guys we are having so much fun over at patreon.comtwc now what's a patreon just for a couple bucks a month you get all kinds of bonus content the show you're about to listen to our patrons got it four five days early and almost an hour longer plus nitro watch-alongs of vince russo's run raw attitude era watch alongs plus more bonus content and depending on the level calls for bids shout outs by the way we're gonna start those again next week as well as follows on twitter and so much more free merch just go over to patreon.com russoco twc support our show because as you know we are stuck outside the wrestling bubble so ain't no one gonna do it but you thank you all patreon.com russocoon twc if you're a patron of truth with consequences you're not hearing this commercial or any other commercial welcome to truth with consequences vince russo last week we had a pretty good show we had a great uh take an outrage from you uh what was your feedback from our episode last week on your plan to ruin wcw oh yeah no bro it was a good show it was good going back and talking about all that stuff and really reflecting you know on the time um i you know bro i i like going back and just kind of examining things a lot of this stuff bro i i have not looked at a second time i have not really talked about i definitely haven't talked about like in detail um so you know to me like that's the interesting part of it you know just just being able to talk about uh you know my job and like you know pretty much what i did uh we started something because we had such great feedback about the show we started a wrap-up show we'll do it again this week it's going to be wednesday at 10 p.m eastern uh vince and i talking taking questions about the previous episode and of course the next episode and a lot of our conversation had to do with music last time but hopefully we get a lot of people coming on twitch what is your twitch channel called vince russo live and i'm pretty much on there every single day guys i'm always on twitch i'm always talking to the supporters of the brand and the supporters of this show so check it out vince russo live on twitch yeah if you want to see a man barely hanging on to life just watch twitch during smackdown see vince russo this week we got to watch you asleep you were asleep this year no i i usually fall asleep like midway through um a smackdown you know i i i usually watch the first two hours of raw i can't take the third hour and then by the time i get to tuesday usually about an hour into smackdown i fall asleep and of course uh those of you are on our patreon we encourage you all to try out our patreon um if you sign up right now you have over 150 clips that you can listen to or watch or read and of course that will also sign you up for the following month where you'll get all of our bonus content we did a great episode vince probably our best bonus episode ever we talked in depth about the relationship the history and the process of you and ed ferrara you really enjoyed that didn't you oh great deeply deep i never talked about that nobody asked uh bro i got it man nobody asks about the interesting stuff and why did that dynamic work when it just seems like since then um there has not been a structure in in creative that has been successful why did that work and i think we were able uh to really pick that apart yesterday yeah it was it was really great so check it over check it out over at our patreon.com russo k-o-o-n-twc oh by the way happy birthday vince today is your birthday the day that we're recording happy birthday what do you thank you so much here what was that what are your birthday wishes for yourself this year uh you know bro my birthday wishes are i mean i i just you know man i just i just i want to be happy i want people to be happy i want people to laugh i want people to enjoy themselves a negativity is just really really a downer for me and um i just have to learn how to deal with it better bro but um i just want to freaking entertain and i just want to have fun i mean that's all i want to do bro it's really that simple well we're going to try to entertain you this week because we have a great subject this week today we're going to talk about the brawl for all that took place in 1998 everybody remembers it and also the much talked about relationship of steve dr death williams and j.r um first of all when i say that the words brawl for all what is the first thing that pops into your brain ah bought gun right oh my god bro like yes spot gun yes so let me go ahead and tell you what pops into some other people's brains about brawl for all jim ross has said it was a creative idea that went awry and a lot of guys got hurt at the end at the end of the day it didn't mean a damn thing i can see jim ross saying that bro brawl for all was the stupidest thing vince mcmahon has ever done because he allowed it to happen in his company and on his television says our good friend jim cornett it was a debacle in my opinion it was a very ill-conceived concept a very ill-conceived idea and the end result was disastrous for the company bruce pritchard on something to wrestle with would you disagree with any of those statements no i wouldn't i it's not that i can't disagree with them because they're not you know they're pulling dave meltzers they're they're not giving an explanation they're they're making a statement and they're not giving an explanation like what's the last thing bruce says there the last thing that bruce says was it was disastrous for the company on what grounds like it's like explain that to if you explain that to me i might sit here and say yeah bro it was disastrous to the company but uh man this happens a lot in wrestling bro people make blanket statements and they don't explain anything so like it's very difficult for me to agree or disagree with people when they don't explain their case i don't think it was disastrous for the company in the sense that it brought down the company but on the face of it it was something that all in all was a net loss for wwe wbf wouldn't you agree with that in what way well in the way that people got injured in the way that uh it hurt maybe some careers maybe in the way that it kind of hurt perception a little bit at the time you don't think that had a negative impact at all no i mean bro people got hurt i'm not gonna deny that people got hurt but bro guys got hurt every day when they were wrestling so like you know whether whether they got hurt in a boxing match or they got hurt in a wrestling ring people people are going to get hurt well they got hurt because it was real you know they got hurt because there was a lot of untrained guys there's a lot of guys who didn't weren't used to that kind of thing did was anybody concerned about injuries on the offset bro i think as far as what us when we were booking it when you were planning it did anybody go hey guys could get hurt here nah bro i wasn't thinking about that and i should have been but i wasn't i can't speak for vince i mean vince never said anything i don't know vince was thinking it i think vince kind of liked it i mean that that that's how vince is vince vince is a man's man and vince kind of likes that real competitiveness that's why i think vince was cool with it because i think you know vince had that you know had that a warp sense of humor that even he wanted to see the way this thing would turn out i i think that that's why vince greenlighted it i think if it were up to vince honestly bro he would have been in it oh yeah he would have been in it i mean no doubt no doubt in my mind this would have been the first one in it so let's get into it then brawl for all a shoot fight tournament in the middle of a wrestling show where did it come from how did it start it was you was it not 100 but it wasn't really me how so we're backstage one day bro and i'll never forget it three three of us me kevin kelly and um bradshaw at that time he wasn't jbl at that time he was bradshaw so conversation between you kevin kelly and jbl backstage what happened on that conversation well bro jbl you know was a braggart you know but you know in my opinion and in my view he came across as a bully he never bullied me i never saw jbl bully anybody but he came across as a bully you know big talker big tough guy and i remember standing there with kevin kelly and i remember jbl making the comment that if all this were real i could beat everybody's ass in the locker room and bro like when he said that like i'm like you know i'm not not out loud but to myself i'm like no bro like no you you can't you won't and you know what bro i'll be honest with you i'd kind of like to see that and that's that's that's right there was where the seed was planted so the seeds planted in the sense that when he says if this was real and you go well i'd like to see it but was there a little tiny part of you that created the brawl for all to see bradshaw get his ass kicked oh absolutely no doubt about i got no problem saying that bro no doubt about it absolutely yes well your wish came true vince yep it did happen um so let's talk about something that happened parallel to that parallel to that i remember being at raw it was the um the dude love raw that they had in richmond and there was a dark match and they said we have someone coming out now who has just signed with wbf his name is dr death steve williams and i turned to my friend i was like holy dr destiny williams is here and a lot has been made of the fact of the belief that brawl for all was set up for dr death steve williams to succeed talk about dr death coming in to wwf okay let me talk about this first of all let me say this as tough as he was and bro this guy this guy could have legitimately just he could have legitimately legitimately killed you with a stare okay this steve williams was the real deal but bro like unlike bradshaw as tough as he was what a gentleman bro nicest guy in the world soft-spoken um you know no ego um nicest one of the nicest human beings i ever met but make no mistakes about it this was the real deal this was a world-class this guy could absolutely kill you if he chose to so what did you think someone who you just said the old school stuff you said in a million times who's more old school than steve williams he's 37 years old jr is obviously advocating for him um as the writer what did you what was your um you know command as