A Geek History of Time - Episode 10- The Lost Cause and Professional Wrestling (part 5)

Episode Date: May 25, 2019

In the final episode of our discussion of wrestling and Lost Cause historiography, Damian explains how a rich guy feud between yankee Vince McMahon and Georgia patrician Ted Turner led to the wrestling culture we see today.

Like they they advertise one match when crashing a car into one of the wrestlers. Not a total victory of Russia, which now we're seeing. He goes on. He's a gigantic bag of flaccid dicks. Sorry, conti- When you open them up you find out that they're all cockroaches inside. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if anybody else is ever going to laugh this hard at anything we say.

We can actually both look out my window right now and see some very pretty yellow flowers that I'm going to be eradicating. This is a geek history of time. I'm Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history teacher at the seventh grade level. God help me. And the Catholic in the room, it should be noted. And I have been a geek basically all my life, as I mentioned, in our introduction last episode. My very first real defining moment of

geekdom was probably when I found my father's copies of The Lord of the Rings series, including the Hobbit, that were the ban books edition from the 1960s referred to by many people as the hippie covers because of the nature of the artwork. How about you? I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin teacher, formerly a social science teacher at the high school level. Long time geek. I dare say one of the first times I ever found a comic book was when I was at my grandmother's house and I found a box of my dad's old comics.

It turns out he was into Mr. Natural, so I was in therapy for a while. That's good. Thank you. I appreciate it. But I started watching wrestling a few years before that. Actually, yeah. And I've been a huge wrestling fan ever since. I actually consider it high art in the same way that other people consider opera high art. It's quite frankly

the same thing. It's just more oil and less singing. I like that. Yeah. So they're all love blood and death. There you go. They really are. So I'm sorry. I love blood and retry. You know, I'm not a retry in wrestling. What, one wrestling promoter... The first time stopper. What one wrestling promoter said was, it's really easy to write a wrestling storyline. Pick a deadly sin. Ah!

Ha! Any eight wrong? He, he, he, he, he really is a... He really, he really ain't. It's kinda cool. For my, for my limited knowledge of the form that actually that works. Yeah. And also it ain't that hard to write opera. No. Pick a deadly sin. There you go. Then then halfway through the script.

Pick another one. Yeah. There you go. Usually what winds up happening. And then learn to hold a note. Yeah. So. Well, that's how you perform it. That's true. Yeah, yeah. You don't need to know at a same point. Good point. So last time, we got into the territory that would later become known as the WCW.

Yes. It was the Georgia's championship ship wrestling. It was known as the NWA. It became kind of the standard bear. In the same way that like Band-Aaid is the standard bear for adhesive bandages It and mid-south as well those those really Really kind of captured all the attention the others were still out there But the one that was really making it and some of this has to do with location some of this has to do with cable eventually

And some of this has to do with location, some of this has to do with cable eventually. But also it has to do with the narrative that it was really pushing and answering at the same time. Because again, art both shapes and reflects us. And it absolutely was doing that. And to give you an idea as to where these territories are, I've got this map here. And if you notice what we're talking about is essentially from the Carolinas down the coast through Georgia, stopping not getting into Florida except for the Panhandle, junior Alabama, stopping when you get into Louisiana though too. And going

up just a little bit north, you get into Arkansas, maybe a little bit, but for the most part, you even stop before you get to West Virginia. So it's just this chunk right down here. You're real honest to God, no kidding, beating heart of the Confederacy. Yes. The Civil War.

Funny you would mention that. The true birthplace of the secession, of course, is South Carolina. Mm-hmm. So I'm sure you have a connection, you're gonna bring up. No, no, I don't think there is one. No, it's fine.

Yeah, that is why it's called wrestling and the lost cause. So last time I talked about just the overall structure was that it was just always, you're essentially paying money to go see the good guy get dicked over. Just how are they gonna do it this time? By opera. That is a...

Yeah. Yeah. So tragedy. Southern wrestling is tragedy. Yes. Northern wrestling is comedy. Triumph. Well, triumph, but in the...

Oh, in the classical... Classical fear. Yes. You know, tragedyians with the hero and to a lesser extent everybody dying. And in classical theater, a comedy is any play in which the natural order is restored at the end.

Yes. And there was a thought I had last episode about appellating and Dionysian. Oh, yeah. Which I'll get back to after we've gotten farther into this one. so keep going. Yeah, so To establish this this pattern I'll point out a couple of feuds to you. Okay, Rick flair in the forehorseman versus dusty roads

Okay, so dusty roads stands hard. He's the only one. There's a wonderful promo he gives. They injured him. He comes back and he's had hard times. Mm-hmm. And they put hard times on dusty roads. And he goes on for two minutes about how you don't put hard times on a man. And how you don't understand hard times. And hard times is when a computer is replaced to your job and a place where you work for 30 years gives you a gold watch and sells you thank you and now you can't feed your family and hard times is when a mother has to take up a second job and so on and so on. I mean it's just drawing on all kinds of frankly Confederacy suffering and any it is called the hard times promo. You could go onto YouTube and type in Dusty Roads,

and the next word it'll predict for you, almost always will be hard times. And if you don't, you just put Dusty Roads hard, and it still gives you hard times. Okay, that'd be a dangerous problem. If you type in Al Snow Hard, you'll find the time that he wrestles with an erection. It's different And uncomfortable leaving for everybody

Except maybe him. Yeah, yeah, but uh, but yeah, so Under song wrestler Al snow But yeah, so the four horseman versus dusty roads he works his way through a couple of them they injure him he has to come back he works his way through them again he finally gets to fighting rick flair rick flair wins jesus god rick flair in the four horsemen versus magnum t.a

magnum t.a. wrestlers rick flair loses and then tully blanchot sets his sights on Magnum TA. And they have a match in a cage and there's a chair brought in and it's made of wood and they break the chair and they have an actual wooden spike. I kid you not and he is trying to shove it into his eye. And you look and it's not that far from the eye. Yeah, these guys trust each other a lot. Yeah, they come to. Yeah, Magnum wins against Tully Blanchard.

