PAC | Petition against Keanu Carver | Christy Hemme’s Study | Pollock & Thurston

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1:02If you're going to site news sources, pick good ones, incredible, really, maybe. The reason is simple wrestling economics. You can't afford it, don't go. Watch it on your TV, it's for free. There were respectable wrestling journalists who needed answers. We don't just answer to the people I, to the people at home, we enter the shareholders. How about we pop a number right here, right now? I am the ultimate corporate soldier. Welcome everyone to Paula. Everything's normal. Thirst, what? It's the season premiere. It's the fall season. It's the season premiere and Branded, Thirsten was apparently busy this week. Everything our world renowned intro, fantastic. Two corporate centers. Head update our new logo.

2:04And the old logo is still in the video and while I was at it, I got carried away. Well, wonderful. It gets the thumbs up approval from all the voices that properly get us into the mode for our show. Here we are everybody, coming at you a little earlier and we have lots to get into on tonight's show. We're going to be talking about, you know, an unfortunate week in the pro wrestling industry. We're also going to be taking a look at something that had come out a week ago, but I want to have some time to talk about this paper that Christy Hemie has put out that was a really interesting study. We're also going to have an update on Ari Emmanuel's continued book tour. He's just hitting all of the key spots, all of the big podcasts. Not exactly is this man saying and we'll also be talking about some of Brandon and I's reporting from earlier this week. But we are going to start on the unfortunate news of the passing of Ben Saturday, this

3:04past Sunday. This was less than 24 hours after the all out paper view that he had performed on. He opened the paper view against on Druddy L. Edelow. And the next day, he, he was pronounced dead at just after 4 p.m. local time in the plain Illinois. There are some details that have come out that he was spotted, hunched over in his vehicle of, and this was just outside of the Kava restaurant in the plain and 911 was called. But after they responded, I mean, he was, he was pronounced dead almost right away. And there was no indications of foul play or trauma. And it appeared suspicious, according to spokesperson with the medical examiner's office who we have also been in contact with. And that the cause and manner of the death are pending for additional testing and it will be several weeks before results are available. And this has been the major focus of the news cycle for the last couple of days and including

4:09Wednesday night's tribute edition to pack on AEW dynamite. Of course, Brandon, this comes just a few weeks after the passing of Andy Williams. So it has been, it's been a terrible month. Two tribute shows that AEW has hosted and as has been noted by many is that on Sunday was Andy Williams celebration of life that was going down in Buffalo at the time this news was breaking. Yeah, and I know there were at least several people who were afraid W were there. And I don't know if the news got to them earlier, but I was at the Andy Williams tribute events and I came home and looked at my phone and I couldn't believe that there's news that that pop has passed away suddenly. So it's been in especially, I mean, it's sort of reflective of what the show was last night which I did see parts of that, you know, this has been a very hard last few weeks for

5:13people connected to the AW especially. Yeah, I mean, he was only 40 years of age. Yeah, it was just the stunning story because this was like the added shock of someone that a lot of people had just seen Russell less than a day before at the same time. Right. I went and I looked at the cage match for all out and I was like, he wrestled last night. Yeah, like open the paper view, look totally fine in the match. Like, I don't know if anyone has gone back to watch it, but it's like you would not have been struck as like anything being off or like they had a really solid match. The two of them, they got that like 15, 16 minutes I want to say. And like this was just a gut bunch to so many people, very influential performer. I think at a time when you look at, you know, the like his style was especially in the mid 2000s like he was really at the cutting edge of what flyers were doing. He had such an amazing coordination about himself and certainly he became, you know, really

6:19well regarded as one like probably the top foreigner that ever went to Dragongate. I mean, it's him and ricochet that I think people would say were your one and two foreigners. And when WWE, I mean, as much as you think about the NXT brand and when they started signing up a lot of these style of performers, it was like pack as Neville was like that was mid 2012 like that's like almost two years before the network launches like he was it was like him Claudio that were kind of like right at the early cusp of, you know, he was very against type when he got signed in mid 2012 that, you know, was a sign of things to come where this would become more of the norm of talents WWE would be going after, but he was one of the early, you know, independent stars that they were bringing in because he was this incredible wrestler and not someone that you were looking at as

7:20the ideal WWE candidate, but this like, you know, he kind of preceded and NXT and the whole network era that was built around this. I was a blossom has done running. So when the network started, I memorably I remember because that first ever live event on the network, WWE network in February 2014 was the first, I don't know if they called it a takeover, but it was the first arrival. And that was Bud Alz and Adrian Neville. Did you know he used to have a given name, used to have a first name. Do we know what the story is? He was inactive at the end of his WWE run for a very long time, wasn't he? Yes. So in 2017, that is when he wanted out of the company and he ended up staying out of wrestling for an entire year.

8:22And, you know, at the time, it was, you know, this, the general belief that it was like, it was a combination of like, you know, he wants out, there's time on his deal, was there going to be a time tacked on to his deal. If you remember the year before in 2016, right before WrestleMania, he had gotten hurt. So he was out for several months with an injury that did cost him a, you know, he was going to be in that ladder match at the first WrestleMania at AT&T Stadium, it was out there. So, I mean, people were thinking like there was time being tacked on. Now I know David Bixon's been this week, he has been noting the fact that there were, you know, actions on behalf of the WWE when it came to his visa at the time as well that was going to make it difficult for him to move on to AEW in 2019. But he ended up being out of action for an entire year basically from October 2017 to October 2018.

9:23And now in 2017, it was, yes, the Indy scene was thriving, but leaving a job at WWE when AEW was not a thing, you know, there was New Japan at the time, but he really had his, his heart set on Dragon Gate. Like it was, it was a big risk, I would say in 2017, leaving a very secure job at WWE. Like he had a good role, I would say, he was mainly at 205 live at the time, but ended up losing like a year of his career because he wanted out of WWE and it did ultimately work out for him. He did a big return to Dragon Gate, which I think was, was that before he went to AEW? Yes, yes, he went back to Dragon Gate, won the Open the Dream Gate title and then it's several months later that he shows up at the Jacksonville press conference in a, in full gear. All set to a dude with Hangman page just shows up in those trunks with the Dragon Gate

10:25belt and a face Kenny Omega on that second AEW paper view at the, the first all out in 2019 right before they started dynamite and had his runs with the death triangle, of course with the death riders had the long trios championship runs he had the first all Atlantic champion. I mean, he's just been a constant in AEW from its inception in 2019 and sort of a performer that you know, in a sea of really great talent. I think a lot of people just, you know, he, like he was getting older as well. So you know, he's not doing the, the same level of flying, but you could still see in like a match like he did on, on Saturday, like this was a guy that was still he was putting out, you know, great work. He changed his style over time, but was also more selective when he would do like those,

