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Episode 532: Secrets From The Headset

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This podcast is supported by your Southern California Kia dealers. It's hard not to notice how many electric vehicles are on the 405, 101 and 10 freeways these days.From the transcript

On this episode of Something to Wrestle, John Layfield and Conrad Thompson examine the decisions, performances and production techniques shaping today's wrestling business. JBL explains why changing a championship at a house show can generate tremendous buzz for WWE live events and considers what could be next for Dominik Mysterio. The guys also discuss why Penta versus Roman Reigns was a recipe for success.

Then, John pulls back the curtain on the art of professional wrestling commentary, from protecting your credibility and building excitement to creating special moments through communication with the talent. JBL also reveals what Vince McMahon was really like as a producer and explains how powerful facial expressions can transform a good wrestling match into a great one.

 

 

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Episode 532: Secrets From The Headset

Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard

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Something to Wrestle with Bruce PrichardEpisode 532: Secrets From The Headset. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.

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and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the National 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash book-net. That's growtherapy.com slash book-net. Growtherapy.com slash book-net. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Today's episode comes to you from the Blue Choo Studio. When you buy two months of Blue Choo Gold, you get the card for free with the promo code Wrestle. You'll also receive an additional 10% off plus free overnight shipping on your first order at BlueChew.com. Welcome to something a wrestler with an arena wheel. Birds, Prudence, Prudence, Prudence, Prudence, Prudence. Well, you know, that's not a real... What a rip. No, you have a big name. There's no box of gimmicks. Or a man in your window. No deal in rumor, did you win it?

And will you be there? I will say. Try some of mine. Don't give a shit. What? Just something to wrestle with. Something to wrestle with. Something to wrestle with. Dinging Bruce Pritchard. Hey, hey, it's Conrad, the mortgage guy in your listing. To something to wrestle with. John, Lafayette, what's going on, man? How are you? Conrad, Bradshaw 316, he matters what carbon and stone and put it in granite because it says Bradshaw 316, I just stole your fucking podcast. Well, we greatly appreciate you guys being with us and letting us steal a few minutes from you today. John, it's a great time of year to be a football fan. Guys like you and I are plopped on the couch every single Saturday trying to soak up as much as we can. But you had an extraordinary week last week. Friday night, Triple Mania, Travel Day on Saturday, Sunday night, Triple Mania. Now you've done a Triple Mania in Vegas and what in Mexico City?

What was your experience like, man? And on Saturday night, I'm flying through Dallas to get down to Mexico City. My flight gets not canceled with the flights delayed, so I missed the next flight. So I have to get the hotel there and Dallas, if you don't know Dallas, put where Park Hyde is right there, Al's Terminal D. So I go in there and I'm actually able to watch the second half of the university of Texas football game. So it was a great weekend for me. Tell us about Triple Mania, man. You got to call a match in an MGM Grand Garden arena. Had you wrestled that MGM Grand before? It was a WCW building, right? You know what, I don't know for sure, but yes, about WCW, we always wrestled in Thomas and Mack. We later wrestled at one of the ones downtown, the new arena that was a camera or was one of casino's mass about that today. I should have looked it up. Obviously the spear was not there in MGM Grand. I don't think it was, if it was there, we were not wrestling again. If we were always wrestling Thomas and Mack, then that old rotten, that old rotten building out by the airport.

Well, I absolutely love the idea of wrestling being back inside MGM Grand Garden Arena. And what a spectacle it was. We talked about it last week. It felt like it was made believe that all these years later, Ray Mysterio would be back in the same building where he had that classic that people are still talking about with Eddie Guerrero at the MGM Grand Garden Arena Halloween. Have it 1997. And all these years later, 29 years later, he finds himself in the main event of night one of Triple Mania, but against a real life David and Goliath story. Almost what a incredible visual it was Ray was wearing some gear loosely inspired by the gear he wore against Ray Mysterio or against Eddie Guerrero back in 1997. But the visual here, John, is just off the chart. Hopefully you're watching it. Something to wrestle calm. I mean, it's hard to believe these are the same species, but they were. And there was not much of Ray left at the end of the night. I mean, just an incredible visual.

But how about the joke slam on the Hardy board through a table never seen that before what a visual that is right there. Holy cow, I haven't seen that picture. That is unbelievable. It's it's thought of a movie. But yeah, Triple A man, they're on a tear. And then of course, you know, it was a big weekend for WWE. They had a title change happen on Saturday night. We'll talk about what happened on Friday night, but the title change on a house show, John. This isn't something that has happened very often in WWE history. I do think it's a good idea to have these significant beats in the story and real wrestling history happen at a non televised live event. Of course, we're talking about Stephanie McCour, but regaining and reclaiming her world title. And she did it in Santiago, Chile. Chat me up. What do you think about a title switch on an international show that wasn't televised? This feels a like a new concept for WWE because I don't think they've done this very many times, but B is probably good business if they're putting this on their new club WWE platform, right?

Yeah, it is. And we always were arguing about doing stuff at the house shows with live events, they call them now just just to have something like this because you're sitting there in a live event. You're doing false finish after false finish. The fans pretty much know the title is not going to change hands. No matter what you do, they pretty much know that it's going to happen on at least TV and probably back then pay for you now PLE. So I think it's terrific. You know, every occasion we would do something like this back in the day. And all the time since we would have something that would happen every once in a while in a live event, just to give people enough hope that something like this could happen. At least a terrific idea. Plus it was obviously our home country. I mean, it made a perfect sense for it to happen there. Nowadays it's so different now. You know, back then you didn't have, you could film it and put it on the TV. But now you have so much stuff from social media and you get paid from social media. So now these social media clips can be just as important sometimes as your TV because you're getting revenue off of it.

So it really opens up things like this possibility of this. And I thought it was a great idea. It is a cool moment in history. And I think it is a good idea for the new club, WWE platform. It adds some stakes. And you know, I think that's what a lot of fans are looking for. They sometimes when you're when you're paying big money to go to a lot of event. Yes, you'd like to be entertained and you want to see matches. But you want to be able to say, hey, I was there when XYZ happened. Whatever that major storyline beat or title change or whatever it could be may be. Let's talk about Sunday. Triple Mania. So real quick, the so the couple young guys, Kimberly Laredo, kid who was. It was a couple of bar now match, which is the kind of royal rumble top match. Right. Almost almost one again. It was really well done this year as well. But you had some of the young guys doing the Eddie Ray spots that were pretty cool. Little homage to Ray and Eddie, which I thought was really cool.

You know, you got to see the respect that Ray has around there because of what how much he has done. But also the association with Eddie Guerrero, you know, is held in such an incredible esteem. You know, from people, you know, copying him at art bar to copying him later. I mean, there's been so much input between Ray and Eddie that it was really cool to see that. I thought the both triple A shows what we get to Sunday, whenever we want. I thought they both were fantastic. I thought, oh, Moss, he has not been a giant bit about a few months before that. He did, he just kind of worked as a wrestler that was big. He's starting to realize now I think through takers and thoughts. And there's a lot of great producers that are down in triple A. That some incredible guys that really have a good knowledge of what almost needs to do. But also everybody needs to do there because producers have become so much more important. You know, but one, I say one difference is these triple A guys are working all the time. I mean, they're working a bunch.

And I think a lot of that shows, you know, you're seeing so much of what they do. And I've always thought we've always thought that if lucha ever started taking over, it would take over. And I think that's what you're seeing right now. Well, there's no doubt. I mean, the show you guys put on in Mexico City was in front of just an unbelievable crowd. Hot, hot, hot. I think you should go out of your way to check it out. It's for free right now on YouTube. But WWE just published it right there. I was able to watch it live. And what an incredible environment it was all night. But the main event was El Grande Americano becoming the new triple A mega champion. It was a no-de-hume match against Dominic Mysterio, who's just been white hot in America for quite a while. And obviously with that last name, he's going to get a reaction in Mexico City. The crowd is just, it's hard to even describe how hot the crowd was. And I know that night one, I don't think you and Corey were ringside, but night two, you were.

As an announcer, does it make a difference when you feel it in the building? If you're ringside like that, can you feel the energy from the crowd, John? Yeah, we were ringside at the first night, the Friday night. They only showed us at the very beginning. So it shows later. So people were asking the same question before we there. But yeah, you can feel it. But it's great as the biggest crowd was and it was good. There's nothing compared to a Mexican crowd. I mean, I'm still all along. Yeah, at certain events, you got to certain things you got to do. You know, the sports podium is not around anymore. So you can't wrestle there anymore. But the garden is, Bouducan is, Earl's Court is, the Rosemont still is under different names. There are certain places you have to be. And basically anywhere in Mexico is where you have to be. These freaking crowds down there in Mexico were just unbelievable. They're such passionate fans. You look at what they do in soccer. You look at what they did in the more baseball classic for the Mexico team.

These fans are unbelievably passionate. And I want to tell you, you talk about a fun, I don't know, he's baby face or heel right now. I would argue that matter is dog. From Lost Pearls to Mall. That kid is a freaking rock star. He reminds me so much of Eddie. And I told him that when I saw him, it's just, it's just some of his mannerism, some of the way he does promos, some of the things he does in the ring. But man, that guy is just the Mexican people love him. They went to their old music, but you got to hear the reaction of these guys. I mean, they're selling a ton of merchandise. Apparently a lot of it's bootlegs. So the number, the official numbers are not going to be what, as many people are actually buying the Perils, the mall merchandise. But that guy, dog, watch out for him. I think, you know, Mexico needs a Mexican baby face. And I think around the Americanals, they're great. But you need somebody like dog, I think dog is the guy. Dog is 38 years old.

And he's getting a big round of applause and high five and pat on the back here from JBL. Go check him out and triple A. Let's talk a little bit about that crowd in Mexico City. Because I know that I think the first night you guys had, what do you think it was in Vegas? 6, 7, 8,000? How many people were there? It was around 7 for what I saw from the pre event numbers with something like that. They're going to do it in what the Luxor, I believe it was. Yeah, they had to move it to a much bigger room. That's right. They're going to do it in the 1500 seat Luxor. And they sold that thing out so fast they had to move it. So you did have like a lot of top part of MGM done off. And you got a lot of $7,000 people. I mean, that's a huge success. When you're budgeting for 1500 people and you've got over four times that, that's a huge success in Vegas for the crowd. There's no doubt about that. What I was going to brag on though is the incredible success

of Mexico City. You had like 18,000 fans there. And I know that this is becoming a talking point with me and some of my friends that I watch wrestling with. Hey, these international crowds. Man, they're hard to beat. They add so much to the vibe, to the venue, to the feel. I'm not even there, but I'm just saying at home, I find myself getting more into the match because they are. And I think if you've not ever really watched any AAA, I want to encourage you go check out AAA from night two in Mexico City. You're going to hear Corey Graves and JBL on commentaries. You're going to know exactly what's going on. You're going to see some phenomenal wrestling. But you're going to see one of the more passionate crowds, maybe of the year. I just love the presentation. I love the crowd. And I'm anxious to see what's next for Dominic Mysterio too. I want to ask you about that. Of course, El Grande Americana was now the top dog. He's the champ. But where does this leave Dom? We know that Dom is, he's a dual threat right now.

