A Rare Five from Meltzer - WWF In Your House Mind Games (1996)

Bradley Palermo and Aaron Fink rewind all the way back to Philadelphia in 1996 for WWF In Your House 10: Mind Games. This episode covers the debut of Mark Henry, Jose Lothario’s only WWF televised match, and the ECW invasion cameo from Sandman, Tommy Dreamer, and Paul Heyman in the crowd. Plus, the hosts break down the final curtain clash between Undertaker and Goldust, and the five-star classic from Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind that stole the show. Along the way, they discuss glitter botches, 1-900 hotlines, ticket price madness, and why Dave Meltzer’s star ratings still stir debate. Closing thoughts include trivia, listener feedback, and the official Grapple City Rewind verdict.

Live in Los Angeles: Bradley Palermo's 4th annual Holiday Hoedown featuring Palermo doing a set of holiday originals alongside Hans Maestro and Sim Williams. Super limited seating,  claim your ticket now

This episode brought to you by Weber4Law - your tag team partner when life body-slams you out of nowhere. Call (818) 502-9200 or visit https://weber4law.com/

(626) 657-SLAM

Email: Grapplecitypod@gmail.com

IG: @grapplecitypod

X: @grapplecitypod

TikTok: @grapplecitypod

Threads: @grapplecitypod

Music by Bradley Palermo & The Shadow Queens.

Created by Bradley Palermo & Aaron Fink.

Chapters

• 2:17 Current Product
• 16:26 The Rewind
• 46:21 Grapple Gang

Transcript

00:00.23
Aaron
Hey everyone, this is Aaron Fink from Grapple City Rewind. If you like what you hear on this episode, give us a follow, leave a review, cut a promo on us by calling 626-657-SLAM. Anything goes. It'll go a long way in helping us to be discovered by more wrestling fans like you.

00:15.97
Aaron
Alright, cue the music.

00:17.25
Bradley Palermo
Hello and welcome to Grapple City Rewind, taking you all the way back to the classic pay-per-views that shaped wrestling history.

00:30.33
Bradley Palermo
Today, we're rewinding to 1996.

00:34.04
Bradley Palermo
in philadelphia pennsylvania talking about wwf in your house mind games it's in your house 10 i believe we've got we've got some fun stuff to talk about on this one we got a little glitter a little glitter botch we've got jose lothario and his only jose lothario and his only wwf televised match in history I'll tell you later if it was a good one or a bad one.

00:57.74
Aaron
I am.

01:00.22
Bradley Palermo
The pay-per-view debut of Mark Henry and even ah super rare, even for the time, five-star WWF match, five-star talking wrestling observer observer between HBK and Mankind. We'll tell you our thoughts on what worked, what didn't work, and what's worth your time to run back and rewatch on this one. But first...

01:21.92
Bradley Palermo
I am Bradley Palermo here, as always, with Aaron Fink. And Aaron, did you see Kingo versus Mysterio this past weekend by any chance?

01:33.46
Aaron
I did, yeah. I watched it live. It was fun. and Surprised, but also not surprised, that Dominic Mysterio is now the AAA Mega Campeon.

01:44.10
Bradley Palermo
Dude, yeah.

01:44.69
Aaron
pretty Pretty exciting for him i think well-deserved. I mean, people cheer for him in WWE, but people go nuts for him in AAA.

01:55.55
Aaron
it's Like, crazy nuts.

01:56.25
Bradley Palermo
ye i think it's I think it was a great match. I think it was one of the better Bakingo matches, one of the better stereo matches, Dominica stereo matches. I think it's hilarious that you know the two biggest promotions in Mexico, CMLL and AAA, both have American wrestlers wearing their gold from their respective companies. So you know obviously MJF has got a a CMLL title, I think like a preliminary one or not a major title.

02:26.73
Bradley Palermo
And then Dominic has got like the fucking main fucking title play.

02:30.96
Aaron
Yeah.

02:31.86
Bradley Palermo
And I don't know. I do love these worlds colliding.

02:35.64
Aaron
Oh, yeah, I do, too. I mean, it' it's always fun. I also enjoyed the Natty match, Natalia versus what was her name? Shit. I can't remember. some somethingin Something that I don't remember.

02:46.83
Aaron
Let me look it up.

02:47.57
Bradley Palermo
Oh yeah. Well, I can look up though.

02:49.56
Aaron
Okay.

02:51.20
Aaron
Wait, no.

02:52.19
Bradley Palermo
They're going to give me the old one.

02:53.33
Aaron
Yeah, of course they gave me the old one. Hold on. Here we go.

02:55.90
Aaron
Yeah, I enjoyed the Natty or Natalia match versus Fabi Apache and it was nice to see Natty get a win for once. So yeah, it was a fun

03:06.49
Aaron
we got our Mr. Iguana and demonito appearances as as it appears to be the norm now.

03:14.34
Bradley Palermo
yeah that iguana dude is not going anywhere he's i'm sure they're selling fucking toy iguanas to children

03:17.22
Aaron
No, yeah, he's super over.

03:20.89
Aaron
Iguanas. I'm sure they are, yeah. So that was really fun. And then another current product thing that I was excited about that happened right after we recorded our previous episode was the return of a j Lee, ah the wife of CM Punk. And I think that they've handled it perfectly. The the not so surprising surprise return that she had on SmackDown a couple of weeks ago was, I think, flawlessly executed, not to mention, you know, the way Becky...

03:50.37
Aaron
reacted to her showing up. And I thought the promo the following Monday on Raw was also really good.

03:51.90
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Right.

03:55.76
Aaron
she Like a picture perfect promo from a j Lee, introducing herself to people who didn't watch 10 years ago. And actually, i wasn't watching 10 years ago.

04:06.37
Aaron
I know who she is, obviously, because I'm a mark, ah but but yeah, I think it's been great so far. I'm stoked on the mixed tag match at Wrestlepalooza.

04:19.34
Aaron
Probably the only match that I'm genuinely interested in at the moment. I'm sure Cena versus Lesnar will be entertaining and probably by the end of it, I'll be like, OK, that was dope because the last few Cena matches have been spectacular.

04:31.67
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

04:45.26
Aaron
She might.

04:45.67
Bradley Palermo
It's almost photoshopped. Like it's pretty crazy.

04:49.54
Aaron
Yeah. And you know, i love, it's like not really part of the wrestling per se, but I, I love like how, how happy punk is like, you can see it on his face, like during the commercial breaks and all the fan footage, he's like so happy that she's happy.

04:58.81
Bradley Palermo
yeah

05:04.87
Aaron
And I love that for them. I'm glad that she's back. I'm glad that he gets to work with her. I, and

05:10.84
Bradley Palermo
I don't.

05:12.50
Aaron
I'm excited to see what comes after the mixed tag match. I assume maybe she'll take the intercontinental belt off of Becky, but either way, there's a lot of cool matchups that can happen between AJ and so many of the women on the roster today.

05:27.36
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, there's a lot you can do with that. And I feel like, you know, yeah, sure. You got to start with a mixed tag match. It's, it's never a great match when it's a mixed tag match.

05:35.20
Aaron
No.

05:36.71
Bradley Palermo
It's, especially in WWE, w e the men and the women aren't allowed to fight. So if you, if you tag your partner, it means the other partner significant other has to then automatically come in and,

05:49.17
Bradley Palermo
You know, obviously in the indies and stuff, you can have couples fighting and it's kind of interesting and WWE, it's like a really weird kind of tag match. Um, but they're still setting enough stuff up.

05:57.74
Aaron
I wouldn't

05:58.89
Bradley Palermo
That's, that's interesting. And yeah, go ahead.

06:01.38
Aaron
I wouldn't be surprised if AJ gets a few shots on Seth like I don't think I don't think Punk's gonna hit Becky because he's a babyface but I think the babyface female hitting the heel male that could that that may happen

06:07.06
Bradley Palermo
Right.

06:14.47
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, you get a little bit of that. And then if the if the male does get a move on the female, it's usually going to be it's not going to be like a close fist, right? It's going to be some sort of wrestling hold.

06:24.32
Aaron
Yeah.

06:25.33
Bradley Palermo
I've got your arm, um maybe a body slam.

06:27.05
Aaron
Or maybe a go to sleep even. like he's he's i think he i think he did a GTS to Beth Phoenix many moons ago, so it's not unheard of.

06:28.74
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

06:34.19
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it can happen. Yeah, but the I think the real problem with Wrestlepalooza is that it's called Wrestlepalooza. Wrestlepalooza. It sounds like your local...

