You've Got To Be Kidding Me Ep. 49 Slammiversary June 2006 - Joe vs. Steiner, Cornette Debuts, KOTM Controversy

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 just put all the other chicken chains on notice because now they got dry rubs you can get their famous fingers and wings in three signature flavors zesty lemon pepper savory garlic parm and spicy nashville hot which means there's a little something for everyone chasing a bold hit of flavor if you've been sleeping on zaxby's this new dry rub menu is about to wake you up zaxby's dry rubs try all three flavors before they're gone who's got the sauce zaxby's today is the best wrestling in the whole world think this is funny no why would you do this

1:13hold to get a life get a life uh actually a couple weeks ago i lost my tripod oh don't worry i got your tripod right here that's russo oh come on i hate him now he's a waste of time come on man up man up dog what's up you see that joe that's a babe something you don't have you little fat bastard this is bs this sucks i've lost my objectivity and i don't give it dad welcome everybody to you've got

1:46to be kidding me episode number 49 we are a tna history podcast that covers tna one month at a time on this episode we are talking about the month that is june 2006 leading up to slammerversary 2006 i am gareth kidney i'm joined by liam jones oh hello tell me everything about how you're feeling tired dismayed uh devilish distraught oh doom you started with bad things then you threw in devilish which i think is a good podcast mentality devilish is like oh that makes for a good podcast but then

2:19you went to distraught afterwards so dangerous deadly are you only feeling d emotions yes have you run out of d emotions dandy delicious nutritious no that doesn't mean d that's what i am though this is this is good radio the best radio what's going on with you nothing nothing at all nothing nothing has happened in the world of liam jones nothing at all i did jury duty recently you were on the show with the man from sonic yes i was on the television show jury duty with james

2:55marsden james james marsden from from red dead redemption yes he is a real person he came to life from the video game into the television show and even though it's john marsden no they wanted to cast the they were like that guy's really good can we cast them and like the voice and no we want to get the character we want to pull them into our tv show please they should start doing that they should start putting characters in other things just straight up being like i want john marsden and

3:25i'm gonna put him in home and away yeah and you're gonna be like i want to make a breaking bad sequel i want wacko from the animaniacs in it exactly like they should start just letting everything should be copyright free ip yes we're just gonna play all of steamboat willie now so that's how it should work we should be able to do anything we want corporations should never allow be allowed to make money and we should be allowed to do whatever the hell we please with their intellectual property i should be able to stream all wrestling content to the lovely listeners if you've got to be kidding me

3:57without fear of a prize exactly just jump on twitch and see how far you get i should be able to go on twitch i should be able to put on forbidden door with my friends and we should be able to just hang out and they pay me hey we want to protect paper fuck you money because we're billionaires so yes i did not get selected for a jury i forgot that was the way this conversation started yeah you veered off into james marsden i actually did get selected for one but it was a murder trial and they were like we need you free for the entire months of june and july and it's like sorry i do not

4:31have that yeah but did it have been good money do you pay to be jury jury you only get paid by the company you work for so you get the you get well this is how it works in ireland anyway uh you you you are continued to be paid your regular salary which for me at the moment is nothing because i'm on a five month leave from work i would do it so i would be doing it entirely for free for civic responsibilities for the love of the game just to serve my community and put somebody in jail or free them from jail just remembering the jury duty episode where they're like to say that you're

5:02racist just to get out of it you had to get ahead of it he's like i'm uh and i'm a racist and they're like is that true and he's like no also there is probably certain cases if you say i'm a racist they're like fuck yeah pick him for jury duty i would trust a race there is like certain instances like that they don't actually well they do they do strike jurors but they're not like tell me something about yourself they're just like nah i don't like the look of them i assume they have certain information on me based on i think you do have to give the court services certain

5:32information about yourself like occupation and stuff so i assume they have that in front of them it's like this guy nah this guy hosts tna wrestling podcast yeah you just have the the defense just listening to you and me screaming about something killing some kind of monarch or something and they're like oh we can't have monarch killers well ireland would probably love that that's true actually that would get me on any jury would earn me all of the respect tell me yes liam jones i want to give homework to the list oh they love that they love that shit give them one match from a tna

6:05impact that we haven't seen yet that they should go out and watch as we've done the anniversary of whatever oh so to celebrate like tna impact turning 20 yeah give them something to go out and watch that you think is an underrated classic something that isn't talked about a whole hell of a lot does it have to be like a big long match or can i give them like a five something fun give them some fun something that's like on youtube or something it might not be on youtube but you might have to go to your your tna plus subscription or daily motion uh let me check the date of the match because it's in

6:37mid 2009 or teetering toward late 2009 um there you go so the august or september even september third impact 2009 there is an aj styles chris saban match and it is five minutes long and it is fucking awesome because styles and saban never really had a big singles i think they had one in ring of honor and like one in germany as well and then a couple of short ones in tna so they never had like the big singles you would hope styles and saban would have or like you would expect them to have

7:07based on the fact that they were in tna together for like a decade and then never really crossed like two exhibition guys and you just stick them in a couple tv matches but it is five minutes 30 seconds and it kicks so much ass it is on youtube yeah go watch that unofficial means yeah watch whatever you want uh it even it has like a 6.73 on cage match so that is our official 20th anniversary of tna recommendation aj styles versus chris saban from the september 3rd 2009 episode of impact what awesome gear from both guys oh that aj that year of aj gear is like the best aj gear and it's the best

7:41like machine guns era it really upsets me that all of aj's gear is just boring now it's just boring pants when he's not getting good gear like he's a he's been a gear guy his whole life when did he decide no longer to be cool yeah and it's just like the same gear he's had for a decade now and it's gotten worse over that time even even though the version of those tights have gotten worse from like new japan yeah what are we doing aj get your spark back well he's retiring soon maybe who knows yeah who knows also aj go home aj please to new japan pro rest wait a minute he's going to noah

8:13that's his real home ring of honor no he can't work a title eliminator versus wheeler yuda on ring of honor tv that no one why not watch because no one will ever watch it they probably will if aj does it i don't think they will i think they would i think people might tune in for that one i feel like hulk hogan could wrestle bill goldberg on ring of honor and everyone's like holy shit chris sabin yeah that match is so good i like the way liam is now just watching this match he did a goddamn like roll through legs out the ropes to the outside catch aj and rana room yeah what the fuck is that

8:46chris sabin is awesome maybe one day he'll prove that to me wait a minute also this is like the peak of tna aesthetics you do love your tna 2009 especially because it's when it is so good looking yeah that's why it's because i started watching it so that's why it's the best era but it is like but there's a lot of gripes you can have with the hogan bischoff era of tna but like visually and aesthetically tna at that period like 2008 2009 tna when they went hd and the impact zone looks so good there's very few companies that look better yeah you watch wrestling today and

9:20i don't think any of them look as good as that like i'm hoping that like with collision going to a studio for two months or whatever like that maybe they just have a fun studio environment that could look like something like this because i don't know it's all e-sportsy and stuff there's probably lights that can be used but it's like i just want something that's bright and cool and fun and full and you know and also they obviously they have the greatest benefit all which is the six-sided ring but even like the color palette is yeah it's bright warmer it's just bright everything wrestling needs to be brighter and yeah then hogan and bischoff came in and it just it just became a lot

9:54more boring looking it's funny how a company from 2009 looks more futuristic than every company in 2024 because like don't we have went the too far the other end in which like it is blindingly bright and not like not like in a fun way like in a presented by coca-cola way yeah it just makes it like sterilized more than like vibrant yeah and then aws like aws almost because like they could go for dark and grungy as an aesthetic and i would i would acknowledge and respect that but they kind of don't they just go for like a darker grungier version of wwe what exactly what wwe or or what

10:30every wrestling company has ever looked like and it's like well you're serving no master here yeah you just kind of look like nothing yeah you don't they really don't have kind of like a definitive identity i mean like listen they gave they have the big bonus if they brought the the tunnels back at least which is like an improvement but i don't know if i love the current aesthetic of dynamite yeah collision's fine collision is what it is there's nothing that pops it's just it's just a wrestling show just like okay which is fine i guess but i like like we talked about it when tna

11:00launched impact when you had like tunnels either side of the building six-sided ring you had lasers you had you know time limits you had the fox box you had a bunch of stuff that when you immediately turned on tna in fact you're like this looks like wrestling i haven't seen before yeah especially since they were replacing wb on tv you know they had to have a different visual identity immediately to separate themselves whereas you watch aw and you watch wb and they could be the same like there was somebody posted uh an image last night of the last time punk was like sitting in the ring in chicago from like money in the bank 2011 and it was like identical it looked the exact same it's like

11:35if you had told somebody the clip on the right was also from 2011 and not 2024 that you'd believe them because that like the aesthetic has not changed in 13 years yeah which like imagine if you like it's the same thing from like 1984 to 1997 you know think about how different the wwf looked in the mid-80s versus how it looked in the late 90s and it just we haven't evolved the look company should be a little less afraid you know start making big swings big swings new matches be weird be crazy

12:07have you finished watching aj styles versus chris haven yes it is finished i i decided to try and filibuster for the exact length of the match yeah you were about 20 seconds too long damn but not bad not bad it's a good match it is you might have lost alex shelley's on commentary for it as well he's very charming i did see him i did not hear him him and taz have a lovely rapport taz just rocking a shirt very funny this is like month two of taz and tna as well maybe month one when did he start he started like yeah this this is actually his first tv month uh so clearly he's really caring at this