far as working with steve williams what did you think he was matt i gotta tell you i'm i'm surprised that j.r carried himself in this manner because jr should know better um and bro jr has 10 times more the experience i have in wrestling and 10 times more the smarts i have in wrestling that's what surprises me so considering all that everything you just said what is it that jr did that surprised you so much i would be 1 million zillion trillion billion percent behind bringing dr debt steve williams into the wwe you ain't gonna get no push back from me bro at all i'm i'm in i'm all in but bro once he's in now you've got jr pushing him down everybody's throat and bro he he is the here's the confusing thing matt you don't need to push dr des steve williams down anybody's throat he's dr debt steve williams this isn't a 23 year old unknown kid coming in this is dr debt steve williams we know the guy's resume we know what the guy has done we know what the guy brings to the table bro you don't need to be dr debt steve williams pr guy there's no reason it seems like this brawl for all in a lot of ways the tournament itself is a story of three wrestlers uh one being bart gunn of course um one being jbl and the other being dr death steve williams you have jbl who said i can beat anybody's ass if i if i wanted to in a real thing jr was saying the same stuff about steve williams right he was saying let me get bro let me give you the jog quote i'll never forget bro because he said it in quite in front of quite a few people but i'll never forget bro the brawl for all you know we're laying it out and everything like that there's a bunch of people around we were in the vicinity of a brick wall and jr appointed that brick rule and he goes you see that brick wall right there dr that steve williams will go right through that brick wall dr dev stevens will beat anybody dr dead steve williams is going to go through this brawl for all bro when you start talking like that i don't know matt about human nature and this is a bad thing about vince russo bro when you start forcing somebody down my throat shoving somebody down your throat bro there there's this part of you now that says you know what bro i kind of want to see this guy get his ass kicked and vince mcmahon is the exact same way right yeah and bro i i think i i don't know what bruce said i don't listen to bruce's show i would have to believe bruce thought the same thing did jr hurt dr death in a different way whereas when jake the snake roberts comes into wbf he gets a snake when you know ron simmons comes in wbf he gets a gimmick steve williams his name is dr death he could have had a mask he could have had you know not not worn it during the during the match but he could have had a gimmick he could have had uh some kind of thing to go with this dr death thing but because of jim ross it was like no he he's an amateur wrestler and a football player that's his gimmick did that absolutely bro just oklahoma it's it's it's with j.r bro and it's cool i'm not knocking jr i'm not but it's always an oklahoma thing you know mickey mantle you know dr debt steve like it's you know yes bro he was a great amateur wrestler from oklahoma i mean it was a 100 oklahoma thing bro when dr death was brought in did you think it's just he is gonna be um one of these guys that's kind of brought to the top and fed to stone cold steve austin at some point that was that i i've heard that bro that was never discussed that was never discussed never a thought in my mind when he was coming in and i'm a writer i'm like bro this guy is like 100 legitimate like you know this guy is very very very believable so you're going to be able to write him into situations where people are going to believe so you come up with the idea you've got dr death in one hand who jim ross is saying like he's like chuck norris he doesn't walk on water he can swim through land and then on the other hand you've got jbl who people kind of want to see shut up at the same time you have a lot of great legitimate tough guys in the company at the time how did you pitch this to vince mcmahon i told him the story i told him i i said bro vince he said i'm backstage and i told him exactly what happened and then i just said vince i said i'll be honest with you man i kind of like to see that bro i know how vince is he vince is a man's man and bro he's going to eat this up especially jbl saying that i knew vince was going to feel the same way that i did bro there was no pushback uh there was no guys may get hurt blah blah blah but nothing nothing i didn't have to sell it um it was basically let's do it so uh bruce prichard on his something to russell with podcast said that um you know that you were using this kind of as the idea of how to uh introduce dr death uh he says i think russo was using this as a way to introduce dr das steve williams not sure jr was looking at it as there was nobody else who could win this thing with docking it jim is a passionate passionate guy i love jim ross to death but we didn't know what we had um would you agree that this was kind of a good way to kind of introduce doctor death to everybody no no i i absolutely i i absolutely disagree with that not at all jim roth jim ross created all that jim ross created all that the brawl for all was not created around dr debts steve williams the brawl for all was not created with steve williams in mind the brawl for all was not created to highlight steve williams because matt it was a shoot and despite what j.r was saying we did not know what the outcome was going to be so you certainly couldn't build it around somebody if they were going to get beat so i i appreciate bruce like you know trying to lay out what was in my mind that was not in my mind bro this was not built around any one individual because it was a shoot and i had no idea who was going to win this thing so you go to vince he approves it and you and ed uh have the blank piece of yellow paper again the yellow legal pad and you guys start getting to work how did you go about coming up with a list and how did you go about approaching people for this no bro see that's the thing man and i'm sure listen i know there's a whole other side to this story that i don't know about because at this point matt like i'm not involved we're not coming up with names we're not saying who we want to see in this thing obviously i want to see jbl in this but at that point you know it kind of gets handed off to bruce and at that point i believe bruce and vince came up with a pay structure and i believe bruce called the talent and it was kind of if you want to be in this it's your choice but he he has the pay you're going to make x amount of money this is what it is it's a shoot and you know if you want to be in it just let me know and you're in it that's my understanding of how it went down then when people agreed to be in it then those names would come back to us so the names start coming back to you there's some pretty obvious names to to put in there um you have some legit world champions in shoot fighting in the company you have ken shamrock uh who decided not to do it dan severn decided to leave after the first uh match so you didn't see any problem with using those kind of guys who had been training in that area for a long time i didn't bro because then you have let's look at who else you have you got mark merrow who's a legit gold gloves champion bro you got freaking the godfather who like knocks people out at bars every night as a bouncer you know what i mean like they they all brought something different to the table so um no i mean me personally i didn't think there should be any restrictions to this thing uh bruce prichard says i explained to him why i thought it was such a bad idea that in the middle of an entertainment program where everything is scripted you want to have a legit fight in the middle of it explain to me how you're going to tell everyone in everything we're doing with the big stars everyone we're telling you are badasses and tough guys that's all but this stuff right here this is real he says i don't know how you do that in the context of an entertainment show where everything is scripted what about that vince what about the fact that you're putting this thing in the middle of a raw saying okay everything else is but this is real how are we doing that i mean how are we doing that bro you mean to tell me every single person that watched monday night raw didn't believe austin and didn't believe rock and didn't believe taker and didn't believe you know you know uh dx were bro i was writing that entire show like it was real and like it was a shoot and people believed in those characters so that that's that's in bruce's mind oh everything else is phony but this is real no bro i'm the writer of the show we're presenting everything like it's real that's the presentation of this show we know that undertaker's not dead you know we know that wrestling is scripted we go along on this journey we know that steve austin works for vince mcmahon vince mcmahon signs his checks we know yeah we know that mick foley okay matt okay so so matt when dx drove up to a wcw's building that was all fake huh bro fake well you weren't actually going to blow them up that that was all scra eric bischoff knew we were coming every that that was all scripted that was all fake right bro vince something i know that we have in common because we both record these podcasts in weird hours as you and i both have trouble sleeping at night how did you sleep last night well you know matt it's not only the trouble sleeping it's when we finally that head hits the pillow bro and we're laid out and now it's time to go nighty night how fast do we fall asleep you know matt it's a new year 2019 i think people forget something everybody in the new year they want to exercise they want to diet but what's the third most important thing sleep and getting your rest bro and how do you do that matt if you don't have the right mattress absolutely you know sleep's important and the quality of your sleep affects the quality of your daily life you know and if you're struggling to get a good night's sleep you've got to try a purple mattress and the founders of purple mattress are two brothers who've been developing cushioning technology for 30 years on things like medical beds and wheelchairs well matt listen i know you're about to say