You've Got To Be Kidding Me Ep. 48 Sacrifice May 2006 - World X-Cup, Cornette Signs, Nash Returns

0:00hello do you like new japan pro wrestling are you a shinny hon freak if so check out the super j cast with joel and damon on the voices of wrestling podcast network and even if you fucking hate new japan pro wrestling listen to the super j cast anyway not just for our great show reviews analysis and pastrami sandwiches but there's also usually some dick jokes somewhere in the obligatory opening 30 minutes of absolute nonsense we chat about every single week that's the super j cast for all the best talk about new japan pro wrestling crisps and pornography

0:33zaxby's giant chicken finger wraps are no snack in fact they're so big they get their own menu get one in your choice of asian sensation buffalo blue and chicken bacon ranch and you know they're coming packed with three crispy hand-breaded famous fingers fresh ingredients and their signature sauce all wrapped to perfection big on size bolder on flavor but that's just how they do it at zaxby's zaxby's giant wraps they're no snack who's got the sauce zaxby's this podcast is a member of the

1:05voices of wrestling podcasting network visit voices of wrestling.com to hear the rest of our great podcasts as well as show reviews columns opinions and updates across the world of wrestling tna is the best wrestling in the whole world and that's a shoot the quantity of speech is not always indicative of the quality of thought well this is you two fat roly police if i looked as bad as you guys did i would have stayed in the backyard think this is funny no why would you do this

1:43hold to get a life get a life nance russo oh come on i hate him now he's a way to god this is bs this sucks i've lost my objectivity and i don't give a damn welcome everybody to you've got to be kidding me episode number 48 we are a tna history podcast that covers tna one month at a time on this episode we were talking about the month that is may 2006 leading up to sacrifice 2006 i am garrick kidney and i am joined as always by my lovely friend liam jones hi how are you doing

2:18good garrick name 100 pokemon charmeleon war tortle yeah mewtwo tentacle aerodactyl almanite slowpoke pidgeot arbok that's all folks gotta catch them all gotta catch them all gotta catch them all gotta catch them all gotta catch them all gotta catch them all you've fallen into my trap you name 100 pokemon quicker than you name 100 women you dare do that for the longest time i was like i'm gonna learn the poker rap and as illustrated i do know the final verse of the poker rap do you not know any of the other verses uh electro diglett nidoran manky venus or rattata fiero pidgey they go in a line

2:53um there you go i learned like the first i don't really remember the first one actually i only remember the last one because it comes in real strong on charmeleon but i also don't remember so it was when i was doing podcast a day which was my short-lived very wrong-headed experiment to try and do a daily podcast for 365 days and i stopped at 200 why would you stop so close 200 is nowhere near you're like you're over halfway though it's still 165 more yeah i don't know i feel like i would have kept going

3:26i'm gonna read to you some of the topics i covered on podcast i remember one was just rain yeah it was it was five minutes of silence which is a wonderful art piece there was the banana song there was walking home which was a series because that was when i didn't record an episode and i was walking home from work so i recorded an episode on my phone and just posted it as a podcast a discussion of avian humanoids announcing project poker rap that was an episode i gave an episode to announcing it and at the end of every episode i was going to try and do it and i never finished it

3:58i never finished it liam just like you never finished the podcast today an episode called weather am i right what else we what else we come up with euthanasia coaster okay birthdays just birthdays yeah it's just called birthdays no idea what it's about we did have at least four walking homes with gar hello in 22 languages that was when i was literally at like 10 to the top of the hour and i forgot to do an episode so i looked up hello in 22 languages recorded myself saying them

4:28and posted again on the internet as a podcast this is good content uh we had walking home with gar five go which i assume was because i was playing pokemon go walking home with gar six no subtitle kentucky meat shower patriotism bloop there's just an episode called bloop i this is so we should put this on the patreon walking home with gar seven there's pod section which i think i was doing a podcast with i think it was tanner but i also recorded it on my phone so it was like a phone

4:59recording of me doing a podcast with tanner so it was like a podcast within a podcast uh walking home with gar eight uh an episode just called update no idea what that is an episode called an episode called panda pornography uh i did i did a bunch of episodes while i went to power for glory that year so i recorded like seven episodes in advance and got ken to post them while i was away uh oh we got up to walking home with gar nine and then episode 200 finale bring back gar with walking number 10 for

5:29the patreon yeah i do do a lot of walking lately i should record myself we should do sequels to every podcast a day episode i'm ready for bloop too there are actually there's some unreleased podcast a day well i actually switched the podcast a week so they would be podcast the week episodes now that's cowardice yeah this was the the height of me was i unemployed when i started maybe not i think i was at the oh you're walking home from work yeah but that was uh what the one oh yeah the first walking home with gar was like 19 episodes in so i probably was working or less uh so it was at the

6:01peak of me like being post-college depressed being like i i need something to do you need a creative outlet i'm such a failure in life so i was like i am going to do a podcast a day and i had such notions about what it was going to be as like it's going to be interviews on every episode i'm going to travel to places and talk to people and it's going to be like an actual podcast bloop and i did i think like like the episodes that are guests i'll stand behind i think that there's a decent number of episodes that had guests with uh rob reed and tanner and other such alumnus uh james doing

6:32lord of the rings reviews so i think that was in podcast a week but but then like there's one where i went to blarney castle and actually interviewed the dude who ran it i was like that that's like an actual podcast that's you know what i went to a place and went to a place and did a thing and that that was like my noble intention for all of them and then they just became walking home with gar as a series that went up to nine blarney blarney what a load of blarney oh were you doing a blimey thing but with yes i see what you're doing there i understood just like 35 seconds later

7:03blarney stone uh i have not kissed it you actually have to dangle out over and i'm not sure like obviously they i assume cut off kissing it in covid i'm not sure if they brought it back post covid they probably have because it's probably too good of a tourist attraction but it seems in a post-covid age we shouldn't be kissing rocks i'm bringing it back you want to make out with all the rocks lovely place though blarney castle the other one name three other rocks rocky from the movie rocky real person rocky romero mhm dino bravo okay great was it his nickname the rock

7:39i don't know do you think i watch a lot of dino bravo you don't know shit about wrestling i don't know shit about wrestling i just pretend i know about tna that's the reason i bring everything back to tna because then it seems like i know what i'm talking about nicknames he doesn't say it but i'm gonna choose to leave that he was called the rock everyone loves the rock dino bravo favorite wrestler mhm his hit catchphrase the rock says you should just start going around saying you know my favorite wrestler the rock dino bravo and eventually people will just assume that's a thing i'm gonna like i'm gonna bring it to the zeitgeist i'm gonna i'm gonna mandela affect

8:13everyone this is how you should wield your podcasting clout yes my nobly infinite clout that you gain from being podcasters all the money and clout you get from doing tna wrestling podcasts mhm mhm mhm you got anything else you want to talk about uh double or nothing is in two days we tend to record right before aw pay-per-views don't we i don't know why how do you feel about the double or nothing card i think it's a pretty good card i think it should be a good show and aw do good pay-per-views a pretty

8:44like stacked show it is their big show oh like they say that but it does it like if you were to say this is their a pay-per-view i then i would be like it's actually not very good but as as a normal aw pay-per-view it's it's a good card yeah you got the monet debut probably should have just done tony mariah really weird like the fact that they like tony has been feuding with soraya as a baby face at the same time she's been feuding with deeb as a heel but also nobody likes deeb as a

9:16baby face so it makes it even worse because tony is working as a baby face with another person i i thought deeb was a heel no deeb's a baby face i thought she was like a heel via proxy no she did that whole promo about how like oh my career nearly ended and i came back yeah that's that's loser shit and then the crowd didn't really give a fuck about it because tony storm is funny well she's not funny but she's meant to be yeah i don't know there's some i mean like maybe it'd be cool to see like ruddy have another match of the year i thought the flamethrower stuff was cool yeah that is cool there's people who get so like up their own arse about that kind of stuff it's like

9:51the dude walked out with a flamethrower like cop yourselves on there's a little like i don't know it's a part of like that's fine i don't know that's fine that's just like crazy wrestling shit that's like stunt wrestling shit more than it is anything else there like i don't really understand where like where in the history of wrestling you get the idea that it's like it's it's really this this pure version of wrestling because i don't think it has ever existed anywhere and also like i mean like there's been percentages right like you have companies that are 90 that with like 10 of it still

10:22chucked in like but i always think like aws at worst had like a 60 40 split the other way and like at best like a 60 40 split the other way yeah like i don't think it's aws ever been like a like a super giant majority of pure wrestling promotion like the first dynamite main event involved john moxley and kenny omega brawling through the crowd and ddting through a table and then it became a handicap main event and that's and that's and that's just as like that's like the

10:55same level as a flamethrower yeah pretty much like stuff that is absurd because if it happened in the real world it would be criminal and you had the whole like john moxley's eye being taken out angle like it's yeah it's it's wrestling like stop putting it in a box and i like i i get it because a lot of times you have bad comedy and bad sports entertainment and it's bad but when a dude comes out a flamethrower like if your reaction to that is like grumpy face you're too grumpy for wrestling and i'm grumpy and that's coming from the grumpiest man in wrestling

11:29if i'm like you're too grumpy for wrestling you have a problem i don't know i mean like you can get pissy at the blood thing i don't even care about that no i'm saying like i like i'm fine with you getting pissy at that like if like that's your hill you want to die on that's fine to me like because that is like fully the other like that is that 40 right but like i don't even i don't even consider a flamethrower as being like a sports entertainment thing because like i'm not even i'm making like uh not even a casual fan argument here i'm making like an average human

