transcript

Speaker 1:
[01:00] Hello again, everybody, and welcome. Today, it's the weekend of thunder over Louisville, lightning in Las Vegas, and foolishness in Florida. So it's the, does anybody know what they're doing addition of the Jim Cornette Experience? And joining me to discuss these very topics, Hawaiian Brian, the podcasting lion, King of the Arcadian Vanguard Podcast Network, Mr. Co-host to you. He always knows which way the wind is blowing. Be great, Brian Last, everybody.

Speaker 2:
[01:28] Aloha, Jim, a pleasure to be here once again as we are recording a big week of nonstop wrestling action. And it all starts now.

Speaker 1:
[01:37] Well, what we are gonna try to attempt to do, our mission here today for the people, the cult of Cornette, the listeners out there, is to bring you up to that, because we are just 24 hours away, a little more from the actual kickoff of the first pyro at the WrestleMania event itself. We're gonna bring you in this program, by the time we get finished with it, everything through Smackdown and the Hall Of Fame weekend, and the, or the Hall Of Fame weekend, the Hall Of Fame ceremony. And then we're gonna take a couple of days to watch endless amounts of wrestling, and then we're gonna come back and talk about all that on your program. So it's a fun task we have in front of, you know what a lot of people are saying, and I didn't realize that, I knew some people listened to the show because they don't wanna watch this shit anymore, but they like to listen to us talk about it, and in some cases, take the piss out of it, as they say. I didn't know how many people that was. They're like, Jesus Christ, you watch it so we don't have to. It's almost like we're throwing our bodies in front of a projectile. See we're heroes, Brian.

Speaker 2:
[03:01] There's a lot of people out there that you suffer for them, and then you report back and they're really grateful for it, and you escort them through their daily lives and your reviews of the wrestling shows. It's funny too, the people who get the most upset, like amongst the AEW fans and what you say, they're upset with you when you, like you said, take the piss. It's not even the critical reviews, it's when you laugh at it and have fun with it, and it's like, who the hell is the audience of Orange Cassidy and Tony Storm to be upset with someone else laughing? Maybe not at the product, maybe more the people behind the product, but still it's the same thing.

Speaker 1:
[03:38] Well, it's a very simple little psychological tweak that is very important to that these people laugh at the shows and it's foolish, but they're laughing with their heroes, the guy that sticks his hands in his pockets and the guy that looks like Ricky Steamboat's daughter and the fucking guy, blah, blah, blah. Oh, aren't they great? Yeah, but when we actually laugh at them because they're fucking pathetic, then that by by osmosis transfers over to, well, they're saying I'm pathetic because I dream of being the guy that can stick my hands in my pockets.

Speaker 2:
[04:20] I'm just going to go home and take it out on that woman I have in the basement. I can't come out.

Speaker 1:
[04:25] Now, come on. Now, that is a small percentage.

Speaker 2:
[04:28] That's only happened a few times now. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[04:31] What is it now? It's only three or four.

Speaker 2:
[04:33] Caught on camera, there was the one that had the guy caught on camera, right? They had like a stinging operation.

Speaker 1:
[04:38] Yeah. Yeah. And the T-shirt. And then there was one guy wearing the AEW T-shirt. There was the other guy was watching AEW in the background.

Speaker 2:
[04:49] Yeah, that's the one I'm thinking of. That's the guy I was thinking of.

Speaker 1:
[04:53] But that's a very small percentage, Brian. Well, you know, what's 5% of a million people? What is 5% of a million people?

Speaker 2:
[05:03] What are you using as a million? What's the number of million from?

Speaker 1:
[05:06] I'm just saying, if you just said, okay, here's the dynamite gets 650 and the collision gets a couple of hundred, just say a million people. Is there a million AEW fans? What's 5% of that? That's all we have to worry about. That would be like, what, 25,000 fuck of people.

Speaker 2:
[05:28] The sickest of the sickos.

Speaker 1:
[05:31] Anyway, speaking of sick, I'm just pulling my hair out. I'm biting my fingernails, Brian. I'm on the edge of my seat because I told you a couple of days ago, they were calling for storms and thunderstorms and maybe severe weather and heavy rain for Thunder Over Oval Day, which as we sit here right now, beginning this episode is tomorrow. And now in the last couple of days, they've backed it up to, well, it's going to rain, but it'll be on and off. And the problem is the cloud cover now for the air show. They do this massive air show where they do the loop de loops and the flips with the jets and the things and such. And here comes Orville and Wilbur Wright with I don't fucking know. But they're going to have the low clouds. They can't do all their maneuvers. But the rain, which will not be severe, it will hopefully be through by the time the fireworks are set to go off. So now we're, is it going to happen? Well, they're going to blow this shit up one way or the other. But is anybody going to be down here to see it? What's it going to look like?

Speaker 2:
[06:47] Forgive me if you've answered this before or if I've asked it before, but when you were with OVW, was there ever, did you ever think that maybe we could do something with Thunder over Louisville? There's like some kind of way to attach yourself to it or, you know, some adjacent event?

Speaker 1:
[07:01] Fuck no, because, I mean, if we were a food truck or a goddamn something like that, but, you know, then we might make more money running a wrestling show. And there's no, it would be insane to try to have a goddamn ring. Any place, every conceivable place that human beings can occupy on a downtown waterfront on both sides of the river, Kentucky and Indiana, if it's not blocked off to the public because it's part of the goddamn show, then it's packed with people. And then nobody would want to watch wrestling matches while they got a goddamn air show with 50 fighter jets and various fucking people doing stunt work and drones. And then it gets dark and they blow off fireworks for 30 fucking minutes straight. The Second Street Bridge has been closed for two days because they load it up and fire a lot of them off of the, well, most of them off of the bridge and have a waterfall off the thing, across the whole Ohio River, to the soundtrack of the oddest collection of music you've ever heard in your life from all, they appealed to all ages. So no, try to do a fucking outlaw wrestling show in the middle of that. I mean, most people wouldn't notice it was there. I wasn't even there. So yeah, a good idea, Brian.

Speaker 2:
[08:44] I'm sure Onita could have made it work.

Speaker 1:
[08:47] Oh, he would have had the, he would have had him fight onto the bridge right when the fireworks went off. And fucking blown up into the river. But anyway, but now the problem is we are in almost in a drought. Last year, we had were eight inches of rain heavy for the year already and had ten feet water downtown, and now we're five inches short. And and are heading into a drought with exceptionally warm weather for this time of the year. So. Pick your poison. Anthrax. Yeah, well, arsenic for me, thank you. But all right. So I said, what we're going to do today. And of course, we have to talk about. Tony Khan's latest. I don't know, is this part of the most brilliant idea he ever had? Or are they just all completely fucking insane? This is what we're going to try to figure out about that. But I wanted to make mention of emails for Lee, who is from Michigan. He says, I recently celebrated one year of sobriety. And congratulations, Lee. And I wanted to thank you and Brian for providing me with quality entertainment throughout the past year and several before that. I was going to say throughout just the past year. It must be new, but he says several before that. But Jim once blocked me on Twitter for wishing him a bad Thanksgiving and that his turkey was dry.

Speaker 2:
[10:26] What cost that?

Speaker 1:
[10:28] I don't know. It was unsolicited. But I believe I remember it. And that's why, you know, I call attention to this because he says, I just want to apologize for that. That was before I discovered our Common Hatred for John Moxley. Fuck that guy. All right.

Speaker 2:
[10:46] Well, there you go. Bonding over hatred.

Speaker 1:
[10:49] So, Lee, but it's not near Thanksgiving, but I hope your, hope your Thunder Day hot dogs are greasy. How about that?

Speaker 2:
[10:58] Keep it up, Lee.

Speaker 1:
[10:59] And also another from a kind of a member of the cult, a daughter of a member of the cult, Lola. L-O-L-A Lola. Hi, Mr. Cornette. This is this, of course, this came through the official channels. It was across my desk. So she's properly, you know, respectful here. Hi, Mr. Cornette. My name is Lola. My dad has been your biggest fan since he was a teenager. God damn it. I can't hold him high, my God. At last, the end is near. My dad has been your biggest fan since he was a teenager. And he listens to both of your podcasts every week. He met you many years ago at the Fairgrounds, I believe, and he was stoked. I even got him a signed autograph and copy of your new book last Christmas. Thank you, Lola. We're having a 50th birthday party for him Sunday, May 17th at the Highland Community Ministries in Louisville. He would be so excited if you were able to make it. So I wanted to see if I could get a hold of you. If you can, the party will be anytime between 330 and 730. If you can't make it, would you mind maybe shouting him out on your drive-thru? His name is Jeremy. It's a happy birthday, Jeremy, dad of Lola. And I'm sorry that unfortunately, because of prior commitments, I will not be able to make it to your birthday party in Louisville, Kentucky on Sunday, May 17th at the Highland Community Ministries between 330 and 730 p.m. But I'm sure a bunch of other members of the cult are going to drop by and say hello and bring you a nice present. On Sunday, May 17th at the Highland Community Ministries in Louisville between 330 and 730 p.m. for Jeremy. Happy birthday.

Speaker 2:
[12:57] We'll be sending Norman Dooley in our stead.

Speaker 1:
[13:00] Norman will stop by and he'll bring a punch and pie. And that's right, as anybody that does stop by, I assume they're having refreshments. So if you're just in need of a warm place, like a roof over your head or some free food.

Speaker 2:
[13:17] Hold on now. Come on. Now that you're determined to ruin this party, let's stop for a second.

Speaker 1:
[13:21] I'm not trying to ruin the party.

Speaker 2:
[13:23] That's exactly what you're trying to do. You're trying to destroy this man's birthday party.

Speaker 1:
[13:26] No, no, I'm sure they're going to have food. What kind of party would it be without food and drink and... All that type of stuff in long tall glasses. I know I can dance. I know I can dance.

Speaker 2:
[13:39] If a listener of this show showed up at that party, do they have to do the cult of Cornette handshake or any sort of sounds, anything to indicate who they are, the outsiders to this crew?

Speaker 1:
[13:48] No, they should come dressed as one of the cult of Cornette wrestling integrity watchers, like Sergeant At Arms Nick Barrett with the white beret, the white sash, the saber, and the shirt, and do the woo-woo with each other. And then automatically you can get into Jeremy's 50th birthday party, Sunday, May 17th at the Highland Community Ministries.

Speaker 2:
[14:13] You've plugged this thing more than you've plugged your own stuff.

Speaker 1:
[14:17] Well, I want him to know how loved he is. He's got a big turnout. Just bring in extra KFC. If you would, there.

Speaker 2:
[14:25] Nothing says happy birthday like extra KFC.

Speaker 1:
[14:29] Well, you're going to have to feed the whole fucking neighborhood. Have you been to that neighborhood?

Speaker 2:
[14:34] I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[14:34] That's a hungry fucking neighborhood. All right.

Speaker 2:
[14:36] Well, happy birthday.

Speaker 1:
[14:37] There are big fat people over there.

Speaker 2:
[14:39] Happy birthday, Jeremy. And, of course, good decision, Lola.

Speaker 1:
[14:44] Happy birthday, Jeremy. Happy birthday to you. All righty. I understand that before we get to what Tony's done now, let's talk about what Tony has previously done as seen through the eyes of a child, through the eyes of a child, on the arms of an angel or whatever the thing. Dave Meltzer now goes into hypnotic trances where it takes him far, far away to a land that he only dreams of, whatever he watches in AEW Pay-Per-View, and he sees different things than we do, Brian. So just to put a button on the AEW Dynasty Pay-Per-View, I understand you have the official star ratings that everybody clamors and craves to get from Uncle Dave for the AEW Dynasty Pay-Per-View, where they just went hours and hours and hours and then followed it up with a cool TV match where they switched to world title in two minutes. But more on that in a moment. What are these fucking ratings? These stars, these...

Speaker 2:
[16:02] And again, a lot of the listeners like hearing your take on this because you are one of the co-creators of the star rating system and...

Speaker 1:
[16:08] Oh, quit!

Speaker 2:
[16:09] People like to hear what you think of the bastardization and I guess turning into a whore of the star rating system.

Speaker 1:
[16:16] Oh, my God, the whore of Babylon was Mother Teresa compared to what he's done here. But now I was not even the originator of this. I was the instigator of the application of it to wrestling. But it was... Who was it that did the movie star rating? Was it Leonard Maltin? That's the guidebook that I used to have. Up until the time that I was... That I got into wrestling business and started traveling on the road. When I lived here at home, I had a copy of the TV Guide next to my TV and a copy of Leonard Maltin's, which I've still got around here somewhere, movie reviews, the big paperback books or whatever a movie was coming on goddamn TV. You could see what Leonard had to say about it. But did he invent that?

Speaker 2:
[17:08] When I was a kid, I thought Leonard Maltin was John Landis.

Speaker 1:
[17:13] Well, they did look similar, but Leonard had him by a few years. But the point is, whoever did that invented this. And then I made a wise ass comment that, you know, well, you ought to do the and here we go. But Dave...

Speaker 2:
[17:28] There's nothing in your life that you walk back from this.

Speaker 1:
[17:33] No, but I'm just because now it's so ludicrous. Norman and I were 17 fucking years old. And now there are people in the business that are actively trying to, instead of thinking about doing business, they're trying to get validation through multiple stars by a 65 year old fellow like me. I don't even give stars because I'm not 17.

Speaker 2:
[18:03] Well, let's go to the reviews. Forever 17, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Jim, from the pre-show, Alex Windsor defeated Marina Shaffer 8 minutes 51 seconds, three and a quarter stars.

Speaker 1:
[18:19] Well, we didn't see it, so I'm not going to take the... I'm not going to just go into detail on why he's crazy for that, but... I don't know about Marina Shaffer having any kind of three and something star match, but...

Speaker 2:
[18:34] Alex Windsor is not bad though, but we'll talk about that another time. Camille defeated Big Anne one minute and 22 seconds, no star rating for this. Jack Perry defeated Mark Davis eight minutes and 28 seconds, three and a half stars.

Speaker 1:
[18:55] So... oh geez, I know you probably said this and I just blocked it out, but I'm just thinking of this small child with the Shirley Temple hairdo beating up Mark Davis and his big fat ass.

Speaker 2:
[19:08] You know, Tony's whole philosophy that I could bring guys in and anyone can beat them and it doesn't hurt them, which I don't agree with. But that idea, even if you did believe it, I would think it only works to a point, specifically a point of like six foot one. Mark Davis is gigantic. I have not seen him win a match. And I think in every tag match I've seen him in, he's eaten the pin. So what the hell is that?

Speaker 1:
[19:35] Well, I mean, you can have, it doesn't matter about the size. You can have old Slim the Hillbilly from fucking Albuquerque or whatever we're talking about. He was six foot three and 320 pounds with his big, flabby fucking gut that he could work a lick and he could barely flap his arms. But Mark Davis, again, is, was halfway credible and they were going to push him in a top team and his partner gets hurt. So that just keep beating him as a single. And why do you have to have that fucking match if you don't want Jungle Jack to do the job for Mark Davis? Don't book the fucking match. You got a hundred and fifty fucking wrestlers. I'm sorry. I'm bogging us down.

Speaker 2:
[20:23] No, that's fine. Jack Perry retained the national title. And then finally in the pre-show, Megan Bain and Lena Cross retained their tag team titles against Maya World and Haiyan. And that was two and a half stars.

Speaker 1:
[20:37] Now, wait a minute. Is that because now are they the World Sisters? Because I've seen it written Haiyan and Maya World. So that's not what it says here.

Speaker 2:
[20:48] It says Maya World and Haiyan. So I don't know if they're sisters. I don't think they are.

Speaker 1:
[20:53] Oh, see, I thought they were the World Sisters because I saw it the other way around once.

Speaker 2:
[20:58] They are the Stupid Game Sisters.

Speaker 1:
[20:59] But it's Maya World and Maya World and welcome to it.

Speaker 2:
[21:04] Jim, let's get to the main card. Oh, go ahead.

Speaker 1:
[21:06] Yes, that's where I was. Where is the main card starting? Anytime now?

