Episode 621: Observer Awards

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 The Jim Cornette Experience and the king of the Arcadian Vanguard Podcast Network, Mr. Co-host to you. His name may be last, but he's first in your hearts. The Great Brian Last, everybody. Aloha, Jim. A pleasure to be here once again. Of course, by the time this episode comes out, I would have returned on the drive-thru that they had heard from the one episode I wasn't here for. Yeah, well, are you feeling okay? Yes. It was obviously a near-death experience. Did you see somebody, because the people that listen to the podcast from start to finish, they kind of got the picture that last week, Brian Solomon, the other Brian, Solomon Grande, was the guest co-host because I said at the top of the program, Brian Last is on assignment. He'll be back next week. And then we continued on with the program. But the people that listen to YouTube that maybe get the clips out of order, all of a sudden they are confronted by a Brian's voice that is not Brian for like the second time in history. And oh, my God. And one actually said, I heard Brian last died. And then somebody else went, R.I.P. Brian. I'm like, did anybody think if you had died that I would be? Hey, Solomon, heard any good jokes lately? By the way, Brian last is dead. did you see any of this or were you even I saw some of that my favorite is people that every now and then it's like well Brian last really must be sick he doesn't sound like he usually does yeah I mean it's different people ladies and gentlemen different voices but I saw it by the way Brian Solomon did a great job and you know not everyone it's not an easy task to sit in this chair and he did a great job well but the just and thank you for the time off You know, it was a long recovery from my penis reduction surgery, but I feel like now I'm a normal man. I'm glad that I referred you to that Russian scientist and eminent surgeon, Vladimir Chepikakov. But the thing, it's just everybody, folks, we love you. We love the audience, and we love that you love us. Love is in the air. But you and I, we do 104 of these things per year between the experience and the drive-thru. And we've been doing it for 10 fucking years now. And you've got a wife and numerous children running about. And I've got a wife and in-laws and now a dentist to support. and it's amazing that we are able, we work around Christmas and, you know, we pre-taped a show last year when I went to see the Pfeffer Files, but it's amazing if we could do what we, you've been, there's been like three times, I think in 10 years we've had a guest sit in somewhere. There's never a guest for me. Can I have a guest next week? If I could pick the person, sure. Tune in next week for the Paul Heyman experience right here where we know the truth. Wait a minute. My schedule is just freeing up. I don't want to. You know what? If we could get Paul to do it, of course, that's a big if. But I think, why don't we both just sit out and wouldn't we just have Paul here? Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Paul Heyman. See, that is one of the big mysteries because he's always told this story. that at some point in the early 90s before ECW, so that puts it at 91, 92, 93 was with ECW, so maybe even early 93, he was approached by a radio station in New York who wanted him to compete against Howard Stern. And he was going to blow Howard away. I don't think Paul Heyman could do it. I think Paul Heyman's a captivating guest, and the entire time anyone interviews him, He's in full performance mode. Even when he's telling you the truth about something, he's doing it in a very, very performing kind of way. Everything with him is performance. I don't know if he could carry a four-hour show. I don't know if he can carry a one-hour show. Well, I don't. Now, wait a minute. Hold on now. Think about what he's carrying around on a daily basis already. He might be the strongest man in the world. But I agree with you. Paul is one of those guys where he's an entertaining person in a variety of ways to speak to but he's not necessarily extemporaneously funny about a wide variety of subjects off the top of his head as one would need to be in the patter of the dog-eat-dog morning radio world he has to be himself and there has to be a normal human being, a George Fenneman, just someone. Yes, a sidekick, somebody, a wall to bounce off there somewhere, which is why he and J.R. worked well in commentary because J.R. was a normal adult man and Paul was, you know, Paul. But nevertheless. What? An un-normal adult man. No, I mean, you can't have, you know, two gimmicks, you know, put together. If it had been, imagine Jesse Ventura in the feathers and the boa and Jerry Lawler in the fucking king outfit, both trying to do color with no Vince McMahon or Jim Ross in the middle of them. Right, yeah. I agree. It don't work. And by the way, Heyman and Jim Ross, they were great together on Raw when they were together when Lawler was out, but they were better on WCW when they had the New York show. They had a local show in New York, and those were the commentators, and it was geared towards New York, so Heyman was in his element. That was actually the best stuff those two ever did together. well actually all of us were always better in WCW because there was it was more of a standard environment of we're doing a wrestling show rather than all the god damn chaos surrounding in the back and etc nevertheless real quick house cleaning and then we got a big a big segment here to cover the big awards that have been given out from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter fans. They've spoken, Brian. And now we see, we're going to start to see the results of Uncle Dave's narrow casting to a specific mindset of the audience. But nevertheless, real quick, I want to recognize Joe Ed and Aaron Holt. Erin would be E-R-I-N not the male version but they sent a gift in memory of Harley Quinn to the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine because it's been one year since we lost Harley and the college sent a nice card you know telling us about this with her name stamped on it and everything and we're keeping it as a souvenir and I wanted to thank the happy Holtz. And also, I meant to do this last week, and I lost the email, but we wanted to say to Adam from Liverpool, he and his dad were lifelong fans, but his father passed away in January, and we want to send our sympathy. He's going through that period where he's kind of lost, not being able to send him a wrestling video or something, And, you know, because Adam is 42 now, and he's been a fan all of his life. So, anyway, but he does say long-lived triple cheeseburgers and French toast from Liverpool. All right. Hey, all right. Take a ferry across the mercy and get some French toast, my friend. All right, Jerry, put your pacemaker back in. But, anyway, Adam, we appreciate you letting us know. We send our sympathy. and also Jonathan and Taylor from the Cornelia, Georgia Post Office sent me. What? Why are you laughing already? I haven't even got to the goddamn point. Everything is like, hey, this is our listener, Joe. This is our listener here. Here are the people at the post office. It's not even your post office. Someone at a different post office. No, it's 30531, by God, is the way they know them by down there. But, no, Jonathan and Taylor sent me a block of the brand-new, uncirculated Muhammad Ali stamps. Oh, that's awesome. And to say that they love us there at the Cornelia Georgia Post Office. He says, well, we love you here at the Cornelia Georgia Post Office. By we, I mean me and another guy named Taylor. and they stamped it with the postmark, the letter, along with the stamp, so that I would know that it was legitimate. So thank you, Jonathan and Taylor. That's very nice. Enjoy your Monday off. Enjoy your Monday off. You get nothing, Brian, by the way. And a little story here. You remember Richard Hunter, my friend out in Las Vegas. He gave CPR to Lamar Odom in the whorehouse, and he's in every kind of strange, offbeat place. He keeps popping up like some kind of supernatural Forrest Gump. Anyway, Richard sent me a letter, said to Stace and I, a nice Christmas gift, and he and his lovely lady Jennifer, but nevertheless, he enclosed a story that I wanted to tell you, Brian. He said, Jennifer goes to a private gym, and they live in Las Vegas. I think I mentioned that. Jennifer goes to a private gym, and on occasion, she has coaxed me into joining her. The intimate nature of the gym means that there are usually only a small group of people working out at a time, and everyone is in close proximity to each other. On this particular day, I happened to be wearing my Jim Cornette face t-shirt, and as I pedaled away on a stationary bike, I kept noticing a woman that I did not know casting suspicious side glances my way. She was a petite woman, hair pulled back, ball cap pulled down over her eyes, wearing no makeup and looking rather nondescript. I wouldn't have recognized her as anyone of note, nor even really noticed her at all, had I not continued to catch her looking over at me. After she left as we were leaving the gym, I asked my girlfriend's trainer who that woman was. Oh, that's Renee, said the trainer. She used to train here all the time when she and her husband lived in Vegas, but they moved back to Cincinnati. They're professional wrestlers in town for a show. So it was a slow developing situation, but apparently he exchanged glances and sweat in the air with Rene Moxley Good. So, Richard, if I were you just for secondhand sweat, I might go to the doctor, get checked. You never know what she's, you know, exposed to at home. Maybe she was hitting on him. I mean, when you stand on someone at the gym, when you keep looking at someone at the gym, it's usually not that's first. I mean, usually it's like, look at that ass. It's just something. No, I think she was looking at him like she'd like to be hitting on him if she had a hammer in her fucking hand. If I had a hammer. I had a hammer Cornette's face. I had a hammer Cornette's face. All over this land. I'd hammer on the right side I'd hammer on the left side I'd hammer right down the motherfucking middle right into his old nose you know what we should do now? we should raise some money from crowdfunding and we should send him to Cincinnati so he can go work out in the gym there everywhere she goes the guy with the shirt is here again he's ignoring me ladies and gentlemen and find out where the AEW female announce crew works out at in every city, and then wear your Cornette face shirt to the gym, and it will fucking freak her out. Yeah, by God, they're all over. It's like they live. We're going to release a new version of the shirt that just says High Renee on the back. It'll be Cornette face on the front, High Renee on the back. All right, and speaking of saying hi, before we get to the main part of the show, let's say not goodbye, but maybe kind of farewell. Captain Eddie Coleross, who has flown millions of miles around the world. He's a commercial airline pilot. He's been stationed over in the Far East, and then it was the Far West. I don't know. Maybe he's far. He's come back around and met himself. Has finally retired. He is officially 65 years old. He's retired from flying, so he can't call me from Bangkok anymore and leave me a message telling me what the weather is in Louisville because he's tied into the goddamn worldwide fucking system. What are you talking about? What is happening right now? Captain Eddie Coleross, the most famous airline pilot in the world. When I was doing the MLW taping and goddamn, it wasn't Chicago. It was the one in Milwaukee, that shitty building they had in Milwaukee where fucking that fat fuck, what Callahan got fired and blamed me and all this other shit. He came up. He had flown into town that day and happened to see we were there and came up with a bag of Wendy's triple cheeseburgers for me to the back door while I was talking to one of the boys. And we were wondering whether the show was actually going to take place because of the fucking bad inclement weather overhead and the fact that we were in a goddamn pole barn and there was some issue with the power of the generator or something. And he gave me a bag of burgers and I said, here, go in for free. So fuck you, Kurt Bauer. I sold your company for a bag of cheeseburgers. But he's retiring. Did I mention that? Captain Eddie, retiring now, will not be flying around the goddamn world doing who knows what in international espionage as he's been doing for so long. He's a commercial pilot or just flies his own plane wherever he wants? No, he's a commercial pilot, but I have a feeling he's some kind of goddamn undercover espionage agent because he just pops up everywhere. His wife, Rosalie, needs to keep him under control now, now that he's going to be home more, at least in the continental United States. Don't you think he tells his supervisors that you're one of his sources? Where do you think he has the budget to give you the cheeseburgers? Well, he probably expensed it. I think he was Delta. I'm not sure. He may have moved around a lot. You know, he's had a few assumed names. You remember that book by that guy that conned people into thinking that he was a fucking pilot when he really wasn't? He flew airplanes. That wasn't Captain Eddie. No, that was Catch Me If You Can, a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. Frank Abagnale was that guy's name. That's right. Top that for fucking off the top of my head trivia about nonsense. This is one of those conversations makes me wish I was D.B. Cooper and I could just jump out. You'll never find me. Whee! Let's just disappear. All righty. Anyway, happy retirement, Captain Eddie. And I guess before we go any further. The mouth organ of AEW wrestling, Uncle Dave Meltzer and his Wrestling Observer newsletter now entering its 75th year. You know, I've got the original Observer was chiseled into a rock with a fucking stone tool. Did you know that? I have a copy. But now it's, he has pushed and pushed and promoted this style, this concept, this wrestling that he thinks is the future and has been the future and continues to be. It's always coming. It's never here. But it's going to take over the whole world. and now Brian you're not as old as I am you can thank your lucky stars for that but when he started this thing 40 years ago 30 years ago maybe even 20 years ago you know a lot of the ever growing number of smart fans who actually knew what this kind of was and how it was kind of done went from the numbers of hundreds in the early 80s to everybody today that cares to find out. But all of the smart fans used to kind of agree on the major points. Like, everybody loved Ric Flair and everybody thought Uncle Elmer was the shits, right? I mean, there was really no goddamn major controversies and, you know, two camps. And then they liked WWF or they liked WCW. And most of Dave's readers in the early years actually were more WCW-centric because that was the more traditional kind of wrestling. And they thought that, if anything, the WWF was too fake or cartoony. And that was 30 years ago. But now what we're left with is the only people that are listening to Dave or paying attention to Dave now are the people that like the same kind of thing that Dave likes. And then Dave, his readership reflects that because everybody else is going, oh, Jesus Christ, on a cracker, can we stop with this horseshit of the buckaroos and Tony's the booker. And so this is a self-fulfilling prophecy that Dave has run off all the people that liked wrestling, except for this trampoline cowboy subset, and he has praised them to the moon. So therefore, all the people reading him praising them, vote for them as the best at what they do to the point where it becomes ridiculous. And I'm going to quote one result ahead of you, and then we'll go from there. Best on interviews by a two-to-one margin at least, Adam fucking Page, Brian. Adam Page in all the world of wrestling is the best on interviews over Paul Heyman, over John Cena, over Drew McIntyre, over Cody Rhodes, over CM Punk, over MJF. in what universe do these people live and how does their cognitive ability function in their brain that this fucking, I still love the quote, empty-headed dipshit, is a better speaker on interviews in any way, shape, or form in professional wrestling context than any of those names I just mentioned. Help me. Thank you. You set me up by just saying all the things you hate about it and then asking me to do what? Defend it? I can't. Yeah, Adam Page is empty-headed. I just saw that picture of him and Marty Scurll the other day. Obviously, that was a bad decision. I think it's important to note that the Observer, the newsletter, the website, you know, we're talking thousands and thousands of subscribers. we're not talking thousands and thousands of people voting. The most into the Observer audience are usually the ones who vote. So I think there's a lot of people who read the Observer. Look, I read the Observer still. I always have. And I don't vote. And I typically, I think I voted one time in 30 years or something. It's just not my thing. But I think there are a lot of other fans like that too, that they read it and they don't engage. So you're not looking at an example of the overall audience. I think you're looking at the people that are the most intense about it. The ones with the bigger buckets of Dave's water is what you're saying. And that water tends to be from the AEW reservoir, I guess is. I think I'd call it a well. Okay, well, there you go. Well, no, Tony has a lot of money. It's a reservoir. well no but actually it's a bottomless well but think about this no nevertheless so do you want to go over these major awards and everybody on the list gets a leg lamp from what I understand I think let's just finish talking about the interviews real quick since you brought that one up AEW fans love Adam Page's promos and it's one of those things where there's a disconnect between those fans and fans like me let's say who, when I see Adam Page, it seems like a guy trying to feign intensity and trying to perform what a character is supposed to say here, and it doesn't come across to me as believable. In a dramatic fashion. To me, it's not believable. It's not relatable. It's bad acting. It's bad wrestling acting, which is the worst kind of acting there is. Would you see it in a low-budget, independent film? