point where it don't take a lot of Dave's gravy to go all over Brian's plate and he's exasperated is what he sounds like. I'm going to go back a few seconds. Listen to Dave as Brian's going off here. It doesn't matter. The booking doesn't matter is what he's saying. Let's go back to this. Give you a speech about don't give so much just go out there and kill this fucking guy. 15 minutes to beat Ace Austin. Yeah, it's like, oh my god, dude. Like it doesn't matter. He's got to be a killer, Dave. He's got to be clear. They're literally telling that story everywhere except in the ring. He's got to kill a soft. I don't I don't I don't I don't I don't worry about this stuff because we've already proven for years and it doesn't matter. It's supposed to matter, Dave. It's supposed to matter. It's supposed to be headlining Wembley. We got tickets to sell. Good. Let me stop it there for a second. We've proven for years that it doesn't matter. Alvar has taken this personally. God damn it. We've he's in it. Did he reveal something there? We've got tickets to sell. He's he's frustrated because Tony's fucking paying him to try to sell this shit. And he's feeding them fucking horse manure. And there's Dave saying it does been proven it doesn't matter. Yeah, it's been proven that Tony will continue to do this. But not that it doesn't matter to anybody else. Again, Tony's philosophy has been if a guy's going to get a push, beat them. Have everyone beat them nonstop. Like Ace Austin right now, I'm sure is about to get a big push because he's been losing matches. So it means he's going to get a good push. But because Tony does it and because his fans buy the pay per views allegedly at the same clip every month, that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Alvar has 100% right here. Good. Good. He's going to be the top guy afterwards. It's not going to sell one. Come on. Number one, it's not going to sell one. Let's take it number two. You got to peak him in August. We're in man. No, you don't. Peak him now because he's about to win the tournament. The tournament is starting, Dave. We're not going to peak him in the tournament. No, he's got to win. It's a tournament to become the number one. He's got to be in the tournament. Okay. So if he wins the tournament, do you think one person's going to care that he tried to help Ace Austin? Let me stop it there. I don't know if that's what I'm calling. He tried to help Ace Austin. What the fuck is he doing? That's what he, again, Dave thinks like everybody thinks that everybody thinks like him. That he, that instantly they're going, well, he's trying to help and elevate this nice young man. No, the guy over in Pittsburgh is just sitting there going, look at this fucking guy. Look at this fucking guy. He can't even beat this fucking guy. Why is he not caring about this fucking guy? Which is why that their audience is limited to the nerds that think like Dave and always has been and that even some of them are starting to, the dawn begins to come. No one's going to care. They're going, oh my god, he won the tournament. He beat Swerve. He, you know, he beat, he beat, uh, who's he beating the first round Joe? Samoa Joe? And he was going to, he was going to, and he was so like crazy for Joe too. And at the end, he's going to win the tournament. He's going to go to Wembley. They're going to draw whatever they're going to draw. And the fact that he sold for Ace Austin, no one's even going to remember it. Maybe it'll help Ace Austin a little bit, give him a little credibility. Not going to help Ace Austin. He's going to be the same spot. We know this. Let me stop it there. God damn it. Again, focusing on Alvarez on fire here and I do, I agree. Whenever he gets not going to help Ace Austin, he's going to be in the same spot. We know this. Yeah. He's, because he's seen it. He had the optimism for Tony cons booking early on, and he saw guy after guy after guy not move up, stay exactly where there are. How many guys are there in AEW right now that are exactly where they were on the card when it first came in? Like almost everybody. I would testify that some are farther down, but the one thing that Dave said that I will agree with is that they're going to sell whatever tickets they're going to sell because that's again, what, what they do with this roster at this point, nothing is good. There's nothing that they could do. We could literally see MJF take a chainsaw and cut Osprey in half and watch the fucking reunification surgery and they still ain't going to have 30,000 people in Wembley. It's not, whatever they can do is not going to be a giant jump in business because they, it is what it is. So that's Dave said they're going to sell what they're going to sell. That's correct. It doesn't mean just because if you're a band, an unsigned band, but you feel that you have talent and there's an audience that you appeal to and you're working on a record, you're going to release it yourself just because you can say, but it's going to sell what it's going to sell. Does that mean you just make it shit or do you still try to do the best you can? Does that mean you believe that there's nothing that could be done with the booking between now and Wembley that would sell more tickets than just the current pace? Nothing could be done to, I mean, it was Tony I don't know about the current pace could be ebbing and flowing. What I'm saying to you is they cannot do anything on their TV with anybody currently on their roster between now and then to sell any appreciably more tickets than they're going to fucking sell anyway just because it's AEW and Wembley Stadium and this is the third year of the Von Erick Memorial in Texas Stadium and it's the crowd that falls under the category of we should have done this. And Dave is now saying that he believes that that end result justifies the booking not mattering right now. It justifies a long competitive match. He said that Will Osprey helped Ace Austin and then that he sold for Ace Austin. It gave Ace Austin a very long loss to the guy who you would think is going to be the top guy in the company or one of them. Well, yeah, well, see, that's again, this type of thing, it's a big deal to these indie minded fucking people. And Ace Austin, as you said, or as Alvarez said, is still going to be where he fucking was of Action And Ready. What is with the illiterative A's? It's the Action And Ready syndrome and that's not even belittling him as a talent. Just if recognized stars can't come in his company and stay over, how's he going to get over? But it's all about the quality of the match, not what fits the scene in the overall movie that's being shot. And until they get their heads out of their ass, Ace Austin, the favorite did him was he probably had more fun than he's ever had getting to wrestle 15 minutes with Will Osprey. But he should have said, no, bruv, beat me in seven minutes with your finish. We got a pay-per-view to sell. You know, I said it recently by WWE. They tout how much business they're doing and it's incredible, incredible. And you could only say, imagine what it would be if things were hot right now. If things were cooking to the point where if you were a fan, you had to see what was going on and you may want to be a part of it. Same thing with AEW. AEW is doing better than they did a year ago. But if AEW's booking was on fire right now, things would be a lot different. But Dave, as it seems like Dave's gotten to a complacent point where it's just like, well, that's just the way it is. That's the way Tony does it and everything will be fine because Tony wants to do it this way and he's still going to sell 140,000 pay-per-views. But they're also going to lose their... He says or she says or somebody says, but nobody's seen on... Again, you can't have all of these things can't be true at the same time. Dave reports that based on what he's been told by Tony that every pay-per-view falls within line of whatever the previous comparison he makes with it. But the point is somewhere they get an average of about 140,000. Sometimes they've lost talent. Sometimes they've gained talent. Sometimes they've had a really hot main event. Other times they just have the goddamn pay-per-views with dream matches with nobodies from Japan. And through all of this, it's basically always about the same. But Dave still says, but it's not the same people every month. So at some point, they're going to... Well, they're not going to have to. They don't have to release anything because it's Tony's baby. But at some point, some independent source is going to have to get some kind of reportage on exactly what their pay-per-view situation is before we have any idea what fuck's going on. That's right. But through all the peaks and valleys of the live event ticket sales or the ratings that would drop like a stone even before the changes in the methods that's now just basically rated, made the ratings ludicrous to begin with, the one thing that they have to pay for there remains the same. But we just don't know for sure. And again, Dave has also recently done a big defense of the Tony Khan, Nick Lepiccolo situation saying that what Nick Lepiccolo reported about the TV thing couldn't possibly be true. Not that it isn't, but it couldn't possibly. And logic will tell you this and all this. I'll tell you, we've heard from I think three different people in the last week and a half who work as executives in the entertainment industry. And these are people who know their stuff. Every single one of them thinks that the Nick Lepiccolo thing was right. They think he's a douchebag. They don't like the way he conducts himself. And they think he's telling the truth. So let's finish up this Dave and Alvaro's audio more about the AW booking. Oh, I forgot about them. We know this. Okay, but guess what? I mean, that's how they got Kyle Fletcher over. That's how they got Takeshita over. I mean, by doing that exact thing, they were the same complaints. Oh, why is Kyle Fletcher and Takeshita were heels, so they should be giving a lot to the baby face. This guy's in a story line. No, no, no, wait, wait, when he's a baby face, when they were taught to be a killer, except he's the same Will Osprey. They were no, they were they were they okay. So the only thing that was an onbar at the end. Yeah, yeah, because they're trying to get over these now a submission guy. But if we get over there, he was a killer. That's what Moxie said, you're a killer now, you're a bird of prey. Well, he won with he won by submission, which he never does. He's never won by submission before, which was and that's where the audio cuts out. And that's that's where we cut out of that too. He's he's he's never he's never done that before. But again, that's a justification we were talking about before, you know, this guy loses all the time, but we're going to give him a push anyway, and our fans will accept it. Mark Davis lost every single match he's had. And then he just won the national title over Jack Perry, who previously beat him. We've seen it with maybe Takeshita, Fletcher, different people. It's stupid. I get some point, Dave has to have the courage to say to Tony, it's stupid. You're not losing fans because of it. But you certainly aren't gaining any fans because of it. And it doesn't help anyone, even if your fans, because if the whole idea is no one's going to care about Ace Austin going 15 minutes at Will Osprey, then why do it? Then it's not going to help Ace Austin. If no one's going to remember it. And it doesn't matter if it if it's not part of Ace, the start of a consistent then push for Ace Austin based on that, then it means nothing. It's just something that happened. And then if you were starting to tell the story, like I mentioned the other day, we did the Memphis guest, the program, Bill Dundee, Memphis icon, right? But before he was a Memphis icon, he'd been there for about a year and a half, two years. He'd been a he old part of a tag team and then babyface tag team, but he'd always been a tag team guy. And that's where they did the deal where Lawler said, oh, bad, bad, he wanted, Dundee wanted a shot at Southern title Lawler. He said, bad, bad, Leroy Brown there is going to beat, he could beat you twice in 15 minutes. Then he beat Dundee once, but he couldn't beat him the second time. So Dundee actually won. Then they remeshed as it did. Then he, he did beat Leroy Brown and then Lawless, well, I'll beat you twice. And they built it up to where he Dundee kept overcoming an increasingly higher bar each week until people said, wait a minute, he can go one on one with fucking Lawler. And then they did. And they fucking drew money, including two or three sellouts for 12 weeks in a row. But you, if you're not going to use Ace Austin, then they've just had a long match for no reason. I'm sorry, I digress. And it's not worth it for Ace Austin. I get to do a promo in six months and say, Hey, remember I went 15 minutes with you and lost six months ago. But that's the, we can talk about the star ratings for the pay-per-view a little bit later, but that's the update on Alvarez and Meltzer's disagreements over the booking of AEW. Well, you know, maybe it's just, it's bad decisions, bad decisions and regret on Dave's part that's brought him to this state because, you know, Brian, maybe Dave's starting to temple a little bit. Because I'll tell you, to be honest friends, I was once just like you. I was happy living a contented life. I was an itinerant flute player just bouncing from town to town, playing my flute for the money that they would throw and living on the music inside of me. But then the demon rum crossed my lips, Brian, the alcohol, that fuel of the devil. And then I began waking up, hungover, worrying about what happened the night before. Maybe I made bad decisions or I just feel generally poopy. I didn't have the music in my soul anymore, Brian. And when I would try to play my flute, it would just go, just that was it. And then, ladies and gentlemen, I discovered Willie's remedy. And friends, I tell you that Willie's remedy is a THC infused social tonic without any alcohol, without the hangovers, without the bad decisions, without all the regrets and things that come with that. Instead, you can return the music to your soul because, Brian, I'll tell you, that once I took my first sip of Willie's remedy, boom, my taste buds exploded and my mind was taken away. The music was back in my soul and I was transported to a place I only dream of where my soul is always free. Silver stages and golden curtains filled my head, plain as could be. I had the music back, Brian, and I went, Scatterbop, doo-hoo! And you can too. With the Willie's remedy, and I'm talking about none other than Willie Nelson, is there another Willie? Willie be hurt, maybe, but that's a thing in the past. But Willie's is a low calorie, low sugar alcohol alternative that actually works. It comes in five milligram and ten milligram dose bottles with a best in class flavor experience. I'm not sure where that class was located. It might have been on the tasty side of town, but you barely realize you're drinking a THC product at all with the other tastes that they've put in there. And it can be a shot, it can be sipped over ice, it can be mixed into your favorite mocktail. See, that's a cocktail, but with no cock. And its unique blend of THC, CBD, CBG, and L-theanine delivers a feeling of calm, clarity, euphoria, and relaxation. Boy, howdy, I'll tell you what. And relaxation. Or relaxation. Relaxation. See, you immediately you relax better when you don't have to put that extra A in there, you just shorten it to relaxation. See, that's because you're just relaxation. Go right now, ladies and gentlemen, to drinkwillies.com, D-R-I-N-K-W-I-L-L-I-E-S. DrinkWillies.com and use the code J-C-E for 20% off of your first order and free shipping on the orders over $95. And enjoy life in the high country, playing your flute and tooting your own horn with Willies directly to your doorstep in over 40 states. So probably if you're, I don't know, I don't have the list in front of me, but if you're in Montana, well, why would you fucking be there anyway? And almost nobody is. So just go to drinkwillies.com and chances are you're good. 20% off of your first order and free shipping