12:01being argument if the average human being sees somebody on a show walk out and like flip a flip a flamethrower all over the place the average human being is gonna be like that's fucking awesome that rocks stop being babies also yeah i believe darby would do it yeah and also like it's not like no one has ever been set on fire in the history of wrestling it's not like it's not that credible people have been set on fire in the history of wrestling quite a lot actually there's that gcw dude who's himself on fire wasn't on purpose but yeah all right speaking of fire that

12:35brings us to the month that was may 2006 sacrifice 2006 it was first fam wow you're so young i'm hip to it but first if you would like to support the show if you would like to support us if you like what we do and if you would like a lot more content capital t t yes content yeah really emphasizing the t you can go to tnachat.com or patreon.com slash kidding me where you can support the show support us and get a lot more for it you can get our lucha underground show that's ongoing you can get

13:05our rain taker show that's ongoing you can get our new series we launched which is mystery vortex theater the first episode of which we watched ghost ship ghost ship ghost ship very good movie well is it a very good movie yes i'm gonna stick with very good movie i i think it i think it is kind of like like a very good film no very good movie yes absolutely good distinction uh you can get our watch along for sacrifice 2006 for if you enjoyed us naming women we did a lot more of naming things as that show went on that is our that's our spot now we name you can also get the show notes

13:43for this episode which is 15 pages of notes covering everything that happened in the month of may 2006 leading up to sacrifice also at the very end has some nice abyss fan art from fans so that's a little treat for you i'm gonna draw an abyss fan art and add it to the show notes yeah good you can guess which one's mine the one that's not a screenshot from the impact zone you don't know maybe i'll go to the impact zone and also of course the ad free episode for this episode so if you're a little annoyed by the ads you can get rid of them by going to patreon paying us one whole dollar one dollar gets you the show notes in the ad free episode so tnchat.com patreon.com slash kidding me support

14:16the show support us support the wonders that is covering tna wrestling from 2006 no one else does it as good other people have tried yeah eat shit marky whatever that guy's name is don't get me fucking started on marky d i think i've gone off on marky d before like marky d's nuts oh got his ass the most fucking joyless got his ass unfunny person i've ever heard touch wrestling ever it's just like stay away from this of all the people giving out about the people being like stop the cover in

14:49wrestling you don't like it so you don't find joy in wrestling uh he's top of that list does he have twitter i don't want to know i feel like i've never seen a mark d tweet i don't even know what his name is so i can't even search it and he like covers tna a bunch and i'm just like you're getting up you're like he gets mad about crimson it's like what are you getting mad about crimson listen i might get mad about crimson who knows my favorite thing about this show is like you fighting a deep joy in eric watts yeah i'll probably fucking love crimson won't i like like in the places where most people

15:23are like no it's bad it's terrible it's like actually you know what eric watts mid-card weirdo kind of fun hmm that's that's kind of the thing i love most rather than like getting out there's times like i'm going to shout at dave melzer again on this episode i'm at the end of the news is literally there for me to shout at the torch of the observer again but for the most part i just like be like a silly little thing wrestling's a silly little thing you could you should have fun with it for the most part you know it's yeah i don't know wrestling's stupid i don't like it anymore

15:55see when you say wrestling is stupid i'm like that's some more of a reason to like it yeah is wrestling interesting though yes is it of all the things as both a media about entertainment and just an industry behind it you cannot accuse wrestling of it's not being interesting i'm bored of it liam's just mad because we had one day without news yeah it really is that for me i'm like if we go a single day without some like shocking breaking news about the state of the pro wrestling business i i

16:25go it's over never anything happened there's two wrestling pay-per-views this weekend but what we went one day without news and liam's like why are we doing this yeah what's the point you mean three because gleet is also tomorrow oh the biggest show yeah you remember i'm gonna be tuning in to see shima and kaseyashi defend the g infinity tag team titles against onotsuka yamamura onotsuka has gear so i'm back in um we also have a marigold we have two marigold shows tomorrow and a best of the super juniors so by tomorrow you'll be fine yeah this might also be

16:58due to the nine hour work day oh we also got noah tomorrow no way you can see some old rebellion losses that was poor souls uh but you can see oiwa he was the coolest guy who i i've already put above yoda suji in my head nice and omora but omora is already at the bottom who is you yeah omora yeah i'm gonna tell you right now guess what i'll make a big statement i don't fuck with him he's he's too nice seeming i don't fuck with that guy he needs to show some fire he's fucking heat storm and he

17:29has no goddamn fire you just look at him and his face is too nice and he looks like yujiro now he has too much kindness in his shape the head looks like some tokyo pimp shit i don't know i don't know i'm all i'm all in a wewa bring him back put him over everyone that does bring us to the news does it the morale in tna's locker room plummeted when wrestlers found out that the reason about 10 regulars were not brought into the latest tapings was because the talent budget went to buff bagwell rick steiner and next luger what really upset the core of the locker room was that these wrestlers

18:03kept home were told they were on a tight budget only to find out the budget was tight because of the money spent on luger bagwell and steiner our promotion has gone from something new and exciting to looking like a rerun of wcw thunder circa 1999 it's hideous and embarrassing the steps backwards we took this week says one frustrated wrestler says another we're just resigned to this ineptitude now this was the biggest slap in the face to the wrestlers who got tna to where they are now liam i have a question this was a three-week tv month oh yeah also at the world x cup involved so

18:39you had a lot of flying what wrestlers and don't scroll down because there is a list what wrestlers were not on tv this month um i would guess diamonds in the rough yep that would be my first glaring omission because this is and like dave does reinforce this being like people are mad especially because the show has been reformatted to be like two or three matches and then stories and stuff as opposed to like five matches rushing through everything which is better for the tv show even if some people get booked a little less often but i was like when i read this story i was like

19:13well nearly all the x division guys are booked obviously all the top guys they're booked 3d are still booked like james ganger still booked on i guess like lax is gone fresh off a push right yeah ron and conan but i don't know if he's like gone yet yeah monty was getting knee surgery which is the reason he is out i think he's back on the tvs after sacrifice they were like but like they're like the only ones that i think like were like pushed yeah the the other ones being i think matt bentley and lance hoyt are probably the the other like quote unquote biggest names or people who are around pushed on fucking explosion yeah both those guys barely get on tv anyway so i was i was reading

19:48the story i was like who are the people that are really mad here did they did they did they bring conan in for commentary he was in for lockdown anyway which i think is part of what annoyed a lot of people because there are people who are in for the pay-per-view who word kept around for tv okay um my take from this is i don't give a shit that's my take from this yeah first of all when they said budgets were tied for these tapings they weren't incorrect they allocated money to a

20:19different area they were like budget was tight because they wanted to do this angle it's not like these guys are permanent fixtures in the company they were doing a story in which they brought guys from outside to like put over the story sometimes that's just gonna if they were coming in like for the next two years and taking these guys spots i would get it but like i'm sorry it's just a pay-per-view cycle that like your i'm sorry matt bentley your fucking explosion matches like had to go had to get put away for a fucking week because they were doing a storyline with sting and jared and steiner more

20:54importantly i think the focus on there though the point was that sting had bagwell sting had steiner sting had luger but he ended up with joe yeah the whole like the they sell the whole thing in the end being like he picked the young cool new guy who's the tough killer yeah so it's like it i don't think this is anything that's looking like a very random wcw thunder besides the nostalgia pop but everyone does nostalgia pops it's a fun little thing it's like look at bagwell look at steiner look i had a fun time watching these segments it's it's just i i'm so frustrated and again i'm going to go off on it more

21:28later i'm so frustrated with the coverage around this company at this moment in time i really am it's driving me crazy some 83 week shit it is oh god again don't get me started we will be talking about all the same fucking talking points we feel deal with today with the same hacks delivering the same bullshit over and over again but like i don't know everyone was on tv styles was on tv saber was on tv aw were on tv all the young guys really have a point to be pissy was like lax because

21:58they just came off of a push and homicide by all accounts is really mad on multiple counts because he has not gotten to wrestle yet not meaningfully and he was mad about his portrayal at lockdown where he was getting like punked out and whipped and he like the whole thing is like i'm a gangster kind of guy so the idea that i would get whipped and not try and get some retribution is kind of silly but apparently there's also a thing where like he started where uh his shoulder was hurt so he couldn't really go full full tilt but yeah also apparently he never told anybody his shoulder was

22:30fine looking at this list right here right so bentley and tracy fuck off yep douglas fuck off strong and areas are done anyway hoyt you're not pushed monty you're out on surgery key sure but you're key some other shit probably fucking was a part of that and there's two video packages for lowkey on tv lax you're the only ones that are reasonable because you just are a newly formed group gassidy riley come on diamonds in the rough you're lucky to be on the show anyway yeah like you're on the show too much so it's like none of these i'm sorry none of these people like they kept everyone

23:04essential to the show yeah like despite like my fact that like i think lax should have been on these shows because they're interesting and cool and new they're not essential to the show no none of the people who weren't brought in were essential and like would felt missed if they didn't book abyss you'd be like well come on yeah well like like you know go like listen i'm not a fan of the james gang but like i feel like they would have more of a fucking thing to say if they would like the ones that got sitting home for the month because like at least they are like regulars on the show

