A Geek History of Time - Episode 09- The Lost Cause and Professional Wrestling (Part 4)

Episode Date: May 21, 2019

In this episode, Damian chronicles the development of the professional wrestling industry as we know it today, focusing on the regional differences in storylines and character development. Ed wonders how anybody named "Ole" could ever be convincing as a bad guy.

I'm gonna install them in the Nazis with these welfare state types. One of us is a stand-up comic. Can you tell me it is? Ladies and gentlemen, everyone, brick. Um. But the problem. Oh my god. That's like, I could use that to teach the whole world. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha This is still a geek history of time.

Where we bring nerdery into the real world. I'm Ed Blalock. I'm a world history teacher at a school here in California. I'm also a new father of a now ten month old son. And my earliest experience with science fiction as such would be reading Hamspace Suit Will Travel by Robert Heinlein in the sixth grade. Okay. I mean it actually goes back much farther than that because I picked up my father's copy of the Hobbit when I was about eight. Oh. And I didn't really catch all of what I was

reading but I knew I was hooked. Sure. So, how about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a Latin teacher, formerly a social science teacher, up here in Sacramento, in California. And my first exposure to sci-fi was, I guess it had to be just Star Wars, like in terms of literature, though, I don't know. I remember there was a book called Space Guys and Sports Coats, I think.

Guys from Space, that's what it was. My mom got that from the library, and that might have been my first foray into it, but I never really got into sci-fi reading until I was 19 years old, at which point I still don't even call it sci-fi because they're Star Wars books. And that space opera was its own weird, not really sci-fi, it's space fantasy, very good term for. And I say that lovingly, understand. Oh, I don't mind judging it as being lesser than sci-fi.

I've got no problem with that too. I'm also a huge pro wrestling fan, and so I'm used to things being judged as lesser than So speaking of professional wrestling. Yeah, when asked we left our podcast. Yeah, we just found that sports were crooked as shit Like that was really fine as that or was that we got into that in the chronology I mean, you know boxing was fixed. Wrestling was leaning towards submission and pinfall and that can be faked and baseball itself had been fixed in 1918. Yeah so this week we're gonna be talking we're gonna start we're gonna pick back up from there with Frank Gouch and George Hackensmith. Hackens and George Hackensmith. Hackensmith.

Hackensmith. And I wish to help. Sounds like my wife's family. I mean that's a German name. Oh and he was called, oh my Lord I'm forgetting. He was called the Marian Bruiser. Very close. It was the something lion and it was and it wasn't a literative It was but it was close to that. Yeah, but okay, so Prussian lion. Yeah, it wasn't quite that I will look and I would love to show you a picture of him because you're gonna you'd be like okay That is a man who looks like a man who would be named George Hackensmith Frank gotch looks a little less Frank gotchy okay Frank gotch looks a little less Frank gotchy. Okay. Um, but so okay, what you've got here is in the early 1900s Frank gotch who has been trained by farmer burns who had defeated

who had defeated I put in air quotes. Yes. Yes. Word. Rather. Um, the original I call the train. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the reasons why I was. At the strangler. At the strangler. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the reasons why was, because Louis wanted to retire. But nobody could beat him. It's like under the giant. Uh-huh. Yeah.

Yeah. What's old is new. Oh, yeah. You even get to the Montreal Screwjob of 1997 where Bret Hart is legitimately screwed over. And everybody else says Bret, screwed Bret. I think Vince, screwed Brett, but Brett Hart is actually screwed over, and it's a big deal.

And somebody referred to it as like, oh my God, they Wendy Lewis Tim, or Wendy Richter Tim, because that had happened to Wendy Richter in 1984, and that had happened to somebody in the 60s. And so it's not. Everything all this new again. Yeah.

Those who study history or dooms to watch everybody who didn't study history, repeat it. Yeah. So Frank Gotch, George Hackensmith, is one of the biggest matches in the history of the sport ever. So you're not too far from the mark with the Andre the Giant, Hulk Hogan reference. Hackensmith was successful all over Europe. He was a world champion. Gotch successful over the United States, he's

a US champion. Now he and gotch ended up wrestling April 3rd, 1908 in Chicago. It's a story of New America versus old Europe. That's how it's promoted. And it was promoted. It was catch style versus European style. And Hackenschmitt had already beaten a very famous American catch wrestler. So you also have a story of revenge and redemption going on. 6,000 spectators. Okay. 20 dollar ringside seats. Which, okay, now we could have clarified. Bought you a family. ringside seats. Which, okay, now we could have... That could have... ...plarify. ...bought you a family.

Yes, we need to clarify that to us, wow, 20 bucks, that's like, dirt cheap. But remember, we're talking about 1908 where, you know, going out and spending 25 cents on a meal was considered really splurgey. Oh yeah. Well... ...really splurgey. Just for a way of comparison, in 1993, I went with my friends to see guns and roses in Metallica with body count opening for them. I did not get to see that show when it came to San Diego. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. It was awesome. We literally tore up the Oakland Coliseum. Wow.

Which sucked because they had a playoff game the next night. So, I paid $27 for that ticket in 1993. Oh, it's General Emission. Oh, yeah, I got down to the pit and then my friends and I, we went back up to the stands clearly. This is too big. Yeah. But yeah, that was, so for $20, you got to bring side seat.

Yeah. Okay. So here's how the match goes. It takes two hours. Holy crap. It's a wrestling match. And Godch decided to wrestle defensively. Defensive wrestling is some boring ass wrestling.

Yes. Even if you know what it is. Yeah. It's also really, really, really hard to beat if somebody's determined that I'm just not going to let you get me. Right. It's that episode of Star Trek, the next generation where Data beats the guy with the little fingery game.

Yeah. Yeah. I busted him up, you know. After two hours, Hackensmith concedes the match. He's tired of it. Because he got bored. I guess. I mean, I certainly would have.

He also, by the way, yeah. But Hackensmith, gotch, rather, headbutted, leaned hard, and thumbed, Hackensmith, everywhere. He's catch, catch, can. Hackensmith is European. Now later, Hackensmith claims that gotch comes to the ring oiled up So he conceited going up. He's the better man. You wins that a duck despite being gouged Thumbs going everywhere headbutts everywhere oil checked. Yep. I'm still getting over that So so but afterward, Hacken Schmidt says, no, actually there were

some irregularities here. This was a problem, you know, upon further review. To the point where he'd actually asked the referee during the match to fork Gach to go back and take a hot shower before they continued. Really? Yeah, to all the, now got to deny this. And later on, I'm sorry. Yeah, no, just like, wow. Yeah, okay. Now this happens in MMA on occasion, by the way.