you don't have to be a rocket scientist to develop a mattress but you're wrong matt because the purple mattress will probably feel different than anything you've ever experienced because it uses the brand new material that was developed by an actual rocket scientist like me when i used to write raw and smackdown i was a rocket science it was not like the memory foam that so many people are used to this is a different animal matt yeah i can't do that memory foam and everybody's got a mattress it's something we all need and but how's this one different is that the purple mattress will probably feel different from anything that you've ever experienced it's material feels very unique because it's firm and soft at the same time just like you vents so it keeps everything supported while still feeling really comfortable plus it's breathable so it sleeps cool yeah this is this is the one man it's the beginning of the year for everybody man if you're dieting great if you're working out great but bro stevie richards taught me when you rest the body it rejuvenates that's the most important time you need a mattress you got to go to sleep bro and purple mattress is the mattress for you and you know when we're going to advertise and we're going to get a great sponsor like provo mattress you're not going to have any risk there's a 100 night risk free trial for listeners with truth with consequences if you're not fully satisfied you can actually return your mattress for a full refund it's backed by a 10 year warranty and free shipping and returns and matt the most important thing here free in-home setup bro they will also remove the old mattress um that's a headache to a lot of people bro they'll do the work for you well i'll tell you what you're gonna love purple and right now our listeners will get a free purple pillow with the purchase of a mattress and that's in addition to the great gifts they're offering site wide just text what do we text we text bro b r o two four seven four seven four seven the only way to get the free pillow is the text bro to four seven four seven four seven that's bro to four seven four seven four seven message and data rates may apply purple mattress every that that was all scripted that was all fake right bro i mean as far as the brawl for all you would watch these matches for two seconds and know this is actually a real fight like this is a real fight everything else we do where we do irish whips and we do sunset flips that looks like because now we're having real fights where people are just clinching and swinging on each other man bro obviously you haven't watched some of those shows from the attitude era you you you don't bro you're not getting that excited if you think that is fake so you're saying hey henry don't have hey henry don't huff and puff with me over there henry okay what's your middle name that's bruce pritchett oh everything is a work and this is real bro we didn't write the television like it was a work bruce driving up to wcw bro wasn't a work bro steve austin made you want to believe him bro shawn michaels i lost my smile that's a work bro that was a work i lost my smile you wrote the reality into the show but it's a lot like if you watch the sopranos we don't watch the sopranos thinking this is fake as we're watching it but it's not like in the middle of the damn show james gandolfini and freaking steven vanzant are gonna get in a real fist fight you know what i'm saying like it's it it stuck out like a sore throat matt like even if that's the case well like okay like what's the point so what even if that's the case so what so what well i don't understand what so so what what is that what does that do if all of a sudden bro you you've got raw this week okay we we have our raw presentation all of a sudden something goes down and one wrestler is really hot in another and they really want to fight but sean michaels and bret hart they really want to fight okay so oh they go out there and they fight i don't understand what what effect does it have on anything bruce is going to talk about presenting something real and fake when he's got a guy with a freaking buffalo head getting in the ring like you really want to talk about this bro you got a you got a plumber wrestling you got a hockey player wrestling i mean that's that's where bruce comes from that's not where i come from i come from very believable characters and that's how the show was presented i'm trying really hard that wasn't even a thought in my freaking mind obviously i mean obviously all right if you if you're seeing a freaking buffalo wrestle and then you're seeing two guys come out and fight for real yes i i understand that that was not the show at the time was mantar of buffalo i think so wasn't he i don't know no one really was a bison had a big bison head i think well he did but let's because this is a thing that i think a lot of people think is that when you have a real fight in the context of a wrestling show it makes the wrestling look less than but for you what you're saying is since your desire was to make everything look real in an ideal world a real fight a real tournament wouldn't pop out like like bruce pritchard bro the exact opposite happened they thought the fights were a work okay bro thee they were booing the brawl for alls out of the building because the people were saying okay this is a work why are they working boxing matches i was in the building for those early shows they were booing it out of the building because they thought it was a work then all of a sudden bro when bart gunn starts knocking guys's eyes when guys's eyes are rolling into the back of their heads that's when people said holy they're fighting for real it had no effect on anything else that we were doing that's that typical wrastlin bro vince mc vince mcmahon didn't seem to be too concerned about that do you think that you get and we've talked about this before do you think you get too much of a bad rap because you came up with this idea but once the idea leaves your desk it's no longer your responsibility well i mean it's not my company but i don't give a if i get a bad rap about it bro i you know i i thought it was a good good idea i thought it was an entertaining idea i did not think about guys getting hurt so i i was wrong in that aspect some guys made a lot of money bart gunn went and and made a lot of money had a career in freaking japan that may have never happened for him you know dr death suffered a very serious probably career-ending injury did i foresee any of that no and and that's that's where i made a mistake but i'm not gonna say well bro like that was just my idea it was up to vince mcmahon i'm not gonna say that bro i i take one thousand percent responsibility for putting that on the table belter reports uh july 13th 1998 in the observer uh the idea behind the tournament is to add a new dimension to television that would get people talking and theoretically draw ratings well that sounds right right right and perhaps to get wrestlers who aren't over a chance to make their own break with a strong showing so far so good nobody was for nobody was forced to enter and the wrestlers are getting paid extra supposedly with 5 000 going to the winners of every match 2 500 to the losers and a 75 000 bonus going to the winner of the tournament final according to another official none of the top stars were invited to enter because they would have something to lose by being exposed is that why none of the top stars were invited do you think no i i i i would think bro because they were in angles you know what i'm saying i mean that that would have been muddying the waters bro if all of a sudden they're in this hot angle and then they're in this brawl for i don't think that would have made any sense we've talked about how mark marrow had a golden gloves boxing background as well as an olympic gold medal uh ability to draw females into his life um steve blackman let's talk about steve blackman steve bachmann's a martial artist um he hadn't really gotten a push yet but he was being kind of you know promoted as the as the uh lethal weapon because he uh he looked like jeff speakman i think who was a guy who did this movie the lethal weapon talk about steve blackman a little bit and why you think he could have benefited from being in this tournament yeah no bro he you know he was very very ming like bro the the steve blackman story as you would hear i mean this guy was legitimately like the the real deal um you know he he was trained um he was dangerous bro like this guy was legitimately the real deal why didn't he do more was it is it as is it as obvious as we can just see where it was just he was just too yeah he just wasn't an entertainer he like like severn you know they're very much like semmer that that that's why shamrock was successful that was the difference you you believe shamrock he made that transition over to the entertainment aspect of wrestling like he'd been doing it his whole life guys like black men and severn i like dan severan's a gentleman bro but they didn't get that part of it uh we also have um mark canterbury he seemed like someone who would be in it because he didn't have a lot going on a legit legitimate tough guy talk a little bit about mark canterbury yeah no bro big old country boy man you know i mean you know guys like that sometimes don't know their own strength and another bro that that's a guy that never gets talked about sweetheart of a guy man uh but uh you know country country strong bro like the real deal could could f you up very close with the with taker you know they were kind of like in that group he was a he was a big old boy that could do some damage bro and he was of course henry o godwin hogg that doesn't sounds like sound like something you came up with no unfortunately not let's talk a little bit about this guy uh brakas um brakkus is not someone who wrestled maybe at all once or twice ever for wbe he was a developmental guide looked like a million bucks sent down to ecw for some development um tell us what you know of brackis yeah no bro the guy was a freak you know i mean the guy was a freak the the body on this guy was unbelievable but see bro that's the thing now you you start looking at these guys and you could almost start seeing weaknesses like brackets was such a bodybuilder bro that you know it it it's going to be difficult for this guy to