12:37point that's all really really showing it really showing support for the home team before we get into the news you can go liam to patreon.com slash kidding me or tnachat.com or you can be like i like garrett i like liam even more i would like to go and give them money i was like hell yeah i like money uh you like money don't we all like money but you're like i don't want to just get nothing for my money i don't want to just like give you money and get nothing in return we would never do that to you even though if you would like to donate there's a donate button somewhere that you can just give us money we'll also take that but you can go to patreon.com slash kidding me where

13:09you can get our ongoing lucha underground series you can get our ongoing new japan pro wrestling series you can get our old ring cat king series our old pwg series which will return our old monday night war series from 2010 you can get all of these shows we talked about wrestling society x all of it sitting there a full series a bunch of full series wait for you at patreon.com slash getting me you can also get the watch alongs including the watch along for slammer russia 2006 our star ratings our show notes our watch along of ghost ship ghost ship our review of chris rock's state head of state

13:44our review of watcho man randy savage's album we did a bunch of drafts we have done a bunch of end of rewards all of that tons of it over 140 i think pieces of exclusive audio now waiting for you at tnhad.com patreon.com slash kidding me go subscribe go support the show and go get a lot of us in return maybe some might say too much of us but i would say there's never too much of us that's the slogan for the patreon maybe too much but i don't think so let's just shorten it to there's never too much of us also of course ad free episodes if you're like the ads are kind of annoying there's

14:20the one dollar tier which on patreon which you can get the entire episode ad free so that's sitting there waiting for you too wow that's a steal i'm gonna go buy it right now and for all my family every person you know yep also you get first uh look at the posters and the steiner joe one this month is really good it's awesome sauce yes i would buy it if it was on a shirt that brings us to the news but before we get to the news this is of course slammiversary this is the fourth anniversary of tna so

14:51tell me liam after four years of tna how are you feeling it feels like we're finally watching tna proper i don't know if i have a generally positive review of tna or not yeah i think still the first four years restrained by the fact that there isn't a lot of great wrestling the tv is mostly boring the stories generally kind of suck yeah that's kind of my feelings about it but much like i think the

15:23general ethos or perhaps the the true meaning of a tna is that you gotta sift through the shit and the mud and the muck but when you do find something in there a little glimmering piece of gold it really sticks out and it just it just buries its way deep into your soul like like i will never forget like amw team canada stuff you know i like that random world x cup stuff with hoovi like there's just

15:55things that just burrow into your senses and they stick with you and i think like out of all of the the uh watch along projects that people do in their lives like i think the tna one is both incredibly easy to commit to because like everything's just there and available and unlike watch along projects of like an old japan or new japan or whatever where you watch it you just get to see all this cool shit you have to earn the cool shit when you watch tna you don't just get it handed to you on your ring

16:26of honor platter with your cm punks and whatever you have to watch your fucking diamonds in the rough your bg james and then you get samoa joe scott steiner and good on you you've earned it you have to earn the good shit in tna you don't just get it and that is what you have learned across four years of tna is that most of it sucks but when it's good it's good and it's really funny it's the funniest wrestling promotion ever to exist both in ways that are intentional and ways that are not intentional

16:57yeah because i saw a clip during the rounds of just like a two minute hulk hogan rick flair promo where they are the most ridiculous men you've ever seen in your life they're just bouncing off each other and being insane and it's so good it's so good and there's a bunch of stuff like that where they're just like uh let's just stick a camera on charismatic people and see what happens we don't need to actually script things but then there is a bunch of like actually good comedy as you said there's a bunch of just like oh you know a team 3d funeral or paparazzi productions of which we're in

17:28the middle of now or i guess the start of um there's actually a note about alex shelley's t-shirt which i think we'll find interesting in a moment is it that we we're gonna bootleg it and drop ship it yeah of course hey uh when i suggested that our first shirt be orange which i don't think we could do because i ordered a sample and they canceled it um you shot it down so hey kind of flushed it out too much but it is like this is a newer for wrestling in general especially u.s wrestling where the people that make wrestling don't like wrestling yeah like that that is the same in the wwe

17:59it's the same in tna they're chasing a version of wrestling that limits the amount of wrestling that happens on the wrestling show there's one thing you can't say about 2024 wrestling i do think that the people who book the wrestling are fans of the wrestling yeah even if you want to be as cynical as you would like about triple h's booking philosophy i think he is someone who enjoys pro wrestling at its core still like yeah like the thing that's the difference between delivery booking now and evince's booking it's gone from someone who despises the business that they're in to

18:30someone who i think still enjoys it who like likes the moment of the payoff of cody rhodes winning like that feeling which is it's like it's always the thing i i'm kind of baffled that i well i get the people that don't like wrestling because they really don't like wrestling like eric bischoff does not like professional wrestling he wanted to produce television which is fine because that like that brought a new edge to wrestling in the 90s but i'm sick of fucking hearing about this man who doesn't like wrestling i was like same with vince russo he was a man who did not like watching wrestling but he did like television and he could not actually become a television writer

19:04but he could write wrestling television so that was his way into television and you get a lot of people like that and like wrestling is television you can't lose sight of the fact that it is a television product a television show for people to watch that you don't want to lose people during commercial breaks and there's a bunch of stuff you have to think about like that it is a television show but you are attracting a wrestling audience as i've always said if you would like drama watch the wire if you would like comedy watch parks and recreation if you would like wrestling watch fucking wrestling stop watching wrestling to try and get the other stuff the wrestling has the other

19:35stuff but it should not be the other stuff and it often is not but yeah this is an era where you just get a lot of people a lot of people who just want to produce the same wrestling that happened in the 90s which is wrestling that was produced to not be wrestling because people hate wrestling and there's still a little bit of that here like i i think this team probably does broadly like wrestling but they are still largely producing wrestling with the mentality that was chasing an older audience and like there's stuff on these shows that like the steiner joe stuff is like the

20:06most pro wrestling stuff you can get it's two big badass guys staring each other down constantly brawling and then they fight and they talk shit talk each other one calls the other guy fat the other says your reputation isn't shit to me i'm gonna kill you and that's that's wrestling like that is the purest rawest distillation of wrestling you can get and then you get a lot of like james gang team 3d stuff which is i guess they're trying to do wrestling but it's bad yeah like i i don't think there was much this month that was like the other side of the coin a lot of it was just wrestling for

20:39wrestling and like wrestling like tv for wrestling can be good too because like team 3d funeral that is that is a straight up 90s like we are booking wrestling as a tv show skit and that can be fine but like it's just gotta i've always said it's gonna exist in universe and it's gotta actually be charming and funny which is very hard for wrestling to do because a lot of people who write wrestling don't write it to be actually be funny or charming yeah a lot of bad comedy writers in the history of professional wrestling because it's like i think of like the joe and hook stuff it's like that feels organic it feels human and it's quite funny can i be real with you you don't

21:12like it i'm fucking sick of it already they've only done like two of them they've done three and i was as soon as they did the second one i was like oh it is like that is it's a classic aw thing as well it's like where when the second and i guess it's the thing you should want them to do and that like the second like something people enjoy that happens they do it over and over again yeah but also they do they do run things into the ground about as fast as wb have ever done i was like i rolled my eyes so hard i was like okay it was cool the first time you have to expand not just do the

21:45same joke again i did quite enjoy the doom time bit on dynamite yeah that's fun but like i don't know i don't need them talking every time give me something else just expand the bit expand it no you'll get the bro chachos which is the same bit over and over and over again until you want to claw your eyes out i already want to claw my eyes out so yeah that's that's our takeaway from four years of tna dog shit until it's not dog shit well you know sometimes you'll find a gold coin in your dog shit and sometimes the dog shit is funny it's true sometimes someone steps on it and you laugh

22:15yes that's true once you are not touching the dog shit yourself it's fine i guess we are touching the dog shit ourselves quite a lot wait a minute are we the ones stepping in the dog shit and everyone's laughing at us wait a minute as has this what we've been doing for four years of tna oh god so that takes us to the news after six weeks i i promise i will stop doing this once vince russo shows up there's not a ton of news by the way oh i i finished reading the pw torch and there was like two news headlines i was like that's gonna be a short session for the news yeah we're getting

22:45an idea of what will be in 25 years when we're doing 2024 news well 2024 has been quite an eventful year but like 23 like there's nothing oh my god we'll just review the shows yeah at least the observer had a decent amount of news at least but yeah when i finished the torch second part i was like oh god there's nothing this month but there is a little bit i am still gonna shout out rating about rating so i promise i will stop once russo shows up but i i want to conclusively prove that there was fucking no reason to bring back vince russo and it's all your fault you idiots this is

23:19our um our video essay signing our sources to show that the idea of bringing vince russo back was in fact terrible and dumb and stupid after six weeks in the thursday night time slot impact is averaging a 1.0 rating 1.1 million viewers it is 23 above its saturday night ratings average after nine weeks it was 1.0 and 1.2 million viewers so growing over the month of june there is so many observer stories and i don't include all of them because again i hate ratings and i hate breaking down ratings i think it's mundane and boring and dopey bullshit that uh distracts from actually talking about wrestling as an

