A Geek History of Time - Episode 222 - Hulk Hogan Media-Made Media Murderer part I

Episode Date: July 29, 2023

Okay, so there's there there are two possibilities going on here. One, you're you're bringing up a term that I have never heard before. The the other possibility is that this is a term I've heard before, but it involves a language that uses pronunciation that's different from Latin it, and so you have no idea how to say it properly. And intensely 80s post apocalyptic schlock film. Oh, and schlong film. You know, it's been over 20 years, but spoilers.

Oh, okay. So, so the resident Catholic thinking about that we're going for low earth orbit there is no rational here. Leave it on me after and you know I will. They mean it is two o'clock in the fucking morning. I don't think you can get very much more homosexual panic than that. No which I don't know if that's better. I mean you guys are Catholics you tell me. I'm just kind of excited that like you and producer George will have something to talk about that basically just means that I can show up and get fed. 1.5-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1- This is a August Reef time.

Where we connect, nervery to the real world. My name is Ed Murlock, and I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California, with a side of English. And so in my household we were visited by the COVID fairy this past week. My wife and son both tested positive. So I managed to somehow make it the entire week without developing symptoms or testing positive. week without developing symptoms or testing positive. And my son recovered basically instantaneously. He's five. Unless he's deathly ill, there's no way to tell you sick. And my wife had a pretty rough few days, but she is now

turning a corner and tested negative today and was heading out and doing stuff. Well, so it's the first time she's been out of the house in a week and one of the places she went to sadly for our bank account was Target and she she did a week's worth of retail therapy in about two and a half hours. And one of the one of the things that she picked up was a new bubble machine for our son to put out in the backyard to make bubbles from the chase around. He had one that broke, and I was talking to her on the phone as she was on her way home. And she mentioned the bubble machine. I had the phone on speaker phone. My son lost his mind. He was so fucking apt about this bubble machine. She got home and needed help bringing stuff in

from the car. And all he could keep asking was, which bag is the bubble machine? Where's the bubble machine? We got to bring in the bubble machine. We brought it in. I took it out of the packaging. I put the solution in. I filled the tank up with water the rest of the way like the instruction set. I put batteries in it.

We set it out on the back patio. And he was in seventh heaven, like just. And I went back inside the house and she and I were talking in living room. And I now and don't remember the exact the exact exchange, but we heard him. We said something that he heard and he responded to us from from the the back patio. I love target at the top of his lungs. And it's like, you know what? I kind of wanted to be grumpy about the amount of money my wife decided to drop on one trip to target. But like, I can't because that level of joy is like, I can't, I can't do it. I can't find fault.

Like, so, so yeah, that was, that was, that was my moment today. I was hearing my, my five year old son give his allegiance to a, to a retail outlet. Uh, for, for a bubble machine. So there you go. Pete Capitalism plus parenthood. I don't know. How about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin and high school US history teacher up here in Northern California. Um, I, I gotta say you, you need to work a little bit more on your son. Last I checked target is not a union store. So.

Hey, good point. Head's up. right. I didn't choose the pension life. The pension life shows you us. You like it. Yeah. But speaking of purchases and what have you, I am now the, I'm not going to say proud, but I'm now the owner of a new car. I bought a new car on Thursday. Thank you. Yeah.

The the Millennium Falcon was breaking down and the problem that it obviated itself with last time two years ago cost me a significant chunk of change. Okay. So I figured I should maybe put that toward a new vehicle instead of maintaining this old one. My dream car was the Millennium Falcon. My dream car was the Honda Odyssey and I got right that for 11 years of glorious bliss. I now have CRV hybrid.

Okay, so quick question. Sure. When you bought the Millennium Falcon. Indeed. Did you buy it new or was it a used car when it came to you? No, no, it was new. Okay. Yeah. All right. So unlike the original Millennium Falcon, yeah, it only had one owner. Yeah.

But yeah. Okay. All right. No, just just we, we, we, my, my family's tradition is we buy used cars and we drive them until until the wheels fall off of them. I'm still trying to develop traditions. I've owned, yeah, okay. I work so yeah.