11:25you know, the, the big flying spots and was capable of them, but it was also an industry that I mean, he was just so far ahead of the curve in the mid 2000s and into the 2010s. And you know, a lot of that you've heard it this week like the, the influence that he has had that was kind of, you know, not as, you know, it, unfortunately, a guy passes and that gives people a lot of reasons to speak out loud about the influences guy had on you that you didn't hear about as much prior. Yeah, I mean, as far as his ring work, I think something that, that stood out to me when I first started to see him, I think in NXT is the execution. I mean, yes, he was this amazing flyer too, but just his execution of, of strikes of, you know, of certain moves. It had a real explosive execution sort of, you know, reminiscent of the Dynamite kid who was another, you know, sort of, undersized guy who was, you know, who broke out in his time. Just like I remember his, something about like he would do the boot and explode off of

12:29the, the strikes so well. You mentioned being at Andy Williams celebration of life. There's anything you wanted to share just about just be the overall mood of that event. Obviously, you left before this news had come out, but can you just give us a sense of what exactly, what, what occurred? It was a nice event. I mean, there were probably thousands of people there. There's that Bufl Riverworks, which is a venue that there's been many wrestling shows at us is where Andy Williams put on the, the every time I die Christmas party, the season, which was in many years a half wrestling show, half music show. That is fiance spoke. Josh, it was open to the public. It wasn't a closed event. You had to reserve a ticket, but tickets were free to reserve. Okay. I don't know if people could have walked in, but I'd reserve a ticket ahead of time.

13:30Did you know Josh Barnett spoke? No, I did not know. He was there. So they were friends and this is one of the first things I remember hearing from Andy when he started to train with us, was that he was hanging out with Josh Barnett and being trained by Josh Barnett. So yeah, Josh Barnett spoke, his family spoke, but also the, the mayor of North Tana Laundice spoke. The mayor of North Tana Laundice, which is the city where, where for a lot of my life, I grew up and were Andy Williams grew up, the, the, the suburb between Buffalo and Niagara Falls. And as we talked about a couple of weeks ago, just after he passed about the, the backyard wrestling organization, Federation that he and I were a part of was of course, is everyone. Surely remembers extreme, gratwick wrestling, which gratwick, what's gratwick is a, the name of a neighborhood. And it's also the name of a, a nearby park, just on, right on the river, right on Niagara River.

14:30And they unveiled, this was, this was, I was just astonished to see this. They unveiled that there is going to be a life size, what they call it, the Andy Williams life like statue and bench memorial will be at gratwick park so that you like anybody can go to gratwick park, which is this park on the river. It's like, not docs by mom, but over by where my mom lives. And be able to like sit next to this bronze statue of the, the, the, the, the, the, the Williams. So, not, not far from where he stopped ground in the backyards. Wow. So, this is going to be the biggest like photo op in North Carolina. Right. It is. I mean, this is like the most amazing like, like statue I have seen. I mean, if you're not seeing this, like you just have to see the visual. It's like the smile, the mustache, and then in big bold letters, Mr. Williams right on the front. I mean, you know, a fitting tribute to the former Ballsie Malone as you shared the, the, the history of Billy Gold Williams, you just put the Williams to make him ball some

15:34long. Yeah. Is this already up or is this just like a rendering? I don't, I think that's a rendering. I wondered that too, but I'm pretty sure it's a rendering at this point. The NT mayor is like, I thought he was in his 20s. He's like 31 or something. This is the mayor. Wow. This is the mayor. He's like a 31 year old openly gay NT mayor, which is like, if you know what, if for somebody group an NT, that's, I'm, I'm astonished that that is the NT mayor based on some of North Carolina's reputation as, you know, not always the friendliest city. But anyway, I digress. Well, I'm happy to see the North Carolina want evolving. Two editions of Rewind Away highlight the October menu at the post-Restland Cafe. We are going to be chatting about TNA lockdown featuring team angle against team cage and a legendary, horrible blindfold match between the members of America's most wanted.

16:35Then we have a review of Summerslam 2001 featuring Steve Austin against Kurt Angle and the Rock against Booker T reviews of TNA bound for glory. Capably pro wrestling's Northern rising UFC 333 King of pro wrestling. And we will roll the calls by Ari Emmanuel on book club. Plus, Pollock and Ting Talk and it is time for Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie, the review. All of that at post wrestling cap a.com $8 a month supports post wrestling. We're going to talk a little bit about the story that Brandon and I reported earlier this week, this involving NXT performer, Keanu Carvers. My real name is Kevin Robertson and this was over a order of protection that was filed by another NXT talent. Brandon and I made the decision. We were not going to be naming the person involved and we are continuing with that decision that we made. So we are going to be referring to this person just simply as the petitioner. And essentially what this order of protection states is that Keanu Carvers to stay away and

17:40not contact this person. And it's alleged that they were stalked and harassed by Carver leading to this petition being filed back on September 14th, which is one day after an incident that involved the police being called when Robertson showed up at their home. The two had dated, they had broken up and this was followed by unwanted visits, unwanted calls according to the petitioner. There's many as 44 calls that happened in one day and this did lead to a hearing that took place a few weeks ago on September 22nd, where the order was extended through October 20th when they will have another hearing. Carver had asked for a continuous to seek counsel and has been ordered to stay 500 feet away. It naturally brings about the question. Does that mean that Kevin Robertson, Keanu Carver, cannot go to the WWE Performance Center? Many questions were asked to WWE. They have not responded to us regarding that question or the status of Carver who has not

18:45been on television since this or used period by NXT since this petition was filed. Among the things that the petitioner alleged is that his behavior was abusive and threatening stating that before they had broken up, Robertson had, quote, spat on me, physically restrained me from leaving his house. He has threatened to kill me as well as my cats. He has woken me up by plugging my nose in my sleep. He has grabbed me by my throat multiple times and squeezed hard while threatening to kill me. Other listings here is that on September 8th, he had allegedly showed up at the person's home, stating he had drugs on him, left and then returned later that night, knocking on the door and staying outside the residence all night long. The following day, he had made allegedly 25 calls and then the final incident before the petition was filed came on September 13th when he was told that he was not welcome to

19:46show up. He did anyway, rang the doorbell multiple times and threatened to harm himself and this is when 911 was called and Robertson reportedly left and then called this person 44 times within the two hours. He was last booked September 12th on a live event in Lakeland, Florida. He has not been on television since September 8th and it's noteworthy because on that September 8th show, he was in a six man tag in the main event and it certainly seemed that they were starting some type of program between him and Cruz Montana and since that time, it has been Cruz Montana now starting a program with Dion Lennick. So it would seem that they are moving on with Cruz Montana and inserting Dion Lennick's for whatever they had planned. So contact was attempted by us to all parties, including Kevin Robertson. We reached out to multiple phone numbers to an email address that is believed to belong

20:46to him. We listed detailed questions. We gave him many opportunities to engage. He has chosen not to that is his right. He did have several tweets the other night, which he has since deleted where he wrote that basically saying you're going to have them. I have them. Fake. Yeah. Who's your favorite? All gone sound dumb. I'm going to go as shit in a month and fake as hell. Dumb as hell. Dumb as hell. We can go with that too. That's what I'm saying. And then fake ass virtue signaling motherfuckers with the crying or the laughing emoji. Being done in the dark is going to come to light. So naturally we followed up here. We were more than willing to bring whatever is in the dark into the light. Let's let you know you sent me these screenshots of these tweets. And I said, let's try again. So I texted him again and emailed him again. And said, you know, we've seen that you've been tweeting. If you want to add anything to our report to our reporting, please let us know.