orders over $95 with the code J-C-E. Brian, have you, have you taken a trip down Willies Highway yet? I don't know if I would phrase it that way, but Willies Remedy is very popular here in this house. We're very thankful that they sent over some nice samples and we're going to probably get some more because it's been very popular here in this house. Thank you. Very popular. Thank you, Willie. I've been enjoying the nightlife. See, I'm just going to incorporate as many Willie Nelson songs in the I would think that you've been seeing plenty of blue skies. It's funny how time slips away. Well, just as long as you don't let your babies grow up to be cowboy. Let's get on the road again, Jim. We have a great deal for the listeners that promo code and that link. Promo code J-C-E at drinkwillies.com. 20% off your first order and free shipping on orders over $95. Willie. Well, Brian, I know you, you mentioned recently you got a new accountant. You said you were very happy with her. Her name is Melissa Goethro. Is that what you told me? I certainly did not tell you that. I may have news for you because apparently Melissa Melisa M E L I S S I A is how I'm seeing this written down. Goethro G A U T H R E A U X M A B U P S H I T C R E A C because this apparently Brian was Hulk Hogan's accountant. According to TMZ who broke this story like they break most of the stories. They sometimes they're completely obliterated. Hulk Hogan's former accountant, Melissa Goethro, has been brought up on multiple charges, federal charges of embezzlement due to claims of stealing $894,274.26 from a famous Central Florida resident and nobody named Hogan, but a lot of people say in it. And at least she was an accountant. So you got the exact $894,274.26. I'd hate to have somebody steal a penny and me not know about it. So apparently this is six counts of wire fraud tied to an alleged embezzlement scheme through her company accounting resources and management services. She had signatory authority on her victims accounts and use them to sign documents redirecting funds without authorization is facing 20 years per count or 120 years maximum. She don't have to worry. She's not gonna serve board and half that. And plus they they want the money back. How fucking rich do you have to be that somebody can take nine under grand and you don't notice? That wasn't even rhetorical. That was just amazing. I understand her defense is that she stole from Hulk Hogan, but she never stole from Terry Bollia. Not a penny. Not a penny would she steal because Terry Bollia is a private person, not a public figure. She only steals from public figures or famous Central Florida residents. What was it 890 over one year over several years? And well, this there it's an alleged embezzlement scheme carried out between 2017 and 2021. All right. So for she wasn't even she wasn't even getting 250 a year. You know, is this this story could not get any weirder, stranger or sometimes sillier? Even the name of the place, it sounds like an accounting warehouse. Like well, every time I counting solutions and relationships or whatever the fuck the name of the company was, doesn't sound like a real thing. Hey, there was a fucking place in I'm pretty sure it was at Harrisonburg, Virginia, or maybe Waynesboro. I think it was Harrisonburg. Accounting service and lawnmower repair. Good way. We ran. We ran that town at least twice and I went by their bowtimes, but nevertheless, so you know, we'll keep up on this, but huh. Hogan continues to be in the news no matter what goes on. So she's after they have her under federal charges, right? It's not that Hogan family or Hogan's a status suing her for the money. No, no, this is well, I don't know. I don't know who would certainly someone had to complain for the federal authorities to know that it happened. Is Hogan the only person the accountant did this to? Or is he like the most famous of several people? Or is he the only one? It says claims of stealing that amount of money from a famous central Florida resident. And again, maybe it's Shawn Michaels. Oh, come on now. He was in Texas during those years. And I mean, again, business deals go back with you can have money technically stolen from you by a fraudulent advertising agent or it was on the news here that this woman was going around selling people swimming pools and then she never took the money but never put the pools in blah, blah, blah. But how it's just your accountant that you don't notice that you already have this 900 grand or however many thousands of dollars at a time and where it's going. My financial advisor asked to fucking call me on the phone and hear my voice before he does anything with anybody for me. I don't know. There's too many trusting people in the world because everybody's apparently crooked. If we just stopped trusting people, people would be more honest. Stop giving out power of attorney to people. Or says in some cases, stop giving out attorneys. You never know what might happen. No, never. All right. Where was I going? How do we get out of this? I don't know. I was trying to find news and lawn mowing services. Yeah, no, that reminds me of somebody who looks like they had to be working for a lawn mower service. Mason Rook. Oh, Mason Rook. Mason Rook. Brian, you sent me this clip because you felt the same way as when I heard about it. Was it okay? We saw his debut and what he looked like and the state of him and we commented on that. But you heard, well, wait a minute. On this week's TV, he actually talked. He spoke. He cut a promo. So it was really the only day we hadn't heard or seen yet. So maybe there's something there that might redeem him. And you watched it and then sent it to me. I swear to God, he sounds like a fucking Dickens street urchin asking for more gruel. It's even worse now. I mean, a lot of people. A lot of people. Even worse than what? Walking to the camera? Then what we thought. It's worse than what we thought. Because we said, okay, the look of him is preposterous. But again, if you look at him standing there when he was holding the microphone, I'll talk about the interview in a second. And he is apparently a guy who can do very athletic things. But that doesn't mean that he's an athlete. And especially to be able to move around and flip around because he's a big lard ass, a giant human water bed, a goddamn fucking water balloon ready to be tossed off the roof of a hotel after a fucking rock group gets off fucking stage, whatever. He's got small, tiny hands. He's got his natural hands. Go back and look, he's got small, tiny hands. What I'm saying is his natural physique, if he had not been an overweight person, he's small bone. I don't believe that they're going to, they're either going to get him in the program and they're going to work him for cardio and they're going to have him sweating and he's going to drop weight. And then he's going to lose his special because he's got a small guy, small bone, small guy. They got a bunch of those. There's no, I'm not even talking definition like there was no muscular definition to Joe Ladook. I'm talking, he again looks like a giant mutated pudgy 11 year old fucking Mason Reese. Look it up kids. He's just a pudgy kid. He's a pudgy kid with a voice like a Dickens Street Urchin. And there's no physical intimidation and he's small boned and if they, if he drops that weight, it'll be best for his health because he's also going to be injury prone because he don't have the frame to carry that weight around much less throw it around. But again, the promo was like, if you were in seventh grade and you got up to give the oral book report in front of the classmates, he memorized a thing and he said the thing with the preposterous look of him and the best. I can't take credit for it, but the online comment that I saw that stood out most was his name ought to have been the natural butch lesbian. Oh, come on. That's all for I did not see that. Come on. I saw that. And it was the tank top and the haircut and the face and the body and the fact that he and Chas Bono were separated at birth apparently. The natural butch lesbians like a Lou Albano joke. What is that? But I mean, it's just they're trying to act like they've just had the fucking second coming of psycho Sid walking out there like I'm going to fucking destroy everybody. Well, he took out their champion Tony D'Angelo two weeks in a row. The first week the commentator said, is that a fan? Well, I was just because of a big plumber crack. Did you? And in the second week, they realized it was just a fan. Did I see what? How much of this did you watch? Did you see when he did the moonsault off the top rope to the floor and there's a whole bunch of guys there waiting to catch him and then you realize he's so big, he picks up speed. I don't think anyone caught him. I think he just moonsaulted the floor. And now, well, first of all, they you could tell they were all supposed to catch him. But for whatever reason, a few were out ahead of the pack and the other ones were struggling at the back and they didn't catch up in time to the rest of the pack. So when you know fucking Dumbo backflips off the top rope, there's only like three guys there that's really in a place that he could ever reach them. And he went right in between them and you heard flap on the floor and then the three or four guys in the back just fell down anyway from the shock waves. So I just want to say he's going to fucking hurt himself. Well, it looks impressive. Seeing a guy like that move that way. I mean, no, it doesn't. It doesn't. It's not it's not even to the impressive part because all you are is stunned that this is being passed off as some type of alleged professional athlete and just the overall presence of him is just ridiculous. Would you feel the same way if on this episode, he had a mask and instead of him doing the promo, we had a manager, but it was the same person. I would I would at least then give him a hope because I would still notice the small hands and the rotten physique, but you wouldn't see the face, which is the killer. And you wouldn't hear the voice, which is, you know, another assassin waiting in the wings. And but then what kind of mast? The mast jelly roll. This is the evil jelly roll. They could tattoo him up and fucking. I don't know. I mean, it would be funny if my jelly roll crawls under the ring and puts a mask on and then this guy crawls out in the mask and does all these high spots. Well, see, then they should have showed him at all because we didn't know they had another big fat guy. Wait, if he's on the next NXT big event, which is in the few weeks, I believe. Can we review that match? I want to actually see him wrestle a match. Okay, I take I will. I don't know if he's on the show. I'm assuming he will be. I will. I don't know about that. I'll just monitor the NXT show and see if they actually have him attempt to wrestle. Oh, I don't know. That's a dangerous thing to ask you to do. There may be some other things on that show that drive you crazy. I didn't say I was going to watch any other part of it. But see, it's it's on real TV so I can fast forward with impunity. So we'll we'll stay on the Mason Rook beat. I guess we we jumped that in the middle air. We should have talked about this other piece of business next because it was more in line with our crooked accountant. But apparently Triller's parent company is a bunch of fucking crooks, too. Have you heard about this, Brian? There have been a few things recently you've been hearing whispers for a while and different things would happen. But Tony Khan and AEW or specifically AEW sued them for five billion dollars. And we heard they were going bankrupt. It used to be fight. Which I remember. Well, yeah, as a matter of fact, Jim Ross used to own some part of the fight TV or whatever it used to be, F-I-T-E, whatever it used to be. I remember him saying that 15 years ago or whatever. And it was a thing where they were showing, you know, various independent wrestling events and it wasn't a goddamn, you know, multi tens of millions of dollar concern at that point. But apparently now they're saying that Triller, which used to be fight is worth tens of millions of dollars except the parent company, Triller, the fucking, the bosses, flips media, flips media, but Triller's the Triller's owners, the big company owned by some Chinese guy or whatever the fuck. They've abandoned Triller. So not only is AEW suing Triller for their five million dollars, but Triller is about to sue the owner of Triller because they won't return her fucking phone calls from Hong Kong or wherever they are. What the fuck is going on here, Brian? Again, you laid it out pretty good there better than I would have. Some of the things I'm picking up here, I have an article from Brandon Thurston and Jason ounce per Ruth from post wrestling. It says here that well, we know that AEW, they have accused Triller of or the parent company of taking everything out of Triller. And again, if AEW is not being paid, you have to think AEW is one of their biggest clients, I would imagine. Like independent groups are on there. I saw the GCW promoter put out a whole bunch of stuff about Triller because it affects them. The fact that five million dollars of AEW is money, how long have they had that money? How long a period of time is it that it built up to five million? Well, and see, that's this used to be the place where many of the people that get the pay for views that we were talking about earlier, the AEW pay for views, they would buy them from this service and they weren't paying AEW. But yet at the same time, it apparently looks like that Triller was not getting the money either because the parent company of Triller was taking the money and now has abandoned, apparently, that's what Triller is trying to say in court. Our parent company has abandoned us, won't send us money like they promised, won't return our phone calls. So which part of Triller is AEW suing? Is AEW suing Triller or is AEW suing the parent Triller? And how do they get them in China or wherever the fuck they're at? We have a lot of questions there. I wish I had a lot of answers. It's a very detailed article here. What does Brandon say? This is a very detailed article here on post-wrestling, but it's very, very long and very detailed. And nobody fucking knows. That's the point. Only in wrestling could a company that's allegedly not only taking in millions of dollars, but worth millions of dollars be bought by some foreign group and then just completely abandoned to the point where they're being sued by other customers and the head of the whole thing won't even return their fucking phone call. And apparently from what I was reading has met with this the Triller guy over here multiple times. And so yeah, yeah, we'll send you the money, we'll send you a million and a half, we'll do this, we'll do that, and then just read it, read it, and they can't get nothing. Oh, there you go. Is this last guy's last name, Olyani? Hey, here's an interesting thing from the Brandon Thurston article. The Triller TV team stated that AEW provided 65% to 75% of its revenue and that the loss of US paper view rights in May 2025 due to non-payment resulted in an estimated $9 million to $12 million annualized cash flow loss. Besides providing a majority of Wait a minute, hold on, let's do a little math there. An annualized cash flow, which means just the gross amount of money that they were going to get, not profit or whatever, but just what was going to flow through pre-sport them, right? So that means Tony doesn't do a paper view every month, but did he do eight or nine of them, a million dollars a paper view? And they're 40 or 50 bucks a piece? I'm not exactly sure, yeah. Well, let me just finish this here. So, but wait, okay. Besides providing a majority of Triller TV's revenue, TGI, the parent company, disclosed in an SEC filing that AEW comprised 24% of the entire parent company's revenue for 2024. The parent company? Well, then apparently they've fucking just blown all their money too, because why would the parent company said, well, this insignificant thing we got in the United States, fuck, they'll never get to us. We got bigger fish to fry. But if it was a quarter of their fucking money, they must be just all fucked up