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ready for the greatest roast of

0:36

all time the roast of Tom

0:39

Brady a Netflix live event happening

0:41

May 5th hosted by Kevin Hart

0:43

the seven-time world champion gets his

0:46

cleats held to the fire by

0:48

famous friends and frenemies on an

0:50

unforgettable night where everything is fair

0:53

game tune in on May 5th

0:55

at 5 p.m. Pacific time for

0:57

the roast of Tom Brady live

1:00

only on Netflix you

1:03

ready showtime on May 3rd summer

1:06

starts with the fall guy he's

1:08

doing later let's drink a spicy margarita

1:10

make some bad decisions yes audiences

1:13

are falling in love with the most entertaining

1:15

film of the year fall guy fall guy

1:17

it's a poster set see Ryan Gosling and

1:20

Emily Blunt in the movie critics say exists

1:22

to make you happy turn me count no

1:24

cuz I don't even it's not what I'm

1:26

into right now what are you into talking

1:28

yeah the fall guy

1:31

only in theaters May 3rd rated PG-13 welcome

1:36

to something the wrestle and

1:39

a rebel with words

1:42

read your picture well

1:45

you know that's not

1:47

a real she put it see

1:50

boobies play around no you haven't been

1:52

there's no box of gimmicks rumor in

1:54

the window don't deal in rumor in

1:57

the wedding and we'll see you there

1:59

I was Hey, hey,

2:02

it's Conrad

2:08

Thompson and

2:10

you're listening

2:13

to Something

2:16

to Wrestle

2:18

With. If

3:28

you'd like to check out backlash 04 JR and I

3:31

just did it. So the April

3:33

of 04 WWE pay-per-view. This

3:36

is the May of 04

3:38

WWE pay-per-view and take

3:40

a listen to this. I mean, listen, I don't usually

3:42

think of 2004 as being a

3:44

banner year, but dude, the

3:46

opening match is Rob Van Dam and Ray

3:49

Mysterio taking on the Dudley boys. Can

3:51

you imagine? I mean, if you would

3:53

have told me that that was possible in like 1997 or 1998 or

3:57

1999, well, we got it just. a

4:00

handful of years later at judgment day. Oh, four.

4:02

That's where we also would see Mordecai.

4:05

Remember him? Yeah. He's taken on

4:07

Scotty to Hottie. We've also got

4:09

Charlie Hoss and Rico taking on hardcore

4:11

Holly and Billy Gunn, how about Chavo

4:14

Guerrero with one hand tied behind his

4:16

back, taking on miss Jackie, John

4:18

Cena, defending his us title. This is

4:21

before he's a made man taken on

4:23

Renee Dupree, the undertaker, working with

4:25

Booker T and in the main event,

4:28

boy, one for the ages. A match

4:30

I'll never forget. As long as I live,

4:32

I remember exactly where I was sitting. I

4:35

remember who I was watching with. It

4:37

was an incredible performance by both

4:39

JBL, who all of a sudden was thrust

4:41

into the spotlight. And Eddie Guerrero,

4:44

Eddie Guerrero was just a few months removed

4:46

from beating Brock Lesnar from hugging Chris Benoit

4:48

in the middle of Madison square garden in

4:50

front of all those fans, the sold out

4:52

crowd and all that ticker tape

4:54

coming down. They were both champs. It

4:57

was an emotional journey for Eddie Guerrero. And

4:59

you want to talk about the blood, the

5:01

sweat, the tears. It's all here in this

5:03

match. But think about from a JBL standpoint,

5:06

man, that dude, he'd come in as

5:08

sort of a, I don't know, maybe

5:10

a midcard performer as Justin Hawk Bradshaw.

5:13

And then eventually we know became a new

5:16

blackjack and well, maybe that didn't

5:18

work out the way we hoped. And he became

5:20

an acolyte and that became the APA and it

5:22

was such a fun act. But when Ron Simmons

5:24

finds himself being released, I think

5:27

it would be natural if you were JBL

5:29

to wonder, uh, what about me? How

5:31

about the main event and a

5:34

bloodbath for the world title? That's

5:36

the story of judgment day 2004. And

5:39

no, it's not Dominick Mysterio's judgment day, but

5:41

what a fun pay-per-view it was. Bruce

5:44

and I talked about it way back when, and we

5:46

are going to heat that up for you right now,

5:49

hoping to pin down Bruce sooner rather

5:51

than later. Lord knows I'm ready for

5:53

another episode of something to wrestle

5:55

with Bruce Prichard, but in the

5:58

meantime, enjoy Judgment Day. Two.

6:00

Thousand for. Bigger term.

6:03

Oh and speaking of a good time, before

6:05

we get going to want to remind you

6:07

guys about embark in a mother's day is

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6:18

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her dog. I. See him

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labradoodle. Even with a mom for

6:36

nine years and I'm convinced that my mom fears

6:38

more about this dog with she does my sister

6:40

and I, the dog is such a big part

6:42

of her life. by. The. Dog has

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eyelashes that my mom goes on and on

6:47

about. So when I learned about embark I

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worried about or wondered about or heard

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about a family tree. On a

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the information. About really understanding

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your dogs ancestry. And. There

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are there certain health conditions there

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certain parts of personality that maybe

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you'll understand. It either. The discover

8:00

your dog family tree and geographical

8:02

origins and maybe even see who

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the great grandparents were. Dogs have

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a to. But. Really for me,

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it's about the peace of mind for health

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and size. You know they're going to screen

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8:16

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8:18

owners with viable information. You. Never want

8:20

to have to think about that day we all

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dressed as dog lovers. And. I

8:25

think this is a big part of it. But. I

8:27

really just think it's fine to to

8:29

connect with relatives in the embark database

8:31

and create a sense of community. And

8:33

let's be honest, once you get mom for

8:36

Mother's Day last year. Of as

8:38

you don't remember and even worse, I can

8:40

guarantee she doesn't remember. But. She will

8:42

stop talking about this. The whole family. We have

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a deeper connection with the dog. You're going to

8:46

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someone who has a brand new puppy

8:52

or someone who just loves experiences. I'm

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totally sold on embark and I think

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be if you just try and always agreements

9:01

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a look in. It's in the description for today's episode.

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now without further ado, man, let's get to it.

10:23

Very special edition of judgment day 2004.

10:28

Hey, it's Conrad Thompson and you're listening

10:30

to something to wrestle with. Bruce

10:32

Prichard. Bruce, what's going on, man? How are

10:34

you? You know, Conrad

10:37

just been lazy now by the pool doing

10:39

a whole lot of nothing. You know how

10:41

it is right here, man. Just that

10:43

there's just so little to do that. I

10:48

don't know. Just getting bored. Sure.

10:51

Sure. Well, we appreciate you finally being able

10:53

to sit down and I'll suck up. You

10:55

and I have had the craziest schedule ever.

10:57

You for work me for, well,

11:00

some interesting family stuff that I'm sure everybody's

11:02

in the loop on and we're

11:04

finally able to sit down and record our

11:07

plan was to air judgment day last week.

11:09

Life through us a curve ball. So we

11:12

aired the roast of Bruce Prichard, which had been in

11:14

our plans to air the weakest star cast. So that

11:16

got moved up. Star cast

11:18

is happening right now. If

11:21

you haven't already made plans to join us

11:23

on fight, you can see all the events

11:25

from last night. And of course, everything going

11:27

on today and tomorrow and Sunday and Sunday.

11:29

It's our last scheduled live

11:32

something to wrestle and

11:34

Bruce. I'm pretty excited about this. This will be

11:36

the first time you and I've had something like

11:38

this live streamed and it's our

11:41

last scheduled something to wrestle. Yeah.

11:44

It's kind of one of those happy, sad moments.

11:46

It is a little weird because you and I

11:48

have gotten so comfortable with, you know,

11:50

at least once, sometimes twice, or even three times

11:52

a month, Getting the

11:55

band together and jetting across somewhere in

11:57

the United States and gathering up hundreds

11:59

of. They wrestle fans and. Throw.

12:02

Together, a live show and now. You're

12:05

getting across the globe for millions

12:07

of Wv fans And stay and.

12:10

Ah, I'm so bittersweet to know that

12:12

this my be our last laugh. something

12:14

to wrestle, I hope not. but if

12:16

your schedule continues, I don't see how

12:18

we got time to do anymore. Well.

12:21

My God, the definition of

12:23

impossible is. Not. The

12:26

supply, the blood, there will be

12:28

more. Live it this matter of

12:30

when and. Matter. Of actually

12:32

gives it schedules getting on the

12:34

books in figuring out how and

12:36

when we can do it so

12:38

I refused to give up in

12:40

we Will Figure it out that

12:42

says, frankly. The. Breakup

12:44

be nice a little bit. What

12:48

I've read: the break again fade

12:50

away or I have an and

12:52

make plans to join us on

12:54

your holiday break this weekend. Of

12:56

course it's Memorial Day and what

12:58

better way to spend that they're

13:00

not overdosing on some Roslin the

13:02

star cast on Fight. Or

13:04

but let's talk about why we're here today. As

13:07

a big one. I'm pretty excited

13:09

about this. Judgment. Day

13:12

two thousand and. Ah,

13:15

We've recently talked about this show

13:17

a little bit when we covered

13:19

Jbl. I. Think this is one

13:21

of the shows that really made him.

13:23

And. I think even he would agree.

13:25

I was all about his feud with Eddie

13:27

Guerrero and. Eddie. Guerrero Performance:

13:31

On. This particular show as

13:33

unworldly. So. If you're

13:35

only going to wants one thing on

13:37

the every every network this week's May

13:40

I recommend it me this main event

13:42

from Judgment Day. Two thousand and four.

13:45

Of course her cavern it because it

13:47

happened fifteen years ago. May sixteen, Two

13:49

thousand and forth. A staple center in

13:52

Los Angeles, California. And. It a

13:54

point three a bar rate which is roughly a

13:56

three. Million. Dollar gross

13:58

for company revenue. And

14:00

I guess we should mention or

14:02

less than two months away from

14:04

the draft and Wrestlemania Twenty. so

14:06

we're still. Very. Fresh

14:09

into this. Sort. Of new

14:11

era of the debris to be real with

14:13

covered that draft in the archives and. Just

14:16

recently covered Wrestlemania Twenty. so if you'd like

14:18

to catch up on knows. He

14:20

can certainly do so. it's to wrestle back

14:22

com and. Paul. Heyman

14:25

was the Smackdown Gm and he's been

14:27

drafted to Raleigh. Promptly.

14:29

Quit in storyline. Ah,

14:32

we also saw Circulates be drafted the

14:34

Smackdown and they're a trade Would send

14:36

him back to her off and exchange

14:39

for Booker T and the Dudley Boyz.

14:42

Man. Ah, It.

14:44

Feels like. The. More thing

14:47

seems the more they stay the same in

14:49

other draft happens and then. Maybe.

14:51

Events changes his mind and now this is

14:53

go back to how us. Well.

14:56

As a consists sometimes who wants everybody

14:58

gets settled in D C it it's

15:00

one thing on paper but then when

15:03

you actually put it all together if

15:05

you look at I go maybe this

15:07

works better over here and you make

15:10

your adjustments and then try and settle

15:12

in for little while. He.

15:14

Always talked a lot about how and ninety nine

15:16

the business is just at an all time high

15:19

and that's always find the sort of see how

15:21

quickly it's growing. As that the

15:23

story here in oh for and may have a

15:25

three. Your. Average attendance is four

15:27

thousand six hundred and twenty nine

15:29

folks and may have a for.

15:32

We're. Down to three thousand, eight hundred and

15:34

seventy eight folks are now sixteen point

15:36

two percent as far as average attendance

15:38

for these shows. And. Your day

15:41

is actually down a little more. You're from

15:43

one sixty two down to one thirty three.

15:45

Ah, so you're down seventeen point

15:48

seven percent. Your

15:50

house shows are not nearly as sold

15:52

out either. Ah, I'm obviously with

15:54

less of tennis. If you're running the same

15:56

size building that's can follow suit as well.