21:50And then not much. I think a couple of hours, within a couple hours, those tweets were deleted and replaced with a new tweet that said, keep God first. We did notice we were preparing this report. I checked on a social media and his Twitter account was gone. And Instagram for Instagram. He turned his Twitter account back on and made those tweets. As I check right now, Twitter account is gone again. Oh. The account does not exist. So anyway, I don't know if we want to have a discussion about, you know, I think in a lot of these cases, having reported on a couple of stories like this, I think in this digital media world, it is certainly our, it is certainly still our responsibility to give people a chance to comment. I think the incentive is a lot less than if we were, you know, living in 1964 and we had

22:52a newspaper, and this was the only way for people to get their side of the story out versus now where everyone has a media following in their pocket and they can do it on their own terms rather than give a comment to somebody that they might see as adversarial. So there's that. He is, he is under this order of protection through October 20th, which is the next hearing date for this case. This is a civil matter. There are no criminal charges filed that we know of. We did contact local police. We did contact the state attorney's office. They said they are investigating it. No charges have been filed as far as we know, although stalking is a criminal offense in Florida. You can face criminal charges because of that, but nothing of that nature as far as you know, has happened here, at least yet. So, you know, this petitioner did file a 49 page petition that did have various complaints in it.

23:52It had a description of all these events that occurred over a series of days in the first half of September and also included a number of screenshots of Kevin Robertson. She had a work. The person had a ring camera installed. And that showed photos of him there. I mean, because presumably you can go on your phone, go into the app that lets you see the camera and it looks like the petitioner has taken screenshots of Robertson right outside her door when he wasn't welcome there. So yeah. There's also just screenshots of phone calls from a block number and such. I mean, it's more than just her statement as well. It is accompanied by additional content as well. I wanted to at least give our rationale of why we opted not to name the person involved.

25:01And you can chime in if you want Brandon, but I thought it was our duty here of protecting the identity here of this person, that it was not for us to put that out there. And we're also in a reality here where that can be tracked down. And this was something that we certainly weighed and just felt that it was there is not a need for this name to be disclosed. I don't think it changed the story here is what is alleged against Kevin Robertson. And whether it is this person versus that person, I don't think that really changes it. I understand there's always going to be that curiosity when we present something like this. And this was not something that we certainly just didn't give any thought to. We gave days and days of weighing everything in terms of this story.

26:06We spent a lot of time just going through this like literally line by line of this story. And we were both in consensus that we were not going to name this person. And that was, I mean, that is, I think, an undue harassment that this person was going to receive that we did not think was worthy of disclosing that name. Yeah. I went to school for not journalism, but philosophy. And that meant I took some classes in ethics and we used to have to talk about the trolley problem. I told you the other day, I feel like so much of what we do at least is we're constantly facing ethical dilemmas or at least the opportunity. We're presented often with opportunities to do something that would not be a holding of journalistic ethics, I think.

27:07So in a situation like this, I think there is a public interest in the public knowing whether a person who is on television who's representing WV in some aspect has been accused of something like this. And that's all it is, of course, it's an allegation. There has been no conviction here. There's been no determination by a by a court. But I think there is a public interest in people knowing whether this person is, is you know, how this person is conducting themselves allegedly. If we used the name and published the name of the petitioner here, we have someone who is allegedly the victim of harassment of other kinds of abuse, she says, while the relationship was going on, who felt unsafe enough to go to the court and ask for an order of protection. And if we publish that person's name that puts undue attention on that person, I think it can be consequences, it can be a deterrent for seeking that kind of protection.

28:16And there's always, as we talked about beforehand, there's the risk that somebody is going to dig this up and find it out. And does that deter the next person who may honestly need protection, if they feel like, well, I don't know if I want to go to the court and go through all this because maybe my name is going to get out there. So it's something to weigh. We did a lot in this article to try to minimize not only not name the petitioner, but to do things that would try to keep anyone from finding out who the petitioner was without taking anything away from the story that a reader would want to know, would need to know to fully understand the story. So that was our attempt. I would not have done anything differently myself. I think that we gave ample thought to this. And I think you kind of hit the nail on the head is that the idea is the next time something

29:22like this happens is it a fair burden that a person that may believe that they are in danger has to weigh the consequence of taking action that they will then be subjected to all of the public scrutiny that comes with something like that. And that is essentially what happens when something like that occurs is that is part of weighing, of taking action versus just hoping something goes away and fixes itself without getting any kind of authorities involved. And yes, we could have possibly we could have not said that the petitioner is another NXT talent, which we did say that the petitioner is another NXT talent. I think if we did not say that the petitioner is another NXT talent that would omit something that I think is important in that these are two W talents, two W workers who are on opposite

30:24sides of this legal issue. And that makes it even more of a corporate issue for WWE in that in this case in particular, these two people had to be more in a normal situation would be in the same workplace essentially. So that that is an explanation of why we named, why we described the petitioner as an NXT talent, not just a petitioner. I would also add this that of if you have like an ethics code, this is literally verbatim from a version that states, balance the public's need for information about potential harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance or undue intrusiveness. Recognize that legal access to information differs from an ethical justification to publish or broadcast, avoid pandering to lured curiosity even if others do. So that was our thinking, what if it's wrestling news though?

31:27Well, apparently then it doesn't exist. And thankfully there is not a problem in this industry or any others where women face daily harassment online. And thankfully we have never had issues of addresses being found tracking people down at their homes when they're not there going to airports. Thankfully that is not a problem and it's smooth sailing if you're a woman allegedly. Moving on to WWE World's Collide on YouTube, we really put these topics in a just flowing order. But this event did air on Wednesday on the WWE's YouTube channel and this aired at 7pm Eastern time, so an hour before the Dynamite tribute special. And this was taped last Saturday in Chicago in Rosemont, Illinois. We should stipulate at the Allstate Arena where I mean they drew like a huge number for

32:32the show. I think it ended up at what like 13, 14,000 I believe was the final number. And the Cubs fan over at Lucha blog, I mean, look at this in beautiful graph form analyzing the live viewing streaming numbers for both the English and espnial feeds from WWE and the AAA YouTube channels. And we can see concurrently that they peaked in the main event which did feature CM Punk teaming with Ray Mysterio and El Grande Americano against JD MacDonna, Dominic Mysterio and Omas. So peaking at about 60,000 viewers on the AAA channel and slightly below that on the WWE channel. So it steadily grew throughout probably global audience here. I mean, certainly a global audience here. How many viewers per household do you think are here?