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. There's a lot of out-of-work actors. There's a lot of people who need work. But that's the thing. To those fans, the same fans that have thought Moxley was great on promos, they see Adam Page, and they see Adam Page as the perfect example of a modern promo, and other fans who have seen lots of good promos for a long time, including right now, we look at him and we're like, this guy's preposterous. It's a complete act. It doesn't come across as being genuine at all. It's funny you mentioned Moxley because he came in number two. You could just fucking put English words on the sides of fucking dice and just roll them and put his fucking promos together. That's right. If I had a hammer, whose house? And those are the number one and number two choices over, again, all the other names that I mentioned. and even in their own company. What is MJF known for? Well, besides now being a poster boy for bad booking for the past two years or so, but good God. But, yeah, I quit looking at that point. That was the third one listed or whatever, and at that I said, I'm just going to let you break the news to me from here on out, So it's your podium. I can see why you would feel that way. You won best on interviews before, so obviously you take it personal. Well, you know, that is kind of a goddamn. Just hold on here. He does list the previous winners, doesn't he? Let's see. 1985, Jim Cornette. 1986, Jim Cornette. 1987, Jim Cornette. 1988, Jim Cornette. 1989, Terry Funk. I bow to the master. 1990, Arn Anderson. 1991, Ric Flair. 92, Ric Flair. 93, Jim Cornette. 94, Ric Flair. 95, Cactus Jack. 96, 7, 8, Steve Austin. 9, 0, 1. Or 9 and 0, Rock. 0, 1, Austin. I mean, this was... The Murderer's Row. And then following by Kurt Angle, and I'm just looking at Chris Jericho and fucking Punk and Heyman. And suddenly it's fucking Adam Page? Okay. Well, Jim, here are some of the other awards. I don't know if we're going to go through everything, but let's go through some of the big ones. Of course, the Luthez Ric Flair Award for Wrestler of the Year. It is the Lou Fez Ric Flair Award, skipping multitudes of other NWA champions. We're focusing on those two. The Wrestler of the Year. He likes to name a lot of the awards for people that he really liked. With 548 votes for first place, giving him 3,286 points in total. And that's another guy. We're not even going to discuss how. Now, it's determined by points on a 5-3-2 basis, kids. It's in Dave's mind somehow that this is the best way to do this. We're just going to – the results is what we're looking for. But again, to what I said earlier, thousands of readers, not thousands of voters. 548 first place votes, 3,286 total points. Mystico, Wrestler of the Year. We'll talk about him in a second. and there is an argument for Mystico. Number two, Adam Page. 147 first place votes. Number three, Jon Moxley. 138 first place votes. Followed by Sia Kamitani with 88 first place votes. And at number five, they cracked the list. WWE with John Cena. 69 first place votes. You may not be able to hear that name because you can't see him. Then Cody Rhodes with 56. Takeshita with 24. I'm yelling. I apologize, Chase. CM Punk, Bandito, and Will Ospreay. You're in the fucking, what is it, the pavilion out there on the Grammy where you're having to speak out to the throngs. Number eight was who? Number eight was CM Punk followed by Bandito and Will Ospreay. That rounds out the top ten. Okay. Okay, and here's the thing is, and Dave has been on a tear about this, writing about it, and it is true, and there's no reason to not write about it. It's just that this is a thing that he's kind of made happen, that CMLL has been on that attendance tear. They drew over a million or sold over a million tickets in a calendar year that has never happened before in the one building. and the whole nine yards. And Mystico, for all that he looks like, piss on a plate here, is over there and over with their audience, and you can make a case that he technically was the wrestler of the year in the entire world of wrestling because his company did a record year of success when even the WWE is bigger than everything, but they didn't do a record fucking year of ticket sales. They just soaked everybody for more money. So point is, Mystico, okay, I can see that. And then Adam Page, number two, I'm like, okay, not John Cena. The retirement tour where they outgross their grossest grosses, or not Cody Rhodes, who is the champion for the biggest company, Or not CM Punk, who's one guy in the WWE who makes a difference whether he's involved with the belt or not. It's Adam Page and then Jon Moxley. And then Sayaka Mitani. Even if you wanted to swallow the Page and Moxley pills before Cena and Rhodes and Punk. Sia Kamatani. But again, Sia Kamatani is number four with 88 first place votes. And somehow with the 532. 88 people thought that she was the winner of the whole goddamn thing. Just blew the others out of the water. That's right. Eight thought Will Ospreay, who wrestled until the middle of the year. So I guess of the eight, maybe Will Ospreay's number one. I don't know. We could wonder who those eight people were. But let's continue on here, Jim. Most Outstanding Wrestler. Most Outstanding Wrestler. With 436 first place votes, Konosuke Takeshita, with 3,201 total points. Takeshita over Bandito, Kyle Fletcher, Will Ospreay, Boy, howdy. Saree! Saree! Those three E's? That's three E's. Jon Moxley, Adam Page, Gunther, Zack Sabre Jr., And Mistico. Oh, I'm trying to, I took a sip so I could swallow some of this. I do agree Takeshita is an outstanding in-ring wrestler. I can't argue with this. I can't argue. I wasn't going to argue that right now, but I'll put it on pause and argue it in a minute. But I'll argue Bandito over Kyle, over Osprey, over Gunther. I, Bandito is... It's because of a Takeshita match. That's why. But every other match he had in that stupid fucking suplex and the fucking little happy feed he's got and his basics are shit and he can't... I'm sorry. If we're going for the greatest hits of the indie-minded AEW crew, which is basically what this is besides... And Gunther, Kyle would be on top of that. But, of course, Gunther would be number one of this list in my thought for most outstanding wrestler because he's actually a goddamn wrestler, and he's outstanding. Well, Jim, let's continue on here. Tag Team of the Year. Although you're not a wrestler, I consider you to be, you know, part of the Midnight Express. So another one that you've won in the past or been a part of in the past. Tag Team of the Year. First place with 272 first place votes. Young Bucks. No, wouldn't you know who won the pony? Now, this is interesting here. They're in first place, 272 first place votes, 2,435 total points. second place with 2,423 total points right behind them, but only 250 first-place votes, FTR. You look at this list. It's just like every other tag team list. I mean, there's more tag teams listed here. To me, it's the biggest indictment of the state of tag team wrestling when you see this list. There's nothing. There's nothing. There are no classic. I mean, the Hardys are on here, and they have a long history, obviously, but there were no classic tag teams. There's just nothing. FTR and the Bucs are at the top, and then everything in the middle is stuff that may or may not be here tomorrow. Lashley and Shelton, had they teamed in months? Well, apparently Lashley is injured, although who the fuck knows? Now there's non-contact injuries. Samoa Joe, he's either on concussion protocol, The announcer said he was on the injured list for non-contact injury. How can you get a concussion without contact? The point is, nobody knows, but you're correct. Finish this list, and then let's pick it apart, because from here it gets more ridiculous in an even worse way. Well, Young Bucks won FTR 2. Brody King and Bandito, otherwise known as Brodito, in third place, 248 first place votes, followed by Mystico and Mascara Dorada and Neon, followed by Yuto Ice and Oscar, followed by Mike Bailey and Kevin Knight, followed by Nathan Frazier and Axiom, the team of Fraxium, followed by the Hurt Business, Hurt Syndicate, Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin, followed by Jackie Kamai and Rita with two I's, followed by Matt and Jeff Hardy. Good Lord. And most of the other honorable mentions are female tag teams. Isn't that interesting? Street Profits are here, but did they? I was going to say, have they been out long enough to have that surgery? Because I thought they were guys. What do you think of this list? This, it's funny at the top because it's obviously the Hardley boys, the buckaroos, because that's Dave's pets and that's still the darling of this particular block of voters that we have here. and then they have to acknowledge FTR because FTR is the last time they saw a good tag team in AEW, except for the Hurts Syndicate. And really, if you talk about strictly in-ring performance and the potential of what could have been, FTR would outpace Shelton and Bobby. They were impeccable tag team wrestlers until they lost their minds and were booked into insensibility. They can still outperform the Bucks as far as having a tag team match if they would slow the fuck down and not make everything so complicated that these jack-offs they're working with can't keep up with it and it just gets into a mess. but they will never mean anything in that company again like they did because of the way that they've been used for the previous five fucking years. And Stokely's a joke. And everything about him is presented as weak, stupid, and unfunny funny. And then you go down and Brody King and Bandito, at least they got them over somewhat because they were new. And then they broke them up. Brody King will do better for it as a single. I think Bandito will be the action Andretti of 2027 or whatever. And then there's nobody except the poor Hardys that are fucking, well, I won't say 50 because I don't know. They started so young. But here's the winners from the 80s and 90s. The Freebirds, Steamboat and Youngblood, Road Warriors, Bulldogs, Midnight Express, Eden and Condrey, Midnight Express, Eden and Lane, Michaels and Jannetty, Steiner Brothers, Hollywood Blondes, Pillman and Austin, Williams and Gordy in Japan. But part of the story with what you're saying, it's not just those teams winning. You know, FTR and the Young Bucks are at the top of this list, and those have been the two tag teams that dominate the tag team list for over a decade, especially the Bucks with the Observer readers. But part of the issue is there's no competition. Any of those years you just named. Look at 86, Midnight Express, Conjuring Eaton. You guys beat the Bulldogs. You guys beat the Hart Foundation. You guys beat the Road Warriors, the Rock and Roll Express. There were tons of great tag teams everywhere. The Fantastics had a great 86. Yeah. There were great tag teams everywhere. You guys beat them out. That's a tough vote. there aren't tag teams. I actually thought Brody King and Bandito would have done a little better or won just because they did get over pretty big. I just realized, did nobody think of Bron Breaker and Bronson Reed? How long have they been teaming now on the television? Somebody didn't say, oh, these guys, the only actual tag team that wrestles main event guys and wins? and they didn't get an honorable mention over Willow Nightingale and Harley Cameron. Well, Jim, let's move on here. Promotion of the year with 746 first place votes, more than double, I believe, of the number two. 5,042 total points for CMLL. CMLL promotion of the year. We'll talk about that in a moment. Number two, AEW. Okay. With 364 first place votes, followed by Stardom with 77 first place votes, followed by a little thing called WWE with 126 first place votes, actually more than Stardom. Rounding out the list, New Japan, TNA, Sendai Girls, whatever that is. I thought it was Send Us Girls. Whatever that is, AAA, Dragon Gates, and finally, UFC. Well, I mean, if you're going to have, if UFC is going to be eligible for this category, then did everybody know that? Because how can you, okay, Sindai Girls is a bigger, better promotion than the UFC. again you can make a case that CMLL because again they set their all time record year of business and drew a million customers in the same building plus everything else they did and whatever the fuck so I'm not going to argue with that but then AEW because it has to be and then stardom places higher than the WWE How many do they know that if you asked 100 people on the street what stardom is that nobody would fucking know? Well, Jim, let's see what else the people or the readers know or don't know. And again, Dave put it out there in advance like he would be embarrassed by his readership if they didn't vote for CMLL. So it would happen. And again, CMLL deserves it. Best Weekly Television Show with 811 first place votes, AEW Dynamite, 4,655 total points, followed by CMLL Super Viennes, followed by AEW Collision, followed by WWE Raw, WWE SmackDown, WWE NXT, followed by Ring of Honor on Honor Club, so you don't need a TV show to be eligible for Best Weekly TV Show, I guess. Right? I mean, it's a streaming show. Is it technically a TV show? Followed by CMLL Sabagos. But wait, it's only a streaming show because they have their own fucking site. Followed by CMLL Martes at Arena Mexico, followed by TNA Impact. Okay, I mean, was there a none-of-the-above option to vote in this category? You just not vote. That's the only way that would work, but that's the television show of the year. dynamite. Again, you know, it is what it is. Is a shit show and a slop fest better than a snooze fest and a bore fest? Would you rather be bored or would you rather see a shit show unfold in front of you? There's not really an option here. And that's what everything has been. I again look at past winners like Mid-South Wrestling New Japan World Pro Wrestling the Memphis show won once All Japan ECW, WWE Raw I can in those various times I can see that but now it's like which sucks the least so really it's going to be dynamite because this audience, that's the kind of thing that they like. Or at least the voters like. We don't know how much that is. Well, this audience that's voting. Jim Pro Wrestling Match of the Year with 224 first-place votes. Kenny Omega versus Gabe Kidd January 5th at the Tokyo Dome with 1,728 first-place votes. A match in January, one match of the year. That's pretty impressive. Followed by Bandido versus Takeshita. Adam Page versus Moxley. Mystico versus MJF. Adam Page versus Will Ospreay. Syed Kamitani versus Tan McConnell. Mariah May versus Tony Storm. Oh, blessed be. Bianca Belair versus Rhea Ripley versus EO Sky at WrestleMania. Jon Moxley versus Kyle Fletcher. And finally, Ospreay and Swerve Shreklin versus Young Bucks. Do you know the one match on that list that I actually remember watching? And I know we've seen most of it. Gabe Kidd. Look at the fuck that. Look at the state of him. Just look at his appearance. and what what the fuck that anybody is going to see in him for the match of the year I have no idea with Kenny but I remember Mystico vs. MJF because that was special otherwise holy Jesus Christ what's the matter with these people well Jim the Category B Awards, this means it's only first place votes that get you to the top of the list here. The United States and Canada MVP John Moxley with 387 votes Over who Over John Cena with 273 votes Followed by Adam Page, right on John Cena's heels with 262. His family must be heavily involved in the voting block. Followed by Cody Rhodes, CM Punk, Gunther, and a tie for seventh place between Kyle Fletcher and Mercedes Monet. So by this logic, Jon Moxley was more important to the business in the United States and Canada than John Cena, and Adam Page was more important than Cody Rhodes. And both Jon Moxley and Adam Page were more important than CM Punk. I rest my case. Well, you know, sometimes in baseball, the best player on the best team wins MVP. sometimes it's the best player on the worst team. Sometimes the team is terrible and the one player is so good that even though the team doesn't win because of him, the value is there. So, but how do two players on the worst team beat two of the players on the best team? Do you think you could argue, and I'm not saying you can't, I'm asking you, that Jon Moxley and Adam Page are more valuable to AEW than Cena or Cody Rhodes are to WWE? No, you cannot argue that at all. Because if Cena was