too. Triller at the time had 32 employees with a monthly payroll of approximately $220,000. Well, that's complicated math too, but there was people making some money there. There's zeros behind that. It said had though, what do they got now? Howie the mailroom guy? Well, there have been layoffs apparently, and there's downsizing as they call it. But yeah, this is why AEW, one of the reasons why AEW launched my AEW, and maybe a bigger deal in a year from now. But it was because of these international issues where you have a partner and your partner's a jerk off. And it's a shit show. Why would you, I mean, once, even if they rectified this, why would anyone want to do business with that company and the management team who can't get anything done and, you know, not good, not good at all. Not good. You sound like Frank Spaceman Hickey. You know what else might not be good, Brian? The star ratings for WWE backlash. Uncle Dave is at it again. He's got the stars in his eyes and the moon in his heart and a twinkle in his eye as he lets a big fart. He didn't have a lot of stars to give out because there was only five matches, but it's kind of become a tradition that when he had made that when he admits this noxious fumage that we we analyze it and potentially take the piss out of it. And so I thought we'd do it again here today because again, he sometimes seems to be overly effusive to Tony's product. But as of late, it seems like he's had to admit when the good WWE matches are good to. Although sometimes possibly overly effusive there too now. Braun Breaker, Penn Seth Rollins in 21 minutes and 26 seconds, four and a quarter stars. Holy mackerel. So that what did he give Flair and Steamboat in Chicago in 89? Five stars. So this was almost as good as Flair and Steamboat. And Fantasyland. Hey, I'm Braun Breaker's biggest fan, but okay. So now he's just he's over the top with all the I guess he's not wanting to piss off as many of the WWE fans because they're probably the ones that well, I won't say they read his newsletter more, but WWE fans are more disposed than AEW fans to actually be literate in general. Aren't they didn't they do that study? I have not seen that study. I don't know anything about wrestling fan. I saw that one from the Bloomberg group. Let's go Bloomberg. Get the hell out of here. Could have possibly been. I don't know. Scripps Howard. The next match here, Trick Williams retained the US title over Sami Zayn, 12 minutes, 46 seconds. Hold on. Hold on. I would have given that match that was a good solid match. Nothing wrong with that match. I'd give that match three stars. Two and three quarter stars. Okay. Well, then we're not arguing. I don't know if the rounding up or, you know, it's not even a roundup. It's if there was a roundup, it would be the same. I guess that's kind of he said four and three quarter of be the same as five. We're not arguing. Well, I think that may be unique to right under five stars. I don't know if it applies to like two and a half becoming three or two and three quarters becoming three. If I was tricking Sami, though, I'd be insulted because he usually only gives the bad girls matches to anything. Jim Danhausen. Oh boy. And many Danhausen. And many other Danhausen. Be Kit Wilson and the Miz. 11 minutes 38 seconds. Two star match. That's that's generous for what he would have done back in the day. But I'm sure that many Danhausen accounted for one and three quarters of it, but he didn't have any type of failure. Did he defend this is what I'm asking you. Here's what he wrote in the observer. At first, when many Danhausen came out of the cloning box, people boot it. But once they saw how good he was with the crowd. Excuse me, not with the crowd. There was no comma here. But once they saw how good he was, the crowd seemed to like it as a comedy match. I think if this was a seven or eight match show and you throw in a wacky match, it's probably a good interlude. But when you have five matches, it just felt to me like this is best on SmackDown and not on a show like this. Well, he had a moment of clarity there. Yeah. The blind squirrel has scored, ladies and gentlemen. Hence the two stars, which is the modern day dud. Yeah. Remember at least dud had something you could. You know what? It stood out. More than the stars because it was capital D U D dud. Like that's the worst it can get. But it stood out on the page. And that way you could at least be proud. Well, these are so rare. He almost never gives these. It really was an epic show. Well, no duds here, Jim. EO Sky beat Oscar 18 minutes, six seconds. Milk duds for and a quarter stars. Of course it was. I don't you didn't watch it. You can't I didn't. So yeah, I'm not going to argue the point. And Jim, the main event. Roman Reigns retain the world title over Jacob Fattu. 18 minutes, two seconds. Hold on. Because again, if Seth Rollins and Braun Breaker was four and a quarter, this has to be four and a half, right? I mean, he's not going to go crazy and say five or anything. Is he? Four and three quarter stars as. Oh, as good as five. As good as five. Just not five. Just not five, but almost five as good as five. I think they I personally think Dave's suddenly become too generous to WWE. It's been a trend I've noticed lately. But there are matches that I think are just all right. They're kind of average, you know, middle of the road. It's all right. It's fine. Four stars. Whoa, that was never like a. You know, like a show kind of match. And now it is. I think he's judging WWE a little differently. So what you're saying is instead of because he was getting heat for giving such ridiculous epic ratings to the AEW matches that instead of coming back to reality for everything, he's chosen to over reward the WWE guys too. So it doesn't look so obvious. Yeah, maybe. Who knows? Who knows? But it does seem like he's being. Who knows? What evil lurks in the heart of Dave? Have you told me Roman and Jacob four stars? I'd be like, yeah, no problem. Yeah. But to me, it wasn't close to a five star match. And he made it close to a five star. I personally for me, it wasn't. Well, that's why they have these ratings, Brian, so that you can see what the experts say about things. And then you can follow along accordingly and adjust your behavior to suit the will of the unwashed masses. And then everyone's the same. And it's like a goddamn underground metropolis type of situation. Why did you ever think about that? No, never. No. Well, that's right. And boy, but underground. 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Call 1-800-GAMLER in Connecticut. Help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly. 21 plus physically present in Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia only void in Ontario. Eligibility restrictions apply. Non-withdrawable spins issued as 50 spins per day for 20 days valid for select games only to expire each day after 24 hour seat terms at casino.driftkings.com slash promos ends July 22 at 11 59 p.m. Eastern time. Ooh, that's smooth. The crown is yours. That was smooth. But Jim, of course, we thank DK Casino and our good friends and back to you. It's your show. Yes. Can we can we get an oxygen sponsor if we're going to keep on being friends with draft Kings Casino? Alrighty, well, Brian, now we have come to the classic wrestling portion of the program where we're going to talk about the biography episode on A&E. I didn't say AEW this time. A&E network, obviously in coordination with the WWE, but the Four Horsemen. And they pretty much covered seven or eight of the Four Horsemen and then the rest that got kind of glossed over. But you know, you can't say this wasn't like the Hogan thing where they just told a bunch of ridiculous lies and everybody had to kind of swallow and go along with it. Most everybody told the truth. They just only, everybody told the truth. They just, they just only told part of the truth about anything. There was no recognition of the culpability events in sabotaging the company. It was just that, well, they got too big too quick, which is true also. There was a number of times where they could have explained the whole truth about anything, but I mean, they did, in some places, they were allowed to say, well, we beat the WWF going head to head and Philly that night or whatever. But for the most part, it was just this company got so big and they were so great. But then they just got too big and Vince won in the end. It wasn't, any part of him sabotaging them every step of the way. Or was that just too sensitive? I mean, there was none of that at all. Yeah, it's a weird thing with the four horsemen because it's not like anyone ever tells the story in chronological order beyond like, here's the person who was here and then this person was here. It's never like the clips they show were all out of order and everything. Yeah. You know, I don't know how much they'll ever acknowledge that stuff in a WWE documentary that Vince was predatory to Jim Crockett promotions. He had some chip on his shoulder, two sons of wrestling promoters from North Carolina. You know what I mean? Like just some chip of that Crockett and I might answer your question. Well, your dad ran opposition to my dad with Rocka. Yeah. So, you know, but yeah, they don't really talk about Vince doing all that stuff. You know, I mean, there's a lot they left. I mean, they don't talk about any booking issues with Crockett promotions, you know, leading to, you know, there's a lot they left. That there was, they had two planes. It wasn't brought up that it wasn't a good idea to have two planes. No, they didn't even say two just said they had the plane. I think Arn said two at one point, but well, he might have, but they pretty much sounded like they had the plane, but also there was no, and again, time wise, I understand in some aspects, there was no way to say, oh, by the way, Crockett just went crazy for like a year and bought up every other wrestling promotion, trying to put the TV syndication network together and blah, blah, blah, but nevertheless, let's start at the beginning. At least this is another show where not only did we get the NWA clips from the 80s, the TBS studio show and etc., but also we got to see a little bit of the film they've got locked up as they told a very basic backstory of the Anderson brothers and Lars, there was one picture of Lars that he got mentioned one time and he started the whole thing but that was true is that the Anderson brothers in the Carolinas were so over from what, 1967 when it was Gene and Lars, maybe 1966, only came in by 68, 69, and by the early 70s, the Anderson brothers were the top heels in that entire territory, which is why that Flair had instant credibility when he was brought in as a cousin of the Anderson's and they expanded on that relationship early on, but then and then after when Flair and Valentine had the program with Olean Arne, they talked about it then, but then Flair was his own guy, or Olean Gene rather, I'm sorry, but by then Flair was his own guy anyway, but again, you know, all of these old highlights, Flair with the women and the planes and the the extent that they went to to try to portray and did a very good job for the TV broadcasting standards and budgets of the time, they did a great job, Crockett did, at making these guys look like big time sports celebrities with the limos and the women and the suits and the clothes and the whole nine yards. It was confusing how they explained that Arne went from Marty Lundy to Arne Anderson because he became Arne in mid-south and then Olean, who was booking in Atlanta because he owned part of it, brought him to Atlanta to team with Matt Bourne when you know, the road wearer's Fiasco happened that caused him to bring the road wearers in. Well, he had been Marty Lundy doing jobs on TV in mid-south and then he went to Georgia and he became Arne Anderson and that's where they had the clip there and I think it's so interesting because Bill Watts explaining how this guy who had just been on TV as Marty Lundy was now Arne Anderson and it was that his uncle Olean Anderson sent him out to get experience but not use the family name yet. Yeah. And now we can and that's one of those things it's become the Anderson brothers, Arne and Olean but over the years they were uncle and nephew, they were cousins, they were, you know, everything but father and son. Well, at the time they were never actually called brothers. They were never contemporaneously as the kids say in the 80s they weren't ever said the Anderson brothers only at Arne but over time because the Anderson brothers kind of became the trademark, you know, people go back, oh, nevertheless. The whole point of this thing it wasn't a biography of any of these guys individually per se in terms of their whole life and their whole careers it was as they got together and they've done Flair anyway but that's what Flair was doing. We've talked about it when he came to Mid-South and he saw me in the midnight he saw the rock and roll and he had seen Arne in Mid-South or wherever he liked him and he was always he was like a traveling talent scout when he was champion for Crockett he was always one to bring the best guys back to Charlotte and the same thing happened I'm sure with Tully and San Antonio and etc when his dad's business was down there obviously he knew all these guys and Rick had put a word in. So, of modern day Tully, Tully is so just well spoken now and calm and nice. It's amazing he was the one that got to most heat amongst the boys back then because he was the one that was he was the bosses the promoter's son from San Antonio but he was good and he knew it and he was witty in a smart-ass kind of way but he was the guy that would just say shit to people where he wasn't even in those days where he wasn't even involved in the issue or didn't really need to register an opinion he'd just tell guys shit and that would and so he had heat with numerous people. At one point the joke was really the only one that like Tully was flaring but he was a great talent but Arne even my god when they would Arne was a Arne was a smart-ass but he was so fucking funny that everybody loved to be blistered by Arne but Tully didn't have the humor down he just had the smart-ass part down but Arne on the plane or whatever in the locker room either called Tully Eddie Munster or The Wombat and you know but if that it was like being in the goddamn closed up in an environment with a dozen of the fucking meanest roast comics of the day when you were in a heel locker room back then thinking of all those fucking guys right so we all said shit but Tully just got more heat because his wasn't funny it was just mean. Anyway and now he's the down-to-earth Tully Blanchard. Now he's the yeah he's the well more on that later but anyway that's the thing is that Tully was the son of a promoter and had been around a business all his life and flair as we know was somewhat of a prodigy. Arne had been a fan in Rome, Georgia with his childhood friends Pee Wee Anderson and Tony Zane and JJ. They had the great picture of JJ with Johnny Valentine when he was like 15 JJ was still as tall as Valentine was but he was the president of Valentine's fan club and I'm glad that they interviewed JJ for this because I'll and by the way Google JJ Dillon and tell me how old he is because I can't remember exactly but the answer will surprise you but besides him having a beard there that's the first time I've said the last time I saw him in person several years ago he hadn't changed a bit he looked hair the same color it faced the same whole nine yards. 