They've created rules to get around some of this. Like there was a match between two guys where the guy was like, well his back was all greasy or all of a sudden. And they found out that a guy was rubbing his back. He's like, no, no, I was using some sort of like mystical energy training thing. And it just like, wow. And so they made a rule about it. About how you touch. It's like Tiger Ball.

Right. You know. So goth denies this. And later on, dams hack and smith as a liar. Oh wow. You have essentially the rubber match, getting set up on pay-per-view. That's what, I mean, that's really what, these guys are publicizing. Now it is not treated as a work. Everybody thinks this is completely real, to the point where the history points to it

as being a fairly real thing. I don't know, but you do ever ever match and to prove how good he was, Frank Gouch goes on a tear all over, barnstorming everywhere, defeating people everywhere. And he was so good that people started losing interest, like he just was destroying people. And it was just like, oh, look what he did. Not even in the fun way that it was to watch Mike Tyson beat people, like you knew it was coming, you didn't know how or when. Yeah, everybody has a plan right up till he got punched in the fun way that it was to watch Mike Tyson beat people like you knew it was coming You didn't know how or when everybody has a plan right up till he got punched in the face right and he's taking people out in 93 seconds, you know and she'll like that just the photographs of bus to Douglas getting hit yeah The day after in the newspapers. Yeah, so

He's so good that people stop losing you know start losing interest in the sport He beat a man named Stanislaus Zabisco in less than 10 seconds. Now Stanislaus Zabisco is one of the Polish wrestlers who comes over. There were two. There was Vladasov and Stanislaus Zabisco. These guys, those are some names. They are. And now here's the interesting thing.

There's a wrestler in the 1970s who gets started by training under Bruno San Martino. And he's brought up his Bruno's protege and his name, his Larry Zabisco. He took the name. It's not really the name, but he took the name and he made himself famous and he was a famous heal. I mean, really good bad guy. There have been other wrestlers that have taken the names of old famous wrestlers. Because again, wrestling is a self-canibalizing industry that really ignores its own history most of the time so that it can seem new. So he beats this guy in less than 10 seconds.

I don't know if it's a worker or a shoot. I'm assuming it's a shoot. The way it was taught in the history is that it's a shoot. In late 1911, he's working with Jack Curly, who is one of the most important, what a name, one of the most important, it's fun to see what gets people snorting. So Jack Curly is one of the most important promoters in the early history of the work sport, of the work sport, of the work sport. Okay. Of the work sport. Not of the legit sport.

Okay. The worked version of it. This guy gets a rematch set up for Kamiski Park in Chicago again. Curly kept $44,000 of the $87,000 gate. Well, of course. Right. What else is he in it for? Right.

Now, here's where it gets good. I mean, awful. I mean, good. I mean, awful. Hackensmith training for the match suffered a knee injury. This happens. These things happen. Now later someone would claim that they were paid $5,000 to do it on purpose. Comes out. I'm the one that did it. I was paid $5,000 to do it so the Hackensmith would lose. But Hackensmith had never mentioned this person as part of his training on tarage at all. So it's probably untrue.

It's just a guy claiming to have done it. But he did have what we call water on the knee at the time. Okay. So fast forward a little bit. Most of the big wrestling promoters are out of the Northeast, like I told you, right? Mostly Jewish Italian Irish. Yeah.

You know what a good Irish name is by the way in the Northeast? McMahon. Oh, yeah. Good point. Um, there are local champions all along the rail lines stretching from New York, California. Most of the mechanisms, though, come from the Northeast. Okay, so it's a largely, as an entertainment model. It's largely an urban northeastern entertainment model. Okay. But the guys that keep being the champions are

from Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, their corn-fred farmboys. Well, yeah. Right? By 1919, Curly is taking wrestlers like Strangler Lewis, Vlodix Zabisco, Joe Stetcher, and others all around the country touring and putting on fixed matches. Show off your stuff, tonight Vlodix is going to win. Show off your stuff, tonight Stetcher is going to win. When we come back through, you'll get your your revenge match People pay a quarter for that Competitions don't draw money because they're boring a shit and they you can't guarantee drama and this is by the way a criticism that Paul of ask also known as triple H also knows 100 hers tells me he's the guy who's kind of gonna be the air apparent to running the WWF Vince McMahon ever stops drinking the blood of Virgins and dies.

But he actually criticized MMA for this. He's like, you don't know what you're getting for a main event. With us, you know you're getting a good 20 minute match. Yeah, with MMA, it could be over in five seconds. The moment somebody gets punched in the face. Right. Yeah. So drama drums up money. And by this point, there is a championship.

There is a belt. There are local championships. There's also to promoter wars too. They have like these cabals set up something called the gold dust trio, which is made up of Billy Sando, set up something called the Gold Dust Trio, which is made up of Billy Sando, Strangler Lewis, and Joe, nickname Tutz Mont. Now Billy Sando, his name, ends up getting used by a wrestler in the last decade or so

named Damien Sando. Gold Dust Trio, there's a wrestler that came on to the scene in the late 1990s named Gold Dust. So, again, what's old as new? These guys control the title, they decided who it got dropped to, when it got dropped, and they worked the sport into a profitable work. So it was making them good money, and it always left the audience wanting to come back to see what would happen next. That's what they figured out.

If you can leave the audience pissed, they'll come back to see their champion vindicated. And so on, you know, the drama is in the chase. Now, also, you get a few shoots, but those were accidental. There was like wrestlers going, oh no, I can fucking take this guy. So that's what happens in this world.

There would be a great Cohen Brothers movie. Right? In this. Like the last shooter. Yeah, oh brother where art thou? Right. Like I'm seeing it. It's happening.

Let's write it up and pitch it to them. Yeah. And by the way, there's some terms you probably know. A shooter is someone who wrestles for real. And if you notice who was on this Gold Dust trio, Joe Mont, Tudes Mont, he was a former pro. Strangler Lewis. Well, yeah.

Billy Sando, more of the money guy. But you would have something called a shooter, also known as a hooker, because he would know what part of your body to hook on the carnival circuit. You would have one of them be your champion, but he was in on it because if someone did try to what was called going to business for yourself, if someone did try to do that, they'd be able to fight their way out of it. So it was still important to have good shooting skills, good hook and skills. But now it's mostly Northeastern using Western and Midwestern bodies. Now by 1925, enough of this organization becomes profitable that various promoters start staking out claims

to various territories. And they have to work together to make money. Your champion's coming through here. I've got a champion who says he can beat him. Let's drum this up. You come through and beat him, but barely. And then on the way back, we decide then if you can be but you know don't just destroy this guy we don't we're not gonna let you wrestle him if you destroy him

but if you take him for 40 minutes and then you barely squeak it out you make our guy look better people are gonna want to come see him get ready for the return match and so on. This territory says system lasts until cable television okay now it starts in 25 or so. The various promoters set up a trust, an actual trust called the National Wrestling Alliance, the NWA, where they decided who the champ would be and who he'd drop it to. And each territory had their own shooters who'd make sure that things went the way the promoters wanted. And if you went into business for yourself,

there would be shooters there to greet you at the door and hand you your hat and probably your elbow. Um. But here's the thing. If you're the guy that beat the champion, you're gonna find work somewhere else. Another territory will want you, but they're gonna have a stern talking to with you.