23:53artistic form and instead we're just like oh ratings fuck off but this month there is a bunch of like dave is like oh this did the best quarter it's ever done this is the best rating in the history like may 18th did a 1.12 which is the best rating in the history of the show beating the 1.08 including the debut of sting on impact also i had a one of the stronger patterns of losing less viewers than usual i guess it's a lost viewers and uh the christian opening segment did a 1.31 the best quarter in the history of the television show that sounds like a bunch of good rating talk

24:24yeah it's a bunch of consistently this show is doing better than it has ever done it's time to fucking ruin it and this is again it drives me crazy it really does and it's just like oh you do t and a need to be fixed they dropped the ball with samoa joe after he won the match at the sacrifice it's like what you shut the fuck up i like i agree they should have went with joe earlier and faster this is the year he should have won the belt but also like vince russo came back and you did that you did that nobody else the june 15th episode aired an hour later instead of 11 and it

24:59aired at 12 due to an ultimate fighter double bill there is uh we'll talk about it a little more in a second because dave outlines what the new lead-in for impact is but there is like some and i think it is reasonable concern it's fun to talk about because there's a lot of talk about the dynamite lead-in this week uh because it moved from big bang theory to black panther but the impact lead-in at the moment is ultimate fighter and ultimate fighter is doing really well and this is the last week of the season of the ultimate fighter so the the first impact of the july pay-per-view cycle will be the first impact without ultimate fighter as the lead-in so there is a lot of talk about you know how will

25:31it do without ultimate fighter as the lead-in will it lead to a drop in ratings they assume it will and we'll see will that play out that way how do you feel about black panther versus the big bang theory as the aw dynamite lead-in i don't know i there's nothing i'm actually kind of somewhat earnestly doing this um like there's no there's nothing about the show that screams this is like why your show should do really badly um i feel like it's just like one of those weird one week things that happens every now and again we're like ratings just everything does kind of shitty

26:04no one watches tv on that day and then it's back to a point point point two four and seven fifty thousand again next yeah i yeah i think it's all gonna like sort of speak exactly what it is next week and it's just one of those weird things that occasionally happens with ratings where people just don't tune in for whatever reason no aw's dead well aw's been dead for like a year and a half now kendrick lamara's killed it good should get into bed with drake well well that's a bad expression i was gonna say aw is still a young company i guess ah liam do you remember what our our opening story

26:37was last month no not at all that was like six weeks ago do you remember how we were talking about uh lex luger uh buff bagwell and rick steiner coming in caused their locker room morale to be lower than it's ever been i do i do remember that i remember everyone was really upset and pissed and crying and whining note this month the locker room atmosphere continues to be really positive in dna okay but the people are frustrated with their character development apparently but blah so i mean

27:09that sounds like every wrestling company every there's never gonna be a wrestling company where everyone's just happy and everything's going well everyone wants to be up the card everyone wants to be champion everyone wants to be on tv more it's the nature of the beast we need to learn that these that wrestling is just an industry where a lot of the time there's gonna be people who are frustrated with what's happening and that doesn't mean that the sky is falling on these companies it just means that people want to be booked more and do more meaningful things because that is what you want in this industry because it's what happens often is like fightful will publish a report being

27:42like oh morale's low right now and then pw torch will be like actually somebody else said it's doing pretty well and like some people are like oh one's correcting the other and it's like no both are true yeah one person is booked on roh and occasionally a rampage the other person has a regular dynamite spot one will be much happier than the other morale from the perspective of one will be much higher than the other yeah so there isn't like i wouldn't say don't believe like don't never believe you know morale stories i wouldn't i wouldn't go that far but also like it's it's it's one or two people's

28:16perspective it is not like the entire company that it is simply the case that sean ross sap can't like uh survey an entire company he's like no i spoke actually to all 150 members of the aw roster morale is down it's it's down like four percent from last month on my morale index yeah exactly i have a a survey monkey every week i send it through everyone puts a one to ten how they're feeling morale wise unless if anyone has a morale index it's probably brandon thurston really yeah

28:47so i said tna will have a new lead-in starting in july the show is called raising the roof a comedy starring michael ruff jr and his prank pulling beer swilling backwoods family in dunnell in florida who then all move to hollywood as he goes in search of acting roles and they have to adjust to life in southern california is it uh it's like a sitcom i i believe so yes dave mentions it's like a modernized version of the beverly hillbillies is what they're going for i thought it was like a

29:18reality maybe it is it is a reality show but so it's it is a scripted as a regular show but called raising the roofs oh dave got the name wrong uh i don't know who michael roof neither do i um featured review is a 10 out of that's the best show of all time apparently michael roofs was apparently in triple x and black hawk down i've seen triple x i don't remember him or who he is uh his imdb doesn't have a picture so that's he also he also did the dukes of hazard

29:48this is another instance like that poker show we were talking about that i already don't remember the name of where i don't think a person on earth remembers raising the roofs on spy tv um a quick rip to our man michael roof if you are a listener and you remember raising the roofs starring michael roof jr on spike tv and if you're a big fan if you're like i fucking love that show let us know if you're like one of the three people on earth that remember and loved that show go for it let us know in discord twitter or whatever dave mentioned stars of the new beverly hillbillies like show that

30:23will be the lead in for impact starting in a few weeks were in the front row of the tapings uh which were right after slammiversary spike brought them to the taping because they wanted to use them to get the new show rolling they were described as again rednecks for an industry for an industry for an industry for for a company or a promotion or a tv show that isn't doing well the other the network is going we should use them to make the other show stronger yeah they're like we would like to launch this new show and we are putting the stars of the new show in the front row but you know this show is doing so badly so poorly everybody hates tna everybody should cancel tna they should make

30:59everyone different and book the show wrong very good it's basically what i hear every time and they're like is that what they sound like exactly what they sound like i think that's what pq james sounds like i've just convinced myself in the same way i've convinced myself all the old asylum news was disco yeah i've convinced myself all the new stuff now is bg james or maybe it's just always been bg james he's been there the whole time he does seem whiny in tna created a t-shirt for alex shelley that he didn't like and wouldn't wear to the ring dutch mantel told him to and then jared told him to so he had

31:32to what shirt was it this is the first month if you pay attention that you will see the iconic classic orange paparazzi productions t-shirt does he hate the paparazzi productions shirt i think alex shelley hates the paparazzi production shirt well i'm sorry he's wrong because he does come out with it i'm not sure is it like the impact match against j lethal or later in the month but he does come out wearing it and he does like tear it off and i'm like is that a symbol of like defiance are you like fuck your shirt but also it's the fucking like best wrestling t-shirt it is an all-timer

32:05pro wrestling shirt that is remembered to this day i want to bootleg it apparently alex shelley at least at first maybe he's he's changed his tune in it maybe he came around on it but at least at first he did not like the paparazzi production shirt well he's wrong or maybe there was another shirt and he's like get rid of that i want an orange one we will see we'll have to someone look at the footage but yeah paparazzi production shirt does debut this month it is on tv this month so well that's the only one we saw him wear this month yeah so you gotta put two and two together and say i don't think i'll actually like that shirt first well it's the i spy one right yeah yeah we

32:37could do god damn it alex there's no tna logo in there paul hayman on tna because ecw launches this month i believe shut up this motherfucker so ecw launches on sci-fi this month and there's a bunch of talk obviously paul hayman is quote-unquote leading it but it's like vince is really leading it but paul hayman he did a bunch of media rounds and of course they asked him about tna and here's what he had to say about tna i don't think tna is even a consideration i don't think tna is even a

33:09consideration to anyone in this industry i wish that they were but the problem with tna is they never branded themselves it's not wrong there they took a bunch of guys whether they had legitimate gripes in wb it doesn't matter they took a bunch of guys who came on tna and instead of saying this is my opportunity this is my opportunity to brand tna this is my opportunity to create a new style all they would say is i've been held back i wasn't given an opportunity i didn't get this i didn't get that and now i'm going to have it you know nobody cares if you've been held back people

33:40want to be entertained that hasn't been a massive part of tna's identity at this point no there's definitely been a little of it but like i don't feel like it's been a giant part and like some people will do it no no some people will do it in like their first promo yeah like they'll do a little but it's not like it's a constant thing which again it will become it's not like rhino's character now is i was held back in wwe no he's just doing a mid-card program with bobby grude yeah and like christian maybe does a little bit more of it maybe he's making more of a direct critique of christian

34:12here yeah but also like christian's not really that on the whole no back to hayman it's like if sylvester salone doing a rocky movie and saying you know i wanted it to be a different script who cares screw you entertain me which i feel like ecw did a bunch of this shit as well by the way they made a lot of a lot of it was them mocking the other companies was it what they do in tna is sit there and moan about their wwe experiences instead of selling you on the tna experience another thing they did in tna wrong in my opinion is they didn't brand their new stars to be stars they didn't make

34:47samoa joe their star they didn't make abyss their lead star they should have taken these guys and branded them so that they are tna stars kurt angle is not going to be the same kurt angle and ecw that he was in w what a name to play out the fucking hat i look i do love that that in his direct point it's like tna they didn't make their own new stars ecw kurt angle for both the reason that he goes to tna in like four months and also kurt angle and tna was so much better than kurt angle and ecw yeah kurt angle ecw is the same as kurt angle and fucking smackdown get over yourself paul and they're