33:34This probably represents accounts, right? So you can maybe at best double this. So you're at like let's say 50, 100, maybe 200,000 people worldwide. That's probably on the really high end. Well, I'm pulling up what the current number is for a world's collide is now up to just on the WWE YouTube channel. So we're looking at this was the live viewership is now at 80's. YouTube views, YouTube views, sorry, 883,000 views. Okay. But what we're looking at here, which the Cubs fan puts together, like this is more reflective of the kind of viewership that we're looking at. Whereas like YouTube views is who knows what YouTube, what a YouTube view is. It is now one second is now one second is accounted for. Right. Whereas this is like this is the app. This is how many people were watching this from minute to minute. If that's what he recorded, right? And that is more like what we're used to looking at when it comes to traditional TV viewership.

34:37So that's interesting. I mean, so if you think about what well would it done, it might do. We don't know yet, but don might probably did what's done it usually do well over five seven years. Yeah. Yeah. So. And that's just in the US, of course, only on traditional TV, not calling Max and all that. So I look forward to the next head to head or head to head in the same market. Take the lead to go head to head with dynamite showdown that we get. I guarantee we get lose one more of these this year. Actually, next week we've got dynamite against NXT on Tuesday night. It's a W going to Tuesday for the Grand Slam France show. So we are getting a. It always is. It's the annual October rekindling of the. It's dynamite because it's what baseball playoffs must be. I'm moving over to Tuesday and will you will probably lose dynamite will probably lose to NXT head to head.

35:38Yes, I thought you were saying we are going to lose that. It was like I was wondering what Buffalo team has made the playoffs and. Oh no, the bills, the bills are three and no. Oh, they're they're right on track then. The bills get to play what's his name next Sunday from the Patriots. Wrong person. I know it's not talking. Oh, come on. No, the what's the guy who brought the puppy to the press conference so that people wouldn't ask him mean questions. I'm sorry, you're getting a total blank. You'll know who I'm talking about. I bet I won't. I bet I won't. Our blue jays are gone, everyone. The season's done. It's over our big like frayble. It's like frayble. Oh, Mike rabble, the coach. Yeah, yeah, see you know him. You know him. Okay, I do know the the I thought you were talking about a player here. I didn't have any idea here. Yes. Well, I look forward to this. I'm all I'm all in on the bills this season.

36:40I think I think this is your year. I do I do believe it. A judge has approved the paramount settlement. So you can queue up the clip, but they we they have basically stated that it looks like this consent decree. This is enough. Get the hell out of our courtroom. It's a big day though. This is October 1st. What does that mean? That means around $7 million is being profited by WBD shareholders today. Our first day. I put it on my calendar. Oh, it's exciting. I woke up today. I would show my calendar, but I don't want to hip-a-violate myself and show you all my appointments. But yes, today is happy ticking. Feede. It's a wonderful day. If you're a WBD shareholder, I think they all woke up to old school alarm clocks that were ticking to the sound of $7 million. And David Ellison, the paramount has made filings that they are anticipating closing this acquisition by October the 6th, which would be next Wednesday. But that would still be six days.

37:41So you know what, we will take our 40, that's an expensive $42 million over six days. And your dad can afford that. Larry can afford, you know, five, six days. What a world. It's just like, okay, 42 million. Let's just write a check. Oh, we're not going to get it. We're going out for, we're going out to see a movie tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Okay, make it 49 million. We're not going to make the deadline today. Well, either that or start your own wrestling company. One of the two. So wasn't, wasn't there supposed to be like an independent, I don't know if say investigation, but there can be an independent appraisal assessment of whether this was actually a fair deal. But the district judge, this federal court judge just came out and said, it's all good. They told Cory Booker they're like, listen, just figure it out. I'm done. I don't want to talk about Paramount anymore. And they are happy enough with this consent decree.

38:43Paramount a month ago, this was looking like not great for Paramount. It sounded like these states had Paramount by the balls that we're just going to wait this out till the trial. You have this ticking fee to deal with. We have all the leverage in the world. And I don't know if it was the threat of Paramount taking themselves out of LA that scared them into making a deal. I don't know if that was the impetus, but all of a sudden the leverage shifted and they got this deal done with, you know, not to say they come out unscathed here, but of what they could have been facing. Like this consent decree is, you know, largely seen as like these are, these are minor issues that they are going to have to contend with. Like I do not think that they're going to be sweating an editorial board consisting of people that can qualify as journalists for 10 years. That will be thrust upon this editorial board. You've been a journalist for 10 years. You could maybe I'll be on the board.

39:43Maybe I will. Is there like a work day application? You got to fill out or something? That's a great question. Maybe Ari could write a letter of recommendation on behalf of both of us. So is David Ellison, I mean, if a, you know, the Republicans, if they maintain the house, will probably not subpoena David Ellison to Congress and make him testify, but if Democrats want the house, he might end up getting brow beaten. I don't know if more than that. We might end up joining his colleagues Ted Sarando, and was it Bruce Campbell? And remember the monopoly man behind him were they were brow beaten by the Senate. I believe that was the Senate. It's a likes of Senator Holly and so forth. Who do you think David Ellison is rooting for? Who's he banking on on Calhsi this coming November?

40:46Well, he wrote his, I'm glad he said Calhsi. He wrote, remember that op ed, he wrote and was in Wall Street Journal where he said that, you know, I'm right down the middle, like most Americans, I have some opinions that are conservative. I have some opinions that are progressive, you know, and you know, there's been so much speculation about his politics, but he's not going to clarify that. He's just going to, you know, everything's going to be fine. Okay. We'll see how things go. What to do about nothing, I'm sure. We continue on. When do you expect to see any potential, like if you're looking at this from the side of paramount here, you've got this big deal with the UFC, is that an attractive property to put on any of your cable stations on like a Saturday night?

41:47Did you see that move being made? Or do you think that they just keep this on paramount plus? That is the focus and that they don't involve it on any of their cable entities because that is one area where you could see, you know, AEW potentially being affected if they view the UFC as something that's attractive to put on TNT on a Saturday night. It's an economic question, right? I guess can I take a UFC fight night and put it on cable and extract enough incremental economics to make it worth it? I would therefore be taking it away from paramount plus and that sort of mixes up the messaging right when we've already marketed this thing pretty heavily as a paramount plus piece of content. But let's just get the thought experiment out of the way. UFC fight night or AW collision on TNT on a Saturday night, which does better in the,

42:47let's just talk about a rating. I would imagine a UFC fight night would probably outrock with it. I think so, I think so as Mark Spiro said, we own young men with these sports. So and probably the ad rates are better too or at least equal. So you got a bigger audience. So you've got that going for you. I don't know that this is going to weigh into carriage fees. They are doing an interesting experiment the Saturday because this, they have a number event Saturday night. It's, it's one of like the least compelling main events that they, like they just had no main event. So they put it, it's a fight between Natalia Silva and Wang Tong. But instead of putting it on paramount plus, they are broadcasting the entire main card on CBS on Saturday night, which they have never done. It's simulcast on paramount plus, I believe, but they are trying this one out of like putting,

43:50like the main card of it's still a numbered event and are putting that on CBS this weekend. So like this is the opportunity cost has to make sense. Like I'm sure in that case, they just didn't, they were maybe they're going to play a rerun of fire country or something that night. So they decided, let's put UFC, it'll probably perform better. Right. It's just a, it's a matter of, is it worth the opportunity cause or maybe you do simulcast it. Maybe it's, it's something that would they end up simulcasting something on paramount and at end a what we now know as a WBD cable network. And I imagine there are educated answers to this. With the American Express Platinum card, I can unlock experiences like no other. Since I'm always booking my next trip, I'd love that I can earn points on travel. Plus I get a resi benefit so you know I'm hitting the restaurants everyone's talking about. And you can find out your welcome offer after you apply, which could be as high as 175,000 points. For experiences like no other, there's nothing like Platinum.