Yeah, you will drop it when I tell you. Now in 1930, this is when the NWA starts, right? And even that's a bit of a mystery. Some people say it started in 1948, which is, that's a hell of a gap. And it's because in 1948 you have the first meeting of the quote, board of directors for the NWA to specifically determine who would do what. So it wasn't just through telegram or like send a letter with this guy or you travel with your guy. Others say it was in 1930 when Jim Laundice defeated Dixia Cot. Jim Laundice is a really important guy. He is one of the first he was what was he called the Greek spectacle something to that effect? He was more body builder than he was wrestler.

So that's the beginning of that aspect of the entertainment of the... It's another step down that road that you can't come back from. Because previously, remember the Greco-Roman guys were bigger and beefier. Well, this guy was more cut too. Sculpted. Right, but now spectacle matters more than wrestling, whereas before, spectacle mattered in addition to the wrestling. And also, his career only succeeds if it's a work,

or I mean, if it's a shoot. He can't work everyone. He can shoot, you know, he can work everyone. He can't shoot, right. I can't shoot with the tinkers, guys. Yeah, yeah. Now, it was a loose agreement between various territories that they all recognized one champion.

So you would have a territory champion, and you'd have a national champion. National champion would be on tour. He'd come through, make your territorial champion look at like a million bucks, and then barely beat him, or defeat him and just destroy him. It depends on how each guy related to the crowd and now it matters relating to the crowd. Interestingly 1930 versus

1948 you have the difference between a whole lot of things happening. Well the depression right versus you know the big day the very earliest beginnings of television. Thank you exactly Exactly. But they, the cool thing was, is that like you travel around each, each territory, you make the local looks good, you went and lose the way the promoters have determined. You do this for a couple of years, usually, usually until like you get injured or you burn out. Each territory would eventually get its chance to win the championship. That's kind of nice, you know, you house the champion there. And then their champion would tour the country doing the same thing in turn, right?

Now, a lot of the NWA seemed to center in the St. Louis Missouri territory. Okay. Which I find interesting because Missouri has two national banks. The reason Missouri has two national banks is because they had two major rail lines for cattle. If you have two major rail lines for cattle, you also have an infrastructure set up where you are getting crisscrossed by trains all the time. If you're getting crisscrossed by trains all the time, that's a lot of carnivals coming

through. Yeah. Also, it matters pointing out based on this structure of what we're talking about here that Missouri was a border state that had people fight for both sides in the Civil War. Yeah, they had two separate legislatures. Yeah, they did, yeah. Which I talked about previously.

Yeah. A lot of your champions are also based out of the New York territory. So you've got the New York territory and the Missouri territory. Now again, Midwest, different system of wrestling, but it's also now very much the catch is catch can, submission and pinfall and everything's much more codified by this point. Right. So by the time you have the NWA, you have fallen away from every time you

say NWA, I picture ice cube. I'm having a lot of different. I'm sorry. I know. I know. But imagine my confusion moving to Florida and then being super into NWA and it wasn't the NWA. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like, why are these guys who look like white truckers in underwear? What? What is this? What the hell? Yeah. Um, so it makes sense, you know, that Missouri's the center of the country. New York is the largest urban area in the country, so you're going to get a lot of business. But here's

what happens. Each, so even though you have that difference between Southern and Western style versus urban style, where it was style, style, style, and technique, technique, unique versus brutal, brutal, brutal. Now, we've moved past that because everybody's in the working, not the shooting. Doesn't mean you don't have shooters, but it's much more you, everybody who's at the top level, they can shoot, but they haven't had to for a long time.

Okay. Okay. So what has fed this style in this region is the weight of history. Okay. But now it's a work. So how do you turn this brutal, I can fish hook you if I want style brutal, I can fish hook you if I want style into a work, right? Because as it turns out, it's, you make more money working the guy instead of actually brutalizing him completely. So all these groups have their own style and all these crowds have been trained by that style. Yeah. Very much symbiotic relationship. So these crowds draw towards certain types of wrestling and so each territory has its own type of wrestling and the champions come in and he has to be able to adapt to that style in order to be a draw. Being a draw means you're making lots of money. Now I'm going to read you a list of the wrestling territories

and I'll tell you where they're from. The Atlantic Grand Prix. This is all stuff in the NWA. The Atlantic Grand Prix wrestling. This was Monkon and Halifax. Canadian Athletic Promotions. Slash IWA. Slash Lute International.

Slash Grand Prix Wrestling. This was Montreal. Name changes. Northland Wrestling Enterprises. This was Montreal. Okay. Name changes. Northland wrestling enterprises. This was North Hudson Bay. Maple Leaf Wrestling, Toronto. American Wrestling Association, Minneapolis, but also included parts of Canada. Okay.

Stampede Wrestling, Calgary. Makes sense. Right? Canada's version of Texas. All-star wrestling, Vancouver. Pacific Northwest wrestling, also known as Portland Wrestling, based out of Portland, Oregon. Big Time Wrestling, San Francisco.

World Wrestling Association, slash the NWA Hollywood Wrestling. Los Angeles. 50th state big-time wrestling, Polynesian Pacific Wrestling, Honolulu. Western States Wrestling, Alliance, Phoenix. Western States Sports, Emerillo. Southwest Championship Wrestling, San Antonio. World Class Championship Wrestling, Dallas. Houston wrestling, Houston. Tri-state wrestling, also known as Mid-South Wrestling Association, Tulsa, and New Orleans. Gulf Coast championship wrestling,

slash continental championship wrestling, was in Doathen. I couldn't figure it out. Yeah, that makes sense, Gulf Coast. Georgia championship wrestling Atlanta Champion champion ship wrestling from Florida based out of Tampa world wrestling council San Juan Puerto Rico Oh, and oh my god, that was some brutal shit. I might get into that Minute Atlantic championship wrestling also known as Jim Crockett promotions later on based out of Charlotte

Southeast championship wrestling also known as a continental championship wrestling also known as Jim Crockett promotions later on based out of Charlotte. Southeast championship wrestling also known as continental championship wrestling, Knoxville. National Wrestling Federation, Buffalo and Cleveland. Worldwide Wrestling Federation. That's out of New York. Now it used to be known as Capital Wrestling, which was out of DC. Now, it used to be known as capital wrestling, which was out of DC. And that was Vince McMahon's father, Vince McMahon's senior. And then he moved it up to New York and so on. Big time wrestling is in Detroit. World Wrestling Association in Deanapolis. St. Louis Wrestling Club.