06:46.88
Bradley Palermo
craft fair being like we're studio city palooza like it's just it's just like an interesting put on the end of it it's like dude i know it's it was an ecw uh but i mean dude it's like of all the things you could come up with and then oh we just got to say

06:48.48
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

06:56.26
Aaron
I think it was an ECW show. I think that, youre right? Yeah. It's a bad title or a bad name.

07:07.10
Bradley Palermo
He, I mean, at least he waited until September 12th, but Triple H to the chance of you sold out just announced that he is going to be, uh, putting WrestleMania in Saudi Arabia,

07:22.15
Bradley Palermo
That shit's kind of whack. I don't know. What do you think? WrestleMania off us soil. into a place that that that fucking i don't know like hates gays and women

07:28.30
Aaron
I mean,

07:32.08
Aaron
I, I don't, I'm not, I'm not a huge fan of some of the, uh, yeah, Saudi Arabia generally doesn't seem to be a place that I would want to live.

07:43.60
Aaron
i don't think it's a place that any of the female wrestlers would actually want to live. I feel like this is one of those things where we can either stop watching because it is upsetting or we are just going to accept it and move on, you know, not, not saying that it's the right thing to do. And in fact, I think Bianca had an interview, Bianca Belair semi recently last few days,

08:10.91
Aaron
where she basically tried to talk it up and say like, Oh, it's not that bad. It's been getting better. i think it's, you know, what we've been able to do from seven years ago when they wouldn't even let us wrestle there to now is a big improvement.

08:20.01
Bradley Palermo
Right.

08:22.69
Aaron
And and I agree that it is. i just, it's, it's complicated, right?

08:24.93
Bradley Palermo
a

08:27.69
Aaron
that That, you know, we could, we could probably do a whole entire episode about the deal with them. whether it's good or not, what it really means, you know, for fans, what it what kind of a message it sends in terms of what does TKO care about?

08:33.94
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

08:44.70
Aaron
You know, do they care about rights of people that are being oppressed in another country?

08:51.62
Bradley Palermo
no

08:52.21
Aaron
You know, it's pre probably not. they They seem to only care about money, especially with the... Did you see another current product thing I just thought of? Mark Shapiro, he's like, think he's this president or a CEO or something of TKO.

09:05.87
Aaron
And he was basically talking about how, in and i'm I'm paraphrasing, but he basically said, oh yeah, our ticket prices for WWE w shows aren't as expensive as UFC yet, but you know we're trying to get there.

09:16.57
Bradley Palermo
Right. mr They've been talking about that, that WWE and even before that, that Vince McMahon was trying to make it like a family accessible thing, which I feel like is what built the generational fandom.

09:30.61
Aaron
Yeah.

09:30.58
Bradley Palermo
And now they're trying to, I think that's what happens with with corporate stuff. It becomes sort of short sighted. It's like, well, how can I count more beans now?

09:38.42
Aaron
Yeah.

09:38.52
Bradley Palermo
Not about like the the entire picture. Like, well, I don't see how charging less makes me more money. Okay. Well, I kind of do. I see that if generations can go, then this won't die.

09:49.26
Bradley Palermo
Like if I can't afford to bring my nephew, but I can just go myself, then it dies on my bloodline with me.

09:50.18
Aaron
yeah

09:56.49
Bradley Palermo
Right. So I just, it might not.

09:57.51
Aaron
Or it might. I don't know. Yeah.

09:59.77
Bradley Palermo
I mean, well, and I'm talking about like individual antidotes. Right. So not for everyone, but like, um, I'm just if I'm just some dude going going there by myself, then like, OK, it's not one thousand dollars now. It's two like, OK, whatever. Cool.

10:13.89
Aaron
Yeah.

10:13.98
Bradley Palermo
But like but like the people that you see as a person who sits in the front at wrestling, the people that you see are generally like solo hardcore fans who have imported themselves.

10:25.07
Aaron
Clearly super wealthy.

10:25.89
Bradley Palermo
for thousands of dollars and they might be wealthy or they might just put everything they have into this, but they're not families.

10:27.49
Aaron
Yeah.

10:32.52
Bradley Palermo
It is not like a family sort of thing.

10:34.38
Aaron
Yeah.

10:35.13
Bradley Palermo
Right. And, um, I have

10:36.64
Aaron
mean, there are still plenty of families in the crowd. It's just...

10:39.77
Bradley Palermo
deeper. Uh, yeah, but i don't know, maybe it's always better.

10:41.95
Aaron
we're cutting They're cutting people out, right? They're cutting a certain socioeconomic group out. And I totally agree. I think that despite all of the problems of Vince McMahon, one thing that he rarely ever compromised on was keeping things affordable so that you could take your kids, your grandkids, your nephews, your niche your nieces, because it's exactly what you said.

11:05.72
Aaron
If you bring five people and four of them have never seen wrestling, they're going to have a great time and they're probably going to want to come back.

11:11.51
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

11:12.85
Aaron
So you, you may have made a fan or a consumer. You may have created a consumer for their entire lives. And now because prices are increasing, there aren't as many there, there may not be as many instances of that moving forward.

11:30.07
Aaron
And I'm sure, you know, I'm sure there are families who wanted to go to SummerSlam and we're like, Oh, Shit, it's $500 a ticket for like the section below the nosebleeds?

11:41.77
Aaron
I can't take my two kids to that.

11:41.76
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

11:43.49
Aaron
That's $1,500. That's before we even buy food, buy belts, buy shirts. i i As I've said before, I know it's a business, but they are are going a little hard.

11:55.00
Aaron
on the commodification of everything and increasing the prices of everything. um I um I really want to go to WrestleMania next year in Vegas, but I know that if I go and sit where I want to sit, I'm going to spend thousands of dollars and I have to reconcile with that fact.

12:09.23
Bradley Palermo
yeah

12:13.31
Bradley Palermo
Right.

12:19.43
Bradley Palermo
yeah i feel the same way and i feel like even as someone who's given in and spent a lot of money that there's obviously going to be diminishing returns like to to do that and to treat yourself and to go hard it's like well okay i mean i've sat up close at wrestlemania i've you know and and and and other companies and concerts and stuff too they're all doing it like they're like all entertainment is like really going for the jugular right now but like when i do it it's like well I ain't going back and getting a worse seat and I ain't going to fucking pay that shit again right now.

12:50.56
Bradley Palermo
So it's like, how often will I actually do it?

12:50.100
Aaron
Yeah.

12:53.01
Bradley Palermo
And I guess you guys can get the fucking money. I guess the money's there. I mean, I have a little bit of the TKO stock and it like outpaces the fucking S and P and the NASDAQ and everything else.

13:05.03
Bradley Palermo
So like for the past couple years, it's, you know, they've been showing those fucking numbers, but like at some point, um, it's just,

13:11.74
Aaron
At some point, it'll be too much and they'll have to correct the other way. I mean, that's the thing, right?

13:14.73
Bradley Palermo
Right. Yeah.

13:15.66
Aaron
Is if they notice that, you know, uh, Boise doesn't sell out, they'll be like, okay, maybe we could have gone a little lower there.

13:25.76
Aaron
But if Boise, Chicago, LA and Phoenix don't sell out, then they're like, okay, now we have a problem. We probably got to dump the, dump the prices a little bit.

13:34.50
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

13:35.16
Aaron
And even, uh, uh, I think I told you this, I can't remember if I said this on the air, but, When I went to Money in the Bank, you know, we were there together.

13:46.46
Aaron
i bought tickets that were pretty good seats. I got to yeet right next to Jay as he was coming down the entrance what or the the concourse.

13:54.48
Bradley Palermo
Yeet?

13:54.72
Aaron
It was like 500 bucks a ticket. And i was like, OK, fine.

13:56.88
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

13:58.21
Aaron
um um I haven't ever been to a premium live event. Like, it's worth it. And I went on to Ticketmaster a few days before, just curious to see how many more tickets were left.

14:06.57
Bradley Palermo
Uh-huh.

14:08.47
Aaron
And I saw tickets in the section right next to me in the same row, and they were $325. And was like, are you shitting me? like you know but

14:15.10
Bradley Palermo
It's all over the place, yeah.

14:16.32
Aaron
They lowered the prices a few days before so they could sell out, which again, smart business tactic, but it just made me angry and then made me never want to buy tickets early again.

14:26.08
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and it was, I mean, it was cool or whatever, I mean, that was the last main thing I went to, but it wasn't that creative it it wasn't that great of a show.

14:32.94
Aaron
It was fine. Yeah.

14:33.81
Bradley Palermo
for for I mean, I don't know. I guess when I think about how much money I spent on I was like, yeah, if I would have known. But should we get into the rewind?

14:40.87
Aaron
Yeah.

14:41.39
Bradley Palermo
Actually, can i can you give me one second?

14:44.27
Bradley Palermo
You a big coffee guy. I can't drink it.