Speaker 2:
[21:10] The Young Bucks defeated Konosuke Takeshita and Kazushika Okada. 20 minutes, 10 seconds, five-star match. Ricochetty. Oh, go ahead.

Speaker 1:
[21:25] Wait a minute. Hold on. You think that he'd just pull back on it just a little bit just because of the the the criticism he gets and the people obviously going, what the fuck with this over and over with these guys? And you think he'd pull back just a little bit. Every one of their matches can't be the best match that's ever been held. And again, I'm not saying anything bad about poor old Takushid besides the fact that he's been floundering in mid-cardity and don't know what the fuck he's making funny faces at Okada for. But is he still trying to support Okada as being... When people are seeing it now, he's lazy, he's broken down, there's no physical charisma to him, he has no motivation, he does the absolute least he can do, and he looks like fucking just some schlub off the street. How is this a five-star match? Because in his mind, he's still the... He's still the, you know, the ex before she gained all the weight and fucking got pissy with him and ran off with the fucking plumber or whatever?

Speaker 2:
[22:53] I can't tell you, Dave does a move-by-move breakdown, but he starts off by saying, The Young Bucks after the match called this bout a career highlight. All four used their regular moves, but there was a lot of new creative stuff in there. This was also the best babyface reaction The Young Bucks have gotten anywhere in several years. Wow, at least he admits that. It was just an incredible performance. Other than the referee standing, they were not doing anything. No DQ, fucking tornado rules. Give me a break.

Speaker 1:
[23:30] Well, yeah, and again, just the... There's nobody in the business that is consistently more choreographed or just looking like children playing in the yard than the Buckaroos. And he can't get over it. All right, moving on.

Speaker 2:
[23:50] Ricochet defeated Chris Jericho. Nineteen minutes, eleven seconds. I didn't realize it went that long.

Speaker 1:
[23:56] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[23:58] Three and three quarter stars.

Speaker 1:
[24:01] Actually, that's a tribute to Jericho that we didn't really realize it went that long. Remember, I say he didn't do anything he had to do either or didn't have to do either, but he covered it well and let the other guy provide a lot of movement. It was smart. I agree with that. I would say three and a half. But if we're arguing court of a star, Brian, then we're not really arguing, are we?

Speaker 2:
[24:25] That's right. I would say that was at times a spot show match where Jericho got the most out of the least and the fans ate it up.

Speaker 1:
[24:31] And that's and that used to be half of the goddamn matches that got rated. We're the man! We're exactly that kind of match.

Speaker 2:
[24:40] Jim, Darby Allin defeated Andrade in a number one contenders match for the world title. Well, a number one contender for the world championship. 16 minutes 32 seconds. Four and a half stars. You know, I know you didn't watch this. Forgot to mention something to you and I saw other people mention it too. For whatever reason, after the match, Andrade and Darby shook hands, I guess because of the competitive nature. Andrade had an erection.

Speaker 1:
[25:12] What?

Speaker 2:
[25:13] Andrade standing there with a fucking chubby while he's shaking Darby's... But Dave didn't write anything about it. Obviously, Dave didn't notice, but uh...

Speaker 1:
[25:25] Hey Dave, my eyes are up here. Um, after taking bumps and being blowed up after going 20 minutes with that little human ping pong ball, that's admirable, I guess, on his part. Yeah, how many... Well, we'll give a couple of stars credit for that, so I'll agree with that one.

Speaker 2:
[25:50] Four and a half stars and three and a half inches. Jim, FTR, retain the tag titles over Adam Copeland and Christian in 21 minutes seven seconds, four and a half stars.

Speaker 1:
[26:06] Okay, again, that's, it's still excessive, but he's on the normal scale, but he's expanded the scale to the point where, until they just went too far and did too much, as you'll remember, we spoke about, it was still, there was no furniture, there was no bullshit. On the normal scale, that would be a three and a half star match. It wasn't the blowout of all time, but on his scale, that's probably one of the more legitimate numbers he'd give.

Speaker 2:
[26:42] Jim, Kevin Knight won the Casino Gauntlet match for the TNT title over Tommaso Ciampa, Roush, Bandido, Speedball Mike Bailey, El Con, Pac, Daniel Garcia, Anthony Bowens and Wheeler Yuta, 22 minutes 35 seconds, four and a half stars.

Speaker 1:
[27:10] Of course, it was.

Speaker 2:
[27:12] If you don't go 20 minutes and get at least four stars or above, then you should just quit and go to NXT. That's what I say.

Speaker 1:
[27:18] Well, then actually, I think he ought to start giving it. If the match has six people in it, he ought to at least give one star each. So it becomes a six star match and then go from there. Now, if they do better than that, maybe he could do seven and a half.

Speaker 2:
[27:32] Would Dave honor it if one of the AEW wrestlers had a stipulation for a big match? Let's say Kenny Omega versus Will Ospreay. The stipulation is can't be less than six and a half stars. Would Dave honor that and use that as the basis to start the star rating?

Speaker 1:
[27:49] Now, wait a minute. Now, what are you saying? Help me out here. I lost you around a far turn. Are you? If you wanted to make it a stipulation, then you'd have to have them come out there and say, Kenny and say, if if this isn't a six star match, I will leave AEW forever or something like that. And then they'd have the match and then they'd have Dave in a like a plexiglass box at ringside tabulate with one of the like Matt Brock in the old after magazines with the visor on in front of a fucking typewriter tabulating. And then he's got an adding machine with the paper coming out. And then he presses the button and it shows up six and a half stars, Kenny can stay, Kenny can stay and then Meltzer keels over of a heart attack from all the excitement and they can't get into plexiglass to try to get to crowbar to prime out to get the resuscitating paddles.

Speaker 2:
[28:48] This went from fantasy booking to snuff film booking. Let's get back to the star ratings here. Jim Tekla retained the AEW Women's title over Jamie Hader, 16 minutes 31 seconds, three and three quarter stars.

Speaker 1:
[29:03] So just almost as good as most of the stuff Kurt Angle used to do. Okay.

Speaker 2:
[29:09] I mean, they didn't even get 20 minutes. It really shows you what Tony thinks of the women's division.

Speaker 1:
[29:13] Yeah, he should have given them at least 30 because they've got a song. They got to sing.

Speaker 2:
[29:18] Jim, John Moxley sang his song defeating Will Ospreay to retain the Continental title in 18 minutes 13 seconds, four and three quarter stars.

Speaker 1:
[29:30] Oh, good Lord. Besides the rotten booking and the idea that they would beat poor Mr. Ostrich, who is apparently sticking his head in the sand over this whole thing. And, nah, nah, nah, bro, nah.

Speaker 2:
[29:52] Jim Roderick Strong, Orange Cassidy and Kyle O'Reilly won the AEW Trios titles over Clark Connors, Gabe Kidd and David Finley, nine minutes 58 seconds, three star match.

Speaker 1:
[30:06] Well, yeah, he had to deduct at least a star and a half because one of the fucking guys didn't make it all the way through the ten minute match before they were carried out and he was put in an ambulance. So that that deducts a star.

Speaker 2:
[30:18] If it's a six man match and it ends as five men, you got to take a star off.

Speaker 1:
[30:22] Yeah, any any you got to take a star off anytime they lose a competitor in the middle of the match.

Speaker 2:
[30:29] Finally, Jim, MJF defeated Kenny Omega to retain the AEW World Championship 38 minutes, 55 seconds, four and three quarter stars.

Speaker 1:
[30:44] Oh boy.

Speaker 2:
[30:45] So the only one to get five stars were the Young Bucks.

Speaker 1:
[30:49] But just right underneath it was the ridiculous match where the Tony shit to bed on his top English baby face three months or whatever before a stadium show that's going to have an arena crowd. And then the the main event that proved that pretty much nothing in wrestling can hurt anybody is bad enough to put him down for five seconds.

Speaker 2:
[31:22] And that was the AEW Dynasty 2026.

Speaker 1:
[31:27] Well, speaking of things that put me down, Brian, I almost hit my jaw hit the floor. I did one of the cartoon things. The jaw hit the floor and the eyes went googledoo. When I saw what Tony had done and not on television, I read about it on the Internet first. And I said if I would watch portions of AEW Dynamite that contained, if any of the guys actually had projectile diarrhea in the middle of the ring on live TV, I'd watch it. Well, this was kind of sort of similar in that right after the pay-per-view, the AEW Dynasty where MJF goes through 40 minutes and nearly kills Kenny Omega in the prime and almost kills the wrestling business as well in the process, doing every goddamn thing in the world and beats him. And we were just saying, well, goddamn. Osprey, why would you beat Osprey? This is a tailor made story. Have MJF keep getting heat and be a fucking prick all summer and have Osprey come back from this neck injury and have a road to the title and you can build it and a blah, blah, blah. Four days after they beat Osprey, they beat MJF. The new, the new, AEW World Champion is now as of last Wednesday's Dynamite on free TV with four days notice. That the match was even going to happen. Darby Allin, who won it in approximately two and a half minutes. Two and a half minutes. And this is from the work rate promotion that a goddamn underneath preliminary between Tits McGee and Arnold Finster has to have 15 minutes to fully develop. What the fuck are they doing, Brian?

Speaker 2:
[33:43] I can't explain it. Obviously was Darby's hometown. It seemed like the fans, they were really ready for a big Darby night.

Speaker 1:
[33:52] It was Darby's home to Everett, Washington. They had 3000 people. I think they had like 10,000 people a fucking weekend before and they could have, if they were going to do it, done it there. But no, they just, oh, we're going to add this match to Wednesday and change the title because it's the guy's hometown in front of a rotten crowd. I'm sorry, other than that, I can't explain it.

Speaker 2:
[34:19] I would think if there was a time to do it with Darby, I would have pulled the string. I don't know if that's the right term, but I would have, I would have done it with Moxley. It would have made sense in their storyline world. It would have been the right guy. It would have all worked perfectly. I would have done Moxley, not Adam Page. And over Moxley, it would have been Darby. But now I think even AEW fans, a lot of them are questioning. There's some that really love this. I saw someone compare this to the UWF episode where Bill Watts had all the title changes. Not exactly. But this is puzzling because if business is really moving up, why would you change your world champion? That seems to be the thing working right now. Whatever we think about MJF kind of turning more and more into a guy who just wants to do all the stuff everyone else is doing, it's working? If we're to believe what they've been saying about every metric of their business being up, ratings, ticket sales, everything, why make a title change? I mean, maybe it'll be a quickie. But I don't know, they got Wembley around the corner, and a lot of people thought it would be MJF and Ospreay because it makes sense. They just beat Ospreay, and now they got the belt off MJF.

Speaker 1:
[35:38] It reminds me of when we complained to Ken Mantell in Dallas, because I can't remember if it was Brian Adidas and who somebody, mid-card babyfaces in a tag team match, we're gonna put them over for some reason. While we were working a program with the Fantasticks and the American Tag Team Championship was held up between us two teams, and we said, how are we doing this thing with the Fantasticks? How are we losing just a match to these guys? And Ken Mantell's answer was, don't worry, the Fantasticks aren't winning tonight either. What you have or what you had was a story that at least you could have got people behind for a long term storytelling. MJF wins the title, okay, that's where we are, things are coming back up. So, I'm not saying that, you know, that it's just about the business metrics now, which have been good, like you said, but where are you going? Where's the next place you're going to? And you need to start that now. And it was perfect. They've got a stadium show in August in the guy's home country or home nation, UK, wherever the fuck those people are from over there. You know, you know, the point I'm trying to make. MJF is the prick champion. He beats Kenny, he beats fucking Pete, beats all these people. And meanwhile, Osprey comes back from near career ending neck surgery. And you tell the story, is he going to be the same? Yes, you tell that story. And he might have doubts or whatever, but he triumphs over adversity and not beating the other fucking baby faces. He's beating some, he's getting even with people that hurt him, and he's then beating fucking other people that you want to see him beat. And it's and then the talking starts between him and MJF. And then you put the stumbling blocks in Osprey's path. He's got to prove himself in a match with this guy, or this comes up, or they do this angle, or for maybe for the first time, you drop him on his fucking head with something really dangerous after he's been back from surgery. Not four in the same match in his return match. This is where you do the angle. I love flair at the Great American Bash of Angle for 89. Then he's fucking jammed up in the neck brace and MJF can crow about it and then he's got to come back again. And that's at Wembley for his countrymen. And the fucking red, well, theirs is red, white and blue too. But they got God saved the queen and or fuck the queen. God save the sex pistols or whatever their theme is over there. Do you see where I'm going with this, Brian? This is four or five, six months instead of they beat Osprey, then they beat MJF, but the world title is now on a baby face. So if they still want to put it on Osprey at Wembley, now another heel has to come along and either beat him or win it back. If he wins it back and it's MJF, then Osprey has to be the first guy to beat MJF in six weeks. I don't, what the fuck?

Speaker 2:
[39:35] Now Tony did get the wrestling world talking the week of WrestleMania, so if that was the goal, he...

Speaker 1:
[39:41] So did the guy that had the fucking beef stroganoff fart in the middle of the goddamn elevator. He got everybody talking. You want those people talking like that?

Speaker 2:
[39:50] You know, you have to remember, too, we're at a point in time where Tony, and he said it now in a few interviews, he's talking about the fact that things are so great right now, not because MJF was the champion, not because of any particular person other than him. He says he's listening to himself, he's following his instincts, which he says he's never done before. He's finally doing it, and he thinks that's why things are happening like this. So this was a Tony Khan decision. Tony Khan really believed this was the best thing?

Speaker 1:
[40:24] Well, of course it was. I didn't think, you think MJF said, hey, let me drop it to the kid. What the?

Speaker 2:
[40:33] What did you think of the way they did it? The idea that it wasn't just a competitive match. It was a squash that had a reason why it happened. But what would you think?

Speaker 1:
[40:44] This wasn't a squash. In the strictest definition, before it was used by everybody in the world, just inside the business, this was not a squash match. This was an angle. This was an angle is what it was. To do something else, God knows what, hopefully quickly. But it wasn't a squash match because a squash match is a star versus a fucking nobody who just beats the shit out of the guy convincingly and beats him with no trouble. This was an angle, as I said, again, to lead to who knows what out of the blue. It's like, the fans of the WWE, he said, where the fuck did Pat McAfee come from in this whole business? They don't do that in AEW. And Tony said, hold my pencil. Where the fuck did Darby Allin get in the middle of this? So, they have us believe that MJF shows up at the building right as they go on the air, on live television, and he hasn't been answering his text. He's been out of touch. He's been, what they said in Communicado, they used another phrase also for he's been in hiding, whatever, but he doesn't know what's going on that he's wrestling Darby that night, which is already Brian on the scale of the Believ-o meter from the Sunday, their pay-per-view was Sunday. He didn't know he's supposed to defend the world title on Wednesday, and also he shows up at live at showtime. Where does that come in on the scale?

Speaker 2:
[42:31] On the logic hole scale, there's a big logic hole there. I knew the match was happening based on the pay-per-view. I knew it the night of the pay-per-view that, well, MJF's wrestling Darby on Wednesday. They said it.

Speaker 1:
[42:42] Well, let's get to that next. But just the idea that MJF, a fucking 20-something-year-old man in today's environment, hadn't looked at Twitter or whatever the fuck, he started cutting a big promo where he's obviously trying not to listen to the interviewer, Rene Moxley Good, and he's ignoring what she's trying to do. And then Don walks in, old Don Fallis, and tells him, hey, sorry about Andre last week. What do you mean sorry about? Well, he lost on a show that MJF was at on a match earlier before him, right? Don didn't come to apologize until Wednesday. And then that's when Renee says, Max, Darby is challenging you for the world title right now. And he's like, what the fuck? And Darby's, they're playing the music. Darby's making his entrance. And then they play the, they do a challenge now for the AEW world title and MJF's music. And he comes out, cut the goddamn music. And boy, they won't bleep the crowd chanting fuck or these guys saying goddamn. I think next we need to have somebody just come out and tell the aristocrats joke for 10 minutes. And he, he cut for about 10 or 15 seconds, he cut a Lawler promo on Darby Allin from 1977. It sounded like, like, you little punk, you little midget. And he refused to wrestle. And then he said, and I recognize this bit also, I'm going to sue the skank Aubrey Edwards. I'm going to sue you pervert Justin Roberts. I'm going to sue Tony Khan. I'm going to sue Warner Brothers. I'm going to sue all the fans. And my back hurts and I'm not dressed. And he's doing a better job again than almost anybody they got could at all this. But it's just the way they always go into it with some element of logic lacking that you realize that they're all just play act. Anyway, and by the way, did you notice that ever at Washington, the front row of fans across from the hard camera looked like the fucking casting call for a remake of The Hills Have Eyes? What the fuck is going on up there? Did they have free tickets for people from a home or what?