44:51Learn more at americanexpress.com slash explore dash Platinum terms apply. Next up is this Christy Hemie paper that she released last week. And for disclosure purposes, Brandon Thurston cited in this article and you did, she, she did reach out to you while working on this correct. Yes, this is something she's working on for a long time and talked to a lot of the, a lot of these doctors whose papers she sites in this white paper. So, so a white paper is, it's like a research paper that's not in a scientific journal, but you're putting it out, she put it out there on this, this network called the SSRN, which stands for social science research network. And she sites a lot of, you know, legitimate scholarly work here and she talked to some of these doctors and she puts together this, this data set of 500 wrestlers across, I believe the last instance, the 60s or so. All of whom died before age 65 and sort of looked into

45:56what their reported causes of death were. And basically the moral of the story is, even though yes, we live in this time where wrestlers don't have the reputation as much of the fusing drugs and suffering long-term health effects because of that and dying young, like they did. I remember when I was in, you know, late in high school and into college and how you'd have, you know, sadly a wrestler seemingly dying every other week, you know, off time, every week, sometimes multiple in a week. It was, you know, that 2000's period was just it, like it was, it's why like these, like these recent ones, just this month have like struck people and it was a, you know, a reminder of like where things were in the mid 2000s. And yeah, we kind of have this acceptance that well, we are not seeing wrestlers dying in their 30s or early 40s

46:57anymore. We're not seeing like until this like incident this past weekend. It's like we're not watching people that we're literally seeing on television that all of a sudden are just dying on the road. We are, you know, it feels like we have evolved past that. But the key part of this study is that when you look at this, this cutoff age of 65 that the mortality rate of pro wrestlers, it is still growing and it is still like pretty alarming figure when you are comparing it to other sports and the leading cause being like cardiovascular disease. And she has this this image in here, which I think there are more wrestlers over time sort of in this bucket. So we have more more wrestlers dying over it under the age of 65 over time. But I think we also have more wrestlers. But I think that the really pertinent takeaway is that you've still got wrestlers apparently dying of cardiac events, which you've tribulated made famous cardiac event, but apparently dying of

48:05heart issues at this portion rate to the general population. So it's about 35% of wrestlers still today are dying because of heart issues, whereas it's more like a quarter for the general population, the US and globally. And she connects this as possibly due to this connection in something in your brain called the autonomic nervous system where if you're taking all this head trauma, that could be a contributing factor to heart problems. In any case, it, you know, she takes this another step forward to actually talk about worker classification and questioning the worker classification of a lot of wrestlers and you know, talking about how there is no collective bargaining that could actually not only compensate wrestlers better if they collectively bargained, but could also maybe get some long-term health benefits for wrestlers who are because of this career path that they're choosing, apparently experiencing this disproportionate health risk. Yeah, and I don't have

49:08a words in her mouth because she does, she is very clearly not coming out as being like, you know, the dangers of pro wrestling and what it can cause you, but it is pointing out these statistics that are, you know, significant. And what she does appear to be arguing though is that when these people are facing these health problems later in their careers, a lot of it is falling on the fact that they are not financially equipped to be dealing with these problems. And a lot of it is being relied upon like the goodwill of Facebook. Oh, fun. Me as for wait, you don't, you don't need any long-term health benefits or any kind of pension retirement support. You've got go fund me and she does just got stat exactly and sort of like, you know, look, this is great and generous that all these wrestling fans and people inside the business often contribute to these go fund me's, but that's not that's not a satisfactory way. This should not be the retirement plan is a go fund me. And,

50:10you know, and she is very complimentary towards eight W's care that it has taken of Tenea Brooks, who is battling ALS. But it is this overall that like AEW is out of, you know, they are making a very ethical decision to help this woman while she is battling ALS. But there are not these protections for these performers that it is clearly at the goodwill of these promotions that would be able to offer this, this kind of help keep someone under contract and to assist with medical bills. And once you are no longer with that company and you're getting into your 50s, your 60s when your in-ring career is long over, like that is when you are going to start to have a lot of these problems and you don't have that that cushion. And if you are living without health insurance

51:10or are not on a great plan, that is going to be an enormous financial burden for you later on. And that is kind of where the crux of her argument comes is the classification. And, you know, this is someone that has worked in WWE. She has worked as a performer in TNA. She has also worked in like a producer, like creative role in TNA like she has had. She's worn many different hats at these companies and like you have gone into this brand and like it's not just a simple question of should pro wrestlers be considered employees. You really do have to go company by company and it's it's a slew of markers you have to be able to or boxes you have to check off and not all companies. The company of control. Yeah. And like a WWE independent contractor maybe weighed very differently than say a TNA performer for instance that are going to have, you know, more latitude with their role with the company. I'm inclined to say that most or virtually all WWE wrestlers

52:16are probably misclassified. Many WWE wrestlers I think are probably misclassified but probably fewer because of the lesser control over some of those wrestlers. And it has a lot to do with people here in a contract and they think, you know, oh well, it's if they're exclusive or not. And exclusivity is not not the key issue. It may be a factor but it's not a huge issue. It doesn't answer the question alone. What answers the question is the degree of control. I tell you where to be. I tell you to be at this venue on this date. You get to the venue and I tell you what you're doing tonight. I give you a producer who's going to tell you what to do tonight. I might even write out a script that tells you exactly what to say on the microphone or in front of the camera and the, you know, the minute that you have in front of it. I might even provide you with training. All these things, these are characteristics of an employee and not a contractor. Are you telling me when you got your roof fixed, you did not give them the Brandon Thurston uniform? A dress code? My roof is still not fixed. One of, now I've got to, I don't want to fix the

53:22all this again. The roofers. One of the potential roofers told me he's not going to be able to get to my roof this season. This season. No. So we still got one, one of these, one of these roofers said he would call me back later today. It is now 8.53 is not called me back. Are you going to find him? I don't know if I have that much control. I don't know if I could find him. If I could find him, maybe, I mean, that would be one factor in his, now it's a multi factor test, but that could be one factor. If I had that kind of control that he might be able to go to the NLRB or something like that and complain that he's, if he goes to work on a competitor's roof and you find out about it, a black ball. Could you like put him in the doghouse for six months and he's going to work on your lawn first and then he can eventually come back and work on the roof, but you're going to take away his, his trademark skill set and give him something that is humbling to teach him a lesson.