23:35which is why probably conan and ron were probably the most reasonable to be pissed yeah so it's like yeah exactly like ron he has he has a case conan has a case but he's probably there doing spanish commentary anyway that's like i don't know i just i i don't have a problem with this they they looked at the books they allocated money for what they wanted to do for this program and they made cuts where they had to whatever yeah that was kind of my take as well it's like guys get over yourself stopping like it's like wcw all over again like you can be pissy but like i don't know like if tna like listen if tna are being super stingy and still wanting to control people's

24:10bookings that's one thing but like if they're not and you're free to do whatever you want those three and like well one week two weeks whatever it is because the tapings actually only taking place over a couple days like go get some bookings there's an interesting note like when loki was signed apparently he didn't want to go into lax because he saw that as a death roll because of what happened to homicide so uh it's interesting how even like lax is seen as a flop here and it kind of like listen it's it kind of is i don't think it's a flop i just think it's like lax suffered from being brought in at the end of an existing feud like they were brought in at the point where

24:43the baby faces need to go over to tell the story like they were at the natural conclusion of the story so like that's a rough spot to introduce people into but like they're really like it's really easy to bounce them back and they do historically so yeah get over yourselves tna wrestlers in 2006 yeah we're on the side of the company yeah corporations baby one of the best talkers in the history of the industry and also one of the most volatile personalities behind the scenes has agreed to work for tna jim cornet was always on tna's radar as a potential on our town since he is a

25:22great talker and gets on well with jeff jarrett as you go back to the territory days in the 1980s until a year ago cornet was the head writer for obw wwe's top developmental territory i can't deal with this you just can't see cornet's face this is this is mental anguish you can't handle the idea i'm not i'm not ready for it because like i love listen i love midnight express i think cornet is an amazing talker one of the best promos of all time i will never discredit any of his accomplishments in

25:57the pro wrestling business i still hate the guy with every fiber of my fucking being has he like scorched earth so much so that you like you can't even tolerate him well let me tell you this garrett if vince russo showed up on tna impact tomorrow i would be more joyful oh like again cornet in the 80s when he's doing his thing one of the coolest like managers of that era i think he's amazing i would never discredit that shit i think he's amazing in that role the last 10 years of his fucking

26:28talking makes me want to fucking put a rail spike through my brain like and his like his influence is so detrimental to discussing pro wrestling in any meaningful way that it's just become hazardous and the idea of having to interact and talk about jim cornet on a weekly basis on this podcast is enough to drive me fucking insane he is largely pretty good well as he's he's gonna be an authority figure he's just gonna fill the larry z which might be the day and he'll probably be and

27:01he'll probably be good in the role i'm saying the idea of talking about him is infuriating poor larry z as well as they're gonna say it's just because he's been great awesome yeah yeah anyway i'll try to separate art from artist and all that jazz but every time there's like a backstab like i'll take the russo shit russo is annoying and dumb and doesn't know what he's talking about half the time but at least he's bad in a way that it's fun to talk about and this guy is just like cyanide to the brain and

27:35also like the number of russo disciples is pretty small these days and they can kind of laugh at the russo disciples you know whereas the cornet people are loud they're annoying they're very easy to spot from a very large distance yeah you're gonna sabotage our seo for for a cornet this is gonna be the first video that all the cornet fans are gonna click on on youtube being like jim cornet i love that guy i listen to his podcast i know i know listen guys i'm sorry that you had to find out this way i tried to warn you early on i know that most of you watch his stuff because you're in our goddamn youtube

28:08algorithm i'm not gonna be pleasant about the guy as is my god-given right as an american all right my free speech i get to talk shit about whoever i want with no repercussion all right so you can't be mad at me lest you be mad at yourselves i'll get to inform you australia doesn't actually have free speech that being said i'll put over his work if the work's good so he had been booking a aw oh fucking shit he'd want to give him a collision see what happens honestly it would probably be

28:43pretty bad because cornet has never really had a track record when it's a successful worker um but also like listen i started watching our way to the cornet era i know how not amazing it can be so he was booking ovw not aww he had remained a part of ovw in helping owner danny davis promote his local events even after he was removed as head writer a role eventually filled by paul hayman despite the relaunch of ecw which is expected to take hayman away from his ovw tv writing duties once ccw begins a full-time schedule in the summer cornet is not considered a candidate to return to

29:14his post for one he considers himself still burned out after booking so many years dating back to his days running smoky mountain wrestling and being a member of the wcw booking committee and the wbf writing team at times before that also he and john loranaitis do not get along maybe cornet's based actually he didn't like the alleged rapist see like that's what cornet made his name on particularly like uh he went off on russo all the time yeah like when when he was like he like directed all of his performative vitriol towards people that are disliked it was like fine and people were like

29:48yeah get him jim but then it's like he just directed it at everyone yeah it all just kind of directed at rio like the most likable wrestler on earth it's like what are you doing cornet though didn't want to work for tna until the ovw tape library was sold to wv and he received whatever share he had coming that library purchase was completed last week subscribers to the ovw tape service were notified last week that they would no longer be distributed because wv owns the rights and thus refunds were offered for all pre-sold do you think more people were watching the ovw tape service than

30:18they were buying shows on fight yeah yes i would actually say firmly yes because it was like 150 in that documentary or whatever because this is back in the day when like at least ovw had the wv developmental territory thing going forward so it would have had some interesting names coming through as opposed to now didn't like ovw became like a tna developmental for a while in name yes like they sent some people there i guess yeah and like when they did the gut check thing when like alex silver was signed he was sent to ovw but nothing ever really happened with it so i don't know

30:53there was a young sam shaw there for a while yeah and like the blossom twins would have worked some ovw but there was never actually any no one ever came back really that was the problem everyone went there and no one came back they never they never produced a bozilla so you know yeah that's the that's the real star if they had ovw modern ovw had produced a bozilla alad snow could rightfully call it like the third biggest wrestling company in america or whatever the fuck he said bozilla versus hayley jay oh that would probably be a good ovw feud to be fair or at least they'd be

31:25able to pretend it wasn't a documentary so after selling the uh tapes he had nothing to lose by working for w's competition he had recently been working a few shows for ring of honor and acting as commissioner for the promotion he will remain in that position despite also having an on-air role with tna in the upcoming months again again i'll say something nice i liked his like 2006 like czw roh like on screen character stuff like like part of the i think like the roh czw cage of death ah dropped everything um no i think the roh versus czw cage of death is like one of the best

32:00matches ever like a full five and part of that is like his role in it and the the post match with him in homicide like i love that match and he is a major like part of that so i don't i don't hate him as a performer i just think he's an intensely unlikable individual you don't want to see his face or hear his voice exactly that's the thing like if he just if he was gone oh i would wax poetically about a jim cornet gone isn't dead i didn't say that in a statement released on ring of honor's website where cornet is the on-air authority figure for roh cornet said i have verbally agreed to a limited

32:33number of dates with tna this will not interfere with my ring of honor commitments i am committed to ring of honor dates throughout the year and beyond there is some question about when cornet can begin working for tna they do of course state this month that the new face of tna management will show up its anniversary which is where cornet debuts as the new face of tna management spoiler oh why would you spoil that for me since he is scheduled to have surgery soon and won't be able to travel for up to eight weeks cornet isn't expected to be a candidate to be part of the booking committee he's not good with compromise or humoring co-bookers he finds to be on a different

33:06page or incompetent uh also cornet has an aversion to flying and isn't willing to relocate to orlando florida where tna takes television once or twice a month he drives himself up and down for the time that they're working orlando because he does not like playing so yeah cornet's coming in um i assume you were so excited i mean i'm sure he'll be a great on-screen presence i'll miss larry i will too everyone go back and watch larry c versus aj so that the both of them yeah there was two matches he invented the tna kick what a wrestler someone told me that he didn't actually but i choose to ignore

33:38that yeah someone is like oh no somebody did it earlier it's like but did they do it is it a tna did one in the third no we we can't let it be credited to apollo there is no world where we can allow i don't think it actually was apollo to be given to apollo it has to be given to lindsey give him some it to do with dusty roads being mean to him that whole time yeah calling him a fake legend which is like so based i love you just insult your colleague all the time tna ceo kevin

34:10day resigned as ceo of the company in april when he turned in his one month's notice well like kevin night because he's leaving good thanks his last day at the company is friday may 13th friday the 13th what does he know one source close to the tna office tells pw torch kevin day quit because he got a better job with no wrestling experience kevin day was positioned as tna ceo after being plucked from the panda energy office in dallas he began his tenure in february with the mandate to clean up the finances in tna however day became frustrated by the political nature of the tna office including

34:45jeff jarrett i'm sure it's note also this month that uh dixie uh either gives birth or is imminently about to give birth to her second child so it's like jarrett is getting more power in her absence so i was like oh i can't work with this guy day comes from the corporate business environment with a strict focus on the financial bottom line he found the tna atmosphere frustrating and realized it wasn't where he wanted to spend key years of his corporate life he is 37 years old day replaced former ceo frank dickerson who was let go by tna co-owner bob garter in 2005 dickerson was very well

35:18liked among wrestlers and staff almost as a father or grandfather figure bring back dickerson day was seen as a corporate climber who was a company man let's get dickerson in and all about business but sharp and a quick learner it's no surprise he didn't last as one source this is an atmosphere that welcomes strong personalities from the outside yeah only strong personalities from the inside it's kind of true though isn't it yeah the wrestlers don't want to be told what wrestling is by people who aren't wrestling and it's a very insular like almost like secret society kind of thing it's if