15:59

But raising the down a little bit too

16:01

and may have a three year to three

16:03

point eight and may have a four ERA

16:05

three point six. And. A

16:07

really really alarming is when you've

16:10

got to to to losses on

16:12

ratings here. When. You go from

16:14

a a point two for smite around and

16:16

may have a three to a two point

16:18

nine. three for smack mount. enough for. So.

16:21

This is the first time were saying something where the to

16:23

in front of it. Ah, Set

16:26

me up about. You. Know. How

16:28

the ratings were being viewed here. This is

16:30

a a post Monday Night War era. Maybe.

16:33

It's not as important as it once was. Maybe

16:35

it still is. A Know

16:38

fans and. Wrestling Observer

16:40

readers and in a people who sort

16:42

of keep up with the business end.

16:45

They. Would say oh no. Ah,

16:47

This is something that will need pay attention to.

16:50

His at the same reaction from within

16:52

the office. Well. Would

16:54

definitely paid attention to it. However,

16:56

the same time we knew that

16:59

changes had to be made not

17:01

only on Smackdown, been on Roz.

17:03

Well, so there was a conscious

17:05

effort and the statement was made

17:08

often. Okay, We're. Gonna have

17:10

to take our maybe four steps

17:12

back to take a couple going

17:14

forward. And we knew that we

17:17

knew that this was time to

17:19

shake things up, make some investments,

17:21

and do some experiments with talent

17:24

to see if it's gonna work.

17:26

It was conscious effort, we do.

17:29

Things. Were gonna go backwards for little

17:31

while because we just didn't have the

17:33

story lines and we didn't have the

17:35

talent at the time. Set.

17:37

And story lines to really know

17:39

and in. This. Was

17:41

experimental time. A

17:44

new A Sokolova hear. About Steve

17:47

Austin because it does feel like. I'm

17:50

this is the end of an era and maybe

17:52

it's one of the reasons why. you

17:55

know and feels like such an interesting

17:57

time in the company Steve

18:00

Austin and Vince McMahon

18:02

have verbally agreed that

18:04

they're going to do

18:06

business together indefinitely. Um,

18:09

but they're going to sort of try to

18:11

go their own separate ways because contractually, uh,

18:14

they're not going to work it out for him to be a full-time

18:18

character. Uh, and that happens

18:20

when they meet in San Antonio on April 6th. And

18:23

one of the things that I saw in my

18:25

research is that they're going to work on some

18:27

of these projects together. Of course they want to

18:29

do a WWE film with, you know, so he

18:32

has a movie vehicle and we know what that's going

18:34

to be. But also

18:36

saw that they had plans to market

18:38

a stone cold Steve Austin beer. Now

18:41

we know fast forward, I

18:43

don't know a decade and

18:46

there was the broken school

18:48

IPA, but that's not

18:50

what the plan was here. This was, this is oh

18:53

four. So there was a plan for a WWE

18:56

stone cold beer. Is that right? What can you tell

18:58

us about that? Well, we had

19:00

been working God, we had been working on

19:02

a beer probably since 98

19:06

going back in time and trying to do

19:08

something with rather it was,

19:10

uh, whether, whether or

19:13

not rather, whether it was Steve

19:16

basically sponsoring a beer or having

19:18

his own beer. And we had

19:21

talked several times with different brewers

19:23

across the country, across the world

19:27

to do a beer, a special

19:29

beer, uh, from the Coors Brewing

19:31

Company to the, uh, got

19:35

anhyzer bush, their light brand to

19:37

do something with that and

19:40

some Canadian beers had their hat in

19:42

the ring and it was an ongoing

19:44

process trying to get through that process

19:46

and weed your way through was a

19:48

painful process in and of itself. However,

19:51

you know, we had talked about it. Yes,

19:53

we, we definitely had been working on a

19:56

beer for Steve for a few years at

19:58

this point, and it had come to. It

20:00

has started to come to fruition where

20:03

it looked like it was actually going to happen

20:05

when everything, communication and

20:07

just disagreements started to

20:09

take place. Let's

20:12

talk a little bit about something

20:15

that was written in the torch. And

20:18

I didn't know this. The WWE

20:20

was under the impression that Austin

20:22

was close to signing a deal

20:24

with Dream Stage Entertainment. Although those

20:26

at DSC and others say

20:29

the deal is not close to being

20:31

finalized. Austin is said to be waiting

20:33

for offers from any interested parties in

20:35

Japan before committing to one, although

20:38

DSC would have the inside track because they

20:40

seem to have the most money and

20:42

also have Bill Goldberg. So

20:45

it is fascinating to me that even here in the early 2000s,

20:47

or maybe the mid 2000s at

20:49

this point, I guess for a four when

20:52

things in America aren't exactly what you'd like

20:54

for them to be, you think, Oh, well,

20:56

I'll just go make money in Japan. That

20:58

sort of feels pretty old school. Uh,

21:01

but DSC of course is Dream

21:03

Stage Entertainment and some

21:05

of our MMA fan listeners would be

21:07

familiar with that because that's who put

21:09

on the pride events. Um,

21:12

you know, back in the day, there were,

21:14

there were two major organizations, the UFC here

21:16

in America and pride fighting championships, uh,

21:19

across the pond in Japan, and

21:22

they also put on a series of

21:24

wrestling events, uh, named hustle.

21:28

And hustle was going to be like their

21:30

big new thing. When

21:33

you guys hear or do you

21:35

hear that maybe Steve is talking

21:37

about doing something in

21:39

Japan, because, I mean, they did have some names that

21:41

you would remember, you know, from way back in the

21:43

day, like Abdul, the butcher was obviously a big deal

21:45

in Japan. And of course they had

21:47

big Japanese talent, like the great Muda, but

21:49

they also had Goldberg once Bob

21:52

sap, who was a big name for a minute,

21:54

which I know in hindsight doesn't seem like it

21:56

should have been a thing. Did

21:59

you hear? he was talking to Japan

22:01

and was Vince McMahon concerned about

22:03

that? Oh, I

22:06

don't think we were ever really concerned about

22:08

it because of Steve's health and his

22:10

neck issue being the way that it is to work

22:13

that style, uh, with

22:15

Goldberg might've been different, uh, cause I

22:17

think that Bill probably could have protected

22:19

Steve and that they could have gotten

22:21

through whatever they needed to get through

22:24

in a match, but Steve going over

22:26

there, there wasn't that big of a

22:28

concern and you hear those rumors all

22:30

the time, especially at that

22:33

timeframe, because if a guy was unhappy, aw,

22:35

just go to Japan and

22:37

Japan was also starting to lose its

22:39

allure here because the,

22:42

the bigger companies just weren't doing the

22:44

kind of business that they had done before,

22:47

but it was, I'm sure it was a rumor that

22:49

was out there. And

22:51

from our vantage point, as far as

22:53

Steve going to work for somebody else

22:55

on any kind of full-time basis, that

22:58

wasn't certainly wasn't a

23:00

fear. It was, well, we

23:03

definitely want Steve for us. Steve's going to

23:05

do anything in the wrestling business. We want

23:07

him to do it for us. And

23:10

that's, that was the battle. That

23:12

was what was taking place. Uh,

23:17

you know, it's speculated of course that what

23:19

hustle would want to do. And I don't

23:21

think this is a big stretch is if

23:23

they were to land Austin to try to

23:26

do the match with Goldberg. And it just

23:28

feels like an Austin Goldberg match not happening

23:30

for Vince McMahon and instead happening for Japan

23:32

would have made his freaking mind melt. Do

23:35

you think that, I mean, hypothetically,

23:38

if that discussion would have gotten farther

23:40

enough along and Goldberg was allegedly saying

23:43

he wanted seven figures per man to

23:45

give hustle the rights to market that

23:48

match, do you think Vince would have

23:50

done whatever he could to. To

23:52

beat that offer and try to make that

23:55

match happen in WWE. I

23:57

don't know if he would have, uh, I

24:00

really don't know because obviously we

24:02

never got there. It was never

24:04

taken seriously to that next level

24:07

had Steve gone to work for someone else in

24:09

the wrestling capacity. I think that would have hurt.

24:12

That would have hurt Vince. I think would have hurt him personally,

24:15

but you know, it didn't.

24:17

So it's kind of hard to speak to

24:19

that. And if there was a match out

24:21

there, the match was definitely Goldberg

24:24

versus Austin. Yeah.

24:26

I mean, it's, there would have been

24:29

money in them, their heels. And Wade even

24:31

speculates that he thinks it would do 375,000 or more buys.

24:36

If it was on a WWE pay-per-view, you know,

24:38

as a main event. Um,

24:41

where does that rank with dream matches? Do you think,

24:44

I mean, uh, it looks

24:46

like we're going to get an undertaker Goldberg. Where

24:49

do you think Austin Goldberg is

24:51

all time dream match? I

24:54

think it's right up at the

24:56

top. I think you have, especially

24:58

from the attitude era and the

25:00

Monday night wars era, that was

25:02

the dream match. There were really

25:04

two was Austin Goldberg. I

25:07

may I'll give it three Austin Goldberg, um,

25:10

Austin Hulk and undertaker

25:12

sting. Let's keep it

25:14

moving here. Um, Brock Lesnar is

25:17

going to make the news because on

25:19

April 17th, he is

25:21

involved in a motorcycle accident. His

25:23

bike collided with a minivan as

25:25

them minivans. God, I hope that

25:27

minivan was okay. Yeah. Uh,

25:30

he's taken to a hospital, has glass removed

25:32

from his forehead. It's going to need a

25:34

few stitches, but he's telling everybody he's fine.

25:36

And he's going to work out for NFL

25:38

scouts on May 18th and Phoenix. And

25:41

the latest word from the NFL insiders, according

25:44

to a killer is that

25:46

no one was taking his bid to play

25:48

in the league seriously last month, but

25:51

now that they've seen him work out and

25:53

gotten some numbers more than

25:55

one team is at least intrigued,

25:57

um, when you're hearing. that,

26:00

Hey, wait a minute. Maybe he's getting a

26:02

little attention and sports illustrated

26:04

is even gonna write a feature story

26:06

on him. Do you think

26:08

this is, this has more legs or was

26:10

this always sort of viewed as. Eh,

26:13

this ain't gonna happen, but let him go try. Well,

26:17

we wanted him to get it out of his

26:19

system. That was one thing. Uh, I

26:21

don't think that anybody thought a guy who had

26:23

never played football was going to be able to

26:25

walk on and play

26:28

professional football. Then you see

26:30

this son of a bitch working out the way that

26:32

he does. And with

26:34

very few exceptions, I've never seen an

26:36

athlete like Brock Lesnar, who's been able

26:38

to adapt to the different

26:41

sports that he's chosen to excel

26:44

at. And I think if Brock

26:46

had another year

26:49

and had actually, you

26:51

know, played a little more football, he

26:54

could still be playing ball for all we know. The

26:57

guy is just this really freaky,

27:01

freaky genetic freak. Um,

27:04

a freaky genetic freak, a freaky

27:06

genetic freak. Yes. And I think

27:10

if he had had more time, who

27:12

knows? Because he shocked a life shocked

27:14

us and we knew, and he certainly

27:16

shocked the football world enough to get

27:18

him on a, on a

27:20

team, uh, didn't

27:23

last long, but he made it, which is

27:25

that's one of those one in the millions that

27:28

you would never dream would happen. So

27:31

let's talk a little bit about, um, Lance

27:33

storm, because it's reported here at the beginning

27:36

of may, uh, quote

27:38

after months, if not years of frustration

27:40

with his role in WWE Lance storm

27:42

announced on Monday on his website that

27:44

he is retiring as an active wrestler.

27:47

Uh, he has said he's going to be

27:50

moving into a role as a trainer with

27:52

the developmental territory, Ohio Valley. And

27:55

he hopes to eventually move

27:57

to a position as a road agent with the WWE. His

28:00

final match is going to

28:02

air on Sunday night heat against Stevie Richards. And

28:05

he's going to cite his frustration with

28:07

his quote, lack of contributions, which I

28:09

guess means lack of push. Uh,

28:12

but also his back problems have been greater lately

28:14

than he had been letting on. He's

28:16

got some bulging discs and this caused

28:19

him to miss some house shows. But

28:22

this is a guy who'd been around forever,

28:24

you know, the Smoky mountain and ECW and

28:26

WCW. And now of course

28:28

here in WWE, but he retired

28:31

relatively young. Um, were

28:33

you shocked to hear that Lance storm was going to hang them

28:35

up in 04? No, no,

28:38

not, uh, no, he had

28:40

some, uh, nagging back injuries.

