Episode 620: I Retract My Offer

Like the Midnight and the Rock and Roll, he's in a fight for wrestling soul, using the racket and the mind control, he's Jim Cronin. The key to the future, held by the past, and with Danky's partner for Ryan Last, he sends this message out by podcast, he's Jim Cronin. Well, he's never faced a pony He never backs down from a fight He never wins a pony Because his mama raised him right It's time to have your mind Get the experience Get the experience Get the experience of Jim Cornette. Joining me today instead, the best-selling author, popular podcaster, and all-around Renaissance man, Brian Solomon. Hello, Brian number two. Hi, Jim. I'm happy to be here again in the guest position to the joy of some and to the absolute animosity of others. To the complete misery of the listening public, you have been chosen again. Now, what is the guest position? What position are you in right now? I mean, I'm in a seated position, if that's what you mean. Well, it might be better if you got down on all fours. Well, wait a minute. Who do you think I am, Trish Stratus? Come on. Hey, come on now. Can you bark like a Brian for me? You know, here's the thing. Even Brian Solomon and I are on a first-name basis, obviously, but every time I call him Brian, either the people who come in late on the podcast, who are these people, or more specifically, the YouTube audience that listens to clips every time I call you Brian, then everybody, the comments, they're not listening to the goddamn subject. They're saying, well, Brian sounds different. Is Brian sick? Or wait a minute, that's not Brian. Why is he calling him Brian? There's only one Brian in the world, of course. So this confusion runs rampant all the time. But you know, Solomon Grundy, if I call – I just want the folks to know that my little pet name for Brian Solomon is Solomon Grundy. If I call him Grundy, folks, in, of course, the program, I'm trying to avoid confusion in the marketplace. Well, as an alternative, you could call me Brian Second to Last, if that helps. Well, it doesn't flow. True. Possibly just Brian almost there or Brian almost made it, but I don't know. Maybe just Grundy. I do what people should never do is I read those comments on YouTube on some of those. And so I don't want to I guess I'm just going to feed into this by saying this. But there's people on there that will say things like, hey, I didn't know that Jim had Tony Khan on as his as his guest host. or some people thought I was Vince Russo. Now, which I mean, look, I know I'm from Brooklyn, but there's no way I don't have an accent that's anywhere near in the universe of the accent that he's got. No, you have. And also, you know, the meanings of all the words that you use and you pronounce them mostly correctly, giving your, you know, Yankee descent. But you do sound a little like Tony Khan if Tony Khan is played at half speed. because you just you have a little bit of that tonal quality but his or maybe he's you played it twice beat now you're going to make it worse if you're you're even acknowledging that i sound even a little bit like him well it's like if you if you've held tony down to just force fed him somas for a fucking week he might sound like you okay okay i guess but nobody's gonna do that I was at a pay-per-view post scrum, whatever they call it, one of those for one of the pay-per-views. And I actually got to ask him a question. And I think we talked about this. He gave me an answer that had to be the longest answer that I think he's ever given. God bless him. But, I mean, he talked for about five minutes straight. I didn't even remember what the question was anymore. And he was looking straight at me, just me, the entire time. It was a very unique experience. And for any of the listeners that don't know, and by the way, plug your program that you do here before we run them all off. Let them know what you do normally as opposed to your guest spot here. Sure. I have a podcast on the Arcadian Vanguard Network, Shut Up and Wrestle. And I've got different rotating guests every week. I've had you on. I think it was from my 100th episode. And it's wrestling history. So, I mean, there's a lot of overlap. I just don't have the wonderful panache and chemistry that you and Brian have on your show. Well, you have, you know, the chemistry set that you got when you were in Connecticut is par excellence. You know, you also have worked for the Evil Empire in the past and have experience with a few of the people we're going to talk about today and et cetera. But nevertheless, before we get into any kind of wrestling, just real quick, you still live up there in the great white north. Because I'm sick and fed up with it. Two weeks, more than two weeks now, we have been covered up with eight to ten inches of snow in Louisville. and it hasn't been above freezing since it peaked up above freezing about two degrees, snowed another inch, and went back down. And we're finally going to get allegedly melted off this week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. It's going to be all above freezing, and then we'll have a giant slushie going on. But have you guys got any relief up there in the great state of Connecticut? No, none. It's absolutely brutal. I've lived in the New York Tri-State area my entire life, and I can't remember the last time that there's been a prolonged, like, below-freezing Arctic blast that lasted this long. We got a ton of snow dumped on us, and it's not going anywhere. No. It's been like there's temperatures out there that are – it's like the score of a soccer game. Or potentially Howie the Mailroom Guy's IQ in Stanford. Now, Howie was a very nice man. I will not stand for that. A very nice man. Hey, you know people think he's just one of my figments? No. The figmentary Howie. There was really in Stanford Howie, the mailroom guy. He was dependable. He was friendly. There was probably a number of things going on with Howie, but he was the guy that brought everybody's mail up from the mailroom. And as I've said many times, I would nominate him for a variety of positions in wrestling and the national political scene rather than the people that are currently in them. Because at least you knew what you were getting. Speaking of an old friend of ours, have you heard Linda McMahon's having some trouble? Like everybody else in the McMahon family, she's having trouble getting an audience lately. Yeah, she keeps getting her appearances canceled. And actually, one of them was right here near me in Fairfield in Connecticut. And it happened to be at, it was the first time it happened. It happened to be at an elementary school that is the elementary school that my kids went to. I was very proud of my hometown, I have to say. But, yeah, they just, I get it. Well, now, let me ask you this, because now the most recent one that I heard about, I think it was in Alabama, where it was because of a student protest. but was it in the one in Connecticut up there, the parents actually started calling the school, right? What the fuck? Various forms of what the fuck. Yeah, it was the parents. The parents were the ones in that case that complained, and I guess they thought it would be a slam dunk because this is the area that she's from, but they also have to remember that she also lost the Senate election bid on two different occasions. So just because it's your home state doesn't mean that they want you around. Well, and that was before she was a member of the current administration, and this is what is—it would be so hilarious if it wasn't so fucking sad and tragic for the next 10 to 20 to 30 or how many years development of our fucking country. the Department or the Secretary of the Department of Education by parental protest and student protest is being asked not to speak in goddamn schools. Yeah, and this used to happen to, I don't know if anybody remembers her now, now she seems like, you know, a paragon of virtue. virtue, but Betsy DeVos, who was the last secretary of education that he had for his first administration, the same thing was happening because I was actually teaching high school at that time. And there was no place that wanted to touch her with a 10-foot pole. But compared to Linda, she actually seems qualified now. Well, and that's the thing is that people are just, their minds are starting to explode at to what literal incompetence have been put in a variety of the most important positions in our country. You've got an anti-vaccine lunatic, Robert F. Kennedy, in charge of the Department of Health. He's brought back measles. You've got violent criminals that were convicted in court, have been pardoned, and now have been put in positions in, like, the Department of Justice and Homeland Security, etc. And now you've got a defendant. Technically, she's a defendant in a child sex abuse suit who has never – she got a degree in teaching French at one point 50 years ago. She's in charge of the department they wanted to shut down to begin with, the Department of Education. And the last time they had her in charge of the Small Business Administration, which was like nominating a wolf to be in charge of the Department of Sheep. And all those small businesses, well, she did succeed. All those small businesses got a lot smaller. They certainly did. They evaporated. But anyway, but now it's come to this, ladies and gentlemen, in the United States, before we go any further, that the secretary of the Department of Education is not welcome to speak in schools because she's an idiot. And she is a pawn of the regime. Speaking of idiots and pawns in the regime, hold on. I got to get my paperwork square on this, Brian, because another. Well, I don't know. Have you ever been around your friend and mine, Vince Shitstain Russo? Did your ships ever pass in the night? And if so, why didn't you lob a stink bomb onto his deck? You know, I have to say it's one of those weird things with my WWE career and everything else that I've done is that we actually never crossed paths. And I knew a lot of people that worked with him because part of the reason that I got hired was that he had just jumped to WCW in the fall of 99. And, you know, he was also working on the magazine, too, as a lot of people might know. And he took some of the staff with him. And there was a whole shakeup. And they put somebody new in charge of publication. He took some of the staff with him. It was like on a much smaller basis. It was like when Hogan left Byrne and he took, like, Schultz and Okerlund with him. Instead, Russo took two stooges from the magazine department. He did, and they had to rebuild the whole magazine. Barry Werner, who had been the New York Daily News sports editor, they had brought him in, and he basically hired all this new regime at the magazines, and I was one of those guys. So indirectly, Vince Russo is responsible for me getting hired, but I never met him. And I will say, I mean, I can't speak from experience. I never was around him. I never worked with him. But I will just say that there were people on the magazine staff who had worked with him and in creative services and stuff. And I'm just going to say I don't think they were particularly upset that he was gone. And I think they had a lot of PTSD in some cases from having worked with him on the magazine and things like that. So, I mean, all I've got is secondhand, you know, third party. I can't really say anything from directing. Well, you also, then you have to thank me for your career in wrestling. Because, you know, on the show quite a while back, over a period of time, Brian Lass and I have put together that indirectly, somehow, that six degrees of separation or whatever, I was responsible for it myself. Because I don't know if you ever heard what we put together over several different episodes where things came to light. My fan club president recommended to John Arezzi, who had the radio show in New York, hey, you ought to go to this guy that owns this video store because he'd probably sponsor you because he's a big mark. And it ended up being Russo who ended up going on blah, blah, blah. So, it's like one of those complicated DC Comics supervillain origin stories, but you may have to indirectly thank me or curse me, whichever one is necessary. But, point being, we had a bunch of people, and I thought, like, has this just come out as part of a lawsuit or something, you know, discovery? But we had a bunch of people over the last few days send in, have you seen this exchange of emails between Vince Russo and Vince McMahon from 2021? and apparently old Vinnie Roo has alluded to the, you know, Vince, on his various statements, which you can't ever trust, so you take with a grain of salt, but that Vince McMahon, the last time they were in contact, was just rude to him. You couldn't believe how rude he was to him and blah, blah, blah. But apparently Guy Evans, who has written a couple of books and recently wrote Beyond Nitro, which I guess is what happened Beyond Nitro, it came out like six or eight months ago. But I don't know if this exchange is just coming to light or if people just landed on it and all sent it to us at the same time. But he had researched that period of time for all of these individuals and has the email exchange between Vince McMahon and Vince Russo from 2021 that Vinnie Rue has only alluded to beforehand. Would you like to hear this, Brian? I definitely would, but I'm wondering how he got a hold of private emails. I mean, I haven't seen the book, but... Well, I'm wondering if this was, he did research for the book, but has there been a lawsuit? Ah, okay. I'm just asking, but this is, however this email exchange has come to light, it's not being disputed that it is these people. Well, once you hear it, you will kind of realize it's exactly these people. because apparently they had had russo come in to sit down for one of the wwe documentaries and you might i've seen so many between dark side of the ring and the wwe stuff he's been on a few of them but you might remember what wwe documentary he may have done some talking head stuff on a few years ago i don't know but he had been in and he's writing vince mcmahon an email. Vince, I recorded footage for a WWE doc this past Friday. It was a great experience. Everybody involved was professional and respectful. I know how busy you are, but I do hope you get the chance to see some of my comments. I honestly have no idea what I've ever done to never hear back from you all these years. While I'm not looking for a job, all I ever wanted to do was help out in any way I can. Peace to you and your family. And apparently then Vince McMahon emails back, you haven't done anything objectionable at all, Vince. Peace to your family as well. Now, that's that one line Vince email acknowledging I've received your message and I've given you no information to work on whatsoever except we're all cool, right? It's noncommittal. Russo then emails because that's kind of like the end of the conversation also with Vince McMahon normally, isn't it? Of course. Yeah, I mean, that's his way of saying, okay, we're done here, pal. Yeah. Peace to your family. Vince Russo emails back. I'm very glad to hear that. Vince, I'd like to see if I can extend my services to you. He just said, I'm not looking for a job. I just, all I ever wanted to do was help out. I'm very glad to hear that. Vince, I'd like to see if I can extend my services to you. We're both getting older. Is that the last thing Vince McMahon wanted to fucking hear? He didn't figure that out. All those years, he didn't figure that out. And I just always felt a sense of unfinished business between us. At this point in my life, I just want to give back to the fans, the industry, your company, your family, and you. I've been watching Raw Weekly for over seven years now. God damn, no wonder he's a maniac. Part of my job as a professional podcaster is to observe it, critique it, and discuss what I would have done differently. I watch the show from the perspective of a casual fan slash television viewer because that's the perspective in which I always watched it. or if you're pitching to one of the NBA teams, you want a job as the coach. I've always looked at basketball from the stands like a mark. I look at myself as the masses, and I study what would the product need to produce to get my viewership on a weekly basis. I fully believe that in any consultant role, I could be of great value to you. I could work directly with you. Even if it meant just sending in my thoughts, ideas, and insights on a weekly basis. However you think I would be most suitable in adding my 30 years of insight, knowledge, and experience to your company and product. Hope you give it some consideration. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Vince McMahon writes back, Yes. The only way I'm going to know if you can help us is for you to offer ideas or critique the show for a couple of weeks. This is not offering you a job. It gives me some ideas as to potential contributions. Unquote. Are you ready for Vince Russo's reply to this instead of just waiting to watch the show for a couple of weeks, put some paperwork together, and in sending Vince a presentation? I am waiting to hear. He doesn't send back any criticisms or critiques or ideas or whatever. He replies immediately or soon after. Vince, the success when I worked for you came with the shift of going from traditional wrestling to mirroring society at the time. Through characters and storylines, we made everything we did seem entirely realistic. Wow. That's why casual fans bought it. Well, we always take a cement truck to a fucking Corvette. That's why casual fans bought into it by the millions. It was a television show based in reality, and they were hooked. It had something for everybody. It was must-see TV. We've come full circle. Over the past 20 years, the WWE has once again veered away from that. Today, as a television viewer, I'm seeing a straight-up wrestling show. Really, a house show. If I'm not into straight-up, long, continuous wrestling matches, I'm not going to watch the— He's talking about the WWE program under Vince. Right, right. Long, continuous, straight-up wrestling. We all remember under the Vince era, he'd tell everybody, go 30 minutes. I'm not going to watch the show. It's that simple. Remember our pre-tapes, how we would leave the arena, find unique backstage spots? We made everything look and appear different within our own show. That kept it fresh. That's why you've experienced a drop in viewership. The only ones watching are the hardcores. They'll always watch. Apparently not. You need to get those casuals back. Vince, you trusted me once. It all begins and ends with reality. This approach, because again, FitzRuice has always been known for presenting a completely legitimate, realistic, real product that you couldn't possibly tell was a word. I've known plenty of old ladies that gave birth to Hans, didn't you? It all begins and ends with reality. This approach will bring the casuals back, slowly but surely, 100% guaranteed. need. Tony Khan doesn't have a clue how to do this. AEW's a wrestling company. They'll only draw wrestling fans, and not all of those. WWE is a television conglomerate. You need to once again draw and welcome in the masses. In formatting, Vince, this week you went to commercial break twice promoting two matches that no casual fan would ever care about. Oh my god. You gave the viewer the opportunity to change the channel, and they did. MLB playoffs and Monday Night Football were on. You really need to get back to the strong hooks going into commercial breaks to ensure that you bring the viewers back. Did he have AI do this, or was there AI back then, or is he just artificially intelligent? Did you say this was 2021? 2021. I mean, this is not even reflective of what they were doing. I mean, they were actually doing pretty well. They were starting to really heat up around that time. Well, besides that, it's just generic gaga. It's, yes, you need to hook the people going to break. Imagine that. Thanks for the tip. Thanks for the tip. These matches set up with weak hooks. Turn them away. I know the formula to help bring back the masses. I knew it then. I know it now. I will look at this week's Raw and send you an assessment with some ideas. Okay, so if Vince even, McMahon even made it through that whole goddamn thing, he's left it as, okay, I'll look at this week's Raw and send you some ideas. And Vince has instructed him to do that. Apparently, Vince doesn't get back to him. Wow. Okay. So Rousseau follows up. Oh, no. with another email. Is this a way for me to watch the show for two weeks, put all my time and energy into writing these detailed reports, and then for you to turn around and say, ah, Vince, I really don't see anything here? So in your head you can justify that the Attitude Era was you and not me? Ah, boy, that escalated quickly. Yeah, this is like fatal attraction kind of thing going on. That's what he can't get out of his own way and never has, that he thinks that he was the genius behind oxygen and everything. And he's gobsmacked that people do not recognize this, that he's spent a long time trying to illustrate it to them. But anyway, the last email or last communication of this chain, at which, according to Vince Russo, the two apparently have never communicated since, Vince McMahon said, That was a long time ago, and I have no idea if you can do it now. We're in a PG format. Things and people change. You have a very high opinion of yourself. and a ton of failure at WCW. And bear in mind, Vince McMahon at that point, I guarantee you, had never seen anything Vince Russo had done in TNA. No, but there were people, as you know, that used to report to him that would watch the stuff like Howard Finkel. Oh, yes, but I mean, he didn't think that it was in any way worthy of mentioning. He also flunked out in TNA. He's just like a ton of failure at WCW. That burned it right there. Vince McMahon continues, I retract my offer to show me your suggestions for two weeks. If I were you, I would have jumped for an opportunity like that. That tells me all I need to know. No need to discuss anymore. I wish you well, Vince. Thanks for considering. Wow. I'm cringing. if you can, there's no video, but I'm cringing. You do? Who has ever talked to Vince McMahon like no, it was you and not me, pal? Well, the big mistake there, again, like I'm just underlining this, I don't know the man, but just from knowing Vince, working with Vince, and listening to this, is he starts to talk to him like he is a peer. You know what I mean? Like he's trying to speak to him like an equal, like they're like they're, you know, like they're a team like they're Lennon and McCartney or, you know, Rogers and Hammerstein or something. And that is not how you should, even if you think that, that's not the way to approach Vince. Especially when you're sitting at home alone waiting by the phone, motherfucker, and this guy is still the biggest businessman in the fucking only field you've ever had any fucking degree of financial success in. You don't say, well, you know, Vince, we did it 20 years ago. Yeah, what have you done in the last 20 years and I'm a fucking billionaire is what Vince McMahon is thinking. And again, for people who are going to say, oh, now they're both taking up for Vince McMahon. Anyway, he talked down. Of course he talked down to people. We've never said he didn't. We're not taking up for him. But we is reporting the facts as what existed. But here's the thing, Brian. And you know the secret word that Vince McMahon sent back to Vince Russo is the one he's used on every wrestler, every person that he's ever done for the last 45 years he ever did business with. Opportunity. I gave you an opportunity. Is that one thing, in your opinion, from being around him, if you have shit to bed with your chances of success, if he believes he's given you an opportunity at anything, at fucking announcing, at wrestling, at fucking designing costumes, whatever, and you half-assed it or didn't take advantage of it. Yeah, that is the thing he would always say, like, I'm going to give you an opportunity. I can't promise you X, Y, Z, but I can promise you an opportunity. And I definitely heard that. But I think also what's part of this, too, is I think you were there, you were around when, And tell me if you remember this. They actually did rehire him for like a split second, like in 2001. Do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah. Yes. Because I heard the news today. Oh, boy. No, I had heard that. And by the time I had to say what the fuck, he was already out because some way or another he got to Vince and gave him a pitch. and Vince was pissed off at the I think it's Stephanie because Stephanie was in charge of the writing team at that point or about ready to be wasn't she? She was yeah that's part of it because I heard a story too about it tell me details but his mind the same thing is that he wanted to shake them up and bring some new conflagration into things, agree to give Russo a chance to come in and they universally all mutinied and said we will not work with this fucking guy after they heard, what, two hours of his ideas. But do you have details behind any of that? Yeah, I do. And I remember at the time, did you used to get the – because I think you were in OVW at that time, right? Yes. Okay, this was about – I think it was about 2002 because Hogan was there and he comes into this. But did you used to get the company-wide emails that would go out? Would they come to you? oh no because i didn't have email so well you're lucky because here's the thing i didn't give a fuck if connecticut was still on the map at that point well on that day out of the blue there was a company-wide email that went out and it said we'd like to announce that effective immediately vince russo will be in charge of wwe creative blah blah blah something to that effect and you could just hear the sounds of about 400 people's head exploding in Titan Tower. I mean, we all had our jaws. As you know, I was in the publications department. I'm not exactly in the nerve center or anything, but we had our jaws hanging open. We're looking at each other and like, is this a joke? Is it April 1st? And I remember I worked for Shane, so I happened to see Shane. I think it was in the cafeteria or something, and he just had this shitting and grin on his face because I think he just enjoyed the chaos. That was one thing about Shane. And I looked at him and I said, what is this all about? And he goes, oh, it's going to be great. Yeah, it's going to be great. Because also, you know, he had his issues with Triple H and Stephanie. Right, right. And he's just beaming. Oh, it's going to be great. Yeah, we can't wait to have him. I said, well, and one of the things I said, you know, doesn't he have a lawsuit right now with Hulk Hogan? Because that was going on. And Hogan had just come back and was getting the big push. And he goes, yeah, don't worry about that. That's going to go away. We're going to take care of that. There's not going to be any lawsuit. But then what I heard was this, and I think it all happened within the span of maybe a day. I really think it was in the course of a day. So I will say this now because he's not with us anymore, and he was a dear friend on the magazine, and I know you know him, but Dennis Brent. Oh, yeah, yeah. So Dennis, who had also been friendly with Russo over the years because Dennis had worked on the magazines. Well, Dennis also was friendly with everybody. I don't want people to think ill of him by saying he liked that son of a bitch. You know, Dennis was just the nicest guy in the world. Right. And God rest his soul, he liked everybody and he got along with everyone. But so this was a story that he told us that was told to him supposedly directly from Russo himself, that what had happened was they basically Vince was all about it, all on board Vince McMahon. He brought Russo to the tower. You know, they had a big meeting one on one in the conference room. They were just they were best pals again, talking about this and that. And then he said something to the effect of, like, well, I'm just going to – now I'm going to bring in Hunter and Stephanie so we could all – the four of us kind of hash this out and talk some ideas because, you know, Stephanie's in charge of creative now and you might be working with her, blah, blah, blah. So they bring them in, and I don't know what went on in there, but one thing I know is apparently Hunter and Stephanie, as you can imagine, especially Stephanie, they did not want him there. I mean, this was her chance. You know, the last thing she wants is for Russo to come back. So they have this talk, and then Vince McMahon says, okay, Vince, can you just step outside now? I just want to talk to Hunter and Stephanie alone. And you know where that's going. And so Russo steps out of the room. Some time goes by. And Vince McMahon now walks out a few minutes later alone by himself. Very sober expression. And Russo comes over to him and says something like, they buried me in there, didn't they? And Vince goes, yep, yep, they sure did. And essentially that was the end of it because Vince decided at that point to side with them, that he didn't want to – I guess he didn't want to create that much of a nightmare. And I guess they had pleaded their case to the degree that he said this is not going to work. and it was over within the course of about one day, maybe two. Well, and of course, with all respect to Dennis Brent and his version, but possibly where he heard it from, there had already been a meeting of the people, whoever was on a creative team at that point. It wasn't like this giant, you know, medieval fucking round table like it is today, but there was several people. they had already made their feelings known to Stephanie, so it's not like she was going to ignore the people that were all voicing the same opinion she had. So those were all represented. Yes, no, that's true. I think it was just sort of this unanimous negativity towards it. And I think Vince realized. The nattering nabobs of negativity. I think Vince McMahon realized that he was going to have almost close to a mutiny on his hands, and he just decided it wasn't worth it. Yeah. But at the same time, you bet that that creative team got a little fucking fired up and wanted to come in earlier or stay later just to, you know, make sure that these things didn't happen again, which is possibly what Vince McMahon's ultimate goal was in his game of human chess. You know what? The problem is, as we've illustrated before, and we'll put a bow tie on this particular topic. It's always, I don't want a job, bro. I don't want a job, bro. I'm just telling you, bro. And then you say, well, what about give me a job, bro, and I'll tell you more, bro. It's always, it's been that way. It's sad at this point. I feel almost guilty about wiping my feet on this guy anymore because he's become so pathetic. And we've established again, he's fucking, he's my age. I believe he's a little bit older. A little bit older now. Just fucking retire, stay home. Speak your speaking. But no, it's done. you know the thing is though brian solomon solomon grundy i guess the biggest problem is is that he still needs to eat because he hasn't he hasn't figured out a way yet not to eat even though he looks malnourished every time i see him he's still got to go out and buy food and only a short 18 months of success in a brilliant 30-year career is not going to pay for a lot of food so He's got to continue to pay for his food. What about if we give him an opportunity, Solomon Grundy, to save money on food? Do you think we can get rid of Russo in the public eye? If we get his food for half price, do you think he'll go away? I mean, it's worth a try. I'd be surprised that you'd be that magnanimous towards him after all these years. Well, it's not going to be me. I wouldn't give a crippled crab a crutch as far as paying for his food, but I know that we can send him over to our friends at factormeals.com, and he can save 50% as long as he uses our code, and that seems to be the way to go, because then he would, instead of looking like a corpse floating down the river, he would be properly nourished and look like a functioning human being with blood running through his veins and his corpuscles. Because if your corpuscles don't have blood running through them, and you just look like shit. But Factor Meals contain quality, functional ingredients like lean proteins and colorful veggies and whole food ingredients, even healthy fats. He used to be a pool shark down on fucking Floyd Street, downtown Louisville. Healthy fats. And boy, not only could he just whack the balls off the table, but then he would sit there and lecture you about eating healthy. Folks, with factor meals, there's no refined sugars, no artificial sweeteners, no refined seed oils. It's meals that fit your schedule and your goals. You can lose weight or gain weight or, fuck, if you eat enough of them, you can probably throw up if that's what you want to do. I don't think gain weight is part of it. Right, I mean, we're not saying. What if you're undernourished? Okay, well, that's true. Look at Russo. He's a skinny fat guy. He's got no muscle tone. His skin hadn't seen the sun. It looks like the white skin on a fish's belly. But with Factor Meals, you've got 100 rotating weekly meals to keep things fresh and delicious all through this cold and snowy winter, high-protein, calorie-smart, the Mediterranean diet. Brian Lass loves the salmon. I like the filet with