St. Louis. NWA Mid-America, slash Continental Championship Wrestling. Memphis. Also, later on known as USWA, United States Wrestling Association. NWA Heart of America, slash Central States, Kansas City. OK. So you see that there's, that's the original territories. OK.

OK. Now like any other group of territories, there's mergers, acquisitions, collapses, different people buy different things. And that doesn't include expansion into Japan and Australia, by the way. Okay. Now, hearing that list, you might notice that there's a lot in the Southern Territories. Yes. 13 originally encompassed states that seceded from the Union. 13. Alright, so I have here this map and nobody can see this on the podcast, but I want you to kind of...

I can. ...tool around, yeah, and tell us, describe to us what you see. Okay. A lot of cartoony illustrations of some very beefy gentlemen. Mm-hmm. Now actually tell me about the beefy gentlemen. Look at their different builds based on the different regions. Yeah, what I find really interesting is we have a whole bunch of very chiseled guys in the north.

Yeah. And in the southeast, Dusty Rhodes looks like a simo wrestler. That's generous. Well, he does. And then out, out far west in California, in Pepper Gomez, Playboy Buddy Rose, and Freddie Blassy. All, again, look pretty chiseled. That's Playboy Buddy rose when he was younger you well

Yeah, he later got fat and then used that as a gimmick. Oh nice and he would I got a figure out how to do. Oh, it's great. He would act vain as hell Okay, but he would come out with his belt below his belly button line. So it's just like a dumb lap It was hilarious. I also noticed this guy, Vern Gagny, who has a prodigious amount of chest hair. He's also bald. Yes, which is remarkable. Old man bald.

Dory Funk, Jr. Terry Funk. One of them looks a little bit doughboy in this illustration. So yeah I'm seeing a lot of the most jack-la-lane look-and-dos are concentrated in the farthest northeastern... well the farthest north across the board and then out west. With the exception of when you get far enough west to get high chief Peter I have you yeah, yeah, and that's the rocks grandfather yeah Who who looks you know like a

Athletic like an athletic Polynesian man. Yeah, not some own. Oh, yeah, well Yeah, and and having grown up out there there are plenty of jokes and just you know common knowledge is there people you don't mess with because they're goddamn huge yeah well and that's that's a thing in wrestling by the way is like oh who you're wrestling tonight this guy oh he's a Simone you're gonna be fine why oh cuz Oh, because they can go. Like and Simone wrestlers like it's insane. So yeah and and a lot of blonde dudes. Like a higher higher than I think the population proportion. And where are the blonde dudes

concentrated by the way? She knows? An awful lot of them in the southeast. Yep. Off a lot of them in the southeast. Yeah. Yeah. There's some commentary to be made there. I'm sure. Uh-huh. Oh, hey. Ricky Doza and Giant Baba. Antonio and Noke, those are some names. Giant Baba.

I love it. Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance. All you do, yeah, which is, you know, real combat trying to make it look staged. And as I recall, Ricky Doza was killed by the Yakuza. Okay, I could believe that. Yeah. Knowing what I know about, you know, Japanese pot.

Now I might have mixed him up with another fellow. But yeah. All right, so yeah. So this is a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. And there other the other thing that immediately jumped out It was the the level of density. Yeah Is east coast? Yeah versus west coast which just mirrors the population density in general Absolutely, you know as long as the country has been a thing we call

We're the states for a reason Well, and did you notice the coloring behind each fellow? Yes, that was their region. That was their territory, yeah. So much smaller territories out east. And bigger regions for each individual guy out west. Which was terrible for the wrestlers. Well, yeah. Especially once you got to the era of having cars,

because you would have to drive 500 miles to the next spot overnight and then get ready for the next spot and wrestle and get your body beat up and then move on. And then? Yeah, which kind of explains why these guys are doughboys, because they don't have time to get to a gym. Yeah, that makes sense. I can see that.

So, yeah. Now, like I said, that's a lot of southern territories. Yeah. 13 of the ones that I listed originally were in states that seceded from the union. Only about four of those territories that I listed were in states that fought to keep the union together. Yes. Guess which ones were the most financially successful ones? I'm picking up a psychic wave that tells me it was also the southern ones. No.

No, southern territories were not profitable, not for the wrestlers or the... Really? Right. Here's why. They didn't have infrastructure like the North did. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

So guess where most of your big stars keep coming from, too. Northern promotions. Northern promotions because they have the money to push into training into. Now most of your champions are going to come from the Midwest, but most of them will be will have their professional routes in the North. Now with the advent of the NWA, the advent of television and the organization of it all, you start to see localized wrestling become even more localized because they didn't have national television yet.

No. TV was used to sell the local circuit, which was interesting. So now the model is TV sells pay-per-view and pay-per-view sells itself. And you have what are called house shows. Those get you interested in what's going on on TV. There's all the money on the TV end. Back then they used the TV to get you to go to the little show. Exactly. And so the territories would run a circuit. So if you were in the California territory, you would do Mondays in Sacramento, Tuesdays in San Francisco, Wednesdays in Fresno, Thursdays in San Diego, Fridays on, you know, and then you do the whole circuit again, you know.

Now I usually ran from about Thursday through Tuesday, you know, or Thursday to Monday. So you definitely want to work the weekends. Oh, yeah, it was brutal. God. And the San Francisco Territory was a good territory to be in, actually. Okay. Because you weren't traveling that far for anyone's shot.

The territories that were held were the Memphis territories. These ones, I'm pointing to a whole bunch of your flyover states, your rectangular states. They're all colored purple, and they're all the same territory. So you might have a spot here in, let's see, that's Colorado, right? So that would be, no, that's Colorado.

You'd have a spot in Colorado one day, and this spot all the way up here in Wisconsin the next day. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. So it was bad. Uh, and so the TV would be used to advertise when the national champion was coming to town too. Now this takes us to what's called the territory system.

To characterize the territories, a territory has its own character as a territory. The audience has been trained and taught to accept a certain kind of thing and each one had its own local approach that appealed to the locals and it has its roots all the way back when wrestling was real. For instance, the type of local champion could tell you a lot about the territory. So could the types of feuds that they had. Okay. So feuds showed you how your good guys, also known as faces, and your bad guys, also known as heels, would fight. Okay. And this is the whole point of the podcast, by the way. The whole point ties it back point, ties it back. To this, we have arrived.