Doesn't win against Rick Flair. Rick Flair and the Four Horsemen versus Barry Windham. Barry Windham was one of the Forest Horsemen at one point. But then he got religion. Yeah, kind of, I guess, you know, so basically realized that Pauline moment, yeah, off his donkey land on the Zaz. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then he goes up against Ric Flair. He even defeats

Ric Flair at one point, but then the decisions reversed. By the way, the guy who's booking all this is usually dusty roads. And you get something called a dusty finish, which is where the good guy wins. And then they find some way in the rules to dick him out of winning. To the point where a dusty finish is. Just to make it that much more of a, oh sons of bitches, emotional catharsis. Yes. And get you to come back next week. Maybe justice will be served because you are so pissed

the four horsemen versus Lex Luger Lex Luger big beefy dude. Oh my god from Chicago Interesting and a good guy from Chicago can't cut a promo to save his life. Frankly only has three moves But still captures everyone's imagination moves but still captures everyone's imagination and for a while it's it's them versus him but that's a short-lived feud mostly because Lex Luger's boring. Rick Flair and the Four Horsemen versus Sting. Sting, very handsome fellow comes out from California, captures everybody's imagination and he actually he fights Rick Flair to a draw So he still doesn't win yeah

Because championship wins on a draw the champion wins on a draw Works his way through all of them. They do all kinds of fuckery and chicandery to make sure that he can't win He finally ends up winning. He gets the championship and actually what had happened was that Rick Flair goes to WWF for a while. A new ownership took over, a jib herd was an idiot. And then, Tully Blanchard and Aranisson, they go up to WWF for a little while, and then they come back.

And so, Sting ends up taking the belt into a new direction. But then again, they come back. But now, this also happened in mid-south and importantly I really want to make this point clear. It crosses color lines. In the mid-south you had black superstars. You typically had one per territory, the black one. Sometimes you'd have two, there's a black face, a black heel. But for the

most part, you did have this. Junkyard dog you might remember. Vee-gly. He had a long standing feud with the fabulous freebirds. That's a group of three guys against one guy. So again. No, no, no, were the heels. He also had another one with Ted D. B. Ossie. Before Ted D. B. Ossie becomes a million dollar man by the way. So he's not about that. And this one is not about Ridge versus poor. This one is about he and Ted D. B. Ossie were pals, were allies and Ted D. B. O him. Oh wow. So it's about betrayal. Oh wow. So and DiBioci wasn't from the south. So it makes sense that he betrayed one of ours. Yeah. So we're

gonna ask. Well you mentioned black superstars being a thing was was the rock's father one of those guys because we've mentioned Rocky Johnson is is a black superstar and so is Tony Atlas but they were mostly in the Northern Territories. Now I'll get back to a little bit more on the frankly the odd thing about you you have these black superstars that they don't very often get the belt for very long. Again, good. They're good guys. They don't. They're faces. Right. So they're chasing, but they absolutely get cheered on.

So what's happening in the South was that the narrative of the lost cause is playing out in wrestling. Okay. Scrappy against all odds. The person who's from here is taking on the powers that are greater than himself. It's taking on foreign monsters, taking on arrogant aristocrats, people who aren't. They may have been born here and they may have owned land from here for a long time, but they're not one of us. They're the rich guy on the hill. And they're usually outnumbered. They lose and they lose and they lose and they lose.

Then they finally win only to have it cut short by treachery Yeah, we're in competence of those in charge. Yeah, so yeah, like I said color didn't matter John C. Our dog was from here. He was our guy Okay, and that's what mattered way more so The natural order of things is if you're from here, you fight the good fight no matter what, knowing that it's a lost cause. Color doesn't matter as much as culture matters in these southern territories.

It even had a long history of integrating audiences on some levels, wrestling did. Way more than any other sport. Oh wow. Yeah. First off, you got sport. Oh, wow. Yeah. First off, you got black guys wrestling white guys. Yeah. You know, you don't have integration of much of anything.

You certainly don't have it in the schools. Spudnikman Rowe is this heel in the South. He was a dandy heel. OK. So he's not an aristocratic heel. He's a dandy heel. OK. Slide difference. But you can imagine he's a dandy heel. Okay. Slight difference, okay?

But you can imagine he's, he's prissy. Yeah. And what have you, right? And, and if you were a, a heel in Southern territories, you lived your gimmick 24-7. You didn't get to turn it off. Oh, really? Yeah.

As a big deal in South, strangely, they really like their authenticity. Well, they really like committing to their fiction. Yeah. If you were a quote Russian, then you were a Russian. If you didn't know any Russian, you'd grunt and you wouldn't say much. For years, really?

The whole time. Holy cow. Yeah. This is called k-fabe. Keeping k-fabe is keeping up the fiction outside of the ring, right? They k-fabe hard in the South. Because if there's one thing the South seems alike, it's consistency and it's fiction.

He would, Sputnik and Ro, would for real get arrested for carousing. And it was because he was often present in places that were relegated to black people in Memphis. He'd get a black lawyer to represent him in court and he'd go right back to where he was arrested and keep partying, which makes him, now he's white, makes him a hero to black people in the South for wrestling fans. Then they'd come to his shows. But they had to sit in the balcony because yeah. What he did was he said,'m sorry no I'm not gonna work

in this building if you don't integrate all the seats no shit no shit this was the 1950s holy moly and he was such a draw that they integrated promoters would integrate because they knew they would they get money needed the money yeah wow the wrestling more than any other sport recognize green over blue and green over black and white. Wow. But and like I said, faces could absolutely be black junkyard dog. Ron Simmons first black champion in WCW. Bobo Brazil.

Bad bad, bad, Leroy Brown. Oh, nice. Yeah. uh... bobobo Brazil uh... bad bad leeroy brown oh nice typically there's only one main black paint one black face per territory and they rotate around so it'd be like everybody shuffles to the left and disembowning at its core lost cause culture is alive and well in the south and in in in southern wrestling in territory and these are the territory days in southern territories it was that and as a

result it was far bloodier okay far fudier like the fudes are what really sold it yeah the blood paid it off and they were far more interested in the struggle and ultimately the loss and the sympathy for the face who lost Then it was about good prevailing. Okay, and now I'm gonna get pointy headed about it because One of the one of the major differences culturally between the north and the south prior to the Civil War Was religious. Yes The north was what we refer to now as mainline Protestant. You were a Presbyterian, you were Lutheran, you were, you know, you went to church on Sunday, it was all very

cut and dried, stayed, you know, from the Bar Square Christianity. And it was, you know, temperance leagues, they're not kind of stuff. Sure. And religiously, theologically, there was a very strong Apollonian, this is where it get into. Paul over the Dionysus, yeah. It was intensely Apollonian. Yeah. It was our God is a God of order

and everybody getting along and no bless oblige. In Northeast politically, if you had money, there was an expectation, which is one of those few things that we can actually thank the Puritans for. There was this idea that if you were fortunate financially part of your job was to help the poor and participate in giving money to the YMCA, giving money to Salvation Army, whatever work in the United States. Making a college. Yeah, creating a university. Yeah, you know and by contrast in the South the religion that that was there was very intensely cathartic. Yes, it was

Dionysian not not in the sense of necessarily being chaotic, but it was it was Bacchanalian It was really was it was it was Descended from the ideas of the second great awakening, where it was, you need to have this conversion moment in which you have this, this, this, it was cataclysmic. It's, yes, yes, this apocalyptic, this personal apocalypse where you have this intense moment of conversion, if you don't have that experience, you're not saved. Right. And by the way, God's going to come and pluck you.