We're seeing him on the main roster of WWE quite regularly. And now he's been a big part of AAA. Do you think that this will result in Dominic spending more time in AAA? Or will we see him more in WWE? Not that you have any sort of inside knowledge. But what do you think is next for Dom? Yeah, and I don't have any inside knowledge this from a takeer or Jeremy or anybody that, and if I did, I would share it unless I was supposed to. But I don't. I would assume they have a local, the eye, the would go in redone, which is part of, which has big almost in the faction. You also have Dom in that faction. It does an incredible job. That's a terrific faction. And so I think there's so much you can do with LLH with Dorian. I mean, you have Miss Pena going to the Hall of Fame coming up. Miss Pena is Antonio Pena's widow. He's one that founded the AAA, founded Triple Mania. He's passed away. They do an homage to him every single show. She's out there representing. Also, you have to make some group has a percent of the ownership stake as well.

I think that Dom fitting into that can be really entertaining. You know, I would not make Dom a heel at all. I'd make him an attraction heel. I say a pure, I'd say heel. I mean, a pure heel. I'm making an attraction heel. I say my do with Los Perros tomorrow. You know, who fears if have to crowd booze him, have to crowd cheers him. That's what we're doing now. And then the Mexican fans want to get behind it. The problem is they all want to get behind his father, Ray Mysterio. That is an incredible dynamic right now. And I think that dynamic is going to end up playing out in some way storyline wise. And I think it's going to be fantastic because you think about what you have storyline wise. You have Ray Mysterio, who's the general manager and also arguably one of the biggest baby faces. And you also have Miss Pena, who is the representative of Antonio Pena. Her son now is suing Dom according to storyline, but also part of the one of the big deals. And you've got interesting family dynamics, which if you're been to Mexico.

Family dynamics works. Everybody down there, second generation, third generation. I think there's some really interesting stuff they can do going forward in the next year. And I think Dom will be a big part of it. I certainly hope he is. It's just an incredible weekend. If you're a wrestling fan, you know, let's sort of start with Friday. You know, obviously we've touched on triple mania. That's what you were doing in Las Vegas on Friday night. That in Mexico City, WWE was putting on SmackDown. And what an incredible show it was and incredibly hot crowd. But we've got a new world champion. And John, I want to ask you about that. But right now, want to brag about our friends over at Chime. You know, this is something that I wish my younger self would have benefited from. I feel like a lot of us when it comes to our bank, we just picked the bank when we were like 16 years old and started our first jobs. And then we probably never looked back. That's sound familiar. I mean, that's what I did. But what I know is I can do better.

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Go to chime.com slash disclosures for details. I don't think a lot of people would have had this on their bingo card. We had a rematch with C impunk and Sami Zane and you may recall it was actually Sami Zane that Cody was not able to perform in a match. They needed a last minute replacement. They happened to be in Chicago. And what do you know? C impunk returned thunderous ovation magical night for C impunk and Sami Zane's nine day run as champion came to an end. So we finally got a rematch and it's in the hometown of Elginarico, a long distant relative of Sami Zane and Sami Zane is now a two time WWE champion in front of one of the hotter freaking crowds of the year. Again, in Mexico City. John, what do you think of the match? What do you think of the moment? I don't know if you got a chance to see it, but there were some shenanigans of foot there. We saw Kevin Owens step into the ring, grab the title. He thinks he's trying to hit Sami.

Sami gets out of the way. He winds up clocking C impunk. Here comes the hell of a kick in one, two, three. Sami's a two time champ. What do you think, John? Yeah, I think this may be a posit Dory Funkin who was the one that did the uppercuts in the batter oil that everybody kind of cleared out of the way. It was Dory and that wasn't fair. Was it? Or could it have been? I was trying to think. They're right paid respect to Dory and I forgot who it was. We may see this in 40 years because Sami and Kevin have gotten one of the longest feuds in wrestling history. And it's still over the title. And I mean that I respect with the Dory because I forget what it was. The batter oil with Dory and somebody else, old-timer, batter oil. And you may see this in 40 years. You may see this like Bob Gibson, a bean-de-guy in the old-timer game. And he's just because he had he's last in bat and a major baseball because he had a home run off post. You may see this in 40 years with Sami and Kevin Owens. If you do, I think it's coming entertaining as it is right now.

These guys do very well, hating each other. Incredibly well. And Sami Zayn is now a two time champion. So all the haters out there that were nine days this, nine days that, which I guess what same same as wildfire red, right? Well, Grace Babyface is in our business history. Now he's a two time champion. So I think it's great. And again, you got this incredible crowd down there in Mexico. I can't tell you people that have never been to Mexico arena for a wrestling show. You got to see it. It's just it's unbelievable how good it is. You know, after WrestleMania, you know, we always had these great European crowds. You know, Canada always that. I call it the bizarre world. But who cares? The third world. They can do group for whoever they want. Because the crowd is so involved. Disluck this outside of the United States. I don't know what's wrong with our guys in the United States or some hot beds in wrestling. You know, Chicago certainly is one of them. The south and different places has been one of those places. But man, Mexico is just on fire right now.

And they get something worth the certainly worth watching with this title change. Yeah, I mean, it was a it was an incredible moment and incredible night. And there's lots of speculation as to why this would happen. Of course, there is some chatter about what was supposed to happen at Crown Jewel. I think we all sort of expected champion versus champion, which would have meant as things stood. It would have been Roman Reigns versus C and punk. Maybe they didn't want to do that rematch so close to WrestleMania. So I kind of like the idea of Sami Zayn versus Roman Reigns. I mean, there's so much bloodline history there. That could be really, really interesting, especially in Saudi Arabia. It feels like he's going to get a heroes welcome Roman Reigns probably going to get boot out of the building. That to me seems like an interesting dynamic for Crown Jewel. Do you think? Yeah, I do. I think it could be absolutely fantastic. I mean, Sami, Sami to me is almost interesting characters. And I'm an interesting, I mean, captivating character. He does an incredible job. Everything Sami Zayn has done.

He has been fantastic at what he's doing. The bloodline, he's the knowing little brother, whatever, whatever the role he's playing. He's just fantastic with it. You know, him and Daniel Bryan, WrestleMania that year when I called him out, there was no crowd. He's out there screaming. You know, we don't have a proud reaction. So Sami realizes that and he was about the only one out there on the card that realized this is a chance to do something to expand my character. He did a great job with it. I think him and Roman Reigns, if that's what it ends up being, will be fantastic. Yeah, I can't wait for us to talk about Crown Jewel and Saudi Arabia. I'll do one a touch on that a little later. But since we're talking about these hot ass crowds in Mexico, we got to talk about what happened on Monday. I just think this run was really phenomenal for TKO set aside for a minute, but they had a boxing event over the weekend. Ariel Hawani said this may have been the first time that we saw the full vision of TKO. But you had Triple A going on on Friday night in Las Vegas. And you had smacked down with a title change in Mexico City on Saturday.

You're switching the women's title in in Chile Santiago. Shout out to Stephanie, but then on Sunday night, Triple Mania again in Mexico City. And as if that's not enough, the whale had not run dry a white hot crowd in Mexico City for Roman Reigns and Pinta. Of course, we saw Dragon Lee and Chad Gabel two incredible matches. But the world is still sort of buzzing about Roman Reigns and Pinta. It's been years since we've seen Roman Reigns wrestle on TV on Monday Night Raw and defend his title like this. And I think even at the last minute, even though maybe a week out, people were saying, Hey, this is a tournament to decide which Luchador gets to lose to Roman Reigns in Mexico City. For that day, nobody was talking that way. And they give Pinta the full royal treatment. He's riding into the ring on a freaking horse. That's how he came into the building. He comes out with a huge headdress, incredible pyro that just feels like it goes forever.

And just a beautiful match. I mean, will your marigold went on to just have heaps of praids for Roman Reigns and his performance and the facials. Just an outstanding match, John. And one that we don't often get to see is like a raw main event. I felt like a PLE and the crowd got hotter and hotter and hotter as the night went on. This to me felt like the kind of raw main event I wish we could get more with more regularity. And I'm curious, do you think it's because there was a tournament? Was it because Roman so rarely wrestles and defends the title on Monday Night Raw? Was it because it was the opponent's, you know, home country, if you will? How much of the credit is because this was an international PLE and those crowds are just hotter? Or do you need that perfect combination to make this kind of magic going? I think it's only above, like I don't even narrow down to one saying I like Roman Reigns has become and I know you're a Roman Reitator. I am not. Why are you saying that? Because that's what you're going to social media for like last several months about.

That's not true. I said he was overrated. I didn't say that. That is hate. That is freaking hate right there. I said I'd enjoy his matches. I've loved all six of them this year. I loved all seven last year. They're phenomenal every time. And he's become a freaking star that can get wrestled six matches. I don't know how many matches he's had. I mean, you're the hatred. So counting up his half doesn't match. But Roman Reigns has become the guy that's very rare in this business that can come along and is in attraction. You don't want him resting on TV every week. You know what he said? It's an iron sheet. Not an iron sheet because it's the original sheet. It's a Brody. It's a doula. It's a fair that's going around to Jack Briscoe that's going around. I mean, this Roman Reigns has become an attraction and that's rare to have. And when you have this match like this and it's first and so long, I don't know. You haters in soccer, pedeus keep up with all this stuff. But when he has his first match, so tell him it's a big freaking deal.

And Penta is a massive star. And he saw the social media people staying up all night to go see him the next day. For that's freaking rock star level. Man, what is the hell? I don't know if I've ever seen that. I guess I have. I have. But you have guys fans that are staying up all night to make sure to be the first ones in line to see Penta. I mean, you get two incredible stars here. And I think Roman Reigns is an incredible worker. It's always Penta, but I think Roman Reigns, he deserves his flowers. No, no. I think people knew this match would be fantastic. And I think, and it was everything about it from the tournament to decide who's going to wrestle Roman Reigns to being in someone's home country. The Roman not wrestling hardly ever on a regular television. I just think the whole thing worked in this perfect storm. I absolutely love the match. Thought it was fantastic. It was an incredible vibe. I'm actually an advocate, John.