punch you know i mean he's so big and he's so tight you know he he's gonna probably like mark mero would probably carve this guy up and spit him out but brackets could have caught him one time you know mark canterbury tough guy but slow big he's gonna get blowed up easy you know i mean you you can start seeing like strengths and weaknesses of these guys going in which which kind of gave you a pretty good idea of who was going to do well someone we haven't talked a lot about but to me seems like you know he would be someone who might do well you know if you i can't think of a glaring weakness savio vega oh no bro no doubt bro i i there are some guys that i think wanted really wanted to do this bro savio comes to mind bro i bro i can imagine the savio vegas stories growing up i i can imagine the fights that savio vega will i can imagine probably the most street smart guy i know like him and conan bro uh bro another guy draws you know draws is in athlete bro i'm sure draz got off on this like draws wanted to get in there and see what he could do now some guy's big question mark to me like i don't know why hawk would get anything like this i i don't know i don't know he didn't need the money i don't know why hawk would have thrown his hat in the ring you know it's almost like a dream match from like 10 years before when you have guys like hawk and dr death in it you know hawk is a guy who 10 years before if there was a tournament and you found out hawk was in it you probably wouldn't be in that tournament right right right right but at this point in his career i would love to know i i really would love to understand his thought process for getting in this thing i i would have never expected him to be a part of it do you think part of it was he got in it because he knew he could win if if i had a guest bro i would think his motivation was to see how tough he still really was yeah you know what i'm saying bro i i would think like that's his motivation like i know who i used to be how tough am i now let's talk about a guy who is synonymous with being tough mr bob hawley he's talked a lot about it he wasn't known for that now he was just fresh out of the new midnight express um with his tag team partner bart gunn um talk about uh how where you thought bob holly's place wasn't yeah no we we knew how tough bob holly was behind the scenes we knew bob holly was tough and i guarantee you bob holly was another one but you know sign me up first i guarantee you bob holly wanted to be in this tournament the most active wrestler the most relevant wrestler today in the entire tournament who do you think that is there's a guy in this tournament who was just signed to a good contract by ring of honor oh pierre pco quebec yeah he's a tough tough dude bro tough dude i guarantee you he wanted to be in it he's got one eye yeah how would you put a guy in a fight with one eye i have no idea ask him bro of course the godfather you talked about legit tough guy he's the bouncer um dan severn of course a former ufc champion one of your old buddies as well um how close were you at the time with eight ball uh yeah no bro we were pretty tight man and these guys were legit man these guys you know again bro if this took place in the arena of a bar fight you know and you could pick up anything you wanted to to use he probably would have won this thing i think melcher was saying earlier it is opportunity for some guys who aren't being used um that seems to be the case with including scorpio was scorpio a guy that people thought was tough in the back yeah yep yep that's fair to say yep so after these um people are selected the story goes that everybody was concerned it was gonna be worked a lot of people were gonna be concerned it was gonna be worked for steve williams to have a good uh you know a good bracket to go through and it was done randomly the selections were done randomly unlike any other thing in the history of wrestling drawn out of a hat and because there's no way that the i mean the wrestlers would be very suspicious of it being worked right right with that set up you have the brackets you have the brawl for all how much ownership did you have at the time it's not set up you're not writing anything if this was an idea as you're watching it take place now are you kind of thinking oh this was my idea or are you just worried about other things no i'm not bro i think these guys wanted to be in it i mean i think these guys wanted to be in it hey bro listen man wrestling is a business and everybody talks a good game and everybody's a tough guy and miss that and the other thing bro i think this was this was this was a tournament that represented okay like let's really see what you got now you know forget the forget the talking forget the i could beat everybody up if this were real let's really see what you've got now i believe every single guy in the tournament looked at it that way bro i know for a fact i was very close to mark merrow in mark marrow's mind this is what was gonna give him the respect for all the he was taking and you know you know because his wife was getting over they were taking it out on him for all the mero was taking this was a blessing to him and he thought you know what bro i'm gonna get in there i'm gonna knock these guys on their asses and their days of disrespecting me are going to be over i think draws you know the new kid on the block i'm going to make a name for myself right here i think bart gunn nobody thinks i'm going to freaking win this thing bro i think they all had a motivation i think they all took this thing very very seriously and i think more than anything vince mcmahon was probably the biggest mark for this bro there was never a creative discussion i'm not gonna talk for bruce i'm not i don't know conversations bruce and vince had just like bruce doesn't know conversations vince and the rock had i don't know conversations jr and vince had i can tell you from a creative perspective with vince we never ever ever discussed this thing being worked at all me and vince there was never the slightest discussion i think vince wanted to see who was the most legit tough guy the brackets are set and the first matches take place june 29th in cleveland at a taping of raw to air july 6th and they also had some matches on june 30th as well even meltzer goes on to say uh the tournament which appears on paper to be a forum to get steve williams over as a contender for steve austin um this is like you said it's not reality for you as a creator i guarantee you bro the more jr talked up steve williams bro the more vince mcmahon wanted to see steve williams get put on his ass that that is not true at all at all bro but in the paranoid world of professional wrestling you know meltzer has his sources they're probably wrestlers you know might be people that don't like you like cornet or whatever but that was the perception you can see why people would have that perception and was that the perception among the wrestlers at the time where oh this is for dr death i don't think so bro i don't think so because they they weren't going over their matches you know what i mean bro they knew the was real they were not going over their matches bro now bro i don't know maybe when they talked beforehand bro i don't know maybe they discuss like you know bro if you really hurt me you know what i'm saying i'll let you know or i don't know i wasn't privy to their discussions bro prior to going out there but bro none of this was worked none of it we had the first match-ups um the first match-ups were steve blackman against mark mara which mark marrow won even though maybe technically blackman did do well with the takedowns and all that the whole scoring system the judges the scoring system kept changing that whole thing was kind of a right yeah um do you remember any talks about how we scored or anything like that oh god bro like you know that i i mean bro i know they started really taking it seriously like wasn't danny hodge brought in like is it bro they were all marks for danny hodgson's freaking victory oh yeah the danny had they were awesome freaking jerry briscoe was such a danny hodge mark and j.r they love this guy bro but you know i mean bro the the scoring and all that people were trying it was starting to take it seriously with the mark canterbury bradshaw match bradshaw moves ahead so your dream yet has not come true um uh savio vega as you predicted took apart brachus in his raw debut uh meltzer says which is basically an indication wwf had given up on him that's that was that was that true do you think absolutely absolutely not explain explain what do you what if brock is if bronchus would have went far in this tournament he could have made himself when these matchups are taking place are you watching them are you watching oh bro it's it's let me tell you something is it the cellar curtain standing room only bro you you had a jockey four position to be able to see what was going on back then they had just the little tiny monitors right they had the little times so you're all crowded around there people cheering and rooting and and um you know rooting against reading four people not really bro but there were pops on the finish what was the talk amongst all the wrestlers in the back when you're watching this what what did people think would happen what did people want to happen well bro i i think jr had painted dr death into a coi i think everybody wanted to see him get beat unfortunately and i feel bad for him bro because he was not shooting his mouth off he was not saying a word he was not being braggadocious now i'm sure bro he was very very very confident but bro steve williams was not saying a word it was it was all freaking jr so i think by the time we got there bro everybody wanted to see this guy get put on his ass and it had nothing to do with him because he was the sweetest guy in the world we and of course the hawk draws off match ended in a tie with uh meltzer goes to say that uh hawk who had boxed a little before ever getting into pro wrestling but is now over 40 and has had his share of health problems seemed fearless and confident going into the ring it appeared almost immediately that drozdov had never been trained for fighting because he had no clue to what to do however hawks punches with the big gloves looked terrible and both men drew blew up quickly drozdov bloodied up hawk's