Episode 622: The Old Stuff Was Better Than The New Stuff

Like a midnight and a rock and roll, he's in a fight for wrestling soul, using a racket and some mind control, he's Jim Cornett. Look, he's to the future, hell by the path, down with tag team partner for Ryan Last. He sends this message out by podcast, he's Jim Cornett. Well, he's never faced a pony. He never backed down from a fight. He never wins a pony. Because his mama raised him right. It's a lie to the end. One, three, four, five, five. Get the experience, get the experience, get the experience of Jim Cornette. Hello again everybody and welcome to another exciting episode of the Jim Cornette Experience. I'm feeling like I've got a little gas, but it may just be the wrestling. Today, if nothing else, we're going to prove the old stuff was better than the new stuff and have fun doing it. And joining me, Ho Lion Brian, the podcasting lion, the king of the Arcadian Vanguard Podcast Network, Mr. Co-host to you. He's the co-host for the ages, no matter what age group he's in, the great Brian Last. Aloha, Jim. A pleasure to be here once again. Sounds like you were goosed with a harmonica. Maybe a little bit. Well, hello. Sadie. Big boy. Watch out. Well, welcome to the show. I'm welcoming you to your show. It's great to be here. How are you doing today, Jim? It's like when you go into people's houses, do you say welcome? Welcome. It throws them off. They don't know what to expect. No one expects you to walk into their house and go, welcome. All right. You said you didn't want to laugh today. Hey, you said right before we went on a program, because you're just a touch croupy today. It's all this crazy weather. Are you still sub-zero? You're freezing up there? No, it's damp and rainy, and it's about 40 degrees, and there's still snow on the ground, so it's melting everywhere. There's a giant fucking lake in the driveway right now. Yes, that's what it's all. And can you imagine all of the bacteria and fungus that all of that wetness and moistness and fetidness is breeding all over the place? No wonder. But you say, I'm okay except when I laugh. And then I might start coughing, and then you just turn right around and you just make funny all at the top of the program. You misrepresented yourself. I think you're fine. I'm not laughing. Well, you will be and like it, fella. And, you know, I had to go someplace this morning. I went to see my accountant because we are under eight weeks away from the most miserable day of the year, April 15th, the tax day. And I had to take some stuff over there. And I was thinking on the way over there of something. And when I got there, I asked her a question she has never been asked before. and Brian you being a financial guru up there with the J.P. Morgans and the fucking Claude Pierpont DuPont's and all the other fucking highfalutin financiers of days gone by what do you this is a hypothetical question but I said because I've always paid the taxes that I'm supposed to pay I've tried to get professional people that total my tab up as cheaply as possible. And over 45 years, I've been late a few times, but I've always paid the tax that I'm supposed to fucking pay, both to be a patriotic American and to stay out of fucking jail. That's basically the two motives for paying your taxes, right, is to be a patriotic citizen and stay out of fucking jail. I think just stay out of jail and have the IRS leave you alone. That's the big motivator. Well, but it's a good thing that you can claim to be a patriotic American while you're still trying to stay the fuck out of jail. That's one of the perks. But anyway, nevertheless, it's a two for one. It's a two for one. But I said I've been late a few times, but I've always tried to pay. And I said, what would happen? This is the question. What would happen if 80 million people all at the same time said we ain't going to pay another goddamn penny in federal taxes until somebody hauls Donald Trump and his entire administration out of there in handcuffs and puts them in Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary somewhere? And what would happen? And she, of course, she said, well, that will never happen. I said, I know it will never happen. It's the same reason the wrestlers didn't get unionized, right? It's the same reason nobody will stick together on anything. That's been proven. But that's the beauty of a hypothetical question, is even though it can never happen, what if it did? And I started thinking of all the way they would have to hire 15 or 20 million new IRS agents to chase down those 80 million people. And then you'd have people trying to enforce the agents to go against their next door neighbor and or their wife or fucking in-laws or cousins, family, whatever the fuck. it would take who knows the mathematicians Carl Sagan could figure this out 7,000 years for all of those people to be taken to court and tried and convicted and garnished and decapitated in the town square or sent to the guard house can you imagine the chaos that would happen but by the time here's the thing and then what would the odds be? You've got to figure, well, if they're going to catch one in 80 million, they're going to catch me. And I might not live that long. And then the older people would be like, well, that's a pretty good fucking bet. I mean, can you see all the possibilities here, Brian? This is a brilliant strategy right before tax season to openly opine about being a tax cheat. I've never even thought about being this ballsy and doing this. No, I'm not advocating anybody cheat. No, tell them flat out all at the same time, 80 million people stick your heads out the goddamn window and scream, I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to pay it anymore until Trump and the whole administration goes to prison in handcuffs. And don't cheat, just don't pay. I remember when I was a teenager, I heard about this guy that refused to pay taxes, whatever it was that he claimed. He's a sovereign citizen or whatever it was. He refused to pay taxes, and the IRS went after him. And somehow it got to court. And he, in incredible detail, apparently laid out where the tax dollars are going. And when you actually lay it out and have a chance to, it's ridiculous. And apparently the judge was kind of taking his side, and then the story goes, the guy vanished, and no one ever saw him again. Oh. Yeah. See, so nobody's tested the precedent. But I'm not talking about one guy with a brilliant legal strategy. I'm talking about 80 million people all the same. Because think of a country of 350 million people. And that includes babies in the cradle all the way up to senior citizens on the resuscitator over at the resting place. And everybody in between. So, again, you've got to figure. That there would be, it would have to be one agent for every one person practically. They would, the IRS would have to hire everybody that wasn't fucking not paying their taxes to go find the people that were paying their taxes. Or that were, you see what I'm saying here. It'd be one and one, just like it is in a presidential election. I rest my case now what but again the possibilities it might take how many and then you'd have to hire new judges and they'd have to wait till new lawyers graduated from fucking school there wouldn't be enough lawyers are there no prisons are there no work houses are there no god damn lawyers and agents to press the case lawyers to take the case and judges to adjudicate the case that people who were in their fucking 30s would not live long enough to be fined the interest and penalties see the power of hey why don't you start it you should start it make an open declaration that you're going to do and encourage other people to follow you and some of us will sit back and watch what happens no that's what I'm saying there's the fly in the ointment there pal Everybody else would be like, you go first. Like in the old days when there was only one shot to the fucking rifle in the Civil War, and they just walked toward each other like dumb shits. Well, shit, I'm in the first row, so chances are I ain't going to make it. What the fuck was that anyway? But boom. See, it's got to be instantaneous. This thing has to be, it's like a switch being flipped or it don't work. Everybody's got to be in on it or nobody. And the people in the front row, if the other people get the limber tail, boom goes the dynamite. I think you just hit on a great future segment as Jim Cornette reviews past war strategies. Well, I mean, seriously, in all seriousness, they could figure out a better way to do that? you've seen the fucking historical recreations on history channel of these where they've got a gun that fires one fucking shot and they're just walking toward each other what the fuck is that i'd hide behind a rock and pick a son of a bitch off if you tried to cross the county line i've had a rock how big is this rock well big as it has to be i had my big ass what if they're They're the rocks. What if you're in an open field? That's the problem. They're all marching toward each other with drummers in an open field. That is the first rule of war. Don't get caught in an open field. Would you bring a drummer? No, I'd bring another fucking gun. Actually, I'd bring three more guns and tell the drummer to drop his drum and take the two guns. All right. Well, again, if I could figure out a way to hold a gun with my foot, I would bring three guns. You see where I'm going with it? More guns, less drums. All right. I don't know where we're going from here. This is such a fascinating discussion. I can go so many ways. Well, hey, we can go one way or we can go the other way. But why don't we stick with the topic of high finance and politics and governmental events and check in with the news on our poor friend and former prince, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor-Fabbersham. He's in a pickle now. He's in hot water. They have arrested and hauled him off and booked him and put him in apparently a car with an electric shock butt plug up his I don't know what's going on. Do you have the news on what he's been charged with serious crimes here? All right, before we get to the crimes and what he's been charged with and everything else we know about this, let's discuss the photos that you brought it up. With the butt plug. All day we hear that he's in jail, that he's been arrested, or I don't know if jail's the word. He's been arrested. They took him in and booked him and et cetera, and then, you know, he's on bond or whatever the fuck they call it over there. And, of course, they invented the paparazzi practically over there in England, so they're all just waiting for him to come out. And they get this photo of him in the backseat of a car, and it's almost like he's a Terminator. He's got one red eye. He's got one eye that's just, like, drooping, and he looks miserable. But, no, he looks like he's also, like, he's scared to death of what he's, like, he's seeing alien beings for the first time in front of him. Also, while he's getting an electric charge up of his fucking sphincter, he's almost screaming in a British accent. I'm screaming, and I don't know why, because there's a butt plug in my ass shocking me. Well, let's get to what happened. He looked deranged. Go ahead. He looked crazy there. I have an article here from the AP. Former Prince Andrew arrested and held for hours on suspicion of misconduct over ties to Epstein. London by Danica Kirka. The former Prince Andrew was arrested and held for hours by British police Thursday on suspicion of misconduct in public office related to his links to Jeffrey Epstein. an extraordinary move in a country where authorities once sought to shield the royal family from embarrassment. It was the first time in nearly four centuries that a senior British royal was placed under arrest, and it underscored how deference to the monarchy has eroded in recent years. Wait a minute, that would be 1626 if we're just going for an even 400. King Charles III, whose late mother lived by the motto, never complain, never explain, took the unusual step of issuing a statement on the arrest of his brother, complaining and explaining, now known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. Here's the king. Let me state clearly, the law must take its course. As this process continues, it would not be right for me to comment further on this matter. The Thames Valley Police Force said Mountbatten, Windsor was released Thursday evening, about 11 hours after he was detained at his home in eastern England. He was photographed in a car leaving the station. Police said he was released under investigation, meaning he has neither been charged nor exonerated. The police force, which covers areas west of London, including Mountbatten-Windsor's former home, said Thursday that a man in his 60s from Norfolk had been arrested and was in custody. Police did not identify the suspect in line with standard procedures in Britain. Mountbatten-Windsor, 66, moved to the king's private estate in Norfolk after he was evicted from his longtime home near Windsor Castle earlier this month. Let me stop here for a moment. Any initial thoughts? Well, so apparently they let him go because he's under investigation. He didn't have to post any bond. He hadn't been charged yet, but they brought him in to basically say, explain yourself. And it's public now, so it's not like apparently they're going to take this step unless they're pretty sure they're going to go further. Since they haven't done it in 400 fucking years. But the misconduct in public office, that's the charge, right? Do you know the penalty for that in England? I did see. Apparently? Yeah. Up to life in prison. They don't get a parking ticket over here, do they? Misconduct in public office. You get a show. You get a podcast. Yeah, they get a TV show or a fucking podcast. They get on Fox News or whatever the fuck. But the charge that I saw, and maybe there's some detail to this forthcoming here in this article, was not that he was accused of sexual improprieties in conjunction with Jeffrey Epstein, but that he potentially gave Jeffrey Epstein confidential government documents? What the fuck is going on here? Well, he was the trade envoy. He was the trade envoy on behalf of Great Britain, going around the world and meeting with foreign leaders and discussing things related to the economy, I would assume, and trade in England. and then he relayed that information. What was he trading with for fucking Jeffrey Epstein? What was he getting back? Well, that's something I guess we still have to find out. But it's amazing how he's being held more accountable right now. The former prince is being held more accountable than anyone in America. Bill Gates had to cancel his speaking engagement. That's it. This is such a fucking horrifying thought to these people over there that they are breaking with 400 years of tradition to haul this guy in. And over here, we can't be bothered just to goddamn stop by their office and have a few minutes of their time for a Q&A. But nevertheless, go ahead. Well, this is a very, very long article, so I don't know how much more of this. Well, where does it get to the part where it's the confidential? But also there's a picture of him, him, too many pronouns, pal. There's a picture of Andrew Windsor Mountbatten of Foxborough in the Jeffrey Epstein files, straddling a prone young lady whose face has been redacted. And all this other fucking ha-ha. What was, was he exchanging secrets for secrets? I don't know. I think when you're a pervert, when you're an international pervert, you probably look for other international rich perverts that kind of see it your way, I guess, or at least will indulge in what you, whatever it is. Is that a new goddamn line of work now for the 21st century? I've never heard of an international pervert before. This is apparently a blossoming industry. That's the thing with Jeffrey Epstein. How the fuck? They've hauled this billionaire from Ohio in for questioning on how he helped Jeffrey Epstein get some of this fucking money. financed them. But Jeffrey Epstein was a billionaire too. How does a billionaire finance a fucking billionaire? If the billionaire financed a billionaire and he didn't get some more billions from somewhere else, then that billionaire wouldn't be a billionaire. Was he a billionaire? Was Epstein a billionaire or was he living a billionaire's lifestyle on this guy's dime? Are you saying he was Jim Barnetting the situation? Why not? It wasn't his house. I mean, he had one of the most most expensive or one of the biggest private residences in Manhattan, right off Central Park. It wasn't his house. I think Wexner was paying for the house. Jesus. So right there, I mean, that's a big, you know, chip right off the billionaire's block. Right, that chip off the old fucking block of New York City real estate. But how do these fucking people have the time and the energy and the dedication to go this far into this labyrinthian fucking scheme to get laid three times a fucking day? What the fuck? I don't, I cannot understand these fucking people on a variety of levels. you know the interesting thing too is what would have happened if i mean again she would be really old now but if queen elizabeth hadn't died how different would all this be playing out because obviously king charles right away got rid of his brother right away and they say that his kid william doesn't think too much more of his uncle either so the queen was the one clearly protecting him and keeping him around. It's not like it's news to them that he's a fucking oddball. Oh yeah, that's the thing. He's been doing this under their noses for all these years. They're bound to know exactly, if not exactly what, the gist of what all he's been a fuck-up for so long. And then... But just the point is, at least... Here's one thing, and then I will turn it back to you. At least they hold their people accountable no matter who their people are. Well, again, let's see where it goes. They just arrested them and released them. Let's see what happens next. But you asked about this earlier. I have something here from the New York Times. The last royal to be detained by the authorities, King Charles I was tried and executed for treason in the 17th century after being defeated in the English Civil War almost 380 years ago. Jesus Christ. Well, but at least there's precedent. Oh, well, actually other members of the royal family since then have been symbolically shunned or have minor brushes with