35:22going to be ecw branded stars not wwe retreads and moaning about the fact that vince mcmahon didn't give them the opportunity they felt they deserved so there you go that's hayman's current thoughts on tna in which there as always is a kernel of truth uh buried in a pile of hypocrisy yeah sounds about right hayman just being a wwe shill is such a disappointing arc for that man's career and like fair enough he's made a fuckload of money so who am i to say that this man who was attached to himself to the like the top act in this company for 20 years now is wrong and i and i am

35:57better and smarter than paul hayman because he attached himself to brock and he attached himself to roman and he made a fuckload of money so good on him and punk yes all so yeah all of the guys but god like he's a grifter but he's just like grifter in a different way yeah and like it's the same thing it's like he didn't mean it when he was selling you that bullshit in the 90s you know that that counterculture we're gonna take down wwe he was grifting you then as much as he is now it's just a different grift now yeah i think it's fine i mean like a grift is gonna grift and it is pro wrestling it is an industry of grifters it is an industry built on grifting it is the foundational

36:32core they are all carnies jeff jarrett says that paul hayman needs to worry about what he has on his hands and w and not worry about tna's identity he's got a lot in his hands right now jarrett told between the ropes radio vince McMahon is running ecw he's gonna run the show up there vince is very successful he's gonna make ecw successful in spite of paul says jeff jarrett okay well you're almost there uh he's being a little bitter like fuck you vince is gonna turn ecw into the success you could never

37:02make it and vince didn't yeah you were almost there you almost had the the right own when you were just you could have just said you're not even running the show yeah you're vince's bitch get over yourself but no he had to turn it into sucking off vince because everyone in this industry has to suck off vince McMahon constantly and paul will be gone from ecw within six months and don't worry what any day now he's gonna show up on tna and save the company oh don't i can't wait to get to that in 2010 so if you remember moments ago gave out about samoa joe not being the star of tna early indications are the

37:33best of samoa joe dvd is off to the fastest start in the sales of any dvd in the company to date which speaks volumes since that would mean they've somewhat created a star since they've produced dvds on established names like raven jeff hardy as well as the final resolution dvd that just came out with stings return and joe's dvd is outperforming all of them yeah well it i mean probably helps right that he comes from a a background where people bought dvds to see him yeah his fan base is a fan base that buys dvd especially when you think about like the spike audience which like joe has been around for most of the spike year but like the unbreakable match

38:08is pre-spike so if you like started watching tna on spike and you see the samoa joe guy and you hear about the samoa joe guy and you hear about this legendary samoa joe match but you didn't watch it because it was on pay-per-view the month before tna started on spike you'd be like let me get that dvd i want to see that match tna is under the impression it's better than 50 it can keep rhino his recent losses were not the idea of jobbing him out for an inevitable leaving as some have speculated wb is pursuing him for ecw he's in a good position with his contract coming due in july there are expected to be negotiations with tna this week and the company is hopeful they

38:42will sign him before he leaves tv well that's fun i never knew that they um they were trying to get him for the ecw yeah so presumably rhino only signed a one-year deal when he joined last year so his deal is up in july and yeah for the most part apparently everyone's locked down long term so like if they wanted team 3d if they wanted raven if they wanted shane douglas all those guys are signed whereas rhino was his deal was up so he was in a position of leverage uh by all accounts by the end of the month he uh is either signed his new contract or agreed to his new contract obviously

39:13we know he doesn't so he does he had agreed his his long term longer term contract with tna and doesn't leave recw but yeah i i guess it would make sense that you would look at rhino he's still in his prime still a good worker so has a name value has an attachment dcw but it won't break the bank so it would probably make sense why you'd look at bringing him back recw exactly and fuck you paul you couldn't even get rhino yeah make new stars with that bitch they're trying to change everyone over or at least the key people from per show contracts to guaranteed contracts the top guys are now getting

39:44guaranteed money per week the number isn't big and dave is guessing most of the names are between 1000 and 1500 per week with a few of the top guys hey man i'll take 1500 a week i would happily take 1500 a week the lower rank guys are still in the 300 to 500 per show range and don't get paid when they don't appear on tv one of the reasons you'll see a lot of four ways on tv is simply to get some of the guys the payday and a little tv exposure the guys on guaranteed deals are then being booked out to local promoters very similar to how mexico operates if tna books one of its top guys say for

40:15a grand a shot then the wrestler gets a percentage of that and the office gets a percentage dade doesn't know the percentage but the office gets more than half the wrestler gets his guarantee and i have a problem with that if the wrestler gets his guarantee and he gets a little bonus for when he gets booked out yeah so say if you're getting a grand a month and if you get booked out you get another 400 bucks grand a week or grand a week yeah grand a month wouldn't be very much at all no yeah i think that's fine the wrestlers can still book outside dates on their own but it's harder because the contract gives tna first tips on house shows for example if chris abon wanted to work ring

40:46of honor it would be hard to do so because anytime tna booked him for a show their show would take priority in the case of roh they do have christopher daniel's and samujo's dates booked through the end of the year through tna so there won't be any problems there unless another snowstorm occurs says tave what you cheeky bugger this does seem like the the the fairest case of the contracts they've been trying to come up with for like three years now yeah they're trying to find the happy medium because there's the ones where i don't think they paid a guarantee and still wanted to control bookings which is like fuck you whereas here it's like you get a guarantee you get a cut of your bookings and

41:20on dates you're not working tna you can still take bookings on your own but we get first tip all seems pretty fair yeah tna continued their house show success the the group which was promoted by harmy sadler still promoting the house shows drew a sellout of 1100 fans at the ecw arena on june 9th my birthday and a show that was never once mentioned on tv says dave even though technically like they they had angles from it on tv but i guess they never promoted the show on tv yeah so yeah team 3d did a promo from the building that aired on tv and then the the angle the james gang the the throwing the chairs and the ring thing also aired on tv do you think that was part of them like they wanted to do the

41:54the chair throwing thing but they wanted to be legally not liable for anything that could go down so they're like let's do it on the hermy sadler show yeah if a fan gets hit by a chair it's hermy that's liable not us yeah uh i hope they're that cynical they're like we want to do this really cool thing but um we don't want to get sued so hermy hermy how you feel and let's not tell it regarding wrestling at the former ecw arena last weekend one tna wrestler says it was a refreshing change it was a lot of fun says the wrestler it blew me away maybe it will give tna management the idea they can run there regularly the crowd at the ecw arena was said to be a mix of hardcore

42:27regulars who might attend ring of honor and ccw events and casual fans who tna saw tna on spike and decided to find this building so they could see tna stars another tna wrestler described the crowds at orlando's tna asylum like a church crowd where everyone knows where they sit they're used to us and they've seen everything they're numb to things that the ecw crowd went nuts for it would be a good place for a pay-per-view i think yeah i think the the mix should be like we do tb one pay-per-view then tv again and then we go somewhere else for the second pay-per-view because i think you still need to give the impact zone big shows you can't just give them the shit

42:59you do need to give them stuff to look forward to as well but like every couple months going out and doing a pay-per-view on the road i don't think is a bad idea yeah like the crowds were hotter in the impact zone last year and they can still be quite hot like if you watch the james gang against team 3d they're hotter the for that than they don't even have any right to be on the pay-per-view it does open the pay-per-view but the crowds aren't as hot as they were but also the shows are probably aren't as good as they were either so that might be a fair exchange that the crowd is only as good as the shows i think the crowd will always follow the show people give way too much credit to like oh

43:30they've seen everything but it's like if you do good if you have good wrestling shows the crowd will respond to the good wrestling people and they still do it today when like oh that's a good aw crowd a bad aw crowd and like people tend to treat the crowds like they're like this externality they're they're completely detached from like the quality of the product and you get a hot crowd in one city and a bad crowd in the other and who knows why it's it's the thing that happens where it's nearly always in direct proportion to how hot is your product how good is your show if your product is cold even a good show might get a bad crowd yeah if your product is hot even a bad show might get a great

44:04crowd so it goes back to like are you hot do people care much like everything in life hmm i'm hot right liam do people care wait a minute you didn't know jushin liger came back from tna saying that he'd like the further relationship with tna to continue he said the guy he was most impressed with was aj styles who he'd like to bring to new japan liger also threw out the first pitch at the lot orians game on may 20th in chiba not relevant to tna but it does feed into our little baseball corner oh great let me just lay back here and fall asleep

44:37baseball today on the 20th of may had a short segment honk shoe me me me me me me me me me me had a short segment on aj piercinski honk shoe me me me had a short segment god damn it had a short segment on aj piercinski and the tna x division title belt that he wears around the segment mentioned aj styles as the real x division champion he's not however the same day on sports center when piercinski was mentioned as he got punched in the white socks clubs brawl on their may 20th game it

45:08was brought up that he had wwe experience during offseason which he also does not really rude this is the downside of like particularly the smaller company chasing all the press attention yeah i feel like that's one thing aw's done been good at is controlling their pr to be like you will talk about us and our name you will not get us confused yeah but then like two months later they're still just wwe you know i think they've they've done a pretty good job for the most part i haven't seen a lot of like miscategorization occasionally but like i feel like they've done a good job of making themselves