nose and nearly knocked him down in winning the second round um the third round which was the cider saw both men gassed out to the point where they each spit out their mouthpiece and neither landed anything in that round that would have given them the decision is this kind of the point where you're thinking wow this is doing more harm than good as far as what you've got hawk one of the greatest tough guys you know he's got this um mystique about him he's hawk he's hawk of the road warriors against this young up-and-comer draws off and they get in this cluster of a match where nothing really happens they both get gassed out neither one can breathe they're throwing sloppy punches how does this help either one of them does seth roll seth rollins was in his tournament bro you just described that you just described a seth rollins match to me i swear to god but anyway so what's the question bro how does this hurt both guys in there you you say so many times you got to protect guys you're not i mean i'm not talking about safety because the safety is evident but as far as protecting them hawke's legacy and drawstar's future in this match they both looked ridiculous do you have like uh bro let me tell you something i'm a writer okay bro i promise you one bad match is not gonna kill somebody's career if i'm writing i i promise you bro i will know how to make them look good the following week and they'll forget all about the bra for all so if i'm writing bro and you have a bad match it's not going to kill your career watching it as a fan at home when i watched bart gunn versus bob hawley that's when i kind of knew it was on because these guys were tag team partners yeah and when bart gunn first hits bob hoffy you can see a look on bob holly's face like oh this is yeah no bro and matt that might have been it because there was a turning point there was a turning point bro where this was getting booed out of the building because people thought it was a work and then bro there was that holy moment these guys are not working maybe that was it and bro from that moment on the people were into it you you think people like this and we're into it the reactions were mixed at first you said it was booed but the beginning of bart gunn now this is the story of the brawl for all in a lot of ways besides you know all the injuries and stuff bart gunn would anybody i've heard that there were people that did say that kid that kid is going to win this that kid right there was there something about bart gunn that you thought he could win it or was he just another guy put in that card bro i don't think anybody was looking at bart gun to win this thing i i i really don't except bart gunn bro i i honestly think like looking back now there wasn't a doubt in his mind that he was not going to win this thing i don't think there was anybody else that picked bart gunn to win this thing yeah um godfather against dan severn um dan severn won on points because that's what you do when you're a trained fighter and they decided to leave the tournament after winning any uh insight into that why did severn decide to leave it says that i don't i don't know see bro that was all um that would have been all at the talent relations level bro you know what i'm saying i i didn't get involved in any of that um you know i mean i you know i would have just been told okay the guy left so however we got to adjust the tournament somebody gets a bye i don't i don't know what happened there bro in the first round also steve williams takes on quebec or pierre uh was this one of those things where people were watching and rooting for dr death to get beaten yeah and of course steve williams wins and then the last match uh eight ball versus scorpio with scorpio uh winning after the first round matches you had some injuries you had some adjustments you had to make was there any were you given any kind of input is to changing the scoring or how to make it more entertaining or any blowback like this should he work in what was the feedback after the first there was never i mean i could tell you on the level of me and vince bro there was never a discussion of putting a bullet in this thing never i mean from the minute it started we were going to see this through there was never a discussion of this is not working pull the plug at the time where you was focused on ratings uh at that time as you always were oh yeah absolutely absolutely in all of the head-to-heads brawl for all beat wcw in all the head to heads except once going up against hogan versus hall um when you're looking at a thing like this you said you still take ownership of it even though you're not involved creatively when you're beating them in the ratings with your idea is that a source of pride for you no i mean not really bro i mean it's not it's it's not i just i i just want to get the the highest ratings we can i mean you know again i always i always give credit to disco and disco said bro when you're looking at a wrestling show you should be looking at we've got two hours of prime time television what do we do in those two hours to get as many people as possible to watch i think it's that simple bro there were a couple injuries uh vega has a pinched nerve in his neck um but still continues on the brawl with the drozdov in hawk match it went to a draw but hawk got a broken nose during the match um that's not too much worse than kind of a wrestling match right that's not anything that yeah i mean yeah but both of those things i mean could happen in a wrestling match i wouldn't you know i mean those guys wouldn't have missed any time over that so mark marrow faces bradshaw you get one more chance to see bradshaw get his comeuppance but you don't get it bradshaw beats maro where are you at at this point are you oh no bro the thing i remember about this was how freaking hot merrell was he thought he got robbed and he and they screwed him and he thought he won i mean bro now you're starting to see how seriously these guys are taking this merrow was hot and when you go back and look at it bro that did did mero get screwed because of the baggage that was already there yeah bro maybe he did well they kept messing with the scoring system and also sometimes people weren't given takedowns sometimes people weren't scored for points let's talk a little bit more about marrow he's pissed off what did he say what did you hear him say oh he just went in the back and cut a hellacious promo of you know they screwed him sable was hot bro i mean he was legitimately hot believing without a shadow of a doubt he won that match he did not like brad's show to begin with uh you know for all the reasons i stated and you know beating brad shaw really meant a lot to him because bro you know you know bradshaw was you know brazil was he was probably one of the victims and you know that was probably that was probably his chance to shut up brad shaw once and for all and he felt he did but he felt he ultimately got screwed is that a good look a bad look or does anybody care i think people knew he got screwed i really do bro i think people knew he got screwed and he should have won that match so who's in bradshaw's corner jr is steve williams guy right why would someone think that brad shaw was someone's favorite son it didn't look like that uh on screen you know um who who why would uh marrow think people would have it in for him or for bradshaw i cuz you know bro bracha was kind of one of the good old boys bro and you know again romero he had so much heat because his wife got over god forbid a female get over in the business and all the heat went directly to merrow um and you know i mean jbl you know kind of you know bro where's jbl from texas where's bruce from well they're friends they're good friends that's well okay well that's it it is what it is bro it just it is what it is but but romero at the time even though he wasn't um being pushed huge at the time was in a better place than bradshaw in the card though right yeah oh absolutely was at that time yeah so we go on to uh and so maro's pissed off bradshaw is even more emboldened he's this tough guy uh savio vega takes on draws draws beats him and now we have the match that everybody talks about dr death steve williams against the young upstart bart gunn it is clear from the beginning from a couple punches right away that steve williams is in trouble and he definitely uh suffered an injury we'll talk about that match and the excitement that took place behind the scenes and your thoughts and jr's reaction that must have been something uh bro i hate to laugh this is standing room only bro this this this is standing room only meanwhile it's like uh no one really like bart gunn's not a big presence backstage but he's like this underdog that people suddenly are cheering for right yeah but i think it could have been anybody i gotta be honest with you i think it could have been anybody i'm telling you i think it could have been anybody but when bart started taking it to dr death bro oh my god i mean the boys in the back were going absolutely nuts and i felt so bad for doctors he did not bring it upon himself if he was being bragged though i would say it he wasn't saying a word man i felt so freaking bad for the guy uh and then bro what made it worse bro is freaking j.r made excuses for him and and that made it even worse like bro there's got to come a point where like you just got to stop talking but he made excuses for him after the loss what is jr defeated at all is jay what is the whole no he's blaming it all on the injuries he he you know bro i think it was pretty serious i think he like ripped this quad or something but no jr is blaming it all all on dr death getting hurt meltzer says uh at the end of the match gun pummeled him and connected with a left hook that apparently dislocated williams john put him down it see it would seem at this point they would get behind bart gunn as kind of the story to help push this thing but had they lost faith a little bit did they just want to get out oh bro because you you couldn't get behind anybody because you didn't know the outcome right so how can you really get behind anybody you we didn't know who was going to win this thing so there was nobody to push even in this episode of the observer melcher keeps reporting that it was set up for williams to win it was set up for williams to face austin that perception is still