14:45.75
Aaron
Not at all. Can't drink it.

14:48.17
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Nevermind. Found a new cold brew that I was fun having fun brewing.

14:58.09
Bradley Palermo
All right, this week we watched WWF In Your House 10 Mind Games, which took place on September 22nd in 1996 at the Core State Center in Philly.

15:10.91
Bradley Palermo
The event started off with sort of a dark, eerie opening. Who can stop mankind? What horrors.

15:17.45
Aaron
Cheese ball. It was so cheesy.

15:19.06
Bradley Palermo
Ha ha. What whores lie in the chamber of these tortured minds? this Commentary. Of course, Vince McMahon with Mr. Perfect. He must have been injured or something. And Jim Ross. So we got a little bit of the bad, a little bit of the good on the commentary table.

15:35.68
Bradley Palermo
But no waste of time. The action starts right away. Gets right into the first match, which is a Caribbean strap match, which by all accounts that I can tell is just a strap match.

15:48.03
Bradley Palermo
It's Bradshaw versus... Savio Vega with referee Harvey Wippelman.

15:54.48
Aaron
I noticed that too, right?

15:55.100
Bradley Palermo
Rare to see him officiating, at least for me in my day. He was just a manager.

16:00.02
Aaron
He was the manager, yeah.

16:01.32
Bradley Palermo
yeah um This match dudes in the crowd that we saw in the last pay-per-view performing ec ecw's sandman oh i got some heat on my sandman comments but we'll talk about that later and uh tommy dreamer was in the crowd so perfect philly nod oh heyman was there shit yeah

16:07.80
Aaron
Yeah, we did.

16:13.14
Aaron
Did you?

16:17.40
Aaron
Heyman too.

16:19.52
Aaron
Yeah, you you kind of didn't see it, but it started. Well, it was interesting because I i heard the chance, the ECW chance first. And i was like, are they chanting ECW like during a Bradshaw, Savio Vega match?

16:28.86
Bradley Palermo
yeah

16:30.59
Aaron
And then there they were. And I was like, oh shit, this must be when they try to do the invasion angle.

16:33.24
Bradley Palermo
So this was ECW's first major WWE invasion tee. So when Sandman and Dreamer were shown in the Philly crowd during the strap match, it was step towards 1997 ECW WWE crossover And

16:50.90
Bradley Palermo
angle

16:51.30
Aaron
which didn't last and and didn't work.

17:05.84
Bradley Palermo
vegas Vegas sneaks the last turnbuckle after Bradshaw thinks he's got it one, you know, a strap match where you have to hit all four corners while you're strapped to the other guy. It's always like this, right?

17:16.32
Bradley Palermo
Have you noticed it's, it's always like someone thinks they won and then, the, their partner or their opponent was slapping the turnbuckle one, two, three, every time they did and sneaks it out at the end.

17:16.72
Aaron
Yeah.

17:25.89
Aaron
Actually, i that's... So maybe I haven't seen a lot of strat matches except for this one. and a cut Maybe we watched one other one and then the Punk McIntyre one from last year.

17:37.25
Bradley Palermo
That was the finish on that one too, right?

17:37.56
Aaron
But I don't think it was... I can't remember.

17:40.40
Bradley Palermo
Well, maybe it wasn't.

17:40.85
Aaron
it just This felt like kind of a weird way to finish because i i felt like...

17:41.61
Bradley Palermo
yeah

17:46.44
Aaron
Well, don't they always say in the rules that you have to touch them uninterrupted, like that your opponent can't stop you or whatever?

17:53.67
Bradley Palermo
Right.

17:55.05
Aaron
So that that didn't apply.

17:55.36
Bradley Palermo
you

17:56.65
Aaron
And then also, they weren't really calling attention to the fact that Vega was touching them after Bradshaw was until the third one. when Vince was like, he's been he's touched the third one also.

18:07.20
Bradley Palermo
Right.

18:08.53
Aaron
So it was a little weird.

18:08.63
Bradley Palermo
It's a.

18:10.33
Aaron
I mean, as I still enjoyed it. Bradshaw hits like a friggin bus, dude.

18:14.50
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

18:14.63
Aaron
He just loves beating the shit out of people.

18:17.29
Bradley Palermo
it's a weird kind of match and it never really comes off. Right. It's always kind of like, um, what are the rules? Like he's, he's hitting the second one, but they kind of fucked around for a while before that.

18:25.13
Aaron
Mm hmm.

18:28.13
Bradley Palermo
And then next time he's starting over, it's like, what really does break the tapping?

18:29.04
Aaron
Yeah.

18:32.82
Bradley Palermo
Like you would, I don't know.

18:34.65
Aaron
whatever they want it to be.

18:34.74
Bradley Palermo
It,

18:35.93
Aaron
That's why there probably aren't too many of them anymore.

18:36.29
Bradley Palermo
It's whatever. Even in the Punk Drew one, there was like lights that went on to tell you if it was active or not, and they didn't work.

18:41.80
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

18:44.43
Bradley Palermo
um um Anyways, this was a seven-minute match. Savio Vega won.

18:50.67
Aaron
Did you notice that Bradshaw's name was Justin Hawk Bradshaw?

18:55.59
Bradley Palermo
Justin Hawk Bradshaw.

18:57.05
Aaron
I'm pretty sure, yeah. I mean, there was there was like the word Hawk on his tights, but I'm pretty sure that was what they called him. And I was like, oh so okay. He went from Justin Hawk Bradshaw to just Blackjack Bradshaw.

19:07.46
Aaron
And then he was John Bradshaw, LaField, and it was JBL. Just funny.

19:10.63
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I was going to say, doesn't seem like the same person as JBL.

19:13.66
Aaron
Yeah.

19:14.18
Bradley Palermo
It's fucking weird. JBL was the commentator the other day at Worlds Collide, right?

19:18.68
Aaron
Yeah, yeah.

19:19.28
Bradley Palermo
and

19:19.47
Aaron
He's been doing the trip. I think he did ah TripleMania too.

19:23.41
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

19:24.26
Aaron
It's been fun. He's he's pretty funny. he like He was talking up demon. He was oh god, it's demonito! I'm so scared! I need an exorcist!

19:31.36
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

19:32.23
Aaron
Or whatever he said.

19:33.00
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. he's He was a CNN commentator for a while, right? At some point.

19:37.39
Aaron
Was he?

19:38.42
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, um um let me see.

19:39.46
Aaron
i didn't know that.

19:40.76
Bradley Palermo
Hold on. Bradshaw.

19:42.05
Aaron
Vitally important information. You know who I noticed while you're looking that up? they Before the match started, they they cut to the back for like a very quick interview, and it was Kevin Kelly.

19:52.62
Aaron
do you Do you remember Kevin Kelly? He's like the New Japan pro wrestling English commentator, or he he was for a pretty long time.

19:58.28
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, yeah.

19:59.54
Aaron
I thought that was funny. I was like, oh, I didn't know that Kevin Kelly worked for the WWF in the ninety s

20:04.42
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I don't know. Maybe I don't know what i'm talking about with him working for fucking, swore he was like communist.

20:12.47
Aaron
CNN and guy? That's funny. I just wouldn't have pictured him as such.

20:16.77
Bradley Palermo
business career cable news in 2004, Layfield was hired by CNBC to be a contributor.

20:23.29
Aaron
CNBC, okay.

20:24.20
Bradley Palermo
so he was a CNBC contributor.

20:27.70
Aaron
Got it.

20:28.07
Bradley Palermo
He was fired, uh,

20:30.69
Bradley Palermo
Because he's... Something to do with cannibalism joke. Well, it didn't fly well.

20:36.35
Aaron
Oh.

20:36.32
Bradley Palermo
Okay, we'll read the Wikipedia later. But... um um Yeah, you know. Okay, so I do have the Wrestling Observer ratings for these matches if anyone's if anyone's interested.

20:49.56
Bradley Palermo
um um Only because this pay-per-view includes... a very rare five-star match from the wrestling observer, which he was only giving to new Japan at the time.

21:01.28
Bradley Palermo
Um, Um, this one was a two. So we want, if you wondered two star match, uh,

21:05.69
Aaron
Thanks, Dave.

21:07.79
Bradley Palermo
Dave Meltzer. Match two was Jose Lothario, the legendary Mexican wrestler from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

21:08.89
Aaron
Yep.

21:15.63
Bradley Palermo
hold Held a lot of gold all over the place. Wrestled up here, NWA. Never on TV, though, and never in the WWE wwe on TV until his squash match with Jim Cornette of all fucking people.

21:29.22
Aaron
You missed one thing actually before the match that I that i thought was absurd.

21:29.19
Bradley Palermo
Jose Lothario. Yeah.