Yes. Yes. And there's this intense, intense focus on the personal relationship between the individual and God. And it's all, it's all catharsis. And it's almost irrespective of your behavior, too. Almost. It's all catharsis and it's almost irrespective of your behavior too Almost kind of Calvinist there's there when there's well. It's intense. We Calvinist as the as the theology nerd Yeah, it is Calvinism. Yeah, if I could go back in time and smack one son of a bitch across the face as hard as I can With it with an open hand and he's bald bald so hard. Yeah, just, just, oh my God, because the thing is,

by himself, Calvin didn't necessarily do a lot of damage. He was crazier than a shit house rat. But he by himself did not do a lot of damage. But the people who took what he wrote and ran with it, yeah, as I said, the Catholic in the room. So, but all of that is reflected in this story. Yeah. That catharsis, that the fight is what there is

and this need on the part of the audience for the emotional release. Yes. Uh, of, of, you know, that intense moment of victory that they've, that they've had to wait for for so long. And then the cycle has to start up again. Yep. Because once you've gotten it, you need to get it again.

Yeah. It's, it's revival culture. Yeah. Oh, 100%. Yeah. And, and's it's revival culture. Yeah, oh 100% Yeah, and if you go back to the North, I'm not saying they're punching the clock Christians, but Salvation was also corporate. Yes, so if we all do our part. Yeah, if we all okay, it's Sunday This is what we do. Yeah, it was much more performative There was a great deal more. Yeah, yeah. There was a great deal more, yeah.

There was a great deal more performative aspect to it. And ritualized. Intensely. Yeah. And lower stakes. And in that, it wasn't your personal, yeah. The extent to which you had an intimate, I mean, should they,

they're choosing you kind of moment. They put a woman on trial for claiming that, because someone said that she claimed that God spoke to her specifically. Yes. Talk about a polar opposite of what you see in the south. Oh, yeah. And Hutchinson was, yeah, no, and Hutchinson,

yeah, the Joan of Arc of the American Northeast. Yeah. So yeah, that's what you have in wrestling and and matches. So here's how you build a match, right? You decide how you want the final match to be. Okay. In whatever territory you decided what you want the final match to be, what intensity do you want it at?

And then you go backward from there to the point where how do you start the conflict? In the South, like lesson planning. Yeah, starting with a very simple. from there to the point where how do you start the conflict. In the South. It's like lesson planning. Yeah, very simple. Yeah, and the most powerful tool in wrestling is the eraser. Yeah. So in the South, it's gonna be bloody. It's gonna be in a cage.

There will be blood. There will be a shit ton of stipulations, by the way. That's another thing the South's really big on. I don't know a shit ton of stipulations, by the way. That's another thing that's out's really big on. I don't know the why. Because stipulations are stupid. I'm like, you have the easiest job in the world. It's wrestling. And I'm not saying that wrestling is an easy job,

but like picking death is in. Writing the story is easy. Why do you need to complicate it? Yeah. Yeah. As the famous philosopher from Canada Had one said Miss Avril Lavigne why do you have to go make things so complicated? so But they would work their way back well it and that final match is what's called the blow off?

Yeah, and you it's you're supposed to so it's overtly all about Ethoreses. Oh, yeah, yeah, but that's true in all the rest Yeah, well, yeah, and that's the other. And the idea is, whatever story you finish telling, you still leave both guys with something to do after. Now they both might take a couple of weeks off, but then they'll come back. So you don't wanna completely obliterate one guy and put the other guy over 100%.

You want it to be a struggle. You want it to be traumatic. It has to be, you know, I mean, you know, if, if, I don't know, I mean, if Luke Skywalker didn't have to fight so hard against Darth Vader, you'd be like, oh, what's big fucking deal with that? So in the South, though, it was how much blood are we going to spill? It was, are we going to get the cage out tonight? You know, it was like, that's what they're aiming at, right?

And you book these things five, six months in advance, because that would generate income through the house shows. So at its core, like you said, far bloodier, far more cathartic, far more dynisian, I'd say Bocchanalian, the audience liked the blood, they liked the feud, the blood really ups the intensity, they liked the feud. The blood really ups the intensity and the stakes for it. And they're far more interested in the struggle they are,

in the whole thing, than, like I said. The strong one drum. Yeah, then right prevailing. Now, like I said, this is Southern culture. This is about protecting Southern culture. It's about keeping the bumbling and interfering and ultimately more powerful through no fault of its own white northerners from ruining what we've built here. Wow. Okay. And it didn't matter. Here's the best part. It didn't

matter if they won the fight because to fight was to win. Just getting the match was the culmination of all of the other drama that they'd create. The audience would go, ape shit when the authorities would come out and say, okay, and now Ric Flair has to fight Magnum TA. Yeah, and what? No, oh my god. And Magnum TA TA, like, all right, here we go. Doesn't matter a lick what the result's going to be. Just the fact that he forced that son of a bitch. That's right. To actually get into the ring and face him,

it's right into man. Exactly. They're ultimately doomed. Yeah. You're all going to die. Right. You're going to lose this war. But how the face goes down, how much blood

he draws in his loss back to that nastiness, back to that orderlander thing, back to that southern culture, back to that. I don't have to wait. We fought a better war than they did. It doesn't matter that we lost. We fought a better war than they did. It doesn't matter that we lost. We fought all the way down. We were fighting for culture. They were fighting for money. They were fighting for money. Yeah.

Okay. So, did he knock the heel back on his heels? That's what matters. And in the Northeastern territories, it is about the rightness of good. It is appellonian till the cows come home. It was about good fighting back the forces of evil. Evil is always coming at you out of the forest. Yes, well.

Evil is always coming at you and good prevails every time because their Jesus is the one that wins. Where is the Southern Jesus is the one that gets proof of God? The emphasis on resurrection rather than death and... Right, in the north. Right, whereas in the south, it's... More defection, yeah. Yeah.

So, and there's a few instances. Which one is more Catholic? Sorry, question, but go ahead. Yeah. The answer is it depends on who your mom's senior is. There you go. So, if good doesn't prevail, it will quickly prevail again. Eventually. Eventually.

The knowledge is always there that- This will go right. The right will prevail. Yes. God is not dead. Now think about this. Okay. Civil war.

