Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Tyrus: Here And Now’ On Fox Nation, Where The Wrestler And Pundit Proves To Be More Nostalgic Storyteller Than Comedian

Tyrus was one of the first Fox Nation hosts announced when the Fox News streaming spin-off launched late in 2018, and five years later, the former professional wrestler still has a lot to say. So much, in fact, that he couldn’t be contained in one stand-up special; rather, his comedy debut is split into two 50-minute episodes. But how funny is Tyrus when he doesn’t have Greg Gutfeld as a foil?

TYRUS: HERE AND NOW: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Tyrus, born George Murdoch (no relation to Rupert, but it does come up in Part 2 of the special), is a 50-year-old former professional wrestler who began his career training through the WWE system under a different ring name, then came up through TNA/Impact Wrestling as Tyrus, and eventually landed maximum impact with the NWA circuit, holding two different title belts in that time.

He has written about his biracial upbringing, raised by a single mom, in two memoirs: the 2002 New York Times best-seller, Just Tyrus: A Memoir, and the follow-up, Nuff Said, released this past November. Tyrus became friends with Greg Gutfeld over X/Twitter, and Gutfeld brought Tyrus into the Fox News fold, not just with the Fox Nation gig in 2018, but also as a sidekick for Gutfeld on his assorted radio and TV programs. Tyrus made his reputation on Fox News in part by providing a conflicting viewpoint to Gutfeld and being one of the few voices on Gutfeld! to contradict the host (without resorting simply to short jokes).

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Tyrus isn’t the first professional comedian to turn to stand-up comedy. Mick Foley toured comedy clubs more than a decade ago, and Dolph Ziggler more recently, while plenty of other wrestlers have appeared on comedy shows and some of the biggest wrestling stars have proven themselves adept at big laughs onscreen, too (see: Dave Bautista, John Cena, or The Rock). But you won’t find too many of them committing almost two hour of solo monologuing onstage to film, as Tyrus does here.

Memorable Jokes: Tyrus opens with a pronouns joke: “We have provided pieces of paper underneath your chairs with a pencil so you can write your pronouns, send it to the front, so I can get everybody…” his voice trailing as the audience laughs, moans and even boos, only to break out into applause when he suggests anyone who hoped to find said paper under their chairs should leave now.

But it’s not really that kind of show. When Tyrus proclaims next that, “This is an old-school show. I’m an old-school person. My fan base is old school,” what he means is he’s going to wax nostalgic about growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, and his childhood stories dominate the first part of the two-parter. We learn how his mother left instructions for him and his brother to take care of themselves after school, when a generation of kids played outside unattended until sundown.

He also relishes in the memories of watching Sgt. Slaughter wrestle with The Iron Sheik, and watching the animated G.I. Joe fight for America and deliver life lessons along the way.

Our Take: Tyrus sounds like he’s caught in his own trap.

Filming this special in small-town Louisiana, he bemoans the supposed loss of American neighborhoods and community to an audience that’s still living it. Tyrus imagines in this America, there somehow aren’t TV dinners for sale in the supermarkets?!? If he has a catchphrase in the opening 50-minute section, it’s “come get me,” as if anyone is coming to get him for anything he’s saying on Fox Nation to Fox Nation subscribers.

He tells us “What went wrong: We stopped being a patriotic country,” citing the patriotic wrestling plot lines or G.I. Joe as a sign of the good ol’ days. “Even our entertainment was based around loving our country, as children.” The reason for that wasn’t any more complicated than America was involved in a decades-long cold war with the former Soviet Union. The patriotic propaganda had a receptive audience then.

And Tyrus keeps coming back to pronouns, at one point saying when he was a kid, nicknames were their pronouns and they didn’t get to pick them, and he got called Mello Yello, then Big Yellow, when he really “wanted to be known as Badass, (or) Hulk.” Getting mad that people won’t call you by your preferred name or pronouns is a weird flex for a guy for whom Tyrus wasn’t his given birth name or even his first wrestling name. We made jokes about Sean Combs but kept going along with his multiple monikers.

And then there’s a bizarre bit of math where he tries to diffuse the sting of the R-word for white audience members (in his case, the R stands for racist), by asking if there are any slave owners in the audience, then declaring: “So there’s nobody in here 437 years old, huh?” In his mind, 2022-437 means he was looking for anyone born in 1585, despite the Civil War taking place from 1861-1865. Then again the first part of this special ends abruptly with Tyrus claiming America ended slavery relatively easily compared with the rest of the world. So maybe his oversight of the Civil War was as intentional as Nikki Haley’s non-answer at a recent campaign stop.

After all, Tyrus himself proclaims: “But we don’t care about facts now, it’s all about feelings.”

This special is heavy on feelings and rather light on facts. Sadly even lighter on laughs.

Our Call: That Tyrus says all of this on Fox Nation, where he’s preaching to a political choir that knows all of the Fox News personalities by name, no matter how minor, means this comedy special is only for people who already decided they want to spend an hour or two or more listening to anything Tyrus has to say. Even so, if you’re looking for comedy, I’d suggest you SKIP IT since Tyrus is funnier on Gutfeld! than he is here.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.