the law. Princess Anne, in 2002, became the first member of the royal family at modern times to be convicted of an offense after her dog attacked two children. But she was not taken into custody. well and that's actually I don't think it impugns I don't know anything else about her so I don't know whether she's a goodin or a badin as Aunt Lola would say but I don't think that impugns her character that incident but that's another thing and then we'll move along to other people of questionable character but I again see on Twitter or you see people on the various news channels being interviewed. Well, so-and-so, you know, if they had done this or done that, well, these people wouldn't want them to be penalized. No, I have no problem with anybody, Democrat or Republican, if suddenly the irrefutable evidence came in front of our eyes that they had been diddling kids or selling secrets to the enemy or whatever the fucking case is. I would have no problem with saying off with their heads. But I just don't understand what our American problem is with just admitting, hey, you got suckered, folks. You got took a little bit. Just admit it and back away. Back away from the rotting, festering criminal so that we can apprehend him. Would you like to talk about more rotting, festering criminals, Brian? Oh, I don't know. What else is on the agenda? Well, the folks over at Powertown are apparently having troubles because their power is down at Powertown on at least their customer support email is apparently now being bounced back and there have been multiple disgruntled purchasers of pre-orders of figures that don't exist, haven't come, whatever, that are contacting Stephen P. New to see if he might be interested in representing them in a class action suit. How did it go so wrong, Greg? But, I mean, this is, has anybody from their side said anything about this since their side quit saying anything about this? No. Since the time where they didn't really say anything other than MagnumTA threatening to take his ball and go home, or that he was going to beat people up like that's going to fucking happen, we haven't heard anything. We haven't heard anything. and when I say we, the people buying wrestling collectibles and wrestling figures haven't. The talent, the talent have no idea what's going on, whether it's current talent or legends of wrestling who, depending on how you see it, have either been ripped off or just lied to. And there's plenty of Powertown t-shirts on sale on various websites with legends of wrestling. I don't think anyone should purchase those. Wait a minute. So they're, oh, hold on here. Don't let me distract you, but I may find something else to complain about them. In the contract, remember, I saw one of their contracts. They tried to get poor Stan Lane to sign, and he would have lost out on tens of thousands of dollars. And when I had the talk with Greg on the phone, that they were going to try to market these guys in other ways in addition to figures. But you're mean to tell me that not only are they taking money for figures of guys that the fucking people ain't never got their figures and the guys ain't never got their money, but now they're selling T-shirts of some of these guys? If I go to one website, for instance, 80stees.com, this is a site that I believe gets licenses from various things, so you can get T-shirts of your favorite cartoon character or whatever it may be. Here are some of the Power Town shirts. Dick the Bruiser, Kerry Von Erick, Stan Hansen, The Crusher, Rock and Roll Express. Oh! 30% off. Rock and Roll Express. Ha! Dick the Bruiser and The Crusher as a team. Von Erick, Iron Claw, two more, three more Kerry Von Ericks, four more Kerry Von Ericks, Mad Dog Michonne, Ken Petera, Haystack Calhoun, Tito Santana, another Tito, Bruiser Brody, another Tito, Ivan Koloff, Leaping Lenny, Tony Atlas, and Adrian Adonis. So there are some estates and some wrestlers that need to ask, why are you guys distributing anything with me? Well, but even, here's the problem. Even if they were an up-and-going concern, Powertown, USA Limited, Intercontinental, whatever the fuck, Powertown, if they were an up-and-going concern, that was actively paying royalties by the time, because remember I saw one of the contracts, I talked to Greg, and I heard about these percentages, and we examined what they would have had to have sold, what, $2 million worth of Stan Lane and Steve Kern fabulous ones figures for Stan to have made, what, $20,000 or whatever the math was. In addition to that, now they're taking another step. They're not just selling it directly. They're going through 80s t-shirt, whatever the fuck. So by the time that they take their cut for being involved by, I assume, printing it and fulfilling it, and they've gotten a license from Powertown who they're giving something to, allegedly, then by the time that Powertown turned around and there's no promotion on this shit, it's just out there, but so is everything, By the time Powertown pays the estate of Carl Gotch, they'd have to sell thousands of T-shirts for him to get any appreciable amount of money whatsoever. Well, again, they took a lot of pre-orders for wrestling figures, for wrestling legends, for Remco's, for TNA, a current wrestling company. They took all this money. Was it Jordan Grace that was apologizing on Twitter for people upset that they didn't get her figure that they ordered? And she said, it's frustrating. There's nothing we can do. She said she's embarrassed, and she shouldn't be. She didn't do anything wrong. The fact that she's a WWE figure before she has a Powertown figure from her TNA run is ridiculous. They would do Josh Alexander. He's not even there anymore. He's not even in the company. So Powertown took all this money. and what it really was, again, in my estimation, based on everything I've seen and everything I know, was some former toy exec grifters got together with Greg fucking Gagne and said, hey, let's see if there's something we can do to raise some money against this. And they went and they signed up anyone they could. Greg Gagne gave a pitch to anyone he could. They signed Eddie Auger. I mean, I hate to keep going back to that. They wanted the Rougeau, so they signed everyone. No, but here's the thing. Of all the goddamn wrestling podcasts that have been issued in the last ten years, we're the only motherfuckers that have mentioned his name at all. We've made him famous now as the poster boy for how deep the figure roster that they signed up went and how many decades it would take to produce. All the way down to where we get Eddie Auger, it would be left to our grandchildren. Go ahead. Yeah, and they got all these names. They delivered some product after apparently part of their first order was fucked up. And apparently those are on sale because their warehouse keeps emailing me, hey, another 10% off. They're now just $30. But they got all these wrestlers signed up. They got all this money and pre-orders. And they thought they were going to somehow rope in an investor. They completely ignored the realities of the current toy market and how things are financed and what you need to do. And now I think while all the other toy companies, everyone, has delivered, they're the only one that there's no sign of any hope. And Greg Gagne, I heard he's making a convention appearance soon. You know, he should be ashamed of himself. And I'm sure he won't be. Isn't he going to be the first wrestler in the world when he does his Q&A, the answer to every question is, I'd like to exercise my Fifth Amendment right, please? Yeah, and Magnum TA really should feel embarrassed. Magnum TA should feel embarrassed more than anyone, because he has done nothing but go to bat for these people, and I heard that Magnum TA indicated to people that they're still trying to raise money so they can even do any of this. Like, they still need money. All the pre-order money, where did that go? Where did that go? So, yeah, there's people talking to class action lawsuit. And I should real quick just say, if anyone did purchase from Powertown and wants to link up with other people that did, there's a message board. If you go to wrestlingfiguredatabase.com, there's a tab for forums. And once you go to forums, look for other brands, and then look for Powertown Wrestling Figures. and there's a forum there and people are trying to link up and get together because a lot of people are out of a lot of money. And it seems to have been just a game for Greg Gagne and Magnum TA. And Magnum TA means to stop talking like a fucking tough guy, that he's going to go home and do anything. If you want to be a tough guy, Magnum, tell the fucking truth. Tell everyone why their money was taken and nothing was received in return. But yeah, sorry to get all heated about it. It's the most obnoxious fucking thing. Everyone else is doing such great stuff. Everyone. There's so many different people in England. Epic Toys, Hastell Toys, KWK over wherever the hell they are. Latooni. I've mentioned all these people. They deliver. They keep sending product, even the ones that take pre-orders. They keep you updated. They get the stuff in, even when there's delays. And we know what that's like. Delays from China. I've had the same thing happen to me, the delaying of the boat, not being able to clear customs because of a logjam or whatever, but it's days and weeks. It's not months and years. And remember, they blamed, well, that first run, they had to redo some shit because the heads or the legs fell off or whatever. There was that issue that was talked about. And then they were blaming the tariffs. And, oh, hey, breaking news, everybody. The tariffs are illegal. Even the Supreme Court finally got one right. So if they don't have to pay the tariffs, then they ought to be able to get this giant boat of shit that's been waiting for the tariffs. They said they were going to fly the stuff at one point from China to the United States, which you and I said, how much the fuck would that cost? All the excuses are starting to evaporate. and I feel bad for Magnum because truthfully, as I mentioned, I was involved in the first, but this was 2020 when we were getting the voice back. 2021 is almost five years ago. It was late summer. Greg Gagne gave me a heart attack because he called up and told me he'd already signed Stan right when I was putting the Midnight Express figure deal together, which ours have not only been made and delivered and sold. And by the way, a few stragglers are still on sale at jimcornett.com. But people have been enjoying this ship that they bought and paid for for years now. And Greg never had Stan signed. He had just offered him a contract, which is how I saw the contract. Greg had called me also. And at that point, Magnum was one of the first line of legends. and unless he was just lying to me as a secret agent, didn't have dick to do with ownership or office. And the last time I talked to him about it, he was like, I'm going to have a long talk with Greg Gagnier because I don't see him. I'm going to make any money. And apparently he had a long talk with him and ended up in the fucking office. So I don't know what these people are doing. Yeah, how does that work? I don't know. I'm going to find out more about this while I'm now the chief executive. Yes, I'm going to find out more about why this guy isn't paying me any money. Oh, shit, now I'm his partner. I don't know what the – I heard Magnum literally gave away a couple of the demos. I think it was the Rock and Roll Express to someone who confronted him upset about what the hell is going on. Why do I not have anything? So Ricky Morton may not have one, but someone apparently has the Rock and Roll Express. Well, and that's the thing is the last I heard, which was just a few months ago, And Ricky's son, Kerry, was on some form of the interweb saying that it's a daggum shame that they have not gotten one penny for whatever's been produced of the Rock and Roll Express in the way it figures that the Rock and Roll Express ain't got anything off of it. So, you know, what did I just say? Whether it's my side or whether it's their side, the Republicans or the Democrats or the civilians and the boys. I don't always hang with the boys when they're cheating people out of money. Just come out and say what's going on. We had a business model. It didn't work out. Unfortunately, we took all of your money. Whatever. You're going to have to file for bankruptcy. Everyone's kind of expecting that at this point. They weren't at the Toy Fair this year. People were waiting to see if they would show their face. Their emails are bouncing back. Their website's still up taking pre-orders. You want to talk about Scummy? Their website is still up. You can go there right now and pre-order the TNA set. But you can go to the website and order the stuff, but you can't email them to ask where the stuff is after you've ordered it and paid for it. That's right. Let me test that out. I'm going to go to the Powertown website. Here are the Remco figures that never arrived. If I go to TNA, I could buy the full bundle for $189.99. It is Eddie Edwards, Moose, Jordan Grace, and Josh Alexander. Well, you get two for two are still there in T&A, but the other two have gone on to bigger things. So maybe that's a – there's their rookie figure. $50 each. Yeah, $50 each. And should you save space on your shelf, though, for it, or are you just paying for it? You can't buy the Remco's. The Remco's are listed as sold out right now, so you can't get that. You can get the TNA. You could literally right now buy the TNA that you will not get. And you could do the same thing with the Ultra Series 2. $289 for Wahoo, Kamala, JYD, Jack Briscoe, Medusa, and Dory Funk. Again, they're still taking orders for shit they're not making. Well, hold on. Well, here's something, though. You can't get the Rimco stuff. No. Can you get anything with Rimco name on it? not that I'm aware of because that was another thing Greg I don't mean to belabor this forever but Greg's pitch was this guy from one of the major toy people that we worked with in the 80s when we were revolutionary in the merchandising of the action figures well he's itching to get back into business and he's a genius and an expert of whatever and I can't remember what the was it Rosenthal Steve Rosenthal that's right yeah Okay, well, he was supposed to be the, Greg was getting the wrestling, the 250 fucking famous wrestlers signed up. And this Rosenthal guy was the brilliant fellow behind the toy company of the Rimco of the 80s. And they were going to do this. But I said, but Greg, my thing on the phone in a nice way, because I didn't know all this was going to transpire. I was just trying to be nice. Greg, it's a brand new company and you've never done toys and he's hasn't done this in decades and you know, you're starting from scratch, how are you going to this is going to be a big undertaking everything's great alright, the same thing is talking to Tony Khan in a different direction I knew then I wanted to be as far away as possible from what the fuck was going to happen But also you see why Greg Gagne can be effective selling used cars. Yes. If I had not been in the figure business and or doing my own merchandise and or having some type of level head, a lot of the boys would have thought, oh, God, this is great. I need the money or whatever, and thought this is going to be fair because they didn't know that they were being fed a line of horse tripe and pulpy cork. And never try to force your poppycock into horse tripe. Because they don't go together. Well, again, the heel turn of Magnum TA no one saw coming. I can't. He almost made it. He almost made it. Everybody loved Magnum. What a great guy Magnum was. He almost made it. And this will be what everybody remembers. He and Greg were selling snake oil. Yeah, a disgrace. A disgrace. I didn't mention, by the way, figure collections earlier. They're doing good stuff, too. I should mention them. But, yeah, PowerTown. No, go ahead. What were you going to say about PowerTown? Because I was going to say something about PowerTown. Well, we'll stay on top of the story. And, again, check out that message board I mentioned earlier if anyone wants to connect with other PowerTown purchases. But you know what you need to do? You need to stick with established people, people that have been in the business. Like myself, for instance, Cornette's Collectibles at jimcornette.com. Now entering its, holy shit, 17th year that I've been doing this type of thing. Since 2009 was the Midnight Express scrapbook in April, I believe. So I got to have an anniversary sale coming up this April. But JimCornette.com and Cornette's Collectibles has been in business for a while. Or you can trust, Brian, I know you will vouch for this. If you see that purple shop pay button, well, then you don't even need to think about whether there's some kind of shyster, conman, grifter, thief, criminal, reprobate, stooge, or other dishonest, disreputable, disheartening individual behind the enterprise, the thing that you're about to interact with, the purchase you're about to make. you can just see that purple shop pay button and just hit it and go, this is legitimate. I'm going to get this shit or know the reason why. I think you can concur with that. I would concur that we trust Shopify and Shopify are great. I would also say that Shopify, someone at Shopify should be notified that their purple pay button is on the Powertown website. Oh, Jesus Christ. So maybe that's something that needs to be investigated. My premise was sound except for a few loopholes. Should we still go and continue on and say that, folks, Shopify is your commerce expert. With... Oh, yeah! And there goes Greg Gagne on the fucking bicycle now. He's trying to get out of town. He's got a dog in the basket. Shopify is a commerce expert. They can help you if you listen to them. I have it on good authority that they try to tell Greg Gagnon things. He just wouldn't listen. He thought he knew it all. But they can help you if you let them. They can get the word out like a marketing team. They can manage inventory. They can help you with shipping and processing and all the things that manufacturing. You know, as a matter of fact, they have a group of elves that they have gotten from the Keebler Forest, Brian, that's there at the headquarters that is a manufacturer. If you want to get in the shoe business overnight, they'll make you a bunch of shoes. That's not the way it works. And