83 years old 83 can you believe that which he that means that he when the 86 the horseman's best year he was still he was 43 but he looked ageless because he always looked like JJ Dillon but the big thing with him because he had been in Crockett promotions before the horseman officially formed he was with Buddy Landel I mean he had done other things it was changing from I don't know what you want to call it the frilly tuxedo to a suit that changed everything in terms of perception he seemed like a serious manager all of a sudden to me well see that was the thing JJ and he mentioned he'd had 3200 matches as a wrestler before he became a manager and then he started managing in the early 80s in Florida he was the top heel manager and also because he had been in and around the business at that point for 20 years he was in the office and worked as Dusty's assistant but as a manager he's managing you know it's Florida it's a flamboyant he's got a tuxedo like the old fashioned managers and when he came to the carolinas because Dusty brought him when Dusty came he had Ron Bass and Black Bart yeah and guys like that and is he gonna is he gonna change his gimmick to a cowboy gimmick no right but then originally if Buddy Landel had not overslept things may have turned out differently but when JJ got with Tully it Tully's already wearing the nice shit well then he adapted and it fit right with Flair and the Anderson's were their own thing but you know it it was perfect and they made a lot of the of the debate about was this the best faction ever which there was no such thing as a faction in those days it was just you know managers had stables or groups or whatever but for a collection of top guys that hung out together regularly and still had their own careers their own matches their own programs but were known as friends and worked together for the common good they were the first one on a major league level like that and it wasn't done on purpose it just developed into it because they all had some of the similarities that they talked about on the show personally and they like to hang out together but you can't compare them to the NWO because that was while I'm not saying those guys weren't friends it was just it was a progression of shit that had happened with guys that were unrelated in any way right until suddenly oh that's boy they'll never expect it if we turn a Hogan and I think the NWO on a national basis obviously drew more money until they all imploded in everything but certainly as far as in-ring performers this was the best single group of wrestlers that's ever been put together right I don't see how you can find a close number two as far as in-ring work I mean it's hard to argue against the 88 version with Wyndham yeah and I'm talking about some of these incarnations but anyhow then we came to the first comment I actually thought he was gonna redeem himself somewhat to me what he would Peter Rosenberg said well you know I was a kid and WWF was super kid friendly but the NWA seemed more like a real fight and that was probably then the only fucking coherent or truthful thing that he said but they did they did have some of the footage where you saw you know it just these guys gave more of a shit they cared more they tried harder and they knew what they were doing they weren't going out there to perform some you know super duper thing where they jumped off the guard rail and did a superman punch they were fighting and that's the way that it came across and as Oli said he got stabbed seven times they by the way they did not interview Oli for this obviously but they have old shoot interviews that he's done yeah they actually have special thanks to Peggy Latham in the credits I was surprised because obviously she passed away a few years ago well she had probably provided some of that stuff the newspaper articles and etc but anyway they talked about the heat that they got and the attack on Dusty and the parking lot at the office and what's funny about that is they I wish they'd have done some kind of like the WWE does where they have footage of the shoot the making of or the shooting of they had absolutely zero fucking permits Brian to do that they came up with the idea and they got to fucking Wayne Daniel the cameraman and put him in the car and they set it up amongst themselves but they had no shooting permit no police accompaniment no security they literally pulled down the road into the parking lot y'all jumped out and in broad fucking daylight in public shot that whole angle and people that did call the fucking police it was like what's what the fuck's going on and it that's it just all looks better when you'd have no budget and you're doing it yourself it it it also looks more legitimate than when you've got seven cameras covering it from every angle I'm sorry man does that make me old-fashioned no that needs to be a plausibility of why the cameraman's there and no one should be ignoring that the cameraman's there and they explained why he was there and so it's supposed to be done yeah what was the JJ's line hey just shut up and do what we tell you where that's what we're paying you for that's right the camera bobs up and down David Crockett explained so succinctly why these guys were over and why they worked so hard and why the talent was at the top the main event made more money the guys in the main event in the old I'm sorry for a lot of the fucking guys oh the fucking I didn't make any money well you mean it didn't draw on either if you drew some you should have held out for more but that was at least with the territory system and yes there were drawbacks also but the guys that were drawing money were the ones that got put on top it wasn't okay we're gonna sign you for a million dollars a year and well we got to use you in the main event because we got to justify that and well business is chugging along so what if it was no you got a few weeks motherfucker show us you can do this or we will take you out of that and put somebody else in and that way that's especially in it in the Crockett territory during those years you had to be fucking good because there was so many people wanting to get in there and so many people want to be on part of the and so many people you know that they could pick from that if you were the shits you were gone but now the contracts or this not now but soon the contracts would make it so a lot of guys were saying well shit I'm gonna make three grand a week no matter whether they booked me or not I hope they don't book me some of them I'm not saying everybody or some of them would be like well you know I'll just be happy here in the second match because it's you get out earlier the main event some of the guys are in the second match are making more money than the guys in the main event when everybody's on a contract and they get out in time to hit the restaurant you see where I'm going with this Brian I do Bennington's so anyway but uh it and it was true that they they drew the picture that even though it was no days off and a couple times on Saturday with TBS TV a couple times on Sunday with the matinee it was a family atmosphere with that locker room and with all the guys in Charlotte Arne and Bobby and lived three houses away from each other and also when they got that plane at least you could be home you could be home from Philadelphia by 1 30 in the morning in your living room so it you know it was everybody enjoyed traveling together to not fuck with the commercial I was in a plane so I was going to be somewhat trepidatious either way but it was a you know a very bonded locker room there wasn't like that's why I was so my mind was blown when I saw how bad so many people hated each other in the fucking WWF I'm like well there's a few people here that don't like each other but they get worked with each other just fine and everybody's just trying to keep the fucking sellouts going but up there it was goddamn anarchy anyhow where did we leave off pentagons uh where we left off we left off well the horseman turned on only that's where we left off that is one of the best that is one of the best surprise angles to ever be on tv because it came out of nowhere and it was awesome it was just terrific and the when only again it was two parts it was the beginning and then it was at the end it's one of the best things only ever did on tv I love that well and that's the thing only had had really been hanging on as a favor because he was figured in I mean it was making good money always only always like money but he'd been wanting to retire and so when they did that made the change where only could be a baby face and work that out and then he could go to Minnesota and run his sawmill or whatever the fuck he had then but that's when they got Luger and Luger had tremendous heat from most of the locker room at the start not only all of a sudden here is a guy I just mentioned everybody else's background and how they'd been fans and been around and worked hard from the ground up Luger had never been a fan never watched wrestling didn't know anything about it till somebody had you know told him oh yeah you ought to be a wrestler and I've mentioned before that you know I was on the plane with him one time he played football in Memphis I said well you must have seen Memphis wrestling and it'd be like oh it was on to the locker room when we come back in yeah because everybody in Memphis watched it but he never paid a lick of attention if he had of he would have seen his goddamn future best friend and business partner right because Sting was there in 85 he wasn't I think later on his story changed that of course in everyone who Jerry Lohler was we all watched it no fuck no he told me flat out no I never paid a lick of attention because I asked him on the plane see this was the kind of thing he didn't know when he was getting heat and I'll explain in a minute why he had a lot of it but I asked him I said Lex what would you have done if you had to start out in Memphis making three or four hundred dollars a week and drive it up down the road he said I wouldn't have done that and he was telling somebody who had done that that he was too good to do that and then he came off like that as a loof and just not you know not with it like the rest of the horsemen and the boys were mad because he got Crockett's first contract 350 thousand dollars a year how did that get out I don't know got out before he got there I don't know how but everybody had heard it by the time he showed up so telephone telegraph telewrestler I don't know but the point is they thought he was going to be there hulk hogan and florida was dying and Crockett was about to buy it or whatever it did buy it at that whatever the fuck they brought him to charlotte to fast track him put him on national tv and make him a horseman so he could learn as they said in this show for in the ring with the best heels in the business working with the best baby faces and but he again it was a tough adjustment as we talked about for Lex and he never nailed being a baby face because he wasn't comfortable with it he felt awkward trying to be nice to people and as a heel it just it helped because he was too fucking perfect but again he's another guy when he had health problems and all this other various life problems he found god now he's happier than he's ever been but it could have come earlier anyhow um the tbs tv footage i love that fucking think about this now and by the way the top guys didn't get paid for Atlanta tv well we got the forty dollars trance or whatever but nobody got paid to do that atlanta studio show wherever you were on saturday morning from friday night the night before or if you'd come in on the whatever you had to get up and get on a plane and fly to atlanta get in a fucking cab go to tbs do the show at the studio a two hour show and a one hour show that was shot at a total of three and a half hours and then back to the airport to get on the fucking plane to go wherever the fuck for nothing but it was a weekly showcase to do our shit there was never a promo for tbs television written down dusty just say you got two minutes baby you got a minute and a half or talk about the rock and roll expire whatever nothing and you just talk about me talk about me whatever once in a while if you knew what what was good for you you'd do that without being told but that was the thing all those promos that you see and some with some of the baby faces you could tell also but all that shit was off the top of all of our fucking heads all we needed was because we weren't even plugging specific matches in specific towns it was the national cable show we just talked about ourselves and our general issues and that's what flair with his fucking clothes and his shoes and it you used anything you had as a prop to make it different because while you're there every saturday your if you're a top guy you're going to do two promos at least because saturday and the sunday show in front of the same fucking audience you gotta come out and do different shit but it was fucking fun but then that this is true and not exaggerated either about the horseman tully said i wrote this down i had a wife who spent money and then she left and took all the money and and i was there with that happen i wasn't in his house but was in the territory wasn't even there i wasn't even there but they spent a fortune those guys did on the cars and the clothes and the jewelry and all that shit was legitimate that they were you know keeping up the gimmick and the story about flair plugging the hotel bars they would create a fucking scene but flair that's again not an exaggeration when he said i woke up one morning the next day my booze bill was four thousand dollars and see that's a thing when they were plugging the airport marriott and philly me and the midnight express were at the red roof in you know where i'm talking about down in essington right it's like three miles from the airport but it was 40 dollars a night cheaper and and sometimes stan would get mad while they're having the party over there we'll get a cab you don't need to be driving anyway but then you know they spent a lot of fucking money there was the part and this is where okay let's just do this now rosenberg said 1987 was the first boom year in wrestling what the fuck did he mean ever in which case in 1911 all of the early 30s the early 50s 1974 other years would like words but 1986 was bigger not only for for Crockett but for vince i think as well 1986 and i know this from depositions in one of our lawsuits that we caused uh Crockett grossed 21 million dollars in 1986 and that was with no television rights fees and very little merchandising and no pay-per-view it was fucking tickets and what is that today 80 million or whatever but 86 was probably five million dollars bigger for Crockett than 87 because that's when he started buying territories doing tv tapings and hit a slump so what but they did draw the the correlation the january 1987 the january 1987 affiliate civic center versus spectrum duel is what they were talking about where the wwf did 110 grand at spectrum and the nwa did 140 grand at civic center that was january 1987 do you know who the main event was in the civic center on that old-time record nwa house january 87 uh midnight express and road warriors you are correct sir in a scaffold match and they raised prices and still sold out but that's the thing it wasn't that was a specific night there but it wasn't like unheard of in 86 we had kicked a shit out of them in Cincinnati with flair and dusty and midnight rock and roll at the gardens in sensi we drew 12 thousand and sold out and they had 7 000 at riverfront coliseum for hogan and whoever so it of course they beat the well we didn't even run against them in new york and then they we kicked the crap out of them in richmond but they would have murdered us in los angeles but so it's but it wasn't just confined to 1987 so i don't know what he's talking about everybody tried to explain the difference in the nwa and wwf and you can't really put your finger on it but it comes down to the nwa looked like they took it seriously and the wwf was show biz in everybody's they say it in different words but that's pretty much the to boil it down as it is and that's it isn't it i mean i hate to say i hate to say because the terms have changed but it was hardcore wrestling versus show biz wrestling yeah and he had just you sit back and look again and go my god again it was it was mcdonald's versus five guys or whatever it wasn't about superiority of the product it was about the superiority of the fucking salesman and there's the crockets doing what they'd always done in that at 421 briar ben drive a converted convenience store they had four secretaries in a and the guy with the fucking carbuncle on his neck that did the overnight dubs in their own little studio and in vents had a goddamn machine and he's talking to networks um my own production beaver here come meet him