28:44

And there wasn't, I think

28:46

that Lance was a great guy to have on the card

28:48

because whoever you put him in the ring with, he's going

28:50

to have a good match. There

28:53

just wasn't a whole lot of personality there.

28:55

And Lance was bland on

28:57

the microphone. The audience didn't really connect

28:59

with him. However, when the bell rang,

29:01

uh, it

29:04

was hard to find a better performer. Plus

29:07

he had a skill that not everybody

29:09

can do. And that's teaching. And with

29:12

Lance, he was able to parlay

29:15

what he could do in the ring and teach

29:17

people how to do it. Now

29:19

some of the greatest workers in the world can

29:22

go out and do it. They just can't

29:24

tell you how they do it or how

29:26

to do it. Lance has

29:28

that skill and tried

29:32

to hone that to make him a trainer, but

29:34

it was no big surprise at all. I

29:37

guess we should mention Lance retires when he's just 35 years

29:39

old, uh, which is

29:42

obviously, you know, before a lot of

29:44

prime years in professional wrestling, you know,

29:46

all this time later, of course, he

29:48

has gone. To become one

29:50

of the more prolific trainers and you

29:52

said teachers, what do you think his legacy

29:54

in the business is going to be? You

29:58

know, hopefully, uh, I

30:01

think it'll, it will probably be his

30:03

contributions to the folks that he's trained

30:05

over the years and brought into the

30:08

business and,

30:10

you know, Lance in

30:12

Smokey mountain wrestling, that was his

30:15

first big national exposure, but Jericho

30:18

being in that tag team,

30:20

I think Jericho is the one who took

30:23

the spotlight there because Chris had the personality,

30:25

Chris had, you know,

30:27

that, that package. Um,

30:29

and then Lance was the workhorse. Uh,

30:31

Chris was the Ricky Morton and Lance

30:33

was the Robert Gibson. So

30:35

his years

30:37

go by. I would hope that Lance's

30:39

legacy in the business would be one

30:42

of his contribution to the business afterward,

30:44

uh, with his training. There's

30:48

a lot written about, um, Johnny

30:50

ace. And there is

30:53

in a newsletter here, the rise to

30:55

power of John Lauren 38

30:58

has been notable considering as

31:00

an active wrestler, most of his experience

31:02

was in a different culture with a totally

31:04

different product as new WWE vice

31:08

president of talent relations. It solidifies

31:10

him as one of the most

31:12

important and most powerful players

31:14

in the industry, and they

31:16

do a little bit of a write up

31:18

about what his background was and when

31:20

he broke in and how he bounced

31:22

around, but he also,

31:24

they also talk about when he joined

31:27

WCW, uh, it was

31:29

happening at sort of a weak point

31:31

for WCW Eric Bischoff is the person

31:33

who hired him to, uh, be

31:36

an advisor and help the wrestlers lay

31:38

out the matches as, you know, WCW

31:40

is essentially dying and

31:43

it was be written.

31:45

He got a lot of praise at first

31:47

from the wrestlers, but those in the company

31:49

who had high hopes coming from a logical

31:51

background sense, if nothing else, all

31:54

Japan had logical booking, particularly

31:56

compared to the WCW nonsense that

31:58

was killing the product. were

32:00

ultimately disappointed. He

32:02

was viewed as more of a politician, never

32:04

spoke up. And even when these

32:07

stupidest ideas were presented, he

32:09

managed to get along great with everyone and keep

32:12

his job amidst the chaos when

32:15

most of the WCW front office wasn't

32:17

hired after the WWF bought the remaining

32:19

remnants of the company, Lauren

32:21

Idis was not only hired, but quickly

32:23

became second in command and heir apparent

32:25

to Jim Ross and the talent relations

32:28

department. So we'll

32:30

talk a little bit more about his role, but were

32:33

you shocked when he became

32:35

the new head of talent relations or did he

32:37

take to it like a fish to water? And

32:39

how do you respond to the criticisms that he

32:42

had positioned himself more as a politician?

32:46

Well, okay. Um, we have a lot

32:48

of fun here talking about John Laurenitis

32:50

and, and I've always said

32:53

this about John and we joke about

32:55

it privately, even to this day. That

32:58

until you've been in the

33:01

talent relations role, you have

33:03

no idea. And talent relations

33:05

is probably the most

33:07

thankless role in the company. You get

33:09

all the heat, you get none of

33:11

the credit and John went

33:14

in knowing that and

33:19

did a hell of a job trying to

33:21

follow up Jim Ross, who also did an

33:23

excellent job in the talent relations

33:26

department. But

33:28

Jim was, Jim was on his way

33:30

out. Jim wanted to move back to Oklahoma and

33:32

Jim wanted to do broadcasting,

33:36

not do as much work in the

33:38

office. So John

33:40

was younger, hungrier and wanted it.

33:43

I mean, he really wanted to

33:46

have that position. He wanted

33:48

that job and he did

33:50

a good job. It's not easy. And

33:52

what people on the outside

33:54

that have never been there, what they call

33:56

politicking is called doing his job. And

34:00

you're the bad guy. You're the hatchet man. You

34:02

deliver the shitty news. You're the one that has

34:04

to tell, you know, give everybody

34:08

the information they don't want. And

34:11

it's, uh, it's thankless. It's

34:15

all 24 seven. And

34:17

John did a good job at that. He really and

34:20

truly did. I, like I said, I love to bust

34:22

his balls and we all point to, you know, the

34:24

fuck ups like hiring the wrong one-legged man. Oh,

34:27

he don't have one leg. Um,

34:29

things like that, but at the same time,

34:32

you know, we've all had our fuck ups

34:34

and his was just funnier to do because

34:36

he talks like this and

34:39

loves to fit his arms. God damn, they're

34:41

huge. It

34:44

was for us, man. That's we were,

34:46

we were grooming him for that from

34:48

day one when he came

34:50

into the company, because he

34:52

had that kind of an aptitude.

34:54

He, he fit well in

34:56

the office and he fit well in

34:58

the locker room. Talk

35:01

to me a little bit about the

35:03

difference in style between a Jr and

35:06

a John Laurenitis, specifically what

35:08

they're, they're looking for in talent. You know, I

35:11

don't think it's a big secret that Jr

35:14

is going to look for legitimate,

35:17

strong athletic backgrounds, you know,

35:19

whether it's college football or

35:21

high level amateur wrestlers with the idea

35:24

being, if you've excelled in

35:26

those sports, you have the mental toughness

35:28

that is needed to survive in pro

35:30

wrestling. I think that's how Jr would

35:32

categorize it, but Johnny

35:35

H has a different approach. And one

35:37

of the criticisms would be that he

35:39

doesn't value, you know, those

35:41

athletic backgrounds the same way. And instead he's

35:43

going to put more of an emphasis on

35:45

bringing up a certain type

35:47

of look, whether it's with size or

35:49

bodies. Um, so we're going

35:52

to hire some, some girls who look like they're right

35:54

out of playboy, um, and

35:57

try to see if we can make something out of them

35:59

because they're pretty people. maybe more so than

36:01

they had a strong background. Is

36:03

that a fair criticism or how would you

36:05

categorize the two? No, because

36:08

it comes down to what the creative team and

36:10

what Vince McMahon is looking for at the time.

36:13

So you try to get into your

36:15

developmental system as many as you can

36:17

to have a variety, whether

36:19

it's the athletic type, whether it's

36:21

the beauty queen type, whatever that

36:23

may be, you try

36:26

to have a choice and you try to

36:28

have some variety. In the

36:31

recruits that you're recruiting, it's not

36:34

Jim Ross didn't have it. I didn't have it.

36:36

Johnny didn't have it. We didn't have free reign

36:38

to just go out and hire whoever the hell

36:41

we wanted. So

36:43

it was, what are you looking

36:45

for? Okay. We're going to go

36:47

out and we're going to find you several of

36:49

those, that type and several guys that may fit

36:52

that, put them in developmental and

36:54

take it from there. So as far

36:57

as Johnny and

36:59

what he brought in, he was

37:02

brought in what he was asked to bring in that

37:05

wasn't, that wasn't 100% his call and

37:07

here's what we need. Um,

37:10

that didn't take place. That was a directive. So,

37:13

so Vince used to really value

37:15

college football backgrounds and then he stopped.

37:19

He still values it. No,

37:22

he still values any value that when Johnny

37:24

was doing it too, it probably got more

37:26

press from a Jr. If

37:28

you will, cause goddamn, I like, I

37:30

like my college athletes and, and

37:33

Jr had a higher value on that. It's

37:36

not that Vince didn't by any stretch

37:39

of the imagination, Vince wanted athletes. Vince

37:41

wanted athletes that could adapt

37:43

and that could learn the business. Passion

37:46

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37:49

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39:13

Let's talk a little bit about, um, tape

39:16

libraries because this makes the observer.

39:19

Uh, the WWE is getting very aggressive

39:21

in trying to purchase pretty much all

39:24

the available semi major league pro wrestling

39:26

video footage on the market. The idea

39:28

is that Vince wants everything that is

39:31

there. The company at

39:33

this point already owns the AWA

39:35

library, the WCW library theoretically owns

39:37

the Crockett and old Georgia libraries

39:39

through the WCW purchase, as

39:41

well as the ECW library and the

39:43

Smokey mountain library. I

39:46

believe they have purchased the Stampede library or

39:48

are on the verge of doing so. And

39:51

a lot of work is being done currently

39:53

on this project. And the company this past

39:55

week hired Peter Clifford as the new vice

39:57

president of affiliate sales. main

40:00

responsibility will be to sell the idea of

40:02

cable and satellite services. As

40:04

Clifford has worked since 1996 and

40:07

both affiliate sales and later managing director

40:09

of affiliate ad sales for the golf

40:11

channel, where he managed a golf

40:14

video on demand venture. So

40:17

it comes out

40:19

here in 04 that,

40:21

Hey, Vince is trying to collect all

40:23

the footage everywhere with the understanding that

40:26

the original idea is going to be

40:28

WWE on demand and WWE 24 seven.

40:32

And of course we know what that became the

40:34

network. When did you first know

40:37

that Vince was going to start snatching all this

40:39

stuff up because as he acquired some of these

40:41

old libraries, they are

40:43

major expenditures in hindsight, not nearly

40:46

as major as they looked at the time.

40:49

Did you know this was always the plan? And

40:51

he always laid it out like that. The

40:55

plan evolved, the plan still

40:57

evolving. And when

41:00

different areas became available

41:02

and those properties became available. Here, here's

41:05

the thing that a lot of people

41:07

don't understand. The

41:09

older wrestling promotions,

41:12

uh, we'll say that

41:14

it's called Georgia championship wrestling

41:17

and the AWA. Those

41:20

would probably be exceptions to the rule. The

41:24

majority of those old time

41:26

wrestling organizations, they didn't

41:28

keep tapes. They, they shot

41:31

their TV a lot of

41:33

times in a television studio.

41:35

Then they would take one tape and

41:38

they would bicycle that tape around

41:40

the territory. And what I mean by that is

41:42

they would take that one tape and

41:45

they would take it to, uh, the next television

41:47

station. And, and that would play, this is a

41:49

tape that's going to play this week. And then

41:51

they'd take it to the next one. This will

41:53

play next week and so on and so forth.