54:24Now I'll tell him it's fine. You can do that, but then I just won't communicate with him and then I'll punish him, clandestine in a clandestine manner. I think that's an example of him. Yeah. But I want to read this one sentence or two from Christy Hamis, white paper here where she says structural change is difficult to achieve through voluntary action alone. Existing labor and safety protections largely depend on how workers are classified all concerns surrounding retaliation have historically limited collective action within the industry and that is a pretty good summary of the dynamic that prevents collective action from happening in the wrestling industry. I think this is pretty profound to hear somebody who worked for W.E. who worked for TNA is saying this in public. Can you think of any examples of somebody who has a resume like that saying something like this?

55:29No, because this has really only been broached by some wrestlers that are far removed. Jesse Ventura tried. Jesse Ventura was somebody in the midst when he was in a position of influence among a locker room that certainly and look at what happened as a result of that. I think it is telling too that if a Christy Hamis was still working at a WWE or a TNA, she's probably not doing this to be okay. No, and I think that speaks volumes right there that she put this out when she is no longer working for a company and I would hazard to guess she is not pining for a role in any of these companies either because this is something that it always comes up and there are very compelling arguments toward it but it has kind of just been the unspoken

56:29word that you are not going to ask these types of questions when you are in the midst of working for any of these companies and for many it is after the fact that you look back and realize that hey, this is kind of a system that there is a lot of one-sidedness to these deals and protections as well. This is not even arguing about making more money or just more freedoms. Like this is coming down to something about like later in your career, you want to be able to just have certain financial stability because there is a decent chance that if you are a wrestler and you have had head trauma that there is a chance of you having heart issues that you want to be at least able to reasonably take care of yourself afterwards and that should be at least one of the benefits that you come out of this industry with is to have that sort of protective that protectiveness for you

57:32yourself. Let's go through the 20-factor test really quick. I love to go kind of being facetious here but I think these are things. I mean there is no standardized rule book but this is how these decisions are made is how it would be looked at by the NLRB or something like that and it's issues like this. Instructions and if you think about other instructions in wrestling, well if there is a script and if the booker, the head of creative, sorry, is telling you what to do then that sounds like instructions. Do you draw a line between WWE and NXT trainees where it's like you're literally getting some people from the ground up that you are being like everything here is or do you just view it all as the same? Because these people are literally going to like WWE school on a daily basis and being taught this is how you wrestle. Yeah I think for those wrestlers

58:38who are actually being trained, yes and I bet that there are certain trainings that maybe all wrestlers are required to take. I don't know if there's like if a Crystal Winsky comes and wants to have a talk with everybody, everybody is required to go do this kind of training thing with somebody. I think that would be a form of training as well. Beyond just I'm starting out my wrestling career training. Integration are the workers services integrated within, sorry, are the workers services integrated with activities of the company does the success of the employer's business significantly depend upon the performance of services that the worker provides are wrestlers important to professional wrestling? Bro, these wrestlers are a dime a dozen. Nobody needs wrestlers. This is why AI's future.

59:39Okay, services rendered is the worker required to perform the work personally does the wrestler actually have to do the work themselves? Yes, of course. Yeah until we have the hologram federation, I think they still have to do these themselves. Does the worker have the ability to hire supervise and pay assistance for the employer? Does a wrestler does Kenny Omega have the, well, that's a bad example. Does Mason Rook have the ability to hire people for WWE? No. I love that's the name you pulled. No, Mason Rook, he's a one man army. Okay. Does the continuing relationship does the work have a continuing relationship with the employer? Yes, they're all under long term contract set hours work is the worker required to follow set hours of work. Not in like a nine to five kind of set hours, but the are required to come up to be there at the building by a certain time. Yeah. And your call time. Call time.

1:00:39Kavanaugh at the the Hall of Fame this year. I mean, he had to get there. They didn't even feed him the poor guy. He got like a banana or something. Just sat around all day. Cheapskates. Full-time work. Does the worker work full-time for the employer? Yes, often on an exclusive basis. Place of work does the worker perform on the employer's premises and use the company's office equipment. This may seem a little tricky on the surface, but you know, the wrestling companies are renting venues, the leasing venues that they have control of those. And I would say yes, yes. And they certainly own the ring and all the production facilities and all that sequence of work. Does the worker perform work in a sequence that is set by the employer? Does the worker follow a set schedule? I would say yes. Well, literally from us watching WWE on Real, we realize they are very much performing a very specific sequence, literally moved by move that has been called by the producer

1:01:42in the back. Yes. As opposed to like, I guess if when I hire a rougher to roof my house, they're going to kind of do it when they can. It might take more than a day, but they're going to start and stop when they can. And it's not real. I don't know. I guess it could be to go to shade between me and the rougher, but that's probably going to be, take means, can take longer from me. Reporting obligations. Does the worker submit regular written or oral reports to the employer? I don't think that they're submitting written reports. I mean oral reports. I mean, what does that mean? Does that mean like I think the answer here is no. So there are some factors where wrestlers don't sound like employees. Method payments as worker receive payments are their payments of regular amounts that set intervals. Of course. There's guarantees at least I think that it basically everybody's getting a minimum guarantee at this point. Correct. Does the worker receive payment for business and travel expenses? If you're in a W, the answer is mostly yes or maybe

1:02:46all yes. And if you're in WWE, depending on which side of NXT Iran, the answer is no. They do get paid. Can we go to Bayley? Can Bayley give us an update on the travel expenses? I almost put her in the intro. So yes, it is, it is in W's favor in terms of maintaining an argument that they are independent contractors. I know it. They don't that they don't pay for their hotels and rental cars. And it is actually hurting a W's case to which most of the, I mean, there are some people are dual contractor, contractor employee. I know. But they are, I believe what A to B generally does is they get like a group hotel and they put out for everybody there. There may be cases where that's true. Maybe like a wrestling or something like that. They'll be able to do that. You get the point though. An employee, if you're an employee somewhere and you're going to go on a work trip, you're not paying for your own hotel. Furnishing tools and materials is the worker rely on the employer for tools and materials. I think it's a, what did I write here? It's a little bit of

1:03:51both. I don't know why I wrote 50 50 for W and no. Wrestlers often supply their own ring gear. But they don't supply their own ring. They don't supply their own entrance set. Music. Investment has the worker made an investment in the facilities or equipment used to perform the services. No. Yeah. Generally, no. When I, when I filled this out, they do invest in and ring a tire. They do invest in their bodies, but they don't invest in like capital infrastructure. Risk of loss is the payment made to the worker on a fixed basis regardless of profitability or loss. Yes. Wrestlers, wrestlers don't get paid by the gate really anymore. No, but the new day might have a different air when, when business is at a certain level, you might be asked to take a pay cut. Does the worker only work for one employer at a time? Yes. Let me see.