itty-hoo uh the war games as we've talked about was made for the horsemen there were five of them and dusty had four baby faces to stand alongside him and i still say that's why that that match only really works that way when you've got a group of five people that belong together and you've got five baby faces that ain't gonna put up with it no more when you see that footage too there is something to be said for just how exciting it was to see dusty and the baby faces even the heels but i think it dusty like coming in there without a big entrance way coming in there without a big stage without lots of lights yeah he was like coming into a fight it felt like it and of course they showed poor JJ's bump uh i guess people remember he was only in the first war games because the finish was to be him getting doomsday devised by the road warriors and then would submit to whatever when they doomsday him because of the roof on the cage hawk couldn't come off like he usually did and they tried to do it shorter and it turned him sideways he landed on his shoulder and separated his shoulder and had to have surgery so which i'm sure he was probably not upset about that was it for JJ in the war games but um but then they got to again Barry Windham joined in 1988 and we've talked about he was the best worker in the business in 87 and 88 and so now you've got Rick flair Barry Windham totally blanchard and arne anderson with those four heels and again on the rest of the roster you got bob eating and stan lane the mid-night express so you've got the four best heel workers and the one best heel tag team and this is where they didn't say anything about Vince sabotaging the pay per views or the whole story that we've talked about and we could go into it for hours which may be one of the reasons why they didn't along with the fact that they didn't want to make Vince look bad but 88 business for Crockett was bouncing back if they had not bought the territories in 87 and assumed the shitty TV taping schedule or if they had been able to get the money from the pay per views that they had run and that Vince had sabotaged the bunkhouse stampede and starcade then they would have actually been in the green by the time that business started turning around in 88 but they were two men to plane and who knows what else they were two million dollars in the hole and this was legitimately the Crockett family they had owned it for 55 fucking years since old man Crockett come over from Bristol Virginia and they were worried about their mother's retirement here Vince is this goddamn mogul by this point and he didn't give a shit about going bankrupt or care about because he'd done it before didn't care about anything gambled all over the place but here's these the family of the the founder who has been put in a position where their mother might not have a fucking full funded retirement so of course that led to a big thing that happened the purchase of Jim Crockett promotions by Turner Broadcasting but Jim around this period of time also the horsemen were revolutionary they launched their own vitamins vitamins for the wrestling fans and I think those vitamins may have done better if they had had a partner like our good friends that Shopify to help them with their online store there you have the problem Brian because they could make all the stuff that they wanted but they couldn't sell anything because at that period of time Jim Crockett promotions had the worst-looking merchandise and they couldn't sell pussy on a troop train but if they had had Shopify behind them the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all the e-commerce in the United States they could have made enough money off of their online that didn't exist merchandise sales alone to kick Vince McMahon's ass all the way from Greenwich all the way up to Hartford and folks if you'd like to do the same thing right there and then run over him with a bicycle if you'd like to do the same thing I'm not talking about kicking Vince's ass from Stanford all the way up to Hartford I'm talking about sell stuff on the internet get the word out like you've got a marketing team behind you because you will with Shopify accelerate your efficiency tell people about your brand with easy to run email and social media campaigns if you need advice Shopify is always there you can call them up 24 seven and you can get their customer support advice you can say what can I do about my wife cheating on me and they'll say sir this is Shopify but you can tackle all the important tasks in one place and run that little son of a bitch on a bicycle off the road with Shopify no need to go to multiple websites or trying to find different things Shopify makes it all in one place your life easier your business operation smoother and if you ever get arrested for some type of malfeasance or other criminal activity Shopify will burn all of the records of their activities with you so nobody they won't be burning any records they won't they won't be burning any records they will they jump in and start just shredding everything I thought they were burning it and putting it in the landfill all kidding nobody's gonna be able to catch you based on what you've told them so you can be perfectly honest listen let's talk about reality Jim let's talk about our reality we trust Shopify or katieandvanguard.com the listeners can trust Shopify big business and small all can trust Shopify they are there to help your business and and prosper and prosper and prosper we're in room prosper is what I meant to say yes what I always say and stay out of jail because I'm telling you that there'll be no trace of your involvement with them whatsoever in the table self-destruct in five seconds but folks if you for example would like to turn your what-ifs into reality and money there it is there's the money if you'd like to do all those things then sign up for your one dollar a month trial period today at Shopify.com slash jce that's where you can get that one dollar a month trial period Shopify.com jce is the key to getting the one dollar a month trial period where Shopify can show you what they can do for you and at the same time they're not going to show anybody just send them all of your pertinent information and they'll keep it on flash paper so if the cops bust the door down they'll just light a match to it and it's gone so you're in any way what will happen you'll won't be indemnified by that listen ladies and gentlemen all fun and games and felonies aside what we're talking about here is a legitimate way with legitimate people to sell your legitimate products we trust them you can too once again Shopify.com slash jce legitimately all right well legitimately all said we we we just mentioned the sale to TBS of Crockett but we gotta mention one thing because Tully and Arne kind of said well they were mad about the money because the payoffs had gone down right well the payoffs had gone down but then the payoffs had come back up because when we got in that program with them I've mentioned this before we were in the main events and getting main event money and we worked on one two week pay period I think we made like fucking 10 grand for working seven days or whatever it was you know just but nevertheless the thing that had pissed him off also was that remember enough to our deep dives are on the YouTube channel folks official Jim Cornette YouTube channel deep dives on Crockett ears and various things you can see in the descriptions but when Crockett thought that he was going to have the syndicated TV revenue and thought that the pay reviews were going to become a reality that Vince wasn't going to hinder it etc we had gone to him at early 1988 me in the midnight because the houses were down and we were doing all these TV tapings all over the place where we didn't get big payoffs and and we wanted to renegotiate because for the first time since we'd worked for him we were complaining about our money and that was two things happened at that time one when we went to dusty because we had no we had no program going at that time we had started a thing with dusty and Nikita but Nikita had quit the business because his wife was sick and a few other things that we had tried to start doing had not materialized not because of us but because of the opponents the new breed dusty tried something with them to try to get them over and I think that's when they had a car wreck whatever so I pitched the idea to bring Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rogers the Fantastix in and pitched that angle to dusty and he approved it and we went to talk to Crockett about our money and that's when he told us oh but we're gonna have the TV revenue and the the Sunday night main event TBS show they were gonna start paying the boys on the Sunday night show like it was a house show there was going to be three matches and the preliminary guys got 250 bucks or whatever and the semi-final guys were going to get like a nice payoff and then the main event guys were going to get a couple grand apiece or whatever that didn't materialize and but he thought at the time that all these things were going to happen so he started renegotiating with us and I've told the story we ended up signing for $225,000 a year apiece and Tully and Arne had caught wind of what we were doing and they started doing the same thing but since we started quicker right as God somehow and I still don't know for sure when he knew but between the time that we signed our deal and the time that they went in to finish theirs that's when he found out and he didn't redo their deals so they were already f**king ticked right so then when TBS starts doing the due diligence and Tully said they talked to him and he being the promoter son and also see the attributes I gave Tully at the top of this episode he would just want to say things to people he buried Dusty's booking and again if it had been nine months previous he'd probably had a lot more standing but not only had business started to come back with the bashes and the 88 summer bashes being good but with us just starting a thing with Tully and Arne and the midnight Richmond sold out did 140 grand we were did the houses had come up so and now he's buried in Dusty so Dusty found out go ahead they didn't say that here and I thought that was very interesting well that's because the version of history now is that he was complaining about Jim Crockett Jr and that was who complained because he didn't say I was complaining about the booking or Dusty and obviously time heals many wounds well yeah Dusty was very popular with the folks at NXT and in the company so now you know maybe as well as all that Crockett whatever he buried Dusty's booking and whether Dusty called him or whether Dusty had Jimmy Crockett called him I don't know but he did kick him off the fucking plate and made him fly commercial and god damn that was a slap in the face and that's when they decided to because Arne went out of loyalty and they decided to quit and I've told the story it's on the YouTube channel also when they came in to Philly that night so okay you guys are winning the belts huh and they used an eighth generation dub of that yeah where'd they get that awful copy good lord I don't know they should have they could have called me and offered me money this time instead of just ripping my shit off but anyway that's the thing is I was so mad that program could have run for six months the matches were insanely good the money was great everything I was like this is the greatest thing six weeks we got out of it and boom they were gone I searched the world over and thought I'd found true love you mad another and you were gone if Tully and Arne hadn't left do you think JJ still leaves when he does well a JJ left because there's really nothing to do with that but in terms of your feud playing out that's kind of what I'm thinking about because if Arne and Tully stayed and they still fire Dusty as Booker the writing's on the wall for JJ unless they make him Booker so he probably would have left anyway right I think probably because JJ JJ being in the office he would have had to have not only coexisted with people at fired Dusty but coexisted with the people that were about to come in and I think it would have driven him insane also and so with all those things happening one right after another when Dusty went JJ you know made his phone called events but and that's the thing Tully and Arne debuted for Vince in October of 88 Turner Broadcasting's purchase of Crockett was official on November 1st 1988 and Jim Hurd got there in January and from that point WCW was fucked and and then they came the closest to telling the true story here and the whole story that I thought that they would have on Tully's business basically Tully and Arne against the Rockers and the Hart Foundation was great matches but the WWF guys not only flew commercial but they were gone all the fucking time and even though Tully and Arne were used to working eight times a week at least you were home and Charlotte a few nights whatever and after a year they thought my god you know this is not really our style of wrestling or the place for us but now Dusty's gone Crockett's not in charge of anything they're giving out guaranteed contracts and their business is not doing very good but Flare has just got the book back and his things are starting to look up so let's make the move and that fucking heard and again we've covered this but for the we're talking about the program here and for the new kids in the audience Flare took the book in what was it September because after George Scott and the booking committee through the summer everything was had gone to hell and Flare demanded to be named Booker and they made him but heard wouldn't leave him alone and Flare got Tully and Arne a deal that heard agreed to three years at 250 grand a year apiece and everybody at that time except for Flare, Sting and Luger was making 150 or less right so it was good money but then did you hear Tully's story of why he flunked the drug test at WWF? I've never heard it before so it was interesting that he had tried this little white powder for the very first time the night before the taping and Hershey or whatever it was. I never heard the story either but the way he told it was that he was with some girls that wanted to do some cocaine and he paid for it and he gave it to them and they took it to the bathroom and when they came back the bag was empty but he looked like he wanted to look like he knew what he was doing so he licked the bag okay three years prior to this four years prior to this this man had been partners with Gino Hernandez what would you put it that way? So whatever happened what we heard was that they when gave noticed events and they were going to finish up anyway and then Tully flunks the drug test in Hershey but he even said in this show I don't care to get me to Georgia quicker but Flair calls him in the middle of the night and tells him that Herd has pulled the deal and Flair didn't call me in the middle of the night but the next day I saw Flair he told me and we had to go in there to a booking meeting where I had to sit and look at that fucking possum headed motherfucker while he had just sabotaged the done the biggest piece of sabotage he ever did for the company because we were on the edge of getting something going and with the horsemen back together it would have helped that and he his story was he didn't want to hire Tully Blanchard who had flunked a drug test had looked bad on Turner broadcasting systems and that was the entire reason why he didn't want to hire Tully Blanchard. Do you believe that was the real reason or he just saw this as a chance to renegotiate to a lower amount? No because he if he'd have then after he could have still had Tully Tully would have come because Arden came for a hundred less where were they going to go they in good faith had quit their previous job for the only company that could pay them anywhere near that amount of money. So no that was because I sat there in the meeting and being prepared having heard no pun intended I said all right how about this don't hire him now Tully Blanchard goes to rehab for 28 days and completes a rehab program and gets a certificate and then you hire him and if the news