Speaker 2:
[45:28] I don't know. Obviously it looked like Darby knew some of the people in the front row, but that was the other side, I believe.

Speaker 1:
[45:33] Darby may have been homeless with some of the people from the, but nevertheless, and in MJF's mic went out, he had to throw that one out and get Roberts's, and he's basically telling Darby off he's not going to wrestle because Darby, you're not ready to be world champion. And Darby snatched the microphone and I thought he was going to start dry heaving from nerves and emotion. But again, this is real to him, isn't it? It's still real to Darby, damn it. He was crying. He's like, I killed myself for this company. Monday, I hung posters. He spent so much time on the posters at first, you thought he was having some kind of fucking drug addled experience, but I hung posters for the show. And I climbed Mount Everest and put the flag on top. And I've killed myself for this. And I love this company. I said I'd never change. And I didn't change myself. And God, if I'm not ready now, I'll never be ready. And ring the bell. And he was broke up about this thing, wasn't he?

Speaker 2:
[46:54] It was a big emotional night for him. Obviously, he knew what was going to happen. We'll talk about the match. But as soon as he won, he was very emotional right away. Interesting to note that he was putting up posters for the show. I mean, it's nice to stay true to yourself or your younger self. But usually you don't see wrestling superstars like M. Harry Smilak putting up posters all over town for Rocket Wrestling.

Speaker 1:
[47:19] Well, see, that's part of his appeal and that he's still the normal guy that will, he'll either go and he'll be on one side or the other of the table at the soup kitchen. He could be serving or he could be, you know, fucking eating. It just depends on circumstance. That he's a person of the people. But, you know, he's not that good a worker. So, the kids, the belt is a big deal for the kids these days. However, having said that, he's demanding the belt to be rung and Danielson interrupted and said, wait a minute, wait a minute. And I like the way Danielson did a great job on this as far as cadence for the people and revealing the information. He said, Tony Khan agrees with MJF. He's not prepared, so MJF, go get yourself prepared because you're tonight's main event. And then they chanted, yes, yes, yes. And if you don't do it, you'll be stripped of the title. So that was and then Darby jumps in and says, I'm going to beat you with a headlock takeover. And I must admit, if I hadn't read the result before I went back and watched this, by the time they finished with this, I said, by God, he's going to win this fucking thing some way. Because anything else would have buried Darby Allin deeper than the fucking Mariana Trench. So. But that was the way they set it up, Brian, your your final thoughts on that segment of the program.

Speaker 2:
[49:09] You know, it's a big main event. It's in a lot of ways looking past the finish and the controversy around it and the decision behind it. This is a good way to set up a wrestling show. You set up an angle at the beginning for a payoff at the end. Gives you something to look forward to. There's a lot of AEW shows that just begin with either a match taking place and then you never see any of those people again the rest of the night.

Speaker 1:
[49:33] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[49:34] Or something else. This was, I mean.

Speaker 1:
[49:36] No, this hooked them great.

Speaker 2:
[49:38] Yeah, in terms of the format. I think the four I'm trying to give some compliments here. In terms of the formatting, I think the formatting was good.

Speaker 1:
[49:44] The cause of the Stewie Griffin compliment sandwich. But no, yes, this is the way to hook people for the big match later on, and I had the people in the building jazzed up and it's just what happened after. Well, that's all you were going to say about that.

Speaker 2:
[50:02] That's all I was going to say about that. I know there's other things on Dynamite you may have seen, but why don't we get right to the main event just because that's what we're talking about here.

Speaker 1:
[50:11] Well, and just in a related note, now I didn't watch it, but just the idea of it. Ospreay wrestled Hitchhitchhia. So they beat him on Pay-Per-View flat with Moxley in his comeback redemption match. And now they get a chance to redeem him a little bit. And it took him 18 minutes and everything that he could do to beat old Tits McGee here by the skin of his teeth. And then Davis hit the ring and they laid him out and stood on him. So by Wembley, is he going to be god damn, he'll be Andy Cap. See, I just popped everybody in the UK. Anyway, then so it was.

Speaker 2:
[51:01] Well, but what's the reference? He's going to come home late to his angry wife. How's he going to know?

Speaker 1:
[51:05] He's just going to be some fucking drunken schlub on the street. He's nobody. He's nobody, just my god. And anyway, then in the main event, which they managed to figure out a way to start right in the overrun. So now they just fixated on this overrun thing. We don't get the quarters anymore. I can't imagine it's helping him at this point. But nevertheless, Darby's walking to the ring and there's Renee with him and they're on the way to the ring and suddenly they see Sting's grandfather. How old is Sting? Brian, look that up for me please. Well, I've described that he was in face paint, and he had part of his beard painted black, basically, but otherwise his hair was as snow white as Colonel Sanders in his 70s.

Speaker 2:
[52:07] And 67.

Speaker 1:
[52:09] Oh, he's two years older than me. And he's like, if you were going to do TV, wouldn't you, you know, is there, isn't there just an easily washable, audible hair color so he could be Sting instead of Grandfather Time?

Speaker 2:
[52:31] Well, you know how much he charges just to paint his face. Imagine how much he charges to hit the just for men.

Speaker 1:
[52:37] Well, I'm sure Tony'd pay it. But anyway, he gave Darby the big pep talk. You know what to do. Get out there and do it. And Darby said, it's showtime. No, Sting says, it's your time. And he got Darby all pepped up and off Darby took to the ring. And there's a big close up of Sting looking like a fucking albino raccoon. And then at 10 o'clock, this thing starts and MJF gets his entrance and the in-ring introductions. And they got the big Darby chance. And I mean, with the set up and that it's his hometown and where he started training. I mean, they should have, but they did. The people were into fucking Darby, all 3,000 of them. And Darby, Darby, and fuck him up, Darby, fuck him up. And so MJF said, oh, golly, wait, he takes a diamond ring out of his tights and he's going to hand it to Aubrey. He says, here, I forgot it is he hands it to old Aubrey Ed, who immediately, of course, turns her back and walks the ring out of the ring. MGF turns around, he kicks Darby Allin square to balls, right between the uprights. And then she turns around and MGF has grabbed a headlock. Darby's just been kicked in the balls, Brian, correct? That's kind of what happened there, wasn't it?

Speaker 2:
[54:14] That's what started it off. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[54:17] MGF gets a headlock. As soon as Aubrey turns around, Darby is shooting MGF off like he's going to throw him into the ropes, but it's toward Aubrey Ed. So she turns around and covers up and Darby kicks MGF in the balls. So shouldn't it have been something about Darby taking a goddamn metal frying pan out of the front of his fucking pants or something? He got kicked in the balls and just five seconds later he said, well, here I'll kick you in the balls. And then he gave him the Scorpion Death Drop. And then he climbed to all four quarters and gave him the coffin drop. But Max couldn't be in the same place. So he had to coffin drop and drag. It's like a, you know, one of those things on the computer, Brian, the cut and paste and the drop and drag and drop. This was the drop and drag.

Speaker 2:
[55:18] It was a classic shimmy.

Speaker 1:
[55:20] And a little shimmy from my sister Kate. And then after the Scorpion Death Drop, drop. Fucking hell. After the Scorpion Death Drop and the four coffin drops, then he got a headlock and took him over and pinned him one, two, three. Only actually because the way he was bowing fucking MJF's head up, he didn't really have the shoulders down, but they counted it anyway. One, two, three. I cannot come up with any rational scenario why that this is happening and why that they still don't have a clear path to Wembley Stadium and why that they have neutered Osprey's comeback like this. And then suddenly Darby Allin comes in out of nowhere, Cinderella story, and wins this thing. And every job guy in the company, although that may have been just their babyface roster, but every job guy in the company came out and confetti and Cairo and then Sting came out and hugged him and... It looked like he'd just been cryogenically frozen. But... Help me understand why this is a good thing to do.

Speaker 2:
[57:02] This thing's starting to look like the Shroud of Turin. I don't know why it's a good thing to do. I'm not saying it's necessarily going to be a bad thing. We kind of have to see how it plays out. It's interesting that in the middle of this company show, which despite what they think, to the average person it's just match, match, match, match. They did an angle at the start and they did an angle at the end. It's different than everything else they do. I wouldn't have taken the belt off MJF. I think he's stronger with the belt. We've seen him without it. We've seen it with it. Things are working right now. There's things you could do. There's plenty of ideas you can come up with for guys for him to feud with. I don't know if it'll be a hot shot title change, if it'll be going back to MJF or someone else next week. And then you gotta ask yourself if that does happen, what was the purpose of this? Is Tony gonna hot shot the championship? We don't know what the road to Wembley is gonna be. And at this point, it may not be a safe bet to think Will Ospreay is gonna be the main featured thing.

Speaker 1:
[58:08] Good Lord.

Speaker 2:
[58:10] But again, the positives are Tony got everyone talking about this. We heard, we saw the most feedback we have seen in quite a while saying Jim has to see this on Dynamite. We have to hear what Jim thinks of this. So that says something. People want to talk about it, but it may not be, and time will tell, may not be for the right reasons.

Speaker 1:
[58:33] Well, I'll tell you what, I think at least somebody in this equation may have woke up the next day, Brian, and regretted what had happened the previous night. Have you ever been in that kind of a situation where you woke up in the morning and you regretted what happened the previous night, and maybe you were a little droopy-eyed, a little headache, a little vibration, a little hung over, that type of thing. You know, that's not a good feeling, Brian. You can testify, it's not a good feeling.

Speaker 2:
[59:02] It's been a while, but I remember that feeling. It's not a good feeling.

Speaker 1:
[59:05] Back in those days, a horrible feeling. Yet, now you can do something to relax yourself. Relax yourself, relax yourself, and have a nice social experience without feeling any of the negative side effects, without any of the regrets, the regrettable incidents, or the forgettable incidents, or the incidents that nobody else except you could forget. With our new friend Willie's THC Infused Social Tonic. It's called Willie Willie's Remedy. And all I need is a remedy, remedy for me, please, because now here's the thing.

Speaker 2:
[59:49] That didn't even sound like it was the right tune, even though I know what song you were singing. But let's talk about a different musician.

Speaker 1:
[59:54] I put my own spin, but for anybody that wants to start the new year or progress in the new year with fewer hangovers, socializing without the alcohol, unwinding after a long day, Willie's is an alcohol alternative, say that three times fast after some Willie's, that actually works with an uplifting euphoric buzz that you can really feel without any of the negative side effects. You can relax without the alcohol, you don't have hangovers or et cetera. It can help wean you off the things and such of these natures. And it's a premium THC infused social tonic crafted by the legendary Willie Nelson and Brian, who is more social than Willie Nelson. I mean, he just, he talks to everybody. Every time you see him, somebody's asking him his opinion on something. Because he's 90 goddamn seven years old. He must be doing something right. How old is he? Is he 104 by now? I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[61:03] He was attached a whole bunch of ages. Hold on. Willie Nelson is 92 years old.

Speaker 1:
[61:11] Well, see, and just think, and he's been drinking this kind of stuff. It's low-calorie, low-sugar, alcohol alternative. Comes in five-milligram and ten-milligram dose bottles. And I'll tell you what, they sent the bottles over here, the samples over here. It's a unique blend of THC, CBD, CBG, and L-theanine. One shot of Willie's helps you relax, unwind, and de-stress. And I'll tell you what, I took a sip of this. Your tongue has never felt such sensations. Your buds, your taste buds will explode in a cataclysmic orgasm of frenzy. And boy, I'll tell you, Stacey had one of these cocktails, and she had such a relaxing night, she spent the time typing a seven-page, single-spiced description of the color red. So it's amazing. You'll go over the rainbow and back again till you'll find your pot of gold.

Speaker 2:
[62:17] Again, you may be going a little too far over the rainbow with...

Speaker 1:
[62:22] Just don't use the pot of gold for anything else, because it might be just a fucking plant in the corner next morning.

Speaker 2:
[62:29] With Willie's remedy, Jim, it won't be any of that. It'll just be, blue skies, shining on me. Because it's Willie.

Speaker 1:
[62:39] Well, Brian, you're really going to have to work on your singing.

Speaker 2:
[62:43] I wasn't planning to. It was suddenly out of nowhere.

Speaker 1:
[62:47] You can't do that unless you're a professional. I need to warm up.

Speaker 2:
[62:50] I didn't get a chance to warm up. I'm sorry. I didn't know that we were going to go in this direction. Maybe I'm crazy.

Speaker 1:
[62:57] Crazy Willie's Willie's is Don't Let Your Heroes Grow Up To Be Cowboys Or Whatever. Is that what is that song? Don't Let Cowboys Be Your Heroes. Mama's Don't Fuck Cowboys.

Speaker 2:
[63:14] That's not the song. Why don't we just let Jim?

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
[63:21] Let's get on the road again, please.

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Speaker 2:
[64:08] That's right.

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Speaker 2:
[64:16] It sounds like you're drinking some of it right now. Again, this is a great, great deal for the listeners. It's something that we love here in this house. Me and Suzanne had a very nice night the other night. Thanks to Willie. And you can check out his remedy today. Jim, one more time, that promo code.

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
[64:44] Willie, Willie!

Speaker 1:
[64:46] So apparently you guys had a nice evening because of Willie. What happened? Did Willie come over and take you away so she could have a quiet evening watching TV?

Speaker 2:
[64:56] That's not nice. That's not the way things work. Hey, Jim, one last thing before we move completely on from AEW. I just told you about Camille's big return and her big match with Big Anne. They had an angle where she beat up Willow Nightingale. Wow, they're actually doing something with Camille. She wrestled on Dynamite. Did you get to see any of that?

Speaker 1:
[65:18] I did. They beat her, didn't they?

Speaker 2:
[65:20] Right away. Right away.

Speaker 1:
[65:22] Boom. She hasn't been here in a year and a half. Let's remind everybody she can't beat anyone. Except Big Anne, who I'm sorry, I don't know her pedigree. Possibly she's a great champion in another sport. But again, at the same time as I don't know whether it, I didn't study the whole match with Willow and Camille. I looked at some of it briefly and got to the meat of the matter, the result of the thing. But I said, watched Camille work in the ring when we were doing the movie with some people that, you know, weren't necessarily that experienced and she did a great job. And I'm watching her and Willow, I'm like, this is a fucking style clash. And I think it's to the point now that some of the modern indie graduates have trained in such a way that some of the graduates of more traditional methods, it's just a style clash and try to figure out what to do with these fucking people. But nevertheless, so she's she bit the dust. Well, well, maybe she's got a clause in her contract. She has to come to work once every year and a half. That might be it. But there was another segment between the females on the show that I watched because you had me last week watch the the FECLA promo because there was speculation from people that, oh, if she drunk or, oh, they're hot at her, she showed up drunk and it was like the best promo one of the girls has cut that we can remember for like a 60 second promo. So this time they had the confrontation between FECLA and Alex Mountbatten-Windsor. And again, I'm not completely sold on old FECLA's wrestling. I'm not even sold on her as a wrestler, but she is some kind of a fucking personality. I'm just not sure what yet. I think she may be a gray doe. She may be wrestling for a little while and just get on TV as some personality over in the UK or even here and just not do wrestling. But this reminded me, they had her, Thecla up too many pronouns, pal, up in the stands and the spotlight on her doing the promo, walking down, talking about how great she was. And then Alex Mountbatten came out and she's answering her. And Thecla's got a bit of an accent. You can almost hear a little Gunther, just but not as much as Gunther. And Windsor has the pretty stiff accent. But then they go, they do the back and forth where they're debating each other about their various merits. And Thecla, at one point, the best line was, I didn't get fired from Japan. Well, okay, I did get fired from Japan. See, she's a personality of some kind. She's going to find her niche in entertainment. But the feeling that I was having was not like, oh, this is a wrestling confrontation. I'd like to see these two fight and get resolved. It was like watching a play. They're doing a community theater in the round presentation. And oh, look, it's cool when they come from the audience. They should have had the wireless headset with the microphone in front of their mouth, like the stage folks do in these modern times. But back in my day, they used megaphones and had to project. But you know what I'm saying, Brian? Like the goddamn little microphone, like they're on stage with the Broadway plays. And they've got the spotlight here and this for the protagonist and the antagonist. It's a fucking play, isn't it?