41:56

Then they would go back and they would pick those

41:58

tapes up and tape over them. And

42:01

do the same thing, bicycle those tapes

42:03

all across. So if you're

42:05

in Tennessee, you

42:08

do TV on Saturday, and what

42:10

airs on TV and Saturday

42:12

in Memphis is what's going to direct

42:15

you to Monday night show in the

42:17

Mid-South Coliseum. However, that

42:19

tape then gets

42:22

bicycle to Nashville, to Louisville, to

42:24

all the markets, Chattanooga, whatever it

42:26

is, all the markets that they

42:29

run, and the folks

42:32

in those markets will see that tape

42:34

the next Saturday, the next

42:36

week when their television runs, and then

42:38

you'll get the same matches in your

42:40

town one week later. And

42:43

that was cycling and bicycling the

42:45

tapes. But all those tapes would be

42:47

picked up and recorded over.

42:50

So when someone has rare

42:52

footage or a rare master, there

42:54

were so few back in the

42:57

day, Mid-South started

42:59

keeping their tapes. They were one of

43:01

the more current promotions

43:04

that actually kept some of their tapes.

43:07

We had always kept not

43:11

all of our masters, which is just a shame

43:13

when you sit back and think about it, but

43:17

we kept our shows and we would

43:19

edit what we called Best of Texas

43:21

Wrestling in Houston. So

43:24

that was a syndicated show that would

43:26

go to Saudi Arabia and that would

43:28

go to India and places like that.

43:32

We had masters of those, but not

43:34

masters of the entire taping and things

43:37

like that. They just didn't exist. So

43:40

for those who had those kind of

43:42

libraries, yeah, Vince was interested in getting

43:44

them and using them as part of

43:46

what he was hoping

43:48

one day would be the WWF Network.

44:00

CW and Georgia stuff and 3 million

44:02

bucks is what he's going to pay for

44:05

the AWA library around this time. And there's

44:07

talk that Mike Graham here doesn't want

44:09

to sell the Florida footage. And

44:12

Kevin Von Eric isn't opposed to

44:14

selling, but he's

44:16

got no financial motivation to do

44:19

so to sell that world-class collection.

44:22

I was, I guess a little shocked

44:24

that Bill Watts didn't own

44:26

the mid south footage. His ex

44:29

wife did. Wow. That

44:31

was news to me. Yeah.

44:34

Uh, Anna had control

44:36

over it. She got it in the divorce. And

44:39

I don't know that Bill had ever put

44:41

any big value on it. He

44:43

probably did to her

44:46

said, okay, Hey, well, this is worth $10 million. My

44:49

God, you know what you could get for this. Um,

44:54

the, and the fuck that thing here,

44:56

here was the fucked up deal. Paul

44:59

Bosch had original

45:03

mid south programming on

45:06

the Houston wrestling television

45:09

shows. So when we started

45:11

with mid south in 1983, that

45:13

was about the time that we started

45:20

to keep copies of

45:22

the shows of the masters that we would

45:25

do that would air locally in Houston. And

45:27

what that consisted of was

45:29

an hour of mid

45:32

south, the mid south show. That would be

45:34

the middle wrapped around by

45:37

matches that were taped in the Coliseum because

45:39

that was our deal. And

45:42

Houston had many years

45:44

of mid south programming

45:50

in the Houston office. When

45:53

Vince is looking for all this stuff and

45:56

mid south was giving him a hard time. So just go buy

45:58

Houston. Cause Houston

46:00

has it for these years that has it for

46:02

the media years that you want. And

46:05

it will decrease

46:09

the price for whatever mid south

46:12

is looking for her Anna because

46:14

she had ridiculously, um, high

46:19

inflated value of what she thought

46:21

that those tapes were worth and

46:25

I said, well, she's going to go buy them from Houston.

46:27

They've got them and they don't know. So

46:31

that's, that's all that went down. It's

46:34

pretty amazing that, you know, Vince

46:37

had the vision to go

46:40

invest millions of dollars now, you

46:42

know, companies worth billions. So it

46:44

worked out. Man,

46:46

I got to tell you, watching some of these old

46:48

lady Guerrero matches really bring me back and make me

46:50

wonder what if, you know,

46:52

what if he was still here to

46:54

enjoy wrestling today, what if

46:57

he would have gotten that WrestleMania match with

46:59

Sean Michaels, think about just, he was already

47:01

a legend, but how much bigger that legend

47:03

would be if he continued to add to

47:06

that resume and that career that we're still

47:08

talking about and we

47:11

all know that unfortunately we lost

47:13

him very, very young and

47:17

we don't talk about men's

47:19

issues a lot here on the show. Today's

47:21

episode though, it was brought to you by man scape. And

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victim to testicular cancer,

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but a different men's health issue is prostate cancer.

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49:30

Because like a famous American philosopher once

49:32

said, take care of your mentals,

49:34

your balls and your chickens. Something

49:37

else that's going to work out. Wade Keller would

49:39

report that Bret Hart is going to meet with

49:41

Vince McMahon, uh, after the

49:44

April 19th raw that was in

49:46

Calgary and they're getting together to

49:48

discuss the DVD project that, uh,

49:51

we're eventually going to get,

49:54

um, this was a

49:56

long time coming. You know, this DVD and his

49:58

career winds up being. East than Oh

50:00

five. And a lot of people

50:02

thought that this would never happen. Uh,

50:05

but a source was telling Wayne killer here, they'll

50:07

definitely do something, but it won't be wrestling, uh,

50:11

with the idea being that, you

50:13

know, if, if pretty hard

50:15

it's going to be at an angle, it's going

50:17

to result in him getting the better of

50:19

Vince McMahon or Sean Michaels to sort of

50:21

avenge the Montreal screw job

50:23

incident and Brett's currently,

50:26

you know, negotiating with Lloyd's of London to

50:29

try to get a payout from WCW still.

50:32

So there's lots of reasons why people say, Oh,

50:34

this won't happen. Of course we know they are

50:37

going to wind up working a match together and

50:39

they are going to find a workaround, but

50:41

just the idea that Vince and Brett getting

50:43

together. I mean, it doesn't feel

50:45

like that was ever going to happen. Not to

50:47

me. Were you shocked? Or at this

50:50

point, do you just assume Vince or can

50:52

you repair any relationship? Well,

50:56

I believe he can. Uh,

50:58

I really do. He's got

51:00

some incredible healing powers for one

51:03

reason or another, but Vincent

51:07

Brett met or

51:09

initially in, in

51:11

Boca Raton, um,

51:13

in December, I think

51:16

of the previous year, it might've

51:18

been, it might've, it might've happened after this. I

51:20

don't know. I do know there was a meeting,

51:22

the first time meeting took place in Florida. And

51:26

I was actually, I

51:28

was in Boca. I did not go to

51:30

the meeting and I wanted to just say,

51:32

just to say hello to Brett. Um,

51:37

but they, they met and, you

51:40

know, I was like, why, why wouldn't

51:42

we do business together and

51:45

as, as they went through everything, they

51:47

finally got to a point. Let's start

51:49

with this DVD project. And then something

51:51

else comes after

51:53

that. And obviously it was, you know,

51:55

Stu and Brett and everybody going into

51:58

the hall of fame, eventually.

52:00

Really, but fences

52:02

were mended, you know, the guy shook hands

52:05

and hugged and it was time

52:07

to move on. So it was a good

52:09

thing. I

52:12

can't wait to talk about this. April 27th

52:15

smack down. We see

52:17

the debut of Mordecai.

52:20

Mordecai. You're

52:22

saying that in a Vince Russo voice and Russo's

52:24

not here. No, that's actually

52:27

Dan Madigan voice. Well,

52:29

chat me up about Dan Madigan

52:32

and his Mordecai. This is Kevin

52:34

Thorn, who we know is going to

52:36

eventually do a silly vampire gimmick too,

52:39

but a white hood, white pants,

52:41

white top, he's supposed to be

52:43

the, the polar

52:45

opposite, pardon the pun of

52:47

the undertaker. Is that the idea? Well,

52:51

that was a working idea of trying

52:53

to create opponents for

52:55

the undertaker. And we

52:58

always make fun of Dan Madigan because he

53:00

was from Boston. He actually was mayor Quimby

53:03

and he would talk about

53:06

Mordecai. And he

53:10

did the vignettes with Mordecai and

53:12

so on and so forth, but it was. Kevin

53:15

Thorn was a hell of a talent. He was

53:17

a hell of a worker, had good size and

53:19

he could move. I think the gimmick just

53:22

killed him because he tried to work

53:24

the gimmick instead of being Kevin Thorn

53:26

in the ring and just let the

53:28

gimmick carry itself, if that makes any

53:30

sense at all. It

53:33

is, he went in slow motion

53:35

and was too worried about doing

53:37

gimmicky things. Then having

53:39

a good match and making things logical.

53:44

Yeah, we were experimenting another

53:46

one of those failed experiments.

53:49

Let's talk about a few more of those. This is fun. Meltsford,

53:52

right? As it turns out, the Eugene character is going

53:55

to be trade in a manner suggested here a few

53:57

weeks ago. This has nothing to do with what was

53:59

written here. air, as it was suggested

54:01

by many people beforehand. But the original

54:03

gimmick of a modern day

54:05

rain man crossed with mighty Igor, uh,

54:09

looks from TV to be a guy

54:12

whose rain man strengths make him pick

54:14

up technical submission wrestling at an incredible

54:16

speed. The character looks to be that

54:19

of a simple man who

54:21

actually is a great wrestler. And after a

54:23

great television vignette or William

54:25

Regal was attempting to teach him and then

54:27

stretch him, he wound up stretching the teacher.

54:31

The evolution of the Eugene character.

54:34

Talk to us a little bit about that. Well,

54:37

it was something, uh, for

54:41

Nick Densmore and Nick Densmore came

54:43

from the Ohio Valley, uh, wrestling.

54:47

He was a product

54:49

of that environment and from that training

54:52

system, a tremendous,

54:54

tremendous wrestler that

54:58

Vince felt, you know, he came across

55:00

very childlike in a lot of ways

55:03

and created this idea

55:05

and this gimmick for him, and it

55:07

was named after a young man in

55:10

Pittsburgh, Eugene, who had been around the

55:12

wrestlers that all the guys loved. And

55:15

his father was a shoemaker

55:17

and, um, Eugene

55:21

was a very special young

55:23

man. And it's

55:25

like you would walk

55:28

in and have the absolute

55:30

worst day in the world.

55:33

And Eugene would be backstage with his

55:35

dad and he

55:38

kind of, he would go,

55:40

hello, bros, and you

55:42

couldn't help but smile and

55:44

just, and just hug this kid. And all

55:46

he wanted to do was, was be around

55:48

wrestling and he loved it. And he was

55:50

a Savat. He could tell you everything

55:54

that was happening everywhere.

55:57

One of those, you know, April 14, 1960. 64

56:01

and give you the match and give you the finish

56:03

and the referee and how many people were there But

56:07

different and and wonderful

56:11

But Eugene was just this this really

56:13

this really warm kid that Vince loved

56:16

so much He says he

56:18

fell in love with Nick and thought oh my

56:20

god. Can I have an actual real we could

56:22

make a real Eugene and That's

56:24

how Nick Dinsmore became Eugene

56:27

and and he wanted him to be this

56:30

pretty much what you said this is

56:32

powerful savant that wants to

56:34

wrestle but doesn't know how to wrestle and then all

56:37

of a sudden gets in the ring and Holy

56:39

shit, he picks it up quick Let's

56:44

talk about Kinzo

56:47

Suzuki do we have

56:49

to yes because Apparently

56:51

you guys named him Hirohito

56:54

which This

56:57

was a Japanese Emperor and the

56:59

idea is he's supposed to be like

57:01

a Japanese patriot who is not

57:04

a fan of American politics or culture

57:07

and Apparently

57:09

after work got out in Japan after the first

57:11

vignette aired the fear among those who heard about

57:13

it was that it was Gonna give the company

57:15

a very negative image in the country. It's like

57:18

you guys were trying to relive

57:21

World War two because Hirohito was

57:23

Japan's Emperor during the war and

57:28

While Japan was a US

57:30

enemy at the time Hirohito is still

57:33

beloved in Japanese society and Now

57:36

you guys are sort of using

57:38

a beloved Japanese cultural symbol as

57:41

a hardcore American hating heel and

57:44

According to the observer. He was scheduled for a

57:46

huge push at first apparently be the top heel

57:48

on Raw Aside

57:52

from evolution of course And

57:54

now we've got to do

57:56

some adjustments talk to me a little bit

57:59

about Hirohito because it feels like we

58:01

got vignettes and then they just stop and

58:06

now we're going to just roll them out

58:08

as Kenzo. Check me

58:10

out. Kenzo Suzuki.