Okay. I went for new. Different different world view. So okay, cool. Yeah, no, no. So, uh, went for new and, uh, it's a lovely ride, but it was not available until the following day. So they gave me a loner. Well, because single that on a budget, I bought the lower version of the CRV, not the upper of the CR. The loner, however, was the upper version. So I had a flowers for Algernon moment

when I picked up my new car. That's okay. I still like it. Just fine. Here's the thing that I am curious about you because I found this to be true with me and I asked my partner and she said, so I'm collecting data. When you get a new car, do you take to it immediately or is there kind of a feeling out process for a couple weeks of you getting to know its dimensions? Hmm, let me let me think for a second. Sure. It has varied. Okay. It's not it's not always the same. Now when when we say feeling out its dimensions like

And now when when we say feeling out its dimensions like Like learning like you're keeping two and ten while you're turning through the turn Okay, and the city and stuff like that. You're not just single handing it and like You know, yeah, I mean yeah, no getting getting getting getting used to the turn radius getting used to Starts and stops and all that kind of stuff. Yes. Yes. That's that is something that is something that takes a little bit of time. It's not an instantaneous thing. Right. And you think that for a person such as myself who who is incapable of understanding how space works, that this would take a long time to make sure. Right. Right. You know, you would think it would take a long time for me. I took to this immediately. Like I was a parent, a student baker. And this is the first time, and I'm sitting there going like,

is this a sign of depression? Is this a, is this, I just don't care anymore? Like what's going on? You know, I'm like, I dream of our behind and I'm perfectly fine, you know. I, you know, I'm, I'm not going to theorize. Okay. You went from one vehicle in a category to another vehicle in roughly the same

category. Similar one, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it's like, so it's like, so becoming a fighter pilot. Like, yeah, you know, I mean, like, like, I mean, to use, to use an example, my dad as an aviator, to use an example, my dad as an aviator went from the F4 phantom to the A4 skyhawk. And of course, in that case, there's a whole lot more buttons and bells and whistles and dials. But they rhyme, so it makes sense. Well, yeah, and there's that. But and the fact that, you know that throttle works the same way, stick works the same way. And they're both, they're both jet aircraft meant that like it was a lot easier for him to adjust between those two than when he then went to the P3 Orion, which is a four-engine turbo prop aircraft.

It doesn't rhyme with the other two. And doesn't rhyme with the other two, yeah. So, I think same class of Mac, they have the same kind of handling characteristics. Okay, yeah. I went for a low key prime, or from my beloved low key prime to a low key five. There you go, yeah.

Like, in my own case, my prior car before the juke that I drive now, my prior car was a Mazda Miata. Right. And so that was like going from an A wing to a razor crest. Yeah, yeah, yeah, since that's what I nicknamed it, which might not have been a great idea, because I've now had two windshields busted out from under me. And yeah, um, but yeah, mine the Quinn jet. So what happens? Yeah, I'm getting real. How many of how many how many of those get shot up over the course of well, that's

thing. I didn't name it a mark. Whatever. It's just the Quinn jet. So anyway, so I'm a happy guy with my new car going to take kids out on a Sunday ride. I bought the goggles and the leather cap and the gloves. Anyway, so I'm a happy guy with my new car gonna take kids out on a Sunday ride I bought the goggles and the the leather cap and the gloves Self-scarf for my Sunday driving so cool good. Yeah, and here's a cool thing Yeah, we have with us a a

Gentlemen who is chasing his PhD a gentleman who is one year into his PhD study So certainly more educated than both of us and certainly more desperate for housing. Mr. Andrew Sutherland. Andrew, how are you? Hey, I'm doing well. My name is Andrew Sutherland. I and as you said, thank you for that warm introduction. I am I don't think I'm that educated. I I say some of the dumbest stuff in my grad program, and it's sometimes it gets a laugh. Hard bars. Yeah.

Okay. I just finished up my first year in my PhD program. To be a little bit more specific, I study communication studies, specifically my expertise is within media literacy, and I look at the intersections between health communication and political communication. More specifically, I look at basically the worst stuff, the way I talk about it is media literacy, psychophysiology, which studies how the body and the mind kind of interacts as you engage with media or new

information, and the coltic maloo, which studies these types of subterranean ideas, such as conspiracy theories, colts, political extremism, and my personal favorite stuff, snake oil medicine and stuff like that or alternative lifestyles. So the way I describe myself to my cohort is I know the worst stuff at all times. So therapist. Yes. Oh, absolutely. I love there. I was going to, I think I think you better. Oh, my goodness. I might as well just do my plug now. Yeah.