35:51you're not in you're not in and you're a mark yeah tna will be debuting an internet show called global impact on its website on may 3rd jeremy borash and christy hemi will co-host the show which will be a 30 minute show devoted to exclusive footage interview news updates and matches okay the global impact name doesn't last very long it does eventually shift over to the name of the tna and new japan shows that would air on spike tv uh it's kind of a precursor to what tna today would become were you a tna today guy no i was a spin cycle guy that was my favorite thing about like

36:252007 tna because it would be like every day there'd just be like a seven minute video that might have a nice interview they might reveal some news it would include don west pitching merchandise in the most insane wonderful ways you'd ever i'm gonna be honest i don't think i've ever seen it it's it's literally just jb standing at a desk he'd have a guest or he wouldn't they'd talk for a while don west would sell some merchandise and then get out i just want to watch spin cycle you can it's on youtube can we can we watch spin cycle for as part of the show well when a spin cycle starts will

36:55include the spin cycles yeah uh my favorite spin cycle is the 2008 presidential debate yeah in which i think it's mick foley and booker t on the side of obama and aj stars and bg james on the side of of um who the fuck ran against mccain mccain mccain mccain and then like shortly after the election there's an in-ring segment where mick foley's with aj and aj is a baby face not that like supporting republicans would inherently make you heal but yeah it does mick foley is like i'm sorry aj i know you

37:28the election didn't go your way and obama got elected so he says that to him in a promo on the tv show spin cycle bitch yeah so we will definitely watch the presidential debate i love spin cycle bring it back i've tried who would you have in the jb role the spin cycle 2024 oh gia miller do you think she has the chops think she can handle it gia would be awesome doing a spin cycle who do you think would like really excel on spin cycle on the current tna roster my first like i think rosemary would kill it

37:59yeah rosemary would be a great spin cycle guest kushida kushida would be a good spin cycle guest pco yeah sensational bits in full gimmick that's your spin cycle panel i think brian myers would yeah myers would be great myers would be i think myers would get it yeah he would understand the assignment as the kids say yeah but we'll never find out gresham doing spin cycle but he's just sitting there in silence the whole time and all the other guests start coughing up black yeah this is you can incorporate spin cycle into storytelling well like because gresh would play like the loki

38:31role on the make loki laugh spin cycle yes just make gresham laugh oh jeff jarrett arranged a conference call before the last pay-per-view for everyone in the eight-man lethal lockdown match to go over the match ahead of time killings harris styles and rhino all no showed the call killings harris and styles were fined two hundred dollars uh dave doesn't know about rhino specifically but anyway none were happy harris was very negative and styles called the office

39:01upset wanting to talk to jarrett and wasn't put through and told not to call jarrett that's awesome like fuck you and your call going through the match we're wrestlers so basically like jarrett's side showed up and sting yeah i wonder what sting jarrett steiner and james storm talked about storm does seem like the old man out there doesn't he i do think storm was just like i'm getting like a masterclass here on connie's or professionalism because they showed up during a q a session at

39:33the nwa central state show in kansas aj stahl said that many wrestlers tried to avoid using the cage walls during the lockdown pay-per-view because the cage was assembled inside out the rough side of the fence was turned inward which caused many scratches aj said the top of the cage was coming loose as he prepared for the spot where he dropped out of the rafters onto james storm but they landed in a safe spot on the cage top what if they fell they could have died oh well i don't want that it would be cool they also might have fallen on somebody yeah standardist catches them both he probably could

40:04he's awesome holler if you damn hear me either skipper told wrestling epicenter radio that chase stevens was somewhat upset with the wrestlers involved in the extra virgin escape match at lockdown for not catching him on the shooting star he was not however injured now what fair yeah i think it's pretty understandable because they didn't catch him i think somewhat upset is the perfect descriptor to be for that yeah like like don't make it don't make it don't make it your personality but to be like miffed sure you are allowed to be a little pissy yeah not a lot pissy but a little

40:38kid cash but like hot stuff hernandez for not being booked on tv pissed yeah raven who recently returned tna to pick up his feud with larry zabisco was the guest for tna's monthly conference call with the media on may 9th he said he took 10 weeks off from the wrestling business to lie in bed watching tv to recover from his various health problems raven said i really abused myself for a long long time raven also said he was the number one draft choice in the wrestling death pool for a while before he cleaned himself up insane that that exists he said he feels re-energized and in love with his

41:10mistress the wrestling business again he's committed to tna and he's not interested in being part of the of wb's revitalization of ecw i want raven in 2006 wwe ecw working with the zombie day i want raven like to get like the sabu one john cena match on raw raven and cena would it be good i'm not sure well because cena's like an old-time plunder guy that gets underrated for it so give me john cena versus raven and plunder they probably would have a pretty good match especially if it was like an eight minute tv match yeah jay hassman whose background includes working for

41:44wb tna ufc the house organ no different different person oh that would be very funny if the man who defrauded tna went on to bcm punk's personal mouthpiece is houseman still around yeah the house of wrestling still let me i'm gonna go to the house of wrestling right now we're gonna see what latest scoop they have yeah what's the latest big story that the house of wrestling has exclusives ah oh february 14th another tna office shake up following scott to more exit exclusive they haven't

42:15had a scoop in three months apparently not well punk's not an aw anymore so he's not pissy and he's off injured even though he's on tv every week yeah so no uh no houseman exclusive in since february 14th i'm gonna look at these merch why do they have merch it's the logo it's the logo plus house of wrestling and there's and there's in your house like an in your house logo parody which is actually like that's kind of fire i can't lie we're talking about hassman here rather than houseman uh who if

42:47you remember from 2002 who if you remember from 2000 stop it don't you billy gun this man's name remember when that was like an edge and christian insult it's like i'm not gonna billy gun my king of the ring yeah that wasn't that um oh that was him i thought it was the rock that was because when edge one of the year later he's like i'm not gonna billy gun this how mean to young billiam eh they were right but if you remember jay hassman was the person who defrauded tna about pay-per-view numbers in 2002 i'm familiar yes uh so he was arrested on april 29th uncouncilated to embezzlement

43:23grand larcery and forgery related to his job at team services he has a june 2nd court date hearing in a pending in nassau county hassman is charged in relation to his previous job with team services which works major companies in promoting pay-per-view events he was the vice president of pay-per-view and marketing with wcw during both its good periods and its fall later he attempted to put together a group to buy both ecw as well as wcw and the promotions were collapsing even though ecw was financially in horrible shape paul heyman turned down the hassman offer not believing they had

43:54the financial backing claimed he was probably right well paul heyman knows about defrauding people with how much money he has he was heavily involved in the startup of tna as a business partner and employee at first there was a quick falling out when tna officials accused hassman of lying about pay-per-view numbers telling them numbers were exaggerated well past any reasonable estimate and gave them the impression they were doing 80 000 buys the first few weeks when in reality they were doing 25 000 15 000 and 10 000 like you can't even like knock it up to like yo 30 000 guys no big week guys we did 35 he's like no 80 we came we did 80 uh tna through jerry jared sued

44:30hassman over that and other charges while hassman sued tna back claiming they misrepresented to him the amount of financial backing they had to start the venture as he would have never been involved unless they had at least five million in funding both sides dropped their suits each other against each other simultaneously so they were both right or both wrong they were both right about being in their own which seems to be the story of tna yeah shane douglas did an interview this past week upon returning after his stay in rehab for an oxycontin addiction douglas said he started using them under prescription with two pills a day but built up to where he was taking 50 a day including

45:03gobbling 15 pills at a time douglas said in december when his second son was born he realized he better clean up saying he'd have hated if he grew up with the stigma their father died of a drug overdose tna officials told him when he asked for time off that he'd have his job waiting for him when he came back not as a backstage interviewer anymore jb has firmly taken that from him yeah douglas said going through withdrawal was absolute hell he was vomiting every five to ten minutes for weeks constant diarrhea dehydration i call it like the worst flu you've ever had multiplied by 50

45:34he said just moving from the couch to the bathroom was a major chore sounds awful don't take drugs kids well if you do just make sure they yes be responsible kids take the cool drugs take no drugs i've never taken drugs i'm the most boring man on earth i've never taken drugs either of course bill goldberg posted on his website that he's been talking with tna which is actually several month old news goldberg did get a first actual money offer from tna this month but turned it down right now

46:04with his son just born it would have been very difficult for him to do anything even later we'll take a ton of money and those who are pretty much aware of what is going on or doubtful tna's offer will come close to what he'd be willing to work for and the deal is unlikely to happen goldberg is financially set for life and gets tons of offers for wrestling and even some for mma not to mention public appearances but still sees it as his market value is as the same as it was in 1998 goldberg's wife wanda gave birth to the couple's first child prematurely on may 10th a five pound eight ounce boy named gage aj goldberg the son was due on june 10th but he is doing fine is that goldberg's large

46:41son that's goldberg's large son nice the man seen on wv television man um the child there's that thing where like people posted photos of him went from when he was on wv tv like 10 years ago and it's like normal looking child and now he's like jacked football player it's like that's bill goldberg's son can't wait till he dominates nxt 2.0 so ratings impact does like a 0.8 to 1.0 every week it's usually a 0.9 fine numbers every week pw torch breathlessly report the one the 0.9 that they