creamy Parmesan shrimp. And the new Muscle Pro Collection supports strength and recovery. As a matter of fact, though, it does cost a little bit more in shipping because they send you a set of barbells with the weekly supply of dinners so that that way you can pump up. Although that may just been the prototype that I got. I don't know if barbells come with every meal. Yeah, I doubt it. Well, you never know what you're going to get. Sometimes maybe UPS will just say, here, have some free things. I think the shipping costs would probably put them out of business, honestly. Well, that's true, unless they were training the guy, you know, at the same time. Like, well, here, you can train to be a wrestler, go work for this delivery company, and lift the barbells that are being delivered. Folks, always fresh, never frozen, ready in about two minutes, so it's no prep, no stress. Eat like a king, but not for a princely sum, because right now you can head to factormeals.com slash JCE50off. That's the code to use, JCE50off, and get 50% off and free breakfast for a year. Of course, you have to be a new subscriber only. Put one free breakfast item per box for one year while your subscription is in effect, but have food for half off. And even some poor, unemployed, groveling, sniveling wannabe like Vince Russo can afford to buy their food for 50% off. Well, there you have it. I can't see any way we can be any fairer to him. So folks again even if you not begging for a job or even if you tell your former employer I not looking for a job No yob Factormeals slash JCE50 off and use the code JCE50 off to get 50 off And the free breakfast, one free breakfast in every box for one year. While subscription is in effect, and of course, supplies last, they could quit making breakfast. We don't know about these things. They understand after the penny, they're about to abolish the egg. The chickens are happy, but the roosters are upset. And no barbells, right? We want to be clear. No barbells. No. In the chicken house. Factormeals.com slash JCE50 off. All right. Well, speaking of people that could have got fed but ended up actually overeating but not eating very well, I got an email question from one of the Cult of Cornette members. The people out there the other day, and it's not here in front of me, but I'm going to paraphrase it. Brian Solomon, as I speak to you here while Brian Last is on assignment, we've talked on the show here before about I was disappointed when the angle between the Midnight Express and Tully Blanchard and Arne Anderson and Crockett, 88, that didn't come to fruition because right after we'd started it, making those big checks and drawing those big houses, they got mad at Dusty and went to the WWF. I've mentioned that, but this question was specifically, what did I ever book? One of the things that I booked, because Dusty was booking that, obviously. What did I ever book that, for whatever reason, I didn't get to finish, it didn't come to fruition, or I just, you know, golly gee, I wish what could have been type of thing, right? So, I mean, I've told stories about in OVW it was constant with, oh, we need this guy or we're pulling that guy or we shaved this guy's head or, you know, whatever the fuck, right? So those kind of blur. And I've mentioned the story before about when I put the Smokey Mountain Wrestling heavyweight title on Jake the Snake and grasping for a top heel and ended up having to take it off of him in a fictitious match in Bluefield, West Virginia or whatever the fuck we said. But another one just actually had crossed my mind, and it's been so long since I told this story publicly that I'm wondering if it predates me and Brian even doing this podcast And do you remember a tag team from All Japan Wrestling worked for Giant Baba, an American team, in the early 90s, outlawed Joel Deaton and bad boy Billy Black, the Wild Bunch? I am familiar, yes. And Joel Deaton had been a guy, he was from Georgia, he had broke in in the 80s, he had worked for Crockett. Remember the team in the 80s of the Thunderfoots, Thunderfoot 1 and Thunderfoot 2? It was him and Gene Ligon for a lot of that. They were masked and had the loaded boot and the Thunderfoot. It was dusty again. But then he, Joel was a good-sized guy and had got to be a good worker. And with a Western gimmick, outlaw Joel Deaton, kind of think of he old Sam Houston, but heavier. He had teamed up with a guy that was, again, from South Georgia named Bad Boy Billy Black. And this guy, out of nowhere, nobody really knew anything about him until he started going to Japan with Joel. Baba was using American teams. The Fantastics were going over. They had great matches. But Deaton and Black would work with the Japanese guys. And Billy Black was doing it. This is 1991, 92, would do a moonsault in Japan off the top turnbuckle out on a guy on the floor like Jimmy Del Rey used to do in the ring, just over backwards in some fashion. He could also work because he had trained down south and he could throw a punch. and he didn't have any body to speak of, but he's, was he six feet tall or close enough, 5'10"? He was probably 225 or so, long hair. He looked kind of like a real redneck Ronnie Van Zandt. But the point is, and he's doing the junior heavyweight shit, even though he's good size, as Ain't Lowly used to say. And when the guy tries to backdrop him, he backflips over the guy and lands on his feet and super kick. But he could also, as I said, he could work. He could do all this shit. And I'm like, what the fuck? So when we started Smokey Mountain Wrestling, I had known Joel Deaton. So we were having the tag team tournament. And I said, you know, would you guys come up and make my television show? And be in the tournament that I can't remember what we even did. But they did. They were very... You know, very good and worked hard, and I think they had two or three matches, whatever it was. But their primary spot was going to Japan six times a year, so I couldn't really use them regular, right? So, anyway, fast forward a couple of years. Now, and this is what, if you would try to Google on YouTube, bad boy Billy Black wrestler, because I did this when I thought of him and there's almost nothing there's like one match of theirs in all Japan that I can find where he's doing all this stuff and one match from Smokey Mountain Wrestling which I'll get into in a second but something had happened where they were not they lost their Japanese game and they weren't going to Japan anymore and again so the Armstrong's those guys who were working for me worked in Georgia Independence also, and somehow his name came up and said, give me his fucking phone number, bad boy Billy Black. And I had this idea for it. And let me, you can just throw up a fucking, hey, whenever you have found any results on YouTube, and then I can continue this in a moment. Yeah, I've got some, I mean, there's some Billy Black matches and things I'm seeing. I'm not seeing anything with Deaton and him. Well, see, that's the thing. It's almost, there's almost nothing. Nobody has thought of this guy in so long. Yeah. But he was, at the time, people, the insiders were talking about him. And I called him. I said, look, I got a gimmick. And this was, it gets to the point of answering the question, what did you book that you had hopes for that didn't come to fruition? I said, here's this fucking guy from South Georgia. It looks like a 230-pound redneck Ronnie Van Zandt that can fucking throw a punch but can talk and can also goddamn wrestle. Let's fucking bring him up. And here he is from, I can't remember what part of Georgia we made him from. But in South Georgia, everybody thinks of in Florida, there's swampland. But in South Georgia, there's one of the biggest areas of swampland in the United States. And I wanted bad boy Billy Black from whatever the fuck, Okie, Finocie, fucking Georgia, to come in with his swamp bag. He's got a big burlap sack like Jake would carry the snake, right? Right. But just this big, dirty burlap sack. And here comes his hairy fucking redneck. It looks body-wise like shit. And then he gets in the ring and he does all this shit. He flips around, does this super kick, throws this fucking punch, moonsaults this fucking guy. And he beats the job guys like that. But then he works with the top guys. And once we get him established, and this is where it was going until it didn't go there. Once we get him established, then every time he's in a match with a top guy like a Tracy Smothers or Dirty White Boy or whatever the case. he goes in that bag and he gets that. I'm doing an homage to the old Twilight Zone episode, what you need about the street peddler that always has the exact item that a fucking guy needs or a person needs in order to save themselves from tragedy. You remember that one, Brian, I'm sure. Of course. Well, every time that Billy Black would get in trouble, He would go in his swamp bag and pull something different out that he knew whether it was a brass knuckles that knocked the guy out or was a rope to tie the baby face to the fucking ropes or whatever. And they would use the bag. Maybe if the baby face got in the bag one time, oh, Jesus Christ, he'd come out selling and there's a fucking bear trap on his goddamn arm. Whatever. And you could do all kinds of things with this dirty fucking smelly swamp bag and this fucking guy who looked like that who could work like that. Right? so I bring him up to do one TV taping in Smoky Mountain where we're doing four weeks of TV in that night and I give him a couple wins I put the beat the champ TV title on him right which there wasn't even really a belt it was the ongoing if you win you're the TV champion and if you win six weeks in a row you get the cash money and blah blah blah but it's something to focus on him and I let him cut to promos. And yeah, that's right. I'm here. This whole nine yards. And then I said, okay, now your book from now on starting, I think it was in 10 days from then on in Knoxville and then that weekend and all the shows from now on your book, Billy. Oh, this is great. This is great. Cause he, he's never been on TV of any kind in the United States. He's been a phenomenon in Japan and nobody else knows who the fuck he is. I very well hear I've, you know, I've discovered someone. And the next week he comes to Knoxville and he works the house show. And then I believe this was January. It might have been February, but 95. But I told the guys, I said, now, make sure y'all leave for Barberville, Kentucky early tomorrow. If Barberville is like 90 miles from goddamn Morristown, maybe it was 100 miles from Knoxville. you go up the interstate, blah, whatever. It's 10 miles off the interstate. I said, make sure you leave early for Barberville tomorrow because it's supposed to be two or three inches of snow. Everybody, okay, okay. Next day, Billy Black don't show up. What the fuck? Where the fuck is he going? Next day, I think we did something or whatever the fuck it was. He didn't show up, so I call him that Monday. he's at home I said Bill where the fuck did you go oh man I'm a Georgia boy I've never seen snow like that I don't want to get up in them Kentucky mountains and get caught in the snow I said what did snow it was three inches of snow the fucking town is ten miles off the interstate I said we ran goddamn I came back me and Brian Hildebrand Man came back from Beckley, West Virginia one time in a foot of fucking snow back to East Tennessee. It took us eight hours. God damn. But nevertheless, I said, what? I said, I was scared I'd get stuck in the snow. I said, well, from now on, the only thing you've got to worry about is getting stuck in the quicksand in the swamp because you don't need to come back. And that was all we ever saw. of Billy Black. Well, I did. There is a video here that I found. This is from that run, I'm guessing. It says March 4th, 1995, beat the champ TV title match, Bad Boy Billy Black versus Boo Bradley. Okay, then it was March. There you go. Well, actually, yeah, it was... No! It may still have been February because we had four weeks of TV with him in the fucking can. Ah, there you go. Son of a bitch, I'd choke you. But nevertheless, the fucking point is, he had that opportunity. How many guys in 1995 from Smoky Mountain Wrestling got opportunities to work in the WWF? From Sonny to Candido to Al Snow to Glenn Jacobs to the Heavenly Bodies to a goddamn variety of other people that made the connection. D'Lo ended up there. The Headbangers ended up there. I haven't thought about him in 30 years but now that I think about it I can't believe that he just fucking flaked on that and now when you search this is the point I was going to make when I was trying to find what did he ever do after that you see stuff from like 1998 or 99 or whatever of him at a rec center in Georgia somewhere in front of 200 people. Looks like he's gained 30 pounds. And that's it. And a guy with that much potential and that much talent, and he just, I don't know what the fuck he was doing in his real life because that wasn't what he was doing for a living. Well, the first two videos on YouTube that come up are exactly what you're talking about. So there's one that says Bad Boy Billy Black and Kodiak. versus the Showtime Posse, which is, and then I guess not the Kodiak Bear, who I knew from Northeast Indies, but underneath it says Benefit Show, Seekonk, Massachusetts, American Legion Post number 311. That's from the year 2000. You know, it looks like there's like about 15 people there. But then the one underneath it, this is interesting, it says July 23, 2011. Georgia Championship Wrestling, I'm assuming not the same Georgia Championship Wrestling. It's Tommy Wildfire Rich and Tony Atlas versus Bad Boy Billy Black and Steve the Brawler Lawler. Wow! And at that point, Billy Black would have still been the youngest guy in the ring. What year was that? 2011. 2011, Tommy Rich debuted in 1975. he was 18 years old Tony Atlas started I think in 74 and was he 19 and Steve the brawler Lawler was working in the late 70s down there and had to be a legal adult but the point is that he disappeared and never made anything of any other opportunity apparently So, but here's the rib. I don't know if you ever heard this. Were you reading the newsletters in the mid-90s? No, no. I started in 2000 when I was working at WWE. Okay. But I was hearing a lot of the stuff on hotlines and things. But here's the thing. Brian Hildebrand was responsible for being the person who would phone all the results, or not phone or fax or how to communicate all of the results of our matches to the various major newsletters, because we were trying to drum up publicity so we could sell our fucking VHS tapes in the mail, which we were doing. And he tried to explain, I don't know if it was to Wade Keller who did the torch or it might have been Uncle Dave, but where did this Billy Black go? because they get to VHS this too and they're like, oh yeah, we like it. What the fuck happened to this guy? And he tried to tell the story that I just told about Billy Black not wanting to get trapped in the mountains of Kentucky in this big giant snowstorm. But either however he told it or however they heard it, the story went around all the newsletters that fucking Billy Black had left the territory because he was scared of Al Snow. I found something absolutely insane here, which this is on YouTube also. And it's from 1996. So this would be around the time you're talking about. September 3rd, 1996, All-Star Wrestling, handheld camera footage. Billy Black versus Wahoo McDaniel. and this is on Roy Lusher's YouTube page where he posts a lot of really obscure stuff Wahoo McDaniel so there you go he was still both of them still out there doing stuff hey I wonder if Billy Black is still around I know Al Snow looks Jesus Christ he's all jacked up these days I wonder if we could finally book that match for the 13 newsletter fans that remember that fucking rumor, but that was, again, he left because he was afraid of Al Snow. So for anybody, I'll open up the floor to the cult of Cornette. If anybody knows whatever the fuck happened to Billy Black and what was in that swamp bag, because we never got to find out. Speaking of people who are apparently in the bag, I don't know, or apparently mentally delusional. Brian Solomon, Solomon Grundy, have you been following our friend, the social media maven Ricochet on the interwebs when he's been doing his interviews and fighting with everybody on Twitter? I have. Yes, I have. Unfortunately, yeah. You know, here's the thing. It would be brilliant And I would applaud it if this had been a strategy for him to make himself the biggest heel in wrestling and some kind of Brian Pillman loose cannon type of gimmick. If he had gone in that direction with it. but instead he has, over the past