to, well, I can't, now he's gone, but let's say last year, if Cena had disappeared, gone down to injury, been kidnapped, taken away, tied up, held for ransom, whatever, In February, it would have fucked their year up. And it would have taken a lot of big grosses away that we now, in hindsight, can see were big grosses, right? I'm not lying. And if, who else did you say to take out of the, or? Well, I went by the top four here. So Moxley, Cena, Adam Page, Cody. Yes, if you took Cody out of the last year, the same thing would happen to him in February or whatever. Think about how that would have fucked up and impacted major, big grossing events, main events that have been changed, etc. If you took John Moxley and Adam Page, either one, out of AEW tomorrow, it would have a negligible, if any, impact on business. Because when's the last time besides when they, that was a self-inflicted wound when they fired Punk. But when has their business ever gone down when anybody got hurt and went away? Or just Tony quit booking them and they went away? When has there been a noticeable, oh shit, so-and-so's gone. This didn't do as well as we did last time. Ever? I can't think of it off the top of my head, no. So, hello? Hello? McFly Alright, well Jim, let's move on here We won't go through these, but the Koichi Yoshizawa Award For Japanese MVP Move over Ricky Dozen But that went to Sayaka Mitani With 485 votes The Mexico MVP Mystico ran away with it 1,019 votes So obviously a big Lucha audience voting here Yes, over Bandito With 17 votes in second place The Europe MVP, Michael Oku. You know, Dave could have told him, vote for a turd in a punch bowl, and you'd be reading number one turd in a punch bowl. Michael Oku, the Europe MVP, the Hodge Award for non-heavyweight MVP, went to Mystico for non-heavyweight MVP, 551 votes, followed by Darby Allin with 106 votes, Bandito, Moscara Narada, Mike Bailey. Javon Evans, Ricochet, El Desperado, Dominic Mysterio, and Starlight Kid round out the list. The women's wrestling MVP. Fans, there's no question about it. Staya Kamatani had a year for the record books, and she won women's wrestling MVP. 458 first-place votes followed by Toni Storm, Mercedes Monet, EO Sky, Sari, Rhea Ripley, Stephanie Vacker, Willow Nightingale, Chelsea Green, and a tie for 10th place with 11 votes, Becky Lynch and Liv Morgan. Becky Lynch and Liv Morgan, who are generating more revenue, being seen by more people in the space of a day or two, And Maria Ripley, who was in the middle of the list somewhere, they each generate more overall business than anybody else on this list does in a year. But Ms. Kamatani has that magic spell. Well, Jim, feud of the year with 504 votes. Adam Page versus Jon Moxley. feud of the year an observer dream feud if there ever was one except number two you can say the same thing 148 votes for Sia Kamatani versus Tam Nakano followed by Mystico versus MJF followed by Tony Storm versus Mariah May CM Punk versus Seth Rollins in fifth place oh come on now John Cena versus Cody Rhodes Kyle Fletcher versus Mark Brisco John Moxley versus Darby Allin, and finally tied for ninth place with 15 votes. Okada versus Takeshita, and Cody Rhodes versus Drew McIntyre. You know, if only Rhodes versus McIntyre and Cena versus Rhodes and Punk versus Seth could have held up to the fucking standards set by Sayah Kabatani and Dan Nakano. But fortunately, Paige and Moxley blew them all away. What And by the way, someone sent me the Sayakamitani-Tan-Mikano match. I really need to see it, it sounds like. Jim, I'm just wondering if somebody cuts their forehead in a fucking forest, does anybody hear the tree fall on them? Jim, best box office. Hold on, before we go away first, also, I want to go back to the old days. Feuds, angles, programs. Fucking, how did they, feud of the year. Bruno and Zabisco DiBiase and Dog Freebirds, Von Ericks Hogan and Orndorff Midnight Fantastics Flair and Funk Hart and Jerry Lawler Steve Austin and the Hart Foundation, Austin vs. McMahon Fucking Jesus H. Christ David Jericho and Michaels, Punk and Hardy Cena and Punk And there was not this delusion that these minor league, often unseen people are somehow better than the biggest names in the business. Well, Jim, we move on to best box office draw. And I believe people were voting for this for a few years, which didn't make sense because people would go, how can you vote for something that would be a firm fact? John Cena won for pro wrestling, followed by Misico and Cody Rhodes. I assume Dave just gave them that, right? Had to acknowledge reality, right? Yeah. Most improved. This is a heck of a year. I think she won it also for PWI. Harley Cameron first place with 208 votes, followed by Kyle Fletcher, Kendall Gray, Marina Shafir, Kevin Knight, Dominic Massario, Obafemi Defunto Now wait a minute, can we say that on YouTube? That's the name here, I'm not familiar with Defunto I'm not sure if that's man or female or mass wrestler, I don't know Man, female or person? Defunto followed by Hina Or Hina It could be one or the other Followed by Yuto Ice At some point this list just went off a cliff I don't know what happened here. But the story here, oh, honorable mention, Braun Breaker. He had a good year. Jesus, and even Javon Evans is an honorable mention down here. I think you have a subset of the subset of the hardcore voting bloc here that has some type of, again, Unnatural fixation a la the Twinkle Toes Foundation with Japanese wrestling schoolgirls. Well, Jim, most... Hold on. I was just going to say, but in all seriousness, most improved, and it's a list of not a who's who, but a who's that, except for Dominic Mysterio flops in the middle and Braun Breaker gets an honorable mention. and if anybody can't see what the fuck's going on there, I don't know what to tell them. Most charismatic, Jim, with 159 votes. First place, John Cena. Followed by CM Punk with 133 votes. Well. Followed by Tony Storm. Followed by Mystico. Followed by Adam Page, Will Ospreay, MJF, Sorry Sayaka Mitani, and then Mark Briscoe and Tanahashi. Okay, was this another one of those ones that you just, you can't deny the obvious? Cena would run away with that. But Punk there as well. And then they get their favorites. I mean, Tanahashi has charisma. Fucking Adam Page has charisma. Sayaka, well, we don't know. Says we've never heard of her. previous winners Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, Shawn Michaels The Rock, Steve Austin John Cena and now here you go Jim the next one here the Bryan Danielson award for best technical wrestler the winner once again he won this a whole bunch of times there's only like three people ever in the running for this ever people win it over and over and over again Zack Sabre Jr. With 657 first place votes. Followed by Hechicero, Gunther, Kyle Fletcher, Kanosuke Takeshita, Kyle O'Reilly, Will Ospreay, Zell Lua, who is tied with Ospreay. Followed by Bandito and Chihiro Hashimoto. Okay, but also, honorable mention, Ilya Dragunov gets an honorable mention. And Jon Moxley gets an honorable mention for best technical wrestler. I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. Here's another thing. The lead has been buried. Zack Sabre Jr. It's not his real name. He's not the son of Zack Sabre. His name is Luke Eatwell. No wonder he changed it. Good God. Wait, he's like the skinniest wrestler in existence. And his name's Eatwell? Luke Eatwell. it writes itself folks but i mean here if you want to look at this list technically technically see what i did there the best technical wrestler is gunther because he's the the best example of an actual professional athlete looking motherfucker that plies a hand-to-hand combat sport skill in the ring to beat up his opponents instead of if this was best gymnast, best aerialist, floor routine performer. But Gunther's the only one right now that fits the Kyle O'Reilly. I see him. He's on the list. He actually should be on a list like this, but there are no more Billy Robinsons and Tony Charleses and Nelson Royals. But this is just, there's nothing technical about the wrestling most of these guys do, because it's either of the high school cheerleading variety, or it's, like you said, Zack Sabre Jr. who wins every year because he's a human Q-tip-looking motherfucker that emulates the Billy Robinsons and the Tony Charlses and the Johnny Saints and the fucking Mark Rockos and etc. Well, Jen, the other side of the coin, the Bruiser Brody Memorial Award for Best Brawler. 476 votes for Jon Moxley, the winner. He's won it most, he lost it last year to Adam Page, but he won it every other year since 2020. Would you like to have seen Moxley try to stand toe-to-toe and fucking no-sell a one-two exchange with Brody? I would have loved to have seen Moxley sit in front of Tony Khan with Bruiser Brody and say what he's not going to do in front of Bruiser Brody. that I can't say I'll chip in because it can't possibly happen now, but I would have given a large amount of money for that. And then sent him out there to be interviewed by Renee. And let's just see what happens. Let's just see how it goes. But John Moxley wins, defeating Adam Page, Gabe Kidd, Gunther, Mark Briscoe, Brody King, Darby Allin, Mad Dog Connolly, not familiar with him, Tomohiro Ishii. You've got 17 family members. Followed by one more Samoa Joe here on the list for best brawler. Okay. Oh, go ahead. Again, Gunther's not a brawler. He's the furthest thing from a brawler. He's just the only one who looks like he's actually fighting you, so maybe some people are confused. And we got this Moxley and Page business. Briscoe, that can technically be kind of called his style. but how in the world is he considered the best at anything? And Darby Allin's not brawling. He's being a pinata. There are no... Is it the Terry Gordy, Stan Hansen, Cactus Jack, Mick Foley? Good God, Kevin Steen now would look like Brody next to these motherfuckers. Hey, go ahead. Well, Jim, best flying wrestler. First place with 511 first place votes. Mascara Dorada. Mascara Dorada followed by Will Ospreay, who wrestled for half the year. Bandito. Commander. Forgot about him. Javon Evans. Mistico. Kevin Knight. Neon. Eosky. And Mike Bailey. I'm laughing because as I'm doing this list, I think there's multiple people I've seen who hands on their head. This was within like six months. But there it is, best flying wrestler. Let's just pull for our boy Javon Evans in the future to overcome all this and be the only one doing that shit so he'll really stand out. You know, I ended up watching the other day. I think it was Raw. It was him and the original El Grande Americano versus the new American condo. American condo. The new American condo. The new American condo right down the road from beautiful Delray Beach, Florida. Well, it's against the new guys. And I normally wouldn't watch it, but I kind of wanted to see Javon. And, boy, he hits the best-looking dropkick in wrestling right now. And he does get high up to do it. And it looks great. And they've got something there, as you've said before. Jim, a few more. Most overrated with 323 votes, Jey Uso wins most overrated. Possibly some sting of truth there. amidst all the clouds. Followed by number two, CM Punk. Now we go back to the tribalism of the same people who think that the buckaroos are the best tag team in the world. Also, you know what? In this very issue of The Observer, because I looked through it earlier, Dave talks about an interview MJF did with Chris Van Vliet, where he talked about a whole bunch of things, because a bunch of people sent me the link. I haven't had a chance to watch it, but it's a long video. And Dave, the only quote that made it into this thing was, here's what he said about CM Punk and how he doesn't like him. And there it is. So, I mean, I think there is a little bit of that. Dave's definitely been an advocate against CM Punk to his readers. But following CM Punk on the list, Jay Cargill. She's a turncoat. Evil, who I believe just left New Japan and may have signed with WWE. Well, we'll see what happens there. Seth Rollins. Cody Rhodes. Some hope for the future here. Number seven, Jon Moxley. Oh, 31 people think for themselves. Followed by MJF, John Cena, and Solo Sokoa. Honorable mention, Logan Paul. How can anyone think he's overrated? He's so good. Austin Theory, your favorite. I was going to say Austin Theory on here, but also they're all over the page here with Brock Lesnar. had eight votes for honorable mention for most overrated. But that's the same. Maxine Dupree and Charlotte Flair came in next to each other. So they're all over the page on this category. Jim, most underrated, 223 votes for Beast Mortos. Where did he go? He got his law degree. I haven't seen him since. Beast Mortos followed by Javon Evans with 78 votes. Aww. Commander, Brody King, Ray Phoenix, Mike Bailey with 25 votes. Bandito, Kevin Knight, and Ty for Ninth, Chad Gable, and L.A. Knight. I would agree on, I don't consider Javon Evans to be underrated right now. I would agree of everybody on this list of L.A. Knight, who is capable of more, but I think everybody except the booking team realizes that. But the rest of those, some of these people shouldn't be rated. Jim, Rookie of the Year, before I list who won, let me just tell you previous winners so you can see the difference between now and then. 1981, Ty, Brad Armstrong and Brad Riggins. 82, Steve Williams. 83, Road Warriors. 84, Tom Zink and Kichi Yamada tied. That's Jushin Liger. 85, Jack Victory, underrated wrestler. 86, Bam Bam Bigelow. 87, Brian Pillman. 88, Gary Albright. 89, Dustin Rhodes. 90, Steve Austin. 91, Mark Merrow is Johnny B. Badd. 92, Rey Mysterio Jr. 93, June Akiyama. 94, Mikey Whipwreck. The Giant won in 96. some of the previous winners. Here's this year. Number one, Seri Yamoka, with 117 votes, followed by Senka Akatsuki, followed by Yutani, followed by Zarya, followed by Homer, that is the name, followed by Heather, by Elegance, followed by Cappuccino Jones, followed by Jacob Austin Young, followed by Shiloh Hill, followed by Callie Armstrong. And I bring up now versus then just because it's like the tag teams or anything else. There used to be competition, and there used to be a lot of names that you knew on a national level. I'm not trying to take anything away from Sari Yamoka. I've not heard of her. I've not seen her. I'm assuming it's a woman. I don't – does it say here if it's a woman? Yeah, she wrestled for Marigold. It's a woman. 19 years old, but again, the difference between now versus then, it's hard to argue wrestling's healthier now, as some people do. Jim Best Non-Wrestler, 658 votes for Don Callis, beating Paul Heyman with 238 votes. How in the world, again? People are not being realistic with themselves. It's not even a matter of opinion as to who's doing this at a high level and who's jacking off for some reason just on television. Well, look at the list. Number three, Stokely. Number four, Renee Paquette. Number five, Prince Nana. Followed by Adam Pearce, who actually, more than anyone, has really come into his own as a performer more and more, especially lately. Well, and if you vote for Pearson, somebody ought to have voted for Aldis because he's doing a better job at what he's doing than fucking Nana dances around with coffee and Stokely rides around in a wheelchair. Jim, the Jim Ross Award. Hold on, I just wanted to just make a comment here. Best non-wrestler used to be called manager of the year. And you will, again... Let's compare, I would have voted for Paul Heyman to win this, and let's compare the work of anybody else I'm about to mention with Paul Heyman with anybody else on this year's list. 1983, Jimmy Hart. 84, Jim Cornette. 85, Jim Cornette. 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, Jim Cornette. 91, Sherry Martell. I took a year off, and I love Sherry. 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, Jim Cornette. He took a couple years off, 99, 2000, 2001, Vince McMahon. 