gets out and once again he was like well this is getting out. In Steve Beverly's fucking newsletter maybe but it wasn't on the goddamn cover of the New York Times real newspapers were not covering the drug tests in the WWF at that particular point in time. If you didn't read the newsletters you didn't know anything about Tully Blanchard's departure as an average citizen of the country. I said but if he completes a rehab and then you hire him and then the news is out then Turner Broadcasting has decided to take an athlete that would formerly was with Titan sports and after he's made the effort to clean up his life and deserves a second chance you've given him one therefore Turner becomes the babyface to all the wrestling fans. Because and his response was nothing because he couldn't figure out a way how to dispute my logic so we're not talking about it we're not hiring him. Because it wasn't like the negotiations died right wasn't Tully and Corpus Christi when they did the big turn on staying the horseman? No. Where was it? He came back for a show I remember we talked about it. Yeah they were negotiating like up to the show starting and once again there was like an impasse. I don't he wasn't in Corpus Christi I never saw him and I was on a booking committee so how could he be there and I never saw him. That's what that's the and that's the thing that's when heard fucked aren't because he actually went to Arn and said well I signed I was gonna sign y'all as a tag team for 250 but you're not as valuable as a single so I'm gonna give you 150 and Arn's like what did I fucking do I just quit my job and I didn't do any drugs well take 150 or else wise that's it that's kind of fucking guy heard was he was a fucking asshole he didn't know jack shit about what he was supposed to be running so he made up for it by bossing everybody around telling him what to do and playing hard balls so they wouldn't let these wrestlers run over me and that company because of the first the first year under heard made sure that they weren't going to make money for the next five years and they never got out of that hole but anyway so now we had it only had to come back as a favor he'd been retired he had to come back just so we'd have three horsemen and that's where you know the downfall started we got it right where it was about ready to go and I'll give you some figures here in a second and but without tully and arn and that whole return things got fucked up and then the downfall was soon to start but when flair told tully he cracked up overnight and found Jesus this is a pattern when people are homeless jobless friendless or in some other less is when they get religion and then it makes them feel better but they've traded one crutch for another but at nevertheless listen to this tell me what we could have done especially with tully and arn both as a team because I got these figures from the midnight express scrapbook what was the worst rating that the wcw saturday night show did under the after the george scott era and during the booking committee regime a 1.9 for the wcw saturday night show on june 10 flair takes a book in september and I know there was 18 people on the booking committee but basically it was flair telling kevin who he wanted to work with kevin working most everything else out and me doing all the fucking paperwork in february the wcw saturday night show had gone to a 4.0 from a 1.9 the sunday night show did a 1.1 the same weekend in june and the same weekend in february it did a 4.4 it was 2.3 million homes which the way they calculated those days was over 4 million viewers it was the best number on tbs's december 1985 through dusty's major run and the clash of champions in june did a 3.8 the clash of champions that flair did in corpus christi did a 4.5 and that was in two and a half million homes the main event was four million homes and that was without tully and in herd wouldn't leave flair alone and when he quit those were the best numbers they did for the next fucking five years i never miss an opportunity to explain how incompetent jim herd was do you remember when you first heard that he was going to make olie anderson the booker because you were there obviously when you brought ollie back after the tully deal fell through were you surprised when they made him the booker and that was a disastrous run well again after that they went back for a brief time to the committee thing where everybody had a goddamn saying it and nobody could get along and i'm not saying nobody nobody could get along with herd and i think that herd saw only as the crusty guy that could yell at these guys for him so he didn't have to but that's i know a lot of people are thinking the modern flair right and he's really done a lot to bring that on himself but in this time in 1989 all the boys respected flair it was not there was nobody in the locker room going i wish jim herd had more power and rick flair had less nobody it was an antagonistic relationship okay well he by that point was he still in a locker room or had they run him off uh that's the point you know it it with ollie he they didn't you had an antagonistic relationship with the office itself with a lot of the boys but they would listen to flair and then with the committee they're just like all this again and then with holy he was antagonistic toward half the boys too so and by then he's just wanting to cut costs so he's doing the thing that he did before bring in the muscle guys from minnesota and run off all the high price talent and that's what he was doing because that's what herd wanted him to do and he didn't give a shit he was just going to do what herd wanted but that's again and there it went and it never recovered so that's the thing is herd f**ked arne out of a hundred grand pissed him off we were all pissed off because it hurt the business the boys if they had any relationship with the office didn't like herd but they liked the guaranteed checks and then they tried to keep remaking the horsemen but it never worked because the talent was wrong the booking was s**t and the company 1993 94 w c w was like aw it was it was unsalvageable they couldn't find a name in the world that would make a difference at that point and then finally as we've talked about a hogan when we did the hogan biography he bumped their pay-per-view numbers because he was an attraction there but were they making any more money because they had to pay him so much and the houses were still s**t and the tv was kind of s**t until they hit the nwo thing and then with bischoff not respecting the company that crocket had sold him he wasn't around then he didn't know the talent he didn't understand the whole deal he's just a mark for the guys at vents made stars they buried the f**k out of flair because they couldn't stand it that they couldn't they couldn't never kill him because people would still chant for him but they broke his self-confidence made him a mental case and arne had to retire tell he was long gone at that point only was quite happy being home counting his money so flair got the second lease on life by going to the w w f and doing evolution and just letting triple h and those guys give him his confidence back but you know that it really shows how they botched vince's only competition was botched by vince's only co- at least vince sabotaged crocket but everything that wcw did to get their asses kicked by vince for the first eight years was all their own fault to the victor go the spoils and that was the horsemen biograph had nothing to say well and and they inducted the horsemen in the hall of fame in 2012 and jj mentioned that it didn't include only but it wasn't important to him anyway only could have given two f**k his shits if you notice when they showed the stuff with arne and wcw they closely cropped it so they didn't see chris ben y anywhere yeah member of the horsemen you know they leave that out but yeah that's uh that's biography for horsemen but you know what this is another thing that it they influenced more of the boys well i won't say they influenced more of the boys than they did the fans they influenced a lot of the fans but the fans are fans of the horsemen today because of the boys that they influenced continuing to talk about them and how great they were because half these people weren't even a f**king live during this run you know i think a lot of it comes down the flair too because if someone says hey when was rick flair like the best when can i see like prime rick flair yeah the answer may be four horsemen so i think that's what a lot of people go to and it stands out but can you can you can you understand i should say can you understand me when i say that that's especially the tbs show that's what we were doing this for that's what was fun about the business so go out it's your here's your eight minutes two minute promo six minute match whatever the f**k there's your eight minutes to go out and do your s**t nobody's telling you what to f**king do or what to say or how to do it you've got to come up with your own s**t and if it don't get over they'll find somebody else with some better s**t that's what i liked about the f**king wrestling business am i crazy no that's what's missing in the wrestling business and it was something specific about that tbs show obviously not the only set in tbs wrestling history but the look of it how close the camera was to the wrestlers the length of the promos everyone having unique characters or personalities it stood out i could envision you there with bobby and stan on either side of the podium just kind of checking out what's happening and it was just always such a weird scene i'll say i'll say this this is my one trick and then i'll i'll uh we'll move on but did you ever notice especially the baby faces like and poor wahoo wahoo was not unless he was really mad and screaming he's gonna kill somebody wahoo wasn't an exciting promo just what a f**king guy right and a talent but especially the baby faces that couldn't talk that much it would be magnified when the camera when you'd come out of commercial break and there would be tony shavonny or david david crocket at the podium with wrestler or whoever and it'd be dead silence in the studio and he'd say well we're back with someone saying they just do this interview and my second week there i figured it out because i just looked at the layout and it took a couple weeks the stage manager or the pa or whoever was on the headset behind the they would be waving at me like get out of here get out of here i'm like i got you and then they got used to me i would before my segment i'd wait right behind the f**king curtain right and then and and shavonny or whoever would be looking like i mean is he out of here is he out of here i'd watch the count when they were getting the countdown from five seconds at three seconds i would come out from behind the curtain and scream to the crowd shut up and when they came up the people everybody in the studio screaming at me at the top of their f**king lungs i walk right in front of the camera like talking to them and it looks like there's chaos going on in the studio here and we've missed part of it and what the f**k and then the people are with it automatically and then i've they're making more noise while i'm talking and blah blah blah it just brought the energy up so that other guys tried to start copying that but they're like god damn it we can't have everybody off sent until three seconds before we come up but it's just a little thing you could play with that studio and you could get and the people could hear you there wasn't a pa they get they're 30 feet away in a television studio they could just hear you talking anyway it was fun but you know brian back in those days i'll tell the days of the horseman the nwa we didn't have cell phones we didn't have all this modern technology we didn't have podcasts we didn't have earbuds we didn't have anything that we could entertain ourselves with that's why we had to make it all up ourselves but folks now today in today's modern technology space age world you can just do anything you want to do and listen to anything you want to listen to you don't have to pay attention to the people around you you can ignore your family you can ignore your fellow human beings but you better not ignore the sound of the horn on the car that's bearing down on you that's why that our friends at raycon have solved all those problems because they say stay off the road why you're walking the road you idiot well let's let's say for example that you're staying in your house and in your house there's a good chance you're not going to be run over by a car so there's where you put the regular earbuds in the everyday earbuds but if you're going to go out in the dangerous world out in these uncertain times where you never know when some crazy person is just going to run you over with a bread truck you need the essential open earbuds because that way you can listen to the music you can listen to the podcast you can listen to what's going on around you because they fit right outside your ear canal brandy you know what an ear canal is i do i have two of them well that's right and you've got to fill them up with water and put that boat in there and sail down the eerie canal every day just to listen to music come on but now with these you don't no you don't it's it's terrible how you have to get wet just to listen to music just terrible but anyway yes folks these earbuds sit right outside the ear canal you get clear sound but you can hear the horn or you can hear the train coming or you can hear the person screaming a safe is falling and they're really light and the ear hook part rotates so you can adjust it to your ear depending on whether your ear faces forward or backward as some people's do and occasionally every once in a while if you get fat enough around the chins well then your ear kind of goes out to a slope but then it fixes all of that it doesn't fix it well it doesn't fix anything let's not say it does something it doesn't do well no it doesn't fix your deformed ears but it fixes itself so that it can apply to your ear no matter how disfigured you are these will work as long as you can hear in some fashion there was actually i don't know why this made me think but there was an article the other day in the paper that men are purposely now trying to get cauliflower ears because it makes them look like fighters well see there right there then if you're going to have cauliflower ears you need a set of the essential open earbuds because you won't be able to stick the regular ones inside your ear because it'll be closed up see this would have been good for Bruno San Martino if Bruno had had every day or essential open earbuds from Raycon he'd never left the house and won all those titles anyway Raycon's got over three million customers you need to be one of them it's not expensive like all these hoity-toity brands it's just good and right now we can save you money to make it even better Brian all the people have to do is go to buy Raycon b-u-y-r-a-y-c-o-n buyraycon.com slash j-c-e open you're gonna get 15 off buyraycon.com slash j-c-e open 15 off the essential open earbuds which are already cheap to begin with what more can i say a fantastic deal that somehow gets better check it out today the essential open earbuds from our good friends at Raycon buyraycon.com slash j-c-e open 15 off and if you can't get the cauliflower ears then at least get rutabaga ears and that way you'll still be able to fit in the produce section all right well let's keep rolling in that cart past the produce section to whatever the rotten meat section where are we going next all right well speaking of rotten meat it's time to talk about Smackdown for a second and three hours Brian three whole hours they were in Columbia South Carolina this is on May 15th not the township auditorium i'm sorry to say but some some new building they got there instead of the classic and there was like there was i would say 12 really good minutes in this program and of course three hours that's 6 hundred 180 minutes so you you lost 168 minutes of your life on this program trick Williams is over especially in Columbia he played football there went kai's from there he put him over he told a story