58:13

Good God. Kenzo.

58:18

Kenzo, I brought Kenzo in. Um,

58:22

big guy, huge upside

58:25

and the Hirohito shit. See, I remember completely

58:27

different than that. It was, I think

58:30

Hirohito was viewed by

58:32

some people, almost Hitler-esque

58:35

in Japan, which we didn't know we thought,

58:37

which you said that this is a fucking

58:40

hero there and, uh, no,

58:42

it wasn't. It was someone that was taken

58:45

very negatively. And

58:48

when they made the, the Hitler-esque reference,

58:50

that was enough for us. Like, Nope.

58:52

Okay. Uh, let's, let's move

58:54

on. Let's come up with something else. So.

59:01

Kenzo Suzuki was born. I believe that

59:03

was close to his real name. Um,

59:07

he had his wife

59:10

wanted to be in the

59:12

business and she spoke English. She spoke

59:14

perfect English. So

59:16

the idea was to package

59:18

them with her being the

59:20

mouthpiece for Kenzo and slide

59:23

him right into a program with the,

59:25

you know, the all American John Cena,

59:27

who was you at United States champion.

59:29

And he was kind of battling that

59:31

front of folks that international

59:35

stars that wanted to come in and

59:37

overtake America, if you will, little

59:40

old fashioned, but sometimes

59:43

old fashioned works. And he was

59:46

not as good as the spot that he

59:48

was placed in. How

59:51

long does it take before you guys realize that? Whoo.

59:57

Well, we didn't let him work for a long time. So until. Oh

1:00:00

I see a few months

1:00:02

actually. Because we

1:00:04

protected him so well. We.

1:00:07

We kept him. We tried to keep him

1:00:09

down on the farm as much as we

1:00:11

could and just do ankles and in try

1:00:14

do some short things with him where you

1:00:16

can see through room at first. But.

1:00:19

Unfortunately, he just didn't. He didn't continue

1:00:21

to grow. He didn't get any better.

1:00:26

Who's down on him as a main as

1:00:28

advanced as down on him as an agent

1:00:30

says of everybody. I would

1:00:32

say started with the agents. Because.

1:00:35

Vince was high on him and I was high on

1:00:37

him. So. It was. We're.

1:00:39

We're trying to make it work

1:00:42

because we santa we had to.

1:00:44

We we needed heels. We needed

1:00:46

a new talent and this was

1:00:48

that era of you know what

1:00:50

we're gonna give gas chance for?

1:00:52

Gonna give him little runs and

1:00:54

see who see who can sprint

1:00:56

and who can't. Are. Not

1:00:58

so I won't be clear. I'm not

1:01:00

saying now. But. Back in

1:01:02

this day back in of for.

1:01:06

How how often wasn't

1:01:08

for the agents? disorder?

1:01:10

Chains, Rinses my main events comes out.

1:01:12

He's hot and heavy on something. And

1:01:14

hey this is over and a do. And then

1:01:16

maybe a guy like Arn Anderson. Silva.

1:01:20

How several for? how are you guys do

1:01:22

it? Or did it rather.

1:01:25

Does. That come in and says i

1:01:28

he is not improving Is that

1:01:30

enough. Or. Are for

1:01:32

Minster. Today's as mine are their meanings

1:01:34

of auditors does Vince? I have a

1:01:36

messy the tape for. Others

1:01:38

it's the tie, it's It's a time factor

1:01:40

in a lot size. Get a listen to

1:01:42

feedback of the people there are out on

1:01:44

the road. Serve with towel on every night

1:01:47

says tell me and he's not get in

1:01:49

and he's not get nets then we're going

1:01:51

to have a. A pretty good conversation

1:01:53

with him and let him know that he needs to

1:01:55

get it. We're gonna have to make changes. So.

1:01:59

it's If he's not getting it, then help

1:02:01

him get it because we

1:02:03

weren't in the position at that time

1:02:05

to say, okay, he's not getting it

1:02:08

next. There wasn't any next in the

1:02:10

wings. And

1:02:13

instead of just saying he ain't getting it

1:02:16

next, work with him.

1:02:18

Figure it out. What does

1:02:21

he need? If

1:02:23

it's less ring time, then we'll do less ring

1:02:25

time. If it's more ring

1:02:27

time, less talk. Let's do that. Let's

1:02:29

figure this out versus just cut

1:02:32

bait and send them back to wherever the hell he

1:02:34

came from. And

1:02:38

that's what we did. We tried. Let's

1:02:40

see. Let's keep it moving here

1:02:42

and talk about backlash. Backlash

1:02:45

is a bit of a disappointment. It does 270,000 buys

1:02:47

or a 0.50 buy rate. The

1:02:52

main event as we've covered was Benoit,

1:02:54

Triple H, and Shawn Michaels and a

1:02:56

triple threat. The big

1:02:59

show or the big match that I remember

1:03:01

is Mick Foley and Randy Orton. And

1:03:04

everybody is saying, you know, this is

1:03:06

a, you

1:03:08

know, WrestleMania level show as far

1:03:10

as the work rate and match

1:03:13

of the year level performances, but

1:03:16

the, the, the buzzer down

1:03:18

and their way down, um,

1:03:21

even from, from the prior year, you know,

1:03:23

so in oh three, that backlash where it

1:03:25

was Bill Goldberg and the rock did

1:03:28

350,000 buys. So

1:03:30

we're down pretty significantly, but

1:03:33

if you go back even further to oh two, you

1:03:36

know, there we saw whole COVID and Triple

1:03:38

H do 400,000 buys. So

1:03:40

year after year, you're seeing backlash and

1:03:43

your pay-per-view numbers. Start to

1:03:45

dip. Now

1:03:47

it's a trend. You know, when it happens as a

1:03:49

one-off, you can say, ah, it's a one-off. It's an anomaly.

1:03:51

You know, we'll be like that next year. But

1:03:53

when a three is down from a two and

1:03:56

now a four is down from a three, it gets

1:03:59

starting to feel like. Oh shit, man,

1:04:01

we got to pull the nose off. Well,

1:04:04

you definitely always have to pull the nose

1:04:06

up when business is down. This again, we,

1:04:09

we knew this was

1:04:11

a conscious effort. We knew that we were going

1:04:13

to take a dip in business. We,

1:04:16

we absolutely knew it and we planned

1:04:19

for it and looked

1:04:21

at it as we have to

1:04:24

make this investment in talent and stories

1:04:26

now, or we're never going to get out

1:04:28

of it. Because a

1:04:31

lot of the old guard was gone and

1:04:34

you had to do something. Not all of it's going

1:04:36

to be right. Not all of it's going to click

1:04:39

and you've got all these eyeballs on you.

1:04:42

You you've got to do something and

1:04:44

you have to continually, uh, develop

1:04:47

and redevelop and create new

1:04:50

all the time. And that was,

1:04:52

that was the challenge at

1:04:54

that point where it's,

1:04:56

uh, you would get. Demoralized

1:04:59

in a lot of ways. When you look at

1:05:01

the numbers and you look at business and go,

1:05:03

fuck. And Vince looked

1:05:05

at it and goes, guys, there's only

1:05:07

one way to go, you know, and that's up, but

1:05:10

we have to build this

1:05:12

foundation. We have to get

1:05:15

back to what it

1:05:17

is that we do, get some of these talent

1:05:19

over, and then we can start growing

1:05:22

again. So we

1:05:25

knew it. We knew it going in. And

1:05:27

that's one thing, you know, people poo poo, but

1:05:29

it's, it's, I will never forget those discussions

1:05:31

because it was frustrating. I

1:05:34

don't want to take a step back. Sometimes you

1:05:36

got to take two steps back to take one

1:05:39

forward. And

1:05:42

when you have a firm foundation, then you can

1:05:44

grow a lot better and it takes time to

1:05:46

do that. Let's

1:05:48

talk about Kurt angle. Uh, Kurt angle is

1:05:51

a guy who has had tremendous success. He's

1:05:53

been with the company at this point. I

1:05:55

don't know, I guess five or six years. Uh,

1:05:58

he's only 35. But it

1:06:00

looks like, you know, he may be starting

1:06:03

to wind it down here because he's got,

1:06:05

uh, obviously a neck issue that's

1:06:07

been, um, you know, predating even

1:06:09

the Olympics in 96. And

1:06:12

so a year prior to this, he

1:06:15

has a experimental, I guess it were

1:06:18

at the time, neck surgery with young

1:06:20

blood out of San Antonio. Um,

1:06:25

and this is the guy I think most wrestling

1:06:27

fans have heard, you know, he

1:06:30

sort of became the WWE go-to.

1:06:32

So for Steve Austin or edge

1:06:34

or Rhino or Benoit or Lita

1:06:36

or Bob Holly, if you have

1:06:38

a neck issue, you went to

1:06:40

see young blood and angle signed

1:06:42

a five year deal and a two,

1:06:45

and he says that he's happy with the deal and he's

1:06:47

going to finish the deal, but it looks

1:06:49

like he's starting to wind it down because he's just.

1:06:52

You know, not, not feeling the

1:06:55

way he used to, and

1:06:57

he's on the heels of a big time

1:06:59

match or somebody 20 with Eddie Guerrero, but

1:07:02

he had to be like positioned at this

1:07:05

point to be one of your tippy top

1:07:07

stars. And when you hear, man,

1:07:09

this next surgery that we thought was going

1:07:11

to be the, the magic pill, the cure

1:07:13

all is just not,

1:07:16

um, how the

1:07:19

office perceive that what's the relationship like

1:07:21

with them and Kurt? I

1:07:23

mean, it doesn't feel like this is an easy

1:07:25

solution. And of course we know that Kurt's going

1:07:27

to continue to wrestle, but he's going

1:07:29

to do, do so through tremendous pain. Well,

1:07:34

Kurt won the Olympics with a break with

1:07:36

a broken freaking neck. So you, you

1:07:39

knew you had a world-class athlete there.

1:07:41

However, a world-class athletes break down if

1:07:44

they don't take care of themselves. And

1:07:46

Kurt was breaking down. That's

1:07:50

just what was happening. He was breaking down before

1:07:52

our eyes. So we had

1:07:54

to give him some kind of rest

1:07:56

and let him have the time to

1:07:59

actually heal. and get better.

1:08:01

If you were to ask Kurt, you know, Kurt would

1:08:03

tell you every night, no, I'm good. I can go.

1:08:06

And then the doctor would shake his head. No, he's

1:08:08

not. He can't. And

1:08:10

you've got to listen to the medical professionals

1:08:12

at that point and say, no, Kurt protect

1:08:14

him from himself. So

1:08:17

that's what was happening with Kurt, man. He just

1:08:19

had a lot of nagging injuries and things

1:08:21

going on with his body. That

1:08:24

the thought of him being

1:08:26

able to go out every

1:08:29

night and have matches the way that

1:08:31

he used to have them, that was

1:08:33

not, that wasn't going to be the

1:08:35

new reality. Just wasn't going to happen. How

1:08:40

does that, I mean, does

1:08:42

that affect any, any plans with Vince?

1:08:44

How does he react to this news that, Oh

1:08:47

no, not another one. I mean, I know

1:08:50

I hate to talk about it like this, but Austin's

1:08:53

out. Goldberg's out. Rock is out. You've

1:08:55

been priming this guy now. Kurt

1:08:58

angle might be out too. Yeah, it hurts.

1:09:00

I mean, it just hurts. So you got to

1:09:02

figure out something else for him to do, which

1:09:04

is where we came up with the, the

1:09:07

general manager role to keep him on TV

1:09:09

and keep his personality out there so that

1:09:11

when he is ready to go, it's just

1:09:13

easy to slide him in. Right.