2002, 3, Heyman. Austin in 4, Heyman in 5, Bischoff in 6, Cornette in 7. Larry Sweeney, bless him, in 2008, 2009. and then after a couple years, Heyman swoops in and runs from 13, 14, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24. Why isn't this the Jim Cornette Award? You've won this award more times than Ric Flair won Wrestler of the Year or Brody won Best Brawler or anything. Why isn't this the Jim Cornette Award? Hold on. It might be Heyman. Hold on. Let's count this. So let's, where'd Heyman come in? Well, I've got, hold on. I'll count you. You count Heyman. I'm counting me. One, seven, eight, nine, ten, seven, twelve, thirteen. I got thirteen. Heyman's got eleven. So at least it ought to be the Heyman, Cornette Heyman. I can be fucking Luthez and he can be Ric Flair. Well you also won both iterations of the award. He only won best non-wrestler. He never won best manager. Well that's true also but still it's just a simple change in the name. I blazed the trail. I agree. Alright well let's move on here. Jim Ross Award for best television announcer. Jim Ross is not on the list. with 315 votes. Brian didn't even notice that. Brian Danielson wins Best Television Announcer followed by Walker Stewart followed by Excalibur, Nigel McGinnis, Michael Cole, Ian Riccoboni, Wade Barrett, Corey Graves, Joe Tessitore and in 10th place, Tony Schiavone. I can't even... If I only had time. Worst television announcer, Booker T. Look at Jim Ross is on this list. With 516 votes. Jim Ross did not place for the Jim Ross Award that the best announcer is named after because he won it so many times. But these people. All right. Booker T. followed by Pat McAfee, Michael Cole, Vic Joseph. Fifth place for Tony Schiavone. Excalibur, Taz, Jim Ross. Or as it says here, J.M. Ross, Wade Barrett, and Corey Graves. The best major wrestling show, Jim, all in Arlington, Texas, for AEW with 404 votes. Followed by Double or Nothing in Glendale, Arizona. Followed by Stardom, All-Star, Grand Queendom. Followed by AEW Revolution. Hold on, hold on. The point is, I have a look at this thing. The point is, AEW 1, AEW 2, Stardom 3, AEW 4, 5, WWE, the Elimination Chamber got 25 votes, then AEW, CMLL, WWE Evolution. Did we even see that? What was that? That was the all-female pay-per-view. You did not see that. Oh, Christ. Well, that got 17 votes. And then WrestleMania Night 1 in 10th place for Best Major Wrestling Show. So this is a very skewed or askew audience. Well, the worst major wrestling show, Jim, WWE Wrestlepalooza, Indianapolis. I remember that was awful. Followed by Survivor Series. Followed by WrestleMania Night 2. followed by GCW, the people versus GCW. It sounds like the people lost that night. WWE Night of Champions, TNA Slammiversary, TNA Bound for Glory, New Japan Dominion, and a tie seemingly between Backlash and, oh, no, it's not a tie at all. That just doesn't have numbers. And SummerSlam Night 1. Was it a worse show? And two more WWE shows got honorable mentions. So they pretty much, every month, the WWE show was worst. Best Wrestling Maneuver, 194 votes for Adam Page Buckshot Lariat, followed by the Neon Double Springboard Moonsault, which the last time we saw he knocked himself out, we haven't seen him since. He was carried out for doing it. They carried him the fuck out in front of a goddamn poster on a stage and gave the number for the Mexican fucking orthopedic surgeon. Well, that's number two on the list. Number three, the Saul Ruka Saul Snatcher. Number four, the Kyle Fletcher Brain Buster. The Will Ospreay Hidden Blade, followed by the Braun Breaker Spear, the Mystico La Mystica, Bandito's 21-Plex, Tecestra's Raging Fire, and finally, Stephanie Vacker's Devil's Kiss. This basically should have been Braun Breaker's Spear and everybody else should stay home. I would have gone with Stephanie Vacker. I think that was kind of the move of the year. Of all these moves, which one got over for the first time in front of a big audience? It's that one. I would go with that one. Nobody's seen that to the point where they were shocked that it was a new thing, or they just liked her bouncing her fucking ass up in the year. It's a new thing. Most people aren't used to face down ass up on the middle of fucking WWE Raw. But let's go, Jim. That's one of the oldest fucking, goddamn, the midgets used to do that in the 70s. That's one of the oldest fucking spot show moves in the world. Go ahead. Well, Jim, most disgusting promotional tactic. Always an interesting award. Number one with 260 votes, WWE bringing Brock Lesnar back. Followed by the TKO relationship with Saudi Arabia. Followed by the TKO relationship with Donald Trump. Followed by Roger Jackson's incident and the promotion that advertised him on a show. Well, which that never happened, though. followed by CM Punk apologizing to Saudi Arabia, followed by the TKO ticket prices going up, followed by WWE counter-programming AEW, WWE moving WrestleMania to Vegas after they announced it for what, New Orleans or wherever they announced it? Yes. UFC using whoever this is. And finally, I forgot about this one, Sabu's last match and background. Well, I mean, this is all over the place. Just real quick, because most disgusting promotional tactic, well, it may be disgusting that TKO is in a relationship with Saudi Arabia and definitely disgusting their relationship with Donald Trump. But that's not a promotional tactic. They are not. The business relationship with Saudi Arabia can't be called a promotional tactic. because they're not, they're taking money to do something. They're not doing it because they think it will help them get more over and get a bigger audience or whatever the fuck. That's a promotional tactic. The Raja Jackson incident wasn't a promotional tactic. We covered it at length, but it wasn't like they were trying to draw any money with that. They just all were out of their fucking minds and potentially drunk or just stupid. WWE counter-programming AEW, that's a promotional tactic. WWE moving WrestleMania to Las Vegas wasn't a promotional tactic to draw more, sell more tickets or get more goodwill. It was a goddamn cutthroat business deal to fuck your previous fucking people out of something because you got more money or a better fucking arrangement. See, see, this is all over the fucking place. And now they cancel tickets. And now they're having problems selling tickets, funny enough. Well, funny enough. And for those prices, funny enough. Because they're in the middle of a desert, funny enough. But more on that later. The only thing on this list that actually did draw money was they brought back Brock Lesnar. And that's what the people call the most disgusting. What the fuck? You knew he was coming back. He didn't do anything wrong. except be emailed to by a fucking perverted old octogenarian with $10 billion and agree to look at pictures of dubious repute. Of course they were going to bring him back. But that's not a disgusting promotional tactic. That again is a, if anything, questionable talent relations decision. So basically this is all over the goddamn place. Jim Worst Match of the Year. John Cena versus Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania. 328 votes. Ha! Ha! Followed by Minoru Suzuki versus Butterbean. I did not see that. Followed by Brock Lesnar versus John Cena in Indianapolis. That was questionable. Maki Ito versus Mickie James. I forgot about Maki Ito. Adam Copeland versus Jon Moxley. Gunther versus John Cena. Chelsea Green versus Zelina Vega. The Women's War Games. And finally, Cena versus Dominic Mysterio in San Diego. I like that. That was good. Worst match of the year? Of course it was, because they're, again, they're mad. Was that the one that Dominic won or Cena won? I think Dominic won. Was that the one where Dominic won and Liv came back and turned up? No, no, no. Oh, because Cena beat Dominic in his hometown because Dominic beat blah, blah, blah. Point being, these 18 marks that voted for this shit are just mad that Cena smiled when he tapped out or mad that fucking Dominic got beaten in his hometown. And then, again, Cena and Cody, you know, if it wasn't the greatest match of all time in the ring and it was hyped to be a WrestleMania main event. That might be a disheartening thing, but no, at Brock Lesnar versus Cena, it was disappointing, but that doesn't mean it was the worst match. How many rotten, stinking fucking matches, by anybody's standards, have we seen on these television shows where the match where the two guys fall off the top rope and one of them fractures his fucking femur and can't walk for two years? That was better than John Cena and Cody Rhodes? The fuck? But you know, Brian, I'm sensing a pattern here in these awards. I'm sensing a pattern, a habit almost. They're doing it by muscle memory. They're just fixated on these same people. and they're giving them the same awards for the same vote for the same people. It's a habit. And habits are hard to break. Brian, patterns, they can grip a hold of you. They're hard to break. You will agree to this. A habit is hard to break. That's right. I agree with that. 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You know, vaping and smoking, it's been proven by Surgeon General Akbar. You remember Skandor Akbar when he served as Surgeon General? He was not a Surgeon General. What kind of general was he? I don't know. Well, nevertheless, he was an independent general. It was determined by him and his study that vaping and smoking can lead to everything from brain rot to fucking calluses. That's why I don't like that Ted Debussy. That's right, because he had brain rot and calluses. But folks, our friends, our new friends at FUM can help you quit vaping and smoking by breaking that hand-to-mouth pattern. It's what? What now? It's pronounced fume. No, it's, I've heard the poem since I was a kid. Fee-fi-fo-fum. I smell somebody vaping and smoking. But it's pronounced, it's pronounced fume. It's fume, not fume. Oh, is that, I thought that, I thought that they were making a little smiley face with the U, but that's an umla over the U, isn't it? Yeah, it's like Haagen-Dazs or, uh. Oh, is it, well, you remember our friend Plune? Yes. Fume over in the Netherlands. That's right. He was one of the other people. Yeah. So, well, this is Fume. And Fume, ladies and gentlemen, is a flavored air device designed to help people quit vaping and smoking by breaking the hand-to-mouth pattern. No nicotine, no batteries, no vapor, just a weighted, twisty, fidget-friendly tool that gives your hand something to reach for. They sent me one right here. I got this right here. and what you do is you stick this in your face, and that satisfies the hand-to-mouth motion and the oral fixation, and then it replaces your bad, nasty, nasty, nasty habit with a flavored air device that gives your hands and mouth something to do, distracting your cravings without nicotine vapor or batteries, so you can suck on flavors like black licorice and raspberry and cinnamon hearts and crisp mint and I thought that said crap berry cranberry cranberry cranberry that's what I said orange vanilla peach blush maple pepper I'm not sure about that one I think I'm gonna have to see if I can pour some goddamn maple syrup on that first. But nevertheless, Brian, it's a way for you to break bad habits and replace them with a harmless habit that will break that old pattern and interrupt that old muscle memory. Because when you interrupt your muscle memory, then your muscle forgets to do the thing that it did before, and then it does the new thing. Well, that's science. that's not again I don't know if that's exactly how science works but again a lot of people like you said a lot of listeners can use a little help to break the habit and we have a that's exactly what they're going to get a little help but you can also save a little money because when you grab a journey pack over at try fume t-r-y-f-u-m you can't there's no umla on our typewriter. So it's just tryfum.com. When you grab a journey pack, you're also going to get a free gift just for using our code over here, JCE. They have already helped over 700,000 people take steps toward better habits. And now it's your turn. So once again, a free gift with a journey pack, which has the fidgeter thingy and the air flavoring thingies. And it's just, it's flavored. And imagine, for heaven's sake, how fresh and tasty will your breath smell when you're sucking on raspberry and crisp mint instead of nicotine and cancer-causing devices. And a free gift. And plus, you know, Brian, you can use this thing as a self-defense device. Because if you're carrying it in your hand, it's no way. loop with this one. But you can't use it as a device to... Yes, you can. Instead of sticking it in your mouth and sucking on it, you can poke somebody in the eye with it. All right. That's where we stop. That's exactly the kind of thing... Well, if they grab you around the neck... That's exactly the kind of thing the sponsors may not embrace or endorse, but what they can tell you is that for those of you who need a little bit of help, you need to break the habit, you try other things. You're ready for the new thing. Fume, our new friend. You'll be hearing more about them and of course, it's just so much fun to say. Fume. Yes. Jim, how can the listeners get in on this great Fume deal? Try Fume. Fume. T-R-Y. Try Fume. Fume. T-R-Y-F-U-M.com. Not to be confused with Fume. Try Fume. Fume.com. Use the code JCE to claim your free gift when you grab that journey pack. And they call it a journey pack because you can take this wherever you go. And once again, if you're in a bad neighborhood, somebody comes up behind you to poke them in the eye with this thing. Just clean it off before you stick it back in your mouth. If it's self-defense, this may be valuable, but let's not start problems and let's not provocate. Now, if this was... I'm not provocating. If this was on the news, on television, that somebody says some poor woman Bonnie Rosecutter of East Elyria, Ohio, was saved by poking her assailant in the eye with the flavored air fidgeter from Fume. Fume. Fume. Fume. No, it's Fume. Fume. Well, but she's got an accent, too. She's from Switzerland. No matter who you are, it's Fume, ladies and gentlemen. It's worldwide, and we're telling you about it right here. Jim, one more time here today. How can the listeners get this? And then no more. Tryfume.com. Co-co-co. That's right. Co-co-co. It's tryfume.com, Jim. The excitement is contagious. The code is J-C-E to claim your free gift. That's right. And what a gift it is. Tryfume.com. Promo code JCE. But, Jim, it's your show, but if you don't mind, let's get back to the Observer Awards. Well, continue on. The Observer Awards. Yeah, there's more. Worst feud of the year. The winner with 176. Is that spelled F-U-D? Worst feud of the year. and really must have been a stinker to win from that fan base, Max Kasser versus Anthony Bowens. Wow. Poor fellas. Which didn't even take place on Dynamite, really, right? It was all in religion. I don't know that it took place. Followed by Cena versus Cody Rhodes. Okay. Followed by Moxley versus Cope. Followed by TNA versus NXT. followed by Cody versus Cena and The Rock and Travis Scott. Now, there may be something to that. It's not a feud, but just any time that they can award it the worst something. Here's one you forgot about. Followed by Jeff Jarrett versus MJF. That did not click. Considering what else they've done with MJF since then, I'd have liked to have seen it. Followed by Cena versus CM Punk, which is one of the better actual Cena feuds of this past year. followed by Alistair Black versus Damian Priest no complaints followed by Cena versus Brock Lesnar it made no sense, I can see that one on the list followed by Charlotte versus Tiffany Stratton the famous Kaisers and my DMs feud Jim worst promotion of the year the winner the winner with 420 votes WWE followed by the NWA. Oh, 129 votes. You know what? 40 years ago, they always used to tie 1 and 2, NWA and WWF. WWF and NWA, now they are just for the worst promotion. Followed by TNA, GCW, AAA, which of course is under WWE rule at number 5. tied for 6 with 19 votes each Juggalo Championship Wrestling and MLW followed by Women of Wrestling New Japan Pro Wrestling 9th and 10th on the worst promotion of the year list with 17 votes AEW oh maybe fucking Bowens and Casters families wrote in on that It crazy NWA came in second and looking here they won the last two years or the previous two years, and I mean, I don't think there's that much of an audience. I don't hear anything about what's going on there to the point where I would win the worst promotion. Well, who knows? Well, at the same time, I don't remember hearing anything in the last two years that would have won it best promotion. I don't remember hearing anything. But go back and again look at this logic that the WWE in these people's minds is the absolute worst promotion of the year over Juggalo Championship Wrestling or Garbage Championship Wrestling or whatever the fuck they're doing over in MLW these days. Jim Best Booker with 655 votes the winner Tony Khan Best Booker I'll read a little bit of what Dave had to say about this followed by at number two Taro Okada at number three the CMLL booking team Rivera and Feliciano I love their last record followed by number four Paul Levesque Number five, Anthony Douglas, James Darnell, and John Blood of Deadlock Pro. I don't even know what the fuck that might be. And that is the end of that list there. There's five bookers or booking team combinations in the entire world of wrestling now, apparently. Again, this is another one of those awards that you previously won, and you were standing amongst giants when you won it. Literally, Giant Baba, Dusty Rhodes, in terms of girls. Paul Heyman. Oh, thank you. I'm stealing my stuff now. But no, from the 80s, Dusty, Vince, Eddie Gilbert, Baba, me, Heyman, Vince, Heyman some more, me some more, Vince some more. Gabe Sapolsky for a few years. Then he went on his Japanese kick, and Guido and Jado were his anointed folks, so they voted for them. And then since this whole thing has happened, 2020, Tony Khan, Triple H won it the last couple of years. But I mean, it is an indictment that there are no bookers anymore. But at the same time, anybody who thinks that Tony, his booking is in any way coherent or good, I don't know where their heads are at. Well, here's what Dave had to say. Tony Khan, 43, won for the fourth time in six years in what was not a close race. the story of him booking so many strong matches and AEW seemingly solidifying itself after 2024 declines read to the win I don't know that they got any more solid but booking so many strong matches that's not booking that's just writing down the names of who's supposed to wrestle if Tony was laying the matches out and giving them the finishes and walking them through it and then say, okay, go perform this, then one might consider him for the Booker Award. But he's not doing that by everybody's admission. He lets the wrestlers do their thing. Therefore, he just wrote names down against