Yeah. Our cause is just we're keeping the union together. Yes. Did Lincoln get killed? Yeah. Yeah. We'll see a martyr for the cause of unity and goodness. Yeah. Also the Northeast also always has this dual nature of of cosmopolitanism and plurality. Mm-hmm. Mixed with zeal and Yankee-dom. That righteousness. Yeah that Yankee sense of good, of community, of beating back the scourge of wickedness back into the wilderness, and also Native Americans, absolutely fed into the culture of wrestling up north. Okay. So you have this sharp divide as to how each side saw the Civil War, playing out in wrestling and playing out in how they

handle individual combat. Where do most of the duels happen with the exception of New Jersey? Most of the duels happen in the South. Yeah, well, one of the guys in Jersey was the southern dirt. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So moving forward, we get to what are called the Monday Night Wars. Moving forward we get to what are called the Monday Night Wars Vincent Kennedy McMahon That's Vince Jr. Yeah, sees cable is a way to defeat all of his competitors And he starts in 1980s buying out the owners of various territories and what he does is he gives them balloon payments He says I want to buy your territory from you. I will pay you a dollar now But I will pay you the full amount by this date, and

there will be payments along the way of that increase. Okay. Right? But I'm going to buy your territory. I'm going to buy your intellectual property, all the contracts, all your wrestlers, all your, all this stuff. You're still going to run it. And if I fail on that last date to provide the final payment, you get to keep all the money.

Most of them like, fuck yeah, this would be easy. You know, I'm gonna be the one promoting it. This is piece of cake. Well Vince also got around to all the cable folks and talked to them and stuff. So each one is absolutely a gamble. He'd buy it, like I said, for a dollar later on, but he kept succeeding.

And succeeding and succeeding, and he starts using cable and closed circuit television, a brand new thing, which gave way to pay per views. As a way to spread his kind of wrestling, the northern style of wrestling, the primary color style of wrestling, the wrestling where your competitors look really cut and chiseled, right? These big guys, remember that Greco-Roman ideal? It's not like that. You look at the wrestlers in the mid-south,

they all look like they can be truck drivers. And actually, it's funny to listen to the announcer. They'll hold a headlock for 15 minutes of a match, of a 20-minute match. And the thing is, the crowd is on their feet the entire time. That's some seriously good selling. And if you hear it on the TV, the announcers are talking about, I mean, they're making up all kinds of shit to make this dramatic. They're like, well, he's got those double strength cables in his arms, like talking about like a double ten in the gym.

Like, that's really where the strength of a headlock comes in. Look at how he's, I mean, they're really pulling it apart. So good at selling it. But Vince, he's spreading his shit everywhere. So now it's primary color wrestling all the time. Spectacle, spectacle, spectacle, which is on television, much more impressive than a headlock for 20 minutes. Essentially, he invaded via television.

And it keeps working. He marginalizes the local territories, raids their top talent, brings those guys into his system, gets them to learn to work the WWF kind of way. And each, by the way, WWF lost a W along the way by this point. And it hasn't gone for the E yet. But each system has its own, it's kind of like football teams. You know, like if you join the Patriots, then you're gonna learn their system of offense.

They're the players. Yeah, they had to deflate the enemy. But he is, was a northeastern territory. The guys always win. And wrestlers, they, again, there's so many territories to work, but everybody's trying to get to the WWF because that's where the money is. So now everybody wants to get there. On top of that, the guys that are there that are heels know that they're replaceable.

Because it's a heel factory is what they call it. Because everybody just jobs out. This makes it much more palatable to kids, which is here to for unseen market. On tapped market, okay. And their parents on Saturday mornings, which is where I started watching and then on Monday nights and Tuesday nights and so on. And he starts selling TV more than he's selling the house shows. The house shows are now starting to sell the TV shows.

With MTV growing in popularity and getting bigger and bigger, the WWF gets bigger and bigger. Now during most of this time it does mention that WWF had a no-blood policy too. Because kids. Kids. Their characters were very cartoonish as well. Lots of primary colors, secondary colors, very bright. Guys who brought animals to the ring were really popular. Okay. Obviously Jake Stinkrock.

Yeah. But a lot of people don't remember that the British bulldogs brought a bulldog to the ring. A lot of people forget Coco Beware was the bird man. He brought Frankie, his pet parrot. A lot of people don't remember that Ricky the dragon, dragon, Seembroke brought a Commodo dragon. Mm-hmm. Like, everybody's brain, you know, there's one guy who was named...

It's a manager. Yeah. There's one guy who was named yeah, there's one guy His name Bobby Heenan they called him the weasel So it's just all kinds of animals Guys whose occupation was their gimmick You had a repo man I'm just gonna say having worked a summer In a repo repo company.

I was not a reposition agent, but I worked in a repo company. Some of those guys could very easily have, they had the personality for it. I'm just gonna say. Basically, guys who wore varied and brightly colored ring gear and had fake names. Very few guys used their actual wrestling name, which was interesting too, because that meant that when you got to the WWF, you were hired for your talent, but

very rarely were you hired for your name. Your name, that's something in another territory. And most of the wrestlers in the South went by their real names. So the trunks were mostly solid colored with a few exceptions, of course, in the south. You know, is Arnanniston, I think he had multicolored trunks, but it was red in the front, white in the back, or black in the back, and white in the front, that kind of thing. In southern territories, like I said, their own names, or at least their names sounded normal enough. Typically, they all wore essentially the same five color trunks, and they all wore trunks.

Some guys in WF had singlets, some had the in this, and then not much variance in the sound. Just you're there, and you're doing the job, and it's the drama, it's the violence, it tells the story. And then WF, it's a spectacle. Colors versus colors, you know. Hulk Hogan was the forefront of this.

He was six foot nine, huge arms, terrible wrestler by design, because actually that fucker could wrestle. He really could, but he didn't have to. And it's kind of like how Jay Leno is an incredible comedian. But on the tonight show show he never showed that. He know exactly what he needed to do to get to the Volgate. Terrific spectacle. Dect out like I said in primary colors, took on all comers, stuck to what he called

the three demands. Training, saying your prayers and eating your vitamins. Later on he'd out of fourth one but forget what what it was. I might write it down later, though He was the ultimate face in the Northeast. He'd start very strong Is guys unbeatable and then the heel would cheat Halt Holt Hogan's momentum and they would beat Holt Hogan nearly two defeat before he'd Holt Hup And ultimately prevail now Think about the courses of a war

through Antietam and Gettysburg. It's the same basic rhythm. Now most of your smaller territories are relegated to the gymnasia and the armories in the 1980s and 90s. Ted Turner steps in and buys WCW. Then they're the only real competitor to the WWF and I'm using that term competitor loosely. It was a competitor in the same way RC Cola

is a competitor to Coca Cola. Like yeah, they have the same product. It's a good alternative brand. Yeah. But it's not really in the same way. Right. Yeah. But Ted Turner has a lot of money and he likes to fuck with Vince. He called Vince and he likes to fuck with Vince.

He called Vince and he's like, hey, I'm in the rassling business and Vince is like, well, it's great Ted. I'm in the entertainment business. Big difference. And Ted's like, and then Ted hangs up and he's like, I want to beat him in the ratings. And he puts everything he did. And so he starts pouring a ton of money. Understand. Yeah. Listening to this is like listening to the story of like a Raiders vs Dallas game.