45:42distinguished and like their pr team obviously it's just that but like yeah there was a recent instance where somebody was called a wwe i can't remember what it was and it's on the tip of my brain i think it was like a tmz story was still like wwe wrestler but yeah as a general rule you are right they're pretty good terry taylor was officially named director of talent relations he's been kind of the unofficial person in that slot all along his role is to be in charge of contract negotiations and signing new talent he's going to be working full-time in nashville and probably move from atlanta it's considered a step upward for taylor and being in nashville full-time will likely make

46:12him more powerful when comes to direction so terry taylor signing people adding power he's taken over the company over slammerversary weekend all the talent was given blood tests for hiv and hepatitis there was wording when announcing the tests in big letters this is not a drug test they wanted to test everyone since they do a lot of blood and matches and there may be some states they're going to where testing would be required but it is very fun it's like this is for your own safety we want to see does anyone have hiv and hepatitis please don't put other people's blood in the test

46:44you don't fake the blood test it is actually very important it's not a drug test we swear oh maybe they should do drug tests well yeah but like what are they gonna do they're gonna find out people are on drugs and they're gonna be like all right scott steiner we have a problem with you sir scott steiner i'm beginning to think you might be on something your muscles don't seem natural sir you want to say that to his face no that was always his thing it's like apparently in wv when they were like we would like to drug test scott steiner he was always like get triple h in the room with me

47:15at the same time and i'll do it and then they never did it i mean it's fair don't expect johnny fair playback there was a piece in usa today about him being drunk and making an ass of himself at some sort of get-together he was quoted in the story as saying that he got paid 150 grand for one year and was only used four times in tna then they renewed him for a second year at 150 grand and never used him once dave can't vouch for the figures or the number of dates but the basis of what he said is accurate he then thanked the company while making fun of them at the same time i'll do four

47:46appearances in two years for 300 grand that is better than the 1500 a week it's funny to think about how johnny fairplay at this point in tna history is probably like a top five earner in the history of tna yeah there's like probably jared's gotten more i'd say sting will is obviously on a bigger contract i'd imagine christian is on a bigger contract and then probably johnny fairplay yeah but had they made that money yet uh no so maybe he's probably still ahead well sting is probably 150 grand at this point right he's yeah he's six months 300 has he made three uh he's on this i think

48:17he's on like half a million a year so so no we're six months in so he should have made about half of that so no he hasn't made as much money as johnny fairplay probably so johnny fairplay might be the highest grossing earner yeah and our final note dixie carter dixie carter gave both god a borth dixie carter gave borth to her second kid yeah on june 1st so congratulations to dixie happy belated birthday to dixie carter's second child tanner i believe of course it's tanner who turned 18 recently so fair play to him who hosts a podcast that you that you were a guest on yeah he's

48:52the host of all you can hear the son of dixie carter read the law it's true that's the news oh i love the news so it's been 12 hours since we recorded the news and i've been thinking the entire time of that paul heyman quote okay yeah because we liam took a break overnight we often do that we do the news separately from broad topics sometimes and i was like that whole steve austin character when he left wcw was all about him going on ecw tv and being like eric bischoff's a cunt and this shit was that was terrible they didn't let me be a star because they were too busy focusing on

49:25the old guys and then fucking paul heyman turns around is like oh tna do that too often what a fucking bitch boot licking bitch i was i was thinking about like the fact that yeah stone cold had that gimmick yes like last night when we're talking about and i was just like yeah i don't know i feel like they did that stuff a lot yeah because i i threw it out like oh you know they you know they did that stuff too but then i was like fucking they brag so much about the steve austin presentation in ecw even though he was only there for like six weeks and it was all this shit fuck

49:58you yeah um brian pillman and the pencil yeah fucking it's all like that did you that you counter culture piece of shit and then being like oh w is good i'm gonna lick their boots and then like vince is out and then he bows to the altar of triple h as well the sycophantic piece of crap didn't he make like his w hall of fame induction all about triple h he did he's such a politicking boot licking hollow shell of a carny the words of garrett kidney i've been getting mad

50:30at paul hayman all day that's all you've been able to think about i couldn't i could have just not addressed it i could we could have just moved seamlessly into the broad topics but no as in stew and fucking paul hayman yeah all right that does take us to the broad topics i guess we'll start because it does impact the main event first so we should probably talk about it before we talk about the main event that is the new face of tna management arriving in tna the new face of professional wrestling yes the new face of professional wrestling management of course that's what they call every tew killer the tew killer yeah every professional wrestling

51:06you know all the ones that i don't remember the name is like pro wrestling booking sim or whatever that is the new face of professional wrestling management i guess that makes sense i think the tew killer is just them not making another one that is the biggest killer but they always say they're not making another one and then they always make another one when was the last one 2020 wasn't it uh yeah so we're getting a little long in the tooth it would be the longest gap i think between them but also it's only three you might as well yeah i don't know we'll see june 1st impact uh larry's visco has a pre-tape we'll talk about that later but slick johnson walks

51:39in at the end of it and says the new face of tna management isn't gonna wait until slam anniversary he may even be here tonight and he doesn't even use a comb over which does offend larry z also like i guess technically true that he doesn't use a comb over yeah like he doesn't have hair but like yeah it's not a comb over stop taking shots at poor larry's hair he's doing his best i like the bit with the fact that everyone is still bold yeah i guess it's like yeah he's got it it's like no he's bald too and obviously so is slick johnson everyone's bald bald men everywhere

52:15well cornet has hair yeah but he's still like balding yeah so i don't know it's just an interesting choice i guess i don't know if they were trying to like allude to someone else someone famous for hair no it's just to set up larry's visco eventually losing his hair which is still the plan so they're taking shots of larry's hair because he's he will be getting hair restoration surgery so i guess that makes sense there has been two months of subtle teases poking fun at poor larry's haircut yes i would definitely describe them as subtle

52:47the following week the new face of tna management makes the steiner joe match which does not please larry i like larry in that segment being like you can't make matches straight away you have to think about it yeah it's also very on brand for the larry's visco character he's just like i can't just make a match what kind of absurd talk is that that i could just make a match a match can just happen i need to like ruminate on it discern if it's really what is needed yeah maybe i want to book samoa joe against jerrell clark instead maybe that's a better match yeah maybe i have these long

53:22term booking plans in my tew game that will eventually lead somewhere else can't rush these things exactly and then go home episode of impact uh once again slick is like the new face of tna management is here tonight and he wants to see larry z and then the final segment before we go off the air larry z is backstage he looks into a car and he's like my god my god and then we go off the air and he's like oh who could it possibly be he does a big reaction good big reaction to be fair he like throws his hands on his head he's like oh no he does seem stunned at who it could possibly be well

53:56actually who it is it's in front of him apparently it was uh this is a throwback to the the sacrifice segment because there's not a bunch of raven larry stuff this month in fact there's pretty much none but it was jeff jarrett's suggestion that larry zibisco no longer play chicken shitty old manager and play wrestler in his feud with raven at this point that is why he was so aggressive instead of running away in the latest confrontation back at sacrifice which i guess makes sense if you want to actually set that up as a match but i guess like do you isn't the idea that raven you just see raven kill larry z yeah i mean again like i know it depends what the end goal is but like do you want to do

54:27the match i guess like do you want that to be an actual match sure that the hook of that should be larry's not a tough guy larry's just gonna get killed yeah it doesn't really make sense for him to be like i'm wrestling going 50 50 with raven maybe like jeff jarrett hates raven too it's actually the management is still against raven but they'll let him have larry z yeah man i don't know it's a weird one so at the pay-per-view mike tanae is in the ring he introduces the new face of tna management it is jim cornett oh cornett got surgery earlier that week he's been getting

55:00surgery on his knees a couple times over the month i think and there's a moment during his entrance he comes out holding a cane and he swings his cane around in his hand i watched this a couple of times to make sure but i'm pretty sure he accidentally threw it off to the side i don't think he was doing like i don't need a stinking cane bit even though he said that when he got in the ring i really do think he accidentally threw it yeah and it's very funny to watch him like slowly hobble down the ramp and like if you ever had bad knees and liam i think you can attest to this

55:30hill's very bad for bad knees yeah no doesn't do well inclines and declines and bad knees do not go well together it's very funny that like that he does like the whole ah like okay it is objectively funny that he throws the cane when he clearly needs it and then goes i don't need a cane but like it is good improving i guess to be like yes i don't need a cane that's that's what i was doing i was doing that bit yeah he's owned it it's like it's definitely on purpose yeah for sure yeah so

56:02cornett grabs a microphone and he cuts a promo he does this came right after the amw styles and daniels match so he's like that's what tag team wrestling should look like and i know a thing or two about tag team wrestling said tna is the new face of professional wrestling and he's sick and tired of the old one paul hayman furious at these shots does the it wouldn't last four weeks thing so he is right in line with tna lore stolen valor to be honest though yeah you only showed up you can't do the we wouldn't last six weeks especially because you show up and you're like oh all these cronies are trying to kill tna but i'm here to be fair and decent and it's like but they lasted six weeks six

56:37months four years larry z's watching backstage and he seems stressed as he would be yeah his job is being replaced well i guess stick around so i guess is his job being replaced are they bringing in like an overseer yeah they're bumping him down a layer there's middle management being introduced i guess yeah larry should be around like making decisions on explosion yeah it's like hey guys i booked matt bentley exclusively now sounds like you booking i'd love matt bentley my favorite wrestler it says the same old cronies have been on the take from tna and holding the company back but cornett's here to