they send them right to you in a big box with one elf per, you only get one elf per box. Well, again, Shopify's not making the product. Shopify's helping you sell, Shopify's, excuse me, helping you sell your product to the fine people. Yes. Well, but they can help you find elves. and if you get stuck, Shopify is always around to share advice with their award-winning 24-7 customer support. So if you get in a fucking pickle, you call these people up and you say, God damn it, the DNA test is fucking positive and I don't know how to tell fucking Claudia. What am I going to do? They're going to give you as best of support as they can. And you can tackle all these important tasks in one place from inventory to payments to analytics. Where they go in and they pick up your anal. And they see they go into, it's a forensic examination where they determine all of the things they need. Statistics and analytics. Analytics. They're facts from your anal. No need to just go from website to website. No need. Or try to figure out what tool you might need. They just haul out a hardware store right in front of you That the bell When you open the front door the bell rings They don want you to just carry off a sawzall or something But nevertheless and the iconic purple ShopPay button that used by millions of businesses around the world and probably one that used to use it here now that we've called attention to it will not be very much longer. As they frown on these things, they got the best converting checkout on the planet over at Shopify. Brian, you know this as well as I do. They're always converting people. And sometimes they even, they'll baptize you. So if you get dunked right as you're checking out, suddenly you're covered in fucking water. You know why. Folks, it's time to turn those dreams of your, oh my God, did he get hit by a taxi? It just, it sounded like a poor thing got run over. it's time to turn those what ifs of your dreams into realities with Shopify today sign up for your one dollar a month trial period today at shopify.com slash jce greg gania is not eligible for this offer he's actually going to be brought up before the Shopify tribunal well I'll tell you what they don't let anybody in that room either. They've got a battery that they hook up to people's testicles that fuck around with that purple shop pay button. Go to shopify.com slash JCE. I've swirled to you. I think the bell needs to be tuned. Shopify.com slash JCE for that $1 a month trial period. And you'll find out what Shopify can do for you. That's right. They can do for you what they do for us. We trust them with ArcadianVanguard.com, and you can trust them with your business. And we're fine friends at Shopify, Shopify.com slash JCE. You know, Brian, I knew one guy. He wanted to sell cuckoo clocks, so Shopify agreed to manufacture the cuckoo clocks for him. And if he'd have paid them, they would have sent him the clocks, but he didn't pay them, so they just gave him the bird. But one of our favorite cuckoos has given us the bird on national television again this Wednesday night. I think we should go ahead and talk about dynamite so we can get it out of the way. What do you think? All right. I mean, I don't think it was that terrible on the scale of terrible dynamites, but a big main event. A big main event and the usual suspects. I mean, you know, not more terrible than normal. I know. I'm just short-tempered because it is what it is, and that's all that it is. And there's nothing really to look forward to. Where, oh, where did our hurt syndicate go? Oh, where, oh, where can they be? We were actually even kind of willing to give Davison, what was his name? Goddamn, I've forgotten him already. His partner, he had for a week. There you go. Jake Doyle. Barnett's Doyle lasted a lot longer than Davis's Doyle did. We were willing to give them a chance. They were taken away from us. But the people that we can't seem to get rid of, we can't seem to get rid of. So they were in Sacramento. This was February the 18th. And, again, besides the endless tonight promos at the start of the thing, they either, once again, they either jump people in the fucking aisle way or backstage to start the program, or they talk us to death for four or five minutes. But we get an eliminator match with Moxley against Mark Davis, where if Mark Davis wins, which he ain't going to do, then he gets a match for what is the fucking belt that Moxley has? Which one? He won the Continental Classic this year. Continental. The Continental belt. And they're going to do the Continental. Well, we had an insufferable play-acting plumber against poor Davis. Poor Davis, who could have been half of the top tag team, and now he's the jobber to the stars. And they went 15 minutes and Moxley choked him the fuck out. And I guess in between that, Moxley was Moxley. I don't know what else to say about these people anymore. I'm so disheartened. Yeah, you really sounded. What the hell kind of a review is this? I didn't think Mark Davis looked that good in there. I know we always talk about Moxley's bad work, but Mark Davis, it's not sloppy. It's, I don't know. Sometimes, I'm not saying he should be stiff with people, but lay stuff in maybe. And I enjoyed it for a little bit because I started doing Moxley's voice to myself, watching it here in the office, calling out what was going to happen because it's every match. Now you're going to stand here in the middle of the ring and chop me, and I'll take a step back, and I'll come in. You know, it's the same fucking thing every fucking match with him. And then, you know, I chucked you out. And by the way, when they start the show and they show you all the members of the fucking Death Riders like pumping each other up for like whatever's going to happen. I don't know. It's not the same when they're in an alley, but you see daylight behind them. But back to you. Well, that's the thing is that we know they have wonderful matches for people who like the matches that they have. you can't get away most of the time from the sloppiness or the phoniness or the preposterosity or the lack of any rules or the cohesion in any kind of push for who are the stars and who are not. But a theme that runs through this program is now I want to try to figure out, they're re-racking again, who we're supposed to cheer for and who we're supposed to boo. because of Moxley, as we've said for a number of weeks now, they just decided, okay, he's a babyface. This whole bunch that has been running roughshod with no resolution, no force of good came up to overcome them. They just bleached people, and then now they're the side of good for the company. and his other group of people who also argue amongst themselves are on the other side of them. But Swerve just turned heel, as now we know that they didn't do it accidentally last week, that he was going to, at least we think he has. When you hospitalize the fucking one of the top babyfaces, who were still pretty sure as a babyface by virtue of the fact that he's such a goddamn insufferable, nerdy douche that nobody would take him seriously as a heel. So I don't know what the fuck we're supposed to, how we're supposed to react to this, except to clap for the people who do the good moves. when we were you to try to get out of there in Australia without getting his hair cut, it was the heel. You know, he's on the heel team. It was Mosley that came out and was like, get back to the house. Do the right thing. Look at me. Do the right thing. He's enforcing the stipulations. He's a baby face. And meanwhile, this poor guy's being held down and having his head shaved by these fucking horrible baby faces. And it does, again. So, there is no resolution. You're right, though. There's no resolution to anything that, like, when it first started, when it was him hitting the ring, I don't know how long he was off TV, if he was before that point, and saying, this is not your company anymore. Like, we never found out why or how. And then he tried to murder people. We never had any resolution. Like, Daniel Bryan. Daniel Bryan. Bryan Danielson sitting at ringside. The guys who tried to murder him with a plastic bag are there. And he's just sitting there watching the action. But also, well, he never took over the company, and we never got any resolution. And now, at least, is he trying to take over the company for the forces of good? But that's the problem, is that everybody has been booked into this endless loop where it's just the same. It appears to be, even if it's not, the same people doing the same things over and over again. and especially when Moxley is what he is and that's all he's ever going to be I just get tired of it would you like to speak about some more people that they've gotten tired of Brian I don't remember what was next what was next FTR's in ring promo if we're now we can remember we used to say if only FTR wasn't weighed down by having to be in a program with or having to have matches with the Hartley boys. And if they could do something with somebody else, it would be so much greater. Now nobody cares about any of them. They've succeeded in nullifying all of them. FTR, they come out, and then they go to a break, and when they get in the ring, Stokely's in there with them in the wheelchair. How did they get him in the ring? that was a question i hadn't thought about that until you just asked that question did they blow it in front of the people or did they fucking pick him up like a baby and bodily carry him it was kind of a magical night i didn't see him get in the ring i also didn't see him get out of the chair but that's and that's the thing is i still say they're going to try to make it some kind of big fucking revelation when he gets up out of this chair like after the ron wright incident, and people are going to fucking laugh, because it's just... Dats cuts a promo while the people chanted, shut the fuck up, and not in a oh my god, look at the heat these people have way, but in a fucking, we really are not interested in this kind of way. And then Stokely did a promo, he did a good serious promo, finally, but people don't care about him because it's been months and months and it's just a clown show. And they don't want to see FTR and the buckaroos again, I don't think, but they just didn't listen to Stokely. And then at least they had been serious and tried to convey some gravity to the situation and then they turned it into comedy. because as they're all standing there, the buckaroos appear behind them in the ring while Stokely's still talking. Well, he's doing a promo about their families. That was the trigger, apparently, that got them there. Yes, but he's doing the promo about them. Yes, of course he is. But the point is they are able to get in the ring, stand there. All the people are going, ah! And they, one superkick to each member of FTR, and they have to lay there immobile forever. And then Stokely do the slowly I turn deal and started groveling. Like, oh, my God. And then, Brian, was there a jump cut in your, did you see when they superkicked? Apparently, TBS, I don't know what happened. I saw people blaming TBS. I'm not exactly sure, but I don't think anyone got to see. It was like global in the old days. When the action would happen, they would show some fans sleeping in the crowd because he wouldn't allow it. Well, either that or to cover up for somebody missed. I used to do the same thing in Smoky Mountain in post-production when somebody missed something. But was this a live program? It was. Obviously, they must have a delay. They must have a seven-second delay actually set up. But how in the world? I've seen him do seven-second audio delays. But it had to look like shit, and he took the bump anyway, because why else would they have bleeped it? They had to miss it, right? I say bleep, edit, whatever. How would they be able to react that quickly like, oh, my God, because there's some other shit that's missed on this program by a country. mile. Or is there any conceivable other reason why suddenly they edited this live show with the two babyfaces super kicking the goofy manager in the wheelchair? I don't know. Again, it wasn't a random moment. It was the moment that the guy in the wheelchair was getting super kicked by the Bucks, the babyfaces, who snuck up on the heels. Was it because he was in a wheelchair? Did somebody at Network Command not get the memo about nobody's really in a wheelchair in wrestling? If that's the case, then you can never use a wheelchair in AEW. They should have known that at some point, right? You can't just be like, well, if we're going to have a payoff one day, the guy in a wheelchair is going to get knocked. What do you mean we can't knock him out of the chair? Defeats the whole purpose. Everyone in wrestling in a wheelchair gets knocked out of the chair. The point is, this is a mess. It's a mess. They've been doing this. FTR and the Bucks was a big deal, even for us at one point. Everybody knows who we were pulling for. But now the young Bucks have become the old Bucks, become the stale Bucks, and FTR has been booked into oblivion. Stokely is the butt of every joke. And they can't even show their goddamn angles on television. So, here we go again. And then the Jackson boys made a corny challenge for the pay-per-view. Because they're just parodying themselves at this point. They don't take any of this seriously. And they've got this guy's guaranteed money. and they know that they could get in the ring and set themselves on fire like one of those protesting monks in the 60s, and people a lot of times wouldn't give a shit. So that was that. Yep. Did I miss anything? No, I think their tag team division right now is dead. I don't think anyone cares about FTR at the moment. I think the Bucs are doing everything they can to try to recapture some of the magic they had with those fans by basically just scrubbing the last few years and going back to who they were a few years ago, the enthusiasm is gone. FTR and the Young Bucks is not a big deal anymore. And at one time it was, and you could argue, and I would certainly argue, the feud has been nothing. Like even when they were having those matches, the feud was non-existent. There was no good feud. It was just a feud around matches. Around matches. There's no ongoing, well, in this company, there's no real ongoing weekly rivalries that last over the weeks and months and get the long-running thing going. It's just, it's hot shot into the next fucking collision on Saturday night, you know, Grand Slam or Pay-Per-View or Titty Tuesday or whatever. do you think is do you really think maybe just that the kick was really bad or just it looked so bad they had to cut it well there's only two reasons that i can think of in my mind number one is did somebody at the network say oh my god we can't kick someone in a wheelchair or secondly they fucking missed it it looks so fucking horrible but truthfully and honestly I'm leaning toward thee you can't now that I talk it out loud you can't kick somebody in a wheelchair because Tony Khan would not have been able to give the order to oh shit that just looked like complete dog shit stop it quick enough for them to do it so it had to be the network themselves like they bleep fuck now whatever they can just panicking, going, oh shit, we can't do that. Or a glitch. I guess that's the only other option. It can't be a glitch in a fucking... It was instantaneous. It's a live program. It's a live feed. And suddenly there were approximately two or three seconds out of it, but it didn't go to black. It just jump cut it. so I don't think I think that's the prettiest they could make it but I don't think you can do that with a glitch it's never happened before well Jim were there any other glitches in the system on Dynamite this week well Willow and Megan Brain and Marina Schaefer and Mina Mellons had a TBS title four way and I just Did you see the first move? Because that's all I saw. I don't recall the first move. I don't know. Marina Schaefer tries to throw Mina out of the ring, and Mina couldn't get. It wasn't that she couldn't get through the ropes. She got hung up on the rope. She just got thrown right into the rope. And then, oh, shit. And then to stop it, she forgot how to fall out of the fucking ring. That's what I'm trying to say to you. Why would that make you not watch more of that match? Why would that not make you say, I have to see what's going to happen next? No, but I wouldn't have aired some of these women's matches they air on this program on OVW television. It's just, it's embarrassing. But nevertheless, let's go to the next embarrassing thing involving the men. Hangnail Page and MJF in the ring face-to-face. I'm not going to, I've got to make mention of some of the verbiage, but I'm not going to overlook that they have been told the directive has come down, Brian, they're not allowed to fight. We're going to have Adam Page and MJF here and they're face to face and they're not allowed to fight. This is, for so many reasons, it's wrong. Help me. Start out. Well, and again, they were building this up throughout the night. They actually had a clock on the screen to when this segment was coming up, so they thought this would definitely be one that would cause people to call their friends and say, hey, it's coming up. They really built it up, and, I mean, that's a general problem. Both companies where there are confrontations with no officials, agents, security, anything. Sometimes they go longer than others, They just walk right into the other person's face. They burst their bubble. But, yeah, we can talk about this segment. Well, it just, my mind is boggling. And why can't they see all of this? We have said before that it is that's ridiculous that everybody comes out, has a fucking promo against each other face to face, and they get in a fight. That now has been overdone to the point of ridiculousness in wrestling. And that's like in territory days. You knew you'd done too many run-ins when they're having a fucking angle going on in the ring, and all the people have turned around to look at the back, see who's going to run in. You've overdone it. They expect it now. You've got to draw back. But the way they've drawn back is instead of just adopting a pseudo. And then we've also said now these days, a lot of times they'll go out there for 20 minutes and fucking say everything about each other, face to their other face, and do nothing. and it would seem like they could find a balance not only of the amount of segments in all the