however long he's been on Twitter since he's been at AEW, made himself such a dislikable, whiny bitch to the only fan base that really knows who the fuck he is, the internet fans, that he's shot himself in both feet and his left testicle, hadn't he? Yeah, I mean, you can't really defend it. And I'll just say one thing. I'll say one thing because I'm, you know, I try not to wade into these waters too much. I want to just say that Samantha Irvin, I really like her. She's very nice. You know, we've interacted online. I think she's great, and I'm a fan. However, Ricochet, I will say, the guy is his own worst enemy. I mean, I guess that's the best way to put it. Because you see people on Twitter a lot or on social media, they just don't know when not to talk. You know, they don't know when not to respond, not to acknowledge, not to engage. Because you have to have the self-awareness to know how it makes you look. And it doesn't make him look good. And in the beginning, I really was on the fence as to whether he was just working. And he was trying to play into that, you know, make himself as heelish as can be. But I don't think that's what he's doing. But no, nobody's this good of a worker. No, I don't think that's what he's doing. No. Well, he did an interview on a world-famous show of some description where he was complaining about his WWE tenure on the roster and that they were going to make him, you know, the big teenage idol with the flashy moves. And Vince, I'm sure, shot it down. And he's never forgotten it. I've got a quote here because I think this explains maybe why this guy didn't work in a goddamn major league professional environment. I think for specifically that five years that he was languished there. Ricochet's story, he speaks about himself in a third person. Ricochet's story, that time was kind of like being, you've seen the Marvel movies? Thanos snaps. And there was a five-year blip of people that were just gone. I literally think that's how I put Ricochet's wrestling career. That five years that was like being blipped away into a different universe. Coming to AEW and finding that love, it's like when Tony Stark finally defeated Thanos and all the people came back. He lives in a comic book. He's a 30-something-year-old adult, I can't say grown, but adult man of diminutive size who wants to be a comic book character. And so here was one of the tweets, and then I want to discuss philosophy, if nothing else, with you. but he says they took my love of pro wrestling away. I'll never forget how I felt walking into work every week. And that platform was only to make others look good at my expense. And I told them I'd rather quit and go back to the Indies and make whatever I'd make there than to come back next week. And here's the follow-up. many discovered me at a time where my talents and legacy were being taken advantage of by a company that didn't really care about me however more people have been following me since before WWE and appreciate what they know I can bring and what I can do they no longer want to watch WWE whatever the fuck he's glorifying and this is what the his supporters online of the people who like that kind of thing. They saw he was so great in PWG and in Lucia Underground. He was so great. And then they destroyed his legacy in WWE. Grundy, I say this to you, I've quit over being misused by a particular promotion. When Stan Lane and I walked out of WCW, that was the exact crux of the problem, but not because we weren't being allowed to have fantastic matches. We were still having great matches. We were just losing all of them. And unlike Mr. Ricochet, we had a track record, a legitimate track record in that very self-same company of drawing money, of drawing television ratings, of selling pay-per-views, etc. for quite a long period of time before that period of misuse and abuse that we went through. So I understand the concept of, well, goddamn, I'll take my business elsewhere. if you're a top name and you believe you can. But this guy was a main event guy in PWG and Lucha Underground and then goes to the WWE and looks at the roster around him and can't figure out, and also apparently with this personality, can't figure out why the boss doesn't think he's a main event guy and can't hang and can't figure out why he might be getting heat behind the scenes. Your thoughts from a person who has seen many of these things happen. Well, one thing is he also said something else in one of those tweets that you didn't mention, and it was the one that got me the most of all of them. He said at some point, they put the Intercontinental title on me because they knew I didn't want it. I'm sorry, that's crazy. That's crazy talk. I mean, because we all know if they want to bury you and if they want to misuse you or whatever, they have ways of doing it. And that's not one of the ways. You know what I mean? They'll find a way to either keep you off TV or put you on TV doing ridiculous stuff. And, you know, he was kind of, I guess, trying to say that they put the title on him because it was a way of, like, getting him to stick around maybe longer than he wanted to. Oh, yeah, because, well, he said he asked for his release, so they put the Intercontinental title on him. But he also tweeted, even when I was IC and U.S. champ, they meant nothing. And also, I'd argue El Generico has a better legacy than Sami Zayn. Oh, my God. What? So, I mean, I don't really know what he wants then, because, like you said, size-wise, obviously he's not going to be the main event. And he's going to be a special attraction, like a high flyer kind of thing, you know, throw him in the mix. They're giving him these mid-card titles. And then on top of that, look, he even got what I thought was a really great kind of like viral moment with Logan Paul. Do you remember that? Where they, I've never seen anything like it, they leaped at each other from opposite turnbuckles. Oh, yes, the double leap. Yeah, I mean, that was pretty amazing. And that made the rounds. And you get the sense that if he was the kind of person that could play ball a little more, that they would have done more. You know what I mean? Sometimes you see people, I know you know this way better than I do, you see people where you go, this guy's got some talent. This guy has something on the ball here. And if nothing's happening with him or he's not where it seems like he should be, there's definitely something going on. Well, it's either, again, from my perspective of experience with being in creative and dealing with talent, it's either the 80-20 principle where the 20% of the talent takes up 80% of your time, or they just won't fucking listen. And apparently, I believe this guy fits into either, at least the last category, because this is what he's thinking he's the profession he's in, and he's in that profession now where he is. But PWG was a vanity project where several of the boys got together out in Los Angeles. They're the suburbs of thereabouts and said, let's do our own. Let's put on our own shows. Hey, kids, we've got our own barn over here. and they would bring all their friends in to do all their spots and take all their bumps and do all their comedy. And, what, 10 or 12 times a year they would sell 400 tickets in a goddamn city of 10 million people. But that was the place where they all went to have artistic freedom, which is why the shit never ended. And that's where they learned all this shit, and the buckaroos were patient zeros of that thing. and that crowd liked him and Lucha Underground besides the fact that he was you might not remember but I said this on the program a while back when he came to AEW I'd have put a mask on his fucking ass and that's what he was, I didn't know it, he was a masked guy in Lucha Underground Prince Puma Prince Puma, who, again, was better than, once they took the mask off of him and let him start speaking to people, not only on television, but also on Twitter, he's become a big goddamn douchebag. He was kind of cool that way, but still, it was Lucha Underground. This was a sci-fi television show with wrestling matches in it. They had murders and teleportations and whatever the fuck. And this is in no way where any of these people fucking stars of any consequence of professional wrestling. And he goes into WWE, obviously, we can see now, thinking, well, I need to be the guy around here because I can do the 880 degree cannonball. What the? Well, they let him keep his name, too, which was, I thought, unusual. I mean, because he'd been wrestling as Ricochet already. And you remember he had that. Do you remember when he had that match with Will Ospreay years ago before? Oh, God, yes. And Vader just lost his mind on it and was complaining, right? I had several comments to make about it also, but I liked mine better than Leon's, but nevertheless. It was just, it's ridiculous where they were doing the mirror routine like Harpo Marx and fucking Lucy where they're mirroring each other's movements. And it was an aggressive parkour, as Brian Lass calls it. But that's the point with this guy. I can understand if you had had a track record, if AEW had brought in CM Punk and instead of too big fanfare, they had booked him in the middle in one of the interchangeable groups or a member of the Dark Order, then yeah in that case that's a guy who said now you know what fuck you i'm done here we'll see you later because i have a track record and i've been a proven attraction and a proven draw and i need to be in the main events and featured to my full potential but this guy was that's what they wanted him to be was a that's why they probably kept the name ricochet because it's a cool name for a kid's character that you can see every once in a while. He's Cheetah in the Tarzan movie. And he thinks he has some kind of legacy because he did a lot of cool shit. By the way, 10 years ago when he was a lot younger, he did a lot of cool cartwheels and roundoffs in shows that nobody fucking saw. and then if he had the attitude that this illustrates that he had in the WWE that's why they were like this fucking guy and also look at the roster that he was on and the competition he had for people who would take production take training, take criticism take instruction and work like a fucking professional instead of a goddamn pinball game Well, I didn't really appreciate until after the fact, until now, how much, I guess, heat he had when he was there or how much he was sort of resented. Because I guess in the wake of him putting all these tweets out, there were people that were posting videos that I don't even remember seeing. I don't know if you saw. There was one where he's in the ring with Drew McIntyre and Baron Corbin. You know what I'm talking about? Does this ring a bell? No. Okay. But here's the thing. It was a promo segment, and you could just feel it. Like, I've watched enough of these things. You know when these things turn real, and they kind of go off script. And so Ricochet's the face, and he's confronting McIntyre and Corbin, and he says something like, he's in the middle of a promo, Ricochet, and he goes, look, I didn't come out here to talk. And very quickly, cutting him off immediately, McIntyre goes, so shut up. And the thing is, Corbin just starts to chuckle. And you could tell he's not that good of an actor. He's, he's really, he's breaking, he's chuckling. And the look on poor Ricochet's face, it was such a look of, like, deer in the headlights. Like, why did you just do that to me? Like, I am absolutely exposed out here. Just this very sad, he had this very sad, defeated expression on his face, and you could tell that they just humiliated him. And, you know, when you watch that now, you think, okay, this is a guy who probably didn't have a lot of friends backstage. Well, but that's the thing also is that because this subculture of the, you know, trampoline cowboy wrestling fan that led to the brief flaming comet that was the Young Bucks and all this whole type of thing. They built him up. And these little bitty rinky-dink promotions he was in built him up as being a big thing. And a big deal? Oh, you're the greatest at, you know, at the 880-degree cannonball. You just do it better than anybody. And if he was, if that's the kind of business he wanted to be in, that he wasn't going to work in the WWE anyway. if he wasn't willing to use his talent to do actual wrestling as opposed to this foolishness. But he, unlike almost anybody else or anybody else in the history of the wrestling business, has basically found a multi-million dollar version of PWG. It's a, hey kids, let's put on a show promotion with a billionaire who will pay guys who can't generate television ratings, who cannot sell tickets to live shows, who cannot fucking be featured on pay-per-view and make a difference, and who are even disliked even by a lot of the fucking core, hardcore wrestling fans just because he's such a douchey dipshit. But he gets to go out there and do his phony shit and his bad promos and act like a big-time wrestler and make a fortune at it. So, of course, he's going to knock the last company he was with because they wouldn't let him play on company time. But this is the way a lot of these guys look at the wrestling business these days. And that's why it's so hard sometimes, some of the people that don't fit. And, of course, the WWE ain't perfect. We all know that. But if you want to be a star on a major level in today's environment, that's where you got to go. Or, as I always wonder, why does anybody want to do this shit anymore? The only people we get into the fucking business are the people that want to do the flippy shit because they somehow seem to be the marquiest. But it's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll, and it's a long way from selling 400 tickets in a city of 10 million people for a Boyz Mark vanity project to actually being able to do something on a national television stage for a billionaire Boyz Mark project. Well, in that case, let me ask you this. Given what he was saying about WWE and how he felt there and how it was going, and now given how he's being presented in AEW, and I'm sure the money, would you say that he made the right choice or not doing what he did? Well, God, yes. Because, again, Tony's going to pay him whatever he paid him. Remember when he came into AEW, he was supposed to be a game changer. Oh, here's the latest game changer. But Tony's going to pay him all this money, whether he works or not. If he gets hurt, he gets paid. If he just gets taken off TV because Tony can't figure out what to do, he gets paid. He can do his own matches. That's the problem. That's why he's gotten under instead of over. In a period of time that we've been seeing him responsible for his own fucking destiny, is he does bad interviews and has stupid fucking matches and annoys people and annoys them with his goddamn abrasive and snooty personality on the interwebs. And that's why I definitely think he made the best choice, because the WWE didn't look like they wanted to fucking use him in a main event, but they also wouldn't let him play on company time. Well, they put the speed title on him, which almost was – that's almost like a backhanded compliment in a way. It's like, can you get your match over with in five minutes or less? Right. We're going to give you the title that they wrestle for on Twitter videos, you know, at the time. But – That was the thing. Is there any way that we can make his matches any shorter than they are now? and I don't know if it's just me but when he's out there now even in AEW and obviously they're featuring him more than WWE did and they've got another title on him again and all this stuff and but it feels like the audience even there I mean yes he's a heel so they're going to be taunting him and things but it almost feels like they're they're kind of making fun of him and not Not in a typical heel way. It's almost like they're making fun of him the way you give a kid a wedgie in high school. You know what I mean? He's the fucking fall guy for the butt of the audience jokes. Yes. You know what he needs, don't you, Brian? No, you're not going to tell me he needs to eat, are you? No, he needs to get charged up. He needs some energy. He needs some pep in his step. He needs some vim and vigor. maybe we can figure out some way to plug him into the brand new Ridge magnetic power bank. Have you seen this fine piece of merchandise? Well, you'll have to fill me in on it. I don't get all this swag stuff that you and Brian get. Well, see, this is exactly what you need then, and I can tell you how you can save some money on it because, you know, in today's everyday life, you've got to charge a bunch of shit. Now, me, you know I'm old-fashioned. Anything that doesn't plug into the wall in those little two little holes there, I don't