there to this day bro i bro can i tell you something please that's freaking bro if i had to guess and a very educated guess jr to jim cornette to dave meltzer there is zero discussion creatively at all concerning any of that they talk about a little bit about the injuries at this point uh meltz reports that the problem is the matches the problems the injuries wbf is a hazardous enough job taking bumps 200 nights a year and trying to maintain a look um the injury rate is already alarming um in 1997 but the brawl for all greatly magnifies that thus far we've seen savio vegas suffer an injury to his seventh cervical vertebrae hawk broken nose several more minor scrapes like bloody noses steve blackman suffer a ruptured tendon in his knee uh in training for it and the worst of injuries of all to williams who was hospitalized most of the night after his match with gun and anaheim with a torn hamstring and torn buttocks which wound up with him on crutches and will keep him out anywhere from four to eight weeks uh right during a period where the plans were to start giving a mega push the reality of the bart gun match wasn't so much that gun knocked him out which he did but that williams suffered his most serious injuries in the second round of the takedown that gun gave him um so was there concern or blowback about the injuries at this point when steve williams is just there were no plans from like that there weren't you know yes there would have been there would have been blow back and concern if he was penciled in to go against austin he wasn't bro so the injury did not affect the creative in any way shape or form bro and i mean and and like bro like seriously like you know i mean my god bro we saw vince mcmahon get in the ring and rip both his quads i i would love to see how the injury occurred i mean was it was it a freak injury i mean i you know i would i would actually love to go back and see where he got hurt i mean is it something you could really blame on a boxing match a guy ripped his buttocks meltzer asked the question are four wrestlers being injured to varying degrees an acceptable number out of 10 matches that's not a decision that's easy to make but it's probably the key point that has to be considered when this is over so i cannot believe i cannot believe meltzer is harping on the injuries with the he's into it new japan like are you effing kidding me bro okay are you kidding me bro what those guys do to each other at at new japan the kicks to the head when when the guys aren't looking at them two guys just freaking you know what one guy i they don't even talk about the guy that broke his neck or whatever they don't even talk about him anymore we don't even know what happened to that guy the guy who just got injured seriously against osprey i i just can't believe that this guy is being so hypocritical bro we had a bradshaw against drozdoff which bradshaw wins uh bart gunn versus the godfather which bart gunn again wins and people are starting to get despite what mel's are saying they're starting to get a little bit excited about bart gunn at this point right like what about you guys i i never to this day matt i've seen the tysons i've seen the ronda rouseys i've seen i've seen the george foremans i mean i've seen the conor mcgregors i never saw anybody get hit that hard i i saw the godfather's eyes rolled to the back of his head that is a big freaking mean nasty strong dangerous man i've never to this day seen anybody get hit that hard and in the back there's no heat on bart for beating up these guys no no bro bro it's down to the bro it's down to the um tim the tool man tailor bro this is this is this is this is men you know like this is what it's down to now the vince mcmahon is eating this up this is men versus men you know two gladiators go in a cage and one this is the level we're at now like bro they are they are all into this at at that freaking level now so not they're shocked i could tell you that they are absolutely shocked by what they saw bruce has said that it was an opportunity for some people to see other wrestlers in a different light or give them an opportunity as someone in creative you know you love doing reality you love blowing up real um characteristics and making them the foundation of their character are you seeing bart gunn in a different way at this point oh yeah bro i'm i'm seeing something i never saw before or i never dreamed of or i never imagined before bro and so how are you seeing bart gun at this point well bro see that's the funny thing now we're still wrestling and and the one thing bart gunn always lacked bro he didn't lack the body he didn't lack the work the one thing he always lacked was the promo and okay bro you're showing us now you're a badass there's no question about that nobody ever doubted that bro but when you got to go back to the wrestling world you still got to be an entertainer and and if you didn't have that part of it before i don't know bro maybe the confidence in this thing will give you that confidence you lack now but you still got to be an entertainer when once the gloves are off we're heading towards the final which is um bradshaw versus bart gunn the guy that everybody wants to see shut up and embarrassed versus this young upstart who's now a favorite in the back and people are popping even when he's beating popular people like the godfather what is the talk what is the hype uh what does vince mcmahon think about it at this point bro like nobody's saying anything like nobody nobody is i think brad shaw's afraid he's got everything to lose bart's got nothing to lose brad shaw's got everything to lose bart guns not saying a word backstage bro not nothing not bragging not not saying a word i think that actually hurt bradshaw going in because he had everything to lose and i think he was afraid i i like i i'm you know bro i'm this big tough guy this is happening because of me uh you know like if i get dropped it's gonna be embarrassing i really think mentally bro that probably could have affected him and we have the final of bradshaw and bart gunn you vince russo personally you in your heart you probably had it all on the line you're probably thinking god damn it this guy he's gonna win it this son of a is gonna no no no no no you had faith you believed i had more than faith bro like after i saw bart hit the god i the godfather was tougher than jbl okay no no doubt about it when i saw what he did to the godfather i i i knew he was gonna kill jbl i mean there there wasn't a doubt in my mind bro so we have the match and in the match bart gunn knocks out bradshaw in 42 seconds in the brawl for all championship match uh received the 75 thousand dollars where were you when bart gunn beats uh bradshaw i'm at the monitor with everybody else was it the biggest pop of all time for me or in general in general uh well you know bro the boys had to be careful you're like you know what i mean bro because that you know if they're friends with jbl they don't want somebody else telling jbl so and so was popping when you got knocked out so the boys the boys have to be a little bit more conservative but i think they could not help but to put over the impressiveness of bart gunn it was like holy it was like that kind of a thing it was no disrespect to jbl nobody was laughing at jbl it was just like holy in your mind did it knock him down a peg which is what you want oh it had to it had to bro it definitely had to yep once once bart gunn wins do you think you've got a star on your hands have you talked did you talk to vince and vince said we had to start this this guy we need to do some stuff with him no bro not not a star because he still lacked the other side of it did he earn the opportunity for us to pay attention and do something with him absolutely but he still had to round out his game a little bit cornet says that the brawl for all ruined dr death's wwf career would you disagree yeah where was dr death gonna go with steve austin there you know you got to understand bro this isn't dr death in his prime we're not we're not talking about that dr death you're talking about a 38-year-old doctor death that's on on on on you know i mean he's passed his prime bro it's you know it's later on in his career he's not going to be a top guy he's not going to be a main event guy not with that roster could he have had a program with austin yeah he wasn't going to beat austin that probably would have been the highlight of his wwe career would have been in a program with austin but not a program that the guy was going to go over in and and further its career he had already accomplished great things in his career he was at that spot in his career at this point to get other people over now if we didn't have the talent on the roster that we did and we needed a doctor death yeah bro it would have been different i mean dr death is 37 years old on today's roster bro you put him right up there with brock lesnar but when you look at the roster we had back then the the height would have been a program with austin and austin would have went over that would have been the extent of it bob hawley says that it did hurt steve williams in a sense it throws all this credibility out the window in a sense it didn't but it did you know what i'm saying it's like here's this guy's supposed to be one of the baddest men on the planet and then bart knocks him out it almost wipes out his whole credibility even though anybody can get knocked out in a given second and that's why you don't want to pit the boys against each other like that it wasn't about i just start with and it's like if they wanted williams to work with austin there are a whole bunch of different ways to get him out there instead of having him to come out and try and do a shoot fight for a hundred thousand dollars it's not going to work out what do you say the fact that it killed his credibility bro we never wanted him we never wanted him to work with austin we never wanted him to work with austin that's jr that that was never a plan bro bro i don't doubt for a second austin didn't want to work with him i don't doubt that for a second but i'm telling you that was not the creative plan all that and bart gunn's reward is being knocked out in 35 seconds at wrestlemania 15 how did you first hear of uh butter being being brought in to face bart gunn as the payoff to this whole thing oh man i i don't