Being lost cause. Yes. It's only been three episodes. In each territory, they were creating stories that answered to a local need that appealed to the locals like guys. They were making compelling drama that the local folks would want to come back and see every week. TV was a tool that just furthered the house shows. Not the other way around. Wrestling in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and early 80s was mostly local as was its broadcast. I remember watching local. Have you ever watched local wrestling? No, I have not. It's dog shit. It's not entirely fair.

It's not entirely fair. Don't you really get a damnie of dope, don't you? Now it's better, but when I was little, it was dog shit. I watched Northern California Wrestling, which wasn't part of the NWA. It was like CCW, I think it was. And I mean, I watched this guy came out with like two candles and a mask and he was called the fryer and It was I mean it's just the most boring-ass character the the lowest production value it was just

But you know these things don't make that much money. So yeah, I'm a tackle the Northern Territories first all right So up here We're taking a look at the WWF. Worldwide Wrestling Federation. Later short into the World Wrestling Federation because Vince McMahon seniors like, well, if it's on the world, we don't need to know that it's wide. And there's a world wrestling center. That's a savvy gentleman.

He really was. Now, later on, it turns into the world wrestling entertainment because they lose a lawsuit to determine who gets to keep the name, the World Wildlife Foundation or the World Wrestling. Yeah. And frankly, frankly, they shouldn't have lost it. That decision was kind of made on moral grounds. Yeah. It's ridiculous. But whatever. So it's run by an Irishman. Yes. Who is the son of, okay, so Vince McMahon, Vincent Jessup McMahon. Senior.

Yeah, so this is a Vince senior. Even though a senior is normally you have the same name completely. His son doesn't have the same name. But yeah. It's like how we say Bush Jr. yeah he's not a junior but he's a Bush the second sort of yeah yeah so Vincent Jessup McMahon yeah is the son of an Irish boxing and wrestling promoter okay so we are talking by the so you get to Vince McMahon that's the third generation Vince McMahon's kids Stephanie McMahon that's a fourth generation promoting job, right? Family business, little mom and pop shop.

They start in Washington, DC, and they migrated up to Beltway to settle in New York. Vincent, Jess at McMahon, again the senior, had a problem with the way that the NWA Championship was being decided. And he basically ends up settling up his own territory. He's like, I'm not going to be part of you guys. He will cooperate with them.

He will co-promote with them on occasion. But by and large, the WWF, later the WWF, exists outside of the NWA structure. Do you remember when there was talk in New York of seceding from the Union so they wouldn't have to put up with the slavery bullshit that was being foisted upon them by the federal government? Vaguely, yes. This echoes that. His territory was a face territory. And you could tell, so some territories are heel territories where the main star is a bad guy. And some territories are face territories

where the main star is a good guy. This is the podcast, this is the point. Okay. So normally in the New York territory, a good guy holds the championship. They're first major champion and they had a couple other champions before this, but their first main one was Bruno Samartino.

Okay. Italian immigrant. Heard his name from you. Oh yeah. In an earlier episode. Okay. Now Bruno Samartino grew up very sick. His family hid in a cave when the Nazis invaded Italy.

Oh wow. Yeah, his mom would disappear for two days so that she could get food for them. So they wouldn't know if mom was living her dead. He was incredibly sick. They come over to New York, gets beat up by bullies all the time. Finally starts working out. I mean, it's like straight up your Charles Atlas type stuff.

Yeah. Ends up really working out a lot, being one of the strongest men at that time. I never really liked him as a wrestler, quite honestly. He was a punching kick wrestler. Not that exciting to me, but if you're Italian in New York, he's your guy. There's a lot of Italians in New York, so he's your guy, and he's huge. His family actually, yeah, like I said, and he's huge. His family actually, yeah, like I said, well, I jumped ahead of myself.

So Bruna was championed for over seven years. Okay. That's unheard of. That is a long story. From 1960 to 1971, he was the champion. He sold out Madison Square Garden 180 times. Holy cow. All right.

He was huge in both ways. He was ethnically identified and he did a lot of power moves. Like wow, he picked up that guy. Wow, he just threw that guy and he sold tickets. And he was the template for good guys in that territory. Okay. Okay. Again, it's a face territory and I'm going to get back to why that is and a bit. The guy who beat him was a guy named Ivan Kohloff in 1971. Okay. A guy named Ivan Kohloff. Yeah. Uh-huh. Beesom, right? Yeah. Kohldorf. They said that when that happened, you could have heard a pin drop. Like Madison Square Garden went silent. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha Cool off held the belt for about a month. Of course. Right, because he's a bad guy. Yeah.

This is not a heel territory. No. The guy who beat him for it was a beloved man, an ethnic face, a guy named Pedro Morales, Puerto Rican. Another heel beats him. Interestingly, the heel that beats Pedro Morales is a Texan Cowboy. And I'm blanking on the name. I want to say it was Dick Murdock, but it wasn't Dick Murdock.

And stand the Larry at Hanson. He beats him and holds it for nine days. Then Bruno takes it back for another three and a half years. Holy cow. There's a pattern here. The heals hold another three and a half years. Holy cow. There's a pattern here. The heels hold it for just a little bit so you can transition and they're called transitional champions. You can transition and then drop the championship to a clear fan favorite, ethnic face.

This continues until superstar Billy Graham. Okay. You may have heard of him, I'm not sure. Yeah, vag Graham. Okay. You may have heard of him, I'm not sure. Yeah, vaguely. Yeah. I have a vaguely collection of... Yeah.

He beats Bruno San Martino by clearly cheating. Okay. Gets his legs on the rope. Okay. And he actually is the longest... I did the research on this one. He is the longest holding heel. Because he held it until... 80. So he held it until 80.

So he held it for a couple of years. So he holds it for a while. But until 1994, you don't have a bad guy holding the belt for longer than heat, or forever, ever for that long. But the next one to hold it as long, or at least even approaching that, is in 1994. That's a lot of faces holding the belt for a much longer time, right?

Now in this territory, it's a Northeastern urban setting. You're either what's called a white meat baby face, clear hero, good moral standing, or you're an ethnic champion. Okay. Those are the two things. Or if you are a bad guy, you're an ethnic champion. Okay. Those are the two things. Or if you are a bad guy, you're transitional. Okay.