21:34.95
Aaron
I don't know if you noticed, but they they cut to the back after the strap match and s Savio Vega was being attacked by Razor Ramon and Diesel.

21:44.60
Bradley Palermo
Oh yeah.

21:44.76
Aaron
did they were They weren't there anymore. That was fucking fake Diesel and fake Razor.

21:50.99
Bradley Palermo
That's funny.

21:52.23
Aaron
Yeah, dude. i like i When I saw that, I was like, wait, why did they shoot them from 50 feet away? And why do we never see their faces? And then I was like, this was after the curtain call, wasn't it? Because I think it was, think it was that year.

22:04.73
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

22:05.64
Aaron
And they were already gone. So I was like, oh my God, they're about to, you know, not, not in this pay-per-view, but on TV, they're about to do fake diesel and fake razor. What a dumb idea that was.

22:14.03
Bradley Palermo
this this This whole thing was a weird time for WWE because Vince didn't really have new stars. He lost two of his biggest stars, Razor and Diesel. There wasn't like a Hulk Hogan or anything.

22:25.31
Aaron
and here

22:26.19
Bradley Palermo
um I don't know. I guess I wasn't there, but maybe a little difficult to get along with, with Vince. Sounds like they're, is this really what I have of Sean or Brett?

22:36.56
Bradley Palermo
They don't, they don't exactly look, you know, like my beefy fucking Hogan, but I don't have a new beefy Hogan. So it's kind of interesting time.

22:43.13
Aaron
think

22:44.71
Bradley Palermo
And it's not that really, it's not really like full attitude yet. So.

22:47.98
Aaron
Yeah, it's very transitionary and we'll we'll talk about that later.

22:51.71
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

22:52.33
Aaron
But yes, the squash match.

22:52.29
Bradley Palermo
So. Yeah, so Jose versus Jim Cornette. Jim Cornette, you know, he comes out and he he's visibly overweight.

23:01.16
Aaron
Looks like a pumpkin.

23:02.49
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, he's got some shit to talk. What did he say about Lothario? I'm sure he has something funny to say, but...

23:09.65
Aaron
Well, before he came out and started talking shit to the crowd, he had a little backstage thing. And he said that Jose Lothario is so old that he's the man that taught Jonah how to fish like Jonah and the whale.

23:22.62
Bradley Palermo
yeah Wow. Yeah.

23:24.04
Aaron
Classic. ah Yeah, but, you know, he he's he's looking pretty fat.

23:26.75
Bradley Palermo
oh Oh, Jose is so old. His social security number is one.

23:32.28
Aaron
One. genius.

23:34.60
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Pretty funny.

23:36.11
Aaron
Yes.

23:36.74
Bradley Palermo
But, uh,

23:36.89
Aaron
You know what? He takes good bumps though. Cornette took like made made Jose look like a million bucks.

23:43.17
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, he did. and he does take good bumps. He does actually understand wrestling. Obviously he's trained a lot of wrestlers that are in high regard for the history of wrestling.

23:48.90
Aaron
Mm hmm.

23:53.95
Bradley Palermo
He's especially in the ring of honor. He had lot of fucking dudes that we love now from.

23:59.64
Aaron
Yeah. He wasn't there a super long time. Really, I think the biggest impact he made was probably on OVW, Ohio Valley Wrestling, because I think think he was there when Cena was there and Batista and all the all those people, like that whole class.

24:07.16
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

24:14.76
Aaron
i think I think that was the same time Cornette was there.

24:15.18
Bradley Palermo
yeah i think he worked with early kevin stein he worked with early brock lesnar kevin stein sorry yeah

24:17.04
Aaron
i could be wrong, though.

24:21.81
Aaron
Kevin Steen? Yeah, Kevin Owens now. yeah I think Lesnar was part of that class at OVW too.

24:30.86
Bradley Palermo
oh and uh randy yeah somewhere

24:33.11
Aaron
So yeah, this this match was over before it began. it was like 90 seconds or something like that. ah Mr. Perfect said that Cornette looks like the Michelin tire man, which I thought was pretty funny.

24:43.37
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

24:43.86
Aaron
Uh, and, uh, yeah, we, we got, we got done with that. And then we got our obligatory 900 number ad. Uh, if you wanted to talk to who was it?

24:53.59
Aaron
Uh, if you want to talk to Farouk and Sonny, it was one 99 a minute, but if you wanted to talk to the other people, it was one 49 a minute.

24:59.93
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

25:02.84
Bradley Palermo
It's big part of a nineties history. Oh, the wrestling observer rating on the, uh, Lothario Jim Cornette match.

25:09.16
Aaron
Half star.

25:10.09
Bradley Palermo
What, what do you guess?

25:11.54
Aaron
Half.

25:12.36
Bradley Palermo
dud you remember that's so back then one of the ratings was to not rate it d-u-d all caps dud i don't know if you if you remember like if you get a firework it doesn't work it's called a dud yeah yeah so that was that was a thing back then i don't think it's a thing anymore um we got a pro promo the promo segment with brian palman uh owen hart and stone cold

25:13.39
Aaron
So zero is that?

25:21.83
Aaron
Wow.

25:25.42
Aaron
Yeah, it's a dud. Yeah. I didn't know that you did that.

25:31.07
Aaron
No.

25:36.61
Aaron
Excellent.

25:38.92
Aaron
Yeah. Okay. Can I just say before we talk about the promo, I laughed out loud at the Owen Hart King of Farts sign. Maybe I'm still a 12 year old boy boy, but you know, Owen Hart's nickname was the King of Hearts and someone had a sign that just said King of Farts.

25:47.27
Bradley Palermo
yeah

25:54.20
Bradley Palermo
it did it did register to my brain i was like oh that's that's a pretty good one you know no one wants to be called uh yeah

25:55.12
Aaron
It was incredible. Yeah. Yeah.

25:59.69
Aaron
And yet, no, who does? and the And so the whole point of this promo was Pillman talking shit about Philly. Philly. ah You know, his tone and the way he talks kind of reminded me of Karrion Kross.

26:11.29
Aaron
And I i read Karrion Kross's book a couple weeks ago, and he said Pillman was a big influence on him. So i can I can definitely hear it now that I know that.

26:19.56
Bradley Palermo
I can see that, yeah.

26:21.02
Aaron
Yeah. um Yeah. um And yeah, they were talking crap about Brett Owens, brother saying he's scared of Stone Cold. They bring out Stone Cold. He doesn't even have his iconic music yet.

26:32.14
Aaron
It's like this weird ominous orchestral shit.

26:33.71
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, no. No glass break. Yeah.

26:36.42
Aaron
No, no glass break. break. um the The promo, the Stone Cold promo was good, but it was so fascinating to see and experience a promo from Stone Cold where the crowd was not behind him yet.

26:48.31
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

26:48.71
Aaron
And this is the famous promo where he says, if you put the letter S in front of the word hit man, you have my exact feelings about Bret Hart, which is an incredible line also.

26:56.77
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Called him the shit man. Yeah. Which is, you know, the the two brothers that works perfect.

27:00.31
Aaron
Oh,

27:03.45
Bradley Palermo
The king of farts and Brett, the shit man heart.

27:06.05
Aaron
God.

27:06.48
Bradley Palermo
Oh,

27:07.51
Aaron
Oh, God.

27:10.45
Bradley Palermo
We're really taking it to the, to the fucking bathroom.

27:12.73
Aaron
The poop jokes.

27:13.66
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

27:13.88
Aaron
Yeah.

27:14.39
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

27:14.82
Aaron
Toilet humor.

27:15.72
Bradley Palermo
yeah

27:16.88
Aaron
And then after that promo, we got a tag match for the WWF tag team championships. It was the smoking guns, the champions, Bart and Billy, who I mistakenly said in a previous episode were real brothers and they're not versus Owen Hart and the British Bulldog.

27:32.50
Aaron
And This was a like i was confused for maybe five to six minutes of this match because I was like, who who are the baby faces? Who are the heels?

27:40.96
Bradley Palermo
I don't know, yeah.

27:41.31
Aaron
and And quickly I understood that it was the guns that were the heels. But also Owen was just talking shit like five minutes ago. So it was kind of weird.

27:48.46
Bradley Palermo
It's hard to see Owen as a, I mean, especially with all we've watched lately, Owen and British Bulldog to be baby faces. i don't know, especially Owen.

27:55.74
Aaron
yeah but bull I mean, Bulldog was getting cheered though. I feel, I feel like the only reason that they were the baby faces is because Bulldog was on the team because whenever he did anything, the crowd was super hyped about

28:05.33
Bradley Palermo
rib where Owen and Bulldog had vandalized Sonny's poster, which is kind of a heelish thing to do.