remember who pitched that it could have been me maybe it wasn't me i remember butterbean was red hot at the time and it was like a sideshow bro it was like a um it was like a special attraction and um you know i mean it it was at that time as hot as butterbean was he was knocking out people right and left um it was interesting at that time and i thought it was a good spot for bart what was the anticipation for that did you have any thought as to maybe bart's got a chance against this guy oh i definitely did bro i definitely did i didn't know what was going on with his training at the time i didn't know that if i would have known that at the time i mean i would have said like wait a minute like why is he doing that like why what do you mean well bro what happened was when when he when they signed a fight to to when they signed a fight for him to fight butterbean i i don't know who was behind this but mark merrow's legitimate trainer from golden glove ray ronaldi ray rinaldi started training bart gunn and when when ray was training bart bro he was training bart as a boxer he he was totally changing bart's game and he was training and teaching bart how to box and so all of a sudden bart goes in that match against butterbean trying to box him because that's what rey was teaching him and you know all of a sudden freaking you know butterbean catches bart gunn one time and it's lights out and i mean i i've had conversations with bart after many times and he's like i don't know why i did that i don't know why i didn't just get in that ring and did and do what i did in the brawl for i don't know why i tried to train as a boxer because i wasn't comfortable doing that it's interesting it's like he switched horses midstream he stopped made him successful yes and he took the advice of other people yes what was the reaction in the back for vince and yourself bro that that was shocking i mean i don't know about vince i can't speak that was shocking to me i mean that was shocking but then when i heard the story i was like like bro like why would you like why just why he never had a chance was bart gunn now dead in the water the way steve williams was as a result it i mean that that that hurt him a lot bro because keep in mind he still doesn't have the entertainment factor he still has to learn that but now that he got knocked out the way that he did yes i would say without a shadow of a doubt that hurt bart more than her doctor death we will do our own post script in a second but bruce prichard's postscript on brawl for all is this he says in the end jr and i had to deal with all the injuries it cost a lot of money to the company in getting all these guys rehabbed and time off work if i could do it all over again even worked i wouldn't do it all over again it was the worst idea in wrestling this had to be the worst idea i'm just glad that it's over at the end of the day the blame goes to vince mcmahon for everyone who says that russo killed the business vince mcmahon had to approve it well i would say uh bruce if you think this idea was worse than putting a paper mache buffalo head on a human being and like not even realizing he wasn't going to be able to fit through the ropes like if you think this was worse than a a plumber with plumber's crack uh you know if you think this was worse than the freddie joy bro if you think this was worse than who i i would kind of challenge you and listen i'm not on bruce's ideas but when you say a little bit well no i'm not i'm not but when you say this was the worst idea of all time i'm questioning what was it really bro like how how good was that who character like come on come on bro let's let now mate now if you were to say from a business per i don't know what it cost them for injuries i don't have any of that data bro i have no idea so if he were to say from a financial standpoint okay maybe this was the the most you know uh worst idea of all time but that's not what he's saying he's saying creatively this was the worst idea i i think that's a little bit of a stretch bruce especially with some of the things we saw in 94.95 for impact we had lots of injuries we had guys getting exposed maybe not being as tough as you thought they were from hawk you know to jbl whoa whoa whoa whoa what lots of injuries are we talking about this is what i'm hearing hawk broke his freaking nose okay bro savio vega had a pinched nerve and dr death got seriously injured that's three out of 16. bro but that but a broken nose i mean that that's a serious what is this ballet so so what what are you talking about bro you're talking about dr death and savio vega i mean every freaking week in the wwe somebody's getting hurt like seriously bro that that's a lot of serious injuries your contention is that the brawl for all wasn't more dangerous than day to day wrestling in 2009. absolutely it wasn't bro i mean come on man absolutely not and i guarantee you bro doc got hurt the way he fell bro he could have took that bump in a wrestling match i guarantee i'd like to go back and see exactly where he probably fell awkwardly bro if he tore a buttocks it wasn't from bart gunn hitting him he probably fell awkwardly come on bro like let's just be real here so that's a bad rap it's a bad rap that it caused injuries you know guys got hurt but i don't think it was any more significant significant than guys getting hurt on a week-to-week basis in wrestling you've addressed the fact that you don't think it exposes the business you don't think that putting a real shoot fight in the middle of a pro wrestling show does anything to diminish the quality or the credibility of that overall show because bro your your your your question bro you could answer all those questions by looking at the ratings following the broad roll what what was the wwe dead after the brawl for all i don't even need to answer that question go look at the numbers did the wwe die when the brawl for all was over because now nobody believed the other was real go look at the freaking numbers bro i don't i don't even need to argue that that's a mute point what about the fact of these guys kind of getting exposed for not being as tough as you thought they were from hawk to um you know a bob holly to a jbl to a godfather when you have them legit knocked out in the ring i don't think people were looking at it that way at all matt i think they were looking at it the opposite way and that's what a freaking badass bart gun was i think that's how they were looking at it and i think they were looking at it like he would have knocked anybody out i don't think any of those guys got embarrassed or hurt getting knocked out by bart gunn so let's put a bow on this our brawl for all episode let's just say vince that somebody on twitch or somebody you run into one of our patreons asks you a question and doesn't know what the brawl for all is and you had to describe it to them in just a few sentences what was the brawl for all what was the impact what is the overall lesson here for three months wrestling got real and for three months people had to either put up or shut up and the people that needed to be shut up were shut up that's what i would say and that brings to a close our episode on brawl for all vince do you have an outrage of the week for us this week yeah i have an outrage of the other week mr henry okay here we go what's your middle name uh james oh you can't really make fun of james no um i want to talk about your uh uh your new um i don't even know i don't even know what to call you're a new savior a man by the name of gang gang gang this khan bro who's that what would he be the fearless leader of a w oh mr khan tony khan mystic uh yeah i'll call him mr khan out of respect i call mr cronk this isn't even a rant the guy actually said the pay scale at a w is going to be based on wins and losses bro as a shoot don't bro the guy doesn't know how to work the guy's not a worker the guy's never been in the wrestling business you can hear the clip he's not working he's dead serious because he says that among other things like seniority seniority is going to depend on what they get paid wins and losses bro let me tell you something if that's what this guy is saying and he's depending on people that have never been in vice president positions in the wrestling business ever good luck to you mr khan and and i hope you need a tax write-off because bro with the stuff you're saying and doing good luck that that's all i have to say good luck and my advice to you would be bro if it were me i would be saying nothing i don't i don't have a television deal there's nothing for me to promote i would be saying absolutely nothing this whole thing wins and losses are gonna matter with with um with pay i think of two arguments of two point of views that maybe you might be missing one is that he's just working he's just telling people you know that wins and losses matter here a matter of fact people are going to get paid based on wins and losses it's ridiculous on the surface there's no way he actually believes that right bro don't try to convince me bro he believes it uh you broke you listen you you're mr aew this is gonna be like the second coming and i bro great i'm not listen i'm not i'm i bro if that's what you think i'm not i'm not gonna argue with you what i am saying is bro this everything i've seen is so dixie carter-ish bro and it's just mistake on top of mistake on top of a mistake and and all i'm saying is why like why are you saying things publicly why is cody saying things but publicly why are the bucks you guys have nothing okay bro when you guys have a secured television deal then we can talk about this if right now bro when's the next show may what is there to sum it all in let it rise 20th i want to say it's uh double or nothing it's may 20th double okay bro if double or nothing is may 20th and matt is in the books and i believe it is bro stop promoting the out of that don't promote anything bro if it's not concrete because here's the bottom line bro we've we've been trained in wrestling where we've heard it all before we don't believe anything till we see it okay bro that's how we've all been trained and perfect case in point global force wrestling bro and i sat there and broke people are paying money to try out for global force wrestling and i'm sitting there and jeff got hot at me over this because he made us a comment to me a couple of years