Because I hate both people at home. I just want to watch. You hope for anything. Both of them, yeah. Just want to watch both of the beat total of them. Yeah. Yeah. Just watch both of them. Be total dicks. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So he wanted to beat Vince and he they'd had kind of a rich guy field going on for a while. At one point Vince like had bought time on on Turner television. Yeah. And pushed Turner's

wrestling product off the TV. It was so weird. So Ted wants to put this Irishman in his place and Ted Turner is based out of Atlanta. And Vince is based out of New York. Just pointing out, yes, civil war. So after a few years, Ted Turner's company WCW hits on something. Now, in 1993, Hulk Hogan left the WF. He goes on to do some work on TV, movies, etc. WCW got him to come over to that.

Yeah. They Vince McMahon, Vince McMahon, took his top talent. He was a huge name and WCW starts to just raid the WWF with, hey, we will give you a guaranteed contract, which at that point was unheard of. There's actually a couple guys that had guaranteed contracts. Lex Luger had gotten one because he was one of the first wrestlers to actually ever use an agent. The road warriors had gotten a guaranteed contract, but WCW has given it to

everybody. And that's not the business model in Vincenzo. It's just like, oh my God, I don't know what to do, which is interesting because he had shaken up the business model previously, you know, and that's not the business model in Vincenzo. It's just like, oh my God, I don't know what to do. Which is interesting, because he had shaken up the business model previously, and that's what happened. And then these one getting disrupted. Yeah, you go up the stairs in your work boots, you come down the stairs and your slippers.

Yeah. So yeah, they're rating all the big names. For a little while, it's working okay. But Hogan really just wasn't catching fire in WCW the way that he did in the WWF um, and so they try to do everything in WWF had done Hulk Hogan's fighting monster heels. He fought a character named the Yeti whose whose move was to wrap his arms around you and shake and that was his fucking move. It's like what?

It's like, what? What? They fought a guy called the giant and he came out dressed in the same kind of singlet that Andre the giant wore. And he used a legitimate giant, his seven foot four. You might know him as the big shell. Okay, yeah. Yeah, he claimed to be the illegitimate son of Andre. I mean, they just, whatever they could recycle and it just wasn't working.

Hulk Hogan fights a faction of Satanists basically, which is just weird. He's fighting all kinds of classic bad guys and he's always winning and it's just not catching on in WCW. Oh, I wonder why. Yeah, people begin to start booing Hulk or not even care who the champion is. Now Monday Night Wars happen. Ted Turner basically says, I want to put a show to go against WWE Raw or WWE of Raw. And I want to beat them in the ratings.

And so they try to come up with all kinds of ways. And it's not catching, it's not catching. And then they bring in the NWO. not catching, it's not catching, and then they bring in the NWO. Now what's going to rally wrestling fans in the South is the idea of fighting with a company up north. And what's going to really rally wrestling fans in the South is an unstoppable corrupt stable of vinyl-ass heels. Even better if you could combine those two ideas. So a guy named Scott Hall, big

Scott Hall from the first match I ever watched. He had been like a mid-level wrestler most of his career and there's another guy named Kevin Nash who's even more mid-level like just unimpressive and suddenly they both go to the WF, they're huge and they make it big. And at the height of their popularity as razor-rimon and diesel, their contracts come up and the WCW offered them a better deal. They basically said you could make the same money you're making up there, but work half the dates. And they're like, oh, that would be nice. Because wrestlers... They're like, yeah.

Sign me up. Right. So they get a better deal with WCW. And then other top talent start leaving as well. But this was totally different. Because these guys were basically made by the WWF. And that means that like they have the aura of being from WWF, which is in the north.

And they show up on WCW, and they start interrupting matches, and they come out with like aluminum baseball bats, thug-like, and they talk about taking over the place. Scott Hall's first interview, he says, you know who I am, but you don't know why I'm here. And that's all he fucking says, and they didn't know what they were doing at the time. It was not that forward planned But it was open enough that they kept they're like, oh, this is what they're catching on to okay And then they they came in and they're like, oh, yeah, we're taking over and they're what do you mean they're taking over?

This is actually WWF guys everybody knew wrestling was fake everybody knew since the 30s. It was K-Fay But people in the South really want to believe. Right, well naturally. No, actually that was John Stossel, which is even better. So he's a shit-slap down by a mid-card wrestler. But so, yeah, so, so, northerners are coming in taking over brutally destroying all of our heroes Antietam all over again and Hulk Hogan Joins them he was a good guy He joins them and it looked just like the W and so all three guys are from WWF

They look like they're taking over WW and. And that's the entirety of this storyline. Is it WCW-grown guys were, there's a thing called putting someone over, they were losing, badly, to put them over. Putting over WWF guys who were actually NWO guys. And then WO kept growing and growing and growing, right? Rick Flair and the Four Horsemen are now good guys, and they get destroyed in a cage match by the NWO.

It's not even a question. They actually wrap up Rick Flair's face with a belt, with the championship belt, and slam the gate door into his face. Yeah, it was brutal. Holy crap. Arn Anderson even has to retire. Now that's just true.

I mean, he had enough injuries and stuff like that. But the next week the NA-WA comes out and it makes fun of his retirement story. And his retirement was a real, I love you guys. I'm so sorry. It was a very emotional speech. NA-WA comes out and just fucking roasts him. Makes so much fun of him.

They mocked everything that was WCW, even how you said WCW. They would do like, all right, survey time. Are you here to say WCW? Are you here to see the NWO? Oh, wow. Rick Flair had several contract disputes at this time, so every time he disappeared,

it would make it look like the NWO was even worse. So I was folded into the story all the heroes for the WCW kept disappearing or losing to this faction or switching sides. They would mob the ring, they would bully the referee, they would beat WCW guys up after the matches, didn't matter, Lex Luger fought hard, fought really well against them. He even took them all on at one point, winning the title for about a week, sticking with that narrative, right? Then he lost again because they gang attacked him during the match and the ref wasn't smart

enough or able enough to stop it. The one guy that they looked to was a guy named Sting, who starts dressing like the crow, by the way. Oh, yeah. And because the NWO used a fake sting, because it's really easy to paint a guy up, who's chiseled to attack Sting's friends, everyone turned their back on Sting. They started booing Sting.

So Sting was like, fuck you all, and he left. And he didn't wrestle for 18 months. Oh, wow. That was all storyline. He was still getting paid. But he was now the crow. He was a sad clown. The storyline dominates wrestling, and it puts WCW over WF.

And WDW almost goes out of business at this point. Oh, wow. Now think about what the WCW is doing, is they are using a Northern takeover storyline to drive everything, right? Now eventually Vince McMahon figures this out. Back in 1995 there was a guy named Steve Austin. Stunning Steve Austin.