1:04:56In WWE, could Roman show up at Bound for glory? Could he, could he have shown up at the pack tribute special last night? There would be a temporary injunction. There would be an emergency injunction. I think he would be tried to. Does the worker, or the services, now this is where let's go back to the other one. I mean, in TNA and A.W., there are a lot to take indie bookings. So they could, right? There does seem to be more more leeway there. And this is one of the reasons why I say that it is less clear, but still, I think clear enough in many cases that EW wrestlers aren't. A.W. is still going to get like, you could book yourself for an independent show, but when do independent shows typically take place on the weekend, we need you for collision and that Saturday night booking. I mean, I was going to get precedents over that. And I bet you're going to need somebody's permission to take that booking. Are the services offered

1:05:57to the employer unavailable to the general public? Can I book MJF? Have you tried? I don't want to hear the smart ass answer to get in response. Can the worker be fired by the employer? Oh, hell yeah, they can. No, it's a family. They always tell us it's a family. You're coming home to your family. And finally, the 20th and final factor. Can the worker quit work at any time without liability? Of course. Of course. Can we freeze contracts? Sure. You can you can come and go as you please. It's a revolving door. We only want people here that want to be here. Of course. So leave just I guess we'll just throw this in here again. People watching a video. All of the reds are yes means this is this person is being treated like an employee and the the left column here is is WWE the right column here is AW and we have you know mostly red for both of them. A little more red for WWE. And that's in a in a W's case. I think there is more

1:07:05variance depending on the case. But I think a lot of them are this classified. All right. We might get some really angry messages from AW folks. If next week they get the TV and realize you guys are all going five people to a van. There are no more travel. We have realized that we were giving you too much. This was our mistake. It's a really interesting paper that Christy Hemi wrote. We do have the link in the show description. It's 11 pages like you could certainly just go through it. I think like the the correlation just between the the brain and the heart is like it's a real. Yeah. I think that will be novel to anybody. I when I read this I had not considered that the the notion that like taking bumps and taking blows to the head whether you get in cusher or not could have an effect on how well your brain can control your heart. That makes intuitive sense to me. Yeah. She also mentions that when the concussion lawsuit was filed against WWE. This was the one

1:08:10that got dismissed in 2018. Which is not a successful lawsuit. Yes. No, no, it was not, but it was something to I wish so much we were doing our show during that time. 53 plaintiffs in the concussion lawsuit. 19 have passed away that were listed as plaintiffs in that concussion lawsuit. And she notes that of 50 documented examples of performers going to crowdfunding those 50 efforts have raised a million and a half dollars. And again, it is basically said like it is the good will of like these audiences that are spending this, but this should not be the option that is necessary when these performers are in dire health straits. All right. Well, the steel man here is that look AW has come along and it has generally this is certain I think everybody agrees. AW has come along and has increased competition for talent. Talent across the board is getting paid a lot more. So what do they need to collect a bargain or reclassify themselves for? They're getting paid

1:09:14really well and you know, some of these people are making millions of dollars. And I'm glad that WWE has been so welcoming and been happy that this floor has elevated itself and they're not any kind of tactics that are trying to stifle this competitor that has invariably increased their guarantee contracts that they have to compete with. Yeah, I think that one of the biggest things here is we're talking about celebrities who are already making a lot of money in many cases. Some of these people though will not have long careers and some of these people may be making healthy, you know, well into the six figures for a few years of their lives, but those are going to be the peak earning years for their entire lives and decades from now, you know, maybe there'll be conventions and maybe there'll be other careers that they'll develop into. But they have given you their bodies for a number of years and helped you build these

1:10:15companies, both of which period to be quite successful, Davies, it's a cash guise, according to Marsha Piro. And of the biggest talents, like what are, like what is the value that some of these top performers are bringing to the company? Like what, just for instance, that show on Saturday night, the world's collide show, you take CM Punk off that card, is that show doing 14,000 paid at the Allstate arena? Like what revenue did he help drive on a Saturday night? And you extrapolate that over whatever number of main events he has this year, like whatever revenue you can assign to a CM Punk, is he overpaid or is he underpaid in the grand scheme of things? Like they are now in a world where their television deals are worth billions instead of millions. And what is the percentage that, you know, your top significant players are worth in these deals? Are these all interchangeable

1:11:21soldiers that this would be, that you would be accumulating this amount of revenue with just you take out one and you replace the other? I think history would show us that this is still personality superstar dependent on how your popularity ebbs and flows. And are these people overpaid? I don't think anyone would be arguing they are overpaid. And I'm less worried about the CM Punk's world is like the wrestlers who give WWE or AW their bodies for a few years. And those were their peak earning years and they have to scrape to get by or you know, struggle to find healthcare when they've worked at a job that was disproportionately dangerous for their health. And that's, I mean that is something that you can certainly attribute to like whether it be boxing MMA, like it's those same concerns. Like the, like an NFL player, like

1:12:25the average playing time for a player, it's going to be not very long. And we don't need much more evidence to see like there's a great chance that you are going to be physically cognitively compromised in your future years. And we kind of have this belief that well at least they're, they're getting paid millions to do this. But you still see like tragedies of football players that are left with nothing like, you know, bench players that are still going to have the effects of this. And that's at least a league that does have a union that in theory is protecting its players. Like that is its sole interest is the rights and protections of the players. And here it is much more just everyone out for themselves. And you don't have that protective measure that in a perfect world, some of your influential figures hopefully would have that influence that could command

1:13:25something that trickles down that it's those players that are looking out for the people down the roster that really do not have any of that leverage or influence on a grander scale because they are viewed as much more replaceable than your stars. And NFL players have a quick little show. The vested former players who have access to various benefits. So something like that I think would be, would be really helpful to to prevent people from having to rely on GoFundMe. Did you realize this week that WBD's Bleacher Report has signed a deal with WWE for your favorite new media term, a content deal. Content deal. Yes, WWE was not hesitant to have WBD's Bleacher

1:14:26Report splashed on the headlines on television this week that Bleacher Report and WWE announced a new multi-year agreement on Monday that gives the Warner Brothers Discovery-owned sports media platform global highlight rights to WWE programming. As Brandon wrote on the site, WBD of course is the parent company of cable networks TBS and TNT, which are dynamite and collision each week, a WBD spokesperson emphasized to post-ressling also on Monday that the new deal between WWE and Bleacher Report doesn't displace any existing. You know what they tried to answer that question? Nothing. What could happen here? Nothing. So I had I can I I was going to work whatever morning it was that this came out Tuesday or something. And I had not even heard I had not even heard the news. It brought to my attention by WBD because they were eager to get ahead of this. The the the question that everyone wants to know.