47:19did and are like it's not going up it's not going down it's staying the same they're not keeping ufc's lead in though how dare they not keep ufc's lead in because they had not understood at this point that the crossover between wrestling and mma is actually quite small it seems intuitive that it should be larger but like time has shown us it's actually not that big like the you're not going to turn mma fans into wrestling fans you're not going to turn wrestling fans into mma fans there there is crossover but usually the people that like one don't just go to the other by default no people

47:49people like one normally just like have a casual relationship with the other if anything or you're someone who is like into both it is funny to see like endeavor are now trying to do it again with ufc and wwe and they own both they can't it's it's very it's very like it's very advantageous for them to try but will they be the ones to finally crack the gold i don't think so because as i said i don't think the crossover is that big see i think they might just because debitary is so far from wrestling now like debitary is post wrestling it is like its own like weird hyper specific entity

48:26that i could see people being like oh yeah i'm here for the ufc but i'll buy a fucking ticket to whatever shows on the sunday you know what i mean like i just it's so like it's so disney of it all that i could just see people being like i'll go to the show so i think they'll they have a stronger chance than ever of actual crossover because it's just it's it's it's it is yeah it's post wrestling if the only way i can describe it as it's not what it's not wrestling wrestling it's its own weird entity yeah it's john pollock yeah it's post dress it's john pollock uh so like i don't know

49:01like i read these and i didn't include any of the details because it's just annoying me i just read them and they're like oh you know they did a the sky is falling they did a 0.8 this week they do a one point till the next week it's fine and like there's a story in the observer regarding the tna ratings the indication internally at tna is that spike is happy with the numbers which is all that fucking matters why are these people going crazy how is this like still the same talking point 20 years spike was projecting selling ads at a 0.8 rating and the lowest they've gotten so far is 0.84 so

49:36everything above that's gravy for spike they said when we sold this to advertisers 0.8 every week has done better than that so it has exceeded expectations in the time slot for what spike has sold it as and like the the numbers internally are hugely disappointing dave like literally calls it a failure this month he uses the word failure it's like tna's failure to get an audience on spike it's like what are you talking about and like part of it is like he's making a direct comparison to the ufc uh which is like it makes sense to do here in 2005 because they're both

50:10on spike they're they're neither are particularly large entities but the idea that like you're comparing tna to what like we know what ufc becomes we know what tna becomes in there the gap between those things is fucking humongous um so the idea that like they are actually you know comparing those two it's like tna aren't doing ufc numbers it's a disaster and i'm just like liam is currently underlining all of the talking points you see over and over and over again because dave is like there

50:42is no way to positively spin the downward trending quarter hours which is the way every quarter hour is now in wrestling by the way everything is the four things i've underlined which are spike is happy then the numbers are hugely disappointing followed by there is no way to positively spin the downward trending quarter hours followed by there are more eyeballs seeing the product than ever before like dave wrote this paragraph because as you said tna is well ahead of where it was but there wasn't the defining moment in turning

51:15the company's fortunes around the saturday replays are well ahead of the former monday replays and the thursday shows are even ahead of saturday so as you said there are more eyeballs seeing tna than ever in tna's existence but this is a disaster it's a failure the company needs to change and i'm losing my mind it's driving me crazy reading this liam and it's literally driving me crazy to see this is what we've done to aw and i've probably been guilty of it too like the same old bullshit talking points none of it matters and i get we need to fill column inches or whatever dave has the right shit in the

51:50observer and wade has the right shit god fucking anytime you want you read one of those fucking things and you're like 40 of this is boring ratings talk that no that doesn't matter and no one gives a shit about yeah like there is endless paragraphs about this in both the again both the torch and the observer hitting this over and over and over and over again how are they not sick about writing of this it's been 20 it's been longer than that because they were doing it during the fucking 90s too it's really frustrating it is like it is the most frustrating thing about this podcast for me so

52:23far is this like reading this stuff and seeing like it's just the same shit we do now and like we for the aw for all their faults i think we probably talked them into a depression yeah well yeah like listen part of the reason aw like has the perception it has now is just because the way people have talked about it and like part of like they had their real creative low last year yeah which was like you know broadly agreed upon by haters and fans alike actually the haters started pretending they

52:56liked it which was the funniest bit i think part of the reason we saw that was like this shit like we we talked them into them feeling like they had to change and then they did change and we were like and everyone's like no this sucks and instead of just being like like they're doing fine it's okay to be a really healthy number two that's really okay that's the that's the problem is because like there's a perception like what it's the again the wcw wwf of it all like it like the idea that you

53:26have to be number one to be successful we can't get away from it we really haven't escaped the monday night wars in any capacity and the way we talk about wrestling and the way like everything we think about we compare it to wcw still everything is wcw everything good is wcw everything bad is wcw like we have not escaped this it's honestly the same stuff we saw with the luger bagwell and um buff stuff earlier it's like everyone's like this is wcw we we haven't gotten away from that as an industry we just haven't broken out of those thinking patterns despite the fact that like there is a large

54:01percentage of pro wrestling fans that weren't alive like most people who watch wv tv now haven't watched a wrestling show earlier than even conservatively 2013 yeah most of them are probably a little bit later yeah like like the majority of wrestling fans now are shield era fans that's the era we're in if you want to actually define this year of wv it's the shield era those are who the fans are like they're roman guys they're seth guys and they used to be dean guys but and then they they burnt

54:33their the jersey until he comes back and he'll be great again because they're dopes but like that is where we are most of these people like for them tna is not relevant like tna had a year on spike before a year or two on spike before these fans like fell onto the pop and destination america and access and pursuit and fell out of you like that's that's where we are now we're like tna is like this abstract thought like the idea of this era of tna is nearly 20 years ago so like these

55:04people don't even know this stuff never mind wcw and we're still stuck in heyman and bischoff and vince and the monday night wars and wcw and ecw and we because we have not evolved as an industry in both how we talk about it and how we compare things and what we're striving toward it's just really annoying reading all of this and i don't include any of it in the show notes because it annoys me too much oh we got it all out of our system now until i read it again next month yes when tna is dying again and then russo comes back and then it's all over and then as i said they did that they

55:38didn't want russo russo wouldn't have been the guy they picked that's your bad she chose russo and i think it's the right decision and i'll be proven correct to be fair this this russo russo return isn't the one that fucks them forever yes there is another one that is worse fucking dumb company that's the one that like kills it so that is the news that is the news that brings us to broad topics starting with the nwa world title program and the main event of sacrifice 2006 coming off the

56:09main event of lockdown if you remember we recap at the start of the first time back to the pay-perty cycle april 27th all the events of lockdown were christian retained the title against abyss but abyss jumped well actually technically christian jumped abyss after the match but abyss got the better of him and as christian was trying to get revenge on mitchell abyss stole the nwa world title so this month abyss is in possession of the nwa world title i'd argue that james mitchell is in possession most of the time would you rather see in full metal mayhem abyss versus christian or

56:40mitchell versus christian i don't think you want me to answer that question get abyss out of here get the sinister minister in there abyss more like no bis abyss more like bbis which was going to be the original name of joseph park i think i've said that before is that true yeah the original name of joseph park was going to be bbis as in going from a to b b bus like b e e space bus no i think it's just b y b s s no b b y s s a b a b a b y

57:10yeah i don't know words i i've forgotten how to spell abyss just by putting a b in front of it that does change the whole dynamic to be fair so at the start of that episode of impact mitchell said they fulfilled their promise to take the title from christian after stealing that lockdown mitchell says the world is yours and then takes a heavy shot at cm punk by calling abyss the real world champion he should put a big dumb x on it and then disappear from the company after beating up david young cassidy riley cassidy riley's probably it isn't it it's probably the meanest thing anybody

57:42said about jungle jack i don't know have you ever been on twitter.com people don't seem to like the scapegoat you're not wrong yeah true to name and to form so uh abyss comes out which mitchell at the start of the show we actually opened the show with for the only time in the history of the television show adrenaline rush it is the only time which actually should i does that mean i have to remix an adrenaline rush opening theme now for this and this alone i think you should just add adrenaline rush adrenaline rush to the beginning of the theme uh or maybe at the end of the theme we'll see how

58:14it goes we'll see what sounds easier i'm always remixing themes because i'm already like all right i do have to add at least one quote from this episode so or these episodes so uh curse your good idea to do a remixed intro forever well not every episode but keep adding quotes to the intro yeah well it's fun i meant like more like error by error or like when something really stood out i didn't mean specifically each episode but i like it you suggested it and i'm like that's cool and i like when it's different for most of the episodes well it's no longer my problem is it yeah you're the ideas guy

58:47and then i have to spend time doing all this stuff they call me the elon of the podcast oh you're a billionaire i wish i would not i would not distribute my wealth so hard abyss and mitchell come out uh the crowd start chanting not world champ at abyss mitchell says possession is nine tenths of the law which it's it's not that's not how i was gonna say i think isn't isn't that like fake law that is just one of those things people who like to steal things say it's not true and then if anybody wants to take the belt from abyss then they can which introduces rhino and then we have our opening contest on impact for the real world championship it's a non-title match so abyss is a liar but

59:22well it could have been a real world title match i guess it could have been because he's not champion if rhino had have just beaten abyss what's to stop him from picking up the belt and going i am the champion and then we just start doing a linear world champion in tna and then we we end up slammiversary unifying the belt um today once again puts over tna's incredible streak of pay-per-views calls lockdown another home run do you agree uh sure like yeah fine cool like a like a like a