That's what it was originally. Straw colored hair. He was a mid-level wrestler, very technically proficient, working his way through the South, learning his craft. He started in Texas, worked his way up to Memphis, came down to Atlanta, and he was basically a bully heel. Okay, okay. Mid-Carter pretty technically adept, but he still would find reasons to cheat. In 1985, he got injured. WCW actually let him go. By mail. Oh wow. Yeah. They did this a lot. Partly because they're on the road all the time. Yeah. But your corporate office is in Atlanta. You could send somebody out or you could bring them in. So he finds work in the WWF and he's labeled the taskmaster. No, the ringmaster. Sorry. He's got a crew cut and he's really boring and he's part of Ted DiBiocci's stable

of boring ass guys who work for the rich guy. Okay. The problem that WWF is having is that they've gotten stale and they nationalized, but now their presence is to milk toast, to vanilla, to northeaster and to succeed anymore. Culture is changing, it's the mid-90s, right? Vince McMahon doesn't have the imagination to figure out how to shift next. He really doesn't. So while this is going on, WSW figured it out,

and they are starting to use cable because they go on TNT. Obviously. And they nationalize their brand, which is on the way up while they had WWF on its way down. Now, they nationalized their brand with this narrative in the mid-90s. Okay. Okay. Now, I pulled this quote. This is a thing that Vince McMahon actually went on to WWF television and said to the audience.

It has been said that anything can happen here in the World Wrestling Federation, but now more than ever true or words have never been spoken. This is a conscious effort on our part to open the creative envelope, so to speak, in order to entertain you in a more contemporary manner. Even though we call ourselves sports entertainment because of the athleticism involved, the key word in that phrase is entertainment. So I'm just gonna break away from that for a second. He's pulling the curtain back and you never were supposed to do that. He is trying that and he's basically selling

wrestling down the tubes there. He's like, we're entertaining. He's admitting to them. Now, he already had to do that in court. It used to be that in wrestling wrestlers actually had to buy an athletic license, like a boxing license, to be wrestlers. I mean, they kept K-Fabe. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

So, back to Vince. The WWF extends far beyond the strict confines of sports presentation into the wide open environment of broad-based entertainment. We borrow from such program niches like soap operas, like days of our lives, or music videos, such as those on MTV, daytime talk shows like Jerry Springer and others, cartoons like The King of the Hill, on Fox, sitcoms like Jerry Seinfelds, and others widely accepted forms of television and entertainment.

We in the WWF think that you, the audience, are quite frankly tired of having your intelligence insulted. We also think that you're tired of the same old simplistic theory of good guys versus bad guys. Surely, the era of the superhero urge...uh...the superhero urge you to say your prayers and take your vitamins is definitely passe. Therefore, we've embarked on a far more innovative and contemporary creative campaign that is far more invigorating and extemporaneous than ever before.

Through some 50 years, the World Wrestling Federation has been an entertainment mainstay here in North America, and all over the world. One of the reasons for that longevity is, as the times have changed, so have we. Okay, so just look at the names he dropped, right? Yeah. It's not accidental. He's looking at who's watching those shows and what the demographics are and he's like, I'ma mention these things that they like because that's where the money is. Okay. It's how many quadrants is he trying to hit, right? So how does he do this? Well, you know what's working really well is this lost cause and error.

It's effective, and it's been baked into cinematic culture for the entirety of cinematic culture. So when the NWO is bullying everyone and everything and always winning and good guys are being destroyed, it captures and keeps people's interests. So by the late 1990s, WWE was losing badly in the cable wars. They're called the cable wars.

And Vince lets his wrestlers try new things. He has a meeting back there where he tells the wrestlers that he's like, I think I've lost touch. So if you've got ideas, I'm willing to listen, which has not heard of for a booker to do. Yeah. Sometimes it'll be like, look, I heard you come up with a creative and I'll let you know when too far, as too far. The late 1990s means one thing importantly, narratively, there are no clear good guys and no clear bad guys anymore.

Now, that's not lost cause. But it is lost cause adjacent. Go to comic books for a second. Remember what was really popular in the mid 90s? Antihiro's with lots of pouches. Guns. Lots of guns. Guys with, you know, lots of lots of fire and no feet. No feet. Wolverine. Yeah. Lobo. Yeah. Spawn'll let them in out yeah, what I'll point out about Lobo is From the beginning. Mm-hmm Lobo was a self-parity Again with that and people are missing and and and and yeah, and people I don't think we should do parity anymore I do it's it's it's not working. Yeah, well

So I don't think we should do parody anymore. I do. It's not working. Yeah, well, you know. So, Venom's very popular. Anti-heroes are the thing, right? Steve Lawson catches fire because he's a bad guy who doesn't pay attention to the rules ever. Bring that that southern brutality, right? He has a Texas accent too. He feuds brutally with the good guys and he gets popular by doing so That's the thing. He's doing what heels did in the South for an entire generation

But now it's working to make him a face Hmm Once he starts feuding on camera with Vince McMahon Here's the thing Steve Austin was a brutal bad guy, beat the shit out of everybody, never accepted defeat, even when he'd lose, I mean he'd do chicken shit moves and stuff like that, and he was just really brutal, that's a heel move. They make him feud with Vince McMahon on camera.

Now this is after the Montreal screw job which actually Breadheart got screwed six ways from Sunday on it But essentially what it really did was a set up Vince McMahon as a bad guy on camera Mm-hmm, and they ran with it They didn't know to run with it right away, but they figured it out So Austin starts feuding with Vince McMahon. Vince McMahon is a venal wrestling boss who's gonna do whatever he can to make sure that this lone wolf, this anti-hero, this beer-swilling man who has his own coat of

honor doesn't end up champion. WDOF starts climbing back up in the ratings by this point because of this. And also they become PG-13. Whereas WTF tries to minimize its bloodletting now. The two companies switch at just the wrong time. And they're both competing basically for the same mentality. They're both the powerful attacking the singular and the singular is gonna lose but dammit if he's not gonna put up a fight he will rip your ear off

before he loses kind of thing. So ultimately you do need blood and a clear hero to do this though and WWF has that. They still have the fan favorite coming out ahead. So the southerner, it comes out ahead. And WCW, they keep having the the bad guys come out ahead. Because that's the lost cause mentality. But the WWF is a Northern territory, but they take the lost cause, set pieces, and then they northernize them. Shift them around. Right. Okay.

So, you do have the fan favorite coming out ahead, but he only comes out ahead at the end, but then he stays ahead for a while. And he keeps the belt. Even though he gets beat the shit out of for like, the entirety of the show at the end, he still finds a away, right? so

He's a fan favorite and despite the rich and brutal bosses machinations despite Lincoln sending grant Or Sherman or Sherman Ww in the late 90s succeeds largely because it tapped into lost cosmetality eight nineties succeeds largely because it tapped into lost cause mentality. Um, the WWF succeeds in nineties largely because it tapped into lost cause mentality. They were both nationalizing the lost cause mentality. The difference was that WWF was totally committed to the feud, to the blood. I mean, Steve Austin had a shirt that like, I mean, the moment that made him was when he

fainted in a pool of his own blood because he refused to give up to a submission hold. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Damn. W-C-W, you balked at blood and the South didn't stay on board because they want fucking blood. Okay. because they want fucking blood. Hahaha. Hahaha.