The more we talk about it, the more I'm an advocate for it. We need more international shows. I think we've just become spoiled domestically in North America. And I would love to see more of these crowds. It feels like. I mean, I remember on on, I guess we know now with the benefit of hindsight. It was AJ Styles farewell tour when he wrestled Cody in France. Like when they're making their introductions, the camera is shaking. Like I haven't seen that since Canadian stampede in like July of 97. So the idea that you've got that sort of enthusiasm from the fan base. It's infectious. It comes through the television. Do you think that there will be like, I know we typically don't talk about other promotions here, but. Like TNA, I felt like once upon a time, they should have just committed to be in European based. And on the other channel, well, that fellow does own a football club in London. It feels like instead of being number two or number three here in America, what did make business sense to try to dominate another continent, another part of the world?

Absolutely. Yeah, because the TV landscape has changed. Revenue models have changed. You know, before you had to have tied in time zones in North America specifically United States and Canada. Because that's where most of your pay for you revenue was coming from. And most of your TV revenue now TV revenue United States, you look at sports clubs look at NFL. It's worse almost everything else globally. But now you have streaming that's not bound by any certain geography. And because of that, it opens up the entire world. I completely agree with you. I don't know why some of these countries, you know, it's like someone becomes a big name here. They go to Europe and they're a huge name because it's something they heard about in America. Somebody becomes a big name in Europe. It works the other way as well. People come here and all of a sudden now you go, these guys are taking Europe by storm. Who cares where you're getting over and who cares where you're drawing full arenas? I'm not saying now, it doesn't matter as much as the North American time zone, how much US and Canada, the North American time zone, how important that is.

It's not that important anymore. And so I completely agree with you. Find a place you're getting over. Start filling arenas. Bro, that's infectious and it'll spread everywhere. It is interesting to think about, you know, the lab dynamic because I know that years ago, and I realized this is a different model. But I guess there was a lot of chatter around Summerslam 92 with the time zone difference being what it was. It's felt like that had a negative effect on the pay-per-view by rate. I understand that's not what we're talking about now. We're talking about a streaming service, not a pay-per-view. It is a little bit of a different model. But I do think it's interesting to think, hey, if someone were to launch a company internationally, if they're doing a weeknight show, it would air during the day here on a weekday. So that could be challenging. But if they did it on a weekend, John, when I was growing up, I watched most of my wrestling on Saturday and Sunday. I mean, there's a lot of people who grew up on Jim Krockett promotions. They know all about 605 on Saturday.

I watched Superstars on, and some of the syndicated WCW shows on either Saturday or Sunday morning. So I don't think it's a crazy suggestion to think that if they were to run an evening show internationally, that it could be an afternoon show here in America, or if they ran an afternoon show over there, it could be a morning show here. It feels like there's an opportunity for Saturday or Sunday, whether it's mornings or midday. But I don't know that anybody's going to pull the trigger. Is there a world where you see TNA ever embracing that? Or because they're AMC, they all just won't allow it. I don't, I can't see it happening because it is a huge leap of faith to go over there and hope that you build the model. You pretty much have to build the model first, otherwise it doesn't make sense to take all these North American based performers over to Europe or wherever and have this essentially a territory over there or this TV shows over there until you get the model built. And it's kind of chicken and egg. You know, you're not going to have it unless you do it. You're not going to do it unless you have it.

And so I think there's a problem there with resources as far as how can you get into it. And if you could get into it and say it tours take the three to six week tours, you can make money off those. Get your TV deal. Conor it. I don't think anybody would have thought that man, you know what? Money not coming to the biggest time wrestle. Right. Really, really, you're going to go against money that football with co sell and Meredith and like different. You're going to do that. That's stupid. Nobody would believe that money. That's huge. So if you have people, content people want to see. They're going to find it. And I don't give a damn it. It's four o'clock on Tuesday afternoon. If you're in India and you've got a great wrestling show. Wrestling fans in North America will find it. No matter when it is, it to me is more about quality than is anything else as far as developing a show and getting the eyeballs. But as far as the leap of faith of going over there, you kind of need the money first and that that's tough to do.

Well, I'll tell you what's not tough to do. And that's enjoyed the big fight this Saturday the fight is on and wherever you're watching draftings bring you closer to the MMA action. The draft king sports app is now live in all 50 states. One app every sport all 50 states. New draft King's customers can sign up with the code STW spend five bucks to get 200 and rewards within 21 days. This includes all markets that's code STW in partnership with draft kings. The crown is yours. That with DK Sportsbook gambling problem called 1-800-Gamilar 1-800-My-Reset. Connecticut called 888-78-977-77 or visit ccpg.org. On behalf of Boothulk-Casino and Kansas, that tax pass through may apply in Illinois. 21 and over. Void in Canada. A vent contract trading with draft kings predictions involves risk of loss. Availability varies. Predictions offer void in New York. Bet to get bonus bets that expire in seven days. Trade to get predictions dollars that expire in one year. $50 in rewards issued every seven days via click to claim for 21 days.

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it's ready for wherever life takes you. Whatever your lifestyle, Kia has an SUV designed to fit your needs. Learn more at Kia.com or visit your Southern California Kia dealer. Hey, you're a broadcast partner down in Tripoli, Corey Graves. He actually did an interview with CageSeat, and he was basically explaining that many wrestlers actually failed to communicate their intended match story to the commentary team. The idea being, we don't really know the story that you're trying to tell with your physical movements in the match. Like, what is the story inside of the physical component of the match you're trying to tell? He, as a broadcaster, would like to hear it. He says, quote, I cannot overstate how important it is for talent. Hopefully some of them are listening to this right now. I know that I sort of appear to be kind of a grumpy guy. I'm really not hard to get along with, especially when I'm sitting at the commentary desk all day while rehearsals are happening or walkthroughs, etc.

If you tell me what you want your story to be, I will tell it for you. I will most likely enhance it for you. I will put my spin on things and maybe do it my own way, but I will make sure that what you want conveyed is conveyed. With that said, there's a remarkably low number of talents who make sure they seek out myself or Michael Cole or Wade Barrett or Jotessetor or Vic and Booker. And it's funny because there are always these stars that populate the top of the card. Off the top of my head, I will tell you every match of his I ever called, John Cena found me. AJ Styles found me. Roman Reigns found me. Now, you're uniquely qualified to talk about this and weigh in on it, John, because you were one of those guys in these main events. And now you're calling the main events outside of the ring. You called like, I don't know, 10 Freakin' Restomanias. Now you're one of the voices of AAA here in English. Chat me up, how important was this when you were in the ring? Did you know to do this? Is this something you learned along the way?

Who would have sort of brought you up and said, hey, make sure you go tell so and so. When did that click for you if it did? And how valuable is it now that you're on the other side of the desk? Yeah, I learned it along the way. As you're getting in the business, nobody tells you this. For Cory to come out and say this, this is something that a lot of guys would have never learned until unless they became a top guy. And so I think it's great for Cory to say this. I've said this many, many times to the talent. You know, we want to hear from you and so many don't. But when you get to that spot where you have to convey a message about what you want, how you want to leave the pay-per-view, how you want to leave the show, how you want to leave the storyline. Very important to be able to convey that to the announcers. You know, me and Michael Cole used to get commentary directly from Vence. That was fantastic because he would open up to come on him because he knows there's not a stooge in the road. He knows neither one of us three is going to go to the internet and release some details.

He doesn't always know that in the production meeting with so many guys he doesn't know. They're in fair, but there's stooges in those things and stuff gets released. Vence would hold certain things close to his vest that he would release to me and Cole, which is important. Because it's important how to call a storyline. This is not sport. So this is not the Denver Broncos versus the New York guys. Where whoever wins, it doesn't really matter if the storyline is. It does matter and wrestling. If a guy's getting beat, sometimes you have to take care of that person. The whole match. You got to take care of the match. Sometimes it matters that you know who's going to win. Because you got an underdog that you can say this guy has zero chance of winning this match. Because you know he's going to win. You're part of the show. As Michael Cole used to always say, we're faking answers with fake names calling a fake sport. We're part of the show. We're not real commentators. And because of that, we need to know storylines. Because of that, you know, wrestling, you know, aside a little job here. Wrestling is different from sports and that you're a step behind, not a step ahead.

So in sports, you want to say the free safety has walked up that frees up the Mack linebacker to blitz. We could see a blitz coming right here. That enhances the viewers watching this. You know, oh my God, I see the free safety. He's man up on outside. Bigger comes the Mack linebacker. He splits and just like the guy said, this is really cool. Now I'm inside. Now I'm getting inside the chamber here. In wrestling, you don't want to do that. In wrestling, you don't say, I think that's the undertaker. He's coming out. You know, we do that. You want to be behind step behind, not a step ahead. That's hard. That's why sports guys have a hard time doing commentary because they are used to being a step ahead, not a step behind step behind. You got to be dumb sometimes because you're part of the show. Like, who is that? You always get mad just for saying that. You know who that is. That's the undertaker. He's been there for 52 straight ways. You know he's coming out. But if you do, you kill the viewer experience because you won't them sometimes to see it and then for them to register in their mind, who that is without you giving it away.

Like, oh, he's he's hurt his arm right there. I bet this could be part of the finish and I bet that the are if you do that now sudden the arm bar comes into effect later out of the blue. Then you post back, you say, hey, that was because arm got hurt earlier. If the fan recognizes the fan recognizes it enhances their viewing experience. You got to be a step behind not a step ahead, which is important and wrestling. But as far as the storylines of guys talking to us, you know, when I started becoming, you know, the kind of the guy in 0405. That's when I started realizing this is how important it is to talk to the commentators. Corey's right. By the way, there's very few guys that have been trained by events. So I think it's the greatest producer in the world. And I think you see that thing Michael goals one of them. I think Corey's one of them. Corey has certainly been helped a lot by Michael Cole. I see a lot of similarities when I'm doing commentary with him about the way he takes copious notes. The way his research is done, which is absolutely incredible.

Those guys, you know, I remember the first time I did commentary. I walk out there in Jim Ross has these whole page full of notes. And he's sitting there and I'm looking at wow, that's impressive. And I look at Jerry Loller. He's drawing a girl in the front row. That's the essence of commentary. You know, they feel shak and Charles just show up. Talk. You know, that's what color commentary does. But we still need to know some things. And we encourage guys all the time to come back. Very, very few guys do. And we very few guys. And the art of sitting out there. I go to some arenas and I don't see the guys sitting out there. I think that's terrible. They don't know. And so it's not a matter of their arrogance or anything. We'll sit out there the entire day at ringside. If you ever see pictures of ringside, you know, like during the day, the answers are always out there. If you wonder why, because we want to see rehearsals. We want to see what guys are talking about. We want to see what guys are going over and matches.

And see if we can pick anything up. And a lot of times guys at that point will come over and talk to us and tell us, hey, here's what we need for the match. Here's what we need for this. Here's what we need for as far as the finish that we're going. See, you know, what always come back. I mean, all these guys with these top guys would always come back. A lot of these guys get you're trying to get over. You go talk to them. It's like pulling teeth. Like dude, I'm trying to help you. I'm here to put you over. You can help me out here. Tell me about you. I swear to you, Conrad, I'm close to you guys. Tell me about you. What can I say about you? Well, I'm a heel. And really? That's what you're going to tell. You know, it's just you got certain guys. And when you say something like that, you're like, this guy ain't going to get over. Hardly any chance whatsoever. The guys who do realize how important it is, you know, you're going to have that integration of commentary. And you always see it. And Corey's saying this.