1:09:16

We didn't want to just give up on the

1:09:18

character and say, okay, well he's done and move

1:09:20

on. So we just tried to find ways to

1:09:22

keep him in front of the audience. Let's

1:09:26

keep it moving here. And let's talk about,

1:09:28

um, the decision to

1:09:32

keep him in front of the audience, but

1:09:35

he's not going to be able to wrestle. So

1:09:37

we're going to do, you know, we're going to

1:09:39

make him the GM. Um,

1:09:44

the way you do that as on April

1:09:46

15th, you have big show, throw angle off

1:09:49

of some staging and scaffolding, which is said

1:09:51

to be about 40 feet high.

1:09:54

And a couple of weeks later, when he comes back,

1:09:57

he's wheeled to the ring in a wheelchair and he's.

1:10:00

explaining that doctors have told him he could

1:10:02

never wrestle again because of a severe injury

1:10:05

and he blames the fans because

1:10:07

they have this, you know, craving

1:10:10

to see violence and he blames Tori for laughing

1:10:12

at him and he brings her to the ring

1:10:14

and asked her if it

1:10:16

was funny that he can't have sex with his wife anymore.

1:10:18

And so

1:10:21

you're trying what you can to still make

1:10:23

him an on-screen character and he's obviously gonna

1:10:26

excel at that. Is

1:10:29

this the most frustrating time of his career? Because I

1:10:31

mean he's got to feel like man this is I

1:10:34

mean this is okay but this isn't what I want

1:10:36

to do. I

1:10:39

think Kurt was extremely frustrated. Kurt

1:10:42

wanted to be in the ring performing. That's what

1:10:44

he loved to do. But

1:10:46

he also grew to love

1:10:48

a lot of these backstage vignettes

1:10:50

that we were doing and being

1:10:53

able to find a different dimension to

1:10:55

that character and for

1:10:58

the first time in a long time give his body

1:11:00

some rest. So Kurt

1:11:02

embraced it. Let's

1:11:06

talk about how Nielsen is going to

1:11:08

change the way ratings are going around

1:11:10

this time. Obviously,

1:11:12

you know, ratings have been a

1:11:15

big topic in wrestling going back to the

1:11:17

Monday Night War and something we've talked about

1:11:19

extensively here. But they're

1:11:21

gonna be switching formats from

1:11:25

a diary market to

1:11:27

what's called local people meters

1:11:30

which is fun to say real fast. The

1:11:34

big markets are gonna get it first of course

1:11:36

New York and Los Angeles. But

1:11:38

this switch is significant.

1:11:40

Now we have sort

1:11:42

of made fun of the old diary system

1:11:44

on this show before. Explain

1:11:47

to everybody the way

1:11:49

a diary system works and how antiquated that

1:11:51

really is. Certain

1:11:53

families are picked around the country and

1:11:55

they're giving a book to fill

1:11:57

out in pen. what

1:12:00

they watch each week and how long

1:12:02

they spend watching their TV, what television

1:12:04

shows that they enjoy. And

1:12:07

then they send it in to Nielsen and

1:12:10

Nielsen comprises those numbers and

1:12:12

that's how ratings were done. And

1:12:17

it is one of

1:12:19

the stupidest systems I've ever

1:12:22

heard of in my life. Nielsen

1:12:24

is a joke. I

1:12:26

mean, look, I just I think it's a

1:12:28

joke because they

1:12:31

have the technology to

1:12:33

know what every single person every time

1:12:36

you turn on your television,

1:12:38

if you're watching

1:12:40

direct TV, Comcast, cable,

1:12:44

Hulu, YouTube, your

1:12:47

Apple TV, all of that. The

1:12:50

technology is here today to understand and

1:12:52

know what every single person in America

1:12:54

that has a television set purchased after

1:12:56

2010. What

1:13:01

the hell they're watching exactly to

1:13:03

the minute. But

1:13:07

we use this system that

1:13:09

is the holy grail of

1:13:13

ratings because they were the only ones

1:13:15

in the game. They never had to

1:13:17

explain themselves. And when they explain themselves,

1:13:20

it's like listening to Chinese

1:13:22

geometry if

1:13:25

you're from Hungarian and it's

1:13:30

just maddening. And now they're like, okay, we're

1:13:32

going to do this now. And it was

1:13:34

a new system that no one had any

1:13:36

faith in because it's hard to have faith

1:13:38

in a system when you're changing from one

1:13:43

system that means nothing to another system that

1:13:45

means nothing. But yet that's what the advertisers

1:13:47

and everybody were hanging their hats on. my,

1:14:00

my local Huntsville market, CBS

1:14:02

is on WH and T

1:14:05

channel 19. So

1:14:08

channel 19 is the station

1:14:10

it's on and what the station markets itself

1:14:13

as, but WH and T are their actual

1:14:15

call letters, but the programming that

1:14:17

air is on CBS. So if

1:14:19

that's a little confusing to you, imagine just

1:14:22

regular America who's not sophisticated enough to listen

1:14:24

to this podcast or understand the technical breakdowns

1:14:27

we do on this show, and now

1:14:29

we're going to give them a pamphlet

1:14:32

with a dollar if you're a white

1:14:34

dude and say, Hey, fill out these 17

1:14:37

pages of what you watch and when, so

1:14:39

in that scenario, let's say you were watching programming. We

1:14:41

were just talking about, and let's say you were going

1:14:44

to watch, I don't

1:14:46

know, something on CBS, there's, you know, whatever

1:14:48

the new show is on CBS. And you

1:14:50

write that show in there and

1:14:52

you put CBS and you put channel 19, but

1:14:55

you put WFF, which is our

1:14:58

local NBC affiliate. Then

1:15:00

NBC got the credit not CBS. So

1:15:03

that level of silliness existed

1:15:05

with Nielsen. So sometimes these

1:15:07

ratings weren't worth anything. And so now

1:15:10

they're going to do what's called a,

1:15:12

a people meter, uh, where

1:15:14

we're actually monitoring for real what

1:15:17

they're watching, uh, where

1:15:19

people would fit these meters on their TV. So

1:15:21

they don't have to fill out a diary anymore,

1:15:23

but certain people would hook this apparatus up to

1:15:25

the TV and Tada. Now we know for real

1:15:28

now under this, the reason we're covering

1:15:30

this is because. Uh,

1:15:32

on March 24th, Nielsen is testing

1:15:34

out the new people meter market

1:15:37

and it shows that smack down under this new

1:15:39

system would have a 42% lower rating than under

1:15:43

the standards that were used before. Uh,

1:15:46

the Simpsons were down 29%. Prime

1:15:49

time was down. I mean, lots

1:15:51

of shows that had historically

1:15:54

been perceived as being more

1:15:56

watched and capturing greater ad

1:15:59

revenue because. of the perceived

1:16:01

ratings are now changing. And

1:16:03

so like I know in the national market, when

1:16:05

they first got people meter

1:16:07

markets for radio, there were radio stations that

1:16:09

weren't in the top 20, but

1:16:12

then once they started to have people

1:16:14

actually carry these monitors with them, so

1:16:16

whenever they heard music, this would register

1:16:18

what station it was. It

1:16:21

changed everything. This people meter

1:16:23

market thing is not something a lot of

1:16:25

people have talked about, but within the television

1:16:27

industry and eventually radio, it

1:16:29

changed the way a lot of

1:16:32

people reported their financials. Am I right?

1:16:35

Yeah, it did, but it also was

1:16:38

as inaccurate as the old way, because

1:16:40

again, you're still relying

1:16:43

on a handful of people, a very

1:16:47

small handful of people.

1:16:50

Correct. And you're not

1:16:52

actually recording actual data. You're

1:16:55

still taking what this

1:16:58

hand-picked, hand-selected... So

1:17:00

if you've got a million

1:17:05

people in Houston,

1:17:07

Texas, for example, you'll have

1:17:09

maybe six Nielsen families. So

1:17:12

out of a million people, those million

1:17:14

people are represented by six families. So

1:17:19

what they watch now is going to determine

1:17:21

how your rating is in everywhere.

1:17:25

It had no rhyme or reason. Even

1:17:32

to do... I met with a

1:17:34

company one time, I met with Nielsen, where

1:17:38

Nielsen themselves even admitted

1:17:40

in our conversation that

1:17:42

their ratings were bogus, but they were the best

1:17:45

that they could do. And

1:17:47

the company that I was representing

1:17:49

at the time and meeting with was

1:17:52

a company that was... It

1:17:54

was a call company that said, okay,

1:17:56

can we just expand this? Let's expand

1:17:58

it if you've got... six families

1:18:01

in this area, all right? What

1:18:04

demographics are being represented, and is there

1:18:06

a way that we can multiply that

1:18:09

by, let's say, 100, maybe

1:18:11

1,000? And

1:18:14

how they would do that would be by manning

1:18:17

systems and calling people and actually

1:18:20

getting the real data from

1:18:23

them and be able

1:18:25

to speak with them and compile that data.

1:18:28

It's not, it's too much work. This is a pretty

1:18:30

good sampling. We

1:18:32

don't really, we don't want to know that much. Wow.

1:18:35

But we've got a good sampling. And my

1:18:38

jaw just hung down because I thought, Nielsen's

1:18:40

all about ratings. They would want,

1:18:43

you know, if you had the

1:18:46

ability to truly tell

1:18:48

me who's watching what, when,

1:18:50

and where, and how, now,

1:18:54

wouldn't you want to do that? And that

1:18:57

ability exists and it has

1:18:59

existed for a long time.

1:19:04

Let's talk about the ratings for SmackDown

1:19:06

in the month of May. May

1:19:08

6 gets to 2.8. May 13 gets

1:19:10

to 3.1. The

1:19:13

SmackDown after Judgment Day gets to 2.9. On

1:19:16

May 27, it gets to 2.9. So

1:19:20

ratings are not where, you know,

1:19:22

the company would like, you know, they don't

1:19:24

want twos. They want threes or better. And

1:19:27

Wade Kelly writes, some insiders point

1:19:29

to Bruce Pritchard as the primary

1:19:32

reason for SmackDown's recent string of

1:19:34

subpar shows. They

1:19:36

say Pritchard has manipulated his way

1:19:39

into more power by bad-mouthing co-writer

1:19:41

Dave Lagana behind his back to

1:19:43

Vince McMahon. The Undertaker

1:19:46

has of course helped Pritchard's cause

1:19:49

as Pritchard has long been considered one

1:19:51

of Taker's main inner office allies.

1:19:55

I don't know. I find this funny because when I

1:19:57

read this now, and I have to admit when I

1:19:59

read this this 15 years ago, I would

1:20:01

not have viewed this this way. But when

1:20:03

I read this now, I'm like, okay, so Dave

1:20:05

Legano called way killer and told him this. I

1:20:11

mean, I'm not bad mouthing Legano. I'm just saying for,

1:20:13

for, for this to be an

1:20:15

opinion, oh, he's manipulated his way into

1:20:17

more power by bad mouthing Dave Legano

1:20:19

behind his back to Vince McMahon. Who

1:20:22

would have said that to way killer

1:20:24

if not Dave Legano, right? And

1:20:27

that's why David Legano was still working

1:20:29

as writer on swackdown because I bad

1:20:31

mouthed him so bad. Well,

1:20:35

brick by brick. So chat me up.

1:20:39

What, how do you respond to the criticism here? Of

1:20:43

you want me to respond to somebody

1:20:45

who has never worked one day in

1:20:47

the wrestling business in their life who

1:20:49

sits behind a keyboard and just writes

1:20:52

shit that people tell him. I

1:20:55

mean, that, that's

1:20:57

absolutely just ridiculous. It's silly. It

1:21:00

makes me laugh when people say this stupid shit because

1:21:02

they have the zero idea

1:21:04

and so little regard

1:21:07

for the truth that

1:21:09

it doesn't deserve a response. Okay.