ago and and and because i sat there and i said bro there is no global force wrestling like there is no television deal there's nothing there's a name and they're they're doing shows that's what you have bro and sure enough global force wrestling comes and goes my point is don't say anything until you have something real and concrete to pass along now speaking of aew wrestling i kind of have a little outrage of my own this week do you mind if i indulge in me for a second it's all you bro so there's been a couple people two or three more than maybe more than that who have been so so upset that i like aew i'm wishing them well and that they go to events sometimes so they say on twitter sometimes we're not going to support vince's show this is fans of years vince we're not going to visit the show because of math and and the reality is i'm here to stay so you might want to learn to love it and i get paid either way so if you're trying to hurt vince that's fine that's what you're doing so if you're a fan of vince and you don't like me and you're so upset that i'd like aew and i believe what i believe that you want to hurt vince that's up to you but you got some snowflake fans out there vince i'm not saying five percent of the of the uh of the brand i'm not even saying one percent of the brand i know the brand is thousands of people and i've gotten so many more dms and tweets of support than against but when i hear these things of people actually trying to write patreon and complain about me or trying to hurt these are fans of yours oh we've lost i've i've lost patreon members because of matt henry bro make no bones about it bro they can't handle the fact that there is another opinion and they're too dumb to realize that what i'm doing is i'm giving you a platform to express yourself in in a different way so i'm going to slow this down for you just a little bit when i challenge vince on things sometimes it forces vince to articulate things differently and maybe in a way that gets them a bigger audience where actually the person that you say you support is more successful and so then they're like i'm upset at what matt says so what i'm going to do is i'm going to hurt vince these are your fans vince it's it's insane to me and this small segment very small segment of your fans they're the most vocal and most of them don't have the courage to use their names you know first of all it shows how cowardly some of these people are because they can't use their names and faces but the fact is is that when they start going after you they're everything i say they are because they're hurting you they're not hurting me they're hurting you so i just want to put that out there if you guys want to you know that small segment it's not bothering me but you know if you want to cost vince that's up to you well i want to say this matt um first of all i want a w to succeed and i'll tell you why i i want guys to be able to make money because you like root beer you like i know i want guys to be i i want billy gunn to have a full-time job in wrestling for the next 20 years okay no no doubt about it i don't i don't know kenny omega i want kenny omega to make money and not have to kowtow to vincent stephanie mcmahon and and be embarrassed on television because he tweets something out that they don't like okay bro so there is every reason in the book i want to see them succeed but here's my point though this is my point guys guys i told you i think it is the most childish ridiculous immature babyish laughable i can't think of any more adjectives the fact that dirt cheat guys there are certain dirt sheet guys that no longer associate with matt because matt does a show with me bro to me that is the funniest thing you might as well be a three-year-old okay bro with that being said this is the equivalent like guys if you have an issue with matt because he is a fan of aew that that is the equivalent of the dirt sheet writers no longer wanting to do business with matt because the association with me matt i am if a w takes off i am ready i am on the record i am ready willing and able to say bro i was wrong i was absolutely wrong matt you are dead on like you're a hundred percent correct i will have no problem saying that the things i say now i'm just basing on what they're currently doing and what they're currently saying that's all i'm basing it in on right now and you know like i said bro i mean i think it's great that you're a fan and i'm looking at the other side of it because that gives us something to talk about but the the fact bro if you're gonna hold that against matt that that's the equivalent of freaking bruce mitchell no longer being macoon's friend it's the same freaking thing bro and you know i blocked bruce mitchell for the same reason i blocked some of these people it's always struck me as funny that the loud ones are the ones that hide so if you want to say something dude say it i'll be glad to disagree with you and i'll be glad to say well man we agree to disagree just like i do with you vince and it's just silly to me i guess i just want to get the point out that when you try to hurt matt with the patreon or whatever you're just hurting vince and and matt just so you know when they email me like that's what i tell them i i i tell them like exactly that bro if you want to if you want to hurt me then go ahead because that's the end result and but and the fact of the matter too is matt it's not even i think what's worse than the the the non-identity this this is the part about this business that i hate why has it got to become personal you know that's a good question to me bro that's that that's the point in the business where i i don't even want to associate with this business anymore it's embarrassing bro you can't have a civilized conversation with somebody with a different viewpoint without it turning into oh okay you're fat and you're obese and you're a homophobia you don't like black people and that that's the part right somebody needs to explain to me why does it always have to cross that to be clear um you know only a couple have have been you know homophobic but and nobody said anything about black people but i will say that what gets me about the anonymous thing is that you can go after me for my weight or you can go after me and say oh boohoo matt's playing the victim because he was an orphan or uh matt's a terrible father but i can't say anything to you i don't know who you are so that's why i say it's a move now i haven't said anything personal about anybody because i don't know who they are and i probably want it and also it goes to show that maybe i'm a little bit more with you than you think if i've got jim cornett attacking me on the daily as well so uh just take a moment guys and think about if you're vince russo fan why are you looking at her events and if you're looking to criticize me come out from the shadows be a man say your name it's the same stuff that vince accuses bishop and and coronet of is not meeting him face to face if you're not willing to show your identity you're certainly much worse than a bischoff or a cornet who who at least we know who they are like i said i think that's the i think that's the last time i'll ever address it i just wanted to address that vince and i'm glad you gave me the platform yeah and matt another thing like that that jumps out at me and i want i want you to understand and i want people to understand too the victim thing okay that that's what bruce mitchell said about me oh ruse you know what it is guys let me explain to you where the victim thing comes from and this is a shoot okay bro matt and myself bro we're legitimately nice guys you know what i'm saying like we're nice guys you guys are acting like so the fact that we're trying to be nice and you're acting like to you that equates to oh you're playing the victim no bro we're not playing the victim we're nice people you're an and and that's what it really really comes down to because i've seen matt address this situation now matt i'll be honest with you're a lot like me i see you try to defuse it in a respectful manner but then i see you lose you cool i'm bro i'm the same way we're human freaking beans guys where you but the fact that we you know you gotta push us to the point of okay bro now now you want the gloves off now the gloves are gonna come up why does it ever have to get to that point bro we we can disagree with things man yeah so grow up or don't i get paid either way and i'm not going anywhere um i invite anybody with a real identity with a real name to come and talk to me anytime my dms are open my phone number is easy to find so um i don't want it to get personal and i'd say i haven't gotten personal with anybody you only get personal with me it show it says more about you than it does me and i'm still going to live my life vince i think we had a good show today um we talked about brawl for all we had a couple outrages and uh make sure to check out our patreon patreon.com russo dwc regardless of all the hubbub man oh man what a great week it was for our patreon we are doing some great things over there and we have a lot of people listening to it yeah no i thank you guys man that that's how you can really you know support the show and i say it all the time bro listen patreon is for the serious russo fan it's for the serious brand fan it's extra content if you want it i mean that's what it's there for and matt and i like bro if we're on the same page about one thing it's you're gonna get your money's worth we're not gonna tiptoe through anything bro i i get text messages from matt we're doing this on thursday this on friday for the super bros this for the for the super ladies this that and and we do it but that's what it's for bro and that supports us um that that literally gives us the time um because you know bro we we've got to we've got to we've got to generate income from our time so the hours that we put into this pro we've got to generate income because we got bills like everybody else if we don't generate income we can't pay those bills and we got to go do something else i mean it's that simple so the fact that you guys support us you make this um you know you make us able to do this and without you there's no show and i have no problem saying that and i thank each and every one of you very much and we thank you guys all for listening to truth with consequences you