companies that there is with just talking and talking leading to fighting, but that they could see the obvious that it buries guys. To stand there with nobody in between, nobody in charge, nobody at least trying to reason with somebody, No announcer, no general manager, no whatever in a case of a conversation like this. And also, when they do try to do that, they line up fucking 15 goddamn high school teenage kids with shirts on that say security with goofy haircuts that you know is from the local goddamn body slam wrestling school. And they're just there to get beat up and take bumps. They can't, for the life of them, just everybody, anybody decide we're going to do this one consistent way and then have a variety of results out of it instead of letting these guys just go out there and do monologues where they eviscerate each other to each other's face. But they're not allowed to fight. Here's another goddamn thing. it's like the no interference allowed in the continental title matches then why are you allowed it any other time you idiots then you put the heat on the promotion well they can stop it when they want to they don't allow them to do that shit when they're fighting for this phony belt but when they're fighting for the world title they can do all that shit because the promotion can stop them if they wanted to just change the rule. None of this makes any sense. Brian, this is why I'm getting so daggum stressed. Do you see the dichotomy of some of these declarations they make? I agree with you that I don't think it helps anyone to have these face-to-face interview debate segments. It doesn't help anyone. And it doesn't make me more – I was more interested in MJF versus Adam Page with the idea that Adam Page kind of is on this path to get there as he beat these guys and he wants his title back. Then I understand you because I am you. Just all this shit. It's not good. It went so long. No one did anything. Adam Page is unbelievable and practiced and rehearsed. And none of this thing genuine. One-dimensional. And MJF, you know, he's trying as hard as he can, it seems. We saw a loud MJF. We heard the whispering MJF. We heard it all in here. And it went a while. I personally... You mentioned a couple of times that it went a while. I personally did not like this segment. This was not a segment for me. Here also, but here also is another thing. There's a reason why that guy, the heel, used to do the promo about the babyface in the ring. And he's standing, the announcer is fucking holding the microphone for him, and he's cutting the promo, and he's saying all these horrible things about the babyface. But the babyface is not in the ring. And finally, when he gets to his mother, his wife, or his dog, or whatever the fuck, then here comes the fucking babyface coming down there, say that to my face, motherfucker. But now the heel has said almost all the shit he needs to say, and the babyface can vent on the heel. Who not only has a reason to back up a little bit and let this fucking guy talk, but also there's still some semblance of an authority figure, the announcer, the general manager, the whatever, hold the microphone and trying to die. Come on, guys. Just the little fill in the middle. and then when the baby face fucking tells the heel off then they can do their physicality or not but it just hasn't been okay now it's your turn to tear me down for five minutes I'm going to stand here in the ring in front of all these people and let you do it and then hopefully my response will be equivalent to yours at least which nobody's is against MJF But especially, Paige, I made some notes. Growling in unrealistic and unintimidating way. Sounds like it was written as a high school paper. At one point, this was a quote, the depravity of your actions. I used to hear Stan Hansen and Cowboy Bob Ellis say that shit all the time. And that's when, like you said, Paige said, I've never met anybody more like me. What? Your desperation for love and acceptance. I'm no better than that, and I hate it. That's all we want as a goddamn superhero babyface champion with a bunch of goddamn personality problems. You feckless putts. What kind of tripe is this? punk and Roman Reigns came out there and took a match that we didn't particularly want to see and speaking as adult multi-millionaire sports stars on a personal basis to each other about how little they thought of each other made us want to see the fucking match they took this match that we were like alright we'll watch it again and made us want to see it less and then they argued about what kind of match they were going to have at the pay-per-view and Page said that it can't be a normal wrestling match and MJF's got a name of stipulation and MJF says, well, I want a normal wrestling match and then did you hear Adam Page they got him to start chanting Texas death, right? Because the way he was insinuating things. But Paige said, this is a quote, I wrote it down. I've always known what this match should be, and once we decide, we should let them, talking about the fans, decide. What the fuck does that mean? Did you hear that? I did hear that, yes. I've always known what this match should be, and once we decide, we should let them decide. What the goddammit? And that's when MJF mentioned people, because that's when they were chanting Texas Death, right? MJF wanted a real wrestling match, but Paige says MJF is scared. He's a coward. If you'll agree to the Texas Death match, then if I lose, I will never challenge for the World Heavyweight Championship again. The coding. And so then, somehow or another, he still gave MJF a week to think about it. After, I thought it was agreed to, but then he said, well, MJF needs a week to think of the stipulation. And Page says, take a week, but I already know, Texas death. Was that just hallucinating, or were they not actually agreeing on exactly what the fucking course of events here was? It was a weird, I don't know if it went off the script, because it certainly seemed like Adam Page was scripted. But it didn't really, you knew what they were trying to say, and you could also tell that they're not saying it in a coherent way. I wrote, so did they make the thing or what? Or is it, we've got to come back next week for MJF? MJF has agreed to have a match with Page, and if Page loses, he'll never challenge again. And Page has said, I will do that if you'll agree to the Texas death match. But then MJF then said, well, I need a week to think of the stipulation. I'm not sure what they're doing here is basically is the problem. I think they're overthinking it is the problem. They should just be two guys who want to kick the shit out of each other because they want to be the world champion, not about emotions again and about, again, MJF being confronted with his emotions by the fucking most emotional babyface in the history of the company. well but at the same time as you're saying he's the most emotional baby face he only has one emotion fake growly fucking assertiveness or whatever he's been talked of as if he's filled with all these emotions he doesn't show any of them but at the same time who wants a god damn emotional nervous wreck and be your fucking oh he's my hero he's a god damn mess You know what they all need, Brian, is they all need to get charged up. They need to get charged up. They need to get some energy. They need to get some power. They need to be electrified. You remember who the most electrifying man in sports entertainment used to be? Well, they need to get some electricity, and I just don't see how they're doing that now. Maybe we can send them over to our friends at Ridge. Have you heard about what Ridge has now? The incredible new space age development of the incredible Ridge Power Bank. Brian, you're using one of these as we speak, I assume. I have one. I had one. My lovely other half saw it, and she's using it now. and now you've got to get another one. I was hoping the nice people at Ridge may send another one, but yes, I have to get another one. They are very fine. They are very fine and very nice. Nice enough to the point that your family will try to steal them, justifying it by saying they have a lot of things to charge. Well, but I see a little insinuendo there that you'd like another one. But, boy, I'll tell you what, you're going to fucking put the power grid down then Because, folks, the Ridge 5-in-1 Travel Power Bank is exactly, you're carrying around a portable fucking electric plant. Because all of these stupid things now that you have to have to live your life, that you got to plug in, your telephone, or your fucking headphones, or your watch. Now you got to plug your watch in, right? Have you heard about this? years ago years ago i had a watch that you didn't have to plug in now you got to plug your watch in you got to plug your books in you got to plug your vibrators in there's all kinds of things they've only got so many plugs either in these hotel rooms or when you're on the go with your hurry scurry life well now ridge's five-in-one travel power bank has built-in cables you can plug everything up into this thing all at the same time and not blow your ass off. And no extra cables. MagSafe, wireless charging, Apple Watch charger, lightning charger, USB-C, USDA, all the things you need to charge all of the same device, 20 watts of power. That's up there in the sweet daddy watts, baby. 20 watts of power. 10,000 milliamps hour capacity. Well, that basically means you can run a small trailer park. And, Brian, the MagSafe compatible wireless charging. Because Stacey took mine because everybody knows I don't even use electric lights. I have candles around the bed at night. But she plugs everything in. and she took it and you can take your phone and set it on this thing and it's magnetic and it'll stick. And did you know that for people who have had traumatic brain injuries, if they put a metal plate in your head, you can stick this fucking phone and your charger right on your head, boom? Nope. And it will give you energy you haven't had in years. You hear that? That kind of makes it. I can't hear you. That's the funny point of the spot. But, of course, we want to be serious here, and we also want to remind you, keep magic away from your... Yes, traumatic brain injuries are a horrible thing. We don't want to make light of them at all. And if you need some extra energy, slap this thing right on there. It's magnetic. And you can walk through it. See, that way you can walk around the house and carry things and still have your phone with you. If you can stick it magnetically on the back of your head. Once again, these are not examples. Let's not talk about transport. Why don't we just talk about functionality and, of course, a great deal for the listeners. Well, that's because everything that you need is right there, so when you travel around, you can plug everything in. And, boy, I'll tell you, also if you're sitting in an airport in the lounge and somebody next to you is bothering you, it comes with an optional cable. You can wrap it around the leg of that chair and give them a little shock in their ass. It does not come with that ability or cable. And, again, let's stay on target. Yes. Well, it keeps up with the newest iPhones, and like everything Ridge makes, it's built to last. Free shipping, 99-day risk-free trial. God damn you, don't you dare keep it 100 days, try to send it back. You've had your opportunity. But it's got a lifetime warranty if anything goes wrong with it. As a matter of fact, if for some reason anyone has ever accidentally electrocuted, you can get a full refund on this fine product. This is the last power bank you're ever going to need. Well, it's got a lifetime warranty. It's got a lifetime warranty. This is the last power bank you will ever need. Those are two of the true statements that we've made. For some of you, it's the last power bank you'll ever use. Again. And they also look there and they come in orange and black and olive. What color is an olive? Would it be black or would that be the green? Matte olive. Nevertheless, it's all at the website. Go to Ridge.com, R-I-D-G-E, and you can see these psychedelic colors. They've got an LED charge status indicator that gives you your battery, your charging levels, an integrated kickstand for effortless hands-free viewing while your phone is powering up, but also you can just lean your bicycle right onto it if you're out at the park. Just, you know, if you're riding your bicycle around the park and you need a kickstand, You just kick it out. And if you pair this with a Ridge wallet, then, again, it's all self-defense items. You can either use the wallet as a fighting star, or you can look. This thing is like not even the size of an eight-track tape. But if you just really stuck your fucking hand right in the middle of this thing and, bam, and just pickled somebody in the face, you could get away. All right. Well, you cannot get away with saying things like that. But think about this. You can be sitting on a part. You can be a person sitting on a park bench, snot running down your nose, greasy fingers smearing your shabby clothes, and you can be power in all your devices so that you can trade them. That's when the dealer comes down. Okay, why do you have to take it down to the level? But, ladies and gentlemen, what Jim said before, parts of what he said, there was an element of what he said that was true. And, of course, what that is is that these are fine, well-made, sturdy products, whether it's the wallet, which I use, whether it was the power bank, which my wife stole from me. These are great products, and we can tell you about a great deal without any further information about features or anything that may or may not exist. Just plug in and go. Right now, one thing to pack and five ways to power. You can get the Ridge Power Bank at Best Buy, or for cheaper and easier, you can get 10% off at Ridge.com, R-I-D-G-E, Ridge.com, by using the promo code JCE at checkout. Ridge.com, promo code JCE, 10% off on this amazing power plant inside your own. And again, you can be like Cagney in white heat. You can stand on this thing and go top of the world, ma! But actually, it's only a couple of inches high, so if that's, it really probably wouldn't be as impressive. Ridge.com, 10% off promo code JCE. That's right, a great deal, a great power bank, and let's get back to the power bank of Tony Khan, AEW Dynamite. The great program. Well, we almost made it. I was, I felt bad for some of these people. I just want to mention, we hope Ishii is all right. They had a tag team match with Gabe Kidd and Chuck Connors against Pockets and Ishii. And it looked like three valet parking attendants and a Japanese Michelin man. And normally I would not have watched this because nobody wants to hear about it. but I think this guy fucked himself up, and I've been waiting for something like this to happen to him, Okada, a variety of the people they've had on this show, he already looks like rigor mortis has set in, and he's just stiff, and he can't move, but then he took, he and Gabe Kidd had some kind of girl slap fight in the middle of the ring with each other, where they were just... Brian, they were... Describe, if you can, how they were not hitting each other while kind of making contact. Is that a description? That's a description. We've seen that with various New Japan guys, specifically Ishii the last few years, guys that were hard-hitting guys that were known for that hard-hitting style who can't do it anymore, yet that's what they do, so they have to barely touch each other while trying to look like they're being hard-hitting. But still, you can't, on a slap fight like that, you can't lay them in. Power slap has shown that. They either got to slap a guy once good or you're just doing fake shit. You can't slap a guy a great 20 times, he wouldn't still be there. He'd be down by then. But then Gabe Kidd gave Ishii a clothesline, and he took a bump, and he couldn't stand up. And he really couldn't stand up, and it wasn't like he was selling something. It was like the other guy came into ring and was waiting for him to stand up, and as he was starting to, the guy hit the ropes for the spot he was supposed to do, and Ishii just crumbled over to the fucking mat. His hip was out or whatever. And then the guy's trying to pick him up gently. You're like, can you come up? Can you get to your feet? And Ishii got to his feet, and then the heel gave him a fucking clothesline again, the same bump that he just took that he goddamn paralyzed himself. What the fuck is the matter with these people? He literally just took a bump from a clothesline and could not stand up, and this guy obviously saw that he couldn't stand up, and it helped him get to his feet, and then had him take the same goddamn bump. The fuck? He must have wanted that. Well, of course he did, because they all want to die in the ring, and it looks like they'll achieve their fucking goal any old day now. Any day now, you will die on my mat. Good night, my love. And then he got back up, and he started limping to hit the ropes, and he fought back. And he was unsteady on his feet, but he got the goddamn, it was only then pockets came in, and they went to the floor, and Darby Allen hit Gabe Kidd with a skateboard. and Falaishi was able to stand up and half-ass brain buster Chuck Connors, one of the heels, and then he crumpled back on the mat again and his nose was bleeding and he was selling his hip. I'm like, what the fuck were they doing to this guy? How old did we establish he was? He's in his 50s, right? I will look it up, but this is also his return match. That's important to note. He said, oh, Jesus. God damn it. They had him in the back before Arne Cassidy. I forget who's in the – oh, Roddy Strong, who turned heel and then wasn't seen again. He said, I don't have anyone to team with. I don't have him. But remember, there's more members of the conglomeration than Ishii walked out, and then that was the last time he walked for a while, apparently. He is 50 years old. Jesus. Oh. I don't – I don't – but. I've never seen a guy just take a big bump from the clothesline. The clothesline wasn't stiff. He just fell down and could not get up. They had a girls tag team match with Becca and Viva Van against Jamie Hayter and Alex Mountbatten-Windsor, who are now known as the Brawling Birds. And I think the Van sisters lost. And then we move on. Can we also bypass Kevin Knight in a single match? We just mentioned this guy. Rigger Mortis is back. Old attorney