Speaker 2:
[69:55] It is. That's why it stands out when anyone actually delivers anything, and it doesn't seem like it's pre-written and pre-planned. I like Tecla's promos. I like to match her Jamie Hader at the pay-per-view. I want to see her and Alex Windsor, but did they put that on Collision? Because if they did, I'm not going to see it.

Speaker 1:
[70:15] Oh, wait. Hold on here. Oh, challenge for Collision.

Speaker 2:
[70:19] Oh, wait. So I'm not going to see them at?

Speaker 1:
[70:22] And then Julia Hart and Blue Sky jumped Alex from behind, and she beat them both up, but Tecla took off. So that was that.

Speaker 2:
[70:33] Well, that was AEW Dynamite.

Speaker 1:
[70:38] That was AEW blowing its own brains out. I don't know what they've fucking done that, because I'm not even saying that Darby should never be the world champion or didn't deserve it. At one point, we had just finished saying, I think in the last show we did, you don't remember when they had him ready where he could have beat Moxley. But this is just, you're doing nothing but beating all of your baby faces, including Osprey, who should be the focal point of the Wembley Stadium. And I know some people, well, that would be predictable. You think, was it predictable when the British Bulldog was the fucking focal point of goddamn Wembley Stadium? Yeah, it did. So, instead of trying to, again, as I said before, build Osprey and throw stumbling blocks at his path, but let him slowly overcome those and earn his way to be the only person that might wrest the AEW crown from this evil devil-like MJF in the biggest stadium in my goddamned ego. So, I'll burn my boots if I don't fucking win or whatever the fuck. And you got months to get that instead to just muddy in this thing all the fuck up. Well, Brian, I guess now we ought to talk about this big financial disaster that's about to face the WWE this weekend. You know, everybody's talking, all WrestleMania tickets are down. Ha, ha, ha. They're just, they're gonna shit to bed. And let, I know everybody's been analyzing this and writing this and trying to do the mathematics on this and everything. And we've talked about, yes, they have sold fewer tickets because of the various reasons that we've talked about. Tourism, to Las Vegas being down a second year in a row, the creative, the this and that. There's an all night gas station open down the street. But also last year, basically to summarize all the reams of paper and countless keyboards that have been worn out from people writing about this. Last year, they had about 60,000 people each night. And this year, they're going to have fucking 50,000 people each night, give or take. It's still a ridiculous amount of people, to be quite honest with you, at these prices, because they're expecting they might not break last year's record, but they'll probably come close to it, because the prices are higher. $33 million per night sets 66 million bucks together. That's the gate. I wonder how much the fucking hot dogs and the fucking cokes are going to bring in. But that's, for example, bigger than any UFC gate ever, and bigger than any boxing match, apparently, except for Mayweather and Pacquiao. However, long ago that was. That's fucking ludicrous.

Speaker 2:
[74:01] It is. It's incredible that money. A lot of it's going to go right to the TKO debt. But, you know, it's like kind of like Wembley. We just talked about it. That first year was like, holy shit, look at how many people they got there. And the second year, which I will argue looked better on TV. The second year, it was down. But if it had been the first one, you would have said, wow, look at how many people they got there. Right. But you notice it's down, but it was still an impressive gate and an impressive house. Same thing with WrestleMania right now. We could say, wow, they're going to do this amazing gate, and they're going to have all these people in Vegas. And it's true. And it would be anyone else's record. But it's down off the peak. And it comes at a period of time where people are focusing on that, the downward spiral of the creative, of TKOs, involvement with the creative.

Speaker 1:
[74:59] Well, now, downward spiral may be dramatic at this point. They haven't really hit the bottom of the bowl yet. But it's a natural ebb and flow of the wrestling business that you're going to have popularity peaks and popularity valleys. But in some cases, the WWE has been in some cases bulletproof to a lot of that because of just the machine and the numerous ways they have to make money, etc., etc. But some of the modern problems are self-inflicted. They've shot themselves in both feet. One side is the ticket prices and the second side is the creative. They can't just solve that by just getting more publicity. You see what I'm saying? They can't, okay, we'll have Pat McAfee involved. We'll bring Stephen A. Smith. I've yet to see him on a television program. I don't watch ESPN, but I hear his name constantly. We'll have him come in and do a fucking match with somebody. Well, fucking publicity is not going to solve everything. The people that need to know this fucking thing is happening already know. And you might, at this point, and we've been talking about this in the last week, they've sold a few thousand tickets. That's the people that live in Las Vegas and are waiting maybe to see how cheap they can get in with all the discounts. But it's not like massive amounts of people are going to make a huge difference in the last week or two in a destination like this, etc. But instead of getting more publicity and more crossover mainstream attention, they probably should have concentrated on more the our fans that are going to actually pay money and already know this is happening and really want to see it are going to get pissed off if we just turn this thing into a goddamn sideshow. I've ranted and raved, Brian, but you get the point.

Speaker 2:
[77:21] Look at Oba and Brock. I think we could both agree that match has more buzz than anything else in WrestleMania, right?

Speaker 1:
[77:29] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[77:30] And that's just two wrestlers and the anticipation of them actually going at it. The match may not even live up to the hype. It may, it may not, but that idea is fueling a lot of desire to see things. No one is saying, oh man, maybe Jelly Roll can get involved and then Pat McAfee and then Stephen A. Smith. I mean, I didn't realize. See, this is the other problem.

Speaker 1:
[78:00] He had done, he had done some interviews saying, somebody asking me if he was going to do something. He's like, no, I'm not as brave as McAfee. You know, I don't want to do that stuff, but it just it's everybody's talking about it because that's, that's, they bought ESPN now, basically. ESPN, instead of becoming the, or the Sports Network has become the Sports Entertainment Network.

Speaker 2:
[78:25] And that's part of the issue too, because again, going back to Brock and Oba, wrestling fans, which is your audience, want wrestling angles and wrestling stars. They don't want all these celebrities all over the place. The right celebrity at the right time, yes, always. But just celebrities up the gazoo is WrestleMania 2 with Herb and fucking Wendy's. Where's the beef lady? They weren't allowed-

Speaker 1:
[78:56] Clara Peller.

Speaker 2:
[78:57] Yeah, the old-fashioned burger lady, because they weren't allowed to associate Wendy's with any of this. But like the B-level, C-level, like all of that, as opposed to what was special in WrestleMania 1.

Speaker 1:
[79:10] But even they weren't in the corner. It wasn't like the fucking, where's the beef lady was helping the British Bulldogs because she was taking the place of the injured Matilda.

Speaker 2:
[79:19] No, but it was just all over. It was just desperately, let's get anything we can. Cab Calloway and Joan Rivers. Like just anyone we can find, get them here. Elvira, you've got tits. Please come to WrestleMania.

Speaker 1:
[79:33] Howdy ho!

Speaker 2:
[79:35] My point is they should get Elvira. No, my point is that wrestling fans want wrestling stuff. When you overload it with all the celebrities the way they are right now, you're not making the wrestling fans happy. But on the other side, you're also pissing off the other person's audience. There's plenty of people who don't like ESPN becoming the WWE state media. And that's gonna be an issue. There's so much invested with WWE, they have to do that. But if you are a sports fan, you don't want to see wrestling angles in the middle of your sports talk show. You know what I mean? You don't want that.

Speaker 1:
[80:17] And that's the thing is that it's two groups. Number one, like you just said, a lot of the baseball fans and football fans, the real, you know, stick up the ass type of serious sports fans are going, what the fuck with the pro wrestling? Although it's not like it used to be. Cause now they go, oh, well, I guess it's fun. But at the same time, you've got that audience. You've also got, what is the one network in history that wrestling fans have never watched, except incidentally to any of their other interests? ESPN. They did world-class reruns on weekday afternoons and what, the late 80s.

Speaker 2:
[81:01] The legends of world-class championship wrestling. That was my introduction to it. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[81:05] Yeah. And the, you know, Verne show in the dying days in the late 80s. But ESPN, the wrestling fans never went there for their wrestling. So it's two completely different worlds that have now been smashed together.

Speaker 2:
[81:21] Respectfully, though, it wasn't easy. Again, I liked it because I would come home from school and they'd be wrestling on it at 4 p.m. every day, every day, every day. I mean, just think about that every day.

Speaker 1:
[81:32] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[81:32] But it was the GWF. And despite the stars they became, like Booker T and JBL and all of these people, it was a rough show to watch. And beyond the production and the lack of fan energy, and at times the lack of fans, the darkness of the build, just beyond all of that, it had the ESPN crawl the whole time at the bottom. You would get the, do-do-do, do-do-do, and then updates also in the middle of the thing. Yeah. They would cut away from anything.

Speaker 1:
[82:04] Back then, ESPN was like the early financial news network with the tickers and everything.

Speaker 2:
[82:09] And then like anything violent that happened, they would cut away and just show a fan sitting there watching it. They wouldn't show like a steel chair shot or anything. Like that was too much for ESPN. So if you were a wrestling fan, you watched it, but it was a frustrating watch.

Speaker 1:
[82:24] Well, but also, and we could do a whole show on the various reasons why that pro wrestling for a few years was on weekday afternoons on ESPN 35 years ago or whatever. But when they showed the old, like in 1990, when I was living in Charlotte, they were showing the world-class shows from when we were there at 85. And I was like, oh, I even got some of them because the quality of my picture was better at that point.

Speaker 2:
[82:56] But see, that's what threw me off too, because I would see, but even before GWF, when they had USWA Dallas on there, and then I would see like the legends of world-class, it took me a minute to be like, is that the same building? Because it was brightly lit and there were fans everywhere and it looked great, and now it looked like a dump. Even if it was one back then, it looked like it now.

Speaker 1:
[83:22] Well, but nevertheless, now that you've aligned a cultural institution in the city of Dallas, we'll move back to WrestleMania and basically say that they're going to align a cultural institution there in Las Vegas.

Speaker 2:
[83:36] I'm aligned it, they raised it.

Speaker 1:
[83:39] But at least we know that they're not hurting for money, which brings me to another thing that crossed the news desk here, over at the castle. Apparently now that there's court filings, they have to tell the truth about these things. And our boy Thurston Howley, aka Brandon Thurston, stays on top of this stuff. And by extrapolating from numbers that they had to give, he's figured out kind of what the WWE paid the main talent roster guys for the years 2020 through 2023. And obviously not each individual, but like, well, there was 122 main roster guys, and they got paid X amount of money so you can figure out an average, but that, you know, at least gives you a ballpark. But basically, in 2022, WWE spent $195 million on talent, including the developmental wrestlers, which was about 15% of the company's overall revenue of 1.29 billion. So, stopping there for a second, it sounds like a lot of money to most folks. I mean, you know, I could write you a check, Brian, but no, it sounds like a lot of money until you realize that it's only 15% of what they took in. And then it doesn't sound like it's a lot of money because isn't it, hasn't that always been the gripe and the bitch, well, the UFC pays the fighters more a percentage of their overall revenue, or football, baseball, basketball, the players get a bigger percentage of the overall revenue than wrestling. And that, since there's so much revenue, that does seem kind of fucking harsh, doesn't it?

Speaker 2:
[85:41] Yes and no, because it's a ton of money that they're paying out. But it's also just a fraction of what they take in. Again, they have a lot of debt and they're planning on WWE financing a lot of that debt or paying off a lot of that debt. It's a ton of money. You said it.

Speaker 1:
[85:59] And then the boys will say, is that my fault? No, the boys are going to say, is that my fault? You're so far in fucking debt, motherfucker. Go ahead.

Speaker 2:
[86:06] And you said it includes developmental. Those guys, I mean, unless it's like someone they have signed for a good deal, usually that's the people making no money.

Speaker 1:
[86:16] Yeah, well, and I'm trying to read this goddamn chart here that I've got. Basically, the developmental talent was a small portion of the overall. But here's another statistic that WWE's pay to main roster talent, just the main roster talent, also nearly doubled between 2020 and 2022 from about 890,000 to 1.5 million on average. So that means that the average main roster talent in 2020 was making 890 grand a year. The average in 2022 was 1.5 million. But the high paid guys that make 7 million or whatever the fuck these guys are making, that skews your average. Not everybody is making, that's on the main roster, is making 1.5 million. But the point is between those years coming out of the pandemic and with the billionaire boy child in Jacksonville spending money like a drunken sailor's son, they almost doubled the fucking pay. But it's still 15% of the revenue.

Speaker 2:
[87:38] And also what may skew it, I mean, not a big amount but, were those also the years that like Vince and Triple H and probably Stephanie too, all had performance contracts, even if they appeared on camera like one time the entire year? But they all had like high six figure or maybe even seven figure like performance contracts to, you know, Vince would make like one appearance a year on TV and look awful and then you never see him and then you'd find out he got like $800,000 as annual salary.

Speaker 1:
[88:06] But still that would be three or four million dollars out of $129 million or $175 million or $194 million over these various years. It was in 20 and 21, it was pretty dagum steady what they spent. And then suddenly, 2022 increased like $50 million and 2023 was up another 20 above that.

Speaker 2:
[88:33] When did they start going to Saudi Arabia?

Speaker 1:
[88:37] Shortly before that, but that's the thing, as Vince was. It looks to me like Vince may have been hot shotting and making sure guys were signed up and trying to fucking just get revenue, get everything going as hot as he could to sell the daggum thing. And that's what happened. But nevertheless.

Speaker 2:
[89:05] Brock Lesnar renewal, four million dollars.

Speaker 1:
[89:09] A drop in the bucket. But a mere a mere bag of shells there, Brian.

Speaker 2:
[89:16] Celebrity talent pay three million, and that's only due to the shift of Logan Paul to main roster talent, as opposed to celebrity talent.

Speaker 1:
[89:27] He paid celebrities as much as probably every celebrity in the first ten WrestleMania's made as a congregation.

Speaker 2:
[89:43] Well, this has been Where Does Your Money Go?

Speaker 1:
[89:46] When you're a publicly traded company. But you know, somebody, Brian, that is not particularly pleased about fighter pay and talent pay and all the things that are going on in the wrestling business and the fighting business in general, the business of the combat business is our old friend Ronda Rousey. And I asked you because I've heard she made the comments, but I haven't heard her say them yet. But people are saying, Jesus H. Christ, if she had cut promos like this when she was in the wrestling business, she'd have been the biggest star we ever had. What is there? She's usually pissed off about something, I've noticed. But what particularly triggered her to be pissed off about pay and her opponents and various people in the current society?

Speaker 2:
[90:45] Yeah, I have a couple bits of audio we could play here from the press conference for Ronda Rousey versus Gina Carano on Netflix. Ariel Hawani is the MC of this event. Couple scantily clad ring girls stand behind him, hands on hips. I don't know why I'm giving one of these.

Speaker 1:
[91:03] On whose hips?

Speaker 2:
[91:05] On their hips, not Ariel's hips.

Speaker 1:
[91:07] Oh, I was going to say, well, you know.

Speaker 2:
[91:08] That'd be the story then. You know, this real quick, I just want to say, you say she didn't do this kind of promo in WWE. They didn't let her or set her up to do this kind of promo. They tried to make her. You hear this and you realize they tried to make her something that she's not.

Speaker 1:
[91:25] Especially when she was the smiling Ronda Rousey.