about the chicken wings dripping on his shoes and whatever the fuck his family was there again and little yachty they haven't done anything blatant to make him become a babyface he just has and and they've morphed him into it and the people fucking love and his mother and father are in the front row and he did a great babyface promo this guy has got some oomph he's got some charisma and then Miz and Kit Wilson came out and I wrote well shit and then it's just to get him over to get trick over I know that's what you know but they did the business about Miz hadn't been cursed and Kit tried to read poetry and it went to shit and then yachty brought it back a little bit with a with a poem about Miz's tiny little balls but this was to set up trick and Miz in a match and Brian am I imagining it or haven't people been beating Miz in about two minutes for the last little while I don't remember Miz winning any matches recently and also Kit Wilson has literally been beaten by I think women men and dwarves or little people whatever midgets whatever they were are not trying to offend anyone trying to however they identify whatever I was supposed to say everyone's beating him so you have two guys who if you're into WWE comedy and Dan housing segments and our truth segments I presume you like this kind of material but I didn't think it was right to do this stuff with trick Williams to start the show too well yeah the match went past 10 minutes and again I know Miz can work and the idea is to get trick over but would you take it again this literally been you know having his pants pulled down and spanked by a fucking clone minis and and then yachty took the kendo stick away from Miz who's going to try to use it and beat up Kit with it and then trick it is finished one two three so yes I'm all in favor of trick Williams but by the time that we got finished there and a lot of people talked in the back and then they had the girls tag match it was nine o'clock that was the whole first hour I was saying to you off air I always think I'm the smart one and I'm getting a leg up on work I have to do watching SmackDown by watching it live it's such a miserable experience watching that show live you watch it the next day and you fast forward I gotta probably start doing that because you know there's gonna be something to talk about but it takes forever to find it or get there or sometimes you're disappointed and there's nothing this show sucks I think I said that to you all fair too this show sucks back down sucks but wait a minute it's nine o'clock now it's nine o'clock and Cody comes out to the ring okay now we got something going on and he's got the contract and he throws two chairs and a table in the ring and sets up his own contract sign and he wanted goon through out there to sign the contract for a title match in Italy when is this clash in Italy now is that the 31st I guess I guess so yeah because that's after the weekend after the Saturday night's main event and the AEW thing from wherever so he cut to promo Cody did and the people liked it and he's got a lot of fire and a lot of oomph and then here comes goon throughout and he won't get in the ring he's he's here the typical American you're making it all about yourself Cody demands that goon they're signed goon they're ain't gonna sign he wants him to say please mr goon they're and then after they're going back and forth Royce Keys comes out and just blows right past goon they're and says if you won't sign it I will and he starts to sign but then goon they're has stopped him and they're arguing and of course oldest comes out so well you waited too long now it's up for grabs so Gunther tonight it's you versus Royce Keys for the title shot in Italy okay I said this is going to be interesting and it was and we'll get to it in a second but were your thoughts on this overly long not particularly exciting segment I think the booking confusion around Cody continues he's a babyface but there's more reasons to boo him every time you see him he's angry for reasons you can't even really understand at times his own open challenge here his own contract signing here whatever it was you know you figured they would get there bringing powerhouse Hobbs out and I'm sorry to call him that but it was just a better name and I think part of the reason he's not completely gotten over yet is the fact that his name is not like just a cool name but whatever well and but he comes out and he gets in Cody's face and you know again he's just being established now so it's either wow they're really gonna strap a rocket to him he's gonna beat goon there and get a title shot no we ain't or they're about to beat this guy that they've been building up and doing these videos these background videos all over the place on and that's uh what they decided to do well so we'll we'll we'll get there because that was hold on that started at nine o'clock well after that was over we had Carmelo Hayes and Ricky Saints and Carmelo Hayes beat Saints uh Dan Howson was in his laboratory with a cloning machine and a computer and I just I don't know what the fuck is happening it they got Spingooly set designer we got Damien Priest against Tomatanga at 10 o'clock it was Jade Cargill with her stooges cutting a promo and getting in a fucking deal with Charlotte Alexa Bliss and we had a tag match and then it's time for the main event at 10 34 Eastern time Gunther's entrance starts they go to the break they come back they do their plugs Royce gets his entrance all that only took eight minutes so they ring the bell and now they got 18 minutes on the air and this is where I was thinking okay we're gonna see because there's no way that you can stank in the ring with Gunther right but let's see what Royce can carry here and how long he can carry it this is a true legitimate test if you you know like I said if you can't have a match with Gunther and when Gunther started stalling at the start I'm like okay either he's building heat or he's eating time because do the people understand what the difference is there Brian and what I just said do you think they may not you should explain it if he's building heat then he's obviously showing that Gunther this big bad tough guy that's beat up all these people is wary and or scared and or apprehensive about you know the what this guy can do to him and he's being slow and he's backing up and he also it's giving the people a chance to go come on get in there fight you son of a bitch or he's doing that because he's eating time because he knows more than we do and he's like I can't do 16 minutes with this fucking guy he ain't got it so it's one or the other and I'm I'm 50 50 maybe and 60 40 leaning toward eating time after I saw the rest of the match I don't want to blister Hobbs and I can't use that stupid name anymore I don't want to blister Hobbs we've been fans of Hobbs I think maybe Hobbs I don't want to say he waited too long to leave he was under contract they were paying him I think the time may have come and gone because how old did we say he was is he 38 years old just under 40 I believe you okay if if I had seen him at an OVW tryout when he was 27 28 he's the kind of guy see that's the difference between the developmental program now NXT and what we were doing in OVW because NXT and open to just anybody NXT is like we're going to sign you and then we're going to train you but if we ain't signed you fuck off you can't get through the myriad layers of security in OVW we had the developmental program but we had classes and we had cards and TVs other guys weren't under contract and they came and they did a tryout and they got accepted and there was tuition to pay for wrestling school for many of them that weren't on contracts but they eventually maybe did get a contract or they eventually there was a high percentage that may have paid a two or three thousand dollars to learn how to wrestle but then made many thousands dollars in the wrestling business where there's WWE or elsewhere but with a guy like that and Danny Davis always worked with guys who you know he knew they were working a job waiting a table or whatever the fuck if you were a prospect if you were a if you had potential he'd work with you he didn't kick out talent and if a guy like that 28 years old had come to one of our camps we would have invited him and probably just moved a little of all get you a job to pay your bills we'll train you we'll try to get you a developmental program deal but you've got you got something but he sat there Hobbes did in aw for I know at least they were giving him a spot sometimes on television and paying him because the other guys weren't but that was a really important window from his early 30s to his late 30s six years or whatever where he just didn't learn dick because all he was doing was intermittent matches with a bunch of fucking indie guys and maybe guys could give him advice or you know here you try this or do that or whatever but it's not it's not an overall program and I'm not putting the performance center or NXT over as the perfect way to do it because it's not they're making the best out of a bad situation as we have said many times the only perfect way to learn wrestling is to have a territory system and to start doing jobs somewhere and move your way through it just like we did at OVW because honestly that's the one advantage we had over the performance center in OVW they've got the world-class fucking healthcare and physical therapy and training equipment and gym stuff and a blah blah blah but we had a microcosm a miniature territory system where as we've mentioned many times you start a guy into preliminaries move him up maybe you switch him from babyface to heal or vice versa finally gets into main events he's got experience at everything tv live events the people that were coming to the matches in the territory days just like in OVW were the fans that were buying a ticket there were whether it was a elizabeth town kentucky austin indiana charlotte north carolina wherever they were buying a fucking ticket they were fans and their reaction is what you learned by the Beatles played the cavern club brine it's the same fucking principle they didn't just come out on their first day on television as the biggest band in the world and imagine you know they've got the world-class training in the performance center but you can't get experience in front of real fans and real people because even it's fans and friends down there at the nxt tapings while you're working in a territory you're actually going out and doing it and then you're coming back and you're getting torn apart by all the fucking veterans in a locker room who are all better than you are and you're being led in the ring by the same guys so the point i'm trying to make is that i believe hobbs has sat around too long where he didn't learn anything because in this match i've seen auctioneers talk less than goonther he led him through everything but at this point in his career at his age and with this many years in the business even though not at a high level he doesn't roice hobbs he doesn't have the aggression he doesn't have the the confidence he doesn't have the boomfong his own it he's way he's being told things to do and he's doing them but he's walking fucking through it he's not out there getting fucking over does this make any sense it makes sense i saw the match and i've seen hobbs's career on the national stage for the last seven years or so even with the issues and he's not the only one we've seen it from who although featured in aew to some extent it was kind of a holding pattern you didn't like you said you didn't learn anything it was more of a free-for-all do everything is this also a big indictment on wwe not having house shows because even with that aew experience if he had come up and in the last several weeks alone the time that he's been featured on tv if he was working two or three nights a week and maybe that's too ambitious for wwe these are money losing things house shows at this point because they have to bring their whole setup which they don't really have to bring but if wwe had house shows i mean wouldn't it fix some of this you would think if it's fixable yeah it's not really an indictment like that it just of course yes that's what everybody says you can't but they're gonna do a house show tour of the wwe this summer apparently was just announced and they're going to like fucking link in nebraska or just some off kilter places and they say the tickets are going to be cheaper i bet you because they're going to put all the green guys on the fucking cards and maybe give them a main event so it'll be a stripped down card and because these places don't get any live wwe ever they'll probably do okay but this is the same problem they had 30 years ago when i first started working in the office they had let's say they had 40 guys i'm just making up numbers but just for the point they had 40 guys on the roster but they were only using 25 or 26 on most of the shows and so why don't we run spot shows and give these guys work because they weren't getting paid these guys weren't on guarantees at that point so we run spot shows smaller towns smaller cards and they this was 30 years ago and they gave me the list of what their expenses were then just to run a show just to send the ring and a bet truck or whatever and they had to draw like 75 grand at that point just to and i was like what the how have you people got yourself in a goddamn predicament where you you've either got 15 of your guys sitting home except for tv or it cost you 75 thousand dollars to run a wrestling show but nevertheless they gotta they they've got to get as the as the kids say their reps they gotta get experience here's another thing like they got a world-class trading facility down there with world-class everybody but what would happen if you took the greatest athlete in a given field he's a world-class athlete in track and field or baseball or whatever and you try to get him to fucking go to the nfl practice when he's never played a goddamn down a football in his life it you you can't train people from scratch at a high level when they've never done something before and when they were signing independent wrestlers or people at least had been fans and understood what the shit looked like it was a little bit easier but now they want to sign people from other sports or just because they look good and they've never seen this shit or never thought about how it's done that's where you need the territories you can't just throw a bunch of green guys all together and have coaches tell them what to do there has to be that system and they need to go out there and they need to be the opening band and get booed off the stage because people want to see the stones and then they need to get to where that they're the next to last band but the fucking people are stomping and screaming for them just like the headliner it's a process so this was a gunther again he was having to tell him everything to do it doesn't look like Hobbes was aggressive to stay on him he was just kind of waiting to be told things the the comeback was awkward finally they bumped the referee solo came down gave Hobbes a chair but Hobbes had fuggit hit solo with it and gunther clothes lining power bonding one two three so they gave him an out and they've been doing this thing we're solo and he or both from the streets blah blah blah they gave him an out they're not just shitting on him and giving up on him but this was not a good sign no and no one wants to see him again solo no and it's time to do something else with solo like a new outfit or something he used to look like a badass and now he just looks cheap well we get gunther and cody and uh you know Hobbes gets a high profile loss in the world of tony con that means he's got a major push and then cody came out and crossroads crossroads did did gunther however the past tense of that is supposed to be pronounced but yeah i mean i mean there's still there's still hope but boy at his age with this chance he really he should have it better by now and he doesn't and that's disheartening but that's the problem when you you get used for six weeks or whatever and then sent away for months and months at the billionaire boy child's fucking you know wrestling