You guys out there that are wrestlers. I don't care if you're in the first match. I don't care if you're in the third match. I don't care if I know anything about you. And especially if I don't know anything about you. Say you're in the second match. You know, they use it all very the first match. You know, guys, people don't know. Say the second match usually is the match where you, you know, puts them out of the, you don't know. And you kind of want to hide it. And you know, it's very little about you. And so your debut. People think why shouldn't go by the counter. So that's when you should. Because I don't know a damn thing about you. And when I Google off with the PDF or wherever else. I'm trying to put stuff together. Come to us. And I don't care if it's real or not. Make it up. Make up a storyline. And sometimes talking to me. Or talking to Corey. You'll sit there and you'll say something. I'll send a curse something in your mind or curse something in my mind. We once had this 20 years ago. We had with this work. Give us something the worst thing in the world is when you have a match. You don't know much about them. They don't have a huge athletic history. And there's not a big wrestling history.

And you're just sitting there and just. You're calling a match that nobody cares about. One time I was calling a match and I. Vince guy in my ear he goes. I can see it the drop kick. This isn't radio. Tell me why he's throwing a drop kick and why I care. And that's the essence of commentary. You got to make people care. You can call all the moves you want. I'm not against that. I'm not saying that Vince was against it either. But you got to make people care. And that's what a commentator does. And that's why it's so important that these guys actually come around and tell us certain things about them. John, I can listen to you talk about commentary forever. That was absolutely fantastic. I do want to ask you though. I've seen some people online. You know, talk about I guess we'll call it the credibility of the announcer. And I know once upon a time the first time I heard this sort of discussion is the way. You know, Gordon's holy handled his business. You know, he was separate. He was trying to be the straight man.

You know, he wasn't going to be involved in any physicality or any of that stuff. He wanted the announcer to be positioned differently and Bill Watts would often talk about that. So that's what I wanted to say. I wanted to say that I was a sort of thing. But then more recently we hear some of the talking heads, the pundits, really take an answer to task for the exact same thing you just said. When you sort of let the viewer decide on their own and discover, hey, who is that? You know, when you have to sort of, I guess we'll call it play dumb. Does the you think that hurts your credibility with the viewer? I understand that it is more fun and organic for you not to spoil the surprise. But is there a tightro back there where you want to make sure that you have some credibility. So they they know that they can trust what you're saying and they have a relationship with you. But also too, you don't want to spoil the surprise. So you do need. I don't know, not give a spoiler. I don't know another way to say it.

How do you walk that tightrope of maintaining the credibility, but still allowing it to be exciting? I think you air by getting the match over and not getting yourself over your ego's got to be in the match, not yourself. And these guys that I'm sorry, bullshit. These guys that say, oh, I can't do that. I wouldn't mind my character wouldn't allow you're a fake wrestler. You're a fake commentator with a fake name called a fake sport. Okay, you're part of the show. So what are you going to air on now say my credibility. Okay, say this person's coming out. Say I know with Penta. Okay, you know, one of it. Penta's behind this. I bet Penta's the one that doesn't also in Penta comes out and he goes, I told you, you just ruin that for everybody. Okay, now you've kept your credibility really high. And you're the Tony Romolo wrestling and you're calling stuff before it happens, which works really well and football doesn't work. So I'm wrestling. What are you going to do then? Are you going to be the one that goes out there works with Luna? Are you going to be the one that goes out there and works for one of range? Are you need Penta to be the surprise and need him to be able to do it?

It depends on where your ego is. If you're an asshole and your ego's in yourself and you can't get over that, then you'll get yourself over. But if you're part of the show, that guy in the ring is going to draw money. Those two guys in the ring are girls are going to draw money. You are not. You're there to call it. Now do you help absolutely 100% do you need great commentators? 100% I think there's some terrific commentators out there. I've said all along. I think Michael Cole is one of the greatest fall time in Tony Chivalen over the A.W. It's other than Tony's fantastic. There's Corey's awesome. I mean, there's so many great ones. When Booker says that I don't know how Le Parker is staying this young. It's just I love Booker, but I love stuff. I love guys being entertaining. Commentators need to be entertaining when matches are bad. That's one of the biggest times we step up and go, okay? My ego's still in match, but because this match sucks. I need to get something over. I need to be entertaining. And also, you know, you look at some of these matches and guys that bitch forever about the fact that hey, you're promoting something else here in my match.

Okay. Your match was any good or better than what I were promoting. We'll be talking about you. That's not an issue that you know that that's that's the directive. But to me, Conrad, I understand the tight wire that's being walked that unique credibility. And I do agree with that. I do agree with the Gordon Soul analogy that Jim Ross the analogy, the Lance Russell, these guys who had terrific credibility. But at some point also that credibility, the ego of that commentator has to be in the match and the show and not in themselves. And if it's that's the case, then all these questions will be answered very easily. I hate to keep getting granular with you, but I'm trying to learn myself. I love this. You know, there's usually two. Sometimes there's three people at a desk and sometimes hell, there's four or five. What do you think is the right combination?

Should there be one play by play and one color? Is that the way you would call it? I know sometimes has, you know, he prefers the term analyst and I get that. But chat me up. Do you prefer a two-man booth, a three-man booth, something else and why? Two. I know that about it. I think it need more than one. I think it helps to have another voice out there. And I've seen a list of the small wrestling matches recently on YouTube and stuff. We have one announcer, you know, Joyce Stiles did that and he said, he did a great job. There's some terrific announcer's out there. You list a small YouTube matches by guys that were calling matches by themselves. I mean, they're fantastic. And they paint an incredible story. I just think it helps to be able to have that dynamic. To have a color commentator to me specifically leans one way or the other. And I think he'll probably the best way to lean because that way you can have the play by play guy play more of the straight guy. The three-man booth, I think, can be really hard to work. You got the baby face, you got the heel, there's color commentators.

I mean, it just, it can be a disaster. One time we had a four-man booth on SmackDown and I thought that was just an absolute disaster. So I wanted to ask you, if you do have a two-man booth, we'll go with that because that is your favorite. I think it's normally, like you said, play by play and a color guy. If you're trying to sort of walk the tightrope of credibility, does it make sense? If you're going to have to have someone, I guess, look a little foolish or play dumb or whatever. Should that always be the color guy and let the play by play guy maintain the credibility or am I overthinking it and that doesn't matter? I think it's okay for the color guy to get over on the play by play guy's son. But again, you want to make it about the play by play guy versus the color guy ever. Sometimes you want to take shots at him. You know, you hate him and monsoon will probably the best in the world at what they did. They take shots at each other. He knew was never going to wrestle monsoon. So you can't ever make it about you against this other guy.

You've got to talk through what's going on out there. You got to help the Roman Reigns did this, Roman Reigns to put it on his degraded son ever. They didn't cheat, they didn't do anything. And the play by play guy goes corrected. You can make it, you can correct each other, but if you can ever make it toward each other. Because you guys are not wrestling and you guys are ones that aren't going to draw the money. You're going to help the crowd, you're going to help the show 100%. I mean, you need, you need to have good commentators. There's no doubt about that. But they're not the ones that are going to be in the ring. So you got to keep it that where it's not going against each other like as so much that it becomes about you to look like two bickering kids out there. Fighting each other. It's got to be, in my opinion, it works best with a heel. The heel will say something, even something outrageous. Now, is it better for the heel to say something that is not credible? 100% your head. Yeah, that's what I was getting at. Not necessarily that they fight. I appreciate you gave me the perspective there.

But like if you were like, you know, who is this? And we know it's the undertaker. And like we all know that in my head, that would make more sense for the color guy who's probably going to try to be entertaining. He could probably be the guy to say, who is this? Because if the play by play guy does it, now maybe that diminishes his credibility. But the other guy is supposed to be the seasoning, if you will, right? He's the sizzle. Maybe not the steak as much. Yeah, you know, and I say stuff all the time. And of course, tripping with it, Michael Cole's tripping with it. Jerry Jim Ross was tripping with it with Jerry Lawler. So I say stuff all the time that's crazy stupid and then make any sense. It's supposed to be funny. And the main straight guy will, what's wrong with you? Yes. Something to that effect where, yeah, you always have the straight guy who is the more knowledgeable guy. And so yes, I agree completely. If you're going to have somebody look dumb, have the heel look dumb. That's what we do. It's, there's no bad way that this comes out.

He said, oh my god, I had no idea. That's the undertaker. Well, you can see it's something. You know, it's something. But who cares? You're doing it for the crowd. And yes, I think that it makes more sense for the heel to do that because when you're a heel, you climb in the ring, you fall through the ropes. So what? Babyface does that as a technical wrestler. That can be a big deal. Heal does it. That's so what? He's a heel. You know, he'll see and do almost anything if they're intelligent and creative. Do you think that the best dynamic is that the color guy is a heel? 100% yeah, I say 100% I think they can be a little bit. Yeah, yes. I think fans are used to that for one. I think and they're used to that because that works. Yes. You know, he didn't was, you know, when people was talking about who's the greatest commentator of all time, they're talking about who's the second greatest because he didn't was head and shoulders better than everybody else. But he and was so good at it. I think people are used to that people are used to that guy being the heel and being entertaining and carrying the heels message.

Who's going to carry the heels message? If you both have credibility and are legit shoot commentators. Nobody, but sometimes what the heel does is preposterous. You know, you introduce a foreign object, you introduce an ex player and you you claim that that didn't happen or you claim that there was a reason behind it that doesn't really make a lot of sense. The straight guy can't do that. The heel can do it. So I think it's so great to have that person beside you that can be entertaining. That can help stupid jokes. That can also be called down by the straight guy. And I think that dynamic to me is what works best and professional wrestling. I started or not in 2013 and we make bike apparel. The best part of Shopify for me is our ability to run the business as essentially non-technical people. We're able to admin everything on the back end, front end and sell things online easily. If Shopify were a bike accessory, I think it would actually be the bicycle. It's the thing that you do the thing on.

We run the business on Shopify. Start your free trial on Shopify.com. And I could listen to you talk about commentary forever. I do want to ask one more thing and that example you were giving where, hey, we know it's the undertaker. Everyone watching knows it's the undertaker, but it's our job to build the excitement and let the audience, you know, it be revealed to the audience on their own, not spoil it. If you're the play by play guy, would it allow you to have some more credibility instead of saying, hey, who is this or who could it be? Maybe that's more of the color guys role as we just laid out. But if the if the play by play guy, if there's silence and he needs to fill it, does it make sense to maybe not finish the sentence and trail it off like, wait a minute. Don't tell me or do a complete thought, but you're sort of planning the scene, right? You want the fans to finish your lives. You want the fans to finish your thoughts. That's the whole reason you do it. You want the fans to come to realization because when the fans come to the realization of what's going on and wrestling, they own it.