57:08change that he may not be politically correct but he gets results he certainly is not politically correct and becomes less politically correct over time it's crazy how'd that happen someone who makes a defining part of their personality there's guys that he expects will hit home runs and then there's guys who are coasting on reputation who need to step up or leave they cut to lax there as well i guess they're referring to conan yeah i guess that the whole thing we'll talk about when we're talking about their story but they're on work stoppage at the moment yeah jim cornett anti-union

57:38is what we're learning immediately what month are we yeah june 2006 well i guess we are one month off the homicide jim cornett roh feud so he still just hates homicide across companies yeah that could be part of it jim cornett seems like the kind of pervert to like incorporate that he does it's been like sickles but but here it is because they are they are refusing to work because they have been mistreated in the workplace i don't keep an eye out on that i want to see if cornett like makes any illusions yeah oh the idea that he would make like concessions it's like you have been abused in the

58:13workplace no the other way around he's like fuck you homicide you bitch oh yeah to call back to ring of honor yeah because it's like something that's going on as it's going on here so he has three criteria for people he wants on his roster he wants people who will sell pay-per-views people who will draw ratings and people will have good matches and if you can't do that you're out then he's like try me try me because you'll be hitting the back door and you ain't seen nothing yet so it's like you really had a problem with this sentence on this part of the promo i didn't i think it's like

58:44completely within universe for a person who was in charge of the pro wrestling coming to be like i want to sell pay-per-views i want to have good ratings and i want to have good matches you well like it takes you out it's too close to like work shooting shit yeah because i want my authority figure to be a matchmaker and like as i said on the watch along i do respect the idea that like ufc isn't booked for like the the best pure athletes get the most opportunities that's not how the ufc works if you're a star you get more opportunities than if you're not that's just the fact of life as eli drake might put

59:15it but i just it's just one of those things that wrestling has become so like terminally irony pilled that one of these things which in isolation i would be fine with like the idea is like yeah well yeah he's running a company he wants people who makes money who make money that's that's fine i guess but like this it's just one of those things where wrestling has become so many layers removed from just like men fight for opportunities to fight for bigger things that when you introduce this i'm just like guys can we just have people who want to fight and then the people who win go up and fight

59:46for titles and the people who lose don't that's and so like i'd like the the baby face uh truth telling authority figure to be just like best wrestlers get best opportunities no bullshit no politics that's what i prefer this to be as opposed to like if you can't draw a television rating i don't want you on my show like i don't care about television rating and within the universe of the show i don't care about television rating and like you saw the same thing in aw a lot where it's like oh people talked about whether or not they popped a quarter or whether or not they drew in the demo that weekend i'm like i don't care about this i want you to be cool i don't want you to be like

1:00:19look how i'm actually popular guys i swear we can pop a rating i guess it does make more sense of a statement for like a heel leaning authority figure but i don't know i just didn't have a problem with it i kind of liked it i like um it makes the outer universe feel in universe in a way that i don't perceive as being like two worked shooty irony pills yeah and i think i understand that and as i said in isolation i don't think i'd have a problem with it but just like in the way wrestling has skewed since the late 90s basically since they completely lost the run of themselves toward

1:00:51the death of wcw in particular or it's just like everything is fourth wall breaking nothing is real you say that as unlike my second monitor i have collision and chris jericho is wrestling yeah who and chris jericho is all of that you know he's like the jericho vort i hate that shit i hate it just be interesting the demo god yeah it's just all that self-aware meta bullshit it's just it's it's i see that's the thing i think i dislike it in wrestlers but for an authority figure i don't yeah you are fine with like i am the man running this business and i need business results yeah i think that's like

1:01:25within character but like you're right it does come across as like um what is the word i'm looking for uh like low self-esteem yeah if you're a wrestler it like it feels pandering or whatever like you're trying to justify that you're not actually like you didn't fail in some aspect there is a little bit of desperation to it isn't there that's the word i was looking for desperation yeah that you're just like guys i swear i'm a star i'm really a star please believe me if you have to tell people

1:01:55you're a star you are in fact not a star yeah um it is very funny to do this three months before vince russo comes back yeah i mean you're playing into all the the things that will eventually actually bring vince russo back but it's really funny to me this is just in general just the the entire cornet promo one because cornet and vince russo hate each other that's one layer of it what since when but also to send cornet out there to be like no more cronies no more bullshit no more old guys getting chances just because they're old guys we want you to earn your spot that this is

1:02:28going to be a fair and decently run company and in three months i'm going to have to say all this while vince russo is writing the things i say and it's gonna go well i'm sure there won't be any turmoil around it and i'm it won't stink of condescent condensation condensation yes yes condescension condescension yes condes i just woke up yeah just walk it off walk it off let's pretend it didn't happen they had a big party thrown by jeff jarrett for the fourth year anniversary on june 19th after the tapings and most people were there told they were watching raw and cornet cut

1:03:01this quote-unquote according to dave hilarious promo about the mentality there that the way to get over is show as much male ass as possible reports were cornet showed up very enthusiastic about being there it's very funny to be like let's celebrate ourselves and chuck on some monday night raw yeah all sit around and watched the june 19th you know what i'm gonna check what's on i was just about to pull it up yeah candace michelle and mickey jane defeat maria and tori wilson you're a better cage matcher than i charlie haas versus viscera oh they all the stars umaga squash john cena defeating bowls

1:03:38mahoney of course randy on defeating snitsky yep johnny nitro and shelton benjamin defeating carlito in a two-on-one handicap match edge defeating rick flair i would like to take like to take a moment to point out that there are seven matches on this episode of raw the longest of which is four minutes yep the main event two minutes the match times 128 223 106 four minutes for cena balls mahoney that's a relatively like 60 minute broadway for raw standards 230 250 and 155 are your match times

1:04:12for this 2006 episode of raw we were talking about it before it's like totally in that era like the most we do not like what we are than like it has ever been yeah like that is the thing that is the the context in which you do have to view tna through the lens of it's just like by contrast tna is this wrestling utopia you know yeah you can kind of understand like if if that was what they were getting on the other side like this is this is fucking ring of honor you know like this is a

1:04:43fully pledged pro wrestling show in comparison yeah like we would watch it back and be like it's a little still too like wv pill this little too sports entertainment d but then when you look at what's on the other channel you are like well you know what they still have like this kick-ass joe stuff i guess that's way better than raw we should we have we should have be forced to center ourselves and watch a from this era just to be like remind ourselves what it is in comparison to yeah but like wait a minute now then we come back and we're like actually tna's fucking awesome i will take my four minute j lethal alex shelley tv match any day that's longer than anything on a raw

1:05:17probably was longer than anything on the raw yeah i think it did go longer than four i think even like sanjay jurel clark went longer than anything on raw so like i don't know yeah maybe maybe i will watch a raw from the era just to like provide context well yeah like world context is an important element i guess obviously in play we can't just be watching raws and smackdowns as we're watching all these impacts as well that's impossible to keep up with but like there it is probably important to have some idea of what like north american wrestling television actually looks

1:05:48like yeah because like we are now even in wv in a world where they have long title matches and matches and all that on tv all the time you know like while gunter had the intercontinental title he would have big uh meaningful very good tv matches among the only good matches but they like there's wrestling on wv tv all of the time for the most part yeah it teaches into a wrestling show more often than not like even taking aw out of it which is obviously you know those shows are good matches

1:06:19like even raw will give you a 15 minute match most weeks i'm gonna go to this week's raw might not be a good example but who knows oh yeah the episode where they murdered people yeah it'll be like nomad longer than four minutes there too but then like you do go back to this period and you're like oh good and this is like the the true dregs of an era it's like between the attitude era and then whatever they hit on in the like the early 2010s the shield era i guess that that like those of where they tried to do ruthless aggression they tried to brand the hell out of this thing and no one cared uh so it's like very much in the low point of a personality list direction list but still terrible

1:06:56era of wv we're all this week six minutes eight minutes eight minutes three minutes 12 minutes 15 16 minutes almost yeah so you can see even like having eight minute matches is revolutionary compared to a 2006 raw yeah and like the big 16 minute main event what was that uh that was the three-way money the bank qualifier jayuso fin bella rayman sure so last last raw longest match was 14 minutes which was brawn dragonly ray versus carly judgment day but you also had drew and finn going 13 um smackdown solo sokoa kevin owens 17 minutes smackdown this week

1:07:33longest match 10 minutes smackdown is generally the talkier show of the two yeah there's always one but like still you're getting long matches on there like like there's still an 18 minute solo kevin owens match last week yeah uh so like it's a completely like it really is a completely different world now even wb whereas go back now to 2006 and it's a desolate landscape and like impact this month i don't think the matches are necessarily always good in fact a lot of them are quite boring but like impact this month is like you get jared raven on tv you get steiner sting on tv you get like these big stars and big matches on tv this month as opposed to raw where you're getting charlie haas versus