Speaker 2:
[91:29] Jim, this first clip is Ronda talking about the minimum purse for the upcoming MMA card, MVP is the promotion. Here is Ronda.

Speaker 3:
[91:41] I think it's really important that we raise the ceiling but also that we raise the floor. And one thing that I'm really proud of in this fight is the absolute minimum that anybody will walk away with, even if they don't have like a big long record and even if they lose is $40,000. And if you fight three times in a year, that is much more than a living wage. And that is something that the UFC cannot say. And I hope that everybody sitting here today is getting the biggest payday of their career. And well, maybe not for you, maybe you've done better before. But in MMA, hopefully, not against.

Speaker 2:
[92:19] She's talking to Nate Diaz.

Speaker 3:
[92:21] And I hope that after this event, we can keep raising that ceiling higher and higher and higher until it is on par with the highest level boxers, because that is really where the holy grail, I think, for us is. And this is just the beginning.

Speaker 2:
[92:37] Well, there it is. That's Ronda in a good mood during the press conference, talking about the base salary. What do you think?

Speaker 1:
[92:43] Yeah, well, you know, she's okay. And again, I'm not an expert in the fight business, but I've read numerous accounts of guys in the UFC, or girls, whatever, fighters in the UFC, who had to pay expenses of their camps, had to pay training expenses, had to whatever. If you fight three times a year, you gross 120 grand. If you got to keep much of that, pass taxes, that might be a living wage. But if you're paying for training camps or your transportation or whatever the fuck, I've not heard it established that now that that's all free to all those fighters. So even that ain't, you know, at the bottom, it's like indie wrestling.

Speaker 2:
[93:30] But again, you talk about, we just talked about WWE pay. UFC makes a lot of money. They don't pay their fighters a lot of money.

Speaker 1:
[93:41] Well, no, that's what, when they were separate companies, the comparisons were done and they, UFC was lower than, again, difference in terms of individuals versus teams and rosters, etc. But percentage of overall revenue was lower than basketball or baseball or football. And then the point was the only thing lower was the WWE. They were lower than UFC. And now they're both owned by the same miserly Scrooge-like conglomeration.

Speaker 2:
[94:16] Well, Jim, the big part of the press conference everyone wanted to hear your thoughts on was Ronda was asked about Kayla Harrison, who is a current fighter, current champion in the UFC, who Ronda knows from the past, who did an interview saying that this fight and these fighters, they're both irrelevant. So the fight doesn't matter. They've been away too long, they're irrelevant. Here's Ronda Rousey's response.

Speaker 3:
[94:43] Well, Dina is so relevant that she's the whole reason that the 145-pound division even exists. And I am so relevant that the only reason she has a job at the UFC is because of me. And Kayla is so irrelevant that she couldn't even keep the 145-pound division around. And honestly, she's just sour because no matter what she does or what she accomplishes, she can't change the fact that she has the charisma of a wet towel and will always be in me and Dina's shadow. So the next time she wants to talk shit, she should look down at her feet and consider who paved the road that she's walking on. Wait, she can't look down at her feet because she's too busy holding on to the belt in a neck brace. And then she goes on and says that I lied about training in judo in Canada in like 2006. Like what the fuck are you to call me a liar, okay? I was training there for five months. Bitch, you weren't even there, okay? Over the last decade and a half of being a public figure, I cultivated a reputation for being unabashedly truthful. This bitch just got here and was already caught in a lie. What did she say after she won the belt? She said, oh, I'm never going to say anything bad about Ronda. She took care of me when I was broke in Japan and bought me groceries. How about you shut the fuck up and eat your groceries?

Speaker 1:
[95:56] Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2:
[95:58] Let me stop there. There's more. There's much more.

Speaker 1:
[96:02] Shut the fuck up and eat your groceries.

Speaker 2:
[96:04] What do you think of this so far?

Speaker 1:
[96:05] Well, obviously this has been simmering for some time in, in her mind, because immediately she went back in 2005 when I was there. There's some obviously they've been friends in the past and now there's they're on the outs and there's been some bitter shit for a while because they're going back 20 years already. But that just that delivery and that vehemence and that aggression, we would have done great to see that kind of Ronda Rousey in the WWE, but she means this. She's not a great worker, but she's very bluntly honest when she's telling the truth and saying what she means.

Speaker 2:
[96:49] And as she's doing this, there's a split screen. Gina Carano is laughing. She's clapping. She's having a great time. But let's go back to Ronda Rousey.

Speaker 1:
[96:56] And also you can you can tell that MMA is still something important to Ronda Rousey, but she dabbled in the wrestling sector as well that Brian Gerwitz phrased it one time. She did it as a lark because her friends and she used to watch it, but she's keeping up with everything these people are fucking doing and knows exactly where to drill this girl.

Speaker 3:
[97:20] And Karen Hunter trying to act like her next upcoming fight is the biggest women's fight of all time. Then why is it being booked as a co-main for a men's interim title fight, okay? The bitch isn't even bigger than Patti the Batty. No offense to Patti, I think he's got more potential than anybody in the UFC and he should call me when his contract runs out. But here's another contradiction that I think is a fucking kicker, is if she thinks that her fight is the biggest women's fight of all time, why is she getting paid less now than I was 10 years ago? So give me this bitch, are you overvalued or are you underpaid? And what really pisses me off more than anything else, yeah, I'm not fucking done, is how small she thinks. This is not just the biggest women's fight of all time, this is the biggest MMA fight of all time. It's gonna get the most views on the biggest platform, on a card with the biggest stars, and it will be assembled by, and will be headlined by two women who dare to dream big. And this dream is going to bring more opportunities and greater revenue share to fighters than they've ever had before, because this fight is bigger than just me and Gina and it's bigger than anybody on this stage. It represents an unstoppable force of change in this industry spearheaded by the fighters themselves. Bet your fucking ass this is the biggest MMA fight of all time. Barton Ryan.

Speaker 1:
[98:42] Jesus Christ. What the hell? Can I hire her to hype my next fight or to just do promos for my promotion? Can you imagine if she had believed in anything in the WWE with that passion or that emotion, or was able to channel that kind of rah rah? When she was heelish, it worked because she's kind of naturally heelish. But when she was a babyface, she didn't look like she wanted to be there. And she didn't want to emote like that, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.

Speaker 2:
[99:27] You know, the first time they used her, I think, was WrestleMania, right? The Rock walked over to her at ringside and then her and The Rock confronted Triple H and Stephanie and then the next year she had them.

Speaker 1:
[99:36] Yes, and the mixed tag.

Speaker 2:
[99:38] Yeah. They used her as a badass. They used her as who she was, as the celebrity fighter she was. She became a celebrity because she was a fighter, not that she was a...

Speaker 1:
[99:48] And for the younger listeners, I thought at the time I reviewed it, that was the best debut match in the history of pro wrestling.

Speaker 2:
[99:55] Oh, she was incredible. She was incredible.

Speaker 1:
[99:57] And well, and they put it together incredible too. And she performed it the way that they instructed her because it was her first fucking match.

Speaker 2:
[100:06] But coming out of that, was she ever presented that way as a badass really ever again? Did she get fucking Vince-ized? Vince McMahon got his hands on her and all of a sudden she's smiling.

Speaker 1:
[100:17] Now, wait a minute, don't put it like that.

Speaker 2:
[100:19] You know what I mean, though? She's smiling. She's saying words that she wouldn't naturally say. This is how she naturally talks. Did we ever get this ever?

Speaker 1:
[100:28] No. And at the start, there was still an element of Ronda Rousey, baddest woman on the planet. But then it started being washed and watered down and Vince-ized. And then she went away. And then she came back and really did not enjoy herself. And you could tell, and diminishing returns. So a short period of a career with a break in the middle. But it went from... Her first match was still the absolute greatest thing she ever did. And what was her last match? I don't remember it.

Speaker 2:
[101:05] I don't... did she... was it her and Shayna?

Speaker 1:
[101:09] Well, we may have just made our point without even trying to go any further.

Speaker 2:
[101:14] I mean, she wrestled at AEW. She wrestled at a Ring of Honor match.

Speaker 1:
[101:17] Well, but I mean, not even those, because that was just for a hoot. But the point is, everybody remembers her debut match. And you... what was her last match? We didn't care by that point. That's the moral to this story.

Speaker 2:
[101:32] Well, there it is once again, Ronda Rousey versus Gina Carano coming up on Netflix. I will be watching. Are you going to watch this?

Speaker 1:
[101:40] When is that again?

Speaker 2:
[101:42] Mid-May. I want to say like May 18th or something.

Speaker 1:
[101:44] Well, we got we got plenty of time. I may have to see what happens because... Yeah, I don't know about this. I... it probably won't go long one way or the other. Let's put it this way. But I would have to think that just at this point in both of their lives, the younger the younger stallion will win the race. We'll see what happens. So, Brian, between Ronda and Gino Caruso. I did that last time. Accidentally. And now I can't. I just love to do it. Between Ronda and Gina Carano, who are you picking?

Speaker 2:
[102:28] Oh, come on now. It has to be Ronda Rousey.

Speaker 1:
[102:29] Who are you picking? You ask, use me. Who are you picking?

Speaker 2:
[102:33] It has to be Ronda Rousey. It has to be quick. I can't imagine it would. I can't imagine it's going to go more than a minute. And I can't imagine it's not going to be an arm bar.

Speaker 1:
[102:45] You agree with me that at this point in both of their careers, age may play the most predominant factor. And level of inactivity of one versus level of inactivity of the other.

Speaker 2:
[102:58] I think at their peak, Ronda was the better fighter than Gina Carano. Not taking anything away from what she was, but just Ronda at her peak.

Speaker 1:
[103:07] But was she a fighter or was she an arm bar?

Speaker 2:
[103:12] Well, I mean, that's kind of what cost her everything. With Holly Holm, was she had never really taken a punch and she wasn't prepared?

Speaker 1:
[103:19] What if Gina just kicks her in the fucking nose? I mean, maybe, maybe just boom, just lucky kick. Boom. What if it's over in five seconds? Boom. Down she goes. Kick to the nose. Down she goes. Kick to the nose. Folks, who are you picking between these two titans of modern combat sports? I don't know if you can go to our friends at PrizePix and pick between these people's picks, but you can go right now to PrizePix and you can become involved in the NBA Finals. The regular season is over with. It's done. And now we're getting down to nut-cutting time, down to the meat of the matter. It's the NBA playoffs and PrizePix, now a preferred partner of the NBA, I'll have you know. They've made an official arrangement. So every bucket, every dime, see that? That's basketball terminology. And every win means more when you're playing on PrizePix. And you can get $50 instantly in lineups when you play your first $5. And I'm going to tell you what you do here. You can do it. Fuck it. We're going to do it live. During the 2026 NBA Finals sweepstakes, you pick live squares, whatever they may be. They're living, they're living breathing organisms. You pick live squares during the NBA playoffs, and you could win a trip for two to the NBA Finals. Brian, where are the NBA Finals taking place this fine year?

Speaker 2:
[104:57] Who will be the who will be in the finals? We need to determine that before we know where they'll be taking place.

Speaker 1:
[105:03] Well, what does that mean that the hometown team gets an advantage? It's not like the NCAA where you got to go to play where they've set it up. Well, what kind of fucking home cooking is this going on?

Speaker 2:
[105:16] If it's the Knicks and the Lakers, it would be in New York and Los Angeles at their arenas for the series.

Speaker 1:
[105:23] No, see, when the TKO buys the NBA, they'll fix that where they'll bid it. They'll have the Finals wherever will bid highest. Las Vegas or Saudi Arabia, just like God intended professional sports. But folks, if you want to cash in on some of this, since all these players and all these promoters are making a fortune, you just make a $5 line up with at least one live NBA player pick during any part, that means you can't pick any deceased players. One live NBA player pick during any part of the 2026 NBA playoffs and live player picks are picks made after a game is already in progress. That's what that is. And then you're entering in your thing where you go to the finals in Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 2:
[106:17] That's not, I don't believe that's what you're entering.

Speaker 1:
[106:20] Well, that might be next year.

Speaker 2:
[106:21] That's not, no, that's not what you're entering.

Speaker 1:
[106:25] Nevertheless, folks, download the PrizePicks app. Pick more or less on two to six player stat projections. If you get your picks right, you can cash in. It doesn't have to be the NBA. It could be baseball, hockey, UFC, soccer. College basketball, tennis, golf, eSports and more. And now, Brian, none of our followers out there, none of the Colt and Cornette are excluded. PrizePicks is in all 50 states. The people that were being discriminated against have now been allowed to access their PrizePicks. So do it with abandon and download the PrizePicks app today. Use the code JCE to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineups. So it's 10 to 1, 10 times what you will get for what you give with the code JCE.

Speaker 2:
[107:22] A fantastic deal for the listeners. Tis the season to make your picks, the NBA playoffs and of course the finals coming up. Make your picks with PrizePicks one more time Jim. That wonderful promo code.

Speaker 1:
[107:37] Well, you download the PrizePicks app, you use the code JCE, you get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineups. And PrizePicks, a preferred partner of the NBA is what they are. And a mighty fine one.

Speaker 2:
[107:54] All right, back to the underwhelming build to WrestleMania.

Speaker 1:
[107:59] Oh, I forgot now is the time that we are going to talk about Smackdown, which is transpired between the time we started this program and the end now. And folks, you never even knew it. You never knew what was going on in the background in life while we were doing this program for you. They were in Vegas. They're never going to leave Vegas. Smackdown in Vegas, Two Nights At WrestleMania in Vegas, Raw in Vegas, Hall Of Fame in Vegas. Apparently, whoever goes to Vegas stays in Vegas as well, right? Are they ever going to get to fucking leave? They have burnt that town to a crisp. Did they ever did they crack 10,000 on this crowd? Because that was a topic of contention. Is it even last year, but traditionally, the Smackdown and the Raw sells out, said they 17,000, 18,000, whatever it was last year. They were at like 8,000 tickets out for Raw and Smackdown, less than a week out.

Speaker 2:
[109:06] And those are usually the shows where you get the rowdy international fans. Sometimes they're just playful international fans, but less international travel to WrestleMania this year.

Speaker 1:
[109:16] Well, yeah, that's why that the whole crowd didn't erupt in the fucking song every five seconds. Because we got the musical foreigners. I see that's that's what we got the foreigners out of here, so we don't have to listen to the crowd sing. Also, also, the crowds are half of what they were.

Speaker 2:
[109:36] You ever feel like when you watch some of the crowds, when they're silent, that the only thing they could be thinking of is like just a cash register and their money flying out of their pocket into the cash register.

Speaker 1:
[109:47] I don't think they're, I don't think they're examining it like that until they get home and they have the buyer's remorse after the end of the whole experience. I think in the middle of it, it's the dusty principle. They're sitting there going, when will this bull shit be over with? Why is this bull shit on my fucking TV? Except it's live.

Speaker 2:
[110:08] Did you see any good matches? Nah, not really, but I got to see Randy Orton do Othello.

Speaker 1:
[110:17] All right, well, speaking of Randy Orton, he opened the show, him and Pat McAfee pull up in their red truck at Showtime. We used to get fined if we didn't get to TV at call time. Goddamn, it's a big production. And there's Nick Aldis with a contract for Pat who says, I've got to read it. And of course, then he never did read it and was signing it by the time that this little shot was over with. Pat's trying too hard. He's an annoying heel and not in the good way. He's trying to be so over the top with this. He's trying to get his line. He called, what does he call Aldis? Foreign Adam Pearce. But he did it twice within 30 seconds to just make sure everybody heard it, I guess, because it's so funny. Do you see what I'm saying here? There's an annoyance factor.

Speaker 2:
[111:16] He sucks. He completely sucks. I completely see what you're saying. He's like a like a low class Dan Lambert or always, you know, the character, the character Dan Lambert played on AEW. Like just it's awful.

Speaker 1:
[111:29] And now Dan Lambert, a low class Dan. Already Dan Lambert is somewhat of a of a bar that's been set for low class. And then you've submerged past him. I love you, Dan, if you still listen. Is Dan Lambert still around? I don't even know.

Speaker 2:
[111:47] I believe he is still breathing.