You can tell them what's going on. They don't own it at that point. If they realize, wait a minute. That's the undertaker. Now, I think he's been involved this entire time to last three months. How sudden the fan owns it. Now, the sudden becomes much more immersive experience for the fans because the fan ends up owning that. One of the best times I've ever fed me was when sting debuted and you see him back in the back. I think it was his debut. I'm not sure if it was something like that. They see him in the back and I think Michael Coco is, oh my God, that sting. And Vince fed me the line. That's not sting. That's a picture of sting. And when he said it, I thought, is that good? I didn't know. It wasn't my line. And so I wasn't sure how good it was since then everybody said, I hear that all the time. That's not sting. That's a picture of sting. That to me is the difficult dumbass heel. It's just fun. It's fun to be able to have that. And when you've got a guy, two guys that are sitting there and they're a little more knowledgeable than two guys sitting on a couch because they're in the business.

And like there are a lot of cases of the color commentator. They're a former wrestler or something where they have some knowledge, you know, same in football, same in basketball, anything else that guy usually is a pretty knowledgeable guy. They're talking about the sport, but they're having fun. Now, if they're talking about the sport and having fun, you feel like you're in on it. You feel like you're on the couch with them. So when you're talking about, go, that's not sting. That's a picture of sting. Are you kidding me? Would you stop that sting? Now all of a sudden it is. Oh, I knew it all. You're just having fun. And when you're having fun, you invite people to join you. Is it possible that a commentator could in an effort to have fun, take away from the seriousness of it? Yeah. It's going to sound like I'm attacking you here. I'm not. But there's a talking head who with the fabulous Americano grove, you know where I'm going. They'll grind a Americano match earlier this year that we're all still raving about. When Gabel takes the mask off, I absolutely loved your line. When you get all excited and you go, that's a Gabel.

I laughed out loud at my house, but I saw people, and I know that because I know and love you and I loved it. But I saw some people saying this was such a serious moment and he took away from it. And I thought, I don't know if that's fair, but I did want to ask you about it. Like, I know I loved it. What is your thinking of when is it okay to inject that sort of humor? Because you're clearly being saying that to be funny and be entertaining. And when is it taking away? You got to go all in. You can't be afraid and you got to go all in and you're going to make some mistakes. And for those that think that was a mistake, I don't care. I don't think it was. And I thought it was funny. And when he came off the mask, that's the first thing I thought of. That's Chad Gabel. It's just such a horset to say something like that because you do the whole storyline. But I think there's a line, obviously, look, obviously, when you try, try, try. It's like storylines for wrestling. When you have 52 weeks of storylines and you've got multiple shows a week,

you're going to have a few that suck. But when you have 52 weeks of commentary and you're doing two to three hours every single week, and you're sitting there trying to make things happen, you're working your ass off, you're going to say some things that cost the line. It says the thing that cost the line both in taste, say the things that cost the line, both in taking away from the moment itself. And when you do, it should happens. You try to figure out a way to get it back, but you're hoping that the whole of it is better than just a few things that are better bad. But yeah, is there a way to take away from it? Absolutely. When you're trying to be entertaining and you're trying to be funny, that's why I conrad it's so important to when you lay out. You know, we laid out in that first entrance of El Grande Maricano and Dom. I mean, for several minutes, you know, it's like I always say about Al Mockels, things Al Mockels, do you believe in miracles? What do you say next? Nothing.

For a couple minutes, he said nothing. You know, there's times when you just lay out and let the moment breathe. There's times when you lay out and let the crowd breathe or be part of the show or whatever they are. You know, that's important to do as much as to talk. And sometimes much more important because the seriousness of the moment. And you're trying to interject humor into something. Is it going to be everybody's cup of tea? No, absolutely not. But you're hoping that it's most people's cup of tea. I got to tell you one of my favorite things I've heard you do down in AAA is when Finn Baller went down there and he had his own puppet for Mr. Guana and it was demonetel or whatever. And you just yelled, we're all doomed. I mean, my entire house that we were watching, we just rolled laughing. I thought it was fantastic. I think commentary should be fun. And I think there's maybe no better example of that besides yourself, of course, than book or tea. And I feel like sometimes when people are online because every year it feels like he wins the wrestling observer newsletter award for

it worse, commentator of the year. It's like, you guys don't get it. And I feel bad for you because bookers having fun and he's hoping that you're having fun. And so for you to say he's the worst, it means you're not having fun. You don't get it. But he, I mean, Shucky Duckie, Quack, Quack, are you kidding? Tell me how to play that. You know, try watching sporting a basketball booker. He's one of the most entertaining guys in the world to sit by. He's just fun. Booker's fun. And when he's watching wrestling, he's like he's sitting in a sports bar sitting next to you. You would have a blast sitting next to booker. And if he wouldn't, I don't want to be around you because bookers awesome. And when he's doing this kind of thing, they say, well, he's the worst kind of, that is such a bogus thing. Booker has so much fun and he worked so hard to get these guys over. And see, you know, you understand, it's like guys like me and Booker and Corey and Michael Cole. We sit together and go, what can we do for this guy? Literally, we'll have meetings like that about that. What can we do for this person? Wait, Barry, when he first came out, you know, me and Michael Cole sat down.

I read a book on Bartley Gorman. He was the King of the Gypsies, Barrett Barronuck, or Fighting, you know, after, you know, before big, big, big, big boy, you should, they come back for the Baronuckle Fighting. Bartley Gorman is a nephew now. Jeremy Gorman is doing unlossing boxing matches in London. I've kept up with him. So I've never met him in person. It seems like a really good guy. Pretty good boxer. Good boxer. But Bartley had the Bull Hammer. That's where we got the Bull Hammer for way, Barry. You know, the Bull Hammer, you know, like Bartley Gorman, you know, people with text all the time, people from the UK who knew Bartley. He's passed away since. But they would say, a text and go, man, that's so cool that you're doing that with Bartley. But that's a team from what can we do to help wait? Michael Cole is trying to get this idea of the Baronuckle Fighting. So I looked up Baronuckle Fighting. I found this Bartley Gorman. I read the book. It's a fantastic book. Bartley Gorman, by the way, if you want to read something that's really freaking cool, it's a good book.

But that's where we come up with the idea for the Bull Hammer. And so people don't understand how often commentators get together because we need something to talk about too. If there's nothing there, what are we going to do? You can't just call moves. That's boring. I mean, really, really boring. You got to be able to tell some stories and how many times we've had meetings, bookers like that. But how, what can I do to get guys over? And that's because your ego's in the show. Booker knows that better anybody. In my opinion, I love booker as a commentator. I love booker as anything. Well, something else to you and I both love is Lorinco. We've had this gum for quite a while and we can't stop bragging about it. You know, we, John and I have both learned a little bit about the importance of dental health. And it does feel like a lot of what we eat, you know, when even drink really like coffee tea and those acidic foods. Man, all that stuff can do long term damage to your teeth. So John and I started leveling up our chewing gum routine with Lorinco. This is actually a chewing gum that makes your teeth stronger every time you use it.

Yeah, Lorinco is better for you chewing gum that uses the mineral your teeth are made up to support that daily enamel health. Lorinco uses something called nano hydroxyampetite. That's the mineral that your enamel is actually made up to strengthen your enamel and repair the damage. It comes in a ton of flavors and they have a really great fluoride free toothpaste as well. Lorinco hooked John and I up with the gum and we're huge fans. I've already reordered. I know John has to not only taste great, but Lorinco will help get you a brighter smile. It's plastic free. Whenever I use it after a meal, it does feel like the gum gets the saliva going to help me rinse away the debris. I think you'll notice too that your teeth are going to start being as for stop being a sensitive, hot and cold. Here's what I know. Lorinco is a totally effortless way to make sure that you're taking the best possible care of your teeth. It's effortless. Why wouldn't you do this? And right now Lorinco is offering our listeners up to 50% off at by Lorin dot com slash wrestle. That's B-U-Y L-A-R-I-N-E dot com slash wrestle by Lorin dot com slash wrestle up to 50% off.

John, we talked a little bit about commentary and this was not my intention to spend all this time on commentary, but Lorinco got to ask because at different times you were put in positions, I believe that you were saying things that weren't always your own words. There's rumor in the new window that you used to have a voice in your headset and he would give you some lines here there and yelling. And we've heard from guys like Mick Foley and guys like JR that at times have events in your ear was an absolute freaking nightmare. They did not enjoy it, but JR would also say, Jerry the King Lawler never heard boo from Vince McMahon in the headsets. Chat me up, is it true that Vince used to, I guess we'll say, feed Houston lines in your headset and how was he as an on air live producer in your ear? Fantastic, absolutely fantastic. He's the best producer I've ever worked with by far and it's not even close. I mean, not even no one else is in his stratosphere. I mean, he's that good.

Now the thing about is also Vince would have an idea of what creative is going to do, say in a couple weeks. So Vince would be me some stuff sometimes that didn't make any sense for the current programs, storyline, but made sense in hindsight because Vince knew what we're doing in a couple weeks. So having insight into the guy that the on the company was terrific, you know, because he'd tell you stuff that he wouldn't tell a lot of people because now it's just you and him on the headset. And he has to help direct you toward where you want to go. Vince was fantastic. He was very succinct. You know, commentators, producers, the big mistake they make, I've been produced by a lot of people. The biggest mistake they make is they'll say something like, hey, you need to say that Finn Balor had a great run at NXT and then he won a bunch of titles down there and that he's got a real great future or something like that. Now he they're telling you this while it's live and you're talking you're talking at the same time and you're trying to hear this.

And Vince would say something so succinct, it would just be like it wouldn't be a full sentence like Finn Balor came from NXT, he's going to Europe, Europe for the championship, something that if whatever it was, while you're talking, you're able to say I was able, I trust Vince enough, I'd be one word behind it. He was that good with this producing. Now the legendary stuff that he would do, what Jerry Jamal says about Jerry Lauder, same thing with me, same thing with Booker, Vince never yelled at us one time. Not one time, not once, not one single time and I work for him for, I don't know, hundreds of not a thousand or more shows, not one time. Now did he yell at my car? Oh my God, yes, absolutely. Hey, what do you, Jay are absolutely, yeah, but he treated us meat, meat, booker and king completely different. Do you think that's because you guys were color or because you were quote unquote one of the boys and he had a different expectation for someone who was trying to, you know, contribute in a second act capacity.