Frank Mortis at law. We said, where's Mortis been? He shows up to do a job for Kevin Knight, where they went to trouble to set this match up, where if Mortis had beat Kevin Knight, then he and the rest of LFI, which I believe is Lost Fuckers and Goobers International that we don't see anymore, would get a six-man tag team title match on Collision Saturday. And then Kevin Knight won, so they don't get the match. So I guess they're not going to have the match on Collision Saturday. but then it was time Brian for our main event now we can settle down and talk about some things for a few minutes and without question this is a big main event for AEW Dynamite this is a pay-per-view quality match for AEW wouldn't you say well with what they've got yes unfortunately with what with what's available to them, yes, this was a big match. And I said last week, unless they are turning Swerve Strickland heel, they may still be crazy, but they'd be really crazy, the way that he was talking and acting. So here they pull the trigger on it. And the only problem is is that is it effective anymore for anybody to hospitalize or injure or put out of action Can he, when he never gets even for any of it? He just came back not long ago. I want to get in the fucking title hunt and I've got to win matches. This was, what, six weeks ago? or maybe eight weeks ago, long enough for him to get in the goddamn deal, and now they've done a hospitalization angle and a heel turn? Is he going to come back and wrestle Swerve Strickland in a match or series of matches? Or is he gone again? Because remember, Kyle hospitalized him in some kind of way, and they hospitalized him after he came back from his diverticulitis. So that's the point. At this point, is this what happens with him, and he never gets even against anybody. This is a way to keep his matches down for the year so he doesn't work more than ten times. You have him work, look okay, and then he gets hurt and he disappears for a while. Goes to Japan. Not to wrestle, just to go there. Yeah. Well, they milked us all night, and they rang the bell at five minutes till ten. And, of course, I forgot to do the work that I have to do to see this program and record the program after this program, because every week when it's a runover, why don't they just schedule it so that we can all be saved this? But nevertheless, they went back and forth for a minute, But Swerve did a dive. They stayed on the floor, went out into the crowd, and went to the break. And they were in the break at 10 o'clock. So, again, unless you're the diehard faithful, you're going to miss a lot of this. You know, whatever. But it was Swerve and Kenny. And I will refrain from my commentary. For the kind of people who think this is wrestling, it was wonderful. Because they did every move they could ever do. And Kenny was Kenny. But then they had a pretty good heel turn going, because I didn't record the overrun, but I did catch up with the footage on the Internet. They can be subtle, and then they've got to beat you over the head with it. At one point, Kenny was running for the knee, and Swerve pulled Aubrey into the knee. Boom, and Aubrey got wiped out. And it was like, was that on purpose, or was it inadvertent? Was Kenny trying to grab her arm to say, hey, I'm hurt, or whatever the case. Nice, subtle thing. Then they did 18 more things with a new referee coming in. and then Swerve just hit like a couple of goddamn big things and beat the motherfucker and then not only that but then he grabs Kenny and he gives him the big framistat and then he tosses him outside and he gives him the upside down dingbat through the announce desk and Kenny stretched out and Swerve said I needed that I needed that are they are the fans going to kick Swerve out of his house now because that's the thing that they all agree on is that whatever they say whose house they're supposed to say Swerve's house has he ruined that or is it still going to be Swerve's house even though he tried to paralyze and make a quadriplegic out of the fucking mush mouth wishy washy baby face now people still like chanting and singing so it'll probably still be his house. But why couldn't he have pulled Aubrey into the knee, and then when Kenny was goddamn mortified and shocked and trying to render aid and, I don't know, CPR, mouth-to-mouth, he probably wouldn't go that far. He'd probably just not make it. But while Kenny's trying to attend to the referee, Swerve does one goddamn thing, one cheating heel thing from behind here give him this move or kick him in the head or whatever boom and either if the referee can't roll over then the other referee slides in just at that point one two three and then he's turned heel in such a way that your baby face is still saved but instead after he does that little subtle thing with the referee then he the baby face and he go another I don't know how many minutes, but he hits another 18 fucking things and then completely incapacitates and paralyzes, as I said, and hospitalizes the baby face after. What the fuck? Can they never, ever stop from going too far? And that's why I'm just verklempt at the end of my rope with this show. well these modern guys want their flowers and Dave Meltzer gave the match five and a quarter stars so obviously the people who like that kind of thing love that kind of thing I just Kenny's unnatural body movements and ridiculous facial expressions and the gesticulating and the pointing and the turning and running and prancing and skipping and just the fakeness and phoniness of his whole presentation is I cannot get past it. It's all I can look at. Five and a quarter stars. Well, another banner, AEW. Dave also said the MJF Adam Page said, this segment was excellent. I'm really interested if this promo battle and angle makes a key difference in ticket sales and pay-per-view buys. So he liked that too. Well, we won't know if it makes a difference in pay-per-view buys because the only person ever tells us is Tony. And it's always the same thing. It's always 140,000 buys. Yeah, we're within 5% of last. And the ticket sales, how would you know? How would you ever know? See, that's the problem with wrestling. You never know how many tickets the people would have bought to the show that you didn't have. Right? Well, if we'd have had Brett versus Sean instead of Brian versus Jim, we would have sold. Well, you don't know how many tickets that would have sold. It's the same company, the same promotion. Everybody on the card's the same. It's just a different order. You can say, well, what we did didn't work, but you can never say it didn't do as good as what we could have done because you don't know. You can never know how many tickets you would have sold to the match that you didn't have. So help me real quick before we move on to other things in the world, Ryan. Who are the top babyfaces in the title picture now? Because now MJF is the champion. Right. But now Swerve, he's a heel. and Kenny he's injured he's this is I'm not making this up they say he's taking time off to do some something besides page and good lord here's the thing I'm worried about I'm hoping that they will exercise the stipulation on page that he loses gets fucked some kind of way and as a man of his word can never challenge for the title again, not only because MJF would get some heat off of it with that fan base, and I personally would rather have my balls nailed to a stepstool than see Adam Page be the champion again, but they could actually milk it for a long enough time that maybe they could make people want it also when it actually finally happened. But what I'm afraid is they're just going to put the belt back on him again. But the point is, we've got MJF as a heel champion. We've got Swerve and we've got Paige. One heel, one babyface. Samoa Joe, the ex-champion, he's out injured. He's a heel, but you said babyfaces. Samoa Joe. Well, yeah, but I'm just, of either, who's in this title picture? Moxley is a babyface now. Moxley's a babyface. I don't know if we're going to see Moxley MJF anytime soon. Well, but also that would indicate that Page couldn't be the new champion because then, you know, Moxley, it makes no sense for him. That's the title picture, isn't it? Well, maybe, again, in terms of guys who were there, because they have guys who at some point will come back, like a Will Ospreay or Jericho or whoever it may be. Brody King was elevated for a little bit I don't know if that's completely done now Adam Copeland Well I mean Anybody can come back When did they do that angle What a contract he must fucking have He has not been there in forever They did that angle with Beth Phoenix Was that last summer I think it was And we heard he had a project or something. Okay, he'll be gone for a few months. He hasn't been back since. Christian Cage, gone. Is there a key man in one of the other contracts that one can't come back unless the other comes back? I don't know. Lashley's hurt. What happened to Mama Wayne? Oh, yeah. Fuck that whole stable. What happened to them? I forgot all about that. Nick is gone. Kip Sabian. Nick Wayne got hurt at some point. Did Luchasaurus, where did he go? He got hurt. They brought him back. He got hurt again. He got hurt again. Who are we not thinking of? Adam Cole? Another 150 fucking people. Jay White has to return at some point. They've unfortunately used him. My God, did he have a double arm and leg amputation and replacement? How long would the people goddamn have heart surgery and heart transplants and come back to life quicker than these people. Do you remember Dr. Britt Baker? They used to have a dentist wrestler on the show a long time ago? Long, long time ago. I think she was one of the contemporaries of Cora Livingston. I mean, I think, I mean, I got a main event picture. I don't think they're putting Fletcher or Tecestra there now, but those are obviously guys that are ready to be elevated. Osprey's a big baby face that can't, obviously is still not cleared. Brody King got elevated, but he's kind of had his chance. You got Moxley and you got Page. And Swerve now is a heel, so the last thing they want to do is put Swerve against MJF because that would fucking undo the work they're doing trying to turn Swerve heel. And then if Adam Page wins, you get that dynamic of him against heel Swerve after those two had finally made up. But then again, you get the belt off MJF. Unless MJF has another film project or something he's going to run off to do, I would hate to take the belt off him right now. Well, maybe he's going to supply a Tibetan monastery with fucking wool off his new hairdo to fucking keep him warm for the winter, and he has to take time off to go get sheared. Speedball? Speedball Bailey? Oh, come on! He's been getting a good push. Yeah. That may be it. All righty then. You know what the problem is? They're all small, Brian. They're all teeny, teeny, tiny people. And I'm not saying that they need to take those illegal supplements, those anabolic steroids and all that stuff you hear about these big world-class athletes tag. I'm not saying they should do that. I'm just saying maybe they ought to just eat better. Do you think maybe this whole thing could be solved if the young generation of today would just eat better? They wouldn't all be 5 feet 2 inches tall and 114 pounds and physically unintimidating. better nourishment, better nutrition, fresh food, quality functional ingredients, lean proteins, whole food ingredients, healthy fats, colorful veggies, no refined sugars, no artificial sweeteners, ready in minutes, that kind of stuff. Brad, what do you think? I think it sounds like a plan, a factor plan, a favorite here in this household, and I know a favorite there, and a lot of listeners are taking advantage of these great deals. Maybe the wrestlers should, too. It's what you need to factor in. Because, folks, you know, again, everybody's life is busy. You don't have time to concoct a five-star meal from scratch in your own home. You're too busy trying to work to pay the taxes we've got to pay pretty soon and keep the wolf away from the door. Well, factor can bring a wolf to your door with food. for you that all you have to do is heat up and eat, and it is crafted by chefs, designed by dieticians, and it can be eaten by gluttons like you, because Factor makes healthy eating easy. You can eat well without the planning or the cooking, all the things that I mentioned, the meals that fit your goals and schedule, healthier eating, calorie management, more protein, a hundred rotating weekly meals to keep things fresh and delicious. Let's say you're training for some type of competitive eating championship. Just eat all a hundred meals and you can train and win. Well, that's not a good idea. That's not a good idea. Well, just try one of each. Just order everything on the menu. Over a hundred days. Over a hundred days. Well, see, now you're taking all the fun out of it. See how far you can make it until you puke, folks. Just eat one after another. Yeah, that's not a good idea. You don't want your intestines to fall out. Well, no, they won't fall out. They'll just pop. Options include high-protein, calorie-smart, the Mediterranean diet, GLP-1 support, ready-to-eat salads. You don't even have to make those yourself. The new Muscle Pro Collection supports strength and recovery. I say just get one of each and just eat them until you pop, And then you'll discover how much you like them. They're always fresh, never frozen, ready in two minutes, no prep, no stress. I like the fillets with the creamy Parmesan shrimp. Brian, you are a fan of the salmon. Teriyaki salmon. That was the star of the show last time. I'm going to get a few of those next time. Delicious. And also, this is February. And, of course, since it's February, Groundhog's Day, they do have the Groundhog Jowl Special. where it's been declawed, folks. You don't have to worry about that. It comes in a container. You just pop it in the microwave, and then it comes with an optional rabies. If you haven't had your rabies shot, it's a vial of stuff. You just shoot it into the dinner before you pop it in the microwave. We should just focus on the things that are actually on the current menu, not things that we're dreaming about for reverse reasons. I don't know what the hell is going on. You should always have your rabies shot, Brian, especially this time of year when it's groundhog month. Well, maybe a tetanus, yes. But, folks, right now you can head to Factormeals.com. Don't take my word for it. Let them tell you all the fine foods, fresh and never frozen, that they've got, that they can send you, that you can then eat and consume. They're delivered to your door, and it's up to you then. I mean, you know, you could fucking be a pig about it, or you could use a knife and fork, but you're at home. Nobody's watching you. Just scoop this shit up with your hands while you're watching Jeopardy. Factormeals.com slash JCE50 off and use the code JCE50 off. You're going to get 50% off your first order and free breakfast for a year. So you can eat like a pro all month long with Factor. New subscribers only, which of course varies by the plan. One free breakfast item per box for one year. While your subscription is active, actually, in previous incarnations of this offer, they got you free breakfast. They sent you a live chicken. But unfortunately, in some urban areas, they have changed the zoning laws. Let's stay away from urban myths, and let's get back to the facts. The Factor, a great deal for Factor Meals. That's right, and it will not violate any of the zoning laws, except possibly where the delivery man parks when he delivers you your fine Factor Meals. It's factormeals.com slash JCE50 off, 50% off, and that free breakfast item for a year. Because, by golly, why not eat good food instead of bad food? That's what I always say. Factor! Oh, God damn it, you scared me. O'Brien, one of the things that we've been doing here lately on the programs on a continuing basis to prove that the business used to be in such better shape than it is today, is what prompted it was the website, it was a Sports Illustrated, whoever it was, said the best 20 wrestlers in their 20s for last year. And then you had gone back and made a list of wrestlers in their 20s from 1984, which was a pivotal year when everything started blowing up and then later going to hell. because we had said on their list, is this it? And you came up with a list of all the people in their 20s that were being used in 1984 in a regular way on the shows in the territories, being booked regularly. A few international interlopers would come in for major spots on big events, but normally just in America, normally this roster. and you came up with 77 guys just in their 20s. And when we culled it down to the top 20, it was like a Hall of Fame list. Do you have that list of the top 20 in their 20s that we did in front of you, just to refresh the people? I do have that list. Let me go through the 15 that made it in the first round, clear-cut, no-brainers. Barry Windham at 24. Bret Hart at 27. Dynamite Kid at 26 Terry Gordy, only 23 years old Wendy Richter, 23 Bobby Eaton, 26 Buddy Landell, 23 Chris Adams, 29 Kerry Von Erich, 24 years old Kevin Von Erich, 27 years old Michael Hayes, 25 Magnum T.A., 25 As a collective, the Rock and Roll Express, 26 and 28, the Road Warriors, 24 and 27, and finally at the age of 28, Rick Martell. Those 15 made it, and then from the question mark list, after paring that down, Davey Boy Smith, 22 years old, Arn Anderson, 26 years old, Kurt Hennig, 26 years old, Hercules Hernandez, 28 years old, and finally Dr. D. David Schultz, 29 years old. And that 20 left another 77, or left another 57, rather, out of the 77 that we just, it was subjective anyway. But we were leaving everybody from Buzz Sawyer and Eddie Gilbert to Dr. Death Steve Williams and fucking Nikita Koloff and one-man gang. And just name after name, there was a lot of talent. Well, then we started doing the 30s. And folks, you can find these clips on the YouTube channel if you missed the podcast first time around. But the list of guys just in their 30s numbered 100 more guys, and it was even more of a Hall of Fame than the 20s were. But between guys in their 20s and 30s, you had 177 name, value, regularly used, booked, pushed, promoted wrestlers basically just in this country. And now what we're going to try to do today is pare down the selections we've made to see if we can find the best 20 in their 30s. because it'd be the law of diminishing returns