28:11.82
Aaron
Yep. Yeah, it was just kind of it like, it's, you know, is it a big deal that I didn't know? No, but it was usually you either know that they're both liked or that one is liked and one isn't. And this one, I was very, it was like everyone is kind of lukewarm. And then eventually Owen and Bulldog,

28:31.19
Aaron
successfully pinned the guns and got the win and they got a huge pop. You know, maybe it was just for Bulldog or maybe it was just for the title change.

28:34.93
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

28:38.51
Aaron
ah ah The match was a little boring, if I'm honest, like it is OK. There's nothing wrong with it, but it just didn't grab me.

28:45.01
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Uh, Sonny quits the smoking guns because they don't win, which is kind of funny. Uh, Sonny's always doing some stupid shit in this era, but, uh,

28:52.18
Aaron
Classic Sonny.

28:55.95
Aaron
Always leaving men for dumb reasons.

28:58.66
Bradley Palermo
So that was an 11 minute match with a observer wrestling observer rating of 2.75. Yeah.

29:04.71
Aaron
Oh, I'm glad he gave it three quarters of a point.

29:05.86
Bradley Palermo
and

29:07.92
Aaron
Three quarters of a star.

29:07.96
Bradley Palermo
yeah Right. It really matter. You know, it's, he's precise. Like these things aren't just thrown around willy nilly. He's,

29:14.43
Aaron
this Is this why you wanted to move to five stars? Because you want to be like Dave Meltzer? Are you a Meltzer fanboy?

29:19.16
Bradley Palermo
I'm not a Meltzer fanboy. In fact, I think I have these just because I think Meltzer is so funny to laugh at. But we had a promo with Paul Bear and Mankind from the bowels of the arena.

29:28.07
Aaron
ye

29:34.17
Bradley Palermo
Mankind is...

29:34.32
Aaron
Paul Bearer with the classic screechy voice. My God, he was like, don't even know how he does that.

29:37.94
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, he's a he's obsessed with making the Heartbreak Kid and miserable. That's the gist of the promo.

29:45.32
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

29:45.94
Bradley Palermo
I'm interested, you know, like I wanted to watch this because of that match.

29:47.53
Aaron
Yeah.

29:49.55
Bradley Palermo
So whatever they got to do, i still like... feel like Paul bear is such a whore. You know, like we watched this 90s stuff. You think of him as like an undertaker manager, but you know, he's, he's got cane. Sometimes he's got mankind. Sometimes he's got, God knows who fucking else fake undertakers and shit.

30:06.10
Aaron
A cadre of scary individuals.

30:08.81
Bradley Palermo
Yes, but now we've got match for Mark Henry versus Jerry the klin the jerry the Klingon Lawler. Jerry the King Lawler.

30:20.75
Bradley Palermo
This is Mark Henry's first pay-per-view match in WWF, so they want to make sure they show that you know he is indeed the world's strongest man. He, of course...

30:30.49
Aaron
Isn't it just his first match period? Or or did i did I miss something? Because i I thought they said it might have been his first match period.

30:34.73
Bradley Palermo
Oh. It might have been his first match period. I'd have to confirm that. Well, either way, what I said wasn't wrong because if his first match is on a pay-per-view, then it's his first match on a pay-per-view.

30:43.21
Aaron
True. It could be both.

30:49.19
Bradley Palermo
and don't know, whatever.

30:50.12
Aaron
Just a comma in there.

30:52.24
Bradley Palermo
So, uh, Lawler, I love Jerry Lawler.

30:53.35
Aaron
too.

30:55.09
Bradley Palermo
I hope he gets home soon.

30:55.42
Aaron
it to

30:56.50
Bradley Palermo
He's suffering from a stroke right now. he plays mind games. He's, we, he was a very big deal before wrestling was televised and syndicated.

31:05.73
Aaron
In Memphis, yep.

31:07.39
Bradley Palermo
And,

31:07.89
Aaron
tires slashed, got bricks thrown at his windshield. He got a lot of heat back in the old days.

31:11.45
Bradley Palermo
Right. But by the time we saw him, he was in his forties and he was just finding ways that to do the psychology, the wrestling psychologies.

31:16.94
Aaron
Wow, he was 40? He was in his 40s?

31:21.05
Bradley Palermo
Oh, um,

31:19.38
Aaron
I thought he was older, somehow. No, I mean, I believe you. if That's how old he was. you don't have to look it up.

31:24.80
Bradley Palermo
how old was Jerry? i' I'll, I'll edit this out. Lawler in 1996. 47. ninety ninety six

31:33.00
Bradley Palermo
forty seven

31:34.25
Aaron
Yeah, so, okay, he's 47, almost 50. Yeah.

31:36.75
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, so he's he's just running. He's hiding. he's a But that's i mean that the thing is, this guy still wrestles to this day. he doesn't do anything, really. he doesn't really even take a bump.

31:46.66
Bradley Palermo
But somehow, he's he's quite interesting, and he's

31:49.40
Aaron
He gets heat. He knows how to piss people off.

31:51.40
Bradley Palermo
So this is a squash match, but still,

31:55.10
Aaron
He made him look good. Lawler made Mark Henry look good.

31:56.16
Bradley Palermo
he made him look good. And then, you know, and Triple H and Giannetti jumped in to try and jump Henry. And he tosses their asses out of the ring, too.

32:05.80
Bradley Palermo
So they give him two, you know, sizable dudes to just sort of show that that that Mark is is a beast. And he he is. I mean, he's a real Olympian, you know,

32:14.69
Aaron
Yeah.

32:16.01
Bradley Palermo
whatever the fuck he won it was involved like a large amount of weights yes that' that's what they call that so um oh dave gave this one ah half a star half a star i would say

32:18.95
Aaron
Powerlifting, I think.

32:28.80
Aaron
Dave doesn't know what he's talking about. like he not

32:30.75
Bradley Palermo
would i would put

32:31.54
Aaron
Not every match needs to be a technical spectacle.

32:35.02
Bradley Palermo
I think this match puts over Mark Henry as as a big-ass motherfucker who's an Olympian, who's got a bright future, and he puts him in there with a fucking legend.

32:41.22
Aaron
Got a bright future ahead of him.

32:46.54
Aaron
Yeah.

32:47.08
Bradley Palermo
I think that right there earns it more than a half of a star. But, you know, but that that is what it is.

32:50.60
Aaron
I agree.

32:53.16
Aaron
Meltzer going Meltzer.

32:54.50
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, fucking Meltzer. Match five was the final curtain match. No DQ. Must in by paint pinfall with

33:03.51
Aaron
What the hell is a final curtain match? Just a no DQ match.

33:06.18
Bradley Palermo
They're basically saying it's a blow-off match. It's Goldust and The Undertaker who have been feuding for a while and they've done all this stuff.

33:08.32
Aaron
Oh.

33:13.48
Bradley Palermo
And now they're saying, you know, whoever wins this wins the the feud.

33:17.74
Aaron
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

33:18.11
Bradley Palermo
Goldust, of course, Dustin Rhodes of when he was doing very like kind of pervy glitter weird stuff. meaty, ziggy, stardust, body rubbing shit.

33:29.19
Bradley Palermo
I don't know. He was very strange versus very sexual in the least sexy way.

33:31.32
Aaron
Very sexual.

33:36.12
Aaron
Yep.

33:36.66
Bradley Palermo
And he was versus The Undertaker, who we all know and love.

33:40.18
Bradley Palermo
I feel like, oh yeah, he had Marlena with him and she was smoking a cigar ringside.

33:45.11
Aaron
Yes. His wife at the time, I don't think they had broken up yet, but that that was a weird thing.

33:45.52
Bradley Palermo
Super sexy.

33:50.15
Aaron
you know, they, they, I think they got divorced And she was still his valet for a while. That must have been pretty awkward.

33:57.29
Bradley Palermo
Right. I think on the plane ride from hell, he got drunk and sang to her through the plane PA and she was like humiliated.

34:01.63
Aaron
Oh, geez. Yeah, that's that tracks.

34:04.31
Bradley Palermo
But, this was pretty surprising. Like how straightforward this was for a no.

34:10.73
Aaron
For a final curtain match. Yeah.

34:12.58
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. And for a no DQ match,

34:14.69
Aaron
Solid nonetheless.

34:15.95
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, Goldust pretty much dominates until Undertaker like sort of gets his shine, does the chokeslam, does the tombstone, that's it

34:24.59
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

34:29.42
Bradley Palermo
you know

34:29.98
Aaron
That's all she wrote. Yeah.

34:30.84
Bradley Palermo
yeah So we got ah we So we got ah we got a 10-minute match there. I mean, so far this thing is not like... I mean, this is in your house, right? So these pay-per-views are sort of like to augment things between the television and the actual like major four pay-per-views.