each other. That's not booking. He can afford to have an unlimited supply of wrestlers so that he can write down a bunch of different names, but it's still not booking. Well, Jim, promoter of the year with 485 votes, Salvador Luderoth III, followed by Tony Khan with 404 votes. Nick Khan, previous winner the last two years with 193 votes. Dana White of the UFC, and Taro Okada. Okay. Again, I understand Salvador Lutaroth because of CMLL, and we've gone over that, that they had the record year and they did the business. So I can actually, I'm not well-versed enough in the Lucha business to know whether he's just a complete dipshit and his office does the work for him or whether he's the creative genius behind it, but his company is so okay. After that, doesn't it have to be between Nick Khan and Dana White, UFC and WWE, as to who is the next promoter of the year because both of their companies had blockbuster fucking years and our global fucking monoliths, whereas, again, Tony is doing the same shit he's been doing for five years and ain't learned nothing. Well, Jim, the best gimmick of the year, with 447 votes, she ran away with it, timeless Tony Storm. Best gimmick, geez, after this week's dynamite. Number two, for best gimmick, Adam Page. What's the gimmick? Number three, El Grande Americano. Number four, Young Bucks. Number five, Joe Hendry. Number six, Jon Moxley. He is a gimmick. Number seven, Dominic Mysterio. Number eight, Yuto Ice. Number nine, Defunto. So, that is indeed how you pronounce that person's name. And tied for 10th, Gunther and Naomi. Best gimmick, Jim. I don't even know what to say. Most people don't know what the word gimmick means anyway. And the fact that these names are on it indicates that they don't. Let's just say that. Worst Gimmick, 246 votes for Heal John Cena, followed by Wyatt Six, House of Torture, Timeless Tony Storm, the winner of Best Gimmick, Jey Uso, Death Riders, El Grande Americano, The Learning Tree, Blake Monroe, and finally, worst gimmick in 10th place, The Vision. Oh, good Lord. How's that the worst gimmick? Even if you don't like it, how would that be worse gimmick? Some people are just so vindictive down there. There's 19 people are like, I'll show them. Heel John Cena was not necessarily a gimmick per se, although you could loosely define it as such. I agree wholeheartedly. The Wyatt Six, that's a rotten fucking gimmick. I don't know what the House of Torture is. Tony Storm, yes, we've talked about that. Uso is getting a little tiring. In Death Riders, I guess it was a gimmick. Nobody ever explained what it was. But, yeah, there's a lot of rotten gimmicks on this list. Previous awards like Most Embarrassing, Wrestler, 86, Adonis, 87, George Steele, 88, George Steele, 89, Andre, 90, Dusty, 91, Heavy Metal, Van Hammer, 92, Papa Shango, 93 Bastion Booger 94 Babyface Doink the Clown 95 Hogan 96 Hogan 97 New Gold Dust 98 Hogan 99 Hogan 2000 Hogan That's the period where Dave started getting down on Hogan and all of the machinations in WCW and Hogan was very unpopular with this fan base And Jim, two things here at the end. Best Pro Wrestling Book won by, with 112 votes, our very good friend Brian Solomon for The Irresistible Force, The Life and Times of Gorilla Monsoon. Yay! I applaud Brian Solomon's book, which it was fabulous, winning this. And then I bemoan the fact that only 112 people are reading books anymore. Well, the saddest thing is number two is this book is all elite by Keith Elliott Greenberg. I got that book. That is the biggest fluff book I've ever seen issued by a wrestling company about itself. AEW put that book out about themselves. They hired Keith Elliott Greenberg to write them a book that pleasantly goes through their history. Have that got the second place, the second most amount of votes, that tells you the problem with the readership over there. if we're going to call them a readership. Finally, Jim, Best Pro Wrestling Documentary. I don't recall if you were on this episode or not, but we talked about it. Dark Side of the Ring, the Daphne episode with 102 votes. And that was an emotional episode. So I can see that that, because I'm looking at the list here, this was so, this was so, not diluted, but well, yeah, I diluted in a way not with Drek, but one, two, three, four, five, six different episodes of Dark Side of the Ring placed in the top ten, so it was kind of split. But when you said the only other non-Dark Side documentary, Nevermore, The Raven Effect, two-in-one, The Briscoe Story. I'd actually like to see that if I'd have known it existed. The Good, the Bad, and the Hangman from AEW got 15 votes. And Hollywood Demons, The Real Iron Claw got 12 votes. WrestleMania 9 becoming a spectacle. That was fascinating. That was a fascinating documentary. That's what I'm saying. It was only a spectacle to 10 people. When you have something like that that was on Netflix, right? I believe so, yeah. The Wrestlemania documentary that's widely viewed and seen by tons of people or the Dark Side of the Ring all episodes canceling each other out there wasn't much else to choose from was there? WWE Unreal got fucking honorable mentions. Well there it is the 2025 Wrestling Observer Newsletter Readership Awards on a 5-3-2 basis. I'm glad he's not in charge of scoring the Olympics or those fucking people would go out of their minds. Did you watch the Lindsey Vonn clip? Oh, yes, she busted her ass and broke her leg, actually, is what she did, but she flipped going down the ski route there. Yeah. Well, why did you just bring that up to bum everybody out? You brought up the Olympics. That's the only thing from the Olympics so far I've seen or cared about. Well, I don't care about the Olympics. What are you, morbid son of a bitch? Well, the Winter Olympics is kind of like having the girls' elimination chamber. I don't think that's a fair comparison. Why do you say that? Because all the good Olympic shit happens on dry land. No, Winter Olympics is fun. It's in snow. Oh, no, I want to see all the fucking, the wrestling on the mat and the flipping around on the parallel bars and the fucking, all the dry land, warm weather type of shit going on. And just put those runners out there on the track and run them around in circles till they drop and the last one on his feet's the winner. That's what they ought to do. All right, that's a thought. Once again, those are the Observer Awards, and this is your show. Well, speaking of people that are dropping, apparently now we just get excited about watching anything related to this modern-day dreck, and then they pull this away from us. Now, Bron Breaker's out with a hernia. You heard about this, I'm sure. I did. I heard about this a few days after it happened on Raw, and we had just reviewed that segment, or you had just reviewed that segment. So let's talk about this. Well, and I know they played the clip back, and a lot of people were commenting like, well, he didn't even sell it. Like, he didn't seem hurt or injured or whatever. When he turned that big announce desk over, and that announce desk is not balsa wood. Even though they can pull pins, so to speak, and help it collapse, it's still it's hard shit, right? And it's heavy. It's got weight to it. and apparently now from what I understand that he's been dealing with a hernia for a while, and when he turned the desk over, that I guess graduated from a hernia to a severe hernia. And this grosses me the fuck out, because I know somebody's going, oh, here goes Cornette, now he's a fucking doctor. I'm speaking from experience. and I don't know exactly where it is. I haven't examined, Bron, but the definition, a hernia for people who don't actually know what happens, if you strain in some way or are in some way either mashed or strain yourself lifting heavy weights, that type of thing, athletic activity, your intestines can pop through your abdominal wall. And most of the time in guys, this happens in your crotchal area. And I had one when I was a teenager, and I don't actually know what happened, which I'll get into in a second because you cannot. but then I had that remember Brian I think I've told you when I was working with Bob Armstrong in Knoxville like 25 years ago I threw powder in his eyes to get the advantage and then he made a comeback on me and he was going to give me the big stomp and when he went his push off foot slipped in the powder that I'd thrown and he came down ass first in my midsection and it popped out my fucking same side on the hernia And it can either, depending on how it is, how it happens, how bad it is, what the fuck, you cannot really know it happened and then discover it later, or you can instantly be in goddamn excruciating pain. or you might they said he's been dealing working with it who knows how long he's had it but it can not be any trouble it can be an elective thing or it can actually be an emergency thing where if the intestine is gripped tightly enough in the fucking place that it's poked through bleh then it can cut off the blood and kill the fucking intestine and you gotta have emergency surgery right away, blah, blah, blah. So, it's a fucking miserable thing, I can assure you that, but there still may be a chance for him at WrestleMania being a 20-something-year-old fucking athletic freak. When I was a teenager, a couple weeks, and I was up and about and driving and had just started in the wrestling business by the time I got it fixed and it was bumping and feeling fine at 25 years ago you may have seen the clip Brian I used it I was I was doing OVW television and I said that I was attacked by the heel group of mystery that turned out to be Doug Basham and those guys and I showed my scar when I saw as much as I could without getting us kicked off television, but I had 18 surgical staples from about two inches from my dick all the way up to my hip bone. So you can come back to normal activity, you know, in a few weeks or whatever, but I don't know to be that athletic whether that's, you know, it's cutting it close at best is what I'm trying to say. but god damn it it's a miserable fucking thing he won't be able to cough or sneeze or fucking blow his nose without his crotch feeling like it's on fire is that something that once it happens the first time it more than not more than likely but it's uh more common to happen a second time well no not with with getting the best doctors if he was going to hernias are us you see the commercials all the time for the fucking if your hernia mesh has pulled loose and you know a fucking alien's peeping its head out of your crotch call 800 fuck you we'll sue whatever it with a a professional athlete and having high quality doctors doing the surgery i don't know that it will be necessarily any more susceptible than he was it's just it sometimes from what I was told by my first doctor you're born with just a thinner wall in some places and that's why some athletes can lift tremendous amounts not have any problems and other just regular people fucking strain and goddamn pop their shit out so it just but I think he'll be okay as long as he's okay for Wrestlemania what if he isn't well then they're fucked up again aren't they they could have Bron come out with his crotch in a cast and fucking Rollins come out with his god damn wouldn't he hurt last time he could be in a body cast he could be in one of those inflatable suits nobody would know anyway maybe they could have them have a feud but it's just two hooded figures he and the other guy's moves yeah put some motion capture guys in the black outfits and have Mr. Black 1 versus Mr. Black 2, and they can pretend it's each other. They're trying to get a mental advantage. I guess they might just scratch the fucking match. Well, we'll see. Have you heard anything about his recovery, Tom? I've not actually seen anything that they're predicting in terms of how long. Well, no, that's why I'm saying, you know, in my experience, you know, for a regular person, two months you'd be okay, but I don't know about even, again, except for him being 20-something years old and a genetic freak athlete, I don't know if eight weeks or whatever is enough for a surgery like that, if they called it a severe hernia. It was like, you know, as George Bunk Harris said one time, yeah, my balls are hanging down to my knees with this hernia. Well, Jesus Christ, George. I'm not saying he's Steve Austin or anything right now, but is there anything to be said for trying to keep him on TV while he's injured? Well, the problem is, for the first few weeks especially, if you do anything, the doctor told me don't drive for a week. If you have to make a sudden move and hit the fucking brakes and, you know, pop your shit, stuff like that. So he needs to be sedentary for a little while. But if they plan to get him back by WrestleMania, he's going to have to be back on TV in the next few weeks, you know, if he can, to do whatever he can. Is it the best luck you could have as a booker that if your star gets hurt, it's during an angle where it would be likely for him to be suspended based on his behavior? Is that the best case scenario? Well, you know, if that's what they were going for, at least they've got a few weeks to fucking figure out something else to do. But it is kind of a kismet, and not kismet, but karma or whatever the fuck. But also the fact that they're fighting time to get the one guy back from an injury to face this other guy that put him out, allegedly. and right as that guy's ready to come back, the other guy gets hurt and fucking he's out. No wonder I don't want to do this shit anymore. Well, that was WWE news. Well, speaking of news, while we're on the subject, we actually, I was thinking more of Braun Breaker's crotch than I was about continuity, But we should have mentioned when we were talking about the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards, the other news that Uncle Dave has been in over the past week. Dave is now a small cog, possibly a small cog lacking in cognitive function, in this overall big shit pile of a mess with Warner Brothers Discovery, Paramount, Netflix, who's going to buy this thing? and suddenly Dave jumped into it last week reporting that Brody King wasn't on the Dynamite show that we're about to talk about here in a few minutes because they were afraid that the fans would chant, Fuck Ice when they saw Brody King because they did it before and it got some mainstream attention because Brody King, all rightfully so, and kudos to him, raised money to try to combat the ICE forces taking over our cities. But guess who has to approve if Paramount and Netflix are at each other's throats trying to get a hold of WBD? Then the person who has to approve this actual monopoly violation, violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, would be the Trump administration. So Dave said they didn't want on WBD from above Tony again, these mysterious overlords. They didn't want people chanting fuck ice on their network when all this shit's going on. And so they took Brody King off Wednesday night, even though he's in the big main event coming up in Australia. That's what Dave said. Is that right, Brian? If I've summarized that correctly. I believe so. From what I understand, they did Wrestling Observer Radio. We don't have the actual audio here. But Brian Alvarez and Dave were discussing it, and they said that's why he wasn't on the show, because it does raise the question when you watch Dynamite, where's Brody King and MJF? Even if you weren't going to do anything big live, it did seem like a little bit of a small follow-up to what happened last week, which was pretty big, the world champion getting pinned. Yeah, for the world title match, main event, Big Show Australia, it might have the guys there. So that was the first report, yes. That was the first report, and it came again from higher up than Tony. And then guess what happened the next day? The report came out from higher up than Tony. Warner Brothers Discovery actually issued a statement about it and said, no, we'd have a goddamn thing to do with this. We had nothing whatsoever to do with the wrestler appearing or not appearing on the television show, and we don't have any idea of anything about this. What wrestler? We don't see a wrestler. What wrestler? We don't know what you're talking about. What wrestler? But then the problem came. David put this out, and it put his name on it. He said it. so it came out of his own chicken lips. So then, Tony, this is why I'm trying to understand who's lying here, because we know that Dave and Tony speak. We have it on tape when Tony calls Dave, and Harry met Sally. So how did Dave say that, that obviously inflamed the network enough to issue a denial to a newsletter guy's story about something they had to do with a wrestling show without hearing it from Tony? Do you see whether there's a conflict here in some fashion? No, Dave Meltzer can go right to the top of AEW to get an answer for something, via text message or via phone call. That's not the only person in AEW that Dave can get that kind of information from. Remember, the first person AEW hired, Chris Harrington, was off Dave's recommendation to Tony. So there's plenty of people there. You've got to figure if Dave said that and he tried about it and got that answer, he I mean that's the thing was Dave lied to? Did Dave's source lie to him? Or are they all covering up? Or was Dave just talking out of his ass because it sounded like it made sense to him just saying it? And it turns out Brody King apparently was on a plane but