1:21:15

Well, let's keep it moving here. Let's

1:21:17

talk about, um, Vince

1:21:20

McMahon selling stock and the

1:21:22

way he goes about doing it here,

1:21:24

according to the observer

1:21:27

is fascinating to me. The company is

1:21:29

doing a road show for investors where

1:21:31

they will be revealing long-term company goals

1:21:33

and following the road show, Vince

1:21:35

McMahon will sell 7.1 million

1:21:38

of his personal shares of the company currently

1:21:40

valued and in excess of $100 million

1:21:44

that stock is not available yet. And McMahon will

1:21:46

probably wait until after the dividend comes out or

1:21:48

he'll be getting $3.2 million

1:21:51

on July 8th before putting

1:21:53

the stock up. And after the sale of a

1:21:55

stock as quarterly, the dividend would be 2.8 per

1:21:58

quarter or. 11.3

1:22:01

million annually, plus he'll, uh,

1:22:03

he will have taken in around a hundred

1:22:06

million dollars more in the sale. So he's

1:22:08

socking huge money away this year.

1:22:11

And when the sales are completed, Vince's ownership of WWE

1:22:14

will drop from 80% to 67%. And

1:22:17

it should also quiet any rumors that the company

1:22:20

is thinking of or wanting to go

1:22:22

back private. Those very close

1:22:24

to the top when these rumors have come

1:22:26

out, have denied them saying that Vincent Linda

1:22:29

feel like being on the New York

1:22:31

stock exchange gives their company a real

1:22:33

world credibility as a major company that

1:22:35

no other pro wrestling company

1:22:37

has ever had. Not

1:22:39

to mention it made Vince McMahon hovering on

1:22:42

the level of being a billionaire. From

1:22:44

a company standpoint, because they have so much

1:22:46

cash and cash equivalents in the hundreds of

1:22:49

millions of dollars, both in the

1:22:51

bank and low interest investments, there's

1:22:53

always the thought of going

1:22:56

into another business. At the same time,

1:22:58

the st- the sting of such flops

1:23:00

as the WBF and XFL haven't gone

1:23:02

away and the feeling is to stay

1:23:04

within the wrestling world, they know so much

1:23:08

of an aggressive approach as purchasing all

1:23:10

the old tapes and ideas of how

1:23:12

to monetize that library. So I

1:23:15

find this fascinating, especially with, you

1:23:18

know, the new news of, uh, Vince

1:23:21

McMahon making huge personal investments

1:23:23

into a new XFL. But

1:23:27

the idea that he's going to do

1:23:29

like a, a dog and pony show

1:23:31

for investors and then sell the stock

1:23:33

after that's genius. You know, your numbers may

1:23:35

be down a little bit. So

1:23:38

let's go out here, show everybody the long-term

1:23:40

plans, get them excited about the future, not

1:23:42

down on the present, but excited for the

1:23:44

future. And then let's cash out

1:23:46

baby a hundred million bucks. Great strategy

1:23:48

from Vince here. I didn't cash

1:23:50

out. He made more, he made more stock available

1:23:53

to the public for them to sell. That was

1:23:55

the purpose of the roadshow. So

1:23:57

they're like, okay, if this is a great that we

1:23:59

need more. stock to sell and by

1:24:01

Vince releasing the stock that he had,

1:24:04

yes, he gets paid for that, but it

1:24:06

also releases more stock out into the public

1:24:08

market so the people can purchase stock. Let's

1:24:11

business do it every day. All

1:24:15

right. Now I'm ready to get you fired up. Are you ready

1:24:17

to get fired up? Sure.

1:24:22

They shot a major TV angle at

1:24:24

a house show on May 2nd in

1:24:26

El Paso during the angle for the

1:24:28

Guerrero layfield main event, uh,

1:24:31

where they had Eddie Guerrero's mother

1:24:33

suffer a heart attack. They'd run

1:24:35

attack by layfield after

1:24:38

Guerrero got the pin in the match. He went

1:24:40

around soaking up the chairs and he talked about

1:24:42

how proud he was to return to El Paso.

1:24:44

It was champion kind of promo and brought his

1:24:46

family into the ring. And he

1:24:48

first introduced his wife and two daughters, and

1:24:51

then he gave his wife flowers and he talked

1:24:53

about being so close to mother's day. So he

1:24:55

brought his mother into the rain and gave her

1:24:57

flowers. And then layfield came back

1:24:59

out while this was going on and nail

1:25:01

Guerrero with a clothesline, then he

1:25:03

grabbed at his mother and what was

1:25:05

described as a Vulcan pinch to the

1:25:07

neck, basically trying to give the illusion

1:25:09

of hurting her without actually doing anything

1:25:12

and the family was freaking out while Eddie

1:25:14

couldn't do anything to save his mother. Finally,

1:25:17

officials came from backstage to break it up

1:25:19

and layfield posed with the belt and

1:25:22

Guerrero's mother went out on a stretcher and

1:25:24

an oxygen mask while Guerrero recovered and did

1:25:26

a great job apparently making all of this

1:25:28

seem legit. I think everyone

1:25:30

realized how dead Guerrero JBL was as

1:25:32

a pay-per-view main event. So

1:25:34

they are going to desperate storyline lengths

1:25:37

to make it, to give this a

1:25:39

shot of adrenaline from what we

1:25:41

understand. They were thrilled with the

1:25:43

girl's daughters and how they pulled off their roles

1:25:46

and apparently Eddie's mother's blood pressure legitimately

1:25:48

went up as she was in

1:25:51

the ring because of all the excitement and

1:25:53

pressure of the angle. Although nobody knew it

1:25:55

until afterwards and she ended up fine. You've

1:26:04

told this story before. That's

1:26:07

not the way you tell it though. Well,

1:26:10

no, because of course, who

1:26:14

reported that? Was that F-W, what is it, F-W-K or

1:26:16

F-D-M? It's

1:26:22

F-D-M. Okay, please. Well,

1:26:25

first of all, JBL was never going

1:26:28

to grab Eddie's mom in any way

1:26:30

of trying to make it like he

1:26:32

hurt her. All he did was was

1:26:35

going to grab her and say, hey, look at your

1:26:37

son, but not in a mean, physical way. She was

1:26:40

a 73 year old woman. She

1:26:44

was going to go down and

1:26:47

what took place is she

1:26:49

went down and the excitement of it

1:26:52

got to her and there was fear

1:26:54

of her having a heart attack. And

1:26:56

actually, as all this shit was going

1:26:58

out, she couldn't get her

1:27:00

breath. She couldn't get anything. And the doctor's

1:27:02

like, she's having a fucking heart attack. While

1:27:05

we're at the ring, I'm like, hey, good acting

1:27:07

doc, but he wasn't acting. She

1:27:10

wasn't acting. And Eddie Guerrero sure

1:27:12

as fuck wasn't acting. Um,

1:27:15

it was a serious moment that we didn't know what the

1:27:17

hell was going on. And we got her to the back

1:27:19

and we got the ambulance and

1:27:21

everything there to get her checked out. Um,

1:27:25

it was a scary situation. It was

1:27:27

a, it was a real scary deal

1:27:29

for just something to do

1:27:31

on Mother's Day in Eddie's hometown. And,

1:27:34

uh, it was a strong angle. It

1:27:37

was something

1:27:40

that I thought about when I looked, sat there

1:27:42

and looked and hey, Mother's

1:27:44

Day. We're in El Paso. It's

1:27:46

Eddie's hometown. Could

1:27:49

have some fun here. And

1:27:51

that's what we did. Uh, right or

1:27:53

wrong. Uh, it was

1:27:55

what it was. And unfortunately, and fortunately, uh,

1:27:59

Eddie's mom. Um, you know,

1:28:01

got a little worked up and there was

1:28:03

a health scare there. Legit,

1:28:07

but she was okay. She ended up being okay at

1:28:09

the end of the day. And you

1:28:11

know, everybody got out. We got a great angle. We've got

1:28:14

a real story and I got threatened

1:28:16

by Eddie Guerrero several times and everybody

1:28:19

lived on to have a happy life. Let's

1:28:22

talk about an IGN film force. They're going

1:28:24

to report around this time that Triple H

1:28:26

is at the top of the list to

1:28:28

replace Arnold Schwarzenegger as the title character and

1:28:31

the long in development King

1:28:34

Conan crown of iron. Um,

1:28:37

I don't know. This sort of

1:28:39

took me aback. I didn't know that this was

1:28:42

ever even discussed, but apparently it was. And

1:28:44

the idea here is, uh, I

1:28:47

guess, um, Triple

1:28:50

H was previously rumored

1:28:52

to be Conan's estranged son, but now

1:28:54

maybe he was going to be Conan,

1:28:57

the barbarian that didn't wind

1:28:59

up being the case. Uh,

1:29:02

when did you first hear that Triple H

1:29:04

may have a shot at this? And was this him

1:29:06

trying to, you know, it

1:29:08

was this a WWE push to sort of recreate

1:29:10

the success that the rocket had? I mean, here

1:29:12

in 04, the rock wasn't who he is now,

1:29:15

but he was still well on his way, what

1:29:18

can you tell us about Triple H is Conan. God,

1:29:20

those roles come through all the time. People say,

1:29:22

Hey, this guy would be great for that. This

1:29:25

guy would be great for that. That's all this

1:29:27

was. Was Arnold

1:29:29

was talking about doing a remake of Conan

1:29:31

and Triple H was one of the names

1:29:33

that was put in the ringer.

1:29:35

And it got to the point of, you

1:29:37

know, Hey, this could happen. And it's a

1:29:40

possibility that he could play

1:29:42

in the next Conan. That's it's nothing

1:29:44

more than that. Really? Happened.

1:29:46

It happens every single day. How

1:29:49

different would the wrestling world be? Had

1:29:51

he ventured into movies, did Conan, it

1:29:54

becomes a huge hit and

1:29:56

he follows the rocks footsteps. And

1:29:58

I mean, And Ruston could

1:30:00

look a lot different now. Possibly

1:30:05

good. All right,

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boys and girls, we got to run a time out right now.

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1:31:48

to a judgment day. Oh, four. Uh,

1:31:52

the show drew a legitimate sellout announced at

1:31:54

18,722 fans. Belser

1:31:57

would say the paid attendance was around 13, five. The.

1:32:00

Gay is really big a hundred

1:32:02

and thirteen thousand dollars which has

1:32:04

the second largest slob gay in

1:32:06

the history of California wrestling of

1:32:08

course, The. Current record was this

1:32:11

is gonna be destroyed or Wrestlemania comes

1:32:13

to the staple center. Next year is

1:32:15

nine hundred and seven grand for Summer

1:32:17

Slam. back in two thousand and one.

1:32:20

The. Main event there was Steve Austin versus

1:32:22

Kurt Angle and The Rock vs. Booker

1:32:24

T. Ah so you're at

1:32:27

in on all tom ah there. Any.

1:32:29

Gonna be real! I was shocked by how the business

1:32:32

is down here in a for. Only come

1:32:34

in your son records like this as pretty

1:32:36

encouraging. Is it not what was ill? I

1:32:38

always a strong market feig us. Know.

1:32:40

Not always a l A guy like

1:32:42

the business would be cyclical and. During.

1:32:45

This time like God. It

1:32:48

was good market. It did well for a seer.

1:32:52

The the dark mass or so

1:32:54

Dartmouth's it's on he margins rak

1:32:56

and for knocking. Meltzer

1:32:58

it's I tell ya is totally wasted trying

1:33:00

to make lemonade out. it's and drag he

1:33:02

went on or a around about hi everyone

1:33:04

in L A as phony taking drugs and

1:33:06

these in the Hollywood diet. And. Then

1:33:08

is making a motion like he's thrown up.

1:33:11

In. A toilet bowl, And.

1:33:13

Know everybody's using plastic surgery to change

1:33:15

their luck, but. In. A

1:33:18

They're trying to push Ginger access

1:33:20

this. Stood. Star.

1:33:23

Than. The one of forking out the and

1:33:25

now what whilst in jack are a mess

1:33:27

and every to be. So.

1:33:29

They did Mark ever really loved the

1:33:31

business and or wanted to be in

1:33:33

the business of the he landed in

1:33:35

the business ah in the power plant.

1:33:38

W. C W So. Jin

1:33:41

Drax one of those guys came over.

1:33:44

When the B C W was

1:33:46

purchased had what appeared to be

1:33:48

a good outside. Just.