if we started doing 30 in their 30s, 40 in their 40s, 50 in their 50s. You see where I'm going with this. Yeah, and this creates an interesting issue because obviously we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 as a tag team, 6, 7, 8, 9 names on the question mark list and 21 names on the top 20 list. Well, let's start. You got the paperwork. I got the paperwork. We're talking about the top wrestlers in their 30s in 1984, the ones that we said should go in without question mark. And the Mysterians? Hulk Hogan, 31 years old. Junkyard Dog, 32 years old. Paul Mr. Wonderful Orndorff, 35 years old. Rowdy Roddy Piper, 30 years old. Sergeant Slaughter, 36 Andre the Giant, 38 Bruiser Brody, 38 Hacksaw Butch Reed, 30 Midnight Express member Dennis Condry, 32 Dusty Rhodes, The American Dream, 39 Hacksaw Jim Duggan, 30 Jerry the King Lawler, 35 Ricky the Dragon Steamboat, or actually this year he was just still Rick Steamboat, 31. Ric Flair, 35. Stan Hansen, 35. Tatsumi Fujinami, 31 years old. Ted DiBiase, 30. Macho Man Randy Savage, 32. Carlos Colon, 36. Jumbo Saruta, 33. and finally, at 32 years old, El Canec. And obviously, besides the fact of an American Hall of Fame there, and of course in 1984, a lot of these names we didn't put on the list because they were on the downhill side of their career in their 30s at this point because they'd already, in some cases, been main eventers for 10 years or 15 years or more. But besides the Americans, Carlos Colon, obviously because of his influence in Puerto Rico, Saruta because of his influence in Japan, Kinect, and Fujinami also in Japan, and Kinect in Mexico, but that's a murderer's row of top talent. And how many is that with check marks? That's 21. There's another 79 guys. Where do we start? Where do we start with the question marks? Well, here are the question marks. Yeah, Greg Valentine, Kamala, the Magnificent Morocco, Tony Atlas, as a tag team, Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch, Buddy Roberts, Ron Garvin, Tully Blanchard, and Manny Fernandez. Telly Manny Okay Looking at those Well we don't need to look at those guys Because we've already got 20 guys Do we want to Swap any Do we want to swap And honestly for people who didn't hear the first clip Dennis Condry is in because we made a rule That the Rock and Roll Express The Midnight Express, the Road Warriors Had to go in as a team In 1984 was All of their years And Dennis Condry may not compare in some people's minds on a list that has Andre the Giant, Ric Flair, and Ricky Steamboat. But actually, if you go by 1984, Steamboat got in more for the body of his work than what he was doing that year, whereas Dennis was breaking out as one of the members of the top heel team in the business. Top drawing heel team in the business. So we were looking at impact of the specific year also. And, you know, again, even the question marks, one can say they were on the way up. Murdoch, as an individual, had already been a major star as a single since the early 70s. But he and Adonis were fixing to have a big run in the WWF. Buddy Roberts had been around the business for 20 years, but he just had joined the Freebirds. You know, on this, the one who I think actually, you know, Valentine was still very good. I mean, all these guys are stars, but Tully Blanchard, I thought, really did have like a breakout. He was the highlight in a lot of ways of 1984 Mid-Atlantic TV. Yeah. So I would argue for him maybe more than anyone else on the question mark list. Would you take – who would you take out on the list that we just named? Well, again, we had 21 names, so technically we're supposed to take out two. To get Tully in? Well, take out one to be at 20, and then one if you're swapping Tully. That's why you do all the bookkeeping around here. I mean, this is what I'm talking about is why we did this exercise. These are all names that every wrestling fan in the country recognized at the time. And I think anybody listening to this program 40 years later would recognize 98% of the names now and have seen a lot of their work because they're all Hall of Famers. And that's the point that is to be made about this because we still haven't got to the guys in their 40s. and they're some of the biggest names in the business. Hey, if you're asking me, I'm taking off Carlos Colon and Tatsumi Fujinami. Nothing against Fujinami. Carlos Colon, I still hold the grudge because of Brisa Brody. Yeah. But I put Tully Blanchard on their place. Let's do that. And nothing against Fujinami, but he was. And then do we do the same thing for Saruta and Kinect just because, even though they were major names in their own culture, it's primarily an American list. They were making guest shots here. All the Americans on this list were going to Japan practically at one point or another. But that was the year Jumbo Saruta won the AWA title. That was one of the things that helped his candidacy for this list because not that he was working, you know, for a year in the AWA, but still, if there was ever a year for him on this list based on America, that's probably the best argument. Unless you're like, you know, top wrestlers in their 20s for 1975, Tommy Saruta. You know, I think this is it. Well, and then these question marks are, at best, you know, our opinion to begin with, because we left off Austin Idol. We left off fucking Tito Santana. We left off. Let me stop you real quick on that. We heard more feedback, and, you know, again, I think I argued a little bit for him. I think Tito had a very good year. He was working for Greg Valentine. Greg Valentine was very good at that point. But you kind of just dismissed Tito right away. For the record, did you watch much of that? Because I know you were working and you weren't a big fan of WWF. So, like, when pre-Strike Force Tito, did you see much? Well, to be quite honest, no, I didn't see much post-Strike Force. I mean, I've seen it over time. Tito was an excellent worker, excellent hand in the ring. And I thought he just as a baby face, he was the guy to be in the middle of the card and kind of be the bumper to where if you were a top guy, you beat him. And if you weren't, he'd beat you. But because I didn't grow up with him, I didn't have the Tito appeal. He's a very nice guy also. Well, you didn't have the Tito appeal, but like you said, him, Austin Idol. And Austin Idol had a very good 84. He's the one who really got Rick Rudolph in Memphis. Yeah, we didn't put the Moondogs in. Dick Slater, who was just, he was a major star at a different time. There's a lot of, again, huge names. Jerry Briscoe, for fuck's sake. So it was loaded with talent. I think we've got 20 there, and we've got the runner-ups, but I don't know how. It's just subjective as moving one in and one out. You can make a case for a lot of these guys. Well, I think we have our top 20 in their 30s and our top 20 in their 20s for 84, so that means next time it's let's tackle the 40s. And wait a minute. Hold on here. I haven't counted these, but there is more. Hold on. Wait a minute. Let me just make sure by visually. There's as many in their 40s, I think, as there was in their 20s. And there's incredible names. Terry Funk is the name on this list. But I'm just going to say there are major, major names in the wrestling business here that are still well-remembered, that were in their 40s in 1984 that we will be trying to examine. See, that's going to be the interesting one, because we did the 20s in their 20s based off, you know, the shocking results of that list in the present day and what's not there, the star power that's not there. 40s now in modern wrestling is when a lot of these guys finally become stars, or at least they're at that peak of stardom. You know, we said it the other day, if you're a fan of the Young Bucks, Matt Jackson's 40. You don't think of it that way when you see him, but he's 40. Punk's in his 40s. The Usos in their 40s. Is Cody in his 40s? If he's not, he's about to be. Cody in his 40s. L.A. Knight in his 40s. Is Roman in his 40s? If not, he's about to be. Is that Roman in his 40s? I mean, every one of them now, you know, it's not like they peak. Vince McMahon retired Randy Savage. You know what I mean? How old was Randy Savage in 94? He pushed him out the door, and it's a completely different world today where you need those guys that have star power built off years of being pushed to stars. Well, and that's the thing is because as I'm looking at this list of guys in their 40s in 1984, they're all still major stars, and they've been stars in the business for 20 years, some of them, at that point. So it wasn't like they were late bloomers. They got on top and stayed there. But that'll be next time, I guess. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that, actually. I'm pumping myself up. That's why I keep talking about this now, because now I want to do that, but that'll be next time. Well, what in the world are you pumped up about on the Arcadian Vanguard Network this fine week, young man? Oh, sure. I'm excited and out of breath. Let's go to Brian. Another fine week of shows on the Arcadian Vanguard Podcast Network. Listen to Brian Flatline on the air. On Twitter, at Super Podcast, or on Facebook at Facebook.com slash Arcadian Vanguard. The wrestling news each and every day. Get your wrestling news for free. All the headlines, all the news, none of the fluff. None of the speculation, none of the star ratings, no paywall, no clickbait, just the wrestling news directly from the wrestling news.com or wherever you find your favorite podcast. Want to mention stick to wrestling with John McAdam, where John's special guest, Mike Mills, my buddy, joins him to review Mid-South Wrestling from February 1986, 40 years ago. Hear that today, McAdampod.com. And of course, the 605 Super Podcast. The Mothership! Oh, that's high sound. I'm under the weather, folks. Go through the archive. Make me feel better. 605pod.com. It's a medical miracle. Enough people listen to the show. He came back. The Mothership. All righty. Well, to close the program out here today, the Lights Out segment, We did a little bit of this a couple weeks ago, and we've been wanting to get back to it. But some TNA impact thoughts that I had for 2006, so it's been 20 years ago now. Holy shitballs. And these were different than the agent reports that I was sending to Terry Taylor in 2009 that I got in trouble for telling the truth. Because, as I'd mentioned when we did the first segment on these, Brian, this was when I first started with TNA and Jeff Jarrett had asked me hey, watch the show and tell me what you think because until a few weeks four weeks before I started I'd never seen their fucking TV show and last time we did this we read the four weeks of TV that I watched leading up to my debut and again the thing that made these different than the other agent reports. I typed these out and faxed them to Jeff. And, of course, he shared them with Dutch Mantell, because when I went there, that's who I went to work for. Jeff Jarrett, I was running it. That was his show. And Dutch Mantell was his right-hand man. I would tell Dutch most of this stuff verbally, either at the shows or when we were in the car, between the hotel and the studio. but I would send this to Jeff so that he could know how I thought for good or bad because he was a goddamn grown adult in the wrestling business and he knew that they were going to do what they were going to do either because he wanted to or because it was something he had no control over or he didn't want to fight the battle or whatever the case but he wanted to know what I thought about it and it's as simple as that so I could speak freely, knowing that he and Dutch were the only two, that was my audience, of who was hearing this stuff. And then they could do with it what they wanted to do with it. But I will make the note before we start that after I gave him these, I was still employed another three years later, and they didn't get rid of me until he was gone. So he must not have been too offended. They got safe to say. Brian, did I set that up well enough to people understand what the fuck we're doing? I believe so, and last time I want to say we started, was it around mid-May, May 18th, and we went into June? Yes, and now we're going to start in June. Because I started at Slammiversary that year, I believe it was, because the TNA Impact show that I've got here for June 22nd, 2006, It opened with a Slammiversary recap. So, again, I just found this shit in the drawer. And the next one after this June stuff finishes is in August. So I don't know if I have everything. But we will move ahead in order of what I've got and see what happens. They opened this TV show with the open, the pyro, the crowd shots, voiceover open. Cornet and Ring. I wasn't totally happy with me, but it got the point across, and the argument with Jeff had passion. And they had introduced me, obviously on the pay-per-view, but then this was the point of time where I was going to be the guy that was trying to offset Jeff Jarrett. He was the heel at that point in time. He was trying to dominate the TNA title, and I was trying to be the voice of reason, right? Otherwise than that, I don't remember what was in that segment, because that's all I said about it here. It has been 20 years ago. But then, Styles and Daniels entrance. AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels. Look great. Could they have some type of team nickname to add to their individual personalities, not take away? they had thrown them together and I thought they should be individuals, obviously, because they both had plenty of room to run as singles. But at the same time, if they're going to be a regular tag team, can they form some kind of team? This is not goddamn revolutionary. And then they had Styles and Daniels against Diamonds in the Rough. Remember, we remembered after some soul-searching that that was Lance Diamond or Simon Diamond, and he had the group of diamonds in the rough who were people that I can't remember who the fuck they were now. But would you like to hear what I said about the match, Brian? I would love to hear what you said about the match. You've already been so critical yourself. I didn't like myself, but everything else was good. I hear what you say about other people. The new champ should have shined before the underneath heels took over. The heat came too quick. The babyface has only got one tag in the entire match. Serelda run-in was fine. I think they had a girl named Serelda. AJ and Daniel's finish is fantastic. Segment three. Borash with Lethal, Saban, and Eric Young. Good job Jeff telling Eric off was classic. And then we go to Monty Brown versus Chasen Rance. Remember we talked about Monty Brown, and after we talked about him, the folks wrote in and reminded me. He ended up, his sister passed away, and he had to retire from wrestling to take care of his sister's kids. And that was because, remember, I knew it was something with his family, but we were trying to remember why he never progressed is because he had to quit. For a very good reason. That's respectable. Yeah. And this Chasen Rance apparently is some kind of fucking pervert that has gotten in all kinds of heat and trouble in Florida running a wrestling school and doing unsavory things and nobody speaks to him anymore. But this is 20 years ago, so don't anybody blame me. I don't know who the fucking guy is. Good quick squash is Brown's best bet. Conan did a good job with the offer to join LAX. if Killings is going to do the what's up deal with the crowd, the announcers can't talk over it. And Conan did a great job getting this over. So, say, I'm not necessarily ripping anybody a new asshole, right? I'm trying to be professional. Then we go to the back with Borash with Eric Young. I said, this is starting to drag. They can go to the back to do this. I don't know what the fuck. Segment and Lethal kind of bland announcing the meeting. And then in segment four, backstage Team 3D and the James Gang. Remember that Billy Gunn and Road Dogg are the James Gang. And Team 3D is obviously Team 3D. And remember, they've been having this program, but I made some comments about the same thing. We did the last set of reports. I said, I don't understand this. Bad comedy telling mother jokes after they've been having brawls. Brian is funny. Bubba's no comic. They're making a joke out of their angle. Then the fight breaks out and doesn't look very good. James Gang lay both 3D out. Then, and this is when they couldn't call themselves Dudleys, right? But everybody knew, the old everybody knew that Bill Watts was so scared of that everybody knows Spike Dudley had been a member of the team in ECW. So they brought Spike Dudley back, but they couldn't call him Spike Dudley, so they called him Runt. You remember this, or did you even watch or care? I remember this, and remember he was also with them in WWE. It wasn't just ECW. Ah, well, you got that right. First time I saw him was on that Father's Day show in California where he landed on his head when he was Matt Heisen. That was my first memory of him. But I remember when they brought him in there. He was always a part of the – he was the comedic fodder for the team. Yes. Well, now the James gang lay both members of 3D out, and then a 130-pound tuberculosis victim clears the ring. And Bubba issues a bland challenge. I said this was almost WWE to me. Could he be their Rough House Fargo? No. No. Because when he came back, he didn't get sprung out of a nut house and the place didn't sell out. Segment five. TNA girls video package. Well put together. Fluff to me. Some things never change. And then they had an ex-division title match. Sin Chi, who was low-key, versus Sanjay Dutt versus Samoa Joe. And that's when they, Joe was the champion, and I think they were trying to get him out of it. Well, I'll read you what I said. These three were all outside the ring so long they could have been counted out ten times. Just too much. Went to break at an awkward spot. match part two getting the belt off joe without beating him and furthering the deal with steiner was necessary but i didn't think joe should sell so much for underneath guys people didn't buy it but the finish worked it was the same thing they had samoa joe in the x division with i'm sorry They got low-key Sanjay Dutt, wonderful fellow. None of those guys are going to be main event fucking guys, right? Only in the weird Meltzer universe where people that can do all kinds of moves are main event guys. And they had Joe