One of the boys, I think more of it than anything else, and plus it's color and I think Vince, you know, Vince told me one time, you know, I'm not to say something, I said it, just say slip, it just slip. And as soon as I went to first, I said, Vince, I'm sorry, you told me not to and I said it meant to not be good. You know, if that had been cold, oh my God, he had a cold months, you know, he, but now he just treated, I think it's something that we're one of the boys, especially guys that work for him. Now, I treated lawless saying with the same type of respect he treated me and booker, he didn't, he did not yell with us. I don't want to talk about booker when he said the joke that Vince made, Vince, Vince gave like some dad joke or something to say and booker said it and somebody got Vince's ear and the thing about his Vince isn't crazy. He just keeps doing a million things. And so, somebody said, hey, did you hear the joke that booker said and Vince gets on the head said, hey, says, hey, booker, you might have to apologize for that.

Vince had forgotten fed it to him. So booker apologizes for the joke that Vince had fed. Oh my God. Oh, yeah, it's tremendous. And I'm sitting there, I'm watching, listening to the whole thing. It's just freaking amazing. And booker doesn't say where booker goes the back when he does Vince goes, hey, I appreciate you doing that booker. Booker goes, no problem, boss. Yeah, Vince had fed in the joke and somebody had called him say, my matter had booker apologized. It was a little bit of maybe an offensive joke that he told and he told booker and booker apologized for. It was great. Vince was awesome. I'm Vince was fun. I said a lot of crazy stories about Vince on the headset. Those are all true. At least at least ones that I heard. But Vince was fantastic to work with. Do you remember one line or one moment in particular that that he really enhanced that maybe at the time you didn't realize how awesome it was, but with the benefit of hindsight, you're like, Lord, his, his interjection right there, his little line he fed me, it made all the difference.

And maybe it wasn't even a line. Maybe it was an instruction to lay out or something like that. But do you remember one or two or how whatever you remember that was like, oh, shit, that made all the difference in the world. He told me to lay out one time and I said it. I said lay out. Oh, I'm telling you to lay out, not say lay out. He's actually funny. I mean, I mean, we're talking one time because this so and so loses. I'll eat my hat. And I thought the finish was the guy to lose, but I knew Vince would take care of me. And he did. The guy ended up winning by DQ or something like that. You know, so I could spike football and brag about it, all that stuff. He's to be me all kinds of stuff that you know, I wouldn't that he knew a surprise was coming. And what I said made sense post fact. And to me, he always, he did tell us to lay out sometimes. I remember after when was it after the I think taker leaving was lay out after Brock at WrestleMania.

For several times, we're just lay out, just lay out, you know, and Vince had a really good feel about stuff like that. He had incredible feel. It was great to to be out there and have him in the headset because it was so much. It was easy. It was actually easy because he knew exactly what the boss wanted. Exactly what the guy owned the company, wanted as far as commentary. And if you were on a path that wasn't right, he would correct you. He'd he'd act a go a different direction or whatever it was. He was, I thought he was fantastic to work with. And I think Booker and King would say the same thing to play about play guys, not so much. Talk to me a little bit about the setup. I mean, I know we fans have heard this and we kind of have a loose understanding, but we don't really know. We've got the commentary desk. Who can you hear in your headset? Can you hear the truck and Vince and a producer like who all from a traffic standpoint? Who can you hear? And then sort of lay out.

I think there's buttons on the desk that are like a call button in case you need to clear your throat or sneeze. Maybe there's a talk back button. So it mute your mic for the feed, but you can speak to someone in the truck like just logistically from my hardware standpoint. How does all that work? Yeah, to my knowledge, I don't remember a talk back button. I don't think that I don't think we had one. I talked about separate talk back, but which was kind of tough because they had that, you know, that Godcam as they called it on you, where they could see you. And so you'd make it like a hand gesture, something to Vince. If you needed something, there's a way to really a way to talk back to them because I'm live on commentary. You had a call button, of course, or something. If you had to shuffle papers or do something or something happened or somebody yelling something behind you that you don't want to get on camera. I mean, you get on microphone, you know, something obscene from a fan or something. You want to hit the the call button. But other than that, there was another who all could talk to you. Basically, anybody that the truck allowed you to so Vince had a decline to me. Kevin had a decline to me and a Kevin Don.

Kevin Don. Yeah, and occasionally the producer that sitting at, I say occasionally, they may have had the access all the time. There's nobody used it. The producer that's sitting by the time keeper, like my Billy Kidman or my drill briskel back in the day at gorilla had access to me. Vince one time he told her when he goes, her one go to the camera seven and he has me. He is at the wires across. He has me on the headset, but I can't tell him it's me. Some live on commentary. And so he says, her one camera seven. And of course, her one to do it. The experiment didn't hear him. Vince is talking to me. And so finally goes, her one god damn go to the car. What are you going to do for yourself? Go to seven. And of course, her one never does. Vince gets matter and matter. I'm hearing his man just go nuts. I mean Vince thinks her one's just so vain in front of everybody. And it is. Oh my god. It was so funny. I finally text him and I said, hey, Paul, you're talking to me, not her.

And this is coming on. He thought it was a crazy. I don't know if you've seen it, but there's a fabulous clip out there from when they were in a commercial break way back in the UWF days. It's Michael Hayes doing color Jim Ross on play by play. And they throw to commercial and they say something like. Folks don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. You won't miss a thing or something like that. You don't want to miss a thing. And then there's a law in the action and the guys are just waiting and you can hear J. R. Say and folks when we say you're going to miss a thing we fucking mean it. These motherfuckers ain't moving. And so they're just they know they're not live and it's just fun. But we fans. Man, we eat that shit up. We absolutely love it. I got to assume that occasionally when something that wasn't supposed to happen, I hesitate to use the word botch, but we'll use it something bad that's less than awesome. That's not exactly what we hope for happens in the ring.

Vince has to be handing it up in your ear. And I don't know Vince for real, but I imagine he's trying to make you laugh. And it's almost like we've heard for years that wrestlers would try to get the undertaker to break. Did Vince ever try to see if he could get you to break. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Vince is a very good sense humor and I found it funny too. So which they tell you something. I thought it was funny. He would come up and say something like sometimes you'd have a match that was just awful. And I like not father's not a lot to see this. Oh my God. He would say some shit's not not all the time because he was really busy. Vince did everything. He was still rewriting the shows. He was producing. He was making sure the right cameras were being used. He's producing the commentators who Vince did a million things back there at gorilla. So I wasn't a lot of extra time, but in a time that was kind of boring. Vince would could say some shit. God, I'm mighty it be funny.

I can only imagine I wish we had recordings of that. Do you think there's any chance that you're I guess we call it traffic through the year. Was that ever recorded? Like I know that we would sometimes hear, you know, what Michael Cole would say in a commercial or JR has would say in a commercial and sometimes on a satellite satellite feed that would get out there. But I don't think we ever heard what they were saying back. Do you think that's ever been recorded anywhere or is that not possible? I think if it is, it's been deep six. I mean, it was pretty profane because we had to sit there and watch our language also. So when guys would sit there and talk to each other. I mean, the language is horrible. And so I would imagine that nothing was recorded. It was deep six somewhere along the way. I mean, it was there was some funny stuff going on at the time. And some guys got would get really buried. You know, come like you guys have done a promo or somebody did something in the ring or something. You know that wasn't any good. You would hear some pretty funny stuff coming on commentary that because Kevin done had a good sense of humor too. And he would say some stuff sometimes that was really funny.

Did he ever, did Vince ever feed you a line that you that you said that you I know you said like the layout thing. But where he's clearly trying to get you to say something inappropriate. And you said a minute ago you would say one word behind him. I again, I don't know Vince, but I feel like he eventually is going to realize almost like in the movie anchor man where they have we put it on the teleprompter. Ron Burgundy is going to say it. So if he felt like, Hey, JBL is my adult speaking spell. And if I just say it, he's going to say it. And because you're one word that he set you up like that where you had to get. I mean, one time and I won't say what it was because it's highly, highly appropriate. But it was funny. And he speed me live for a line. And I also, I start to say what he said. He's, you almost said that on global television. But you psycho billionaire. You fed it to me. Yeah, it was freaking. Yeah. Yes. Yes. I love that. I don't know why it's so much fun. But I know I blew to gold is fun. And you can be having some fun too. Remember when you were young and getting hard was easy. I mean, you can just take a look at our page. I like good housekeeping and be good to go.

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You'll also receive an additional 10% off plus free overnight shipping on your first order. Visit bluetooth dot com for more details and important safety information. And we thank bluetooth for sponsoring the pod and the bedroom. John I can talk about commentary forever, but I want to talk about the mechanics of wrestling for a minute William Regal is very rarely contributing to social media these days and he wants to everyone to know he's definitely not reading the replies. But he does share his opinion sometimes and he had a strong opinion about Monday nights main event with Roman Reigns and Penta. He wrote if any talent of any standard want to really up their quality of drawing in your audience then study in great detail Roman Reigns facials reacting I would say selling but selling is acting and this is a different world of that in body motion from last night's bout against Penta on raw masterful. And I know that we've heard Bruce before say that Vince was really big on facials that this is where you make your money. This is where you tell your story and maybe at times that's why he didn't always lean into luchadors because you couldn't see the facials register as well with a mask.

When do you think facials really clicked for you and how important do you think they are for pro wrestling now. I started tagging with black bar and I think that's when a kind of black bar had great facials. He had a great thing to do great promos and Bart really helped me a lot but the stuff Bart would do when he was selling it and when he's doing a promo. Bart would do a promo like it's a freaking Shakespearean play. I mean he would have the facials he had the proportions. It was awesome. And I started looking at it and I was like this is how you do it. I think that's when wrestling is done right I think that's how guys learn learn from the older guys. That's one of the reasons that a lot of times when young wrestlers are coming in they stick them with an older guy to help train them in the ring. That's what they do with me in the black part. And I think that's when I started realizing that I did have a good it then probably not. I don't know if everyone came good at it but if I did it was later the wrestling in Japan it wasn't that big a deal. But but but stand hands and then Japan.

Look at any photo that they had back in the day because how you got over in Japan was the Japanese magazines. And so you'd look at stand and he'd have this rear chin lock on somebody. He had this. He'd have this stare in the sneer and this crazy contorted look. That's the craziest man alive. Tiger G Singh was the same way you couldn't take a still photo with primer without having some topic really cool facial expression. And a lot of those guys were doctor desk was like that. I mean those guys were so freaking good. You know I don't talk about Japanese wrestling as far as the working as far as the personalities. Those personalities were huge and they got over in the magazines. They got over in something that is a still picture when I used to see that I would I would look at it and go stands now obviously if they have a picture that doesn't look right they're not going to put in the magazine so I understand it's the self selective a little bit. But also you look at and go stand always knew the cameras on him always had a facial expression and I learned so much from that and then I'm you know when I got the Europe I got to watch family and St. Clair and those guys sell and the way they did things.