Okay, and that's just, that's who's holding the belt. That's plenty of guys under the card who are doing different things. No, you're okay, you're creative. But that's your formula. Usually, a foreigner who is underrepresented in the beltway area, Russian or Japanese. Okay. What are the Trans-Sessionals? Right, those are your Trans-Sessionals.

Okay, okay. Hulk Hogan was made famous here. Okay. Okay. The kind of wrestling that is done is feats of strength, spectacle, minimal skill. Okay. Now the undercard, plenty of skilled guys coming through work and doing all kinds of things, different guys doing different things, but your championship, punch and kick wrestlers,

feats of strength, posing, spectacle. That's it. Okay. The baby face either dominated for most of the match or he sold. Now to sell is to take damage and show it. Really draw the crowd in. Yeah, you suffer. Stick modder. Yeah. So you either... Take the chair of the face. Exactly. Like, oh my God. How is he going to get out of this one? Uh-huh. If you're a baby face, you're either going to dominate almost entirely,

or you're going to sell almost entirely. Okay. Hardly anything in between. Okay. Your faces are cartoonish sell almost entirely. Okay. Hardly anything in between Okay, your faces are cartoonishly super heroes. Okay. Okay. Now you move to Detroit Big time wrestling in Detroit. You have it rapid back and forth with a slew of faces coming out on top more often than not So in New York its stability It's only a few champions in the course of a decade and a half and Detroit You went it tonight. You lose it tomorrow. You went it back the next day, right? It's just back and forth Usually faces come out on top, but it's not always the same faces. It's a much more transitory

Territory, okay at the top even transitory territory at the top even. Much more midwestern but it's still very Yankee because good guys are winning. The good guys typically are sportsmen. Fewer of them are identified by their ethnicity although there was more ethnic champions would come through Bobo Brazil, Pomparino Fierpo, both from South America. Interestingly enough, not as huge as further east, like physically, not as white meat. Bad guys are typically personality driven. They're not big hulking bodies. They're usually personality driven. Like, oh, he's a dasterly guy.

Oh, that's a chicken shit heel. A chicken shit heel is a guy who basically like will take all the advantages when the refs back is turned and then like if you like turn around you start getting really mad, he'll hide behind the ref. Shit like that, right? Really gets the crowd into it. Or they are, or you're an aristocratic heel, you know, or I mean, there's all kinds of, yeah, yeah. Or you're a foreigner from Germany. Unrequited structured nozzles were really popular in the 50s.

Really? Yeah. And in Detroit, Arabs. Really? Yeah. Specifically in Detroit. Mm-hmm. I'm trying to figure out what the driving, I'm not

just demographic as far as I can tell because in, in Michigan, you have some of the largest Arab populations in the United States. Canada has its own thing. I'm sticking mostly to the US by contrast. When you get to the Midwestern territories, St. Louis wrestling club. Yeah.

So out there, um, they see a ton of turnover in his championship. Now this makes sense. Like I said, this territory covers a lot of ground. And it had the NWA coming through very frequently. This one, the WWF existed kind of outside of that. It was, you could keep most of your wrestling in New York, maybe up and down, upstate New York, just within a few states.

But everybody wants to see the same story. Also, the network broadcast would reach that area. Here, same amount of areas being reached, but you have multiple towns way in the far out. So you have to kind of replay everything for them. So the territory covers a lot of ground, and the NWA is coming through there a lot more frequently than the WWF. And it was a fairly even split between faces and heels holding the bell.

You said a border state. Okay. Up north, baby faces are coming out on top more often, right? The guys that are actually wrestling your faces were regular looking guys, but maybe a little taller Okay, they were the guys that you'd see working at the feed lots They looked like that. Okay But they were all technically very adept. They're good technical wrestlers. And they're often farm kids with a pen shot for wrestling. Who learned submission at wrestling by the carnivals. That's kind of what you see. The heels were very often monster heels.

So you got a guy come through and he's six foot six and he just destroys people until you got the one baby face who's not gonna take it And then the baby face gets his ass kicked anyway, but then the baby face is gonna go and yeah Right or you have a lot of chicken shit heels So either of monsters or chicken shits in the same little set or not much else You either have a guy who nobody could be, and oh my God, who's gonna save us from this Northern menace, or a guy who sneaks out of every match,

and how the hell did he win? Again, that son of a bitch, the crooked, yeah. Huh. Something you wanna say? It's for me laying, keep going. This absolutely goes back to your carnival roots. Railroads influence in the territory. Now you get to the southern end of the NWA. Now before I get to the rest of South, I have to touch on Texas because Texas is

a might different. So I'm going to talk about Texas first. Texas had three. I actually say four known territories in a state. One of them is El Paso and that's run by the Guerrero family. Gory Guerrero, his name was Gory. That's how brutal it was. Yeah. And he had five kids. Hector, Mondo, Chavo, I forget the other one, and Eddie.

Okay. Okay. All right. Then they had kids. Chavo had another kid. And Eddie and Chavo were like three years kids. Chavo had another kid. And Eddie and Chavo were like three years apart. Chavo, junior, right?

Eddie Guerrero, you may have heard his name, I'm not sure. Yeah, I just sound familiar. Very famous family. That's the El Paso Laredo crowd. And that is Luchador Loving. And Luchador Wrestling is a totally different beast. It's its own kind of crazy. Oh boy howdy. Um soap opera

but like like it's yeah it strikes me as being the wrestling version of telenovela. Yeah like like how crazy does an American soap opera get right. Okay let's put that in a pot with some hob and euro peppers. I'm crank the heat up to 11 and then what comes out is... You rub in someone's eye. It's, yeah. And yeah, and you have telenovela or... Yeah, it's, yeah. Luchin or... Which is so much fun to watch, but like, and while you say that at the same time, they're

just now like starting to institute different kinds of psychology into the wrestling. I mean, it's just such a different beast. Yeah. Mexican wrestling is very largely influenced by Spanish bullfighting. Okay. Carnival and circus entertainment. Yeah.

And also Puerto Rican Vengeance-based wrestling. Puerto Rican wrestling is all about vengeance and shit happening outside of the ring. Oh my God. like they advertise one match by crashing a car into one of the wrestlers. It was insane, like, and it started a fucking riot. Like, wow. That was the whole thing.

Yeah, Carlos Cologne, I mean, it was nuts. So very high flying, very technically adept faces. Your heels are very rule breaking and thuggy. Okay. And very, very bloody. Okay. The bullfight. Yeah.