34:52.50
Bradley Palermo
And

34:53.11
Aaron
cost

34:55.07
Bradley Palermo
and they were and they were frequent. So we can't expect everything to be like a home run.

34:59.25
Aaron
yeah yeah what did old melzer give it he said two and maybe two and a half yeah that tracks

35:00.30
Bradley Palermo
uh but uh but yeah we got uh little two point what what do you think i did i did already say it out loud what do you think melter gave it yeah yeah i gave it a two and a half So then Heartbreak Kid gives a promo. It's lighthearted. He says mind games won't work on him regarding his match versus mankind because there's not going there's not that much going on upstairs for Shawn Michaels. He says that about himself.

35:30.41
Bradley Palermo
He said, well, if I had more of a mind, you know, maybe the mind games would work, but there's not much going on up here. um

35:36.37
Aaron
Very self-aware.

35:36.27
Bradley Palermo
it's kind It's kind of, yeah, it's it's kind of a funny promo. He's just kind of like, oh, I'm the dude and I got to fight this fucking weirdo. So it's going to be weird, but I'll,

35:44.27
Aaron
I'm a dude, he's a dude.

35:46.51
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, exactly. And then we, I mean, we're already Shawn Michaels, the WWF champion versus mankind with Paul bear.

35:56.17
Bradley Palermo
What'd you think of this one? It

35:57.18
Aaron
Best match on the card. It was fantastic. Super long, but not in a way that felt too long.

35:59.42
Bradley Palermo
was great.

36:02.74
Aaron
I think it was paced perfectly in terms of like when the shenanigans started. And even though it ended in a DQ, still feel like it was like the crowd was interested in it the whole time.

36:15.36
Aaron
I mean, obviously, all the all the girlies love Shawn Michaels and his little tush.

36:20.26
Bradley Palermo
Yes.

36:20.84
Aaron
But yeah, I thought it was great. i I think it's no surprise that I will i love Shawn Michaels and I love Mick Foley. So you put them together and you're guaranteed to get something good. and And even Papa Meltzer thinks so too.

36:34.67
Bradley Palermo
yes so mankind emerges from a fucking casket and heartbreak kid or enters with like the full pyro so you have quite a contrast right like one is like dark and dreary and a casket the other one is like you know sensational what you think of like wwe now but but but but but boom like just

36:45.43
Aaron
Yeah.

36:54.70
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

36:55.57
Bradley Palermo
just really different types of wrestlers colliding.

36:58.32
Aaron
Yeah.

36:58.97
Bradley Palermo
And it's, it's a wild bra. It's like suplexes onto chairs and like top rope table spots and fucking there's glitter everywhere from the match before they fucked up and didn't clean it up.

37:10.11
Aaron
From the gold dust match.

37:12.48
Bradley Palermo
So they're both covered, excuse me, in gold glitter.

37:15.76
Aaron
Yep.

37:16.20
Bradley Palermo
There's interference. There's Paul Bearer. There's Vader makes his way into there at some point.

37:22.08
Aaron
Big, stinky...

37:22.08
Bradley Palermo
hundred Undertaker comes out from the fucking casket at some point. um but yeah it was just like it we was one hell of a fucking ride it was a great match i mean the the entire thing is like it was kind of hinging on on this particular ah match i think without this we wouldn't have much of a pay-per-view but this is this is something that like i should have probably already seen and i highly recommend everyone seeing because it's kind of sean michaels still in his prime and mankind still in his prime

37:39.84
Aaron
yeah

37:53.10
Aaron
yeah Yeah, I think Michaels won the belt from Bret in the Iron Man match at WrestleMania that earlier in the year. You've seen that, right?

38:01.13
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Right. Yes. But they, but yeah, it's, Michaels retains the title title by DQ because, of the Vader and Paul Bearer interference.

38:04.04
Aaron
That's, yeah. Sure.

38:11.38
Bradley Palermo
That was the only disappointing thing for me. I mean, I guess if I had to say, you know, if I was Dave Meltzer and I, someone held a gun to my head and found a reason to take off 0.25 of a star,

38:13.88
Aaron
Sure.

38:21.84
Bradley Palermo
I would say that it was, you know, not a satisfactory finish being DQ, but it it is kind of B-show pay-per-view.

38:28.44
Aaron
It was the right finish.

38:30.80
Bradley Palermo
And also it sets up a lot for, you know, Undertaker and Mankind and all this.

38:31.34
Aaron
Yeah.

38:35.88
Aaron
Mankind. Mm hmm.

38:37.55
Bradley Palermo
So there's, we have a reason for it, but let

38:41.00
Aaron
Did Meltzer say why he gave it five stars? Like, is there any little blurb or anything?

38:45.80
Bradley Palermo
me get that.

38:46.72
Aaron
Because is this the first time he ever gave a WWF match five stars or just the first time in a long time?

38:51.52
Bradley Palermo
think I just think it was one of the only times that year he was, he was keeping WWE down in like the zero to two and a half.

38:57.16
Aaron
Okay.

39:01.18
Bradley Palermo
And then he was giving new, uh, new Japan, uh, the five stars. He's kind of weird like that, right? Like he finds,

39:08.45
Aaron
I mean, he just likes technical wrestling that which I don't I don't dislike it, but I think that I just don't agree with the way that he grades things. I think that a match can be a five-star match and not be the most technically spectacular thing you've ever seen. As long as the in-ring work is sound and logical, like from a psychology standpoint, and then also just looking real, if there's a good story behind it and the crowds invested, you know, that, that could make a five-star match to me. yeah,

39:41.34
Aaron
I think that what he thinks is a five-star match is not what I think a five-star match is, but that's not to say that his five-star matches aren't good.

39:49.63
Bradley Palermo
Right.

39:50.04
Aaron
They're great.

39:50.70
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, usually if he does a five-star match, there's something to it, but... um

39:55.40
Aaron
I mean, that where you get into the ridiculous side of him is like, oh, it's seven stars or six and a quarter. I'm like, bro, you're you're going over your own scale. Why are you doing that?

40:05.89
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I feel like... I think the original... Because it was really what did Jim Cornette and his buddy Weasel or whatever the fuck his name was that started it.

40:15.36
Aaron
Weasel.

40:16.01
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, there was like something to that effect. And Dave copied like fucking this Weasel guy's review system. And it was supposed to be up to four.

40:26.04
Bradley Palermo
And five was like, oh, my God, you know, you just blew your fucking... Gasket five was supposed to be like going over the five star rating, like of the four star rating.

40:30.12
Aaron
Shot your wad.

40:33.39
Aaron
Mm hmm.

40:34.27
Bradley Palermo
And now five is kind of just like, well, as long as we'll all sprays in it, you know, the hour, the young bucks.

40:38.66
Aaron
Or the young bucks.

40:42.19
Bradley Palermo
Okay, we're we're not finding any specific mind games review.

40:46.19
Aaron
Okay, no worries. We can cut this.

40:48.17
Bradley Palermo
The internet's telling me to find the episode, i find the magazine thing.

40:52.44
Aaron
We don't need to.

40:54.18
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

40:54.64
Aaron
Yeah.

40:55.89
Bradley Palermo
Hold on.

40:56.19
Aaron
So that was the end of the show, right? It ah it was a great main event, for sure. i always like it when the main event is for the world championship. We've definitely watched some things lately where it hasn't been, and I'm kind of like, eh.

41:08.20
Aaron
It just sort of takes the wind out of my sails. But this match delivered.

41:11.32
Bradley Palermo
Oh wait, hold on. Yes, it did. Did I say the guy's name was Weasel or no?

41:15.92
Aaron
You did.

41:16.76
Bradley Palermo
Okay. So Norman Weasel Dooley in the late seventies started this system and it was adopted and popularized by journalist Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer newsletter.

41:24.53
Aaron
OK.

41:27.70
Bradley Palermo
So if you ever look up Norman Weasel Dooley, if you want to know the OG wrestling ratings guy.

41:34.12
Aaron
OG star ratings guy, OK.

41:34.47
Bradley Palermo
Okay. All right, cool. So we learned something kind of today.

41:38.34
Aaron
Yes, we did.

41:39.06
Bradley Palermo
All right. So final thoughts. um um Undercard for me was a mixed bag. Some quick comedy matches, decent tag title bout, whatever.

41:45.18
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

41:50.39
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah. henry debut i mean yeah it was kind of flat but he you know but it was like it meant something because of where he was going a tag title title um let's see main event obviously is a classic uh one of foley's greatest matches they say it was hbk peak form um i'm gonna go ahead and say uh Play because there was enough good stuff on here. Oh, sorry. Our rating system is fast forward, rewind, fast forward, play or rewind fast forward being boo, play being yay. Rewind being double yay. I'm I'm going to say it's kind of right in the middle for me at a play.