It's just everything was facial everything that's why Ray Mysterio to me is such a freaking anomaly that guy can communicate with an entire arena with a mask on. It is amazing what he can do and all these luch doors can't been to can there's so many guys that can do that it's just it's a lot harder but it is possible. I don't know if you saw this but Ray Mysterio's daughter is now a member of the rookie class at the performance center so it's not just Dom but now Ray's daughter as well is at the PC. I don't know I mean this Mysterio legacy feels like it gets bigger by the freaking year john. Yeah you got Ray Mysterio adlining a triple a one that. It's signed tonight later is son tonight's later I mean that Mysterio is pretty much on a lucha Libre. It's unbelievable shout out to her I hope she does phenomenally well the pressure of being a you know the daughter of Ray Mysterio.

I mean Ray Mysterio is like to make he makes Taiwan Lannister look like board Cleaver will you stop. Let's talk a little bit about C and punk you have to take on intangibles in wrestling he recently did an appearance on hot ones. And here's what he had to say I think there's a lot of things that can't be taught I think some of the greatest wrestling superstars had something prior to learning how the mechanics work prior to learning how to run the ropes. I think the rock is a great example he's just somebody who was entertaining intangible is the greatest word I can possibly use. I can teach a monkey how to do this right but it's up to the monkey to show a little bit of flair and speciality like what makes you kind of stand down. Why should people open up their wallet and buy a ticket to come see you. And we talked about this last week you know triple H said in front of a group of young hopefuls. That hey we're not looking to hire pro wrestlers we're looking to hire superstars I think seeing punks kind of saying the same thing here right.

Yeah exactly you know like I would events told me what the best lessons ever had commentary when I called the drop kick or something and this was trying to using that to prove a point he wasn't against calling drop kicks are calling moves. But he says John I can see that this isn't radio why do I this person doing that why do I care about this person. You know and so I think seeing punk is right you can train a lot of people to do a lot of different stunts. You can't train people to be able to connect with the audience. You can enhance that. The rock used to always back back in the day I'm coming back in when he first started. He would have his promos and he go wherever single bit of every single freaking bit of it and to see what he thought he could do better to see what he thought he could change. It was really a studied effort to become as good as he became and I think that is the hardest part is connecting with the audience doing the moves. See him punch right you can train anything to anybody do that.

Let's talk a little bit about some news that made headlines this morning as we're recording on a Thursday morning. You know we have talked about this last week when we were trying to speculate I think everyone remembers I asked the question when the is WrestleMania next year in Saudi Arabia because we know that they've got the creative figured out we know that they've reserved viewing parties and there's going to be live shows at the Madison Square Garden theater for either NXT or triple A or vice versa there. But we still don't know when the date is now we speculated a lot of things last week but the biggest is we kind of are at a war with Iran in that part of the world. And there's a report this morning from wrestling observer radio that says the US State Department is advising against travel to Radea. The WWE of course has the crown jewel PLE set to take place there on November 7th. Now that's still six weeks away seven weeks away so we got a little bit of time.

But right now the State Department is not for this it does make me beg the question what the hell is WWE going to do. Like respectfully they've got a financial deal I'm sure there's a financial commitment there probably feels some sort of responsibilities to fulfill the contract and certainly there's going to be value. And there's going to be value implications here from a stock standpoint but none of that really matters if it is a safety issue. But how do you reconcile this and how do you make the decision is this something that it's too early to even discuss does this even really matter right now do we start to think about. Backed up plans for the event do we postpone the event and just say when things settle down will bring it and does this maybe make more sense why we haven't heard a rest of my day if things are up in the air like this. I don't know about the rest of my day as far as the travel advisory I think they're going to work with the State Department and work with what the travel advisory really means and does it mean that it's unsafe and I'm so safe they're not going to go period this is not a big deal.

And if they go safe there's this isn't look at kind of there's 2437 violent acts against people for 100,000 in Memphis. You know many are in re on less than one for 100,000 so it's 2500 times something's going to happen to you in Memphis than it is in Rio now listen understand re on doesn't have a potential war is going on under I mean sorry Memphis doesn't have a potential war that's going on understand that but people are just all of mine. I think that's not exactly assumed the Middle East is dangerous I think that assumption could be completely wrong. They've been to be not going to do anything that in dangerous the lives of any of their performance if they go they're going to be safe and you know people are going to bitch about that you're going to have snow plays going how could they possibly do this there's a war going on the thousands miles away. I get that but they're not going to do anything that's unsafe for their performers.

Well yeah I don't have any doubt about that. Let's talk about somebody who is safe and I'm so glad to see this report. We saw Sean Waltman, friend of yours friend of mine sitting down with the undertaker on his podcast and they talked about the WWE ID program and he mentioned that originally triple H was cool with him just reviewing tapes for like six hours a week. If you're not familiar the concept is WWE would sign young hopeful talent to an ID contracts they could continue to work on the independence but the WWE is going to subsidize them with a check. How huge check but a little bit to keep going and it basically secures that they've got maybe first right a refusal should an offer come down the pike. A great performer out of the state of Georgia or at least that's for us on Sean legacy he was on the WWE ID program now you can see him wrestling on NXT. The program works and and I like that it exists and I think it's cool that WWE is trying to keep tabs there but I did not know that Sean Waltman was involved. But here's what he's saying you know what I do I go back and I watch my old matches and I look at all the mistakes I made and that's what I use to help teach them.

And I made plenty you go back and watch and everyone thinks these matches are great and I'm not going to argue with you but I see the things that I didn't do or I failed to do missed opportunities. And I don't know that Sean Waltman gets enough credit for how far ahead of the curb he really was. He came into wrestling at a time when it was expected that you're going to be 6 foot 4 and 330 pounds of solid muscle and he was over 6 feet tall but not 300 pounds and he wrestled a much faster pay style. A lot of people would say that he and Jerry Lynn helped pioneer the modern style today and I don't know that they ever really got his just do I think if he came along right now we say this all the time in business and life timing is everything. But if he was coming along in like the last 10 years he would have been a top guy he wouldn't have put him just been a cruiserweight champ he would have been wrestling in the main events for the big belt as they like to say. And we know that he was the the straw that stores the drink in the NWO and in DX so he knew how to get over with the crowd connect with the crowd make him hate him make him love him.

I mean just a super talented performer and a heck of a nice person behind the scenes one of the most genuine people I've ever met in wrestling his heart for his family and for dogs tells you kind of all you need to know you're going to love him and his wife if you ever have an opportunity to meet them and meet and greet go out of your way to do it. But I'll admit John I kind of scratched my head for the last 20 years and wondered why the hell is Waltman not a bigger part of WWE behind the scenes. So when I saw that he was doing the WWE ID stuff I thought this is one of the best ideas I remember hearing in a long time like if anybody can communicate with the next generation and explain to them hey what to do what not to do what works what to avoid I love that but the strategy of not necessarily picking their matches apart but poking holes in his own. I just think you want to talk about accountability it really de-arms or disarms any sort of opposing view of oh they're picking on me it's like oh no look everyone says this is a great match I'm going to show you 10 things about it that I wish I could do over like that pursuit of how do we make something good better I just love this approach from Sean Waltman what do you think this report.

I think the world of Sean Waltman the Sean's one of the smartest guys I've ever been around Sean is brilliant for especially as far as wrestling I mean I've been in so many matches with Sean with that clock and the way he puts together matches every one time I was in a match in the middle of it I started I called reversal or something he goes I wouldn't reverse you just out of the blue and his point was I'm too small to reverse you and you know stuff like that doesn't get by him you know he was. He and Kane were an incredible team I think was the greatest of all time and I really mean that you know obviously you had different things to do with Sean he wanted to go to DX and help with that group out what you did Kane had his own stuff going on with Undertaker and other things else that's why to me that this tag team didn't last they were awesome Sean was like I mean great worker I remember one time we're going to beat Sean and I'm going to beat him. Kane and I think I forgot what to do and Ron goes have pop beat me in the middle you know I mean I'm right in the middle and that's how much we thought of those guys I thought how much we thought of pop you know obviously it's a work but you know back in the day you know guys they're over guys that Sean like that less they really like them and we really like those guys Sean is a terrific mind I just think anybody could learn something from him and you know I'm going to beat him.

I mean you're right if he was around the day he'd be champion somewhere. Such a wealth of knowledge so excited that he's able to contribute behind the scenes in WWE and my only advice is if you ever find yourself under Sean Waltman's learning tree man have a pen and paper handy takes some notes and make sure that you're focused and if you need instant focus look no further than ultra John and I love these I know that John was rocking some ultra when he was doing commentary last week. I mean I'm sure that whenever he's going to be behind the microphone he's got ultra nearby it's because it's instant focus in a pouch here's how it works you just throw one in literally five minutes before you need to go hammer down and buddy you're there it's that instant boost of energy that you need that instant boost the focus that you need that lasts an hour or two. There's a lot of our listeners I know who are probably thinking hey do these have nicotine in them to these have caffeine in them because that's what we're all familiar with I want you to know ultra has no caffeine and no nicotine so I know what you're thinking well what the hell exactly is in them.

Great question ultra has partnered with the leading neuroscientists to design these pouches these are clinically proven new tropics and adaptogens to deliver immediate focus and smooth energy that lasts an hour or two. That's not real specific here these are truly clean plant power pouches designed to sharpen your mind and lift your energy all without the caffeine the nicotine or the crash they do this using infinity px healthy and on alpha g pc vitamin B6 and vitamin B12 and if you're fasting or on a diet I want you to know that ultra can even help you quiet those cravings and suppress your appetite. And I'm not sure everywhere it's absolutely blowing up because people believe in it and they've noticed if they've been using a nicotine pouch or caffeine well it's going to spike your resting heart rate at night and that's going to kill your your body and your brains ability to recover ultra pouches have I guess what we call a shorter half life than caffeine. So you're going to be able to sleep better or at least this been my result I'm sleeping better and I feel like I've got more focus I know you will see the difference in fact 90% of users see significant improvements in their overall focus levels if you're looking for smooth energy enhanced memory and a calm steady flow state focus this is for you.

You're also going to see guys like Nate Diaz rampage Jackson and hell even Larry wheels these are now top professional MMA fighters and they're rocking with ultra and you should be to they've got a lot of great flavors the watermelon kind of reminds me of the sour patch kids watermelon gummies that's why my wife loves it I know our producer they still he loves the blue razz see you sweet and tart I kind of rock with that cool mint I think maybe maybe JBL likes winter green because it reminds us something.

Yeah because we've got something kind of special here on curtain jerkers this week when we were together right after the the debut of big band Tater you had an idea how do you celebrate big man Taters worldwide debut well you celebrate with a little field trip and your idea was let's go to his old stomping grounds of Atlanta and visit an oddities museum so it's JBL and big man Tater looking at weird. Yeah that's where you got a smoky skull out of it. No spoilers ladies and gentlemen buckle up and stay tuned because next week it's really going to hit the fan because here comes the human bus all name known as Jamie Dundee but without further ado how about a little JBL how about a little big band Tater how about an oddities museum. Oh it's time it's time it's time Tater time.