Speaker 1:
[111:49] Yes, please. Healthy. We haven't seen him on AEW television. I'm sure with the fans, I want to remember that stellar run. If he came back today and they were, oh, no.

Speaker 2:
[112:00] I think they may remember it. They may remember it. But the point is the McAfee stuff is pretty cringey. It doesn't seem like you said it's getting the right kind of heat. People are rejecting it and rejecting him, not booing him because he's a heel that they want to see get his ass kicked by the babyface. They want it. They literally want him to go home. The chant that Cody Rhodes is trying to get going is the feeling. Yeah. It's just leave TV. Don't wait for beating. Leave now. And I think it's cringey, you know, just the whole idea of, you know, calling the televised wrestling fans marks, which is a term that's never been introduced really on this show. I mean, maybe every now and then.

Speaker 1:
[112:42] That's another thing is that, again, it just because it's said on the Internet doesn't mean that you introduce it into a television show with no explanation that where it's never been said before. And, you know, again, is Marks spreading out into the general populace like K-Fabe has, but still, it's just it's so trying hard to. It sounds like they're venting their fucking own hatred at the Marks by Marks, Marks.

Speaker 2:
[113:27] You don't hear K-Fabe, and you shouldn't.

Speaker 1:
[113:30] Most of the fans are not going to really be as like, not if you called my mother a whore, if you call him a Mark, but I think the boys in the office hate the Marks more than the Marks hate being called Marks.

Speaker 2:
[113:45] And he keeps going off about the IWC. I can't even tell you how small a percentage of wrestling fans even know what that is. It almost feels like a wrestling term from another era of Internet wrestling talk.

Speaker 1:
[113:59] Well, I mean, up until it was not really a thing anymore, I still thought it was some kind of goddamn Federation and fucking McKeesport or something. But anyway, nevertheless, here's the point of this, is when they have this interaction, Orton goes to the ring and lets McAfee stay there and deal with Aldis. Because if they weren't smart enough to call this ahead of time, I would imagine that probably Orton highly suggested it, I need to go out there and fucking talk. He's doing the best promos of his career, and he sounds like he means everything. And now they've thrown him this, you know, fucking unwanted baggage, but he's caught it at least.

Speaker 2:
[114:47] He's making the best of it for what he can.

Speaker 1:
[114:49] He's making the best of it.

Speaker 2:
[114:51] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[114:52] But at the same time, when he goes out, they're cheering him. And but, but they put him in a position where when he said, I don't need Pat McAfee, they're like, yeah, I want him. Oh, they want to cheer him more than they can because, you know, now he's saying McAfee is the only straight shooter in the company and tells me what I need to hear and all I needed to do was be me. They don't want to hear that. And he told the story, he knew he could beat Drew for the title. But when Cody won it, every time he would mention Cody, there'd be big boos when he'd mention Cody's name. Boo!

Speaker 2:
[115:37] They want to ignore the McAfee thing and just cheer Randy and boo Cody. And these stumbling blocks are being put in their way.

Speaker 1:
[115:45] And he did a great promo about, I couldn't hurt Cody. I knew my friend, you know, my friend, whatever. But then Cody gave me permission to be me. Who the hell is Cody to get me permission? And they're like, yeah. And he cut the promo where all he ever did was take and all I ever did was give. He gave the whole back story that they're telling without McAfee involved is exactly the fucking story that we've been talking about. Here's another thing. When they do this, they're going to tell it, right? When Cody needed help two years ago, he called Seth Rollins. But as a friend, I helped him against the bloodline and I got put through a table. And he gave a WWE title match to Owens and Owens turned on Cody and I had his back and Owens' pile drove me the whole goddamn deal.

Speaker 2:
[116:42] It should have been Owens, not McAfee.

Speaker 3:
[116:44] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[116:44] It should have been Owens.

Speaker 1:
[116:47] Because McAfee wasn't even there. It should have been Owens. But he put, every time he told the story and he's again, he has a point, he's right in his mind. And the people are with it. But every time he talks about McAfee and puts McAfee over, he gets booed. And so it's.

Speaker 2:
[117:13] Yeah, they cheer the heel who's saying, I gotta be me.

Speaker 1:
[117:17] Yes, they boo the baby face, but then when the heel mentions the baby face's name, they boo. But when the heel mentions the guy that's in his corner, they boo worse.

Speaker 2:
[117:33] Amazing.

Speaker 1:
[117:36] So that was the opening segment there. And then Orton and Pat drove off in their truck, exceeding Nevada parking lot speed limits. Of course, I didn't watch the eight-man street fight garbage match with trash cans and chairs between the mud line and the Wyatt's. And then they did a package again on our friend Royce Keys. I didn't- his mother overdosed in 2021?

Speaker 2:
[118:10] That's what it said on the screen.

Speaker 1:
[118:13] I remember they did- that was after they told the story briefly once on AEW, where his brother got shot or some shi- this guy is cursed. But what a story. But they're doing another package. They're again telling this sad, dramatic family story, and he's emotional and a blah, blah, blah. And it's a great story because it's true, and they can show the pictures, and it makes him a sympathetic person. And I know somehow, Cornette, he's- here's this big guy, and he's crying, well, yes, over his mother dying or his brother getting shot or whatever the fuck's going on. That's fine, but that's why I say when he gets in the ring, he needs to be explosive and as aggressive as possible because this is what he's fighting for, to make all of his family proud of him, blah, blah, blah. But they've done a better job in two weeks than they did in AEW in five years, haven't they?

Speaker 2:
[119:21] Yeah, I think they've done a great job, with the exception of, I know I'm in the minority and I know it means something, but the name, even in the promo, I thought about it because one of the women in it called them Will. Yeah, his name isn't Royce, it's Will. We know that, but even if you're not going to use that powerhouse or something, it feels like his name is missing something still. I'm sorry to say that because I know his name was put together by him when they said, you got to pick a name. But that's the only thing missing so far to me, but I think he's obviously someone they're taking care of and they're giving time to.

Speaker 3:
[119:59] They didn't rush it after the Royal Rumble. They shot these videos. They gave a lot of attention to the podcast interview we did with Stephanie. And now the big Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, which was introduced several years back as a memory, a tribute to Andre that will always be a part of WrestleMania. And then they said, well, why don't we just move it to Smackdown? And that's what's happened.

Speaker 1:
[120:25] Well, originally, it was a tribute to Andre and also a way to get everybody else on the fucking show. And now that they've got two nights, there's multiple ways to get everybody else on the fucking show.

Speaker 3:
[120:39] But they still don't. But they still don't. There's only like five or six matches or whatever it is each night. There's a lot of people not booked. If you want to do the Battle Royale on one of those nights of WrestleMania, you could.

Speaker 1:
[120:50] Oh, please. Why don't they do it after the Hall Of Fame? About three in the morning. Anyway, so a cop car pulled in. As the Las Vegas Police Department is known well for doing, they have brought in a celebrity, escorted him in, and limoed him into the arena. And obviously, Drew McIntyre has been making fun of Jacob Fatou's checkered past his time in prison. And so Jacob pops out of the cop car and stands on top of it at the entrance way to do his promo. Well, the cops guard to make sure that. How are they going to explain all those goddamn deaths from that 300 pound Samoan when they get back to the precinct? But Jacob, again, he cut the promo on Drew McIntyre. And I don't know if he quite got into it at first, but he got more into it, more comfortable. I think they're trying to. For whatever reason, possibly sponsors or corporate involvement, as soon as they've revealed his prison background and brushes with the law, whatever, which I said, that's what, you know, made him real as the Samoan werewolf. Now they're punching him to say, but I don't live that life no more because he got that in about three or four times. So apparently, we don't want to... I mean, just because you saw the Samoan werewolf on wrestling that used to be in jail, does that make the young people... I want to go out and commit crimes. Anyway, he's a very clean werewolf, but he cut the promo, and he's got, still got oomph to him and intensity. And he cut the promo on Drew McIntyre, and he's going to dog walk his ass at WrestleMania. But this was just like a three-hour infomercial, as we are starting to see, for the eight hours of extravaganza that they expect us to pay for, of infomercials for the various products they're selling us there. But go ahead.

Speaker 3:
[123:17] That's their whole business model now. It's an infomercial to sell you on other infomercials that you could spend money on.

Speaker 1:
[123:24] And if you buy preferred access, you can spend your money even earlier.

Speaker 3:
[123:28] Yeah. And take a picture smiling while we collect your money. I think this was Jacob's best promo. I think it may be actually the highlight of the little feud with Drew, even though it's been a lot of action. I have not been into it myself. It's a little ridiculous. The idea that the cops drive them in and then let them stand on top of the car while they are on both sides of it guarding the car.

Speaker 1:
[123:53] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[123:55] I guess they thought it was a cool visual, but the promo itself was, I think, his best promo, in WWE at least.

Speaker 1:
[124:03] And we'll see what... I would... I like both Jacob Fatu and Drew McIntyre, and I think they should both be in positions where they're either in, you know, a money match or able to... They both need wins, whereas some of these other people, you know, may not need it as bad, but now they're in a position where one of them is going to have to lose something one way or the other. Anyway. Speaking of losers, next, we had Grayson Waller and Kofi Kingston against Priest and Truth. And I thought at least Theory is away from Waller. We got that going for us. And then Jade and Rhea Ripley. I don't know if it was long. It seemed like it on fast forward because I just, I don't care. Again, either Rio is at a tag team with EO for so long that I've just, you know, I've lost the habit, but also I'm not particularly interested in Jade here. And they talked for a long, long time.

Speaker 3:
[125:20] Yes, they did.

Speaker 1:
[125:21] Was there anything in this that contradicted my opinion of not watching it?

Speaker 3:
[125:25] It's been an awkward build, awkward promos, awkward energy. If coming out of this thing with Jade at some point the next few months, Rhea turns heel and attacks Io. Would that make it a little more worth it for you? Because at least then, I think it will revitalize Rhea a little bit. But also, obviously, it ends the whole thing with her and Rhea.

Speaker 1:
[125:50] Rhea, Rhea, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, Io, I think she does need to get more bite and more edge and be featured more prominently and win some things. And hopefully she'll beat Jade and move on to something that would be more interesting. And speaking of which, the next thing was Tiffany against Jordan Grace, and that wasn't any more interesting. And to be honest with you, the next thing, Prick Williams came out with no little yachty. He came out all by himself, and then they like him. They love to say whoop that trick. Then he brought a gingerbread man out, a guy in a gingerbread man cookie costume thing.

Speaker 3:
[126:57] And representing Sammy, so he could talk to him as if he's Sammy.

Speaker 1:
[127:00] Yes, representing Sammy, which of course, Sammy's name is already getting booed every time it's mentioned. And then Sammy came out and he got booed himself. And then this went on and on. And I just finally at the end of it, Sammy shit can trick Williams out of the ring and the crowd booed. And then Sammy knocked out the gingerbread cookie guy with a kick to his giant oversized, sized mascot cookie head. Which what the fuck? And it turned and then trick hit the knee on Sammy. But he didn't then trick didn't go over to check on the cookie man.

Speaker 3:
[127:49] Were you hoping I was hoping? Were you hoping that the cookie, the gingerbread cookie man was going to be a little yachty?

Speaker 1:
[127:56] Well, at first, it seemed like it, but then at the same time, when it never happened, it seemed less likely.

Speaker 3:
[128:04] The guy did a good job as a mascot. He was hamming it up. I thought he actually did a really good job. He could definitely apply for like a San Diego Chicken or Mr. Met.

Speaker 1:
[128:15] It was his big chance. But at that point, that that took 15 minutes, what we just talked about. I'm turning my page. What happened next? Charlotte and Alexa against Bayley and Lyric. And then they had the Andre, the giant Battle Royale, which featured every job guy in the fucking company. I mean, they started, they only had two entrances, Royce Keys and Henry, right? And then the ring was already it was filled up. I don't know how many people were in there. Did you could you spot a star?

Speaker 3:
[129:00] I mean, I knew who some of the wrestlers were, but it wasn't a star studded Battle Royale, like some of the ones we've seen in the past.

Speaker 1:
[129:08] But shockingly, Royce Keys won. Cinderella story out of nowhere, nobody was thinking that that it would be him, even though they mentioned that it would be him. And then ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, are you ready for the main event, Brian?

Speaker 3:
[129:31] I don't remember what it was. What was the main event?

Speaker 1:
[129:33] Well, the big main event was Cody's interview.

Speaker 3:
[129:36] Oh, the promo. Yes. Yes. I didn't know there was another match. We didn't really. There weren't really a lot of matches.

Speaker 1:
[129:41] No, why? They don't have time for a goddamn matches with their. These guys have shit to say. They have got a song. They've got to sing and they're going to we're going to let them sing it. Cody came out and it was not the overwhelming show of love for the American Nightmare of days gone by most recently. It's not like they're just fucking throwing shit at him, but you know, with all this that they have done. And of course, he said, I'm not going to talk about the controversy theories, the last three WrestleManias, whether somebody's messing with me. And he mentioned The Rock and Travis Scott and the guy who needs to just go home. And the guy, even though they they can't stand McAfee, the go home pat was not. As loud or as long as I might have thought it, it would be. And of course, maybe this is just another one of those. It's the most jaded people who are here to see, you know, moments.

Speaker 3:
[130:50] They're also not as behind Cody as they were. And the booking.

Speaker 1:
[130:53] That's true.

Speaker 3:
[130:54] The booking has hurt Cody.

Speaker 1:
[130:57] So he did the promo about his match with Orton, and he says Orton has never taken responsibility. It was all. Randy said, all I do is take and take. Well, he's never taken responsibility. For anything that he's done and a blah, blah, blah. And it sounded like he was going to start to make a pithy comment. And suddenly, like Mussolini, interrupted Cody. And I don't know what he was going to say, because it's called the personality. And here comes one. It's CM Punk. To save the day, because everybody likes the way he played.

Speaker 3:
[131:47] Something did not rhyme there, but CM Punk came out. Yes. In a suit.

Speaker 1:
[131:52] Punk came out in a suit. And now we got a big pop, because he's the only one that really hasn't done anything to fucking piss people off and or be involved with goddamn, you know, any of this. And there's he's singing a song and they're singing a song and they chant CM Punk CM Punk and I wrote down as he's past Cody. You can tell. And of course, Cody asked Punk, well, hey, if I shake your hands or shake your hands, both of them, all three of them, if I shake your hand, are you going to kick me into balls and turn on me? And no, no, no. Punk said, there's a lot of guys around here get kicked in the deserve to get kicked in the balls, but you're not one of them. There's there's one of them like a tourist in this business. It's not worth our time. And the fact that they're making the pointed comments as inside little shoots indicates that's the way they all really feel. But Punk said, it was the first time that he'd worn a suit since Teddy Long got married. I knew Teddy Long in 1986, and he had a fucking son that was like 12 years old. So I don't know how old Punk is. Must have been a storyline situation.

Speaker 3:
[133:22] It must have been, yeah, something else.

Speaker 1:
[133:25] But Punk did a great job here, I believe, by pumping Cody up, but he also, the promo was geared to kind of get people back on Cody's side. And at the same time, it's the two champions going into WrestleMania, both defending it. It looks like now, because Punk said, hey, come with us on this adventure. And I don't know what's going to happen this weekend, but we'll still be here on Monday. I think they're switching both of them. And I don't know that I'm interested in seeing Roman Reigns as a champion. I think Punk could, at this point, he's probably got more credibility with that belt and Cody and Orton's. So I think Poink, I think Poink. I think Poink could anoint what I was trying to say. You know, good, dirty poinks, like a snake feces. I think Punk could anoint a younger man at this point. He's got so much credibility. But nevertheless, Punk tried to get people on Cody's side and hey, come with us for the adventure. We'll be there Monday. And then Cody kind of tried to do the same thing. Pump Punk up and put Punk over and he got the fans chanting because they want to chant for Punk anyway. They said, Punk's the new Mr. WrestleMania, and he thanked him for everything and Dusty would be proud. And then they hugged and Cody's music started playing and Punk stopped it and he got the last word. He said, and we're here to celebrate with the people. Oh yeah, maybe Cody should have said that. I don't know if Punk reminded him, whatever the fuck. But out in the people, they go and, well, just happy, happy. Just everybody's happy. Brian, they're all happy. They may not be happy on Monday. It's looking bad for our side.