I highly recommend getting in therapy. Do it. It's great. Oh, my goodness. There you go. I presume also you're on some level of liver medication for the drinking you also do in addition to I can't I can't imagine only doing what they're the other

Wait a minute. Do you mean when you say therapy? Do you mean beer? I know I mean actually talking to some That's just me I'm doing what does that Damian I'm gonna be honest I do enjoy an occasional beer, but during the COVID pandemic, there was one day where I drank a little bit too much wine, like an entire bottle. And I broke my computer the day before grades were due. Luckily, I had a friend who gave me the bottle of wine who felt like, oh,

he's obligated to help me. And he got me. There you go. Yeah. Let me use his computer to smick raids. But everything worked out. So after that, I was like, uh, this is a stressful time. Let's kind of cut back on the beer and drink. Just just hearing you say that my adrenal glands cut in. Just just hearing you say that my adrenal glands cut in. Yeah But yeah, no like like I said I I study media literacy that's kind of my expertise I have a passion for

Basically using my research interest to find ways to teach people how to combat against mis and disinformation. Oh, yeah. You on the right episode then. Oh, my God. I know. I know. Wow. Yeah. And you guys are always accurate.

Good. I like it. It's glad to hear that. I like it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I love your podcast. But yeah.

And in ways, you guys kind of helped shape my research interest in certain ways. I was before the episode I was telling Damien your guys' episodes on masculinity actually made me start thinking about like a certain research topic about using media literacy to combat against this subterranean online community known as the manosphere. Oh yeah, okay. Yeah, which is made up of like these types of in cells, alpha bro, pseudo bullshit. Am I allowed to cross on your podcast? It always does. So yeah, okay. All right. Fuck yeah, let's do it. always does. So yeah, okay. All right, fuck yeah, let's do it. Yeah, I'm the most vulgar, and I swear the least. I don't have to. I have to see I teach middle school. So like, when I'm not in the classroom, I have to have a, I have to have a release valve. My girlfriend, girlfriend. This is her last year teaching third grade in Texas. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Her, I love her so much. She's light of my life, but we do have a little inside joke about like, oh, she's only dating me to get out of Texas, which fair fair.

Yeah, you got to do. They say the devil went down to Georgia, but they didn't talk about his his sabbatical in Texas. So yeah, wait, wait, no overshot Georgia and landed in Florida. Yeah. Well, cool. Tonight, we're going to be talking about somebody for whom you need a lot of media literacy to to sift through. Tonight, we're going to be talking about Hulk Hogan, media made media murderer. Oh, yeah. So I like that. I like that. Thank you. A lot of the alliteration. H H M M. Yeah. M M again. Yeah. And then the episode will make you go not unlike the dark crystal episode which made you go. Yeah. So I've got a lot of research here.

So let's dive into it. For starters, Terry Balea is a hard man to write about. And so is Hulk Hogan. And the fact that they're the same guy doesn't actually make it easier because so much of Hulk Hogan's story and life is constructed from a whole bunch of different tall tales that even the most reliable sources online are often reprints of other sources, which are themselves other sources. And quite often, they lead back to stories that Terry Bollaya himself has told, and how can you trust a man who sold his own chewable vitamins and

pasta brand? So similar to ancient Roman history, uh oh Ed is dealing with a little one, it looks like. It's okay. I'm muted and he's, he's, I saw the doorclose, you chased him back with a glare and well done, dad. Yeah well. So similar to ancient Roman history,

I'm gonna treat this the way Livy did. Here's what is said, here's what Elsa said, and here's what I think. You're not allowed to make a Livy reference like that while I'm in the middle of taking a drink in my beer. Because this is really good beer, and I'm going to wind up spitting it out, and that's not fair.

Okay. But okay. I'm going to claim very little verifiability beyond repetition of similar stories from other sources who may well all ultimately go back to Terry Bollet anyway. It's, it is, I mean, honestly, I might have more factual evidence on Numa Pompeus. Like this guy is, it is like trying to nail jelly to a wall using a jellyfish as your hammer like he's he's really managed to successfully.