toy club and you're around a bunch of indie guys who are going to show you how to do moves and give you no idea at all how to fucking actually get over well that was smackdown a promising uh future of wwe big events coming up obviously saturday night's main event and then wwe we're over here now in a few weeks with cody versus gunther where's seeing punk boy that's cody yes it was cody and punk right after mania on yeah and then punks like i'm not going anywhere and then i haven't seen him i'm not going anywhere and then he went the famous austin idol line the story rip rogers told is he was dead the next to wade ferris and uh i think was southeastern and austin idol comes out and he's like austin idols here and austin idol ain't going anywhere and he said that's the rip he's gonna be gone next week and he was gone next week well and see that at least it kept everybody on their toes in those days now with all these fucking goofy contracts nobody can just go anywhere if they want to all righty but having talked about goofiness and contracts and the billionaire boy child's wrestling toy chest all of those things intersected just here recently because tony tony con tony tony con he can't stay away from these press scrums interviews pr johns whatever and i understand you have some quotes well as we are recording this is being sent over and uh there's a few things here to put it in context but tony con at the media scrum for ring of honor uh time for honor it's it's honorable whatever the fuck are they still doing that whatever the event is that's what they had and tony had a media scrum afterwards and the story came up or he was asked about the story going around nick low piccolo although none of them want to say his name it's like beetle juice they're afraid he's gonna show up he put out this story as an agent saying that tony knows he's not going to be returning next year they've already informed him we went over it last time on the show it's been going around and bad about they you're talking about uh warner brothers discovery or whoever paramount after the boss running that fucking thing this week yeah right so let's put what the observer let's uh put let me read what was in the observer this week about this because it appears this is specifically what tony con's going to reference in the audio i'll play for you well we'll end up being the most important new story of 2027 is what happens to aew when the current deal expires at the end of that year there has been a lot of talk regarding the idea that paramount skydance won't want the property although it's the second highest rated regular show on tbs and is so much more cost effective than ufc plus the company would get a piece of its pay-per-view revenue and have a small ownership stake we've heard from people in wwe one by the way kid can i just interject that whatever the tens of billions of dollars are that paramount skydance billionaire number two is paying for this fucking whole organization what value do you think the piece of the pay-per-view is in the even in the millions that they would even notice it as a lion item go ahead i'm sorry we've heard from people in wwe one of whom said that they realize the decision hasn't been made and basically the same stuff we've said and that everyone following this seems to agree on well good that nobody even knows when the merger is going through nor who will even be making the decisions regarding aew if and when it does 18 the 49 the demo by themselves aren't strong with the new system to warrant the 555 million dollar three-year deal by the old standards but standards change and wrestling was hit badly by neilson changes plus there is more movement to 25 to 54 where aw fair is pretty well and there's the ownership and the pay-per-view component and the idea that paramount skydance could easily do what they did with ufc and by the pay-per-view rights and put it on their streaming service for major shows would seem to be in play unless the ufc experiment in their minds hasn't been successful because they could get aw pay-per-views for a far more cost-effective price that's twice he's brought this up or they could keep who's he writing this for is he trying to convince somebody he's sending it to fucking larry ellison or they could keep aw pay-per-views the way they are because they would have a current deal where they get a percentage of all pay-per-view revenue through hbo max with its lower price which would mean the majority of the us pay-per-view revenue which is by far the largest pay-per-view market in the world and we don't know aw streaming numbers which play a part in its value to a streaming service are you giggling over there i can't yes it's it's it's like he's he's this is what if tony was sitting there cross-legged with a tub of ice cream in front of him crying this is what dave would be saying to make him feel better back to this we don't know the streaming numbers which play a part in its value to a streaming service and it's virtually a lock that's more concentrated with younger viewers even if we go with the idea that aw for a regular show can do similar numbers as ufc and maybe half ufc on pay-per-view paramount skydance can have that for probably one quarter of the ufc costs in a new deal and everyone would be happy one would think but the other side of the equation is maybe the losses and long-term deal with having ufc will keep them from wanting to spend even that kind of money when their own financial shape is so heavily leveraged tony conas talked about being super happy that paramount skydance got it and if they go with the company it does open up for more exposure since the new combined streaming service will add more homes for aw's television as well as for their pay-per-view shows anyway my thought is that anyone at this stage of the game giving any kind of definitive answer to all of this is likely full of it but that hasn't and won't stop speculation then again aw being doomed after this right steel expires has the same speculation now for six years but another person in wwe noted to us this week that they have definitely spread word in the company among some if not many that aw won't be on paramount skydance and question if they can get a viable deal elsewhere one person there noted that people at the highest levels are talking like aw won't get another deal but those kind of stories spread previously at the last negotiations not that they wouldn't get a deal but that their deal would likely be at the same level or perhaps a lower level than the prior deal and instead they had a 2.3 time increase of course you want to spread that uncertainty to keep the talent from thinking about going to aw oh good lord that's the end yeah that otherwise everybody at the wwe would be dying to go there if it wasn't for the fact that they don't know whether they're going to be on tv or not anybody that in the wwe locker room that saw poor hobs match just said to himself well i guess i shouldn't go to fucking aw so here's toni kahn at the media scrum responding to a question i presume because i don't have the question here about this exact report and these reports going around the speculation i guess we can say for today that somebody in wwe is telling people within wwe talking about aw's next tv deal and talking about what we're doing and i was surprised by that and all i'll say is that what they said is could not be further from the truth and they're entitled to their opinions i think you know i would i've been trying to be respectful to them and try to conduct myself as a gentleman and uh and and then for them to go on background and spread these things uh i'll just turn the other cheek and uh and and maybe a couple years ago i wouldn't have done it like that thank you i'll turn the other cheeks they could slap me on that one too dave said that they're spreading it in the office toni said they're spreading it on background so it tells you he's thinking about it even differently than what dav reported he's thinking that they're the ones who fed it to nick piccolo maybe or fed it to whoever else they're the ones trying to spread this do you think there's anything yeah well and and that's the thing old nick piccolo is the one who said this but he's toni is blaming the wwe instead of a guy that really honestly nobody's ever heard of is this a case of when vince was having a feud with ted turter when he was really having a feud with eric bischoff i have something here from the observer website khan reiterated that his new approach lately has been about turning the other cheek saying that he thought about jesus more following j briscoe's death and has tried to apply that to his life he says he's not perfect but he still tries to apply it that's what it says here and then uh i was also sent this tweet someone responded to the clip at toni talking about this that we just played and said media trained toni is a problem although i do wish he would take a little swing though and toni responded thank you very much i didn't take any specific new media training though i have both gained experience over time working in wrestling and sports and i've rediscovered what it means to turn the other cheek because of reinvigorating my faith in jesus in recent years we heard this when he talked to ruso was also all of a sudden it became about religion did toni did we miss this story that toni's become super religious well i'm just wondering because we've talked about it here to tell me when he found out that he had no job and was out of the wrestling business got religion and the other guys get religion when they're about ready to go to jail or their wife's leaving them or whatever the fuck is toni got religion because he found out that aew is gonna go to shit i swear dad i only licked the bag yeah i don't know i mean again he cited j briscoe's passing that was a few years ago at this i mean that was what three years ago two and a half years ago whatever it was it was a while ago turning i mean it's very interesting he's saying this because i don't know if turning the other cheek to wwe's a good idea they seem to just want to take more body parts the more you turn away from them but this is what toni has to deal with he has to deal with however real this story is and i said earlier we've heard from a variety of people in entertainment who all think it's real they believe it and i don't think they heard it from nick kahn or anyone there so what do you think of this this the way this is being presented and how it's being put out there by wwe and now toni what do you think well again the new ownership is going to be i would think in the same position that the tk o thing was when they bought everything they're going to try to cut redundancies in in their office employees are going to let go the fucking uh uh you know they're going to cut talent whatever the case because they're going to be in severe amounts of debt it happened with ufc right that didn't happen with the wwe when tk o was formed and took that over it's going to happen with fucking aew with paramount or anything else that paramount's doing because they're going to spend 250 gazillion dollars for this thing and they're going to have to save money and i just i can see somebody said well because paramount has the espn blah blah blah they got ufc but they're having this outlaw karana karano and rousey fight on netflix or yeah because it's a big fucking draw it's going to be a big draw because it's mainstream stars and people the average person knows are they going to want to spend 500 million dollars for the way way number two wrestling program when under their umbrella is the way way number one wrestling program that's a question i'm not saying that the first thing they're going to want to do is is just cut tony kahn's balls off i'm saying they're going to look at why are we paying this much for this fucking program that barely does the ratings of the big bang theory that's just more more likely than anybody trying to just you know sabotage aew is just them thinking what are we doing with all his money for does is that ridiculous for me to say that again i always go back to and i know you haven't agreed always over the last several years as i've been saying this but it's cheap content you hear 555 million dollars and you go oh my god that's so much money i mean it is to any of us but for a for a television network to get original weekly live content and apparently they're happy enough or have been in the past with the key demo it's cheap content well that's them i'm saying the new owners the merger when they're way way farther and fucking dead well that's the question because you know there's two things you have to consider one if they said hey we have UFC now let's have a deal with the other arm of the exact same company and get wwe it would mean more wwe content and you see what the content's like right now if aw ever did a deal like that you would wonder how aw would change because aw is what it is now and they're kind of left alone if all of a sudden someone really has a big interest in them does it become highly commercialized not to the extent of wwe but you know you got to make it money back so i don't know you know and again i just don't know i don't know i don't think it looks too good for aw right now in terms of all this i'm also not completely against for aw and their audience if tony went to a youtube model and just pay per view somewhere i actually want to at least see how that would work it may not be the best thing or it may be something that surprises everyone who knows but to me it doesn't look very there's nothing i'm seeing that makes me think this is gonna end up well for aw right now right there's no sign of that other than tony and other than dave telling you why he thinks paramount would be better off working with aw than ufc other than that and tony saying that they're completely wrong and they're spreading this i'm not seeing any signs that a year from now we're not going to have a big problem you see the light at the end of the tunnel the problem is it's the headlight of the oncoming train i hate to say it it almost makes me want to watch more dynamite now just to see the last year how it plays you know we covered we covered the first six years or so we need to see what's going to happen but we'll see i'll wait till i make the announcement and jump in for the last three weeks how's that oh no i mean who knows what they're going to do but again they may just they may do a wwe old paramount to tony and just say well you know we'll just give you a half just take a 50 cut and you can stay on the air or you can blow us what are they going to do then they'll still be on the air and tony you'll just reach in his pocket and make up the difference because he can because his product is unlimitedly funded but you know i don't know that they're going to go they don't they're not going to fold up or go out of business as long as tony wants to do this but they've had the crucial period where they should have made bigger advances but they can't because it's an indie show and i mean i've at least crocket we just talked about that with the horseman thing a crocket had an office in a converted convenience store with four secretaries and the guy with the fucking car bunker on his neck doing the dubs but at least they had run a successful promotion with major talent the best in the business for years and years and vince beat them because he was a big fucking business and in this amateur hour bullshit that tony's put together it hasn't come anywhere near as close as crocket was to vince so i am i'm sorry i just i think we're either going to be bored or disgusted we're either going to watch the wwe we're going to be bored out of our fucking minds or we're going to watch the clown show at aw and it's going to be disgusting the mockery they make out of the pro wrestling business so bored or disgusted you pick well we will be here to cover it all for you that's right we're going to bore you and disgust you because we're covering everything this is my show isn't it oh yeah well it's over thank you folks we're going to be back with the drive-through and all this good stuff and then the experience and more good stuff and until then thank you thank you and bye bye everybody