42:29.57
Bradley Palermo
Um, Um, You should watch it, but you could also just watch the Mankind-Heartbreak Kid match, and and anything else that happened is pretty much something you've seen or seen something similar that may have even been better.

42:44.08
Bradley Palermo
But what say you, Aaron Fink?

42:44.32
Aaron
Yeah.

42:46.57
Aaron
I agree. i I'll give it a play, but i I think what you said a second ago is probably the best way to do it is just watch the main event. You can skip over everything else.

42:58.70
Aaron
You know, the It was kind of interesting to see Sandman and Tommy Dreamer and and Heyman for five seconds, especially i imagine back then, if you were fan of both promotions and you saw them, you'd probably be flipping out, which which is cool.

43:13.82
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

43:15.06
Aaron
But we have the benefit of hindsight and we know that that invasion angle was very short lived. Didn't really do either side any favors except to get Rob Van Dam jumping off the the Raw sign at some point in the near future, which was cool.

43:28.25
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

43:29.34
Aaron
But yeah, I feel like just pick up the best part. You know, you could even say it's a it's a fast forward. Just watch the Shawn Michaels Mankind match, but I'll be nice and I'll say it's a play.

43:40.81
Bradley Palermo
Okay, so um just a little trivia for this pay-per-view that we just watched, Mind Games. Mark Henry had a ah had a ah little Liebeck v.

43:52.00
Bradley Palermo
McDonald's Easter egg there. I don't know if the the the famous lawsuit of the 90s where somebody got hot coffee spilt on their lap at McDonald's and sued for like, you know, whatever, a couple million dollars.

44:02.42
Aaron
Oh, uh-huh.

44:08.42
Bradley Palermo
that was still fresh in pop culture. So the WWE w leaned into the topical humor and there was a hot coffee angle where Lawler like, uh, through coffee at Mark Henry.

44:19.89
Bradley Palermo
I thought that was interesting.

44:21.33
Aaron
So topical.

44:21.65
Bradley Palermo
The yeah, so the the main event historic rating. um'm I'm looking this right now again. so it was only a handful of WWF matches in the entire 1990s to get the five star honor, which is something that AEW enjoys every Wednesday now.

44:38.88
Bradley Palermo
The glitter botch we talked about already, but they were not supposed to have glitter on the in the ring still. and But it's one of those unique quirks that fans still talk about regarding this match.

44:50.02
Bradley Palermo
Should we get... Let's see. Let's i don't I don't want to play a voicemail. You can always call us, leave leave a promo on our voicemail. We don't pick up. It goes straight to voicemail. And you can tell us some what you like, what you don't like about the show, what you want us to watch, what you thought about, what we just talked about.

45:05.64
Bradley Palermo
whatever you want to do it's 626-657-SLAM

45:12.50
Bradley Palermo
that's 626-657-SLAM and I have a Grapple City Rewind championship belt on the way it even has the phone number on it so when I'm wearing it around town if you see me and you forget the number you'll be able to know 626-657-SLAM 626-657-SLAM I'm going call this guy right now I'm not going to walk up to him going to call him leave a message

45:29.88
Aaron
yeah's Yeah, let's, yeah.

45:32.84
Aaron
I don't want to talk to anybody. I just want to talk shit on Google Voice.

45:35.65
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. So we've had some, we've had some good promos cut on us lately, but today think I'm going to dig into our social media. You can always find us.

45:45.21
Bradley Palermo
We're at grapple city pod on Tik TOK. We're at grapple city pod on Instagram. We're at grapple city pod on X. We're at We're at grapplecitypod at gmail.com if you want to send us an email.

45:59.06
Bradley Palermo
um um Let me see. While I'm pulling that up, let me play some ominous 1990s modem. nineteen ninety s modem

46:22.28
Bradley Palermo
So last week I said that European crowds are awful because they hijack the show and they don't let the wrestlers breathe and have moments to react to. It's all about themselves.

46:36.71
Bradley Palermo
That pissed some people off on tech talk in particular.

46:39.87
Aaron
Shocking.

46:40.52
Bradley Palermo
Right? I know. Um, Scott five, two, seven, one, eight says that I nailed it, which I did. um Tyler says, this is like saying you don't want people to sing at a concert because it takes away the singer's voice.

46:55.00
Aaron
To which you said, don't sing.

46:56.27
Bradley Palermo
Please don't sing, Tyler. We don't want to hear you sing at the concert. It does take away, especially if you're singing loud. You're just a fucking narcissist. You just want it to be about you. It's not about you.

47:08.98
Aaron
But you know what?

47:08.95
Bradley Palermo
It's about the person you're going to see. Kind of mouth it. Be quiet. You know your space. Don't get into my my space, my hearing space.

47:17.49
Aaron
I did go. So I went to i went to go see Dashboard Confessional and Goo Goo Dolls at the Greek last weekend.

47:22.82
Bradley Palermo
Your hair is everywhere.

47:26.97
Aaron
Everyone was singing, dude.

47:27.09
Bradley Palermo
They will sing to well

47:28.08
Aaron
They were they were encouraging

47:30.44
Bradley Palermo
Dashboard is like one of those, like everyone sings along.

47:33.64
Aaron
Yeah, but Goo Goo Dolls too.

47:33.61
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

47:34.76
Aaron
everyone so that you know But the Dashboard, he was definitely like, okay, i want you guys to sing this part.

47:35.72
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

47:39.59
Aaron
So he yeah, he definitely did that. but But you know, it's fine.

47:42.54
Bradley Palermo
sometimes Sometimes it lends itself to it. i have a feeling the the kind of music that Tyler's going to see is probably that I want to hear the actual singer sing anyway.

47:50.89
Aaron
Thrash metal.

47:53.12
Bradley Palermo
So him or the singer singing is is whatever. But yeah, he looks like he's like some K-pop turd or something.

47:56.04
Aaron
Norwegian death metal, perhaps.

48:02.37
Bradley Palermo
But yeah.

48:02.51
Aaron
Hey, there's some good K-pop. did Have you watched K-pop Demon Hunters? That shit was that shit was entertaining.

48:08.94
Bradley Palermo
I don't even know what you're talking about right now.

48:09.83
Aaron
You're like, what is that? What did you just say? Okay, do yourself a favor.

48:12.92
Aaron
Go on to Netflix and watch K-pop Demon Hunters. And if you don't like it after 20 minutes, you can turn it off. But I'm pretty sure going to like it.

48:17.79
Bradley Palermo
I will get right on that. okay. So this guy says, yeah, they just play sing along. Actually a lot more people agree with me than I thought.

48:25.78
Bradley Palermo
Alan is mad because he says he he claims the matches got their time cut because of crowds hijacking the promo section segments.

48:35.44
Aaron
I could see that.

48:40.38
Bradley Palermo
Actually, I'm getting agree, agree, agree.

48:36.13
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, some of the chants are funny. Like, who are ya? Who are ya? Who are ya?

48:42.50
Bradley Palermo
You guys are no fun. you Too many people agree with um Hold on.

48:45.26
Aaron
Didn't somebody talk shit about your Sandman take you told me?

48:47.98
Bradley Palermo
um A lot of people said, well, the American crowds just say what? And I'm like, you know what? When I'm talking about your European crowds and saying they suck, I'm not commenting on your on American crowds. How many times have I said American crowds? Okay, this crowd's too quiet. This crowd sucks.

49:03.69
Bradley Palermo
Like, both things can be true. So there's an...

49:05.100
Aaron
Yes, yes. American crowds are often too quiet and the what chants are infuriating.

49:07.49
Bradley Palermo
Yes.

49:10.90
Aaron
I will get behind a lot of the people who who say that, yeah.

49:10.88
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, both things can be true. There can be like a nice like middle ground. I think someone said like it's better than being two marks. I think they're too smart or something.

49:21.84
Bradley Palermo
and like, well, you know we're here to talk about our opinions.

49:24.01
Aaron
Excuse me, i am very smart. Thank you very much.

49:27.71
Bradley Palermo
I am the tribal Keith. Have you ever seen him?

49:30.54
Aaron
The trap!

49:32.12
Bradley Palermo
Have you ever seen um He's this wrestler, this indie wrestler, Big Trouble Ben.

49:36.14
Aaron
Mm-mm.

49:36.30
Bradley Palermo
He like um um he he like makes fun of wrestling and wrestlers. And he has this whole bit on on Instagram where he he like warps his face with a filter. and I am the tribal Keith here with a new spelling. And it's like he has to spell it with instead of eyes, like ones.