Uh huh. The only person I think that might be slippery would be Vince McMahon himself. And I know that because you know, Vince McMahon actually has to file like business paperwork that you can at least use as a documentary source. Yeah. Well, we can also think about it like in the sense that when it comes to pro wrestling, they want to maintain an image. And so I think the biggest thing is that they've control have a lot of control over their image or in many cases Vince McMahon has a lot of control of their their image. Yeah as well. So yeah, it kind of makes sense in a lot of ways. He also like I'm trying to think like when you're going to eventually talk about it, but like probably the main history of like main history of like Hulk Hogan is really where everything really begins, not really with Terry, his first name Terry. Yeah, I would change my name to Hulk. But yeah, well, but wow. Yeah. Well, before I dive into before I dive into the whole that is Kogan,

I'm going to tell you about the man who is born in 1953 as Terry Eugene Balea, who is the, I would definitely change my name if my middle name was Eugene too. He's the third son of Vernice, call me Ruth Balea. And the second son of Pietro, my friends call me Peter Balea, Jr. His mother was a dance instructor and his father was a construction worker. Pietro Jr. was born to Peter Baleia and Edith Noonan in New Hampshire. Pietro Sr. was born in Sigliano, Verselli, Piemonte, Italy, a place known for its rice patties and not much else, somewhere near the Po Valley. Pietro had come over to the United States by 1911, at least, as his first child was born in New York. And there's some sources that have him as having signed up for World War

One, although by the time the US got into the war, he would have been nearly 30. So I'm a little skeptical. Also, by some reports, Hogan was a 10 pound baby in Georgia, but moved to Port Tampa and Florida within the first two years of his life. Like it's, there's a lot there, but that's as far back as I was able to dig into his life, into his lineage. Oh, okay, hold on. Sure. I'm trying to, I'm trying to make, make sense of the timeline here. Uh-huh. So was it his father or his grandfather that came over in 1911? Grandfather. Okay. No, no, I'm sorry.

Uh, Pietro Sr. Yeah. Was born in Italy, um, and Edith was born in Manhattan, and those two made, um, and the records changed Pietro to Peter several times. Because it was the early, yeah, yeah, it was, it was a time period when that happened, like, randomly. But by 1911, Pietro, Jr. was, was here. Okay. And is he the one that you're saying supposedly signed up for World War One? No, I'm sorry. Okay. That is the one. Okay. That is the one. I just wanted to make sure that that was because I was. Yeah. Okay. Wait a minute. I'm confusing. Other one, he

was born. Alright. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Alright. So he's he's the grandson. His second generation. Mm hmm. I'm an immigrant and tell him, okay. Here's where his biography immediately strands of credulity though. According to several sources, he was an excellent pitcher at Little League. And according to other sources, he was a great third baseman. Those are two different roles. Yeah, but they do require a good arm. Okay. different roles. Yeah, but they do require a good arm. Yeah, okay. But it's also like little league

right. They switch them around a lot. Yeah, it's okay. Good point. Yeah. But the man who would be Hulk by his own account attracted scouts from the Yankees and the Reds in his little league days and had a great and promising future. But for a weird underhand throw that broke his arm and he was never the same. Yeah, no. Oh, that's great. Crigility to the snapping point. Yes, I'm not his arm.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, he had apparently his arm. What year was this? Now, this is when he was 10. So 63, 63. So 63 63. Okay. Okay. Now it's not impossible.

It's more likely that if there were scouts in the area, it's entirely possible that those scouts were already in Florida and already in that area because in the time in which Hulk Hogan was supposed to have been scouted. The Boston turned Atlanta Braves left just before he started Little League when he was nine. The Kansas City Athletics fit perfectly during his Little League days. The Pittsburgh Pirates, who I had in mind for that specific area, but they didn't arrive until 1969, which would have been a little bit too late for his Little League days. And still, the Cincinnati Reds did have spring training down there in Tampa, starting in 1960. So it is possible that a Red Scout saw him. And although the Cincinnati Reds did have spring training down there in Tampa starting in 1960.