Speaker 3:
[135:34] It is. This is also just the worst build to a WrestleMania ever. I think Roman Reigns did a promo where at least I saw something going around, where it was attributed to him, where it said that if I don't win the title, I'm going to leave WWE, so that would almost telegraph something if that were indeed the case. I think they got to do something with Cody. The problem is I have no faith in their creative team understanding how to refresh Cody, unless they turn him heel and he's always been resistant to that. So who knows? But they're going to do something big, you got to imagine, try to tie this together. Punk losing the belt to Roman. I'm okay with... Listen, if it leads to more angry CM Punk promos, sign me up for it. I'll take that. But uh...

Speaker 1:
[136:28] They had...

Speaker 3:
[136:28] Underwhelming... This is a go home show. This is the show the day before Night 1 of WrestleMania.

Speaker 1:
[136:34] Well, but let's face it, anybody's gonna watch it. Anybody that's gonna watch it is already watching it. And I don't know how you could really talk anybody else into it at this point.

Speaker 3:
[136:45] There was nothing on this show, for instance, like anyone was like, I gotta share this on social media. Like there was nothing on... There was no big moment. There was nothing... They didn't even try to get buzz. They were just like, all right. I guess we sold a bunch of tickets. We got to do a show. Who can we get out there? Do you want to talk or wrestle?

Speaker 1:
[137:04] Talk?

Speaker 3:
[137:04] Yeah, that's what everyone's saying. You can go talk, but it just, it feels like it's an under... I want to see Brock and Oba. I want to see Punk and Roman, because I figure that has to have some sort of interesting storyline. I don't want to see the Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton match at this point, because McAfee is all over it. I want to see Liv and Stephanie. What else do I want to see? There has to be more. What am I forgetting? I don't want to see...

Speaker 1:
[137:31] You've already named more that I want to see.

Speaker 3:
[137:34] I don't want to see the Vision, I Show Speed, Uso's LA Night, Amada Interested, I mean, I'm going to watch it, but I don't care. I don't care about the Women's Four Way Fatal Tag Match. I don't care about Becky vs AJ. Dominic vs Finn. Actually I do want to see that. I guess Finn's going to be the demon again, which I don't know if it gives him extra powers, but at least it puts makeup on his face and lets him crawl around a little bit. And yeah, an underwhelming WrestleMania for sure. Trick and Sammy.

Speaker 1:
[138:06] You know what?

Speaker 3:
[138:07] Trick and Sammy. I want to see Trick and Sammy.

Speaker 1:
[138:09] Oh, Trick and Sammy. That sounds like some kind of vaudeville team. Trick and Sammy. I think at some point after WrestleMania, some of the individuals involved are going to have to face the reality that maybe Brian, they might need a new line of work. You think? Maybe they just change their marketing strategy and start selling homegrown apples.

Speaker 3:
[138:40] I mean, they're making a lot of money. I don't think they're going to have to necessarily go right into another line of work, but maybe they want to increase the time they spend on their hobby and develop a business.

Speaker 1:
[138:50] Well, you see, that's the thing though. Every time you see one of these wrestlers threatened with getting fired on TV, they say, Oh my God, how am I going to feed my family? So, you know, they're living hand to mouth, one step away from the poor house. And folks, that's a bad place to be, one step away from the poor house, because everybody comes past your front door, is either headed to the poor house or just got out of the poor house. So, you want to live many steps away from the poor house. And our friends at Shopify can help you do just that, because they can take the innocent little sperm of an idea that you have, and they can inseminate that sperm into the womb of their massive flywheel operation. And then they can spurt out all kinds of quintuplets of little baby business opportunities for you.

Speaker 3:
[139:45] This is not the best example.

Speaker 1:
[139:47] That will grow into giant towering basketball player sized businesses that will slam dunk you into the pantheon of immortals in business with Vanderbilt and Morgan and Roosevelt and all them other belts.

Speaker 3:
[140:10] Yeah, he wasn't really a titan of industry. He was more of a, once again, he wasn't a titan of industry, more of a politician.

Speaker 1:
[140:18] Well, no, they were the Roosevelt's. They were high totem society people. They were farting Drew Silk from an early age.

Speaker 3:
[140:26] When you say Roosevelt, I feel like you mean one of the famous ones, not the entire family and everyone in it.

Speaker 1:
[140:32] Well, let's not get bogged down with the Roosevelt's. That's what the Rockefellers said. But nevertheless, Shopify can do all that. Remember, we were still talking about Shopify taking that Lotus Perm and growing into it.

Speaker 3:
[140:44] Let's get away from that. Let's get back to 5th Avenue in 1910.

Speaker 1:
[140:49] Well, Shopify was not invented then, and that's why it was so hard. You had to do this shit by the sweatier brow back in those days. But now it's easy. You can just be a jack-off and be a multi-gazillionaire. You see that in the news every day. And Shopify is your commerce expert with world-class expertise in making you a gazillionaire. They will take whatever sperm you have, just send it to them. And they will create a business for you from whether it's your website or whether it's your media campaign or whether it's managing your inventory or whether it's the award-winning 24-7 customer support they have. If you call up in the middle of night, you say, I've got sperm here. They'll tell you what to do with it.

Speaker 3:
[141:37] Again, this is not the best example. Let's say sperm is a substitute for a widget in this.

Speaker 1:
[141:43] It seems like it's like a flywheel. It's a widget on a flywheel.

Speaker 3:
[141:47] That's not how flywheel works in any way.

Speaker 1:
[141:51] When the flywheel turns, it just flings all the sperm off incessantly.

Speaker 3:
[141:57] This is the worst example. We already established that. Let's get away.

Speaker 1:
[142:01] That's how they're going to spread you all over the country, ladies and gentlemen, and all over. They're going to spread your widgets.

Speaker 3:
[142:07] No, no, you have widgets. We're talking widgets. You're selling widgets, widgets for sale. I was Shopify. That's right. It's a great deal.

Speaker 1:
[142:20] Widgets for sale.

Speaker 3:
[142:22] Widgets for sale.

Speaker 1:
[142:25] Exciting, brand new widgets for sale. You just sing that as you walk down the street. Anyway, what's happening here?

Speaker 3:
[142:34] What is happening here? That's a great way to establish things.

Speaker 1:
[142:39] Is that you need to go to shopify.com right now, ladies, gentlemen, where that kid on the bicycle is going to just follow him. He'll take you the shortcut. shopify.com/jce. And you can sign up for a one dollar a month trial period where Shopify can show you not only what they can do for you and your business and your dream and your entrepreneurial spirit, but also they can show you their purple shop pay button. They'll take you around the corner and you just got to look down and they're going to they're going to show it to you. But you have to look quick.

Speaker 3:
[143:20] Let's stay clean and indoors on the app or on your phone, wherever you are. Well, I'm right back in the alley.

Speaker 1:
[143:27] I guess.

Speaker 3:
[143:28] What the hell?

Speaker 1:
[143:28] You can be outside on your phone now. People are wherever you are.

Speaker 3:
[143:37] That's right, folks. Shopify, of course, we trust them and you can, too. If you've got goods for sale, if you have an online store that needs a little help, if you have an online business that needs the right partner, Shopify is there for you. Jim.

Speaker 1:
[143:55] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[143:57] You know what that jingle means. It's time for the Shopify promo code.

Speaker 1:
[144:03] shopify.com/jce for your $1 a month trial period. Well, now, Brian, we come to the Hall Of Fame, the once mighty Hall Of Fame, the Hall Of The Immortals, the Pantheon of Bro Wrestling Greats has been reduced to, well, I would say the Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight, but those crowds are rowdy and the shit gets over. This is what?

Speaker 3:
[144:33] You know, they just brought Rocky Horror back on Broadway, some form of it. I haven't completely read up on this, but the controversy I saw in the headlines was they want the crowd to kind of simmer down and just relax and not be as involved and not be as involved in certain parts of the movie. So even that's starting to change.

Speaker 1:
[144:53] Well, the point being something needs to change with the Hall Of Fame. We'll debate and litigate the Rocky Horror Picture Show later today. This was horrible. I felt bad for the people involved. The ushers were holding mirrors in front of the fans' faces to see if they were still breathing. I didn't watch it at midnight, eastern time. I waited till the next day. I had a good night's sleep and it put me back to sleep. And again, they were in the little theater. It's been crowded out with all of this other WrestleMania weekend stuff. Maybe if they moved it to another pay-per-view annually where there was more time. But even 2017, when I was there, they were, what was it, the Friday night before the Sunday WrestleMania? Because it was only one night of WrestleMania. And they were in the NBA arena that they were doing Raw in that weekend also. And yes, all of the boys and the talent was there, but they had thousands of fans. And, but who, even if they're on, what is the Pacific time out there is the time I'm looking for. They're starting the thing at nine o'clock at night. And for people watching on the East Coast, they're probably already asleep. And it's not the show that it was. And it doesn't have the stars that it had, it doesn't have the oomph that it had, it doesn't have the crowd that it had. So would it be fair to move it to another weekend, or have they milked what they can milk out of the Hall Of Fame?

Speaker 3:
[146:50] I don't think they're gonna give up on the Hall Of Fame. I don't think they're gonna just stop doing it. It definitely has been better in the past. Again, we were on the East Coast, or I was on the East Coast, I was dead tired, I made it two hours, and then I was fed up, and the first hour was the Stephanie McMahon show. We'll get there. But the energy was kind of missing. I like seeing demolition. You know, I like when they reference the old, old stuff still, because this is kind of the last chance, you know, the next remaining years of them actually doing that. But there was no energy in the room, it didn't seem like. It used to be you could hear people. Sometimes that was the worst thing, or just fans yelling, but it sounded dead. And it was late. And there was a lot of time focused on one specific person.

Speaker 1:
[147:47] Well, yes, and then this was not the way to start the day, or the night, or the fucking morning, or whatever time it was.

Speaker 3:
[147:55] This should have been the end. If they were going to give it this much time, and really just make it Stephanie's coming out party, they should have made this the main of it. This should have been the end, and it should have been built to this.

Speaker 1:
[148:08] Yes, it may have been the end. This segment right here may have been the end. Well, first of all, Miz and Michael Cole were the hosts, and God, we're all missing Jerry Lawler. Because this is forced, Martin and Lewis, you know, buddy comedy, etc. They reminded people that Miz actually beat John Cena at WrestleMania, which should be one of those things that's quietly never spoken of. So get past this, they do the Stephanie package. And she's the most iconic female in the WWE. And we're reminded that she slapped everybody in the world and apparently just potatoed the shit out of them and what are they going to do about it? As we mentioned, as a performer, she was a great heel with great facials. She should have never tried to wrestle, but they covered that, they covered her as a great businesswoman, they cover her as a charitable person that works for pediatric cancer. They credited her or blamed her with the fact that now we get women's Royal Rumbles and women's elimination chambers. This package was its own show. I thought it was a Ken Burns documentary. And then, here's the thing, another part of the Hall Of Fame, and I hate to say this, I may be going to agree with Kevin Dunn. Remember when if you were being inducted, it was because you were a star, but the inductors had to be stars, even celebrity stars, but some type of level of star. Remember when when Lawler wanted Lance Russell to induct him? Kevin Dunn said nobody knows who he is and he got William Shatner. But nevertheless, so after the Stephanie show package, her three daughters and Linda inducted her. And I'm not going to insult her children who are not public figures, but they're also not public speakers. And I don't want to hear anybody's kids talk about their parents unless the kids are stars too. And the kids took ten minutes and then Linda stepped up and my God, her face, her fucking eyes don't match. Her eyes are at different level. You could put a T square on that woman's face and she'd be looking up over it on one side and down under it on the other side. The hell has happened to these people? We know how old she is. Anyway, so then Linda read from a teleprompter for ten solid minutes. I think that's the longest I've ever heard her speak. But I had to fast forward through some of this, but I would stop just to see if anything was getting a reaction. Did anyone ever burp while she was speaking?

Speaker 3:
[151:47] It seemed like the room was dead. You have to wonder how much of it was the way it was mic'd, or how much of it was the room was dead.

Speaker 1:
[151:55] No, you heard people actually react in other places briefly when they briefly reacted in other segments, but there was just no... And then after Linda introduced her and Stephanie came out, there was two minutes of hugging the family. And then she started putting her kids over, and I started to fast forward. And again, the same thing, brief stops. She's reading from a teleprompter. The speech was not bringing the house down. She named 600 people at the end of the speech, and then it ended up putting Triple H over. And then as if someone was demanding it, like she was Bobby Heenan, she came out in front and cut a promo as herself as a heel to finish it up like, yes, of course I deserve it, so stand up and welcome me. And that was 20 minutes. So 20 and two minutes of hug and 10 and a 32 and a 42. With the package, it was over 50 minutes. Should we move on like they didn't?

Speaker 3:
[153:19] There's no doubt she's a Hall Of Famer for WWE based on her role on their programming. Should she be in the Hall Of Fame for them? Sure. Should she get an hour? Which was everyone in her family giving a tribute to her? Just about how she's the greatest mom, and how she'll do it. None of this relates to what we're, it's not an award for the greatest person. It's the WWE Hall Of Fame. And they turned it into the Stephanie Show for one hour. And they have done everything they can to make people like her, care about her, want her around, like for the last couple of years, showing up in weird places at weird times on WWE TV and with projects that are suddenly WWE priorities. But this was the kicker. They kick Mr. T off the stage for less. This thing went nonstop.

Speaker 1:
[154:20] Didn't they give Dory and Terry Funk 90 seconds each?

Speaker 3:
[154:25] Seconds. Demolition got a few. Demolition had three people induct them. They each got like a minute and a half. But this thing went almost an hour. And then the promo, it was almost a shoot. Because much like what she used to do on Raw, as a shoot, no one could like not get up. They had to get up.

Speaker 1:
[154:46] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[154:46] Who's gonna be the one? I'm not gonna stand up for this.

Speaker 1:
[154:49] She told them to give her a standing ovation. That's the perfect way to do it.

Speaker 3:
[154:54] And they had to. And it was, to me, cringy. She's deserving of being in the WWE Hall Of Fame. But this was like, you know, you get to sit in on your funeral. You get to sit in on everyone giving the speeches about you. And then, you get to do whatever you want, horse shit. And then is the beginning of the fucking thing. And then we still have all this other stuff I actually want to see. And I have to sit through an hour of this at midnight. It's 1 a.m. before I get anyone I care about on this.

Speaker 1:
[155:30] I believe you have discovered, Brian, the general reaction from the fans why the Hall of Fame ain't a bigger deal these days. Because they've started stroking themselves a little too hard and too late at night when people are... They've got to get up and go to work in the morning. They're tired. They got a headache. They're not in the mood for the stroking.

Speaker 3:
[155:54] They should have started with demolition.

Speaker 1:
[155:57] Well moving on. Do you like that big ceremony for Bad News Allin where he got a brief package and his family waved from the crowd?

Speaker 3:
[156:08] They only referenced him as Bad News Brown. They didn't reference him as... If they had referenced him as Bad News Allin, it was briefly, but they talked about his career like he did nothing.

Speaker 1:
[156:20] His career in the WWF for what we established a year or so. Two and a half years. Well, whatever. Bad News Allin. The one Calgary clip, but they didn't identify it. Japanese? No, whatever.

Speaker 3:
[156:36] They didn't even reference the 1979 run really, where he was up for WWF.