49:54.20
Bradley Palermo
And he's like, because I received a cease and desist from the OTK, the original tribal Keith, I acknowledge you.

50:01.95
Aaron
Oh, man.

50:03.27
Bradley Palermo
There's like some other podcaster it's called like the tribal Keith. It's like, this guy is fucking funny.

50:10.18
Aaron
oh man

50:10.46
Bradley Palermo
Oh yeah. i Look for like big trouble. Ben, he's a seven foot tall indie wrestler. really fucking funny. Um, Oh yeah, this guy called us stuck out marks who think they're too smart to enjoy the show, but I love wrestling.

50:23.44
Bradley Palermo
I enjoy wrestling. i enjoy talking about wrestling and yeah.

50:26.44
Aaron
You can be in Mark and love wrestling at the same time. I mean, if we didn't, if we didn't love it, then we wouldn't have things to say about it.

50:29.25
Bradley Palermo
yeah

50:32.89
Aaron
We would just be like, eh, yeah, I watched it. was fine.

50:36.09
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. um I mean, if I thought I was cool, you know, like too cool, I wouldn't be doing like a nerd culture podcast where I'm talking about this thing that other grown adults chuckle out and just want to tell you that it's fake.

50:50.15
Bradley Palermo
It's like, obviously, yeah, obviously, yeah.

50:50.46
Aaron
Yeah, I don't think I'm cool at all. I definitely don't. I do think I'm smart because, you know, I spend a lot of time learning about things. And ah I know more than you doesn't mean that I hate you.

51:02.77
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I'm definitely not your tribal Keith. I'll just say that. But

51:07.21
Aaron
Is it key for Keith?

51:08.77
Bradley Palermo
I think it was like, I am your tribal Keith.

51:11.32
Aaron
Keith like K-E-I-T-H, right?

51:14.40
Bradley Palermo
Yes, yeah.

51:16.04
Bradley Palermo
RKE1TH in his.

51:20.62
Bradley Palermo
No, that's your tribal Keith, man. Oh, I went to Universal Studios Hollywood.

51:25.94
Aaron
Speaking of Keith, if you went to Universal Studios.

51:27.62
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. I went to Universal Studios Hollywood for Halloween Horror Nights the other night, and they had they had a Wyatt Six maze, and I was in the line with like all these wrestling people.

51:32.71
Aaron
Oh, yeah. How was that?

51:41.27
Bradley Palermo
was funny. like

51:42.14
Aaron
Of course.

51:42.34
Bradley Palermo
There was this like fucking five-foot-tall Roman Reigns. He had the haircut, fucking shoes.

51:48.30
Aaron
but

51:48.38
Bradley Palermo
the same the fucking shoes like

51:49.38
Aaron
The stupid thing on his hand, the glove.

51:52.13
Bradley Palermo
dude he didn't have the glove but he's wearing like a stone cold shirt but he had like he was tied up with the undercut and everything and i and the the beard was the same i said to my friend i was like hey that guy's like you know looks like roman reigns and he looked back at me like all proud

51:54.50
Aaron
now

52:07.17
Bradley Palermo
And, but it was cool.

52:07.55
Aaron
Mission accomplished.

52:09.18
Bradley Palermo
Like, I mean, it was fucking weird walking through excuse me, haunted house with like Uncle Howdy and all those other weirdos from the Y6.

52:18.84
Bradley Palermo
jumping out at you and then by the end it's like alexa bliss and bray wyatt like sawing people's heads off i was like well that's not really what they do in wrestling it's like they're like well we got to make this horror at some point and uh she's like swinging on a swing and then she's fucking sawing somebody's head was like that is no they just they go and they do a hurricanrana like what is this what is happening right now

52:20.09
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

52:40.13
Aaron
They hurricanran at somebody's head off.

52:41.94
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

52:42.94
Aaron
That's what they should have done.

52:42.90
Bradley Palermo
But, um, oh yeah. What did we say about the, uh, the Sandman? Oh yeah. You said some shit about the Sandman.

52:48.20
Aaron
Well, I talk shit about him. I said, I said, he just doesn't do it for me. Sandman is a product of his time and place. And i think that, uh, what you said he was, he reminded you of a Denny's manager that you worked with when you were 18.

53:01.99
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, yeah. He just seems kind of like like like a weird jackass that's hanging with people too young um for him. But like Freddie Mitchell on TikTok says, the sam if the Sandman, he says, if the Sandman was a terrible wrestler in the ring, then show us Stone Cold Steve Austin.

53:18.86
Bradley Palermo
He wants you to know that.

53:20.13
Aaron
He was a little better than Sandman.

53:22.82
Bradley Palermo
I feel like, I don't know. Stone Stone Cold had his thing. And also, stunning Steve, he was he's kind of aerial and shit.

53:30.60
Bradley Palermo
I don't know. I think he had more going on.

53:31.52
Aaron
Yeah, no he had a lot more going on, dude.

53:32.60
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

53:35.00
Aaron
Like when the highlight of a Sandman match is that he did a Hurricanrana.

53:39.50
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

53:39.82
Aaron
like once and otherwise just hit people with canes and bad punches and bad kicks.

53:40.96
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

53:45.63
Aaron
Like Stone Cold had a lot more going on. Sure, Stone Cold was a brawler more than anything else.

53:50.64
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

53:51.48
Aaron
And his matches were kind of sloppy. But like, all you got to do is watch Stone Cold versus Bret Hart. It's not all Bret Hart that made that match a five star match. It was both of them.

54:00.100
Bradley Palermo
yeah I can't think of a well maybe I'll be proven wrong as we journey down the lane of of memory lane of ECW pay-per-views but I don't think there's any like well what is the best Sandman match like someone send it to me I'll watch it you know I'd like to see the most epic Sandman match right

54:16.92
Aaron
Yeah, I would like to know.

54:21.06
Aaron
Great gimmick, awful wrestler. I think that's how you can sum up Sandman and in one sentence.

54:26.02
Bradley Palermo
Warren Spears, I think he agrees with you. He said he maybe got awful in the ring, but the reason he got huge wasn't for his in-ring work. Paul Heyman was a genius and booked him to be nothing but an entrance and beating people up with a Singapore cane.

54:38.32
Aaron
Yeah, but that's fine.

54:39.97
Bradley Palermo
And that's kind of what we were saying. That's true.

54:42.12
Aaron
Yeah, I get it. I think i think both that both things can be true at the same time. Amazing entrance, amazing character, shitty wrestler.

54:49.89
Bradley Palermo
Well, that concludes episode 19 of Grapple City Rewind. I'm excited because next week we have made it to a place that 98.9% of podcasts never make it to. I just made up that figure in my and my mind.

55:07.37
Bradley Palermo
I'm little... Um, but, uh, to episode number 20 and to celebrate episode number 20, Aaron, this is all you, it's your turn to pick the pay-per-view. So, uh, no pressure.

55:21.19
Aaron
Yeah. Well, I don't know how much of a celebration it is, let's watch Royal Rumble 2000. Let's watch our first Royal Rumble.

55:30.01
Aaron
And ah ah I don't remember who wins it, but I do remember this pay-per-view has and the first tag team tables match ever.

55:39.40
Bradley Palermo
Wow.

55:40.35
Aaron
And I believe it also has the in-ring WWF debut of Taz.

55:51.22
Aaron
ah ah Yeah, I think it's it might even be just him as Mick Foley by this point. I think it's Mick Foley versus Triple H or something.

55:57.03
Bradley Palermo
Oh, wow.

56:00.01
Bradley Palermo
Oh, cool.

56:00.91
Aaron
Yeah, it should be fun.

56:00.84
Bradley Palermo
It looks like if we got a little more Takamishinoku in there. Okay, some Big Boss Man, some China, some Bob Backlund, some Chris Jericho. i ah I'm excited.

56:11.31
Bradley Palermo
Oh, there was a rock was happening.

56:11.44
Aaron
Yeah.

56:13.47
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, Dudley's. This is cool. No, I'm interested. interested. um You know, our 20th episode and shares some of the same numbers as the year 2000.

56:23.90
Bradley Palermo
So I think it works. It all ties in.

56:26.54
Aaron
I did it on purpose.

56:27.73
Bradley Palermo
Yes. All right. Well, thanks for listening to grapple city rewind. We always enjoy talking about wrestling and we are happy that you are following along with us. Feel free to watch rail rumble 2000 before we do, before we talk about it next week. So, you know what we're talking about or not let us know, let us let you know if it's worth your time or not.

56:48.62
Bradley Palermo
next week, uh, we will, And that's all. And that's all we got for now. So until next week, we will catch you in the cheap seats. Thanks y'all.

56:56.38
Aaron
Bye-bye. mala