know how the fuck it works. But everybody else in the world, Brian, how many things do you have to plug? You've got to plug in your, charge up your laptop, right? Right. And you've got to charge up your cell phone, right? That's right. And you've got to charge up various other items around your home these days. Stacey even got a degum egg whipper that has a USB cord port thingy that you got to charge up. You got to charge almost everything that you touch. And don't even get me started with the Dittalator Mach 3. That thing can dim the lights in a neighborhood. But they all have different charging cords. Have you noticed that to your watch? Your fucking, your little smart watch. You got to plug all this stuff in. you've got to have cords hanging out your ass. And they will pull you over at TSA security at an airport if you got too many cords hanging out of your ass You look suspicious But that time is over because just like our friends at Ridge have revolutionized the wallet now they have been game changers for the portable charging industry, folks, because the Ridge 5-in-1 Travel Power Bank has built-in cables and let you charge all of your devices at the same time with just one power bank. The Apple Watch charger, the MagSafe wireless charging, the Lightning, the USB-C, the USDA even approved this, it's Prime or Choice. Everything you need to charge all in one premium device and with 20 watts of power, it charges your phone as fast as it can possibly be charged. And I'll have you know also, Brian, with the cold weather, I figure, well, let me just try to figure out a way to plug in my truck battery to this son of a gun. And don't do that because it blew the back wall of the house off where the circuit breaker box was located. I don't think that's the kind of battery that they had in mind for this. But you can plug almost anything else into it. And they've got 10,000 milliamp hours of capacity. And much as milliamp won that Grammy that they had to give back later on for actually lip syncing, they also did excellent work in the electrical field of charging and lightning bolts and Tesla coils and all that thing. and the MagSafe compatible wireless charging. You can keep it magnetically attached to the back of your iPhone. So you can just stick this on the phone, and then you got the thing in the phone in your hand, and you're walking down the street. If you take long walks, you might end up with a neck ache. But they look great. They're in matte olive base camp orange and matte black. I don't know why orange had to stay at the base camp instead of hitting the mats. but it's a wonderful design I knew a guy named Matt Black good friend of mine he was in on the developmental team of this thing he was a fucking nuclear physicist there's also an LED charge status indicator that displays your battery and charge levels at a glance an integrated kickstand you could use it actually as a picnic chair at concerts in the park with the band for the fourth and And all you got to do to get one thing to pack in your bag but five ways to power is either go on over to Best Buy. They got the Ridge's power bank. Or you can save money and not leave your home by going to Ridge.com, R-I-D-G-E.com, and use the promo code J-C-E. You're going to get 10% off. 10% off at Ridge.com promo code JCE at checkout. And you are all set 10% off this amazing. And also, as a matter of fact, if you charge it fully and you put it out in your backyard on a clear night and turn it on, it will morph into a landing platform for interstellar vehicles so that it can send out a signal that can be read above the Earth's atmosphere. So that way you get the first look at the aliens. Is that the prototype version? No, I mean, maybe. I don't see that on the copy that I have. They may not be ready to sell that yet. But go ahead and get the other one anyway. Ridge.com slash JCE. All righty, Solomon Grundy. I guess we ought to talk for just a couple of minutes about, I know it's been several days ago now, but about the Raw after Rumble edition of Raw, there was a couple of things that I want to comment on or recognize or whatever. And I know somebody's going to say, well, it's been a week ago or whatever. Well, God damn it. Again, my schedule, our schedule, everybody's schedule has been chaos lately. And there was a day that I decided, well, should I watch Raw or should I go to the dentist and have them numb my fucking entire face until I can't feel my nose? or there was the day, well, should I watch Raw or should I take Stacey to the doctor to have a nerve block injection in her bad back? And all of those things were preferable to watching Raw. So I'm trying to catch up now with a couple of things that stood out. But here is the, at least the explanation as I see what they're doing now for what they're doing to or with Braun Breaker. and Brad you saw obviously at the Royal Rumble that was underwhelming but I could see well they're trying to get him out of it but it just it was a blah way to do it but they're continuing to try to put focus on Braun Breaker while at the same time not doing what they were originally going to fucking do with him and they're kind of making this shit up as they go I think Well, yeah. Because you heard what the original apparently has been pieced together now. The original plan was for Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns to have a world title match. And then Cody Rhodes and CM Punk to have a world title match. But then Seth Rollins got hurt. And then, as we all know who have been in the booking position, that creates a domino effect. You take one guy out of this fucking, what's that game called where they stack blocks up and then you take one out and the whole thing falls apart? Whatever it's called. Jenga. Yeah. Well, they've done Jenga at WrestleMania. Because then when Seth got hurt, then, okay, well, Punk will be the champion. and then he'll wrestle Braun Breaker and then you know Rhodes would do something else or whatever the fuck but then Cody would and rightfully so was on the side of Drew McIntyre who said hey you've got this three stages of hell match set up for us And because we've been staying here on the show for a long time, Drew's got to win something. Right. So then they went, well, okay, well, then now Drew will be the champion. So then all of this fucking shit has changed to the point where now we're going to have Reigns and Punk. And we believe we will have Rhodes and McIntyre, correct, is what I would think we would have. And Bron Breaker is, you know, he got left out of the fucking party because he didn't have a date. So it's the same thing as when Austin got his neck injury the first time. Well, really, either time. That we tried to keep him on television and featured, causing chaos, interfered in shit, cutting promos, do it as much as we could with him without actually having him wrestle and hurt himself. In this case, since they flummoxed the direction that Braun was originally going in, now they're trying to keep focus on him, and hopefully Seth Rollins will be back in time for WrestleMania, and maybe they're optimistic of that, so that they can have Seth Rollins and Braun Breaker in one of the feature matches. Henceforth is why the fucking masked man did the stomp, because they wanted people to think it was Seth, and also because Heyman kept screaming, that was Seth, that was Seth. There was a clue, right? Well, yeah, and I mean, they could be just doing the most super obvious thing and have it be Seth and maybe to set up the match that you're talking about. Because, like you said, I mean, Breaker is very good. I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said, and you guys have said it. He's good at what he does. He's a natural. He's very intense and believable. But he can only do so much with what they give him to do. well and that's the thing is that I'm not saying that they shouldn't have had some controversy to eliminate him from the Royal Rumble it just seemed to be a little abrupt and a little flat to me but under this circumstance they have to do they have to keep focus on him while they pivot their position but that's why they opened up the Raw after Rumble with with Braun Breaker ringside. He's already come out, no music or whatever, and he comes over, he tears the announce desk up and turns it over and menaces the announcers and gets the microphone and gets in the ring, and he's going to, as soon as he says, Adam Pearce, I'm going to, here comes Bronson Reed and Logan Paul and Austin Theory and Paul Heyman. Because they're freaking out. No, no, don't do this. No, you've got to calm down. and Braun's like, I'm going to fucking ruin Raw. I'm going to ruin this whole show, Pierce, because you ruined my chance in the Rumble. And then Paul Lee took the microphone real... Again, he tried to blame Pierce, but he was doing damage control trying to blame Pierce. Well, you know he's right. He's got a point that he's trying to let the other three calm him down while he's still taking up for Braun. but then Braun jumps back in and gives Pierce the count of three to get out there. And Pierce did come out with all the security guys. And you drew number two. I don't know who the masked man was. The last one was theory. But I'm going to give you a gift after that piss poor showing in the rumble. I'm going to let you keep your job. And oh, goddamn Braun. Bullshit about that. And then the L.A. Night music plays and they get out of it because L.A. Night comes in a ring from behind with a chair and beats up Logan Paul in theory and leaves before Reed can catch him. And the goddamn, you know, there's Braun standing there. What the fuck? Well, I also, I loved what Heyman said, though, in that promo where he goes, well, how can Adam Pearce not know who the masked man is? he has to approve the visas of everybody that went over to Saudi Arabia. So he damn well has to know who that guy is. I thought that was a nice touch. Well, but then the problem was, how come every time the masked man is his and nobody knows who it is? See, they hang themselves in the loopholes sometimes. If I didn't know any better, I would almost think they were trying to set up Ron Breaker versus Adam Pearce. Well, that's what I told Brian last, a couple weeks ago on the show. I'm most interested in seeing Adam Pearce as Paul Heyman. Or that, right? Yeah. I think Pearce can get three and a half good minutes out of Heyman if he... But anyway, here's the thing, real briefly, is the point of it is that some people were freaking out. It's not whoever the masked man was that attacked Braun. It's who they are going to reveal the masked man is. Because it probably ain't going to be who it was. And some people were on Twitter going, we heard it was Grayson Waller. Cornette's going to be so pissed when he hears that. No, I wasn't. Good, he got a payday. Because when they take the hood off of him, it's not going to be Grayson Waller. It's going to be Seth fucking Rollins. so that at least they have a direction for that match. So we're going to see Roman and Punk, and we're going to see probably Cody and Drew, and we're going to see Braun Breaker and Seth Rollins probably, if all goes well. So they're starting to get the key people in place. I also thought at the beginning of that segment, and I know this is something that you guys have talked about so much with these kinds of things, but, you know, this is no fault against Breaker, but he comes out at the top of the show, like you said, and I know that Adam Pearce and the security guys, they eventually came out. They eventually came out, but he just comes out, Breaker, and just very kind of nonchalantly takes his sweet time, goes over, demolishes the entire announce table at the top of the show, intimidates the announcers, and just very slowly walks around the ring, gets in the ring, somebody gives them a mic, and I'm thinking, why isn't the whole ringside area filling up with security, with referees, with wrestlers, somebody? This is the top of a major Netflix broadcast, and we're just going to let this guy, I mean, Hey, you want to mess with him? That's what they always say. And that's the thing is that, think about it, across the street in AEW, we've said many times, there's fucking people trying to pour bleach down some guy's throat and nobody's intervening. But then again, hanging themselves in a loophole of logic, two guys that they want to separate, exchange finger pointing and one shoves the other and they're swarmed by 14 security guards. Nobody has any consistency in what they could have opened the show again with one of the security guards riding bronze shoulders as he fucking mirrors him over as he's storming to the ring and they're trying to hold him and blah, blah, blah. But quality control is not a wrestling staple these days. Yeah. I mean, the ship has sailed on a lot of this stuff, but it's noticeable when you know better. But the biggest thing that everybody was talking about was the last segment. And I must admit, I said probably last week here on the show, one of the shows we do, that Roman Reigns and Punk, I want to see Roman Reigns in a rock. You know, when Roman was complaining about creative, I said, well, fucking, you know, get your cousin to come back, finally have that match. But to be honest, after they got 15 minutes of my time, Roman Reigns and CM Punk made me want to see this fucking match. and in terms of star power in terms of promo ability in terms of just what they made out of it and the various stories they can tell out of this promo that they did I think that's as good a main event for a night of Wrestlemania as you're going to have at this point in the at this stage of the game yeah I think that's That's a natural WrestleMania main event. I mean, they kind of spoiled it a little bit because they had that dumb triple threat last year where they stuffed Seth Rollins in there with the two of them. I mean, it should have just been one-on-one then. But I think a match of that size is tailor-made for WrestleMania. I don't have a problem with that match. Well, and because they pretty much lost the ability to have Seth and Roman, at least for the short term, because with Roman's limited schedule And also when Seth comes back, he's going to be a raven babyface. And why would you want to get in the way of that? Because they're going to be happy he's back from the injury. But nevertheless, Roman Reigns came out, and it's Philadelphia too. So they were with the references. And, you know, again, it's a lot of singing and milking on his entrance, but they view him as a star. And he went over his big wins and losses in Philly. Again, he's a great promo because he's got conviction. He's true to his presentation. He speaks like that he should. He speaks like he looks. Everything about Roman Reigns kind of fits, right? Plus, he spent time at the Haman. I can't say the Haman Learning Tree. Paul has to sit down more at the Haman Buddha learning tree. And he basically asked the people, hey, I got a decision to make. Do you want me to go after the title that I made? And the fans already started chanting CM Punk. So you don't want me versus Drew? No, no, no. So you prefer Punk? Huge pop. and as soon as he's got that far like Mussolini returning to Philly the whole crowd sang the song they got a big it's clobbering time and from the start of this this is what again I always preach when guys, especially, whether if it's heels versus heels or babyfaces versus babyfaces, you can do that if the guys maintain truth to their presentation. These guys were not saying anything that they wouldn't say if CM Punk was the person he's supposed to be and Roman Reigns is the person he's supposed to be on television. They're both heroes, but they have a personal dislike. And it's not... You're going to have to pick a side here, but for a match this big, you know, that's what part of the interest is. But they didn't... Punk just doesn't suddenly become a heel and said, shut up, you people of Philadelphia, or Reigns, either one. It's personal between the two of them rather than something that's concocted to get heat one way or the other. And Punk, you know, he said, you're a visitor here on my show. And, you know, they made fun of him booing Roman and Drew. but Roman told Punk hey Drew's four times your size and they they went back and forth in a pointed way and stepped on each other enough I'm sure by hopefully mutual agreement that it became personal that Roman said the bloodline is the only reason that Punk that you had a show to come back to and Punk says Roman you You manipulated your cousins and a bunch of people into thinking you'd built something, but you just held the company hostage. And Punk illustrated how Roman Reigns followed in his footsteps. Is that just because you did it longer doesn't mean you did it better. You choose to be a part-timer and I choose to go to 10 countries in three weeks. And Punk, when he laid it out, and Punk is more verbose and he should be. I'm not saying Roman Reigns is not a good promo, but he keeps it shorter, and that fits his personality. But Punk out-baby-faced him and got a pop and was condescending at the same time while Roman had that serious, I'm not happy face. And then Roman answered back, and said, you took a 10-year vacation. You're going to talk about me being part-time. And he laughed at the idea he learned from Punk. I okayed you being brought back. And you took my wise man and brainwashed my cousins. And that may have been the promo that I liked best from Roman Reigns that I've heard, where just for a couple minutes he just came back on Punk. And he just blistered him. And he basically says, I'm picking you because I hate you. And WrestleMania, you will acknowledge me. So to me, this was a money fucking deal, I think. They're both great at what they do. And you didn't mention when I loved when Reigns called out the friendship bracelet thing. Oh, that's right. Because they were talking about McIntyre. You know, should I wrestle McIntyre and all this stuff? And he said the thing, he's like three times your size. And then Reigns goes, look, I already beat that guy ten ways to Sunday. Now, we could argue whether that devalues Drew McIntyre. a little bit as the champ, but then he goes, yeah, and I remember you and him were fighting over some stupid bracelet. I think it's the one that you're wearing right now, and it was, and that made my wife laugh in the other room. I could hear her laughing, so that's an accomplishment, but what I liked was there was a little bit of the back and forth, especially when Punk was talking about, I brought you in here, because the shield first started as his, kind of like his muscle, his bodyguard. That's right. And he referenced that. It reminded me, I have to say, one of my favorite movies is Goodfellas. And if you're familiar with it, the famous shine box scene. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yes, yes. Okay, where you've got this character who's Joe Pesci's character who there's a mob boss who gets out of jail. He's been in jail a long time. He used to be somebody. And when he was free years ago, the Joe Pesci character was just a little punk kid and shining people's shoes and things like that. and he makes the mistake of still talking to him as if he's that kid. And Pesci's character goes, look, I don't know if you heard, but I don't shine shoes no more. And it was kind of like that where it was Reigns saying, look, this isn't 2012. If you haven't noticed, I'm the guy that runs the show now, not you. You're talking about 2013. I'm talking about right now. And it was really, it had that, like you said, they're acting. Obviously, we know it's an angle, but they're acting in a manner that fits who we know them to be. Yeah. And that's the, you know, basically the formula, whether there is a legitimate personal issue or whether you can manufacture a personal issue that you can portray as legitimate, that's the basic principle of wrestling. And they did that there in 15 minutes. So I applaud them for that, I believe. But, you know, the thing is, Brian, I think both of these guys have found the secret to great promos and great performances in the wrestling ring and drawing money is getting a good night's sleep. Don't you think that that improves everybody's life and almost every facet is when they're able to get a good night's sleep? I think so. I mean, usually I am during these shows while I'm watching them. Well, there you go. But see, they can't be because they've got to be up to put us to sleep. So I know, you know, Punk used to sleep in, like, the back of his car when he was working for Ian Rotten. And Roman Reigns used to sleep on goddamn thatched roofs on huts in the Samoan Islands. And now they've all grown up and they sleep in million-dollar homes, but they've got something in common. I know they do. You know, Punk, we know he's a listener to the show. I bet Roman Reigns does it on the down low, but I bet you they have used our code to get a good mattress that they can have a good night's sleep on from our friends over at Helix Sleep. I just know that they have. And I think it's something that everybody should do. Because, folks, again, no matter how you like to sleep, on your back, on your side, on your stomach, on your head, with various implements hooked up to you to keep you monitored and make sure that you're making it through the night however you like to sleep, you will sleep like you're on a slab in a morgue on a Helix Sleep mattress because you won't know where you are. You'll just be out there in slumber land. Folks, all you got to do is go to helixsleep.com, H-E-L-I-X, and take that Helix quiz. And, Brian, Solomon, you've taken the Helix quiz before. Just simple things, questions about how you like to sleep and do you sweat at night and how many times you're going to be getting up and down to piss and how many mistresses you're going to be bringing over to the house while your wife is out of town on vacation to see Aunt Marge. Maybe that's another questionnaire I'm thinking about. I don't know who you've been talking to, but I'm going to deny any knowledge of what you're saying. Well, I think that was a different questionnaire, but Helix is the most award-winning mattress brand. And they've got free shipping and seamless delivery. They'll deliver the mattress right to your door. Free shipping in the United States. Can you imagine how much you would have to pay somebody to pick up the box with the Helix Sleep mattress, which comes, by the way, compact and poof, it comes to life. So it's easily managed by, you know, mortal man. But at the same time, let's say you're in Scottsdale, Arizona, and you want to get a Helix mattress, free shipping, you'd have to pay some son of a bitch in New Jersey, I don't know, goddamn $150, $200 to carry it all the way to Arizona. And the Happy with Helix guarantee, because it offers a risk-free customer-first experience to make sure you're completely satisfied. 120-night sleep trial. If you haven't gone to sleep after 120 nights, you can return this son of a gun. And there's a limited lifetime warranty because, after all, folks, aren't all of our lifetimes limited? But right now you can save money, and not only that, you can save big money. 27% off site-wide. When you go to helixsleep.com slash J-C-E, you're going to get 27% off site-wide. So buy multiple mattresses. Brian, as a matter of fact, you can... How many kids you got now? I've got three. Well, then you can buy like five mattresses. One for you, one for all three kids, and one for your wife because she don't want any more kids. and you could actually get a free mattress if you got 27% off five of them. Well, do the math there because I can't. No, I'm not good at math. Well, I'll tell you this, folks. You don't have to be good at math to get a good night's sleep. All you have to do is get a Helix Sleep Mattress and just lay down and let them do the rest. You don't even have to consume mass quantities of alcohol or sleep aids like you normally do. who just take a snort of Applejack and just stretch out. HelixSleep.com slash JCE, 27% off. All right, well, I guess the time has come. We have to talk about this past week's offering, Wednesday, February 4th, from AEW, Tony Khan's love letter to the fans, the sickos every week, Brian Solomon, Solomon Grundy. Ah, boy howdy. They're in Las Vegas. Was that a giant movie theater? It was like when the Boer Horseman came through the lobby, I expected somebody to be carrying a big thing of popcorn. I just think you definitely owe me because I had to actually watch this show from beginning to end. Is this a normal part of your routine to watch AEW Dynamite? I mean, I want to clarify because people are going to hear that and think, well, Brian Solomon is the news editor for the Wrestling News and he's covering the shows. And how is he not watching the shows? What I mean is I normally do not sit there from beginning to end with my undivided attention live watching the show. Oh, good Lord. I didn't mean for you to have to do that. Well, I did. So there you go. Well, see, I record it so I can zip through the various things that offend me, but they were in Las Vegas, and they started the show like they used to do, Collision, with the backstage 20-second pre-take promo from the talent and the feature matches, and MJF did good, and Brody King did okay, and Kenny just sounds like a big douchebag. Don Callis was actually serious and got bleeped for something he said about Kenny. I don't know what they bleep on this program. I noticed that. Almost anything comes through it. I couldn't read his lips because have you ever stared at Don Callis' lips? I can't say that I have. But then they went to Harley and Willow, and now they've gone too far. And then Penelope Pitstop and Megan Brain. I'm like, Jesus Christ, how deep are we going to go here with these comments? But then they started the show with a six-man tag team match with the Boar Horseman led by, of course, Dick the Boozer, John Moxley, and his friends Pac and Danny Garcia. With Marina Schaefer, they took on Josh Alexander, our friend Tegashit, and El Clown. So, Brian says you do the wrestling news reports, and we watch this thing, or as much of it as we can stomach, every week. And apparently now there's supposed to be some kind of rivalry between the Callis family and the Boer Horsemen, but they're just already having random matches on television with these guys. they're really both heel teams but the long time attempted murderers led by Moxley who were trying to take over the company have now become beloved baby faces because he gave a rah-rah speech and they're having matches with random members of the Don Fallis family because there's 18 of them besides the ones that are hurt what the fuck is are we supposed to be interested about in this rivalry between these two groups of random people? I don't know, but they do these kinds of, like you said, these random matches where it's maybe a six-man or an eight-man or something, and it feels so much like they just have, and this is a company with a pretty deep roster, honestly. They've got a lot of people that they do nothing with, and it feels sometimes like they've got about ten names that they put in a hat every week. and they just pick them out in different permutations and have them wrestle each other in giant tag team matches. And I was thinking that while I was watching this. And, you know, that's another thing that permutation is a word that needs to be implemented more often. I agree. So in this thing, again, it's the same thing that they do amongst these same people for about 12 minutes. and then all three of the heels, Don's group, in full view of the referee, just hit Danny Garcia with multiple moves over and over to bam, pow, bam, boom, bam, covered him, two count, and then take a shit, picked him up off the mat, and suplexed him, cover one, two, three. so they're supposed to be the heels in this confrontation I know that much that the fans are supposed to cheer for Moxley's bunch and boo these cretins so that means that in full view the referee, all three of the bad guys just beat one of the baby faces just unmercifully and flat in the middle of the ring pretty much, yes supposed to continue, well, I can't wait to see how they're going to get even from getting the shit kicked out of them, just one, two, three. Even a referee couldn't help them. I don't, where do they get these finishes? It never really seems like it's thought through. And it just sort of, I mean, I know you guys have talked about it, but when you hear the stories about the agents and producers there and how they just seem to kind of throw their hands up and let these guys do what they want. And I think that's what you get when you do that. Well, and also because they do it in Japan. Because that's where everybody's heads are at. Because the same thing has happened to the wrestling industry in Japan as has happened in America. The Marks took over and got in the ring, and now they just like to do moves. so speaking of marks in the ring for people who thought that i was going to sit through tony storm and pockets in a mixed tag match with job guy and job girl you got another thing coming and i just i'm amazed at how now because tony con thinks that it's cute for Tony Storm and Pockets to do a dance routine that he has taken Tony Storm from being maybe the most popular star they fucking had to being in a middle card mixed tag arrangement with the company mascot. I agree, and I know I'm maybe in the minority with the people that listen to the show, but I love Tony Storm. I enjoy a lot of what she does, and I feel like she's an example of somebody that went to AEW and actually made the best of it and became something they were never going to let her be in WWE. And not only that, but doing a persona, an act that, like it or not, is not something she would ever be allowed to do in WWE. And, you know, look, I'm not trying to sound – She is the person who has improved her standing in life by going to AEW. You would think off the top of your head. She's one of the few people that I could definitely say that about. And not only that, you said absolutely one of the most popular people in the company. I know you and Brian like to rip on the PWI awards that we do, of which I am a part of that organization. You don't have to spill your guts and admit these things out loud, Brian. I will say that. I know you can be outvoted, though. Well, here's the thing. So when they do the awards, not the 500. Now, you can hit us all you want for that because I am a part of that rating system. But the awards are legitimately voted on. I'm not going to say that it was not a work back in the after days. But I will say that currently right now, it's a legitimate vote. And what I'm getting at is the readers of that magazine did legitimately vote Tony Storm as the most popular to give her that award. and I mean you can quibble and argue whether she deserves that but it does show how popular she has been and you've got to be very careful I even liked it when she was crazy and everybody else acted like she was crazy but when everybody else got into it then it got too far for me but I will admit that she did make herself one of the most popular or the most popular people on the program and now here she is and by the way before Wonderful Well, after calls us Bill after told me at one point in time that the the only thing worked about the awards in his day were the number of votes cast. They would take they would take the percentages that the actual people got on the mail in votes, but they would just act like they got more votes. And to tell you, yeah, to tell you to show you how much of a mark I was when I first came to work for WWE. Now, I was going off of that because I was a big PWI reader. And when I got to WWE in 2000, my first year there, we were going to do an awards thing in the magazine similar to that, votes coming in from the readers. And my boss, Barry, goes, well, you're going to be in charge of getting the mail and reading the mail and all this. And I go, well, Barry, I don't know if I can handle all that. We're going to be getting millions of votes. and they looked at me like I was the stupidest man alive. And then I realized it's because, okay, yeah, I mean, maybe we got like a few thousand. It was definitely manageable. And this is WWE. So definitely, yeah, they had to be inflating the numbers for sure. Yes. But still, they were trying in their own way, to be honest. Anyway, speaking of in their own way trying, poor Mark Davis. He almost got his fat ass into a spot. He almost had a, he was going to be in a push tag team. They were the best looking grown adults in this company as far as a brand new, fresh heel tag team. Two rugged looking, brutish fellows. And what's his name? Goddamn, I forgot his name. Old Jake, Jake Doyle. In his debut, tears his bicep. Now Mark Davis is on TV losing to Hangman Adam Page. So he almost had a spot there. If you listen to and watch this whole thing all the way through, Brad, did you hear when Sockface called Andre Andre? Yes. Yes. Yes, he did. Andre will be here shortly. so again this is an Adam Page match five minutes into this thing he was moonsaulting off the bleachers out in the arena onto Davis on the floor and it's there is no endearing babyface quality to Page he has the fake snarl and the scowl for the promos it is matches it's big moves over and over that don't beat anybody. Mark Davis is not going to be a single star of any kind in this company, a business-moving linchpin single star in this company or any other major company. He probably