So it is possible that a Red Scout saw him. And although the Yankees were in Fort Lauderdale, not Tampa starting in 1962, prior to that, they played Spring Ball in St. Petersburg, which is also in the Tampa area. So again, is this possible? Yes, that scouts were there, but for a little league game, they were just sitting down and enjoying a little league game if they were in fact scouts were there, but for a little league game, they were just sitting down and enjoying a little league game if they were in fact scouts. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

And this is going to happen. That's pretty much. Yeah, I kind of want to point out something. You made the point like he got injured. And that just makes me think about like all these other big name figures who will be like I would have done X if it wasn't for Y because of this one injury and the first name that came to my head was John Wayne. John Wayne. He was a football during his time when he was I can't remember the college, but he played football. And I want to say, yeah, yeah, there's so many like, I'm just saying myths about like his playing style and how amazing he was.

But when World War II came around, he dodged the draft, specifically because of an injury he said from, he got from football. But a lot of other research points out that he got that injury from like boogie boarding. That's right. That's right. Yep. Yep. Yep. Which also explains why he walks funny. Oh yeah, that's true. That particular kind of swaying swagger. Rod Stewart is actually the example I thought of first when you when you mentioned that other famous people because Rod Stewart was going to be a soccer player. He was actually on a junior league, lower level league English pro soccer team and wound up mangling one of his knees if I remember the story right.

I wound up mangling one of his knees, if I remember the story right. And that was what wound up, sidelining that potential career and pushing him toward developing the kind of avocation he had of singing. So. See, three people came to mind for me since we're sharing round the campfire.

One, Macho Man Savage was a baseball player. I think he was a catcher and he ended up having some knee issues. Two, Fidel Castro, and three David Ikes, who also was a football player who contracted, remember he had rheumatoid arthritis. And so then he started writing all kinds of weird shit. Oh, yeah, David, David, I, great experience. He theorist. Oh, now he featured in big in our V episodes. Huge.

Oh, that's right. Yeah, it's a TV show. Do you think before you were born? But yeah. And thanks. Oh, um, don't, if he gives you shit for being young, don't, don't, don't feel bad. He, I'm, I'm what three years older.

And he gives me a hard time about being, being ancient, like, literally every episode. So I'm just waiting for him. We'll, he'll turn around and it'll come at me at some point. But you're busy. No, it's all good. Yeah, I was was I was going to bring up about Rod Stewart. Do you think he ever went sailing again? I don't know. I don't. Sailing's one of his songs. Yeah, I know. I know. I don't. Yeah, I tried. I tried. Yeah, no, and you did well. It's just I'm, I'm saying to respond to those without giving.

You don't sell. You know, I don't, I don't sell because I don't want to fucking encourage you. So, so my response is always flat. Oh, it's not you. Being in Tampa growing up means that wrestling that he saw was actually pretty damn good because that's the championship wrestling from Florida territory, which is called CWF, and it was dominated by the grams. Eddie and Mike Graham both late now, both having committed suicide,

actually. But at that time, it was headquartered in Tampa, Florida. Both of them were wrestlers and were excellent bookers. And their main talent in the 1960s and 70s was a man named Dusty Rhodes, who was a heel from about 1967 until he came to Florida and turned babyface in 74. And that was specifically in a match against Eddie Graham and his son, Mike Graham. Dust Eddie Graham and his son Mike Graham. Dusty turns on his tag team partner pack song and heal manager Gary heart.

And at this point, he becomes the American dream and he was a huge draw. Um, it bears noticing noting here that the CWF ran against Lawrence Welk on Saturday nights for years and it did fine. So it's very likely that Hulk Hogan as a young man was telling the truth about finding dusty roads in 1969, 1970 and being mystified by him. By Hogan's telling, he was he, Hogan was at this the Tampa sportatorium often and would have seen superstar Billy Graham whose look Hogan admittedly copied as hard as he could when he broke in superstar Billy Graham just died this last week. Just

to date the show. And a thing to keep in mind here is that Tampa was their studio based show. It was a small 50 seat studio that had no air conditioning and lots of smoke. It's loop was, I think they went from Jacksonville to Orlando to Tallahassee to Miami to Fort Myers and back to Tampa again. So that's what Hogan's growing up watching. Okay. Yeah. No, I decided to look up who Billy Graham is because I haven't heard of him, haven't heard of him, even when I used to watch. And he literally, he definitely took his look, ranging from like literally the handlebar mustache all the way to the hairline too. It's amazing. Now, Hulk Hogan claims to have 24 inch pythons. Billy Graham had 22 inch pythons. Young somebody is compensating.