Another Southwest championship wrestling was a heel territory, okay? So that's down here. Yeah, the Tully Blanchard Territory. Okay. This means that the champion is more often than not a bad guy and he holds his title by cheating. Okay. Now notice what's happening. Just see if the pattern fits. Still there's a lot of

turnover but the heels tend to keep the title for longer than the faces do. The heels were either brawlers who were bloodblusty, like guys like Dixlater or Dory Funk, where they would just mash the shit out of people and they just like didn't stop. And that was the thing, like you won and then you go and you get your branding iron, you shove it in the guy's face and you keep beating him with it. Yeah, like, or they were chicken shits, who were technically very sound wrestler. And my favorite example of this is Tully Blanchard. Okay. There was a match and it was a gimmick match.

It was a ten on ten. Um, yeah, it was ten on ten. It was five tag teams on each side. So the guys are just lining the ring and it was during a survivor series and it was elimination match. And if you get pinned, you and your partner both have to hit the showers. So it could get to the point where you got 10 guys

against two guys. OK. You know, great drama. Tully Blanchard would, he got tagged in. And the other guy's like, all right, come on. And Tully Blanchard walks in and walks right to the other side of the teams on his side and tags the next guy. No contact and got one of the biggest pops of the night.

A pop is where the crowd goes, Ape is before you, right? And everybody just starts booing the shit out of him. That is brilliant. He didn't get touched. He didn't touch anybody. It was a buddy. Buddy walked away as the one everybody was talking about. Exactly. He got the crowd invested in seeing him get his ass kicked. And that's what heel

Territories do. Yeah. Right. Now he would outrestle someone and then he cheat anyway. That was his thing. Now in San Antonio, there's a fair amount of rich landowners who often would swindle people out of their hard earned money. So if you see them succeed a lot, that's gonna drive the audience up to like this fever pitch where they would get vindicated when they saw the face win,

even if it was for a small amount of time. Then a brawler would come by and take it away from him. would get vindicated when they saw the face win, even if it was for a small amount of time. Then a brawler would come by and take it away from him. You're like, damn it. Justice was served and then just someone else made an opportunity. Setting up another chase of good ol' boy or Mexican cowboy as a good guy, like Manny Fernandez. And they would eventually win out against him with courage and gusto.

And they'd barely scrape by and then somebody else would just come and fuck them over. And you just, so it's always that way. And so the heroes are always long suffering. Mm-hmm. And short rewarded. Yeah. Yeah.

Now Spanish missionaries being down there, also white folk going there. Yeah steal it from Mexico Yeah, so you get a lot of okay, you know Davy Crockett, you know Jim Yeah, yeah, the really strong Catholic element to yeah the bloodletting that's what you see in the the Puerto Rican and the Mexican Touring Yeah, world-class championship wrestling was really weird. It's based out of Dallas. It was a face territory, but largely because of the Von Erich family. Now the Von Erich family was five brothers,

very handsome fellows, all part of the Von Erich. Yep. All of them are dead now because they've all killed themselves, except for one. Kevin Von Erich is the only one that stayed alive. One of them died from a flesh eating bacteria over in Japan. The rest killed themselves. Their father, Fritz von Erich, wrestled in the 50s as an unreconstructed Nazi. And he had this move where he would grab your stomach.

Okay. I'm just like tearing to your domino muscles. Ah, you know. I just watched one of his matches just recently too. And he would stalk the ring and he was big and bald and scary. And anyway, he moved to Texas. He started up the territory. He took over the territory and he like pushed his sons way too hard. It's really what it was.

Okay. So it was a face territory because of the Von Erichs and Dallas loved their Von Erichs Love them now they weren't unreconstructed Nazis. They were handsome Dallas cowboy types Not even cowboy a couple of them as you can see are wearing cowboy boots and stuff But mostly there's like really good guys very white meat baby face They feuded with heels who came in from Georgia. Georgia, Texas have arrived over there. And other southern states. So they're feuding with southerners. Texan identity being very distinct. We were our country. Don't any of you fuckers

forget that. Exactly. And they're in Dallas, which is a pretty big metropolitan area. Yeah. Right. So they're huge in this. They're relatively urban and recently in recent history, blue voting, as compared to rural Texas. Right. Yeah. No, absolutely. Now, they were also really big in tournaments. I found in my research, just tag team tournaments, championship tournaments, and just, you know, working your way up the ranks, right? They're also really into bloodletting. Just people will be bloody as all hell all the time. And faces generally would come out on top. They'd be bloody on their face. Like you could look up a bunch of wrestlers who wrestled in that territory and you see them now and their forehands are just scarred back and forth.

It looks like tons of scarred to you. But they would come out on top but they prevailed against the non-texans coming in and trying to take over. Bad guys Ross also often Russian because Cold War. Now I'm gonna generalize because I can. You'll see that the NAWCW Mid-Atlantic story play out over and over and over again. Okay, okay. The scrappy, well I'll explain it. The NAW, the ones who carried the banner for the NAWA

by the 1970s and 80s, includes minute, because by that point, television is able to reach a broader, things are much more established. It's not as carny. It's actually also more niche by that point, but they're able to target their audience and their demo a little bit better.

NWA includes the Mid-Atlantic Georgia Championship Wrestling and later turns into the WCW World Championship Wrestling in about 1991. It was a heel territory. That was mine. Heels were often introduced as being simply from a Northern state. Like that was all it had to be. It's kind of all it did, yeah, for Minnesota. Or New York.

Or New York. Those two places, straight up. Like you got. Like I got it in one, you sort of really? Yeah, you did. Really? Yeah, so Arne Anderson and Oli Anderson came from Minnesota. They were build as being from Minnesota.

How can anybody named Oli Anderson be a fucking heal? I'm sorry. He was. I'm sorry. Oli Anderson is one of two things. Yeah. One of two things. He's either a 400 pound, you know, blonde haired blue eyed farm boy

who just came in from the country and doesn't know a goddamn thing. Or, he got him physically. Or he's a Lutheran bachelor farmer all like Wobbagon. Okay, he's kind of, you know, I mean. But he's a bad guy. He's a crankan bachelor farmer all along Lake Wobagon. He's kind of which, you know, I mean, he's a bad guy. He's a cranky ass bad guy and his younger brother aren't.

They weren't actually brothers. The cranky ass part, Lutheran, Lutheran being Lutheran. Okay, the cranky ass part I buy, but I, okay. Tell me more because now you've got me hooked. Sure. How the fuck can a guy named Oli Anderson deal? He was nasty. He fought nasty.

He fought dirty. And that's what he did. And he's in hell now because he's a Lutheran, and he did that. He's still alive. Okay. But he and his brother, his quote brother, yeah. They were heels from Minnesota they were the Minnesota

wrecking crew and they would essentially just cheat a lot to win sorry yeah I'm sorry I've met too many people from Minnesota to believe the idea of a Minnesota wrecking anyway continue they have two seasons there construction and winter so wrecking but yeah or they're build from being from New York. And they're usually, here's the best part, aristocrats of some sort. Now, only in Arn Warrant, but they worked with an aristocratic bad guy.