yeah. Yes! Come to find out he was already on a plane to Australia which again begs the whole question when you had people at a television taping that still had to be in Australia, you'd think your main event would be. But nevertheless, so he was flying to Australia during the time the show was taking place live. So it was completely bullshit. And WBD's statement, I will hear it. Warner Brothers Discovery did not have any involvement in Brody King's upcoming AEW schedule. Any speculation of the contrary is categorically false. And I believe Brandon Thurston was the person who went out there and actually contacted them, contacted everyone or tried to, to find out exactly what was going on. And both Warner Brothers Discovery and AEW didn't just deny it, but firmly, strongly suggested that it is suggested. They said it didn't happen. And so basically, Dave did about a half a page on, well, all these things were said at one time, instead of just coming out and saying, ah, yeah, I kind of heard that wrong or got it wrong or mea culpa, I apologize. Well, all these things were being said and felt by all these people. And by the time you got to the end of it, you forgot that he was all off on the thing. You know, they are going to have an issue. because I don't think it's going to go away. If anything, this makes it a bigger story, and it makes Brody King a bigger baby face. And that moment when him and MJF were the fans were chanting, fuck ice, my daughter came up to me and said she saw it all over TikTok. She never tells him about AEW stuff because he's on TikTok. If she sees wrestling stuff, she lets me know. She said it was all over the place, and everyone thought it was great. that opens AEW up to a whole new thing if all of a sudden you pull the guy off TV they're going to start chanting fuck ice in Australia, watch well, here's the thing Uncle Dave has because he is correct in that the last thing that Warner Brothers Discovery wants on their air right now is somebody saying fuck ice because they don't want to get the criminal henchman in chief on their bad side but the point is is that if Dave hadn't brought this up and called attention to it and not only told the false story and then not even half-assed retracted it but just caused this controversy around it, now when Brody King comes back to this country, every time they see him, they're going to chant fuck ice. And besides that, I'd asked you yesterday, I said, you think they'd chant fuck ice in Australia? But then as I've come to realize, at the Olympics or at all these international events, the United States, the national anthem gets booed. The U.S. gets a shit booed out of it, and rightfully so, by the rest of the world these days because of what's going on here. And so they're probably, but especially now the wrestling fans that have read this on the Internet, they're going to do it Saturday night. and then whenever Brody King comes back to this country, they're going to do it more and more. And then they're going to try to bleep it at WBD and who knows what. It's just, again, if I was Tony, I'd be going, thanks, Dave. Jesus Christ. But you know what? But he does have something with Brody King right now. I don't know how you take advantage of the situation because it is a political issue, quite literally. That's the thing is he's got something with Brody King, but he can't fucking – I don't know if he'd know how to fucking build on it if he tried anyway, but he can't build on it because otherwise he has to fucking piss off the company that owns his television station. It's the reason he's on the air. And they own a piece of AEW. And they own a piece of it, yeah. So even when good shit happens to him, it's somehow tied to a goddamn landmine. And Paramount has entered a new bid of $30 a share and more money to the shareholders for every so often period of time if it doesn't take place and all this other stuff. But they've all got to get congressional approval. and, hey, I don't know if you know this, but the Netflix deal, if it goes through as it appears, as it has appeared, it was going to, that was going to lead to AEW being split off, I think you said previously, with Discovery. They were going to do a whole new thing. The Paramount bid, they want to take it all, right? They would, yeah, they want to take everything and not break it up at all. They want everything. They want the streaming service. They want the television networks. They want everything. But while Netflix is not going to be good for Tony, Paramount might not be good for Tony either, because when we tried to do that forensic examination here a while back, did we realize that Paramount does just as much business with TKO as anybody else? Oh, yeah, UFC is all over CBS mornings now, yeah. So we'll see what happens. But in the meantime, fuck ice. I can say it all day long because I don't have to be on goddamn WBD when they're bought by M-O-U-S-E. Brian, you know, it's getting deep in here is what it is. It's getting mighty deep in here. All this bullshit being thrown around. As Dusty Rose would say, he'd sit there in front of the monitor at TBS Studios on Techwood Drive and the match would go south and he'd be saying, you know what people are saying right now at home, they say, when will this bullshit be over with? Well, folks, if you want to wade through a lot of deep bullshit, I got the boots for you. Brian, have you been out in the shit in your beautiful boots from Brunt lately? I've been outside. I don't want to say in the shit. I've been outside with my wonderful Brunt boots, my wonderful Brunt sweatshirt that they sent me, Wonderful Brunt products. Great boots. Were you accompanied by your wonderful Brunt? But nevertheless. Hey, now that's not nice. Folks, I'll tell you, you know, you're going to have fecal matter on the bottom of any shoes. They do tests. If you walk into somebody's house with the bottom of your shoes, there's always fecal matter on it. So just get ready for that right now. But, folks, the boots from Brunt, they can walk you through the bullshit. You can keep on walking. Because these Brunt boots are built for people that like to work in mud and muck and shit and filth and mire and swamp and quicksand and garbage. And then you can come home with your feet feeling like fresh as daisies because they're so comfortable. If you're looking for a work boot, well, the founder of Brunt, Eric Girard, grew up blue collar. And he had that blue collar because the people in the neighborhood used to tie boots around his neck. And it turned him black and blue, but he learned everything that he knew about boots from his childhood. And he created brunt after friends in the trades told him that the big brands stopped listening to the workmen. And they became fashion companies. That's why, Brian, you saw that incredible just onslaught of high-heeled work boots for about five or six years there in all the catalogs. But people were falling off the roof, ladies and gentlemen. You can't be on a high-heeled boot on a slanted roof. Well, actually, you could square yourself up if you turned in the right direction, but nevertheless, it's dangerous. Brunt boots, no nonsense. They are tough as hell but comfortable on day one. None of the sore feet. No painful break-in. No battles with stiff leather. They're comfortable right out of the box. And when it was snowing, Brian, and all icy over the last few weeks, every time I've left the house, I've been wearing my brunt boots because that way I didn't slip and break my keister. Do you know how long the recovery period is for a broken keister from a man of my age? Just take a guess. I don't know. I own the catalog of Norman keister. Well, see, when he broke his, he's never recovered. That's why you own his catalog. Folks, Brunt was tired of the workwear brands out there cutting corners. You work too hard to be stuck in uncomfortable boots that don't hold up, whether it's yard work or whether it's out trying to roof or it's out trying to pour asphalt on a driveway or it's out trying to rake leaves or it's out trying to climb the side of a skyscraper in New York to make the news on some deranged bet while you were under the influence of drugs that you made with your roommate. Whatever you're doing, you need boots that are insanely comfortable and built for any job site. And for a limited time only now, our listeners are going to get $10 off at Brunt. When you go to BruntWorkwear.com, BruntWorkwear.com, and use the promo code JCE, you're going to get $10 off, whether it's the Marin boot or the Omen boot. They got higher top. They got lower top. They got fucking steel. Don't try to put me down with a steel-toed boot. You remember when Dusty said that? What did Ole kick him in the head with? A fucking brunt boot. It wasn't a brunt boot. With a steel toe. Let's not lie. It wasn't a brunt boot, but it could have been. Well, it was the precursor of a brunt boot. It would have been a brunt boot if brunt boots had been around then, but they hadn't been in brunted yet. So instead, Ole kicked him with a ring. And that's why I only had a bad foot from that day forward, because he didn't have a steel-toed boot from brunt. All right, let's get back to reality here. You've heard of people bearing the brunt of things. Well, that's the brunt that I have to bear, ladies and gentlemen. But you don't have to bear any brunts. You can wear brunts. Because they also offer a full range of high-performance gear built for tough jobs, from heavy-duty work pants to weather-resistant jackets to industrial-powered vibrators. Any tough job you've got at home, Brunt designs durable, reliable workwear to keep you productive, protective and productive. They're going to keep you protected and productive is what they're going to do. That's right. Bruntworkwear.com. Use the code JCE, $10 off. Cover up those stinky feet of yours. Great boots. We encourage you to check them out here, whether you are the average everyday person or the Brunt Foot Inferno. Brunt. Once again, promo code JCE. Do you think if the Thunder Feet, Gene Ligon and Joel Deaton, the Thunderfoots, one and two, if they had had a loaded Brunt boot instead of just the regular old loaded wrestling boot, would they have gotten over as a main event attraction? If you have a loaded boot, why would you name yourself Thunderfoot? Aren't you giving away, like, hey, look at my boot, referee? Well, see, they didn't think that through, did they? Because, actually, you're kind of correct. There would be some indication that instead of old Joe, he might have something in his boot, but he wouldn't suspect it. But with a Thunderfoot, well, fuck, I got to look at his fucking feet. Who kicked you with that load of boot? It was him. It was Thunderfoot. Oh, of course. Once again, brunt. I guess that's the point of it. Brunt. Yes, they'll bear the brunt of this. They certainly will. All right. Well, Brian, I tell you, we've had so much fun today. We haven't talked about the wrestling program from this past Wednesday night that AEW did that is leading up to their big show in Australia. I guess we're going to talk about on the drive-thru. because since it's Australia time, well, then it'll just be just swell for the drive-through. But anyway, I don't know what the fuck they are doing. Can I just say that at the start? I have no idea who the heels are, who the baby faces are, who we're supposed to be cheering for. What the fuck is going on? I'm looking through these notes. It makes no sense to me. Would you like to take it in order piece by piece? Yeah, AEW is on a bit of a hot streak with great wrestling shows. The fans are really into them. They just came off winning a big Observer Best Wrestling TV Show of the Year. And an interesting show because they're in California, closer to Australia, yet some of the stars were already on the way to Australia. So let's talk about Dynamite. All right. Ontario, California, the backyard of the backyard cowboys. So you would think that they, you know, they at least didn't have a long trip. They open up with Tony Schiavone in the ring. He introduces Kenny Omega, the cleaner. Has the cleaner ever been explained, Brian, or is this just, we all know that Kenny was the cleaner in Japan 10 years ago. That's right. He hasn't really used that in AEW, at least not in the last few years, I don't think, has he? At least he's not coming out with a broom anymore. He actually did that. I'm not making that up. In Japan, he would come out with a fucking broom. Don't you remember? I think it was him against Moxley. He had a barbed wire broom. All right, anyway. And then he's a specialty store. and then Tony introduced Swerve and Nana and they cut a promo about the altercation they had last week. And here's my statement. This was good if it meant this was the first. If Swerve Strickland turned heel here, this was good. If Swerve didn't turn heel, then this is the stupidest thing that I've ever seen anybody do on a wrestling program. But I guess the fact that I'm still wondering if Swerve turned heel would kind of make it not good anyway, wouldn't it? Because we don't really know what we saw. Well, explain what makes you say or feel the way you do about this, that if he doesn't turn heel, it's a complete waste of time. Well, Swerve does a good job of delivering bad material. But if they're not switching him heel and they just told him to say this shit, or he came up with it on his own, five years ago you were on top. But when I got to the top, you were nowhere. You were hurt. You were suspended. So I became the new prophet, the new god of wrestling. I think, what the fuck? Kenny Swerve asked, Kenny, are you using your EVP power? Because I've already dealt with two of them already. And there are babyfaces too. The Hartley boys just switched back. So now he's saying, I have to deal with another one of you. And he told Kenny he would put him down. So, I mean, Kenny tried. He did the promo that you would do if you're a babyface being talked to by a heel. The fans gave me the name God of Wrestling. and I take the fans' beliefs as a great responsibility and I will win the title again. This was a quote, the right way. I mean, he's doing it as the douchebag that he is, that voice and no conviction and no fire, just a bland, soft mound of mush. But he was saying all the babyface shit. and meanwhile Swerve was being a heel, was he not? I think he's been acting more and more like a heel lately, yes. But also I recognize that the creative behind Swerve, which seems to at times be Swerve-driven, I guess you could say, from him and his team, doesn't always make sense. He's got a team. So then Kenny actually said, this is another quote, I've seen you, Swerve, look at me with disrespect and whispering sweet nothings in Nana's ear. I'm getting a cramp. A cramp on my side. Whispering sweet nothings in Nana's ear about it. Knocking him, right? Knocking Kenny. And so Kenny's, I want to fight right now, accept or yield. what the what does he think he's working the fucking second shift at medieval times I challenge you to a dole they're gonna joust they're gonna actually get up on the horses with the fucking things and have the joust so then Swerve told Kenny that he was scared of Swerve because my generation has lapped you how old is Swerve Strickland. Let me look that up. And how old is Kenny? Because Swerve's generation has lapped you and passed you by, and you're scared of me. This is a heel. And if there's more than four years difference, I'll kiss your ass on Broadway. Well, you don't have to do that. Kenny Omega is 42 years old. Swerve Strickland, 35. All right, well, I'm Puckering up. Pull your pants down. I'll be up there in a minute. Unless he goes back to WWE, in which case people will come out and say he's really 41. Let's go back to this. Yes. Go back to this. But all right seven years is that a generation So then Kenny said Swerve is not the guy that gives everybody the heebie What the fuck? His gimmick ought to be, he ought to have that Boy Scout gimmick that that fucking weirdo in the Carolinas used to have where he called himself the Man Scout and he dressed up in short shorts and a Boy Scout outfit. It was the creepiest thing I've ever seen. This, he's a, Kenny is a living Boy Scout. He talks like this has been written by the fucking writers of Leave It to Beaver. Golly gee, Swerve, what's Lumpy gonna say? And then Swerve offered to hospitalize Kenny and then Kenny slapped him in the face. And then Swerve said, well, oh, I forgot, Swerve took his coat off. And Kenny took his watch off, and then Swerve said, well, what happens next is on you. And then he tackled him, and they had a fake fight with girly punches where nobody was trying to actually hit each other. And I don't expect anything more from Kenny, but I thought Swerve would. And then they fought to the floor, and they fought over the rail. And the baby-faced Kenny hit the heel Swerve with a chair and a trash can. you couldn't see it in the crowd it wasn't lit they didn't have any room to fight they walk fought to the entranceway threw some more fake punches and then Kenny as you would do in any street fight tried to give Swerve the one winged fairy off the stage but Swerve somehow stabbed him in the head several times with something that nobody really saw and then tackled him off the stage and they both went through a table. And then they cut to the announcers who billboarded the rest of the show. And I don't know if we heard the rest of the show, whether any of these motherfuckers is still alive. They just