Speaker 1:
[156:42] That's right. I think they had a picture, but didn't even talk about that. Well, anyway, but now to your precious demolition, Brian. Yeah. Except to be honest, the video was not as impressive as most of their videos, that I always praise how, oh my God, they edit these masterpieces. They had a lot of action footage, but it was like the old and modern guys sat there and, oh, they were my favorites. They scared me. It was not exactly a deep, deep dive into their careers or, you know, impacts on the industry. But I think, you know, they knew, well, Stephanie, we need to do that package, but these other guys, well, we'll just show highlights. But anyway, you said they had three guys, Haku, Arn Anderson and The Warlord. And Terry's Warlord is a really nice guy. He's very well spoken. He kept getting bleeped for saying WWF, but the fans were sleeping. And Haku looks like the president of Samoa in a fucking suit, doesn't he? This fucking wild crazy, the toughest man in wrestling, advice people's faces off. Now he's in a suit, his hair is slick back, he's got glasses. He looked like a goddamn prime minister. His accent is still too thick, but and Arn got a reaction because he's the, you know, the guy that of the three of these folks that people most remember of the modern generation, blah, blah, blah. And he can speak and tell a story. So of course, he got 90 seconds or whatever. And then they introduced devilish in Barry D'Arso and Bill Eadie. And D'Arso is huge now, my God, but he still looks and sounds like a big kid. I and I love Barry. He was a great guy. And he did an okay job, but again, it was late. He introduced his entire family. Bill Eadie got up there and he's a very intelligent, well-spoken guy. He's very smart. And he kind of worded it in a way that he got the You Deserve It chant. Was that the only one of the night? Because nobody else gave him a spot really for it.

Speaker 3:
[159:20] No, the only other chant we didn't even really talk about, but a lot of people are upset about the Thank You Vince chant that broke out in the middle of Stephanie's speech.

Speaker 1:
[159:29] Oh, I fucking skipped over that.

Speaker 3:
[159:32] Yeah, the fans started chanting Thank You Vince when she mentioned him. You know, not even trying to build up to that, but just mentioned him in her speech.

Speaker 1:
[159:38] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[159:39] The fans went to Thank You Vince. The Brainiacs.

Speaker 1:
[159:43] They don't care. Anyhow, so Bill Eady got to You Deserve It. He thanked Guido Mongole, who trained him, and George Scott gave him the superstar gimmick, Andre, both Vences, Enoki and Mr. Fuji. And, you know, and thanked his the fans and his wife and kids. And I was skipping through a bit of that at the end also. And then, out of any closing thoughts on demolition, taking their place in the pantheon of the immortals.

Speaker 3:
[160:20] They deserve it. I mean, anything I say will be better than the little video they did for them there. It was nice to let them have their moment. It seemed to mean a lot to them. And to me, that's the best benefit of the WWE Hall Of Fame, more than anything else, is when guys like that get to have those kind of moments with their families. Well deserving, and obviously they feuded with Vince McMahon or Bill Eaddy didn't. It affected Barry Darso too. Over the demolition gimmick, they didn't mention Randy Colley, I don't think.

Speaker 1:
[160:52] No.

Speaker 3:
[160:53] But, you know, there's a lot to be said about the creation of the gimmick, and eventually it ended in lawsuits that Bill Eaddy had going with WWF for almost 10 years before they finally settled, and obviously he got the rights to the gimmick that he said he created. But they were great. For a few years there, they debuted as heels. They got Fuji. At first they had Johnny Valiant and that didn't work. Much like Hogan. Like what? This is not working.

Speaker 1:
[161:20] I was about to say, have you noticed everybody that ever was managed by Johnny Valiant became a superstar once they left Johnny Valiant?

Speaker 3:
[161:29] Yeah, so they were with luscious Johnny V and then they went to Mr. Fuji, who started painting his face like them. And they were really over his heels. Beat Strike Force, who were the big babyface tag team, had WrestleMania IV, and then Survivor Series 88, they did the weird double turn, where they were the like leaders of the heel tag team, Survivor Series team, and the powers of pain who had been managed by the Baron, the babyface Baron Vyrashki with a hood over just running out with them. They were on the babyface team, and Fuji turned on Demolition and what were powers of pain. And then they became the most popular babyface, they may be the most popular babyface tag team I've seen in WWF. I'm sure there may be someone else I'm not thinking of, but there's a lot of teams I love, the Signer Brothers, even the LOD. There was a period there, especially in 89, going into WrestleMania 6, where they were so super over, and their feuds and their matches were typically the highlights of these shows. If you were watching Saturday night's main event, the Hogan match or the Hogan angle, whatever it is, may get you in the door, but Demolition and the Brain Busters, that's the one you're going to talk about the next day. And they were great. They were absolutely great. Go watch the pops they got at WrestleMania 6 in Toronto. And then Vince immediately fucked it up because he had them turn heel and brought the Road Warriors in immediately as babyfaces, but feuded them with Demolition, who had just been the most popular babyface tag team. And that's towards the end of Demolition. They mentioned Bryan Adams. That was nice. Crush. And yeah, that's I'll get off my soapbox once again. The greatness of Demolition.

Speaker 1:
[163:27] You know what, to be honest with you, imagine if it had been reversed, if instead of the Road Warriors ending up going to work for Vince down the road in 1990 or whatever, imagine if Demolition had come to WCW to fight the Road Warriors, that would have been the main events on all the cards and probably would have, well, I probably would have drawn money, but WCW would have found a way to fuck that up too. But you know what I'm saying. But it would have meant more than the other direction. Nevertheless, you know what else? The other direction they then took. Did you give two shits about seeing Dennis Rodman inducted in the WWE Hall of Fame?

Speaker 3:
[164:12] I did. I actually enjoyed this. I thought this was kind of an emotional train wreck. And it kind of got the room a little bit alive because he was pacing around. He could just, you know, go off at any moment. I thought this was one of the highlights of the event. Dennis Rodman was obviously very emotional about being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Got to see Shawn Waltman and Kevin Nash. That was kind of cool. I liked it.

Speaker 1:
[164:40] Well, that was the thing is that Nash and Waltman came out. I was like, okay, Nash is going to do something here, say something to, you know, of an entertaining nature to wake people up a little bit. And the first thing you said was, well, you know, my voice is gone. I don't talk to people anymore. So he can barely talk. And then as he starts reading the teleprompter, and I guess, I guess it's a thing now. You have to read the teleprompter because remember, as I said from Experience, when I was there, they kind of wanted to see your speech if you had written one or they gave you a writer, you know, to help you, you know, go and a producer to go over it or whatever. And that's why I said, I got my bullet points. I'm just going to talk and not let it drag. But they're all reading. So the point I make it is, I swear to you, and I love him. He's a nice young man. But Sean Waltman was lip reading Nash's words off the teleprompter. And I couldn't take my eyes off of him for a second. He's saying that.

Speaker 3:
[165:54] That's Jesse Ventura disease.

Speaker 1:
[165:57] And so Nash couldn't talk. And it was fucking late. And it's Dennis Rodman. I saw him come out and I don't give two shits about Dennis Rodman. I did. I skipped all of this. I just to be honest, I don't care.

Speaker 3:
[166:12] I liked it.

Speaker 1:
[166:14] Well, good. I'm glad that it found an audience somewhere. And then they inducted the Hulk Hogan, Andre, the giant match, WrestleMania 3 into the Moments Hall of. What is it? The Hall of Fame moment of the thing of the time? Great moments in sports, whatever the fuck it is.

Speaker 3:
[166:37] I don't remember the exact thing.

Speaker 1:
[166:38] Can you tell I'm losing my fucking patience?

Speaker 3:
[166:41] It was a nice little trophy they gave them or did they give it? It was only one. I don't know who gets that, actually.

Speaker 1:
[166:46] Well, yeah, that's the thing. Who gets it? Who's going to carry that fucking thing home? Hold on. They did a nice package. The footage of the match and the build up and everything. But the thing is, the inductors were Jimmy Hart, Nick Hogan and Andre's daughter. Poor Jimmy's 83. He looks younger than Nick Hogan. But he's the one that unveiled the trophy in the ring of Hogan, Bodyslam and Andre. I'm thinking Andre's daughter like, what the fuck? Why is my dad getting beat up? But Jimmy ain't going to carry that fucking thing off. It had to be Nick Hogan. That's probably what they paid him to come.

Speaker 3:
[167:31] Did you think Jimmy would say, and now a few words from the kids of the wrestlers instead of...

Speaker 1:
[167:36] He may have been told not to. What did he say?

Speaker 3:
[167:39] He was like, hey guys, I got something to show you over here.

Speaker 1:
[167:42] Yeah, come over here away from the microphone. Hey you kids, come over here.

Speaker 3:
[167:47] I got something to show you.

Speaker 1:
[167:49] It's closer to get you off the stage that way. But that's the thing is, is they never spoke and Jimmy spoke briefly. I think they were getting the fucking rap. It had to be at this point of the night. But they played and that's the thing, Jimmy's entrance music with Eat Your Heart Out, Rick Springfield, because she's my girl and she always will be the only one for me. Ain't no rock and roll singer gonna take her away from me. Dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee.

Speaker 3:
[168:25] It should have been We Hate School.

Speaker 1:
[168:28] Well I don't think they want to give a bad... Hey, they've already said Fatu ain't living at life no more. They don't want to encourage truancy or incrue an iturancy, truancy, whatever the fuck we're talking about here. So anyway, but Jimmy Hart is 83 years old. Can you believe that? He's timeless and ageless. I can see you're stunned.

Speaker 3:
[168:57] No, I mean, he's looked the same going back to at least the late 80s. He doesn't look any, I mean, if you get up close, you could see the wrinkles. But, you know, from a father's-

Speaker 1:
[169:10] He had wrinkles when he was, when I was working with him in Memphis 40 years ago. He had wrinkles around his eyes. But that's the same fucking- I'm certain there's probably some hair dye going on.

Speaker 3:
[169:25] Oh, most certainly, it has to be, of course.

Speaker 1:
[169:28] But, well, you never know about these things. But Jimmy is, Jimmy has always not only been a proponent of the clean living, but also he's got so much energy he just gets up and goes everywhere. So anyway-

Speaker 3:
[169:43] That's the secret, he keeps on dancing.

Speaker 1:
[169:46] He keeps on doing the jerk. Shake it, shake it, baby. Show us how you work. Because now you're in motion.

Speaker 3:
[169:54] Oh, God, I didn't know I was going to trigger this. Come on.

Speaker 1:
[169:57] Well, keep on doing the locomotion as we go to the next segment. There was a brief Sid package. I mean, about as short as they could get. And his family waved from the cheap seats and one of them posed. And then did your feed go black for like five minutes through AJ's package?

Speaker 3:
[170:23] My feed went black because this is when I went to sleep.

Speaker 1:
[170:27] Hmm.

Speaker 3:
[170:28] Well, I didn't did it really go, but you lost it really?

Speaker 1:
[170:31] Well, no, it really went black for about five minutes and came back as most of AJ's package was over with. And then because I was I looked down, I was looking at my notes and I didn't hear anything. I looked up as a black screen. I'm like, did I miss the finish? What the fuck? And I'm fast forward and fast forward and through black, black, black. And finally, boom, they're just in the middle of it. But nevertheless, AJ Styles, it's the main event induction. It's it's two o'clock in the fucking morning for a lot of people or they're going to watch it later. But for them, it's nearing midnight in goddamn in the in the time where these people are in. And Gallows and Anderson inducted him, which again is they're very important to him, and they're his good friends, but is not really following the star fucking principle that will get people on their feet in the building at night on the midnight. But I think they got an Iggy, too, because both of them only went like five minutes together. So, is a big intro, nice response.

Speaker 3:
[171:50] Stephanie's daughters went longer than every wrestler.

Speaker 1:
[171:53] Yes, yes. But it was, you know, it's late. And AJ did a nice, heartfelt speech about his family and his kids were there and his wife and you know, how he gets he said, this is the one thing, though. I was like, what the fuck? He said, I missed the soccer games and I missed this and that. But now, now that I'm not wrestling anymore, I get to come home to my family every night. He's not wrestling anymore. Where is he coming home from? The fuck is he just leaving for no reason, just to come back at night?

Speaker 3:
[172:33] All right, mother, it's morning. I'm going to leave the house now.

Speaker 1:
[172:36] Yes, it's daylight. I got to get out in the field and stand around. So again, this this speech would have been great if it had been delivered before 10 p.m. at the fucking time that it was in the room. But since it was midnight there and two o'clock in the morning and eastern time for people watching, you know, yeah. But maybe is he really secretly that we think AJ's a family man? Then he's so devoted to his wife and family, but he tells him every morning he's got to go somewhere. They don't know where he's going. Then he gets to come home to him at night. And what the fuck's AJ doing?

Speaker 3:
[173:21] Now that I'm off the road, I need a good lunch pail to leave the house with. For no reason.

Speaker 1:
[173:27] But no, AJ deserves it, and everybody, it's a big deal for all these people, but goddamn it's just a hard show to watch now.

Speaker 3:
[173:37] It could be a fun show, it could be a better show, it could be a priority, it's none of those things. They know they're gonna get a dead crowd, because the entire floor section are all tired wrestlers.

Speaker 1:
[173:54] Yeah. Well, yeah, they had to come from fucking Smackdown.

Speaker 3:
[173:58] Yeah, that's why Cody had a bow tie on Smackdown.

Speaker 1:
[174:02] And by the way, it's not legitimate. It is part of the television storyline, as they say, that guys show up at 8 o'clock for the fucking show. The guys have to be there like noon. So what the fuck?

Speaker 3:
[174:19] Well, I look forward to seeing all the inductees and their families at WrestleMania when they did the big Hall of Fame introduction of everyone. And of course, that's later today. To anyone upset, I didn't watch the AJ Styles speech. It ended at 2 a.m. and we're recording this the next morning. So give me a break.

Speaker 1:
[174:37] Yes, and we'll be able to see all these people, as you said, wave at the fans at WrestleMania. And they told me when I was down there after the Hall of Fame thing, they said, now, you know, you can get here at such-and-such time on fucking Sunday or whatever it was. And I said, what? So yeah, you can be introduced. I said, do I have to be introduced? They were like, no, we don't think you have to. I said, I'm not going to be introduced. And I've done my job here. I can't fuck this up anymore. I'll see you later.

Speaker 3:
[175:13] How would they have even done that? They don't usually introduce the inductees or the inductors. I should say at WrestleMania.

Speaker 1:
[175:20] Well, I don't. Oh, no, you know what? They were going to introduce the Rock and Roll Express, but they just asked me to come. They just said, well, you know, you be here at such and such, or there's a bus from the hotel and you can watch the thing. I said, what am I going to fucking do? Well, just watch the thing. No, I'm good.

Speaker 3:
[175:38] Hey, one last thought about all this or one last question. Did you hear? I don't know how much of Stephanie's thing you heard because you fast forwarded and who could blame you. And again, you didn't miss the thank you Vince chant. But she was saying something there that reminded me of something you've talked about Vince saying to you at the Hall Of Fame when you saw him. It was kind of like the no matter what any of you think, this is home, this is all of our homes, we're all home together. What do you think of that McMahon philosophy?

Speaker 1:
[176:09] Yes, that's what you will, welcome home. Hal always knew he would get you to come home. You've heard countless guys say that, right? Didn't he say to Cody, we need you to come home? That's a thing that he, one of those verbal tactics that Vince would use that I think he did for years and years based on the feeling that it would create in the boys and he welcomed me home. It's like this is my home. Yeah, it's your home if it's a goddamn abusive parental relationship. But that's one of those things that Vince would do verbally that Stephanie has picked up on that would try to warm the cockles of the boys' taints or whatever so that they would be in some way beholding to him or grateful to him or, you know, feel more comfortable with him. You know what I'm trying to say. It wasn't like glad you came back to work, pal, or you know, whatever is the welcome home. Bullshit.

Speaker 3:
[177:25] If it's my home, why am I sleeping in the garage?

Speaker 1:
[177:31] Just shut up bitch and eat your groceries.

Speaker 3:
[177:35] Well, that was the Hall Of Fame. That was the end of Friday night. And there's a lot of things happening in and outside of the world of WWE. It's WrestleMania weekend. This is your show, but we've covered a lot and we have more to come.

Speaker 1:
[177:47] Well, and we're going to take a break and we're going to watch this Wing Ding. And then we're going to be back in a couple of days on your program, The Drive Through to Discuss Same. And in the meantime and in between times folks, wake up if you were at the Hall Of Fame, time to watch more wrestling. Thank you, fuck you, and bye bye everybody.