Well, not only that, but like Hogan, 100% stole from Graham. Interestingly enough, Graham becomes one of the most, he's one of the very few evangelicals that I have some respect for because he's also incredibly self-reflective about his career and the damage that did to his body and the other boys growing up or coming through the business. So after he retires, he's very critical of the risks of hepatitis that people had,

of the steroid use that he engaged in. And he's very, very honest and open about it in most interviews. So, or at least he's positioning himself to look that way and I was taken by it. But either way, he was a very soft spoken fellow throughout the rest of his retirement and he was a good source for some things. So Hulk Ogan, Terry Belay at the time, he's 16 years old, he's going to high school, he's playing baseball, starting to work out, starting to play base of all these things. The music and the surfing.

That is what he dedicated his time to for the most. Although I imagine his body wasn't just genetics. He was probably working out quite a bit. And he played enough music gigs that he ended up dropping out of college and starting a band in 1976 that seemed moderately successful. By more than just his account, they played at bars that the wrestlers frequented in Tampa. And he went to the gym that they also frequented. So there's a, was he trying to break in or get to know them? Or was he just like kind of like, I admire these guys. I want to go where they go.

But regardless, he is showing up at places where wrestlers show up a lot. And he's built and he's fucking tall. So all right now when the brisco brothers who are tag team champions at the time, they're Oklahoma shooters. The brisco brothers are Oklahoma shooters. Okay, so they are really good at pro wrestling. And one of them, Jack Briscoe is a former NWA World Heavyweight Champion. His brother is Jerry Briscoe. You might remember them as the Stooges from the attitude area, or you might remember Jerry is one of the Stooges from the attitude era. Anyway, they came to the bar and they noticed Hogan's size and body and Jerry Briscoe has also

confirmed the story, whether or not he's just agreeing with the mythology to also get the likes. I don't know. But Florida was also home to several touring Japanese wrestlers, as well as a nearly constant resident named hero Matsuda, who is a very, very important wrestler in Hulk Hogan's history. So the briskos find him. They give Matt Suda's name to the man who would become Hulk and and he applied to be trained and training in the 1970s at a wrestling school wherever you were was a brutal and abusive and unkind affair. For instance, Verne Gagne, I think I've talked about this. he did his best just to take people's money by making them quit in the Minnesota winters. He would train them still brutally, they just like 500 hacks squats, 500 Hindu squats, 500 squats,

then you're gonna run the ropes for an hour, then you're gonna carry your friend up and down a parking garage, and then your friend's gonna carry you up and down the parking garage, then you're gonna do 500 setups, then you're gonna do 500 pushups, then we'll start talking to carry you up and down the parking garage. Then you're going to do 500 setups. Then you're going to do 500 pushups. Then we'll start talking about getting you in the ring, like that kind of stuff.

Jim Christmas. Yeah. And this is not uncommon for wrestling schools either. There's plenty of wrestling schools in Jersey, in Pennsylvania that did similar. And Matsuda was the trainer for the Florida territory. And he brought all his experience to bear on the would-be wrestlers. And Matsuda had actually taken his name from a couple of other famous Japanese wrestlers

who came to the US, both of whom were active in the 1800s and up into the 1920s. It's shit. Seriously? Yeah, it's an insane story in general. Yeah, I fell down a really fun rabbit hole. It took me from Peru up to Florida, up to Minnesota. Cool. Yeah, it was pretty great. But the important part here is what Hulk Hogan is claiming about it. On Hogan's first day,

Matsuda posted his elbow against Hogan's shin and broke Hogan's ankle. So to posted his elbow against Hogan's shin and broke Hogan's ankle. And then and and that's that's how you break them in and and and it was to test to see if Hulk Hogan would come back after healing months later. And then Matsood had knew that he was committed. Um, Matsood had a hell of a reputation for being well versed in multiple styles too. He wrestled in Mexico against the L Santo. You remember? El Santo. Seriously? Uh-huh. The silver mask himself. Yes. Oh, shit. Yeah. Matsuda wrestled him. Matsuda wrestled with