59:54seven which is by 2005 standards that is a home run to be fair yeah that's fine though we are also in 2006 it's fine rhino hits a belly to belly begins the motion for the gore but bobby rude emerges in northern lariates rhino while mitchell has the referee distracted why did you not highlight that one sentence it is highlighted it's highlighted in the bobby rude and rhino color which is white well it's a it's a very faint gray some would argue too faint for those wondering we have included color coding in the show notes because it's always an ordeal especially when there's more episodes

1:00:27would have been okay for this one because there's only three impacts for this pay-per-view cycle but it is usually an ordeal across like six episodes trying to find all the angles so i've started color coding the angles but there is one sentence in the middle of this which is color coded for bobby rude versus rhino which is a baby match and the rest is for abyss versus christian so liam is confused by the fact that there is one sentence that is out of place but i i understand now how could i have ever been so blind abyss hits the black hole slam for the way christian rushes out and brawls with abyss which

1:00:57by the way abyss issued an open challenge that christian did not answer so well he doesn't respect the actual belt i think he's a coward all right you tell him that he was he was there he could have answered it his buddy rhino did he had nothing to gain from it he already has a match he could have regained his nwa title right there then by defeating abyss like a man instead of trying to jump him out to he'd already wrestled real kaito kiamia vibes brawls with abyss hits a spear but then mitchell bails with the belt christian low bridges abyss and abyss scampers away christian calls abyss shrek and don west is

1:01:29like wow nobody has ever called abyss that i'm sure that's true it does lead to a tremendous sign at the pay-per-view which is uh abyss as shrek and james richard as donkey donkey donkey christian then challenges abyss to a tables ladders chairs and chains legally a distinct match at full metal may um at sacrifice so full metal may um still very cool name it is funny that multiple because it's obviously it's christian making the challenge christian very famous to a tlc so they're they multiple times this month try to invoke tlc without obviously legally doing so you should have said uh

1:02:06stairs first and then they could have gotten that sweet payday a few years later uh do a stairs match yeah could have sued the wwf for their tables ladders chairs and stairs we own the stairs sir we did for well stairs and medals so technically so yeah main event of sacrifice full metal mayhem christian versus abyss whoa we moved to the may 4th impact in which the main event is christian cage versus alex shelley i liked this matt i liked particularly the idea of this match that they didn't just abandon

1:02:39the idea that oh yeah christian also was home invaded by alex shelley not just abyss shelley was there too filming it so he wants some revenge there too so my favorite thing about this match is that it's just christian kicking the shit out about like shelley for 80 percent of it shelley gets like barely anything in this he gets like an enziguri and a ddt and then christian beats him up a bunch and then they do a sweet like sliced bread christian reverses into a whip and then like shelley goes into the buckle and then comes back and rolls into the unprettier it looks really cool it was a very very smooth

1:03:12finish i did like also at the start of the match christian obviously raging because shelley home invasion but shelley is like come on man it was in the past he's like trying to de-escalate it was just it's just a job i was just doing my job buddy it's it wasn't personal he said that to the sting i was like i'm just doing what i was told uh christian then slaps them and then they brawl and matt starts off a stiff slap and they also do a bit where christian when they're going to break goes out to the the announce table and sits shelley on a chair he grabs a headset from the announce

1:03:46desk and a camera from val he does not understand how the camera works he's not a documentarian like alex is he pointed around the wrong way he wants to film the crowd like no he was like he was pointing it at his face and then like he was like he switched it around to do like the documentary thing is this the only cage shelley match they do some tag stuff there's a really good guns against christian and rhino match in 2008 that has an even more awesome finish than this one but i don't think there's another singles did he want ring of honor am i imagining that i don't think so what

1:04:20was he wrestled daniels in ring of honor what were his other ring of honor matches he was filming his own movie which he called boot to the skull and then he said i love story and kicked alex shelley in the head and threw the break he almost had it if he just said i love cinema ah god i could have quote that would have been a great clip uh he wrestled he lost to christopher daniels yeah on my birthday happy birthday um and he teamed with colt cabana to defeat brian danielson and christopher daniels did he only do two yeah i guess tna were probably pretty like you listen we'll

1:04:53let you do one just so you seem cool but no more than that well yeah he he did it that tag went 28 minutes despicable and then but like the the daniels match went at 14 and no rating for the match so not that good i i've seen the daniels match and it's not that good but i meant the tag it's very long yeah but like i don't know it's an environment in which the crowd doesn't this isn't necessarily turned off by super long match which is i think the modern critique yeah but uh cage and

1:05:24shelley a very fun interesting match with some like ddp ass finish yep so as you said christian beats shelley with the unprettier christian grabs the mic and says abyss runs pretty fast for a monster but he's 10 days away from getting the nwa world title back and then they cut to the back where mitchell and abyss are backstage and challenges christian to show up next week and try to take the nwa world title back i'm noticing a real inconsistency in the yellow that you used you see that's the problem uh it is wrong on the next one let me fix it i'll fix it for you well well on the first one

1:05:55that's wrong then too because it's lighter listen it's hard it is actually surprisingly hard i'll do my best man you just need to have like um a key with like all the different colors for the things like you just assign all your colors in the broad topics bit then go back and just copy paste it that is how i did it but like you have to fill in the colors and i like because when you look at the adding them in google docs it is hard to tell just looking eyeballing it the the shade the thing i should do is just use all the same ones along a single row yeah so that i know which one's there

1:06:28just do the whole seg like yeah like pick one at the start and then just do all of those segments like i would probably do row four and just do everything's across that row that would probably make life easier for myself see we're in the developmental stage this is the beta the go home impact abyss faced chase stevens you like this it was a little plunder squash it wasn't announced as a no dq match or anything but they let abyss use weapons which seems unfair because he's already wrestling chase stevens you shouldn't be allowed to use weapons i didn't give a shit about it but it's because like to me the match was like nothing it was just an angle to get to the post match which

1:07:03i think this feud really needed i thought like after lockdown the like the story wasn't as interesting and this big brawl and christian diving off the ladder was like after that happened i was like okay i'm kind of like into this now yeah because it's a classic like we have three weeks until the next show coming out of lockdown so we want to get another month out of abyss and christian which fair enough probably like three weeks doesn't feel like enough to get another challenge incredible yeah so it's just like let's churn this out one more month with a stiff next time well i had a stiff

1:07:36blast down too because it was in a cage but a bigger stiff uh bigger stiff indeed a christian specific stiff some would argue that a cage match is more full metal mayhem there is more metal have they ever done full metal mayhem at lockdown i don't believe so i should call it fullest metalist mayhem the thing people always wanted was like a six sides of steel ultimate x why didn't they do that i guess logistically it would be a bit weird i mean you can just like attach the things to the top of the cage i guess yeah well i don't think they'd be able to bear it you would still need to hang it

1:08:06from the ceiling in some capacity i think we'll work it out mitchell isn't accompanying abyss because he's in a secure location backstage with the nwa world title mitchell cuts a promo on full metal mayhem as abyss pulls weapons from under the ring abyss is going to have a little preview here with chase stevens which everyone just is like fine cool uh stevens hits abyss right in the head with the chair so abyss throws chase into a chair wedged in the buckle chokes down through a table for the win and as you said christian comes out appears hits abyss with a ladder and then dives off the ladder onto abyss and security wipes them all out and that's our little go home segment for the christian

1:08:37and abyss match i don't know if i'm these whiny babies that about who are pissy about not getting booked i'd be more upset at chase stevens getting the booking yeah he's just a guy but he's just the guy to lose he's the one guy he's just the yeah it couldn't have been elix skipper exactly or david young exactly could have been hoyt hoyt probably would have made more sense then you have to pin hoyt again again i guess that does take us to sacrifice jb has a bitch a bitch god damn it what the hell it's not the first time i've slandered abyss like that jb has

1:09:08abyss and mitchell christian must go through a gauntlet of tables ladders chairs and trains tonight click doomsday to make christian's death wish come through with a black hole slam through one last table liam the one awaiting him in the morgue tables are in the morgue they're gonna kill him pro wrestling style tables they're going to kill him awesome which you know what usually you'd be like it's a bit dumb that they're gonna say they're going to kill him but abyss did try to drown the man last month so it's actually pretty consistent yeah and he's already the champion so nobody doesn't have to worry about winning the title of a dead man that's a good point long-term storytelling god i have a big news for you what's the big news brian danielson has defeated

1:09:46jeff jarrett despicable classic aew bias toward ring of honor rather than tna history no world in which that should happen yeah exactly particularly not my world the feature before this match is one that you liked yeah um they did like a vignette and i'm i'm a sucker for like a vignette um and it's just it's the it's the easiest thing in the world which is highlights of the feud with classical music

1:10:17that is escalating yeah if you ever just want a simple way to make a match feel big that's how you do it they do for i think nearly every match on the show maybe even some that don't deserve them uh probably not the x cup matches but they do have pre-match video packages for the vast majority of the matches on their shows these days good why did we move away from that because like aew is too insanely paced to do it and wb does do it but aw does them all on like digital media and like the zero hour but like i don't know i think they're cool and they get you like i think

1:10:49the pre-match hype videos work especially for like a company like aw that has 55 matches that is burning out the crowd like it gives the crowd a moment to catch their breath and get hyped up again the problem with aws though is they're often then the ones that make the show if there are any they are like 45 seconds as opposed to like a more substantial like two minutes and like it's a thing that when when they click when you get the obviously the my way one is the most famous and will be cited until the end of time but like when you get the right combination of song and story