got, okay, well, they've hit the ground now, folks, so tonight the girls are going to fight. So, swerve, switched heel, Kenny is a douchebag, limp fucking dicked baby face that you wouldn't want to see get even because of his blasé demeanor and the announcers once they hit the floor and completed their stunt okay nothing more to see here we'll get a spatula and we'll be right back yeah I mean you summed up pretty much anything I would say I don't think Omega did that bad here other than He'll start getting into a flow when you're with him. Which wasn't bad? Whispering sweet nothings in Nana's ear or accept or yield? See, that's what I was about to say. He gets into a flow where you're like, okay, I'm with him, I'm with him. And then he throws in something from Prince Valiant. He just throws in something like a curveball out of nowhere. It's like, ah, come on, man. He got the heebie-jeebies. He's been reading Archie comics from the 50s. Anyway, all right, I have nothing to say about the next fucking thing except it, they did it again. Dick the Boozer, Claudio, and Pac against Tegashit, Alexander, and Davis. Didn't they just do that last week, a six-man with this group and that group? Uh, no, it was Moxley, it was Wheeler, and was it Garcia or Pac? I don't remember. It wasn't Claudio. and the other side it was Rocky Romero, Lance Archer, and I think Josh Alexander. Maybe. Well, this was 15 minutes of the same shit as always, but I noticed on the finish all three of the heels beat up Moxley over and over in front of the referee who stood there and did nothing for about two minutes and they couldn't beat him. And then Claudio and Pat came in and peeled the other two heels off and Moxley just beat Alexander. So all three of them kicked the shit out of him. He just came right here. Come here. Boom. Done. What? But now Moxley's group is the baby faces, but later on is Garcia out of the group? Because isn't he still a heel? And Yuta? Yeah, I mean, they're still in the group and they're still heels. is just they're feuding with the other heels in some of the segments on the show, and then in other segments, specifically involving women, they are the heels. Moving along. For the TNT title, and this is the one everybody wanted us to talk about. Tommaso Ciampa and our friend Kyle Felcher. and this was especially by AEW standards one of the better matches they have presented on well I say on television or almost anywhere in quite a while with an exception or two but I still don't know what the fuck he's thinking they bring Tommaso Ciampa in with great fanfare surprise entrance from the WWE he confronts Mark Briscoe he has a match with Mark Briscoe and wins the title was that a week ago or two weeks ago it was one collision ago okay it was on so it was basically then he comes back fucking eight or nine days later whatever the case and wrestles Kyle and loses the belt how how did they present that to Tommaso okay we're gonna sign you to this deal great we're gonna bring you in have you challenge Mark Briscoe great we're gonna have you wrestle Mark Briscoe and beat him for the title great and in the very next match you have you're gonna lose it to another guy. What? What? They had something with Ciampa, and people were talking about him. And with his first three weeks in the company, he's won and won. He's won a belt and lost a belt already. How can they justify this in their little pea brains? I mean, again, if the whole overall thought was we want to get Kyle Fletcher to Australia, his home with a belt, why wouldn't you just have him beat Mark Briscoe and not have to beat Ciampa yet? Yeah, I can't. And that would be the best of their seven series. I can't explain it other than to say Tony Khan has, in my estimation, illogical thoughts about how wins and losses affect or don't affect how fans treat wrestlers. and it to me is not the right philosophy. I think wins and losses do matter, and it changes your perception of various wrestlers, and they don't have that thought in AEW. It was anyone can lose at any time, and it doesn't matter. But, you know, MJF and Brody King have their thing going on. What happened to Bandito? It was MJF and Bandito a few weeks ago. Now he's just gone. No one's talking about him. so there are issues with this whole everyone could lose at any time it just helps everyone it just is so stupid I liked most of this match as I said and they started with a lock up a wrestling match started with a lock up imagine that which if you go and look at this program it's a jump start in the aisle way jump start in the ring jump start in the back whatever the fuck and just a simple thing is starting a wrestling match like you start a wrestling match. Riggie Morton told me, remember when the guys in Smoky Mountain and the guys in the USWA, I was trading talent with Randy Hales and they'd do Memphis three days and do Smoky Mountain three days or whatever. 95, yeah. Riggie Morton had been on Memphis TV with who was the tag team that came. Paul used them in ECW, but was it the Eliminators that went to Memphis for a brief period of time? They did. I think it would have been maybe late 94, early 95, so that sounds about right. Whatever it was. So they're going to work with the Rock and Roll Express one day at Memphis TV, and Ricky said he was there in the back at Channel 5, and he said he was going to talk to the guys about the match. He said, okay, I'll tell you what, I'll start with you, lock up, take my head, I'll do it. He said, oh, we don't do that, the Eliminator guy. And Rigg said, you don't do what? We don't lock up. So how the fuck do you start the match then? And we just kicked somebody. Well, you're not today. But that's what these guys have taken over now. They don't even know how to start a fucking match. I guess the lockup is, that's one of those phony wrestling holes. You know that's a shoot, by the way. The collar and elbow hold is a shoot if you want it to be. That's right. Yes. Hoot Gibson would show guys, if you lock up for the collar and elbow, the referee's hold, as the guys used to call it. But if people imagine they lock up and, okay, one guy pulls the other guy into a headlock or one guy takes the other guy's arm, that's the way you start to match or whatever. But from that working collar and elbow lockup, Hoot used to show guys, you can just switch. I think was at his right arm. He can take it off the arm and put it back over on the bicep. You not only can't pull the guy into you, you can't get away. He just holds you there. You're completely immobilized by moving his hand from one position to another. Same fucking hold. Anyhow, I wish they'd have done that here. So Kyle is, again, what a prospect. But he's doing too much with the Kenny Olivier-style goofy movement shift, the pointing and the grandiose turning and running and screaming and all this. Why is he screaming? His gimmick is not El Mongo. His work looks good, the execution of it, but he's not really healing. He's doing moves back and forth to the baby face and taking moves from the baby face, but he's not really healing. And I don't know if anybody's showing him how or if they're just leaving him alone. And Tommaso kicked the shit out of Kyle for quite a while in this match and looked good doing it. But, I mean, for the break spot, Kyle stopped Ciampa on the floor. he just stopped him Ciampa was running for something and Kyle just stopped him he didn't cheat, didn't heal, didn't a little suspicious means, whatever so this was a very again a very exciting match but it didn't really establish anybody in a firm position the one thing that I didn't like was when they went to the floor again, Tommaso went for the knee lift but Kyle moved and Tommaso need the stairs and then Kyle went to pick him up and do something to him but Tommaso just got under him, picked him up and gave him the psycho driller on the stairs then if he could pick 250 pounds up why did he just knee lift the stairs and conversely they're going to continue the match another 10 minutes and he's just giving fucking Kyle his finish on the stairs and then they just roll in two count and then they start doing reversals and counters so they needed somebody to sit and explain to them why they could have built this and left that out built this a little better to make sense but they did a lot of good shit and they got a lot of two counts and I wrote for AEW this is great and they went back and forth until they were teasing the time limit because it's a 20-minute time limit. But then the finishing sequence again. Tommaso has done a pretty good job of kicking the shit out of Kyle during the match, which he should because he's the newer guy there and needs the exposure better. but then Tommaso hit a German suplex and a knee lift and got a two count and then he hit another knee lift and got a two count and then there's Kyle on his knees in front of him and Tommaso's punching him and Kyle looks up at Tommaso and spits at him and so Tommaso starts beating the shit out of him again but Kyle comes out and long darts Tommaso into the turnbuckle hits a running kick, then runs into Tommaso's kick, then Tommaso gives him a brain buster, two count. I'm like, what the fuck is going on here? And then Kyle got up saying, come on, come on. And Kyle hit him with a slam and a clothesline and a brain buster, one, two, three, and beat him. So in the last three minutes, Kyle switched baby face, and Tommaso became the fucking heel. Tommaso hit him with his shit, couldn't beat him. Then when Kyle defiantly spits at the big bully that's, it's all visual and it's subliminal. There's Kyle on his knees and the baby face is punching him and Kyle spits at him defiantly like, give me all you got. They've just switched places. And then Kyle suddenly has the oomph to long dart Tommaso into the turnbuckle and the running kick. But then Tommaso stops him again. Can't beat him with a brain buster. Kyle says, come on, come on, give me all you got. Like the defiant baby face he was. And then he got up and beat Tommaso clean with three fucking moves. One, two, three. Again, in the last three minutes, Kyle, who never healed in the match, just did moves, switched babyface, and Tommaso switched heel. And I don't think that they know that they did that or why it came off that way. Well, Tommaso was the heel. I mean, Tommaso, even though he's new in the company and he got a big pop, he went right after Mark Briscoe and beat him. Doesn't it make him the heel? Well, but then they shook hands and hugged. And remember I said, wait a minute, I thought the psycho killer was the heel. No, he's the babyface. Because he hugged the babyface he beat, and then this prick came out and said, well, fuck you, I ought to fight you. But before the match, Kyle Fletcher in the back told Don Callis he wanted to do it on his own. He didn't want his heel manager there to cause problems. That's a babyface move. Yeah, so he beat a babyface to the other babyface. That's what I'm, what the fuck? because then after the match, okay, if he told Don he didn't want a goddamn, he didn't want any help, he wanted to do it himself. Then after the match, Tommaso disappears, Rene gets in the ring, and Kyle does a promo about I did it myself, and I'm going home to Australia with the belt, and I'll receive a hero's welcome, and I'll defend against anybody. Don doesn't come in and say, hey, you prick, you know, there's no issue with Don, his heel manager. But Briscoe comes out and says Kyle deserves the belt, but he's got a big mouth and they're three and three, so number seven will be in Sydney. but Kyle again one of the jewels in the heel manager's crown stable accepts without hesitation but I want a ladder match so the heel who's going to be the baby face in his home country wants the dangerous score settling match with the fucking pure baby face Mark Brisco after he's just beating the baby-faced Tommaso Ciampa that just came into the company and won the belt from Mark Briscoe and shook and hugged hands with him afterwards. This is from week to week. Nobody knows who they're supposed to cheer and who they're supposed to boo. And that's why everything is gibberish. I don't know how they sold this to Tommaso Ciampa. I don't know why the fuck they can't think out farther than two weeks when they have a big show in Australia to put the card together without this. It's just foolishness. And that's why everybody's a heel. Almost nobody's a baby face except for the people that get the shit kicked out of them all the time. and then all the heels are mad at each other and all the babyfaces are trying to cut each other's nuts off. I've given myself a headache. Just say anything. Well, again, I don't know what they're doing with Tommaso Ciampa. It seemed like a great opportunity. They brought him in. I thought they should have had the TNT title match, even though it's not TNT, it's TBS on Dynamite. Get a bigger audience, have a big match. He wins the title. Immediately loses it. And then after the match, the guy he beat challenges the other guy for the belt. They should just keep this going. Have Briscoe beat Fletcher in Australia. Then have Ciampa beat Briscoe when they come back. And then Fletcher could beat Ciampa again. Just keep going in a loop. I don't know why they're doing this. They've been teasing the babyface Fletcher stuff for a while. got screwed over with the screwdriver that wasn't there at the pay-per-view which Okada the heel apologized for yeah I can't as I talk about it I realize it's a bunch of apologetic heels too isn't it? Well when I think about everyone's role as I'm saying it out loud it's ridiculous yeah he's the star of the heel stable and he's the biggest baby face in the heel stable alright That was a TNT title change. Kyle Fletcher goes home a champion. He certainly does. But you know what he ought to go home and do, Brian? Sunbathe. Start a goddamn business. Because I don't know if wrestling is for him at this point. I don't know whether this is a long-term solution. He's got to have something to fall back on. Just like all of us, we've got to have something to fall back on. And now this could be the start of a Helix Sleep Mattress commercial, but it also could mean that you need to fall back financially on your hopes and your dreams and your aspirations and your perspiration. And you can't do it alone, folks. You need somebody to do it with you, and that's why our friends at Shopify are around. There it is. because, folks, once again, Shopify, the e-commerce platform behind 10% of all the business in the United States, household names use it. You can use millions of businesses around the world. They're global in their scope and their reach, and they can help you from asshole to appetite, from A to Z, from one thing to another, with all of the various facets you're going to need for your business to succeed. They're going to be on your side from designing it to implementing it to managing it to reaping the awards after. You know, if you win business of the year, Shopify is going to come and take that plaque. I'm just warning you right now. Every time that we win business of the year, they come and they steal our plaque because they say, well, we did this for you. This is ridiculous. We haven't. They won't. You won't. Well, but you don't, you will if I won't. But I don't know about you. They can help everyone out there. They are our friends. They are Shopify. Watch that kid, that fucking kid. Ride in the street, kid, not on the sidewalk. Shopify is always around to share advice with their award-winning 24-7 customer support. If you need advice, they're there for you. They can answer all kinds of questions from ways that you can cook lima beans. About your products, about your website, about your store, those are the questions they can answer. If your idea is to sell generic Viagra, they're going to have to talk to you about erectile dysfunction at some point. But it's up to you, folks. Whatever you want to do, they'll help you do it if it's legal and also if they figure that you won't get put in jail. Of course, now some of the advanced programs. Again, let's just stop where we are and let's get back to commerce and business. A lot of the listeners have their own businesses or may want to start one. You need the right partner online. We trust Shopify. We're yelling again. We trust Shopify. The purple ShopPay button. You just finger that button and you're making money. And where else can you make this much money for fingering a button outside of Las Vegas? Ladies and gentlemen, the purple ShopPay button. every time somebody punches that, that means that, boy, cha-ching, you made money. And if you can figure out a way to wire your business up to everybody's purple button, then you'd make a fortune if Shopify ever even knew what was happening. No, that would be illegal, so let's not encourage that. But let's talk about honest business. You need the right partner, as we said before. Shopify. Marketing teams. Yes. People to tell people about people. because people who tell people about people are the fucking talkiest people in the world. And that's the way people hear about your various services and programs. And if you want a nonprofit, don't go to Shopify because they'll make you make a profit. Even if you don't want to make any money, if you're just trying to launder some cash from Bolivia. No. That's a non-can't a vanity project. They don't care. They're going to make money one way or the other. That's not the example. You are forced to make money with these people. You can do what you want