stuck in that. And at least they got him out of it because over the next few months, it's going to be when Kurt Angle comes in. But anyway, your thoughts so far? I mean it interesting hearing you break down this period of time which is not as bad as TNA would obviously be at various other times And I wonder what Jeff Schaert was thinking hearing all these things I mean, was it at any point where he didn't like that you were being so honest with him about his show and everything? No. Never said a goddamn word like, back up, ease up. No, what do you think? James E., what do you think? Or that's why he gave me the main events to produce, especially when we needed a finish with hard to work with people or with creative that was hard to work with. Because I could figure something out that everybody was happy with. Go back, tell him, okay, whatever the fuck. But overall, I'm going to give him my opinions. He could act on them if he wants to. That low-key seems like an interesting character. What was he like to work with? He's a different kind of guy. He had a lot of talent. But at the same time, I think he believed that he was legitimately this badass MMA fighter that was, I mean, he's a very excellent physical specimen. But he wasn't going to kick the shit out of any big professional fucking athletes that knew what they were doing because he's 150 fucking pounds. I mean, so I'm sure he could stretch me and he probably wants to if he hears this. but he was so hard to deal with because he tried to present himself like he was King Kong. He didn't just take the business seriously. He took himself so seriously and was so stern all the time. He had a great voice and could talk intelligently, but he didn't ever want to do a job or put anybody over or grumbled about it or whatever with all, Not just the WWE, which is why they, you know, marginalized him and then kicked him out. But even like in an MLW or Ring of Honor, Gabe Sapolsky would have headaches with him. Or Kurt Bauer would say, I'm not going to bring him back. And then they'd bring him back. But he just, he was legitimately convinced that he should be some kind of main event mixed martial arts expert beating up everybody in the goddamn business. and no but anyhow so now we go to the following week I'm starting to break myself in on this a little bit we opened with a Christian entrance this is 20 years ago Christian looks too bland I like his ring wear I think he was coming out in the god damn street clothes again. Good promo calling out Sting. Sting entrance knows how to look like a star because he was dressed in his gimmick. Sting led well not sure Christian's closing line hit a home run. Segment two, they got a lot of fucking talking. Borash with Jarrett and Steiner. See, this was still an hour show. This was before they went to two hours. good star power Scott was great Jeff nice setup for company meeting Team Canada entrance here's something that never changes Scott Damore was the manager of Team Canada right yeah Damore is too silly with the neck brace to get the right heat same thing now with Stokely in the fucking wheelchair I've worn a neck brace of Megan Times, right? But you can't be silly with it. You have to commit to what you're doing. What you're doing is not silly to you. I was a person acting silly who appeared to not realize that I was acting fucking silly. Does that make sense to you, silly? It does. I think too many guys with something like that, like the more with the neck brace, they go over the top to the point where you realize it's bullshit. It doesn't work. Well, they entered, and then Saban and Lethal entrance. I said, can somebody slap these two and wake them up? This was before Jay had got a lot of confidence, and Saban was just, they were just the X Division guys that everybody beat every week, right? So anyway, match, jumpstart, lots of bumps but lifeless, no emotion, ran off and left the people and never stopped to let them catch up. Eric Young's interference spot fell flat going to the break. Match part two in seg three. Spot back from break worked better. People started getting with slower paced heat. Young did a great job here. Heels set up perfect hot tag spot for Saban to Lethal. Lethal made a great athletic comeback. And then stood up and wiped his nose instead of firing the people up. and again it's 20 years ago he was a kid but you'll see I can almost see it in my mind's eye 20 minutes 20 years later he makes this big comeback and instead of standing up and bowing up and going yeah he fucking got up and wiped the snot off his fucking nose anyway good finish and Williams' pile driver is impressive That's before they called it the Canadian Destroyer and before everybody else and their brother did it and nobody sold it. Anyway, Monty Brown versus Norman Smiley. Good Lord, I'm still remembering some of these. Smiley looks like a whip dog with job written all over him. Just a horrible baby face. Jesus Brown should have killed him after the wiggle thing gimmick or not Brown over but too much smiley offense I thought he was the shits and they had it some way or another they made him one of the trainers in WCW the guy that was known for wiggling his ass and he always looked to me 50 years old I guess he was old even then but he's still one of their trainers isn't he Who? Norman Smiley. How old would he be now? Hold on, let me look it up. Norman Smiley. 20 years ago. When I first heard of him, he was wrestling as Black Magic in Mexico. Norman Smiley is 60 years old, born in 65, and he is a retired professional wrestler employed by WWE as a trainer for NXT. Good God. Well, 40 years ago here, 20 years ago when he was 40, he sucked. All right. Segment four, America's Most Wanted with Gail Kim entrance. These three look great. This was Storm and Harris. They had good teamwork. They looked like Storm had the cowboy look, but Harris looked enough to pull it off with him. Gail Kim made the picture. She's fucking hot. But then, AMW hide to ambush Team 3D. 3D and runt entrance never saw heels. Pretty hokey. Can 3D not have a match without no DQ and tables? It never changes. This was another jumpstart that fell flat and felt rushed. Flat spot to take a break. seg 5 match part 2 come up with garbage cans flying this to me is so five-year-old wwe and ecw it's cheap over with the people live but it's so tired on tv i'm also not comfortable with a 300 pound man slamming 120 pound woman on national tv but whacking her in the crotch with a golf club makes the whole company low rent. I forgot of it. Bubba had to go back to the bingo hall and whack Gayle Kim and the pussy with a golf club. Runt being in the ring in any form with his height, weight, physique, appearance, etc. is pretty hard to swallow. After two minutes, Kim is back up running around ringside. Sorry to be so negative, but this to me was rotten for the TNA image. so at least I'm consistent Brian and finally and I agree with you about the Dudleys so you're very consistent Seg6 company medium company medium company meeting with the podium that's where I had to bring everybody together to get my authority over to make the changes the title I think I've disbanded TNA or whatever I returned the belt to Jeff or disbanded TNA. Disbanded Team Canada. Team Canada, you mean. This is that clip that always goes around. You always see people say, here's Jim Cornette and TNA. Usually, this is one of the clips that always gets sent around. Yes. I had to make like four or five major announcements or whatever, and I returned the belt to Jeff because it had been held up, but I explained that I was returning it to him because I was forcing him into the goddamn defense of whatever the fuck, trying to give people what they wanted to see. But the SIG-6 was the company meeting. And I said, Podium and Etc. looked great, set me up perfect, let me get my authority over. Earl Hebner and Larry Zbysko did great jobs. After I returned the bell to Jeff, it was good, capital letters was good, to end with action. Joe choking Steiner looked good to go out on because I think there had been to debate, should we have this goddamn physicality here and go out on the action or should we go out on the goddamn major announcement or whatever, and we decided to end with action and it worked out. So nothing particularly controversial so far. Somebody hasn't showed up yet that will get me to go into quite a bit more detail, but I'm trying to be as positive as I am negative because I've only been doing this a couple of weeks, and I'm trying to point out things that I like and don't like. But it's not like I had, oh, sir, I really think you should rethink your, it's Jeff. He's not going to be offended at me. He wouldn't have asked me to come work for him if he didn't want me to come work for him and tell him what I think. And then when he tells me what we're going to do, then I go do that thing. He'd be offended if you weren't you. Well, yeah, he would have been disappointed. I don't know if it would have offended him, but it would have been disappointing. What was it like for you, though? I mean, here you are, you're submitting these notes, you're acting as a consultant, as an agent in some respects, but you're also now an on-air performer, and you're now on screen, and you're interacting with a lot of the people that you're critiquing at the same time. What was that first taping, that first weekend like for you to be around all that? Was it a positive experience with everyone? Well, yes, I mean, everybody, it was lower pressure than the WWE because we're at a soundstage in Orlando, right? And everybody's friendly for the most part at that point that I noticed. And it's lower pressure, but at the same time, there's a smaller crew doing everything. So you have to have everybody has to work together, pull together, get shit done in a fucking snappy fashion because there's not 16 people do everything. So it was a long, hard work day, but it wasn't. Again, I was all optimistic at this point, wasn't seeing anything that I thought, oh, my God, this will fucking doom this whole place until shit stain showed up. So this is the part where I'm thinking, well, we can, there's plenty of shit to work with here. Hey, can I play you a little bit of audio? Yes. If you don't mind, if you're one of those people that can listen to your own work, maybe we can get you to critique your own work. Here's you changing the face of TNA Wrestling as it is on YouTube. Let's go to this. I want to thank you for your indulgence. And ladies and gentlemen of TNA, I want to thank you for your attendance in this first ever public company meeting. The results of my meetings, my deliberations, and my decisions are on this agenda, and we're going to get to it right now in public. First, LAS, you have been doing a work stoppage because of this immigration reform issue, because you feel that you're the victim of discrimination. Well, I've got news for you. In TNA, a work stoppage means a check stoppage. LAX will be returning to the ring. If you don't like that decision, I understand Jiffy Lube continues to be hiring. Wow. I love it. Get it back out there. Now, let me stop it for a second. While you're doing this, Conan is actually on the headset, I guess, for the Spanish commentary. Yes. And then Hernandez and everyone is around him while this is happening, and all the fans are sitting around them just oohing at this. But let's go back to this. Well, and also, what did I say when the fan yelled out of nowhere, he is, or whatever? That was funny. But also, I had the agenda on my clipboard there because, remember, I showed up, I've watched four of their TV shows, and I have to make like five major announcements. I said, can I write this shit down? So I didn't have a script, but I had like one, number one, announce LAX, no work stoppage, number two, whatever the fuck, so I remembered my topics. All right, let's go back to this. The work stoppage ends right now. Number two, Scott D'Amour, Team Canada. Ah, Butterball. Yeah, you. All of you are under individual contracts, but from now on, as far as I'm concerned, Team Canada disbanded. No! Look at the ball! Look at the ball! Cornet's not the power! Cornet's not the authority! Americans most wanted! Well, let me stop it there for a second. The fans are going crazy at this. DeMore obviously comically falls down holding his neck. Yeah. But they'd gone as far as they wanted to go with Team Canada. They wanted to re-rack and do something different with some of the people in it, so they disbanded. Yeah, young Bobby Roode. I haven't seen this in a while. Let's go back to Jim Cornette and TNA. America's Most Wanted has demanded a rematch for the Tag Team Championship. So I tell you what, far be it from me to stop somebody who wants to fight from fighting. So therefore, at the July pay-per-view event, Victory Road, we're going to have a rematch. But with a twist, it's going to be a six-person tag. It's going to be America's Most Wanted and Gail Kim against AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, and that big Amazon-looking woman that she found. Local tax experts. Oh, God damn it. Let me stop it there, Jim, as it goes to commercial here. Who was that big Amazon woman they found? I don't know, because Christian Cage was standing in between them. So I don't know if you were talking about him or if there was an actual woman at the time. I can't remember. I mean, we might go further in the notes, but they found a big Amazon woman. My God. I'm trying to think, was that? No. Who? That was too early for Raka Khan. No, I don't think it was. No, it wasn't her. I'm trying to say who the. Well, nevertheless, keep going. And the tag team titles are going to be on the line, gentlemen. Just remember that. Victory Road. Now. Now let me just also say that you're announcing this, but this isn't your booking. You didn't say this. No, no. See, right now I'm just a talent. I'm not even producing at this point. I just showed up to, I'm still on crutches. I tore my knee and had the surgery in Ring of Honor. Ed, and so I'm still hobbling around on crutches at this point, but I'm just a talent disseminating the information as best I can. Number four. Let's see. Oh, I can't find him, Earl Hebner. Raise your hand. You're so short. I can't find you. Where are you? He's over here, Jim. He's over here, right here. In the ring. Larry Zbysko in the ring. Jeff Jarrett in the ring. All right. I've got sweating eyes by this point. It's 150 degrees in there. I can't see my fucking notes. I can't see fucking Hemner. Where are you? God damn it. Wave your hand. Go ahead. Went down at Slammiversary. Now we're going to address what went down in the King of the Mountain match. All the chaos, all the collusion, and all the controversy comes to a head right here and right now. I don't remember. And by the way, you do recognize that that is what fans wanted. Fans wanted you to put Jeff Jarrett in his place. That is what fans want. Yes, that's what he wanted me to do also. That's the idea of the thing is they've got to have, because Larry Zbysko had been the authority figure, and he was kind of on the take and heelish. They felt that the fans were losing faith in the promotion, and Jeff needed somebody to stand up for the cause of right and justice for the promotion so he could be a heel. We're asking for Scott Steiner, but, as well, Scott, come on in. I got something for you, too. Earl Hebner, how long have we been, friends? What, 20 years? 20 years. 20 good long years. 20 good long years. And I always thought that referees should command respect and credibility. Their words should be law. Do you agree with that? Exactly. You're exactly right. You got your hand in somebody's pocket, Earl Hebner. So I want you to take a message back to the rest of the referees in the locker room. As of what you did at Slammiversary, because of that, You're fired. Oh! You said we were friends for 20 years. Get out of my ring. Get out of my building. Pick up your check and hit the bridge. Security taken out. Eric Young is safe. He's not released. All right, let's stop it there because we don't get too many on Mike Earl have their performances. 20 good long years. 