It's museum time. Smash. Smash. Honesty job. Smash. Hey welcome to our Indian Air Revival. Thank you very much is there a Tony Chimble exhibit here at the oddities museum. Not yet. Right. Yeah you should be yes yes you know Tony would be a best seller. I'm a best seller but it was probably scared kids. I'm a best seller. Welcome and you'll see our museum too. We are. Yes and this is Tater time. Tater time. Is Tater time. Yeah. Is that big alive? Not anymore. We don't deal with the living. That's a large mummified thing. We got some small. Oh sure look surely they could stuff Chimble.

That was actually my nickname in college. Large mummified big. They cut you. LMP. They call you LMP. Large mummified big. I can't get this back. A freeze-dried marmissette. How's actually my nickname? It's only four. That was your nickname when. That's cool. Freeze-dried marmissette. It's only four and $75. What's freeze-dried? Did you freeze-dried yourself? We all freeze-dried your marmissettes yourself. We don't do them ourselves. Generally the taxidermy pieces we're dealing in are anti-dried and cheap pieces. Ah! John! Tater time. Oh my god! Yeah! You know what I'm saying? They can't stand putting it back. Put it back. What? What? Oh, I'm saying it's proud of himself. It just pops out over now and then.

Wow. Where's that marmissette? I like marmissettes, really. Kind of sexy. You ever held a new ivory? No, I haven't. You ever held it in the ivory? I once dated an elephant. You ever held it in the ivory? Ah, let's get you to help it. He is the mastodon. I like to think that ivory wouldn't grow. I feel like taking that thing on the plane. Somebody's gonna arrest me. Hey, Tater time. The rhino skull for $6,000. I think that's my original helmet, right? I think it is, yeah. That or the rhino's actually dead. I mean, he was running for office up in Michigan. He was a good guy. I'm missing. Is rhino the one that he's, uh, he says let me eat? Yeah, I think he did say that, yeah. He ran for politician. He did like the rhino smash and ECW. What's that? Where's my smart little game?

Like the wooden club? Oh, this is great. This like a shalei. That thing is killed to the people. I think I'm getting hit with that. Yeah, I'd be great. Wow. Yeah. One time we're doing a show and then, uh, family's out there in the last match. You got a shalei with him. And Michael Cole was reading that the last 15 seconds of the show. You and Michael always had a written out. It's really fucking good. Really good. So he's sitting there and he's reading that. He's all active. He's like a yellow saying. He's got the whole thing written in. It takes that shalei. And hits Michael on the hand right in the middle of the final. Michael's like, it was so fucking funny. It's not a Greek of putting together. You got to leave Michael once in a while. You cannot do that. One time. I'll give you the one time. I'll start with one time. Look at that. What is that? I don't, I'm surprised they don't have jimmel here. And that's the, um, what? What? What? I'm a guard between us. No, no, no. No, that a board. Oh, there's a shalei.

Oh, there's a lot of people. So he's mad. He's like, I don't have my fear yet. In my eyebrows. I tried to go now. Yeah. So like, horns are along this parents go, hey, you audit these. Come on. He's surrounded by a bunch of other repercussions. What are you thinking? He's going on here. You think you just pulled his hair forward? Yeah. I don't, I don't think he's going to shoot wool. No. How do you get this shoe wool? Yeah. Why is the skeleton 300 dollar? There's a real scale. That's war hog. That was also my name in college. Hey, here's an opium bottle. Hey, we got found some stuff for Jamie. Here's an opium bottle. Antique prescriptions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See? Yeah. You're going to have to lose. You don't have to. I look, what's that roll where I started? That's a...

I just want to see if he's done this. Is that Roman Reigns? The most overrated made of matter, ever? Well, according to Conrad. Freaking against Roman Hater. Conrad's a dick. Need a bone? 15 bucks for a bone. And that's your buddy, Jimmel? No, wait till skinny. Jimmel's fat. That's a book about your career, John. What does this say? Stiff skulls and skeletons. There's any pictures of me? I hear some billiard balls. I can't have seen some things. Look at it. Here's a slide. Jamie, do you just text instead of he's in the lobby waiting on us? At the hotel. So. Did he really? We were supposed to leave an hour ago. Yeah. Jake Roberts.

I don't know where Sam is. Look, here's a foot. I think I'm going to need it. After wrestling. Why would you need it as a foot? Everything hurts. Everything hurts today. We are a butt-hop foodie of a... I don't know if it'll fit your head, but you're one to talk. That's the new game I'm going to play right there. Yeah, yeah. That's the name of it. It's time. Like time for butts. You know, it did. Butt-top. I'm going to have to do that. You're totally in this big. There's nobody even in the hotel. Look at this one. Oh, yeah. See? That's right. That's right. That's right. Oh, Jamie is here.

So if I carry the ivory on the plane when I get in trouble. I'm going to lose my mind. I'm going to lose my mind. But it's legal, right? It's got a paperwork. What is going on? We don't have a sign on it. Now, generally, for things that can't cross state lines, like that rhinos here. The rhinos skull cannot. So that's a... That's a... You know, it's a... Oh, really? The George residents. Now, honestly, it's not really our responsibility. Like, you know, what you do with it after you own it is your choice to make it. What do you think his skull would do? How cool would that be? You might be a good skull. Yeah. You might be a good... I'll come back when I'm dead. Yeah. All right. Cool. Cool. I'll call my skull to the honny. Yeah, we got a lot of good skulls in there. So there's a chance I couldn't cross straight lines with it. Yeah, we'd have to check it out. You want to hold it? Oh, yes. Yes. That's pretty heavy. Oh, yeah. So this came off elephant. Mm-hmm. The elephant mad about it? Oh, I'm sore. Where's cruel? Very clean.

Luckily, well, I'm sore. I'm sore. I'm sore. Luckily, luckily we're not really doing that one more. Hopefully. Yeah, we got some real treasures here. Now, can you, these skulls cross straight lines? You're right. Don't want to give you these back. What are they? Are these balls? Oh, yes. You could definitely take those on the plane. Wooly rhino fossilized tooth. Whoa. That's a will it really? Yes. Really? Yes. So cool, right? These are fossilized teeth. Where'd you get them? Where'd they come from? I came from Moe. Well, I know I came from where they met and when they come from Siberia, they come from North America. I'm not sure. They had any idea where it came from. Where these kids are. Because they used to have where we mammoths in North America a long time ago, right? So we take on a lot of collections. That's pretty cool. And really, it's our owner, founder Jeremy Gibbs.

He's kind of thinks his head is super power. And so he brings stuff in and I find a new forever home. What's the answer to that? Wally Rhino and a Wally Mammoth. They're just different animals, right? Different animals. You don't have a Wally Mammoth teeth for you? I do have some Wally Mammoths. It's awesome. But that's a Wally Mammoth hair. And what is this? How? That's a Wally Mammoth. Coast piece. Poss-wise. What else do you have on Wally Mammoth? It's the about hair. Where's the hair? Oh, here. Here, hold that. What is this? Poop. Oh my God. That's Wally Mammoth poop. Really? So that is a popular one. Here, warm this up. You're like the mammoth. I'm telling you, a mastodog. I'm not saying yes. That should be the one. Wally Mammoth hair. This is a, it's called a copper light. So it's fossilized dinosaur-dung. Dinosaur-dung. Is that dinosaur?

Is that mammoth or do you know? I think this is dinosaur. That's a dinosaur-dung. The serial killer necklace. What is that? Whoa. Piece of art that someone made. Do you ever heard a caro pants or him? No. Oh my God. He was a brute and a monster. Really? Yes. And what is this that's in here? Oh, it's a, so that's a necklace. Yes, it's a necklace and artist made this, and then you're painted up this box and cars. Oh. Careful. Buddy, that's a shoe knife. Yeah, I know. What about a crow? That's so nice. Don't be cruel. They were like dinosaurs-dung. I'm not being bleeding. Yeah, but the heart is hurting. What, where's hippos? Cool. What are you trying to do? Oh my goodness. I know. It looks like giant predators. That's cool. That is so cool. I want that. You brought me that? No, you got one on your shoulders.

What? I don't mean I can't hear it. What's it like? We can't or can't. See? Which one can't? I don't really know the Brian animal. And another thing would be, well, we don't have a big one if we can get stuff for sale right now. Why do people hate clowns? Well, there's a word for it. What do you call it? There's something phobia. Chlorophobia. Yes, yes, yes. So you're smart. Thanks for saying that out loud. John, you ever ran into a vintage cougar out the wild? Yes. You think? That was what? That was what? That was what? That was what? That was my name. Congratulations. Well done. Anybody gets a nickname like that is I'd buy. Here we are at the Big Man Tater Meet and Greet. The man got over Hakees. The next big thing. He is the hottest thing on Indy's circuit. He is the Indy God. And here we are at the Meet and Greet. People are lined up for blocks to come here. Sir, come here, come here. How can we help you? Tell you what? Tell you what?

It's $500 for a picture. $800 for a color. Pleasure to meet you, man. I'm your driver. Oh, yeah. He's our driver. He's our driver. Go get the fuck out. I'm going to get a drink. Get a drink and get a drink. Get in here. You're blocking the line. Idiot. When does it start? It's been going for about 30 minutes. I think they're all outside. They're kind of bunched up. They're trying to figure out how to get in. Because everybody's trying to rush in first. They line a traffic. They line a traffic here. It's terrible. For one, I hear there's a really long line outside. Did you do a social media post? I meet you. Yeah. I ain't any indian. They're going to let me in. That would be a long freaking line. Do we have to stay the whole time? Well, you've got to sign a bunch of autographs. I'm going to let him all hit down. Cool. Thank you. Stay on the line. He's letting them in now. They're making the way in. Oh, yeah, they're making the way in now. Hottest thing on the independent circuit right here, folks.

By far the hottest thing around. Can you have sharpies? Yeah, they're coming, too. Anything is headed this way. Do they have any, like, hate buttons or something? Oh, yeah. No, no, no. You're bigger than that. You're signing posters. Oh, I'm signing posters. Yeah, poster size. Yeah, big, big band, big band tighter. Oh, yeah. Huge, huge. But they're coming. Oh, man. A lot of people are all in line here. They're going to line up in a picture. What are you going to say? autographs. You're going to make a ton of freaking money. Everybody wants to see big, big band tighter. You're the hottest thing on independent circuit. It's autograph time. It's time. It's time. It's autograph time. It's time. It's time. It's time. What to grow your business with the power of podcast advertising? Reach loyal, engaged audiences through trusted host endorsements across the podcast heat network to learn more about advertising opportunities. Email Dave at podcastheat.com or visit our website at podcastheat.com.

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