Okay. Now what happened is that this lost cause mentality is nationalized as an ideology into our popular culture through this. I think through wrestling specifically. And the people who are watching wrestling are 18, well are 16, 13 to 18 year olds for the most part, then on up to 24 year olds. But people who are 13 to 18 in the mid 90s are our age now. Yeah.

The good guy doesn't have to win. He just has to, he doesn't even have to be a good guy. Just has to tell it like it is and get his moral victory. He just has to fight. He has to make sure he doesn't give up and he has to bloody the other side who seek to oppress him or foreigners. And that is what happens with the wrestling. That's lost cause. That's that's nationalizing. And you can see that playing out in all aspects of our culture right now. Yeah. out in all aspects of our culture right now. And I think that has to do with how wrestling starts in the late 1800s and how that ties right into the historiography that was happening in the late 1800s. I think that's

absolutely why we are where we are politically. Wow. Yeah. That's not the only factor. That's one hell of a factor. It's a big one. Definitely. That is because who controls the vulgar story? Way pro-fowned, way fast.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. No control, the story, control of people. And you control the story that's most accessible to the people. And wrestling is the most accessible to the people and wrestling is The most accessible form of a morality play that you will ever have because there are no words necessary

You have two guys in their underwear in the middle of a ring Yeah, so yeah, there's not not a lot there. No not a lot to have to deal with so that's that Wow, what do you think? How do you feel? You know, at the end of the last episode, you said that it was gonna be depressing. I'm not depressed. I feel as though, again, I don't remember where there was earlier this episode or last episode

talking about something in the background of the picture, suddenly becoming unavoidably clear. And wait, how the hell did I miss that? You know, the slenderman that's always been in the corner of the frame that you only notice when something happens and sure when somebody tells you about it. When when when when you know you suddenly you know step back for a moment and walk back into the room while the video is playing. Right you know or while how Captain America is actually Captain Puerto Rico. Yeah yeah, yeah. Yeah, so John, David, you had to bring that up. Now, I'm gonna take me months to forget that.

But, you know, yeah, it's, it's, these are all forces that operate on us at such a sub-rosa level. Mm-hmm. That, it's like fish don't realize they're wet. Yeah. And you who've never watched wrestling? Yeah. Yeah, I know, like I said before, I know what I know because of the way that it has

bled over into the rest of popular culture. And you can honestly, I mean, that fight between Stone Cold Steve Austin from Victoria, Texas against Vince McMahon from New York, right? That's Catnace Everdeen. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, going to the big city. Well, it's Catnace Everdeen going to District 1.

Yeah. It's Skywalkers going to the Death Star. It's going to the Death Star or Coruscant. Yeah. It's Harry Potter and the Weaselies. Mm-hmm. Very book call. Having to face off at school against Draco Malfoy

and all of his upper crusts, Litheran friends. It's... It's Frodo leaving the shire. Yeah, the roots of the story are... But it's rural versus... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the rural versus urban lower class versus upper class, plucky commoner versus asshole,

a rough rich guy, yeah. That's something that you don't even need to be, you know, part of, it doesn't, it doesn't even need to be part of the lost cause narrative. It's just, it's an inbuilt conflict within any kind of, any kind of stratified society. But the nature of the way that conflict plays out, I think both reflects and, like you said, in regard to art and culture. Both reflect and fuels so much about how everything winds up working from there. Just the fact that it is about fighting and fighting and fighting and losing. And then fighting and fighting and fighting and losing. And then fighting and fighting. And

finally having that cathartic transformative conversion moment of victory. And then I think, I think, well, I think a critical part of the psychology of it is the fact that you can't end it there. When your story is based around the struggle, you can't end it there. When you, then there's no story, you have to wind up having the outside forces,

you know, snatch it away. You know, you have to have Han Solo get locked in cryptidite and lose a hand and all that shit has to happen. Because if you win, there's not a story anymore. And you've got a business model that relies on people engaging the story at all times. On a capitalist level, yes, business model. Yeah. And then just on a psychological level. Yeah. For the audience, yeah, you can't end there because if your whole, if your whole

emotional payoff is about the suffering, if your whole emotional payout is about watching your avatar, fight the good fight and lose, but win morally, then when they win, something needs to happen. Because you get that hit. And if you're ever going to get another hit, you need to have it taken away. Yeah. And North versus South though, I mean, you don't have that need in the North. It's a good guy constantly winning and beating it back.

Because, again, it's Apollonian Dionysic, the outlook in a more industrialized, more pluralistic, more diverse kind of society is, you know, the conflict is we've got all these people who are coming from all these different places and we all have to figure out how to get along. Right. And we need order and we need, you know, the forces of light and cooperation and doing the right thing to win the whole time civilization,

happen, and whatever, and shitch it got going on. We need those forces to win, or we're all going to wind up at each other's throats. Right. Whereas in the roots of that southern story, it is people living in much more rural circumstances where you have to rely on, like you said, your clan, your family, your tight-knit little group, and if you and how to put it. And the class structure in that society was one where there was one group that had all the money and all the resources and made the rules. Right. I think part of the conversation that kind of came up

that didn't get really delved into is, you know, the bad guy winning by manipulating the rules. Yes. Is as part of Southern culture back to the beginning of the Virginia company, the guys with the money were the ones in the legislature literally making the rules. And including who could be in the legislature.

Yes. Like I said, and I think the first episode of this was that there was a slave owning requirement to be a senator or South Carolina. Yes. And so for anybody who was a working class or a rural farmer in small rural farmer or plantation owner in that society, they were constantly dealing with the forces, the forces of authority were inherently corrupt in that way. They set the rules to make it so there was no way

for the little guy to win. Right. You know, and then capitalized on manipulative little guy. Oh yeah. With this very narrative. Yes. You know, and, and, you know, using it against the guy that it's about.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, and, and I think that's, that's one of the most remarkable things about the development of the narrative in the first place. Is that just talking about the lost cause, historiography, the people who got the biggest payoff from it were the people who started the war in the first place

and the people who cling to it most aggressively because they feel like they have the most to lose when they lost the most prominent. When the most the most the lost knows from it in the first place are the ordinary, you know, the non-slavery owners, not the owning Johnny Red, you know, and their and their widows. Yeah. And their and, you know, their children at the end of the war. Oh, yeah. One of the points of upon the altar of the nation at the end of the book, one of the things

they pointed out was that it was southern widows who carried the torch of the bitterness and well they're sacrifice. Yeah, because of because of because of what they had lost and they taught their children this narrative. Because of that. And, you know, yeah, so, I mean, this is something that kind of has always been there. And we've kind of always known, but talking about it through this lens. I think that's one of the things that's part of the reason I was so excited about hearing about this from you. Sure.