1:15:28They just wanted everybody to know that you know this doesn't displace AW. This doesn't change anything for AW. But AW doesn't have a deal like this. But there's nothing that could prevent AW from having a deal like this, but this doesn't have a deal like this. When we're talking about highlights that Bleacher Report is going to feature W highlights from Ross Smackdown. Premium live events. I think you know what I'm told is there's you know Bleacher Report is is you know very compartmentalized in a lot of different areas of WBD are compartmentalized. So it's not like they're thinking about AW all the time. It's amazing that people are not thinking about AW all the time, but that's what I hear. The people are people everywhere in different walks of life are not thinking about AW all the time, even within certain departments of WBD apparently. Do you expect to do expect a content deal to be struck between AW and ESPN? No. Do you think AW is happy about

1:16:34this deal? I'm sure they were totally celebratory about this news. No, I imagine they were totally annoyed by this, but they won't state that. How can they love you know if you asked Tony Conn about this this deal you know what he'd say? I love WBD. I'm really excited for David Ellison to be my best friend. I am the ultimate corporate soldier for WBD, but yes, I can't imagine AW is too happy about this. Not that I think it has a major impact on anything. It's good for WB, sure. How many of these con is is it just this and front office sports that these content deals exist for WWE? I don't believe there's any others. I mean, I don't know how deep technicals go and what deals are still active. Remember W and not years ago announced some some sort of deal with the ringer, right? They announced the front office sports deal not that long ago. They have this this deal now. There's other thing Nikon personally has an investment in John Wall Street, which is a kind of sports business

1:17:38blog and events events organization. Let's not forget. No. Who could they are in the satellite radio business? Serious XM no longer fight nation. WWE radio. This is an investment and I think somebody like Nikon who's very attuned to the media. This seems like something that somebody like him would want to make happen, right? To create all these relationships. To you know, the bleach report. I don't see bleach report breaking sports news lately. I don't know about. I don't free bleach report at all. So I don't even know if people will notice this unless there's some big exclusive interview feature of WWE that garners attention on wrestling sites. I wouldn't imagine that like the front office sports deal. Like they have embedded their reporters at various events and like I've not seen any fraction

1:18:40of anything front office sports has done that wrestling audiences have paid any attention to. Recreate these relationships. Just like having a relationship with the SPN creates a relationship with with a company that's also doing journalistic work. I think all these things the more you can make a relationship it makes people reticent to be anything but really nice to you. Well there is relationships people. That's it's the best way to go about life is just stay in a room by yourself. That's how you that's how you avoid conflicts of interest. That's it. All right. We've gone lengthy. We're going to do one more story and that is the R E Emmanuel ongoing book tour where I think he has done about 5,000 interviews by this point. The latest one being on Puck with Matt Bellany and he has asked the question that is on the mind of everybody. When is R E for AW? When is he going to just get out of this whole thing?

1:19:45Who's the ideal buyer for TKO? TKO. Now someday it'll be for sale. No, it won't. No. You don't think a big media company? No. Paramount? No. Comcast? No. Not for sale. Amazon? Never. Why? Why would it be? It's an agent. Everything's for sale. Here's the great thing. In 2016, E underbin, Marchegril, myself, Patrick saw where sports was going, saw where the streamers were going. At the time people thought the value we were crazy to pay what we did when we bought IMG, the crazy that we paid the two cheapest acquisitions of all time in the sports space. With, as my son Leo says to me, Thursday is baby Friday, dead. With AI, probably Wednesday is going to be the baby Thursday. There's going to be more free time than ever. People, if we grow 3% GDP, we're going to have more money than we've ever had with AI. I might agree with that. Take all the bad things that could happen. An I-L-A-C and out of the good thing. You're sitting in a situation that

1:20:51there's going to be more time for people to consume, entertainment, or social animals. Go out, go to sporting events, consume sports. Sports is the greatest reality show of all time. Owning sports assets. Now people are trying to own teams. We don't own four leagues. It's an incredible asset. It's ownership rather than the client leaving at night. The value is only going up and to the right. So, Eon Durbin, myself, I mean, there's no chance that that's happening. Zero. We'll save that one for the time being. A few things there. Number one is that if you were to read the text here of just that answer, you would not be able to differentiate him and Mark Shapiro. They are so simpatico to one another down to their own language of social animals. Number two is that, Shapiro has stated this, Ari has stated this. They have been banking on the idea that

1:21:53there is going to become the four-day work week, which now Ari is starting to suggest the three-day work week. It was just me, the layman here, is suggesting that at WME? No, they are not. They are implementing that at WW and UFC. But there's theory. Their theory is that, well, there's going to be less work days every week and therefore more time for people to spend these outrageous prices going to all of our high-priced events. It's like, Ari, they have more free time because they're not working. You think you're going to be compensated for the same as a five-day week as a three-day week? There's going to be reductions here. These people it just seems like on its surface here. This is quite a gamble to believe that we can just create more the weekend, can start on Baby Wednesday. We want to go out on Baby Wednesday because we don't have work Thursday. You want to go out Thursday? We don't have work on Friday. We don't have work

1:22:53on Saturday. We just don't work. Maybe he's banking on it. He's going to be disposable for us. Maybe he's banking on UBI or something. Well, TKOs not for sale. That's his final answer. Sure. I mean, I think the foreseeable future is absolutely not. One day, I mean, who knows? Who knows? There could be some sovereign wealth fund. There could be who knows? Well, I don't think it's going to be for sale anytime soon. But they're certainly making it efficient and making it more profitable. There's no need for them to sell this. But I don't know. You build something out and then you cash your way out of it. But that's the ongoing Arie manual media tour. Do you ever think you're going to pop open, roll the calls and read this book? I don't know. I might listen to the audio book, but you're reading it now, right? Am I missing anything? I mean, as I told you, we went over the whole

1:23:55side of the mind of Arie manual that is useful to my understanding of the business. He doesn't seem like the most reliable narrator of the whole Vince McMahon story. That I think it just makes you quite like how much of this is just like this is just his performance of imagination that is going to naturally gin up these stories to be as entertaining as possible. I was like, this Vince thing. I was like, this is not a great accounting of what exactly happened here. And I think that you just extrapolate that to to the rest here. I mean, it certainly nails his voice. And I can see a lot of people in his orbit and that have followed him will be really entertained by these stories. But I don't know, maybe I'm not the audience for that. But I'm only like a quarter of the way into the book. Did he write this himself or is there a ghost writer? There's a ghost writer. Okay. Maybe he just took audio tapes and handed them over. Just yelled into his recorder as he was driving to city to city. That's going to wrap up the show, everyone.

1:25:00Thank you to everyone for joining us here. And that is all. Double check in the chats here. But we will be back next Thursday in the meantime. Patreon.com slash WrestleNomix to follow and support all of Brandon's work as well as post wrestling cafe.com. It's October. It's a new month and we are doing a special sale this month. It is 50% off for your first month if you sign up at postgresslingcafe.com. You can join for the 50% off price sample it. See if you enjoy it and you are supporting our site as well. So go check that out. And then you can catch us every Thursday here on the post wrestling and WrestleNomix channels. And that is it for us. We will speak with you next week.