to do. They are there to help you however you want. That's the great thing about Shopify. Again, we can say that from our experience. Well, they're not going to help you lose money. If you go to them and say, I want you to help me lose money, they're just going to turn you down. That is against their credo and gym, whether it's credo or whether it's Frodo. Frodo. What does Frodo have to do with any of this? That's the closest to credo that I can think of. All right, Jim, Rocky Balboa and Apollo Prito. Whether it's any of those things. Yes. Whether it's the Dodo Bird or the Kobo Arena or Bobo Brazil, folks, if you go to Shopify. What are extinct things, Alex? Yes. Well, for 500, go to Shopify.com slash JCE and sign up right now for their $1 a month trial period where they can show you their button. and it's purple, and they can show you how to make money and what they're going to do for you, and then that kid's going to run by with the bicycle and throw the newspaper at you, and he's going to miss the front porch but land in the shrubs somewhere. Go to Shopify.com slash JCE. That's a $1 a month trial period, and if you're found innocent, then the price goes up. $1 a month trial period, Shopify.com slash JCE. Of course, if you're found guilty, you'll probably go to fucking jail. All right, Jim, let's go back to the pro wrestling jail known as AEW Dynamite. Well, I just thought I should ask you before we finish this Dynamite up, what's going on in the Arcadian Vanguard world this week? That's a good idea right now. To speak about it. It's a safe shot every time. All right. Well, this week, another fine week of programming on the Arcadian Vanguard Podcast Network. The Podcast Network, ladies and gentlemen, on Twitter at Super Podcasts, and on Facebook at Facebook.com, slash Arcadian Vanguard. Each and every day, get The Wrestling News. Wherever you find your favorite podcast, The Wrestling News, TheWrestlingNews.com. No clickbait, no paywall. I'm out of breath. I'm yelling again. Just The Wrestling News. Oh, that's all you're getting. Shut up and wrestle with Brian Solomon. The NWA Champions Series continues with a look at Gene Koniski with his guest Steve Verrier, the author of the biography of Gene Koniski. Check that out, suawpod.com, wherever you find your favorite podcast. Hey, look at the WWF 40 years ago in 1986, mcadampod.com. Stick to wrestling with John McAdam. And, of course, the 605 Super Podcast, The Mothership. I'm losing my voice in the middle of this spot. Go through the archives, 605pod.com. And thank you to everyone that has been going through the archive lately. A recent burst of listeners, The Mothership. A burst of listeners. Hey, you brought up, you know, these Fucocca erectile dysfunction pills. There's a commercial for one on MeTV. I swear to God, it's like A.I. LeVar Burton. You only hear the voice. You don't see him, but it doesn't sound real, and it sounds like, whose voice do they trust? LeVar Burton, let's replicate that and kind of use it. It sounds just like LeVar Burton. How would you have just memorized LeVar Burton's voice? I haven't heard LeVar Burton speak in 30 years. He was on Reading Rainbow. Reading Rainbow? That's right. Take a look in a book. Reading Rainbow. You could do anything. I learned from Dick and Jane. Reading Rainbow. The problem with Reading Rainbow was it was on the same time as Global on ESPN. He couldn't watch too much of it. Jim, back to the modern day Global. I just remember when Dick would see Jane run. And run, Jane, run, because that's why they called him Dick. Anyway, back to the show. So we had Danny Garcia and his partner Chuck Connors against Pockets and Roderick Strong. And Garcia is, of course, as far as we know, still a member of the fucking group. but now he's on his own with this guy that just showed up that we've never seen before and Pockets unfortunately is still there and he's teamed up with Roderick Strong who last we saw was a babyface of some description teaming up with Briscoe and Pockets and that whole fucking group, right? But Roddy was not happy with Pockets from the start of this. Did Sockface explain anything that I may have missed because I didn't care? Oh, I may have missed it if he said it because I don't care about it. I hate him on commentary. But remember, a little while back, they were teasing in the promos that, like, everyone in the conglomeration were kind of on the same page except him. I don't know if there's anything. Maybe he watches their segments. If that's made him hate them. I really don't know. Well, but here's the most underneath of the underneath talent in the company. Six years later, this little prick is still playing pocket pool with himself. Roddy refused to tag him and walked out. So Garcia, who's a babyface with the Moxley group, and Connors, who's a question mark because we've never seen him really before, two-on-one kicked the shit out of the babyface pockets. even though he was still doing some pretend wrestling. And then Darby came out and tackled Chuck Connors, who, as you'll recall, the first time we saw him last week is when he was dragging Darby through the desert in the body bag. And then Pockets beat Garcia. And then they played music. and Tony Storm and her fat fuck butler were in the bleachers. And Tony Storm did the promo about shaving Marina Schaefer's head because apparently in Australia, it's Tony Storm and Pockets against Wheeler Useless and Marina Schaefer and whoever loses the fall gets their head shaved. It's not looking good for poor Wheeler. but then as she was cutting her promo with all of her stormisms she was interrupted by Wheeler on the microphone in the entranceway who called their attention to Schaefer dragging Mina Melons out with her face in Marina's tits with her submission hold the boobage claw and Garcia from the backside jumped on pockets and then Wheeler on the stage took a pair of scissors and cut Nina's ponytail off. And this was some Ian Rotten level indie fucking bullshit right here. Just, I am embarrassed that poor Roderick Strong to get a check has to be involved with these children. and yeah they put this on television instead of anything related to MJF and Brody King because Tony Storm is a big deal in Australia so they put her in a garbage match with preliminary talent and somebody's going to get their head shaved it better be Wheeler although I'd love to see pockets bald he couldn't look anymore like a dick if he tried except to shave his head watch it be Tony Storm wouldn't that be something I am sick of Tony Storm I'm so sick of Tony Storm and it's not even just her and Pockets doing their square dance every week now it's this whole universe of nonsense if this was in WWE every one of these fans would be killing it even if you like old films I don't give a shit it was cute for a while now all this is happening. So help me explain. The woman who thinks she's in a black and white film, and coincidentally enough, everything with her turns black and white, her girlfriend, because we're supposed to think they're lovers, was kidnapped by Wheeler Yuta and Marina Shafir, and then they just cut her hair, and then Wheeler Yuta did a promo on the girl. What is all of this? It's terrible. And they've been playing with this whole fucking mixed division. The idea they're going to have mixed champions at some point. Oh, Christ. But yeah, I'm sick of Tony Storm. I know just some people, they love it in the way that you love wrestling silliness, in the way that you would love an Orange Cassidy or a Grizzly Redwood, you know, just a fucking pro wrestling silliness. I've never loved any of those people. Well, you know what I mean? It's just the ironic wrestling fan, whatever. She was over, but then they've just buried the whole thing, and now it's just, it's all a joke with underneath talent all around her. I hope she gets pinned. I would like to see her get her head shaved, actually, at this point. Maybe that'll kill this. Speaking of killing things, up next was a three-way tag team match, and I'm sure somebody got something out of it. But we talk about patterns and habits they need to break, and the same shit over and over. Here was the Hardley Boys against the three remaining Rascals against the wildcard team that turned out to be private party, wherever they've been. They're back now. And they do another 15 minutes of every indie wrestling fan's wet dream with just cartwheels and roundoffs and et cetera. Rick Knox was the referee. He completed the whole picture. He was the only one in the ring who wouldn't get carted at a bar, and he's the worst performer of the bunch. and so after the same thing that they always did and more of it, I don't really, I didn't write down who won. Who won? Who won? I think it was the Bucs. Well, and now they're the number one contenders for FTR, because then FTR came out to confront them. That's right. They won the pony, and then FTR comes out, and Stokely is in the wheelchair, and now he acts like he can't even roll the wheelchair. And they super kicked FTR. It looked like they potatoed Dax with the microphone in the face. And then went down and fucking menaced Stokely and threatened to super kick him and gave him the belts back. They've got to do something because they're a big deal in the company in Tony's mind and on paperwork, but they don't draw and they are way past tired. So they get in these matches on TV where they can play with all their friends, the kids that are similar size, and then they're allegedly babyfaces and FTR's allegedly heels. Now are they going to win the belts back at the big show in Australia? How much deader can the world tag team title be in this company? At least we looked forward to FTR and the buckaroos just because we still liked FTR three years ago, and they made the kids somewhat palatable, but now it's just gaga. We got to see some classic Matt Jackson power man moves. He supports both guys at once at one point. What do you think of the big babyface turn of the bucks? The idea that we're babyfaces because we're going to just dress the way we used to. We're going to wear tassels again. You know what that means. We're going to have the same matches that we had as heels with the same referee who doesn't do anything. But now with tassels, they already had the shit made. They just had to go to the closet. But, I mean, they weren't good heels, effective heels, difference-making heels. Weren't really heels. They just pretended to be bad guy wrestlers. Like now that they're babyfaces again, they pretend to be good guy wrestlers. You don't believe anything they say. There's always a wink. They're obviously disinterested. disinterested, if they're really trying to do this, then that's a whole different problem. I think they're just walking through this to get Tony's money. But they can't allow themselves to not be featured in some kind of way. So when they come back in, they do the same thing on TV with their friends, and then eventually they'll win the tag team belts on a big show. That's what always happens. From FTR. From FTR. Yeah, just to make sure. I'm sure they still take it personal from, what was it, 10 years ago when people started saying, well, Jesus Christ, these fucking bucks, these children against these guys, and they've never forgot. You know what I just saw the other day? Matt Jackson, Matt Massey, 41 years old. I didn't realize he was that old already. Why do you think all his hair is abandoning shit? No, no, this is Pie Face Buck, the smaller buck. No, they're both going now. I didn't even know this. been for a while. Yeah, they're both going now. Anyway, speaking of going, I'm about to go because the main event was the women's title match in a strap match between Chris Statlander and Feckla. And Brian will talk about the fallout or the consequences of this match, but thankfully, I didn't see it because it started after the 10 o'clock overrun had started and I forgot to fucking record Impractical Jokers. So, I didn't have to sit through this, but I understand from Twitter they had a bunch of blood and it's just another nice gory girls match to please the kiddies. And then, now they put the belt on Thecla. after Statlander was the one who ended the monolithic reign of Mercedes Moon so that she could disappear and take some time off. You think she's lost in the forest again? Her team can't get her out of the woods again? She's got a beast mortos on her team. I'm sure she can get her way out of the woods. She probably just stepped in some bullshit on the way. But nevertheless, so Thekla, now the new women's champion, in another bloody women's match, so that doesn't have any impact or meaning at all anymore. How many belts are they going to switch on free TV before their big show? Yeah, what do you think of that? What do you think of the idea that the TNT title change was a pretty big surprise? Even if you thought maybe they'll do something with Tekla, because they're building her up in her creepy little sable of wannabe Manson girls or whatever their little act is where they dispassionately cut promos like they're not cutting promos, even if you thought that could happen did anyone think that I don't know I guess maybe they could have just because Australia is coming up but I didn't think they were going to beat Ciampa right away so you got two title changes on this one episode right before the big episode of Collision I think it's the biggest collision of the year the Grand Slam show in Australia what do you think they're hoping that they're going to do a good number because since the The Nielsen folks adjusted their numbers a couple of weeks ago, going back from the big data plus panel plus big dick up your keister technology they've been using. Now the wrestling numbers are back up, so they will convince themselves when they do 400,000 instead of 250,000 that, oh, shit, we hit a home run here. and all the wrestling shows we didn't even cover this last week I forgot to mention it but since they have again the CW network specifically complained because a lot of their shows are being underrepresented and especially NXT and so Nielsen has adjusted their methodology again and the wrestling shows not just AEW not just WWE whatever saw another increase. So dynamite is back to where it was before, or give or take, 600,000 or whatever. And that's what Uncle Dave is predicating. Oh, but they've made a turnaround. You can see there's really interest in this rebounding company. No, they just changed the goddamn length of the ruler again. am I missing something here? No, it's not just AEW, like you said it's affected WWE positively this change, TNA all of a sudden has a couple hundred thousand viewers after that disaster of a debut, I heard from someone who would know that Lenny Asper himself saw that debut and called up and said, what the fuck is going on? The concern went to the top about the state of that company after that show but everyone's ratings are up But again, it makes you question the legitimacy or reasoning behind the ratings. If it's just, okay, these people are complaining, we'll just adjust this thing that we just adjusted. Yeah. How? How does that work to make it more realistic? You added an extra quarter of a person per household? How did it work? And we've known all along that the ratings are inherently somewhat bullshit and always have been unless you went door to door and counted what everybody was watching at that specific moment, right? It's always been a mathematical extrapolation of data, blah, blah, blah, and where there was less room for error like in local ratings information, which I was familiar with in Smoky Mountain and in OVW. You know, you could have these wide variations, but it has been fairly consistent in modern years on the national basis with the method they were using. And suddenly they said, oh, we're going to do something different. It'll be better. And wrestling got kicked in the balls. So then they get complaints. Oh, we're going to refigure the way we do this. It's the same thing it was six weeks ago. it's all horse shit speaking of horse shit they got a new women's champion give us back our quarter hours god damn it give us back our fun give us back the quarter hours Nielsen you son of a bitch hey how do you know anything about Nielsen's mother alright well that was the TNA debacle for this week and I said at the top of the program We were going to get back into the TNA impact reports, but we had so much lengthy fun with the Observer Awards that I don't want to give TNA short shrift this week. So I think we should start on the drive-thru where we're fresh and can impart more information to the assembled listeners. In other words, we've gone too long today. We're going to do it next time. Fuck it. We'll do it live. How about that, Brian? You don't want to short shrift the TNA story because their owners and former owners have done a good job of short shrifting. I can't speak. God damn it. We'll be on the drive-thru in a few days. If you would like to shift your shrift over to the shit, then we will shift shitty shrifting next week with cocktail shrimp. on the... Oh, fuck. All right. Yeah, see, we're back already. We're not taking this seriously. We're having too much fun. Are you sucking some kind of liquid through a straw over there? What was that noise? I don't know. There's lots of noise. The big collision will be talked about on the drive-thru as well as TNA and who knows what else by then. And until we see you and hear from you and speak to you again, thank you, fuck you, and bye-bye, everybody.