1:11:20like it helps immortalize a match like it helps a match stand in time when it has one of those video packages like not that brian danielson winning the world title at wrestlemania is a smaller moment without the monster video package but the monster video package sure as hell helped yeah it's like like an eight every example that the hangman kenny one where it's like before they did the match at full gear they had the whole like him coming in on the horse and then recapping the whole feud like there's just moments like that where it worked and i said it helps immortalize things and especially when you're a company the level of aw which is bigger than tna here and with a little more money to

1:11:53work with for perhaps better songs to use to punctuate these video packages um or even just like just some kind of brand deal to plug the song and connections to maybe a giant company that has the ownership of most music now warner brothers don't have any music historically no i actually think they have sold a lot of it yeah they still have the library though they are a well-run company jb has christian right before the match says carrying around a belt doesn't make you a champion ask jared he did it for four years oh oh you he said and they say i don't have jokes anymore

1:12:27he's very happy with himself about that one he made full metal mayhem famous i think that was abyss and jeff harry personally but then he's gonna take back his title and then our main event full metal mayhem christian cage defeats abyss to retain and regain the nwa world title they did themselves some plunder yeah i preferred the match last month there there is some good cool moments like abyss belly-to-bellies christian into a ladder in the corner he throws him off the top through two tables and he misses one of the tables but grazes like the side of it with his back in a way that sucks

1:12:58way more so hurt it's it's one of those things like it's so much worse to have not gone through a table yeah because it would be fine if he just hit one but he hit right down the side of the one he didn't hit and it did not look pleasant no not at all uh the big bit was mitchell got his thumbtack bump so christian got his revenge on mitchell he hit like a uranagi into the the thumbtacks uh mitchell a crow by the way took the jacket off so he could take the thumbtack bump yeah and plus like all of the tacks would stick in better christian concertos abyss while his head is on a table mean of him

1:13:32i like concerto lord though i'm a sucker for it yeah the long-term concerto story yeah there's a long while where neither edge nor christian did it wasn't there yeah and they brought it back it was like it was always fun like it really did feel like a kill move christian goes to climb looks at the belt looks at abyss who's on a table decides to frog splash abyss through a table then gets up and gets his belt so he is still champion i would say it's a little on the disappointing side i would almost say yeah especially like for abyss who's great in plunder and christian who like this is his match

1:14:02he said so it's it's only good it's like there's nothing wrong with it it's it's not like a terrible match by any means no but it is merely good and in a company that has had like a lot of way better pay-per-view plunder usually featuring abyss yeah like if this was sabu it would be a different story yeah for good reason because christian doesn't throw himself through enough tables he only misses them and hurts himself way more yeah the finish is like funny you have what because he didn't he didn't choose to yeah like like just take the belt down and then frog splash him

1:14:35he needs his revenge he is driven by revenge best of both worlds a hannah montana situation yeah ba-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da sing the hannah montana song you got the limo out front ooh-oh hottest styles every shoe every color i don't know the next line when you're famous it can be kind of fun it's really you but no one ever discovers do you know all the lyrics uh how you used to i watched a shit ton of hannah montana growing up so did i it's the classic it's

1:15:07always on on multiple channels at all times kids don't know the joy of that in streaming you can't just google the lyrics no i'm trying to i just the next i just need the next bit yeah it's like like you that doubles as a superstar but i don't know what the dirt is in some ways you're just like all your friends but on stage you're a star you get the best of both worlds no no no no you can give you can give the you got the best of both worlds more more punch than you get the best of both worlds

1:15:42you can commit to that one mix it all together and you know you're the best of both worlds she does that laugh at the end i think it actually just goes yeah i think it's a ha ha ha apparently in verse two it goes you go to the movie premieres and then it goes was that orlando bloom no it wasn't there you go impromptu hannah montana sing along that takes us over to the other kind of co-main event really for sacrifice which is staying and a partner versus jeff jarrett and scott steiner well if you ask jeff jarrett it's the main event he does say so at one point this month

1:16:16he does say the main event do you think he thinks he's main eventing the show even in the observer dave is like they didn't announce the main event until the go-home impact it's like no that no christian and abyss was made on the first impact dave what are you talking about i guess he's talking about jeff then there is some talk about the the consensus seems to be that christian is a bit of a flop why i guess like because he's not again but is that like you know dave and wade i think it is a little bit of it like oh rankings are going through the roof with christian as champion but i think a little bit of it is uh people recognizing in real time that he he's a natural heel he is he's better

1:16:51as a heel yeah it's so funny that christian is main eventing a giant pay-per-view tomorrow in 2024 yeah we are talking about sacrifice 2006 in which people have written off christian as a main eventer even here in tna and he is about to main event another show 18 years later fair enough once again co-main eventing and he might not even go on last this time but i think he will unless i guess the in the arena is the other like thing honestly there's maybe more of a case about monet on last

1:17:21than swerving christian yeah but we'll see how that plays out april 27th impact jb has jarrett and steiner at sacrifice it will be jarrett and steiner versus sting and a partner of sting's choosing larry walks in and says sting has asked jarrett and steiner to meet sting in the ring tonight where we'll find out who his partner is completely unrelated we'll talk about it here for no reason whatsoever samoa joe defended the exhibition title against j lethal it's it's always like fun that like joe like in the middle of like a world x cup that's just like matches like this happening and i do appreciate that like joe obviously for reasons we'll get into in a moment

1:17:55doesn't have an exhibition title match at the pay-per-view so they do do like a little one on tv they give you something but it is funny how as yeah joe is wrestling lethal on tv shelly is wrestling christian on tv in the middle of a tournament in which they're meant to be in and they are in to be fair uh joe jumps lethal uh in the midst of chaos with raven which we'll talk about in a moment joe's mid-air interception of a leapfrog is one of my favorite moves the one where he kind of like drops down grabs the dude's leg and just kind of takes them down in a flapjack really cool one of the rare good catch buds lethal gets a flurry but joe cuts him off with a mid-air st joe not even the

1:18:31corner one like they're just snapping him out of the air when he does a springboard which is also awesome wins with the muscle buster and then zaxby's giant chicken finger wraps are no snack in fact they're so big they get their own menu get one in your choice of asians and zation buffalo blue and chicken bacon ranch and you know they're coming packed with three crispy hand-breaded famous fingers fresh ingredients and their signature sauce all wrapped to perfection big on size bolder on flavor but that's just how they do it at zaxby's zaxby's giant wraps they're no snack who's got the sauce

1:19:06zaxby's jeff jarrett's music hits the cutoff joe and he and steiner enter as joe has a face-off with both jarrett and steiner after the match what could it mean which is the second time they've done this if you remember not with steiner of course but with jarrett they did it last year with uh the entrances rolling into each other and a face-off and we were like what could i wonder if this will be a thing turns out no it's not sting picks yes well jarrett picks that's the problem hmm so jarrett and steiner are in the ring as sting enters jarrett demands to know who sting's partner is sting says i'm gonna

1:19:39let you choose two tunnels either side of the building there's a different wrestler behind each tunnel tunnel a tunnel b tunnel a tunnel b christy hammy you come out here so you can reveal the tunnel and he's like jarrett you can choose tunnel a or tunnel b or you can also choose neither it's so funny that the thing that started just bursting out of my phone was kenny omega saying snake in the grass it's snake in the back one kenny please come on nor gimmicks that is the most gen z

1:20:14thing you have ever done what just accidentally blare like a tiktok in the middle of it it was it was a twitter clip what are you on twitter for i thought i had a message i opened my phone and then i just went just went to kenny omega going snake in the grass just playing things out loud in an inappropriate setting like the gen z kid that you are okay boomer i was standing at the bus stop earlier and there's this dude who's just playing tiktoks like out loud at a bus stop that had like

1:20:4510 other people there it's like how have we societally allowed this to happen was it like very loud or like just on his phone loud it was just on his phone loud but still get headphones get headphones it's fine no yeah it's fine stop interrupting other people with your tiktoks yeah it's fine tunnel a tunnel b christy hammy jarrett can choose neither it was pretty incoherent the rules of this game show by the way i don't think anyone quite understood what was going on because it was meant to play a play on deal or no deal but like that's not what deal or no deal is either so the

1:21:19idea is jared could choose one wrestler another wrestler or bump it to next week by choosing neither okay if it was deal or no deal there would have been four briefcases one representing each week and then he would have picked the last one and then boom like each week they'd be like his reaction to the ones that he didn't pick because yeah it's because like next week they do it completely differently to this week and the third week they do it completely differently again so it's like you did not think through the game show all of it it's not a very well designed game show like it could have worked quite easily you have him pick a briefcase that he has to stick with and then like

1:21:52he gets the results of all the other briefcases and he like he goes aha cool i don't have lex i don't have rick i don't have buff and then and then you have him open it you have him open it on the last week and it just says similar joke must be noted don once again identified chrissy hemi as miss playboy april 2005 he knows it well so stings that's a timer they do a countdown jared's like i'm calling your bluff i take neither because you don't have anybody there's nobody behind those tunnels important to note steiner was like choose a tunnel steiner's like pissy about it all yeah he wants to get out of the way he just wants to know who's gonna wrestle he doesn't want this bullshit