could have been part of, as I said, the tag team. But Adam Page is in the world title angle. and for over 10 minutes he needs a bazooka to beat this guy including moonsaulting off the fucking bleachers for no reason and i think this was the match where again a common occurrence in aew but when you watch the show actually as closely as i did it really jumps out they're outside the ring doing all these things you're talking about and i think this is the match the referee is not even pretending to count. Not even pretending. Not even doing the fake count thing. She's just standing there and occasionally imploring them to get back in the ring, but she's not counting. With Aubrey Ed, Aubrey Ed does a great imploring face. You phrased it perfectly. She's imploring them. Oh, my God. I'm so hurt. I'm wounded that she won't get back in the ring. I had Jimmy Corderas on my podcast not long ago, and we were talking about, at a certain point, the referees went from getting angry, screaming and yelling and demanding that the wrestlers do things And now they just kind of they just kind of beg and plead and they look like they about to start crying and like they have no control over anything And it just very sad to watch Sometimes they stand back and they wring their hands and have an anguished look, like, oh, if I could only stop this, if only I had the authority. It's like what I said to him. It's like a parent with really spoiled children that they get to the point where they're just like, please, I'm begging you, please go to bed. But, you know, I'm not speaking from experience, of course. Well, no, because your kids aren't really yours after the DNA, right? So you can't take any of the blame. But so finally, Paige, again, the guy that's in the world title picture, hits a tombstone piledriver on the entrance ramp and then throws this guy in a ring and he stands up after the tombstone piledriver so Paige can hit him with a buckshot lariat 1-2-3. but anyhow we got the big match that we've long awaited since last week Andre Andre Andrade that's what he said he called him Andrade instead of Andre I can't say Andrade he said Andrade he sounded like Beck Odell Edyhoo. Well, come on now. You can't even say it right when you're calling out Excalibur. You've got to be able to say it right one time. My mouth doesn't move the way his does or in the same circles. Okay. But anyway, they start this match within 30 seconds. They went to the floor and they did spots on the floor for two minutes. And it's the same thing, as you mentioned, no matter who the referee is here, because there's no rules on anything. There's no control. This was not a no DQ, anything goes match. They just, they can't help themselves. It's part of wrestling for them. You need to talk about the women at ringside for this. Oh, well, yes, because I thought Jim Hurd was back in charge of hiring the models for Flair's entrance. These four women that obviously, obviously didn't come there to buy a ticket and had no visitors being there and were dressed up for the occasion, sitting on the front row, and they're trying to sell. Oh, look, Andre has all of these women coming to his matches. Yes, when they're paid and booked through an agency, I used to have a ton of women, too, but I don't think I was in Sweet Stan's fucking category. but so they're at the same time they're supposed to be making over him and when he comes out there in front of them and they're taking selfies with him did you see what one of the models I use the word models what one of the young ladies, one of the workers posted on the internet you saw this? I did, yes she posted a fucking screenshot of one of the segments in the show of the guys in the ring and the caption on it was LOL, oh my god, this is so fucking fake yep, that's what she did they paid them to be there yes, they paid them and she was just laughing about it I think it was worse than LOL, Jim I think it was LMAO, which is even worse. Oh, well, she was laughing her oreolas off. I don't know what all these codes mean. So they took the money, and then they just laughed at it, you know? And not only that, but then there was this back and forth. They shit all over it, and normally that costs even more money than what they were paid. Maybe that's their main source of income. I don't know. But there were some people online, as there often are, and they were on both sides of this, And it was both were hilarious because you had on one side, you had the people who were going who were looking at the pictures of Andrade with the women and the videos and going, boy, WWE really dropped the ball with this guy. As if to say, you know, he the fans love him so much. So the fans love him so much. We have to pay women to admire him. But then the other side of it is you had the poor people, and I felt worse for these people, who were saying things like, you know, I just – I don't think those were – I think those were plants. I don't think those were really fans. This is an outrage. And you're going, are you new here? Have you just started watching wrestling? Is this something you're just experiencing now? That used to be a thing, like when Hurd got on the kick where he'd hire the models and shit, and WCW 89, 90, whatever. We were like, Jesus Christ. Flair and the Horsemen and the Rock and Roll, a lot of those guys had better-looking women that they were seeing in the various towns than these people that they were paying to come and dress and act in a manner where they obviously had no idea what was going on and never had heard of these people before they were paid to be affectionate to them. And the boys had better looking fucking women. But anyway, this match was every Kenny match that you've ever seen for 15 minutes. And then they started trading chops. There was maximum gesticulating and finger pointing. And then both of them had a double knockout. and Don came to the apron and threw a screwdriver to Andre and then drew the referee. Of course, they've used the screwdriver as their big foreign object, something that you can't work with, can never really use it properly and looks as phony as fucking possible. But Swerve came down and grabbed the screwdriver from Andre and then referee Aubrey, she's everywhere, She ran him off and bent over the second rope and stuck her head under the top rope so she could be as distracted as possible. So while she ran fucking Swerve off, Andre could turn around and kick Kenny in the balls and beat him one, two, three. but then the heels left Swerve came back out and Kenny was mad because he didn't know why Swerve was involved and they started arguing and as soon as one of them shoved the other one remember when we were talking about Solomon Grundy earlier in the program they have people with chainsaws and flamethrowers set each other on fire and security don't show up But these two fucking schmoes shove each other once and the security fills the ring. Oh, Jesus Christ. And we had more finger pointing. And I'm telling you what, I don't care who you are in the wrestling business. You get in a contest of finger pointing with Kenny Olivier. You're going down, motherfucker. Well, it's like the old gag in movies and stuff where they kind of go, hold me back, hold me back. Yeah, and they're waiting for you to hold them back because they don't actually want to fight anybody. That's how it comes across sometimes. But now, again, we've got a situation where almost all of Tony's top babyfaces are spending all of their time arguing with each other. and you're splitting the audience it's like again they see Punk and Reigns do a baby face confrontation between two individual stars and manufacture a personal issue so they think if we have all these guys nattering at each other and whining and bitching about their various issues with each other that'll be even better and it just makes a mess as it usually does you need stars and focus and ability to speak, if not better booking behind the whole deal. At least with Swerve and Hangman, it made a little bit more sense because they did have a history. They did have this really intense hatred for each other that we've established. And so when they're both babyfaces, yeah, you could kind of understand they don't like each other. They don't trust each other. They don't have a history. Here, this was far less explainable. It's the old everybody wants the world title. Right. That's as old as wrestling. But you don't have all of your babyfaces arguing with each other over getting to the world title. That's not conducive to anything. But nevertheless. And then they had another, a world tag team title eliminator match, Brian Solomon, which I'm going to skip right over, with Penelope Pitstop and Megan Brain against Willow Nightingale and Harley Cameron. And good Lord, all I got to say is one day some of these girls are going to get hurt bad. but Tommaso Ciampa the newest game changer I love Tommaso I think his work is great his look is great he's in tremendous shape and now he's doing the promos they couldn't copyright knocking the chair over they couldn't take that away from him he's doing he did a backstage promo but is serious good delivery brief. He's going to continue on the open challenge for the TNT title. He'll fight anybody. And he's already starting to refer to the belt as, I can't remember what name. Sylvie. Sylvie. And this, what he was doing in NXT apparently was his concept, which is better, of course, than the other things he was forced to do. So he's doing this, and he does the promo, and he stands up abruptly and knocks the chair over. He's a very quirky guy. He's different. He's unique. That kind of thing gets over. But, and I'll let you weigh in your opinion on this, even with that, and even with talent, is he going to trip over the bad booking? He's just come in and won the title in his first match, and now he's being booked on collision to defend the title in a three-way against Roderick Strong and Claudio Castagnoli. And I was like, idiots, let him beat people in matches, in real matches, one-on-one, and get over and get his moves over and get his deal over and not have him in random three ways where, again, he's just another dad doing spots. Well, because it's like you said, they're not thinking in terms of how do we get him over and keep him over by having him beat a bunch of people. They're immediately thinking in terms of let's get him in there with some other great wrestlers and have great matches. And that's when you get, but that's when you get, okay, hey, Claudio's great, Strong is great, let's just have a big triple threat. And they're not thinking necessarily about where this is going. So, I mean, potentially, potentially, Ciampa is the kind of guy that could be on that list of people we talked about who actually benefits by going over there. He seems to be the type of person that fits in with what they do in a good way. Because, look, in NXT, he was a phenomenon. He was great there. And the whole thing with him and Gargano, and then what happened? The minute they called those guys up, the both of them were just immediately exposed. You immediately noticed how small he was, immediately. And you immediately noticed how, wow, in NXT, he really seemed like a big deal, a dangerous, intimidating guy. And on the main roster, he immediately just seemed to lose so much of that aura. Well, because he was also working against guys that were kind of mid-card meaningless as well. And with Gargano as a partner, there was going to be a ceiling to it of people taking him seriously. And I think I mentioned this to Brian Last the other day. Here on this roster, he looks like a big kick-ass guy. That's what I mean. Yeah. So, I mean, potentially this could be a good move. But like you said, it remains to be seen. And I know, yes, he won a title in his first match, which is great. But how many times have we seen these people? They come in, right, you know, a million times. And it's like Charlie Brown in the football. Every time you watch it, you're like, oh, wow, this guy, wow, this is going to be a difference maker. I can't wait to see what happens, blah, blah, blah. And then three weeks later, you forget this person even exists. So hopefully that doesn't happen. But at least they made Action Andretti a superstar. All righty. Then speaking of superstars, I mean, boy, move over Jim Londos, back up Wild Bill Longson. There is nobody on the level of Ricochet in today's industry. He is a legitimate star in his own mind. And now he's in the, again, the trampoline cowboy little clique where he gets to play with all of the former PWG friends from Resida. So now it was Ricochet against our friend Jungle Jackoff. And I mean, after this made the news, all I could think is this what he wants to do instead of being a member of the cast of a worldwide promotion where, you know, he can make money and be known and do his thing to the extent that the producers will allow him. he wants to be fighting on a secondary show having goofy indie style matches over a, not even a secondary belt because they've got so many belts and bitching about it on Twitter. He thinks this is good. It's not good. Because when you've got him and Jungle Jack it looks like two teenagers having a match in a pro wrestling fantasy camp. and that's what they jumpstart on the ramp they had a fight with flips on the floor this is what he this is the only thing he can do and the WWE were trying to produce it where you get 8 minutes of the fucking guy as the human cannonball and that's an attraction on the show and then we get down to the meat of the matter but he thinks it means he's a main event guy so again this is every indie match ever he's a great gymnast but anytime you look at him I don't know if you watch this closely if he actually does anything related to wrestling it looks like shit his basics suck he doesn't follow through he doesn't have timing or aggression on snatching his holes but the cartwheels and handstands and pike position shit. He's perfect. So is there Cirque du Soleil? Is there America's Got Talent where he can be free to pursue his main interests and not be in wrestling? But I think he fancies himself a video game character or something, and this is the only place where he gets to play with his friends make a fortune from the billionaire boy child that likes this kind of thing, and have fun at work. And he's lucky that he came along at the only time in 125 years that you could actually find somebody that would pay you to do those things. Yeah, the video game thing, too, that's a big part of it. And I forget who first mentioned that to me, And it really opened my eyes because I was thinking, where are they getting this mentality from? And it's a lot of these guys that, yeah, their number one reference point in their mind for wrestling is the wrestling video games that they love to play. And that's where they get this idea where you hit a million finishers. You hit a million big moves before you win. Because in their mind, they're thinking, well, in a video game, you have that energy bar at the top, right? Your character has the bar, and you're never going to just hit one big move and win because you need a sequence of moves so that the energy bar keeps getting lower and lower and lower until it gets to the bottom, and then you lose the match. And that's what they're thinking in their mind is they're thinking of it like a video game. Do you know how we learned it back in my day, Brian? We fucking watched the people that were good at it and made the most money that were in the main events, and we emulated what they did. So, this, again, you mentioned the referee Aubrey Ed, but to me, Rick Knox, the corpse referee, is the worst performer of any kind on the entire AEW roster. He sleepwalks through everything. But they have the indie match, and then Ricochet just jumps out and slides the belt in the ring. So this goofy referee just bends over and walks and puts it over on the other side of the ring in a corner. And they leave it there for a while. and then they had multiple flips and two counts and Jungle Jack got his hold and then Ricochet Stooges came to the ring and drew the referee's attention one of them pulled Ricochet to the ropes out of the hold for a break and then here came the Hardley Boys the Buckaroos and they jumped the Stooges and fought off and Ricochet rammed old Jack Boy's head into the title belt and then hit his finish on him one, two, three. Yeah, when he just laid the belt in the corner, you know, what referee is going to do that? You get a foreign object, you get it away from the wrestler, and you go, yeah, I'm just going to tuck it in the corner here under the turnbuckles. I'm not going to hand it to anyone. And it tipped you off by the way. You can't have that object. I'm going to set it over here eight feet away. Right. Well, there's no reason you should be having that. So now you've immediately tipped everybody off of what the finish is going to be, or at least, even if it's not the finish, you know that that belt now is coming into play again. I mean, they've made it as incredibly obvious because the referee is saying, the referee is basically saying, I'm going to put this over here in case anybody needs to use it again. That's basically it. And that's the thing is a lot of these guys have seen great matches in the past where some object was put down as a misdirection and was used later. And they just do it all the time and in the stupidest ways. But it points to Brian Solomon, in my opinion. It points to a lack of knowledge of the craft or the trade that you were in. and no matter no matter what kind of business or trade or service or livelihood that you are in if you don't know everything about it you need help you need to listen to the experts would you say that that's a a fairly fair statement you need to listen to the people that know what they're doing when you get involved in some kind of big business operation you would say that wouldn't you Yes, I would say that, Jim. I absolutely would. Well, I thought you would because that's why I asked the question. And, folks, if you want to get in a big business or even a little business that you want to make bigger, or if you want to engage in some monkey business, the business you need to be in is Shopify. Because, folks, there you go. See that? It follows me everywhere now, even when last isn't around. 