20 good long years, yeah. He thought he was home free. Well, because he'd been the crooked referee. He'd been on the take. So we had to get him out into blah, blah, blah. And that was another way, again, to show my authority and to tell the fans we're doing something about the runaway rampant corruption that's been going on around here. Because it's like coming back from doing too many run-ins. Well, then theoretically, the deal is we're going to stop this, the bad taste from people doing too much outside the authority of the company. Well, no, the other thing, too, is this was in the midst of that era where there was just nonstop heel general managers or heel commissioners or Mr. McMahon running things. So you never really got to see, even though you're kind of just being a down-the-middle executive here, you're a babyface in a lot of ways because of what you're saying and what you're doing. You never got to see it. Listen to the pops you're getting from that TNA crap for all these things you're doing. You never got to see that. That's what Dutch had wanted. Dutch, he wanted me to be the wrestling czar. But he said, he agreed, like I agreed, that the promotion has to be babyfaces And that if everybody that works for the promotion is in on the shift, then the heels can't get any heat because it's just gaga. And the fans are just mad at the company that allows it. So if he brought somebody in that could fucking stand up verbally against the fucking heels and try to maintain some righteous order, then when somebody gets away with something, well, we've done all we could and he still fucking tricked us. That type of thing. And it's just subliminal, but it's psychology. Earl Hebner is gone. You're crooked. You're on the tank. And I want you out of here. Adios. I'm speaking here about Montreal, and I'm not letting it go any further. TNA security in the ring and now escorting Earl Hebner out of the impact zone. Okay. Larry. Larry. You call yourself a member of the championship committee? I researched your contract and I found out one very important thing you're a smart man I've known that for a long time you're a smart businessman if I fire you I've got to pay you TNA has to pay you for the rest of the term of your contract but if you breach your contract if you fail to perform any task that you're requested to perform adequately then you're done no money well that's not going to happen man Well, let's stop it for a second with That's Not Gonna Happen, man. Performing with Larry, working with Larry Zbysko on camera, what do you think? Larry Zbysko was fucking fun to work with. Just a ball. He was always coming in with a story or a wisecrack. And he lived down there. And I guess, I don't know, 20 years later, I don't know how he's doing these days, but all he did was, like, play golf. and he lived out and he would drive over to the studio from whatever part of Florida he was living in. He'd have the Hawaiian shirt on. He'd cut a promo just off the top of his head like that and just have fun. I don't care. Doesn't matter to me. No worries. And he also has that sardonic wit where, you know, well, they've got me booked against a parade float. What are you going to do? Go outside and have a health smoke. As we smoke like a chimney. But I'm going to go outside and have a health smoke. But it was fun. But, again, they had put him in a position where he was just a weaselly, crooked guy in the company. and it has a shelf life. Let's go back to you and Larry Zabisco. Well, that's not going to happen, man. Don't worry about it. Oh, you mean you'll perform any task that you're required to do? According to the contract. According to the contract. Well, within the contract, it does give me the power to book you in wrestling matches. Oh, wow. Look at the look down. I smell another blockbuster coming. So, I've been doing a lot of it in the middle. Can I stop you one second here? Because this is audio, so people aren't seeing all the video. But when I make this announcement, I can book you in wrestling matches. Well, when the people start to come up and react to that, and Larry Zabisco's making that face, that's when I lay out, because that gives the announcers, Mike Tenet and Don West, the opportunity to say what they said. Oh, man. And also the more that Zabisco does the take of it and the more that I stand there tapping my toe, the more the people come up in anticipation of what's going to be said, but then I've got to get back in before it drags. So you're just, with the inflections and the pauses and the promos and the question asked and pause to answer, etc., you're kind of taking the people on a little fucking ride with you. It's not just, I'm going to sell this as quick as I can. and nobody can interrupt me or I'm never going to pause. I understand that you and Raven don't like each other very much. Is that ever the truth? That's an understatement. And I understand that you're a little sensitive about what people call your comb over up there. Oh, he struck a nerve. No offense. No offense meant. So I tell you what, here's what we're going to do at Victory Road in July. We're going to have a match. It's going to be you versus Raven And the loser gets his head shaved in the middle of the ring Larry, you're in control of your own destiny You can walk out right now, shake hands with park friends And you can breach Or I can make your life a living stinking hell It's your choice, make it You'd love for me to walk out, wouldn't you, Cornette? Actually, yeah I'll let you know, I'll decide my future Not some clown peewee Herman geek like you. Poor Larry. He had a chance to blister me and he couldn't come out with it. You peewee Herman geek. Peewee Herman geek. But see, that's another thing. We had no script. This was not written out. Jeff and Dutch sat down with me, said, these are the five announcements we want you to make. These are the changes that we're making for this or that reason, and then matches that we're announcing for our pay-per-view coming up. So these are the announcements. Then I get with each of the people. I get with Larry, or I get with Earl Hebner, whoever I'm interacting with. And I say, okay, Earl, I'm going to fire you. Well, I'll build it up. And, you know, we just worked out. If I say we've been friends for, oh, yeah, 20 years, okay, just shit like that, verbally, I could say this, you could say that. do we go out? We do it live in front of the fucking people. And as Larry's comeback showed sometimes it you know you take the pole vault and you fucking miss but but it was that's why it's not written and we're not reciting it while it sounds like there's a little more emotion to it. And also when I'm announcing these matches I know the way the order in which to announce them stipulation comes last, build it with the inflection, make it so that it's poppable, so that when you finish the line, that's where the people know they're supposed to pop. Let's go back to this from TNA. Jim Cornette changes the face of TNA wrestling. You let me know, and I'll let the TNA legal department know. Jim Cornette, you know what this boils down to, don't you? the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. This gave me some trouble because whatever I do, somebody's going to get mad. I don't like the idea of titles not being won and lost in the ring. I don't like the idea of giving people championships like some of these other promoters that give the title to their neighbor or give the title to their son-in-law just so they can have it. I want this to have some meaning. I want this to have some honor. And there was no honor in Slammiversary in what you did. But what do I do now if I give it to Sting? He didn't win anything. Christian will be mad. If I give it to Christian, he didn't win anything. Sting will be mad. They were about to win. Both of them were in a dead heat when your treachery began. Now, you did win it, the match. I'll give you that. You won the match. But what I have understood from all these fans in the past few weeks is that the thing that the TNA fans want most in the world, and I think I speak for all of you on this, is to see Jeff Jarrett pounded into a puddle of country gravy. Seems to be the consensus opinion. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to get the four toughest, baddest, meanest guys in TNA. And we're going to have a four-way match at Victory Road in July. And those four men are going to be Christian Cage. He deserves it. Yeah. Big Papa Pump Scott Steiner. Whoa. Oh, and the Samoans to Michigan came out of the hole. Yeah. That order was intentional also. The order of names that were announced was intentional to get the biggest pop at the end. And like I said, when I mentioned I wasn't entirely happy with myself on a few things or whatever, one thing I fumpered a couple of things there. Secondly, I'm yelling too much because the sound system in that fucking soundstage, I could not hear myself very well and was convinced that I needed to talk louder. Things like that when I say I'm not happy with myself. But anyway, announcing the big, even though I didn't book it, by the way, it was 20 years ago. Four ways were still kind of, okay, we can do this. But the announcement of the four-way and then the rest of the announcement I'm going to make, that was the money part of the thing. That's why it came last, because that's the main event business going into the next pay-per-view. Go ahead. How's that for a foursome? Look at that look on Joe's face. when those four mean motor scooters and bad go-getters get finished pounding each other into powder here in this ring and one man stands as the toughest of the tough, the baddest of the bad, then that man is going to be the number one contender. And Jeff Jarrett, you get on one condition. You get your precious belt if and only if you agree to defend the NWA world title against the winner of that match, and then all the TNA fans will most likely see what they want to see and what I want to see, and that's you've broken into so many pieces. A Boy Scout couldn't tie you back together. Tepid response. They didn't want to see Jeff get the belt back, but I had to give Jeff the belt back. You know why? Because the booker said so. So we try to phrase it in such a way as the worst thing that could happen to Jeff Jarrett was me handing him this belt back because then he's got to fight whoever the fuck's going to kill it. Then it was, I mean, they clearly wanted to see Joe of all of those guys. And it was, yeah, okay, all right, we kind of like that. But it wasn't the announcement of the end of goddamn World War II or anything. Or Team Canada. Yeah, or Team Canada. They were glad to get rid of them. A little bit more here. So because my back is against the wall and I have no other choice, I must say this. This belt is yours for now, but I sincerely think it's not going to be yours for long. Oh, not a popular distinction right there. Not a popular distinction. Jeff Jarrett once again the NWA World Heavyweight Champion. Oh, you can see right there. Well, Cornette, you found out the hard way. That when you come to TNA, I don't have to deal with you. You have to deal with me. And now that the belt is back where it belongs, I'm in the right frame of mind. And earlier tonight, earlier tonight, Christian Cage, you and your mysterious buddy, your tag team partner, were talking about a tag match that's going to happen next week. Well, I got a challenge for you. Some fan just yelled, who cares? Do you want to hear the end of Jeff here with Christian? or? Well, yeah, because I don't know where they're going. Okay. Why don't we have to wait till next week? Why don't you find your partner and let's get that damn tag match started right now. His partner's staying. That's who he's talking about. Christian Cage headed towards the ring here at the impact zone. And here comes Sting. Oh, he's coming through from the other side. Stiner doesn't see him. Stiner doesn't see him. Let Christian Cage see him. Turn around Jarrett, turn around Steiner. Look at Stinger, the offensive, and here comes Chris, and he joined the party. This is just a sample of what you're going to see next week as these four take it off. It's tag team action. Stinger splashed in the corner on the NWA World Heavyweight Champion. Jarrett's thrown to the floor by Sting. Chris in case, big pop-up, Scott Steiner, battle on the other side of the building. All that confidence that he had, obviously, didn't work out for him, as you can see. Right there, Steiner in the hand of Samoa Joe. Samoa Joe, come get him out. Samoa Joe, come get him out. Okay. And that's how they went off the air. Mike Tanae selling like an auctioneer. The excitement level, but people were Joe, Joe, Joe. And that was the big pop at the end when Samoa Joe comes out and fucking puts the choke on Steiner. And it was then, you could tell then, Samoa Joe is a commodity. If he'd have either gotten away from TNA and got away from the influence of Vince Russo and gone to the WWE, Well, maybe they would have botched him too, but he would have spent more of his prime athletic time in a major spotlight instead of spinning his wheels down there for quite some time. Because they didn't, I won't say they, certain people didn't realize what they could have done with him. But nevertheless. Well, that was Impact from June 29, 2006. And I will go with one more here before we quit because I saw this and it fucking tickled me because I'd forgotten about this. But again, some things never change. July 6, 2006 TNA Impact episode started with Borash with Christian. Said, did a good job here. company meeting package very well done open etc Sanjay Dutt entrance bit of a star power let down you're not lying and of course they b-rolled my decision on LAX and then they did the gimmick where Moody Jack Melendez who was affiliated with LAX at that point he was from Puerto Rico he did a Spanish introduction and they did Homicide vs. Sanjay J. Dutt. Jump start. I'm seeing a pattern here. Started too quick. Work was sharp. Nice dives, but then slowed down and started to get the crowd. Notice they always start to get the crowd when they slow down. Nice comeback. Hernandez's over-the-top choke slam is great. Heat after by LAX didn't really get going, but Killings made a nice save. And it was a match. The argument between Larry Zabisco and Slick Johnson. Remember referee Slick Johnson? He had a bald head and short pants. Short referee pants. I remember him, yeah. Argument between Zabisco and Slick Johnson happening there by the desk with no mics, but acting like everyone wasn't listening went on too long. Seg 2 Team Canada recap video on camera announcers Eric Young and Slick in with the cue ball pictures this went too long and the adrenaline stopped rushing because that's they want to be like a TNA is a one hour adrenaline rush type of thing right well the adrenaline stopped fucking rushing I said this was two sidekicks with no straight man because they were doing bits about the hair match and the blah, blah, blah. Segment three, VTR promo Rhino talking about WWE's offer. I assume that's when he stayed there, but they had offered him, etc. He said, lots of emotion and should cause talk, but too much bleeped profanity started detracting from the message because back then nobody cussed on TV, so if you did and they bleeped it, it was like, oh, my God, he's really shooting, that type of thing. But if you went too far with it, it was distracting. And then here's the one I wanted to read you. Brad, I've forgotten about this. Monty Brown versus Kenny King. Oh, your favorite. I didn't – this is 2006. I didn't have a problem with that lying sack of shit until 2011. I didn't remember I'd ever seen him. Once again, against a specimen like this, it should have been all Monty, and he gave the kid something, and the kid fucked it up. Monty's promo was fine in content and delivery, but him switching from camera to camera back and forth to speak was stagey and contrived. He was still green, and he was like, as I remember, he would turn to make a glory. Rather than just a glance, they changed the camera angle. He would turn and make some kind of grandiose movement. It was just odd and unnatural. Anyway, segment four, paparazzi productions. Remember, I don't even actually know if we ever concluded what it was or what it was supposed to be, but Nash was, I guess, injured, and he was just doing promos with the X Division guys, and they were shooting video that some mysterious paparazzi would shoot and play. You know what I'm talking about? I remember some of this stuff. I remember Nash and Alex Shelley, but I remember some of them. Yeah. Well, paparazzi productions. Dash, dash, Nash makes fun of his own angle. Announcers had to stall for Nash and company to appear. Saban is completely humiliated as a baby face, and people are laughing at him. Lethal makes a rotten comeback. Heels don't feed well, and Nash bails with no contact. Flat. so they did some fucking schmaz with the underneath baby faces or whatever uh borash with samoa joe i like joe being calm and then melting down at the end it makes him different steiner and jeff entrances good star power cage and sting entrances people are with it so we've got steiner and jeff jared against christian cage and sting two segment match jump start and four-way this match called for it and would have meant so much more if it didn't happen in every match the jump start good action Jeff and Cage carried the fast pace stuff well Cage's bump to the floor was a great place for the break match part two good heat on Cage great pop for the hot tag nice comeback by Sting good false finishes and great pop on the finish. Started to die down on the heat after, but Joe's save and the brawl picked it back up. So these were nice little one-hour TV shows that there was some talent there and some guys that knew what they were doing and some names and the fans were liking it in the building and it was starting to get ratings. This was, what was it, three or four months away from when they would get the two-hour slot on Thursday nights rather than just the one hour. So there was reason to believe that there was future success on the horizon if we all pulled together as a team. Come here, dear boy. Have a cigar. You're going to go far. yeah there was still a lot of buzz around TNA was the prime competitor to WWE and eventually in the end they always let you down and you know again they hadn't been on Spike that long Spike now the Paramount Network but they hadn't been on Spike that long and they were as you said the only legitimate competition so this okay we've got Sting we've got Rhino We've got Jarrett. We've got fucking, you know, Bobby Roode, Abyss, Samoa Joe, the young new guys that haven't been beaten to powder on the other televisions, as well as some guys that had names in different locations. So I was just hoping that we'd get a little less indie, because there was still a lot of indie to this, because a lot of these guys is 20 years ago, but the same thing as when AEW started. A lot of these guys had never done television. A lot of these guys had an indie mindset. But they could learn and grow. And you've got, look at Samoa Joe did, AJ Styles did. I always thought Chris Daniels was not honestly as marketable as either one of those two guys, but he still had talent and was a remarkable performer. but they all, all the guys that were new to television had potential, and all the guys that had names that had been on TV, Scott Steiner, etc., this was 20 years ago, they could still go to some extent. So it was not ridiculous to believe that there would be some success at the end of the rainbow or whatever the fuck. but nevertheless I could keep going for another six months or so according to this file but we've been doing this for a while but that just means we can come back to it more often that's right this is a great one and we'll have more to check out in the future maybe even some more audio to review but a great look at TNA the summer of 2006 if I had time I'd go back and watch these shows again and remember what I was critiquing but maybe it's more fun to guess and then the fans The fans can play along, and they can go back and find it if they want to. There's more people watching TNA from 20 years ago than there is now, I bet. Anyhow, is there a big event coming up on the drive-thru next week? Do we have pay-per-views or network specials or PLEs or YOUs? I think we just have wrestling talk, classic wrestling talk, whatever's happening, the big news of the day, all sorts of hijinks and balloons, farm animals, fire trucks. It's going to be a hell of a show. Don't forget the Dalmatian. Well, in that case, folks, in the meantime and in between time, we will part until we see you again. Thank you. Fuck you. Bye-bye, everybody. Get the experience. Get the experience. I'm Tim Cornett. I'm Tim Cornett. authorities