And they usually had managers, little weedy guys, who couldn't wrestle. But we're scheming, no good, Nick, bastards. You remember how you could get out of serving in the war in the North? Yeah. By buying buying a deferment and paying for somebody else to go fight in your place. Yeah. Yeah.

So they also usually had a faction or a stable of wrestlers. These managers did who these managers who supported them and helped them cheat. So you have this aristocrat who's backed up by like three or four guys. Or they're foreigners, again, Russians. The best example of this would of course be Ric Flair and the Four Horsemen. So Ric Flair, originally from Minnesota, later found his way to Charlotte, but Charlotte is in aristocratic town like Crazy 2. But Ric Flair accompanied by the Minnesota wrecking crew, Arn and Oli Anderson and Tully Blanchard.

Holy cow. Mm-hmm. This was a pack of bad guys who fought hard. They bloodied everybody. They fought. They bled a lot and they generally would find a way to walk away with the title. Now there are multiple titles by the way. There's the world championship. There's the tag team championship and there's something called the television championship. There's also a thing called the United States Championship. So, and United States Championship, it goes world United States television. It drives you. They almost always had four of those belts

with reflare having the championship. Arnen Tully or Arnen Oli kind of depended on if Oli was with them or not. Having the tag team and then Tully or Arn, again, depending on who had it, having either the US or the television championship. Flair made his residence Charlotte, which is a rich person's town. Now in this territory, the good guys rarely got over on the bad guys. At all. They're often the good

guys were often solitary heroes fighting viciously but fighting with honor. Okay, explain to me what that means in this context, fighting viciously but fighting with honor, meaning, meaning you go in trying to fight the right way But you get pushed just a little too far and you gotta let loose and be brutal Wow, huh? Okay They'd lose a lot along the way they get screwed out of the title by the manipulation of the rules or gang fighting tactics or You know cheating when the refs not looking or they would get injured before the match and get attacked before the match. They come out limping so they're not at their best for the big match. And now it's, oh man, you're going down to swing and though.

You're going down swinging. The heels would brutalize the faces to get simply what are called sympathy shines on the faces and to get a lot of what's called heat on the heels. The wrestling here was violent. Okay. It was bloody and it's not uncommon to see blood in the opening couple of matches when you're watching. Yeah.

And the last match almost always ended with blood and controversy all at once. Jim Crockett, who was himself an aristocratic wise ass heel manager. He said it, like I said, it's simulated combat designed to look like a real fight. It was ugly though. I mean, it was really, it looked like a fight. It didn't look like a match.

It looked like a fight. It had some technical merit. Absolutely. You start technical and then ends Brawley, right? Everyone could go. Everyone could do this, but matches regularly devolved quickly into Brawls, which saw the heels getting away with the title again, right? Everyone could go, everyone could do this, but matches regularly devolved quickly into brawls, which saw the heels getting away with the title again, right? So the rules go out the window. Yeah, and faces would win very rarely, and when they

did their reins would always be short, and they would lose their belt through shakhaneri cheating and they would lose all of it and then they would essentially kind of fade away. Oh wow. Or they would make one last failing attempt and then they would fade away. What would really happen is- Literally lost cause. A hot attempt. A hot wow.

Sometimes a monster heel would establish himself. Sometimes is rare. But mostly it was the aristocratic and or northern heel who screwed the face out of his title. OK. Wasn't fair. And the people paid good money to come back every week to follow the face's journey, which was ultimately doomed.

Wow. Now, we've gone pretty far and I've finally caught you up to this part of it. We're going to stop the episode here. Okay. And then I will take you further into it and it's some really good details that kind of back up what we're saying.

So, but before I do, would you learn so far? Would you like, would you learn so far? Would you like, would you not like shocked? Well, this whole jury has been an amazing for a for me into a branch of our shared popular culture as a country that I really did not know anything about. And who controls the stories, controls the culture? Yeah, well, yeah. And this is a vulgar story. Yes, yes, it's told to the vulgate.

This is, yeah. And frequently it's vulgar in the more normal Jesus. Or did it say some magic? Yeah, but the, yeah just just the depth of how much there is to it is a real revelation and we're we're gonna circle back around to how the brutality of Western wrestling came from the brutality of living on the borders. And how that fed into how the South fought the war. Yeah.

And by the way, the North fought the war the exact same way. It's not like the South, you know what I mean? Like they also didn't follow rules. Yeah, well, you know, they just had more people. They just did. Well, it's no, that's, see, look at that. Lost cause just seeped right into the narrative. True. Yeah, but yeah

It's we're and we're gonna when we're what I what I'm referring to yeah, this is long before Geneva convention or anything like that Yes, it was not a unified set of okay. No look. We're right. These are things. We're not gonna do yeah, so so but yeah So when we get into it Yes, we'll eventually get into the the 80s and the 90s Yeah, and how it really expresses itself in the transition into the This isn't so much what I've learned so far what I'm looking forward to hearing you talk about is how That Southern narrative has become part of the mainstream narrative. Yes.

Now that wrestling is a unified thing, or within our zitgeist, it is this unified thing under the control of the McMahon family, and how Stonkold Steve Austin, and the rocks change from being what he was when he first started his career and then what he became later on. Oh yeah. How that fits into this whole thing as part of our nationals, guys, it's not going to cheer you up. No, I'm sure. It's going to be fascinating to go there. Oh, absolutely. All right, so any pluggables, or do we wanna just get on to the Twitter

and get off of the podcast? I'm gonna again plug how the Scots invented the modern world because it's a fascinating piece of history. Okay. And my own family being where they're from. Sure. I'm fascinated by it, and I think it's well worth taking a look at. Okay. I'm going to plug a graphic novel this week called Berlin by Jason

Lutz or Lutas. Partly because I went to Berlin this last summer. But it is just it's I mean it's called a masterful narrative by the blurb on the front. It's true. Like, the medium is easy, it's accessible, and it's just amazing in the way that it basically gives you a history of the city of Berlin, going all the way back from the early 1900s to now and how they deal with the rise of fascism,

the fall of the Vimar, the rise of fascism, the bombings, the destruction of the city and then the rebuild under two flags and then the rebuild after they get together. I mean, it's phenomenal, It's such a good book. Okay, so you can find me on Twitter at duh harmony. And you can find me on Twitter at at eHBlaylock. And you can find us on Twitter at at a at geek history time. And until next time, I'm David Harmony.

I'm Ed Blaylock, and may all your D20 roles come up 20.