1:22:24sting does the big reveal because neither man has been chosen there is two men behind the tunnel and they are both out but he does big reveals for them anyway so tunnel number one is a former member of the nwo a former five-time wcw tag team champion with four different partners i had no clue who this was he's currently on probation in cobb county georgia and that's a shoot that's a shoot his mom was one half of the wcw world tag team champions it's buff bagwell and jared calls buff uh a top hat

1:22:55wearing moron which is good he's just like ah screw it uh tunnel number two liam was a college football scholarship to the university of miami a member of the green bay packers hall of fame was with the world bodybuilding federation he's an international fugitive and that's also a shoot it is two-time wcw champion it's a lex luger oh so luger's out buff is out we punt in next week dealer no deal continues what a good little payday for these guys to just come out and do nothing

1:23:29yeah i don't know it's a fun i like i am always pro stunt booking for the most part yeah like i i think it's pretty cool to just get like lex luger in as you said like or when we were covering it in the news he's not there to wrestle a hundred times a year he's just there to like be a prop in this angle and it's like oh lex luger's on tv that's fun sting came up with the dealer no deal concept that was played out of the last impact tapings the feeling backstage was that he flopped in his attempts at humor and talked too long so his segments will have to be edited down sting is best in small doses says one tna wrestler he did himself harm he tried to be funny instead he was

1:24:04long-winded and boring and that's a shoot that's a good good own i like the way pw torch then explain that last sentence is meant to be a rib on sting who kept saying and that's a shoot when he talked about the jail time bagwell and luger had served when he's introducing them as mystery wrestlers during his segment at the taping way to explain the joke pw torch well yeah because wrestling the diamond wouldn't wouldn't get it i do think sting lost the thread a few times in these things but i don't know he's sting yeah there's so much you can get away with with the sentence

1:24:34he's sting yeah he's sting may 4th dealer no deal round two this time one tunnel jared can say yes or no to the tunnel and so you can either accept whoever's behind the one tunnel or once again punt it one more week to the final week before sacrifice cool the rules are disintegrating around us steiner a man who obviously transfixed with the idea of odds surrounding sacrifice wants to take this deal because he doesn't want to punt it the next week yeah he like if there's one person should listen to the math about he doesn't care who sting has jared then cams steiner jared then asks if

1:25:09tanae has any insight and tanae says take the deal jared calls this match the baby main event here he asks the crowd the crowd say yes so then he says no which is a good bit technically he wasn't lying like he did poll them and it did influence the main event or whatever that is true if they had said no he would have said yes exactly so we punt again to next week so this person is null and void sting intros they are an all-american college wrestler a top-selling real estate agent a member of the board of education in his local area and that's a shoot and a gigantic transphobe and that's a shoot

1:25:42and should not be a member of a board of education frankly 10 time nwa slash wcw tag team champion an outdoorsman no less as christy hammy reveals that it is rick steiner an outdoorsman which means he likes to hunt and kill yeah which i guess that is relevant he wants to do murder i just thought it was like such an interesting note for sting to add he wants to kill you he wants to hunt and kill you sting does the steiner bros pose with rick as steiner and jared bail down the tunnel and my absolute favorite part of it is if you listen very closely as they're going down the tunnel you can hear scott

1:26:13shout he's fat about his own brother it's the last thing you could hear before they cut away you just hear he's fat they do a little pose together in the ring so then that takes us to go home show dealer no deal final round sting has luger bagwell and rick steiner with him sting gives jarrett one final choice jarrett is fed up says sting is out of partners and he's like you can't get hall you can't get hogan you can't get nash you can't get savage there then is a very small goldberg chant you think they were still like hoping well they did make him a deal or an offer

1:26:46this month so it's still in the news but yeah it's it's over but you you think like the start of this whole like the week one do you think they're like yeah maybe we can still get goldberg well this was all filmed in one night like this was filmed on they taped the three nights of impact straight after lockdown to help straight the sacrifice so it might be the case that they did film it with joe and thinking if we get goldberg we'll pivot and just not air the joe bit yeah but yeah they did at least commit to it being joe right after lockdown so uh there's not even like this is where the dealer

1:27:16don't deal a bit falls down because he kind of offers him a choice but there's only one guy left it has to be this guy well it's it's yeah it's not a choice because they still like do the pretense but the last week wasn't a choice the whole bit was meant to be that like sting is stuck with whoever this is now because jarrett like said no to everyone and jarrett thinks he's like this cool guy because he's like ha you didn't actually have anyone you're screwed like no one wants to team with you you had all your options like i outplayed you you thought i was gonna pick one of these guys which makes no sense because like why would sting ever offer this is the final thing if he didn't just have someone

1:27:49as the final thing because he was bluffing it doesn't make any sense he thought jarrett would have chosen one of the other guys he's like fuck i have nobody cassie cassie riley you busy yeah they're all like sorry we're not booked so the payoff of the bit of reading down the accomplishments is so that he can read down these accomplishments to set up the reveal which i actually thought like is well constructed in terms of like the thought process behind it yeah so he starts running down the accomplishments once again of the person who will now be his tag team partner so he was a solo performer at the 1984 olympics in la he's a former mortgage broker

1:28:23tank abbott's dad was his high school english teacher i will say it's very rare that we have an earnest criticism of my tanay and don west it's usually just something silly they say i thought they were hitting this way too hard like oh he's got no one yeah every single time sting read something they did a big response being like oh he's done he's over it's over it's done how it's over it's like guys just let it play out you don't have to hit this that hard just leave it leave it play out yeah and they were pointing out that like oh sting is

1:28:54because sting was doing a delivery been like oh yeah he's a former mortgage broker as if he was defeated and they're like oh sting's been defeated he doesn't seem happy about this it's like yeah i get that i can hear him speak you don't have to tell me i can see it on the screen he's a former bouncer in huntington beach california and then sting suddenly perks up and announces that his partner will be the samoan submission machine samoa joe to a humongous and entirely piped in pop no i i think like he got a good reaction but i think it is the case that because they filmed all

1:29:26three of these segments in front of the same crowd the crowd even by the end of it with the joe reveal was just kind of like come on just get to get to it so they did pipe in the pop and it is very funny how loud that pop is compared to everything else in the show sting holds up the joe's gonna kill you t-shirt then as it will be sting and samoa joe versus jeff jarrett and scott steiner at sacrifice so how'd you feel about deal or no deal i mean i i didn't hate it i mean it was fun like it was in that like it wasn't quite comedy but it was like it was wacky maybe like all the

1:29:57segments ran a little long for me but yeah that's that's it really yeah i feel like it was a good idea that just needed to be refined a little yeah they needed to think a little harder about how they do the setups and reveals because as i said i do really like the idea that like the running down of accomplishments was the way to tee up like the the bait and switch of it being joe it's like oh that's actually kind of clever but then the way they got to that was a little bit clumsy you could have just thought about it an extra 10 minutes yeah instead of just sending sting out there and winging it so that does take us to sacrifice may 14th 2006 sting and joe prepare for the main event earlier

1:30:29in the show notably in separate locker rooms can they coexist that becomes the thing that jarrett and steiner tried to hit when they are talking to jb jarrett is mad that jb thinks jarrett was one-upped jarrett is like i actually won because sting can't trust joe and they can't coexist and i will say scott steiner cuts his first promo on samoa joe here and does not call him fat what the hell we even do and i was waiting for it i was like he's gonna call him fat it's gonna be his first promo on joe and he's gonna immediately call him fat and he doesn't it's a remarkable

1:31:01restraint from the man he does call him fat by the time we get to the pay for you next month but fair play to you scott he showed a bit of restraint uh steiner says joe isn't man enough to beat him and says joe's winning streak ends tonight then joe also has an interview later he's like i don't need to sing kumbaya to kick somebody's ass and steiner built his rep killing people and i'm gonna build my rep killing his good line so samoa joe and sting defeated jeff jarrett and scott steiner in a match that i kind of loved it's fun and you do look at like the the reaction to it afterwards they very like people did seem to see it as a star making match for joe that like it's a big ass spot yeah

1:31:37this is joe's elevation out of the x division he is still x champ here but like he is moving out of the x division he wrestled sabu last month he's in with the main event guys now he's in with sting and steiner like the the big guys who have made him into wcw pay-per-views and uh not only did he hang like and like the dynamic between him and steiner in particular you're like oh there's something there yeah well i think it's just it's just truly undeniable you know that is that is the thing like samoa joe is a once in a generation talent like he truly is on every level in terms of as a

1:32:09wrestler as a television performer as a promo as a guy with presence and aura so you put him in with any of these guys who are even like somewhat credible main eventers and steiner is like steiner is fresh off of a wwe run that went pretty disastrously but steiner is still steiner he's scott steiner you look at him he's credible he's legit when he talks you're like that's the most believable man i've ever seen so you put him against joe who is also like the most believable man you've ever seen in different ways too yeah and you're like that's real those two men are real

1:32:41and i did appreciate how much of this match because like joe does take a couple of overhead belly to bellies from steiner which is like the first time joe has been thrown around i guess aj did like a torture rack bomb on him as well so the the first time anybody has done a power move on joe but it is it is cool to have the dynamic where it's like it's the first time joe is maybe outmatched by a guy's power so it's like steiner hits that first overhead belly to belly and joe looks a little bit shook and a little bit rattled and i think that was a nice thing to show like a different side of joe joe well it's also because like aj getting a surprise power move on him is one thing to be

1:33:15like to go against someone you're like oh this guy might consistently outpower me that changes my whole