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Brian Solomon, did you also notice that when they hijacked the TV truck, I said, God damn it, they've got underneath guys hijacking the TV truck now to justify the playing of a fucking ridiculously fake video that would never be played any other way except if somebody took over the control room. that old chestnut and I at first I thought it was Josh Alexander but then I identified himself and he has that accent it's Gabe Kidd the guy who looks like Josh Alexander and some other hairy fucking guy do you know who was the hairy guy that kidnapped the director of the TV truck with Gabe Kidd oh you're putting me on the spot now you even got one up on me by knowing it was Gabe Kidd I don't know. Let me see if I can figure that out. Well, we'll call him Harry. There you go. So suddenly you go to the inside, allegedly, well, it is inside the TV truck, but this is allegedly happening live, that Gabe Kidd has a camera. That's one thing they don't usually have in the TV truck is a camera. It was Clark Connors, by the way. Chuck Connors from the Rifleman? No, if it was Chuck Connors, he wouldn't need to use any weapons. No, it was Clark Connors. Oh, well, he needed a hand grenade. Yeah. But they've got the director in a chin lock, and the other one of the, I guess the technical director, the other guy sitting in the chair next to him is like overstagedly acting like, please don't hurt me. And they demand that this is, they were saying shit you couldn't understand because those accents and because it was mic'd poorly because they were in the TV truck where they don't normally shoot shit. And because he's screaming, but they forced them to play a video of them in a truck in the desert dragging a body bag behind the truck. And then they pull over and get out and open it up, and it's Darby Allen with his mouth duct taped and his hands tied. And then they got back in the truck and drove off and left him. because, of course, this is getting even for where some weeks ago Darby Allen put Gabe Kidd in a fucking bag and drug him out of the goddamn building. Could this be any faker and phonier and more childish that anybody would believe this or that anybody would want to see this from this preliminary-level talent on one of the guys? they still like Darby even though he's a he's an insurance claim waiting to happen he's a detriment overall because you can't depend on him because he could be crippled at any point but he has charisma and he was wrestling for the world title a couple months ago and now he's being drug around the desert by these fucking average indie looking oil changing motherfuckers from Jiffy Lube well he's another guy who's potentially his own worst enemy because he's got something darby allen's got something people do like him he has a kind of charisma obviously he's not a big guy but he's one of those guys that makes you forget about that but he he gets in his own way especially if we could assume that a lot of these guys are kind of contributing these ideas for what they want to do I mean, right? That's sort of what they do. Contributing, maybe donating the ideas. And it comes across so poorly. And it's also so much of it is just people attempting to murder each other. And look, I know that AEW didn't invent that. You know, I mean, Jerry Lawler got hit by a car and all these kinds of things. But not every week. Right. Not every week. And it wasn't constant. And it felt special. instead of just we're constantly just trying to murder each other in inventive ways. And I know he's trying to be shocking and all that sort of thing, but he needs somebody to be able to say no. I think he would really benefit from that. Well, and besides that, for one thing, all these people spend way too much time in the desert. I don't know how to get to the fucking desert. How do you get to the fucking desert? Turn left at Albuquerque. I don't know. but they think that they're making these mini movies. It's so cool. They have a job where they get to work for a cool boss like Tony Khan who lets them do what they want in the ring and then they get to go out and make movies and shoot each other on video where they're dragging each other with trucks and wow, isn't this fun? And it's just gaga. This is all put together like the show is edited in a mix master. so then we got to the main event Brian are you ready to to bring it home with the big main event eliminator match that we've all been waiting for absolutely I said to Brian last and I'm going to have to say to him on the next program in a few days that I'm sorry I was sorry or I am sorry whatever tense I'm using but you Solomon Grundy I'll say it to you even if you just heard me say it I said this match was going to be better. MJF versus Brody King would be a much better match than MJF versus Bandito. I said that because I was okay. Even though Brody King ain't my favorite guy in the ring, he trained in America. He's a big guy that can move around. MJF puts smart matches together. There won't be a language barrier and a culture barrier of Bandito's stupid moves that he does and his crummy basics. and I still may have been right, except they didn't have the fucking match. So they did make national news with this, but not through their wrestling. That's true. They had the introductions. It's an eliminator match. If Brody King beats MJF, or the rules, even if he goes to a draw, then Brody King gets a world title match. but they started the thing Brody King's entrance they were already going into overtime they were 10 o'clock already I'm thinking what they're going a long run this time it was that attitude era kind of tip off where your main event is starting you know 6 minutes before the end of the show and you're going something's not right here and I mean they've been used to 5 minutes over lately or 7 minutes over and I'm thinking this is going to be a big one right Then MJF and then the in-ring intros began, and all of a sudden, this is what made national news. And I found out why. I thought it was just spontaneous, but there was a reason. But the fans, as MJF and Brody King were standing there about the bell, about the ring, just started chanting, Fuck ice! Fuck ice! Fuck ice! The whole building. And the announcers ignored it. I would have had to have said something if I'd have been him. But nevertheless, apparently Brody King, and hey, I'm going to give credit where it is due. Brody King apparently helped fundraise over what I saw, $50,000 or so for anti-ice efforts. So I have to commend him for that. And I'd never say he was a horrible human being. I'm not convinced yet as a wrestler, although with the roster the way it is now, he may have to grow on me. There may be nothing left. But anyway, go ahead. No, I was going to say, yeah. Well, he's got a great look. He looks, especially in AEW, he really stands out. He looks like a big, tough wrestler. He's scary looking. He's intimidating looking. And he's got that going for him. But my problem is I'll say two things. One thing I'll say that's positive and the other thing isn't positive. But I will say my problem, I'll say the good thing first. And maybe I'll be the devil. Make it a compliment sandwich. Yes. Well, I'm going to be devil's advocate here because like you were saying, you know, it turned out to not even be a match. But in a way, I felt like that. Don't you think that helps build the match that the world title match they're going to have? because it's that old thing of like if he could own, like the announcer said, if he could do that next week, he's going to be your new world champion. And it kind of puts that in your mind. And also, what was it? It was Paige, right, that caused the distraction? Yes. Okay. So now you're also building that. So now MGF has an issue with Paige. I didn't mind that if it feels like it's leading to something else. However, yeah, I'm sorry. Okay, okay, go ahead. I didn't know you had a however. Well, this is the bad side. The bad side is I'm still not convinced, and I don't think any fans are convinced, that he has any chance of winning that match. And maybe I'll put my foot in my mouth. It feels like the Sami Zayn thing with Drew McIntyre where you're going, nobody really thinks he's going to win this title, right? You know what I mean? Well, here's the thing. Well, let's explain, and then I will comment on what you said, but we'll explain what they did. As soon as they started to lock up, Page's music played, And here came Hangnail to the entranceway and distracted MJF, and Brody King clamped a sleeper on MJF from behind while MJF was on the apron, and Brody King was reaching out over the top rope, and squeezed him for about five seconds and dropped him, then threw him in the ring, hit him with a cannonball in the corner, and a big pile driver deal, one, two, three. And then they announced, well, he's going to get the title match at Grand Slam Australia. Ten days from now. Again, I see in the middle of all this what they were trying to do, and you hit the nose on the head. The idea that, okay, he beat him in a non-title match. Can he beat him when the title is on the line? That's, again, as old as wrestling. But to have no match in ten days, he's not going to be able to do the same thing because they're not going to have no match. and at this particular point in time this deal worked when it was a heel champion whether regional or world champion that you really wanted to see the goddamn babyface beat when Harley Race was pinned by the young Von Erich boy on St. Louis television. Oh my God! But this is MJF who came back from a long absence won a four-way to win the title that he was almost a non-entity in and pretty much stole it at the end. And this is his first program or series or rivalry or whatever they call them these days since he's won the thing. And now he's goddamn been stretched out in 30 seconds by Brody King, who ain't going to win the world title, while all of the top babyfaces continue to whine and gripe and backstab at each other over the thing. And we just found out that Tony Khan just realized he's got a big show in Australia and at 10 days out announces the main event for it. So for, I see what the idea was, but could you, besides the fact that it wasn't time for this particular thing to happen in anybody's series of events in the booking could they not have had a match where Brody King would show he was competitive with MJF and then MJF would try to fuck him but Paige would prevent it and then Brody King would hit his finish instead of don't do anything the world champion got beat by a five second sleeper and asked to face the pile driver in 30 seconds because he took his eye off the fucking ball. But the guy will never do it again because Paige would have to come out and distract him again. And then, and I'll let you comment, I'm sorry, but while I'm fired up, then Andre came back in and knocked the fuck out of Brody King and gave MJF his finish. so now the world champion has been laid out by Brody King and by Andre and then Adam Page got back up and buckshot at Andre and then he went for a buckshot on MJF but MJF kicked Adam Page in the balls and then Brody King was back up and powerbombed MJF and then picked up the title belt so what the... at least they got a point across that they could hang their hat on, and then everybody got back up and did something more to everyone else. So the one guy had to no-sell... MJF first had to no-sell fucking Brody King's finish. MJF also had to fucking no-sell the fucking Andre's finish because he had to be back up to kick Paige in the fucking balls. Meanwhile, everybody else that got their move had to be up to do the other fucking thing. So what are they doing? Didn't they confuse the issue after they'd kind of made a point? They did. And they always have these kind of schmoz things they do where it's, you know, a million things happening on top of another and all these different people coming in. It's always a mess. I mean, I know very well because I have to write about this stuff every week. So even if I'm not watching it, I'm reading the results. I'm doing something. I'm trying to keep up with what's happening. And I'm going, what the hell am I even going to do with this? There's a million. This guy came out, then that guy came out, and then this guy came out. And I'm trying to make it readable. So, you know, I think I deserve a Pulitzer Prize for that. But they do these things all the time. And I can't defend that. I'm not going to defend that. But what I will say, I get what you're saying about Paige coming in and creating the distraction, which kind of hurts the case for King being this serious threat. But I think maybe I'm advocating that the thinking behind it, because like we both said, no one is going, oh, wow, Brody King's going to win this title. They have a tall mountain to climb to convince people that he's got a chance. So maybe the thought is, okay, so if we have Brody King win in the non-title match, yes, that's a good idea. But in order to convince these people, these very skeptical fans, we have to have them not only win, but we have to have them get this really quick win, just outrageous, shocking win over MJF as quickly as possible and make MJF look as foolish as possible. I can understand that, too. And that's been done before when the fucking baby face catches the heel with a goddamn quick one, as Vince used to say. But in that case, don't have him turn his fucking back. Yeah. That's the thing is that he's going to have – MJF could just come out and say, yeah, Brody King will beat me again next week if I'm stupid enough to turn my back again. That's the only reason I lost. the construction of everything. They've got elements of classic wrestling involved in all of this stuff, but it's only because they've seen it on tapes or whatever and don't understand the context in which it was placed. And sometimes the same two guys doing the exact same thing might have worked at one point but won't work at the other point because the preamble, the setup, what the fans have seen the previous six months doesn't match. So that means that the deal doesn't match. But that was the show there on Dynamite. Mr. Solomon you going to do this again next week are you hooked now or are you going to watch this closely live every week now that you've done it once well I mean look I'm going to do what I'm asked to do but that is what you call a kind of occupational hazard to have to actually give my full attention to these shows is it's rough it's not easy Is it kind of like a Geneva Convention type of thing where these are against the rules of proper war? Yeah, it is. It's sort of like gassing someone in the trenches, I guess. It's like the equivalent of chemical warfare. Well, anyway, folks, we want to thank, on behalf of the Cult of Cordette members, they love you, Brian Solomon. You know they do. I hope so. We want to thank Brian Solomon for filling in for Brian Last, who's on assignment. And once he discovers there's a hole in that boat, he'll be back on the drive-thru in a couple of days. But until then, and in parting, we wish you love, peace, and soul, and thank you, fuck you, and bye-bye, everybody. Get the experience, get the experience, I'm Jim Coddett. I'm Jim Coddett. Come to connect.