1:08:08viscera yeah exactly so yeah cornet's here uh it's a good promo it's a big rah-rah speech he can talk um it's what you expect from jim cornet really you can never say that he can't talk no and like really that's his role he's in an authority figure role and he can talk and he doesn't have the book thankfully i don't know i don't know if i'd be opposed to him having the book at this point yeah in contrast to who will get the book or at least more of the book coming up yeah maybe he should have gotten the book i'm sure he fought for it so the main event of slammiversary is as is tradition for

1:08:40the second year in a row the king of the mountain match as christian cage will defend the nwa world championship against four other men in king of the mountain so we go to the opening segment of the first impact of the month where we have a lot of challengers lining up for christian cage's nwa world title maybe too many challengers maybe we have eight but we only need four do you think um they should have kept king of the mountain the slammiversary give her you yeah like this year slammiversary main event is a multi-man elimination match it's a six-man multi-man and there's part of me it's just like king of the mountain guys so what are we doing yeah and over the years like

1:09:13you could have switched it around like could have done a knockout year with king of the mountain queen of the mountain i guess you could have done an x division you know i mean like you could have changed it doesn't didn't always have to be the world title but like it feels like king of the mountain should have been something that always took place at the anniversary yeah and that is something they did whereas like in 2009 they had two king of the mountains one for the x division one for the world title and then it was a hogan bischoff thing of course where they got rid of the tradition of king of the mountain being the slammiversary match and then it came back in the middle of the 2000s or 2010s for 2015 and then disappeared again and then came back for the 20th anniversary then we

1:09:46had queen of the mountain in 2022 but yeah like part of me is like you know you're throwing six guys in the world title match king of the mountain's right there it's a tradition i like traditions i really do like traditions because it makes your company feel like it has its history you know it's not just uh we're doing something for no reason it's like you can get a little bit excited it's like oh we're heading into king of the mountain season we're going how are they going to do it they're going to do qualifiers they're going to start putting people in the match you you have traditions to look forward to and i like that yeah so may 18th impact opens with christian cage he celebrates in the

1:10:17crowd as they chant his name because he's retained the nwa world title in full battle mayhem against a base at the pay-per-view says the title belongs just as much to the peeps as it does to him next up for christian is king of the mountain he points out as many people will many times this month that the champion has never retained in king of the mountain so the champion has never walked into king of the mountain and walked out with the belt ron killings lost in 2004 aj styles lost in 2005 so will he break tradition will he be the man finally to retain a title in king of the mountain he says he's kicked more ass by accident than most have on purpose so we'll see who steps up monty

1:10:51brown comes out he says he's back because it's the first time we've seen monty since he lost the christian actually in march so it's our first time we've seen monty in a few months because he got his knee scope yeah and we're also in the final run of monty yeah um do they know that they're in the final run of monty yet it feels like it yeah it's the impression i get it does certainly feel like a man who is running out his contract because he doesn't even go like realistically if you're to be like who should qualify for king of the mountain ron killings or monty brown the answer should be monty brown and yet it turns out to be ron killings i was kind of shocked and then i thought like

1:11:25maybe it was because they felt the need to have someone a little more like bouncier and athletic because if you don't have ron and he you don't kind of have anyone in that role yeah i guess you have i guess abyss can take bumps but he's not as you said like a guy who can do some ladder spots don't have aj here and sting christian jared are all guys who are heavyweight guys the christian's the most athletic of the three and sting is willing to jump off things as we'll find out but yeah you are right that it is probably if we added monty to that match it's it's far too

1:11:57heavyweight leaning whereas ron can do some dives and be athletic and be uh something different in the match i guess yeah so i i thought that might have been a reason to so monty says he owes christian a pounce period adrenaline rush hits and then rhino comes out killings comes out raven comes out abyss comes out jarrett and steiner come out of course jarrett is the only one that gets to speak says he deserves to be in the match which brings out sting stings in the rafters and says by jarrett involving himself in king of the mountain now stings involving himself in king of the mountain and then larry zabisco appears on the screen and he says it turns out we have eight men around here

1:12:28but we only need four he's also very prim and proper here i should keep uh that in mind i actually yeah i did quite like that he's making like a very formal a very official announcement that that seems like it's above reproach no one can question it he is being fair and decent if there is any new faces of tna management potentially watching larry is doing things by the book it's it was very funny so yeah we have eight contenders we only need four so over the next few weeks there will be king of the mountain qualifiers but the hook is we won't know who will be in the matches until bell time so no one

1:13:02knows when they'll be wrestling and no one knows who they'll be wrestling until the music hits so that's the hook over the next few weeks that you're you're given these eight men you're given raven killings abyss steiner jarrett monty and sting and then like your imagination can run wild about the kind of matches that can happen between those eight men which is like gives us our monthly jeff jarrett has something to whine and complain about and a mystery to solve because that's the only story he knows how to tell yeah he can always he's mad at people he's always mad at people he's given out

1:13:35up to people all the time he's gotta ask who knows what who's telling me something let me know he needs to demand things from mike today um we'll actually cover one of those under steiner joe because it kind of fits better there but yeah there's one of those on this show where they're shouting at jb and steiner's mad yeah so main event of this episode your first king of the mountain qualifier is abyss versus rhino abyss coming out without james mitchell because the mitchell got dropped on thumbtacks at the pay-per-view so he's selling that yes uh it's weird to see abyss without james mitchell now i'm so used to it yeah and these two just bad chemistry i think yeah for two guys you

1:14:10would think should have good chemistry and did have one really good match there's a lot of stinkers between these two some very boring tv matches yeah you're not wrong all right abyss at one point rhino kicks out of a move and abyss like screams something and then don tries to like speculate about what abyss was saying and he's like i think he said i thought i had it uh rude comes out but rhino fends them off the distraction allows abyss to hit a black hole slam for the win as the more gloats after we'll talk more about rhino and rude the and demore the the big pay-per-view match we've

1:14:43all been looking forward to but abyss qualifies for king of the mountain i'm glad that he did uh over rhino yeah probably yeah it's nice to brand your homegrown talent in the world title match huh fuck you fucking paul heyman may 25th impact to me may 25th impact jb is backstage with the remaining king of the mountain qualifiers teases what tonight's main event could be uh we get a feature on king of the mountain explaining what king of the mountain is and the rules and once again reiterating no champion has walked into king of the mountain walked out with the belt uh jb has

1:15:14sting he's fired up for the king of the mountain he's seen wrestlers and companies come and go but he doesn't want that to happen to tna and he sees the biggest threat to that happening to tna being jeff jarrett so he needs to remove him from king of the mountain and remove him from tna oh my god we then this is unrelated to um king of the mountain but we had an ad for a slamversary yeah it's goofy so there's a uh mike and don are watching golf they're watching a fake tiger woods go for a putt but jarrett cuts him off and hits him with a guitar and mike and don are very amused by this

1:15:45and there's a fun note about this that uh in demand nixed it they wouldn't use this pay-per-view commercial because they they skewed far too close to actually using tiger woods likeness so in demand is like oh no no we can't use it sorry it's so good cowards cowards in the pay-per-view industry liam uh there's an interview with raven points out that both he and jarrett have won a king of the mountain so it would be a battle between them of the previous king of the mountain winners jb also has a jarrett and steiner jarrett says he'll regain the title steiner tells jarrett to shut

1:16:19up says he came to tna to watch jarrett's back and beat up sting steiner demands larry z pull he and sting's name out of the hat and he's mad at joe eyeballing him says next time joe does that he'll slap the taste out of his mouth because nobody eyeballs big papa pump i wouldn't i'd be very afraid to would you actually be scared if you were in a room with scott steiner uh five by five room it's just you and scott steiner okay no bird no no scorpion either no this is just steiner okay okay okay two chairs in opposite corners of the room but not like making eye contact so you're you're

1:16:53against with the same wall back to the same wall like at a waiting room yeah so you sit in one chair and steiner sits in the other would you spend the entire time not looking at scott steiner no i wouldn't you know what i would do what would you do i'd go hello mr steiner um did you know that we have the same birthday you have the same birthday as scott steiner yeah whoa so i would simply talk to him about that you would extend the olive branch yeah do you think he would then become friends with you

1:17:23i think um i think because it is a very like it's a very rare birthday i feel like both of us would relate to that fact that we don't see many people with the same birthday i feel like statistics well actually probably if you look into the stats it's not the case that um they're either that like birthdays are evenly distributed there are probably for various reasons birthdays stockpile in certain months yeah i mean like it's yeah i just i would simply relate to mr steiner and we would become besties and then he would attack your enemies on your behalf yes exactly i would become his jeff

1:17:57jared in a sense we all become jeff jared in the end he says nobody eyeballs him because it makes him want to snap snap jb also has ron killings killings points out that he's a two-time champ and he'll make it three then he wraps they did see largely forget that killings was the one who lost the belt in the first king of the mountain but uh they brought it up at the slammerversary cold open that's where killings is like king of the mountain means a lot to me it's like because he lost the belt in the first one so they did eventually remember that but your main event of this one ron killings versus monty brown and a king of the mountain qualifier which is a fun match not a

1:18:28particularly good one but it's a fun one a lot of them like a lot of the the kingdom man qualifiers like aren't good but it is fun to have them on the show because like all four are like actual star versus star tv main events yeah and like it's it's just having you know name versus name christian joins commentary here again they once again reiterate the champion has never left king of the mountain still champ ron hits a big plancha then monty like beats his ass for a while hits an alpha bomb hits a fallaway slam then truth just grabs a roll up pins monty when he goes for the pounce