Was I think that's one of the things that I really want to try to do as an overarching thing with what we're doing in this podcast is this is something that if you've studied the history, you know it. Right. But having it all of a sudden through the lens of popular culture made so like unavoidably obvious. I think is powerful. I agree. And like I said, like a lot of people, I don't want to say give me shit for loving wrestling.

A lot of people look at me sideways. Like how is it that a guy who knows Latin? A college educated, a classics teacher, a Latin instructor, with a master's degree in women's history. Women's history and you're a wrestling fan? Yeah, you know, there's, I would admit that. I'll admit that. A little bit of a free song of like, wing.

That happens when you find that out about you. Oh, yeah. But at the same time that I like, I'm like, yeah, right? Okay, yeah. Well, and're like, yeah, right? Yeah, I tell them like. Well, and then like to hear how deep into the woods I get on it, you're like, of course he did that with it. Well, yeah.

Of course, you've got to point your head at with it, so you're going to do it, yeah. But no, I love it for that very reason. I mean, I had to put, there are certain types of expression of cinema culture or literature that I love because there's such a snapshot into what that zeitgeist is. Okay. And I mean, I'm that way when I'm teaching Caesar, I'm that way when I'm teaching Ovid, I'm that way when I'm teaching Augustus, I mean, Virgil, I mean Augustus.

You know, and that's kind of the point is that like, you know, every single one of these things is absolutely a window in. And wrestling is so unique in that it is the longest lasting First office the longest lasting TV series right now is this WWE raw. It's longer than Bonanza ever was Wow, yeah, and it goes weekly and they have not had a rerun ever like well, right You know talk about a factory. It's yeah, you know, talk about a factory. It's, yeah, you know, and there's something about that.

I mean, it's longer than Saturday and Live by, it's several years. Yeah, well, no, I mean, I said I'll start it in 75, but, you know, and Ross started in 95, or no, 92, but it has had more continuous, it doesn't have a summer off, it doesn't have a summer off season. And wrestling itself,

wrestling itself has been going without hiatus since the NWA days, since the 1930s, and it's been going on TV since the 50s. There have been a few times where it didn't show up on any TV. But as an entertainment form, I mean, circuses come and go. Baseball has seasons, football has seasons. Wrestling does not have a season. It's just all the time.

And so it's this constant, constant tide of a mirror. And it started as a local mirror, and then this one local bacteria became the national bacteria. And then to survive, it had to adopt what this other bacteria almost defeated it with. And so doing, we're all infected with it. And yeah, it's, but I think it's the only thing that I've found that's like that too.

I cannot think of another form of entertainment that is that long suffering. You know, that is actually just tough in my head. I can't think of anything. I mean, you know, you have the yacht races or the Olympics, but that's only ever X-Mounted years. Yeah. But this is every week. And for the longest time, it was, was that fish, touring.

Oh, yeah. Before I had the grateful dad, I would know maybe. But you know, it's, it's not hip enough to be able to, of course, it's about that, but that's first thing. But it is, it's every week. And prior to it able to sure about that, but that's first thing. But it is it's every week and prior to it being every week, it was every night in a different town on a circuit, depending on where I was in is so local. So.

So yeah, very cool. Wrestling's still going on. Obviously, WWE has a network now. That is phenomenal. I just bet everybody has a new. It's true, but they have like, well, have a network. that is phenomenal. I've been... Just met everybody, hasn't it? It's true, but they have like... This is not cast long enough.

We'll have a network. Here's hoping. I have the network. I've told you how I use the Marvel app too. I'm watching all the paper reviews of WCW and WWF right now. I'm up to 1992. And I'm seeing them respond to each other. It's really interesting to see them respond to each other. It's really interesting to see

that they respond to each other when they're trying to pretend they don't exist. And it's absolutely like showing me what's going on at that time. Yeah. Which is just fascinating to me. Yeah, well, that whole comparison between the two of them. Like looking at a literally side-by-side like that. Yeah. Yeah. Which is if I had the money back then when I was, you know, if I was my age back then and had the money and the time, I could have done that for 20 bucks a pop every month, you know.

Yeah. And just to see how they start ramping it up and stuff like that. I'm very interested in seeing what happens during the low years. Because in the mid 90ss they both had a huge low. So did comic books. Interesting. Everybody almost went bankrupt in the mid-90s. Yeah. So remember DC and Marvel both have big issues at that point. Yeah. So anyway, so I think the next one's probably going gonna be yours, but sometimes we release these out of order, so who knows?

But what is coming up in the future, just in general, like give us a couple topics that are coming out. Well, the first thing is I'm gonna be talking about Battle Tech. And specifically, I wanna look at who the main real in Air Quotes antagon Taganest was in Battle Tech as again came out in 1984. Oh wow. And why? Cool. At least at first. Okay. And then after that, we're going to stick with

Battle Tech and look at the development of that universe from that point into the early 90s and then beyond. Cool. At least for a short span of time, beyond. Because it again has to do with who the antagonist is in that setting. So that's an end again why. So that's where I'm looking at. I'm kind of fired end again why. Cool. So that's that's where I'm looking at. I'm kind of fired up about it. Yeah. Part of the reason I'm fired up about it is because it's the giant robot genre

walking tanks. Americanized and so that that's actually is part of the Zitgeist discussion. Nice. Nice. That's what I'm that's what I'm looking at. That's what I'm ready to go. So nice. That's what I'm that's what I'm looking at. That's what I'm ready to go. I've got a couple percolating I've got Fantastic four I as a yeah as a nuclear as a grotesque Seterization of the nuclear family and I send up a critique. I've also got how 9-11 ruined the movie The Alamo. Oh, okay. And...

I love it, just fucked everything up. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, a little bit. Well, also, yeah, and that'll be my second 9-11 episode. Yeah. Apparently, that's pretty stuck in my crop. I think it is for a lot of us. Yeah, very likely.

Yeah. But also, I had a few other ideas cooking up. As always, if anybody has ideas of things that they would like to see, blending or rather here, this case maybe. Blending or analyzing a geekdom in the context of its historical context, then please message us at Geek History Time on the Twitter, or either of us individually at what you're addressing.

I am at EH Blalock, and I am at Da Harmony. So please let us know what you would like us to see us take on and we'll see what we can work up for you. Otherwise, it'll just be stuff that we're really interested in. But it'd be cool to be able to answer the needs of the masses. Indeed. Cool. All right, well, for Ed Blaylock, I'm Damien Harmony.

Thank you all for listening. And until next time, make sure you roll them D20s 20 side out. Thank you all for listening and until next time make sure you roll them D20's 20 side up.