1:33:50

Never clicked and never yeah, Never turned

1:33:52

on in his brain to get to

1:33:55

that next point in the business. Or

1:33:58

first match on. show and

1:34:01

you watch this for the first time in a

1:34:03

long time. It's Rob Van Dam. I watched it

1:34:05

on the, on the anniversary. I actually watched it

1:34:07

on May 16th, 2019, 15 years to the day.

1:34:13

Uh, after it first happened. Cool.

1:34:19

Rob Van Dam and Ray Mysterio beat

1:34:21

the Dudley's 15 minutes, 19 seconds, three

1:34:26

stars on the observer. I

1:34:28

mean, really a hall of

1:34:31

fame crew here. I enjoyed

1:34:33

this match in a Rob Van Dam and Ray Mysterio

1:34:35

was not a tag team. I ever thought I wanted

1:34:37

to see, but I thought this was pretty good. What'd

1:34:39

you think? It was really good.

1:34:41

And you know, I, I even go back

1:34:43

and, you know, talk about the open of

1:34:46

the show, which was fucking fabulous. But I

1:34:49

got goosebumps, you know, how you

1:34:51

get the goosebumps that will stay with you

1:34:53

for a while. Yep. When

1:34:55

there's a shot of Eddie Guerrero in

1:34:57

the middle of that, where the commentator

1:35:00

says is there life after

1:35:02

death? And

1:35:05

I just got goosebumps and sat there

1:35:07

that just held through the finish

1:35:09

of the, of the cold open.

1:35:11

And that was just,

1:35:13

again, some of that shit, man was so good.

1:35:15

And that's the work of, of

1:35:17

chambers. And those guys

1:35:20

just put some great shit

1:35:22

together. And then you start off with

1:35:24

Ray and Rob Van

1:35:27

Dam against the Dudley's. All

1:35:29

four had great chemistry, the Dudley's

1:35:31

and Van Dam back from their

1:35:33

ECW days. They'd worked together so

1:35:35

many times and it was

1:35:37

a good, solid, great opener

1:35:41

for the pay-per-view. Without

1:35:43

question. Uh, there is one funny little

1:35:45

thing that happens in the middle of the match. The

1:35:49

sound guy just randomly plays Rob Van Dam's music,

1:35:51

which I guess boils the finish when you watch

1:35:53

this back. Did you laugh out loud? Oh

1:35:56

God, man, shit happens. That's

1:35:59

so great. Uh, next up

1:36:01

we got Booker T doing a promo and

1:36:03

there's these strange voices coming out of the

1:36:05

room and he's got all these candles lit,

1:36:07

but, um, Kurt

1:36:10

Angle and Luther reigns come out. Angle

1:36:13

is going to blame Tori Wilson for his

1:36:15

career being over. And,

1:36:17

um, so he says, you

1:36:19

know, he's going to cause Wilson her career. And

1:36:22

he announces that if, if Tori doesn't win

1:36:24

the next match, she's fired. So

1:36:27

it's Tori Wilson and Dawn Marie. They're going to

1:36:29

go six minutes and 14 seconds, which

1:36:32

Meltzer says was too long. And,

1:36:34

uh, they're doing their best, but you

1:36:36

know, they're, they're probably, I

1:36:40

dunno, not pay-per-view worthy based on wrestling,

1:36:42

but that's not why they're here. They're

1:36:44

here to have Tori Wilson rip Don

1:36:46

Marie's tights off and she's got

1:36:48

on a skimpy little flesh

1:36:51

colored thong. Uh,

1:36:53

and she's pinned pretty quickly after a

1:36:55

backslide quarter star. This

1:36:57

is just to get, uh, some scantily clad women

1:36:59

on the pay-per-view here. Is it not? Well,

1:37:03

I would never argue about ever having

1:37:05

a Don Marie or Tori Wilson scantily

1:37:07

clad anywhere, but man, going back, you

1:37:10

know, even the Booker T interview was

1:37:12

just classic stuff and make just

1:37:14

made me reminisce of how much

1:37:17

fun it always was to work

1:37:19

with Booker because you

1:37:21

could give Booker anything. And

1:37:23

he would make it better. And that's

1:37:26

what Booker did with this whole program with

1:37:28

the undertaker with the voodoo shit. It

1:37:30

was great. And then of course, Luther

1:37:33

reigns, pushing the box to the ring.

1:37:35

And if you come out of a box,

1:37:37

motherfucker, you are over. So

1:37:40

Kurt angle, not just came out of

1:37:42

a box. He rose out of

1:37:44

a box, which

1:37:47

really made that son of a bitch over.

1:37:52

Thank you for that. Just saying. Uh,

1:37:55

what's your favorite Don Marie match? Probably

1:38:00

this one. Yeah, this one, you know just

1:38:03

saying It's

1:38:05

only a kick a Jump

1:38:10

a block It's

1:38:12

only a serve. It's only

1:38:15

a tackle a run.

1:38:17

It's only for the bed After

1:38:20

all, it's only pressure you

1:38:23

got this Adidas America

1:38:30

starts the day with America in

1:38:32

the morning three pushes of storminess

1:38:35

Hi, I'm John trout your host

1:38:37

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1:38:39

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to be threading that concise accurate

1:38:54

and fresh each day America in

1:38:56

the morning the podcast available wherever

1:38:59

you listen Well, it

1:39:01

was anyway to save this next match.

1:39:03

It's Mordecai and Scotty to hottie They're

1:39:06

gonna go three minutes in one second. Of course Mordecai's

1:39:09

debuting here and gets a win by

1:39:11

pinfall Meltzer would

1:39:14

say he had a undertaker slash

1:39:16

cane like ring entrance and a

1:39:18

strong opening presentation Quote

1:39:21

once the bell rang the crowd was dead

1:39:24

They're trying to make him both slow

1:39:26

moving but intense and it

1:39:28

didn't work and it didn't get over His

1:39:31

finisher is the Scott Hall outsiders

1:39:33

edge dud When

1:39:36

you watch this presentation back of you

1:39:38

know Mordecai making this big entrance into

1:39:40

the ring and then the actual match

1:39:42

itself When he's trying to do a

1:39:45

lot of character work Saw

1:39:47

it for the first time in a long time. What

1:39:49

do you think? Yeah, let me say this

1:39:51

about that. First of all No,

1:39:53

Dave, we weren't trying to make him slow moving

1:39:55

and intense We were

1:39:58

trying to make him intense and that was Mordecai Kai's

1:40:01

vision was that he would be slow moving,

1:40:03

which is what killed it. It just didn't

1:40:05

work. He needed to be,

1:40:07

he needed to go once the bell rang

1:40:09

and, um, my

1:40:12

notes, which you'd

1:40:14

love is, um, well,

1:40:17

best match he ever had. So

1:40:20

you can ward a guy and

1:40:22

that pretty much sums it up right there

1:40:24

because he had so much upside, so

1:40:26

much promise, so much potential.

1:40:30

And this

1:40:32

was his debut match and the best one he was ever going

1:40:34

to have. Yeah.

1:40:37

Or Kevin, uh, next up, Jacqueline

1:40:39

is going to give Chavo Guerrero a

1:40:42

present of bra and panties to

1:40:44

wear. Of course he throws them down. His

1:40:46

father picks them up and looks interested in trying

1:40:48

them on though. Meltzer would

1:40:50

say that's the curse of being 55 years

1:40:53

old and still getting a check from WWE

1:40:55

as a performer, because it

1:40:57

means you're going to wind up humiliated

1:40:59

many times over. Here's

1:41:02

the fuck they Meltzer. And here's

1:41:05

another opportunity where you look at something

1:41:07

and, and I know everybody

1:41:11

will sit here and go, Oh my God,

1:41:13

I gush over the girls. I do gush

1:41:15

over the Guerrero's because I think that they

1:41:17

were just that damn good. And

1:41:20

travel Guerrero senior stole

1:41:23

the show in this

1:41:26

regard because his subtle

1:41:28

acting and everything that

1:41:30

Meltzer is, is accusing they of

1:41:32

making him do. Those are Chavo

1:41:35

seniors ideas that took him over

1:41:37

the top that gave him

1:41:39

that extra dimension of personality that

1:41:43

was entertaining that people could

1:41:45

identify with. So, um,

1:41:49

that's the kind of shit just pisses me off and

1:41:52

travel Guerrero made it. I love the

1:41:54

scene backstage and

1:41:56

Chavo's underplaying

1:41:58

it. And Chavito

1:42:01

catching him was just pure

1:42:03

classic. Let's

1:42:06

talk about the next match. Rico and Charlie

1:42:08

Haas are going to retain the tag titles

1:42:11

over Bob Holly and Billy Gunn in 10

1:42:13

minutes and 26 seconds. Meltzer

1:42:15

would say they tried this match out the

1:42:17

night before in San Bernardino and the crowd

1:42:19

cheered Holly and Gunn. So

1:42:21

they had them come out and from the

1:42:23

start, they played that

1:42:26

neither Holly nor Gunn wanted to be in

1:42:28

with Rico. And the announcers never acknowledged that

1:42:30

Rico used to manage a gun or that

1:42:32

any of that ever happened. I think they

1:42:34

want to erase that part of their history.

1:42:37

Rico kept grabbing their asses. And

1:42:40

one person in the company told me

1:42:42

they could nickname Holly and Gunn, the

1:42:44

hardcore asses. The match was

1:42:46

all homosexual comedy. Haas for whatever

1:42:48

reason looked the worst he

1:42:51

has since his OVW days. And his punches

1:42:53

never got, never his strong point became the

1:42:56

focal point of his offense and

1:42:58

it was so bad that Jackie Gator at ringside

1:43:00

was pounding on the mat to

1:43:02

get a clapping deal going. And the crowd just slept

1:43:04

through it. Finish saw Holly

1:43:06

have Haas up for the Alabama slam,

1:43:09

but Rico super kicked him and Haas

1:43:11

scored a roll up three

1:43:13

quarter stars. This

1:43:15

feels thrown together. I

1:43:18

didn't enjoy the pairing of either one of these tag teams

1:43:20

as a fan. And it was just

1:43:22

sort of there for me. How

1:43:24

about you? It was a fun match,

1:43:26

but it wasn't a good match. Just was

1:43:28

kind of in that spot to be a ha ha

1:43:30

filler. Uh, not a lot of

1:43:32

chemistry with those guys trying

1:43:35

something with, with Charlie Haas and

1:43:37

Alicia had Jackie out there to

1:43:40

kind of spice things up a little bit,

1:43:42

but not a whole lot

1:43:44

there. I mean, the audience didn't care. The

1:43:46

talent didn't care. And you could feel that.

1:43:49

So it was

1:43:51

not something I'd

1:43:53

want to see again. Next

1:43:55

up, we got Chavo Guerrero. He's going to

1:43:57

pin Jacqueline to win the cruiser weight title.

1:44:00

He. Heard me right? And. Four

1:44:02

minutes and forty seven seconds. The gimmick

1:44:04

here is that Szabo was wrestling them,

1:44:06

as with one hand tied behind his

1:44:08

back. And. He acted as a

1:44:10

few one arm that are by breakers. And

1:44:13

shove a classic of his eye on tos

1:44:15

his son while the referees dazed and the

1:44:17

finish sees Classic distract the ref. Ostrava

1:44:20

use as a glorious special bomb.

1:44:23

Honor and does. He wins the title

1:44:25

back. So. They are that writing

1:44:27

in the Observer. These ah.

1:44:30

Man. Versus woman in her

1:44:32

gender masses even ever really

1:44:34

enjoyed. Our to think of this

1:44:36

one and and does this sort of the

1:44:38

value. I. Mean, it's sort

1:44:40

of presents. The cruiserweight belt is really

1:44:42

being ah here as a not. No.

1:44:46

Not really. Does Jacqueline could probably be

1:44:48

ninety percent of the cruise weights anyway.

1:44:50

Still kids today. I

1:44:52

enjoyed it has story to it in. I

1:44:54

enjoyed the hell out of it and is

1:44:57

I. Am watching this thing

1:44:59

and watching what Chapo Guerrero Jr

1:45:01

is doing. With. One arm

1:45:03

tied behind his back. His master fools