1:18:59and then truth qualifies with abyss for king of the mountain june 1st impact opens with everyone's favorite segment jeff jarrett demanding to know what's going on thank god uh what would a pay-per-view cycle be without that you know we've gone at least like three weeks without jarrett appearing at the announce table shouting at mike today demanding to know something so is it really tna is it that's the question we have long established that the number one real feud across tna history is mike tna versus jeff jarrett going all the way back to 2002 2003 2004 where every week jarrett and tna would shout

1:19:34at each other and get mad at each other and cut promos on each other the my way hype music video but it's tna and jarrett i should actually cut that just one my tna face more fight other my tna face about a lot of things or whatever the lyrics of that song are about your leadership oh i'm a fake limp biscuit fan no but also like those lyrics resonate with the story being told oh he's trying to take down the jeff jarrett leadership but yeah jarrett says there's only one person that wants to know who's wrestling tonight more than he does and that's scott steiner steiner comes out and shouts at

1:20:08mike and don and demands to know he then attacks don and rolls him in the ring steiner wants uh larry's to give him sting tonight sting's music hits don rolls to safety sting and snyder brawl jared backs up the ramp into raven they also brawl raven and sting stand tall raven good coats this month especially with sting good coat men hey they look cool together didn't they yeah this should be a tag team it was kind of funny to see them next to each other it's like a part of my brain was just like raven and sting look at them look at them go they should be teaming up we had a feature later

1:20:39in that show on christian and king of the mountain believe it or not liam he wants to be the first person who walks in and out as champ i mean it's crazy it's crazy business why would he want that why would he want to retain his belt uh nobody has ever said that no champion has ever retained the title in king of the mountain either christian in fact has a line on the pay-per-views like i think you've heard like 50 if no he did literally if i had a dime for every time somebody told me that the champion had never won in king of the mountain i'd have 51 dimes i think he said jarrett's not king of the mountain he beat jarrett so it's the christian cage year now and then our main event king of the mountain qualifier after all these years after three in fact since they

1:21:15originally wrestled for the nwa world title in the biggest match in tna history we finally get the rematch between jeff jarrett and raven and we get it unannounced on tv it's crazy because like the way they did this like obviously the idea was you're not going to know who the main events are until they come out and if you're to say which of the matches we have set up because the last one you will then announce in advance by default you know it's the last one left over so you know the last two left are sting and steiner so that's the match you actually announce so you are probably right to

1:21:46leave that one last because that is on paper the biggest match so you actually want to hype that one up for a week but you're like jarrett raven 2 after all these goddamn years the huge match sold out the asylum did one of tna's best weekly pay-per-view numbers like a great match too like it's extremely silly with all the interference but tremendous fun after all these years we finally get it and as you said unannounced on as a tv main event um i feel like they could have like had larry finally be like

1:22:18fuck it and like pull the names out and reveal both matches and that way you could have advertised both do you think larry z in fact uh gimmicked it after threats from scott steiner there's many threats from scott steiner to give him sting and he did give him sting in the end yeah probably um but like i i actually thought the payoff was gonna be that it was gonna be raven and sting which that would be but then you'd have to do jarrett and steiner yeah that's what i thought it was gonna be i thought the whole like the whole time it was good and then it was gonna be like jarrett and sting and i saw jarrett and steiner it was gonna be like some bullshit you know and them

1:22:49trying to find a way out of beating each other uh but i guess that yeah that is the idea that you're meant to your imagination is meant to run wild you went about but maybe it is jarrett and steiner maybe their entire scheme because that was the one they never mentioned yeah and they they were pretty good at like they even ran down the ones they ended up being like they they didn't shy away from like saying maybe it could be jarrett raven they did say that at one point but you're right i don't think the only one they didn't say was jarrett against steiner and so the whole time i was like it's totally gonna be jarrett and steiner but no you get jarrett and raven after all these years having

1:23:19a fun tv main actually i enjoyed it yeah like they they still have good chemistry together even though like they spent three years neutering raven they go straight into crowd brawling uh this is the two former winners of king of the mountain so then they also point out that again it will be sting versus steiner next week by process of elimination uh raven looks to elbow drop jarrett through a table off the stage but jarrett moves and raven crashes and burns they brawl into the concession stand jarrett crashes through the stand raven follows after kind of misses and just runs right into it it's kind of funny they brawl back into the building as raven hip tosses jarrett down the ramp ref gets bumped gale

1:23:53slides in the guitar raven gets a sleeper as blood drops out of jarrett's mouth uh which did add uh drama she started bleeding from the mouth it's like what the fuck happened to you buddy i mean yeah i don't know it felt it didn't feel like a complete like waste of time or anything like they had good chemistry they had a good little brawl it felt appropriate like for what like these two have meant to each other in the company's history like they did the best with what they the position of the match yeah but it's just kind of like annoying that this is what we got after all these years

1:24:25because like it's a impact tv main which means it's going seven eight minutes tops so which is about what they got i think uh and that's about that and they made about the most of you uh what you can get out of your seven or eight minute impact main event but yeah it is it's just funny at least it happened i guess at least they did at least get one jarrett raven rematch yeah um as said raven has a sleeper on jarrett and blood is spewing out of jarrett's mouth which does add some drama every sleeper by the way you should start bleeding from the mouth it makes the sleeper much more dramatic yeah raven drop toe holds jarrett onto a chair larry z comes out and takes the

1:24:57guitar from raven jarrett hits a low blow but larry takes the guitar from jarrett too so he's a fair man yeah i i was i was kind of like wondering what this was it felt like for a minute there like larry was gonna forgive the sins of raven and like it felt like they were gonna be on like that was gonna be the blow-off to the few was larry was gonna be like ah fuck jeff jarrett which is the conclusion we should all come to eventually yeah raven goes to hit jarrett with the guitar but jarrett moves and raven accidentally hits larry instead stroke puts jarrett in king of the mountain alongside killings abyss and christian as mentioned process of elimination leads us to the june 8th

1:25:29impact in which scott steiner faces sting is i was gonna say sorry like it opens the show is jarrett versus raven to sting versus steiner like the biggest match to match uh like run in impact history yeah go from main event to opener yeah it might be like like just the biggest like the the biggest two matches like in a row technically and if you were to like what are some of the biggest singles matches tna could potentially build up like the jarrett raven rematch has been one of them for three years even if it has lost its luster over time and then like sting and steiner is one of

1:26:01the bigger ones now and like they did like as you said it opened the show so like they did do a bunch of things at the start we got like a quick interview with sting he said it's showtime we got a quick interview with jarrett and steiner jarrett instructs him to take out sting and steiner's fired up like we got highlights of the previous three qualifiers and then like both men got these like big dramatic intros where they like slowly you know were warming up backstage the slower versions of their theme songs before the music hit they they did a few smaller things to try and make this feel like a big tv opener yeah that's good i don't know i felt it i feel like they good they did a good job of making

1:26:36it feel like a big match even though it was just tv yeah i'm like i'm really enjoying steiner we'll talk about it more obviously with the joe stuff but like steiner is a guy who i think his entire reputation got shot by the wb run in 2002 where he had two very bad matches with triple h one of the worst of all time and then he just kind of fell into a mid-carat loop before he crashed out of there and i know he had injuries and he had other stuff going on there that he had some difficulties in wb for various reasons but like i feel like that defines steiner's reputation for maybe the rest of his career and he is obviously old and large and injured and relatively washed up here but like in the right

1:27:11circumstances steiner's still got some juice in in multiple ways yeah we're not saying that steiner is what he was he's not 1992 scott steiner like doing the most awesome new japan matches you've ever seen yeah but he he's like you know he can he can pull it out for a moment yeah and then there's a deep discussion of people who have aura and scott steiner is one of them that man is real real rock and roller scott steiner is a man who you see on pro wrestling television and you are like that is not an act that man is real that is who he is authenticity they brawl out to the floor and sting

1:27:47hits steiner in the skull with a chair at ringside and earl hepner just kind of does like a come on come on guys he doesn't even like you know admonish them really he's like guys come on please steiner hits a low blow takes control crowd chance steroids at him which is quite rude sting hits a top rope clothesline makes a comeback sting goes for a stinger splash but steiner pulls the ref in the way gail and jarrett interfere as jarrett hits the stroke on sting slick johnson runs out and sting kicks out sting drops out of a suplex into a scorpion death drop but jarrett then pulls the

1:28:19referee out sting gets a roll up on steiner but jarrett jumps sting for a dq hebner disqualifies steiner sting qualifies for king of the mountain by disqualification which is uh it's a shitty cough out but it's it's the right call steiner shouldn't be taking a pin before the job yeah and like again this is an this is an aura match this is a match just between seeing two guys in the same ring you don't really need a clean finish on tv for this no that's one of those words like i'm fine with the dq uh jarrett and steiner attack after the match truth makes the say but then abyss with mitchell now who has returned after three weeks of pulling thumbtacks out of his back presumably

1:28:51uh truth hits with this with an axe kick but jarrett johnson behind and then christian makes the eventual save yeah the opening segment of the june 8th edition of impact drew a 1.1 rating disappointing to tna because they were really hoping that sting and steiner would pop a huge rating