Frank Gach to learn catch wrestling from all the way back. Yeah. He went to Peru. He went the limit against Lou Thed. He became the first Japanese wrestler to win a singles title when he beat the legendary Oklahoma Danny Hodg for the junior heavyweight title. Danny Hodg used to just crush apples in his bare hands, which is hard. And eventually, that suit us slows down and finds a place in the CWF and he becomes the main trainer. So that's the legend. The reality of Hogan's story was that on his first day, he sprained his own ankle and when he came back the next day, which is a tough thing to do with Jit. Matuda looked at his ankle and said, you know what, sit out for a week and let it heal up and then Hogan came

back a week later. Yeah, that's that's right. I was I was gonna say the, you know, posting his elbow and, and you know, that that whole story reminds me of so many tropes out of so many WUJAH martial arts stories. Oh, yeah, you want to be my disciple, you know, that's like, and that that that shows up all the time in WUJA, but it transcends cultures that's like, you know, yeah, yeah, that's that's too tropey to be real. Yes, it is. And you have a lot of like there's a lot of like internet celebrities who would be

basically doing something similar. They would talk about like they were oversellen injury for the sole purpose of seeming tougher or or just like having a better story than like I tripped and I sprained my ankle granted. That's fine too. Yeah. Yeah. And and then like he could have like he in reality he could have like hand he in reality, he could have like, hammed it up a little bit. He broke my ankle and I just went on like a mile run but like, he kind of still kept it a little bit reasonable to make it, the story seemed realistic. Now, a lot of it also, how many pounds

does it take to break an ankle? Probably not that many, to be honest. I mean, I broke my eye. I was a teenager. Yeah, compared to some other joints in the body, I'd say an ankle is probably a relatively easy one, thinking about all the moving parts that are involved. And all you got to do is just go and keep going. Yeah. So get a good sound in there. It's about seven pounds of pressure, so anything higher than seven pounds. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Answers.com. Well, and the thing is, it's kind of that whole, and I don't know if this is a myth, but I choose to believe it. You could bite your own finger off, but for the fact that you have kind of an internal governor. Yeah. off, but for the fact that you have kind of an internal governor. Yep. Because we could, you know, biting through your own finger is similar to biting through a carrot, apparently. Yes. But we don't do it. And just say, I think the same is true about breaking

someone's ankle, like unless you're a goddamn psychopath, you're not going to break someone's ankle. Yeah. Unless you're actually inferior for your life, or you are in fact a psychotic, unless you're actually inferior for your life, or you are in fact a psychotic, or you're the bad kid in an after school special. There you go. You're not gonna break an egg, which may mean remember a fun fact. So like this could,

it could actually be like the biting of the finger could be like an urban legend or something like that. Absolutely. One of the most popular urban legends tends to be like while you're sleeping, you swallow exomatopheid, how many spiders a year? Eight, yeah. It's eight in a year is what you're supposed to swallow, but yeah, that's, do you know where it originated from? I think it was somebody who said something along the lines of, you are close enough to eight spiders to eat them or something. No. No. Was it a mattress thing? No. It originally began as a research study in urban legends. No shit. Yeah. No.

A group of what I've been told is that a group of researchers decided to study like how a group of researchers decided to study like how quirk relationships begins and how they spread and they wanted to create something that both sounds reasonable but sounds ridiculous at the same time and they created that and so yeah and so that's really kind of like how it began and so I wouldn't be surprised if like like how it began. And so I wouldn't be surprised if like, I mean, like we could probably do it, but like the bite my own finger off, but like, I guess you'd have to get people

to bite cadaver fingers off. Like, there's all kinds of ethics issues. I'm sure that this is gonna run into. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, I think it's one of those things where med students who are like running on caffeine and fumes at three o'clock in the morning while studying for a bone doctor.

I don't remember. I don't know. Yeah. Whatever the specialty is. Orthopedics. Orthopedics. Yeah, thank you. Studying for an orthopedic class on caffeine and fumes pulling an all-nighter like, holy shit, you know what?

You can generate this many pounds, but we know from you can generate, you could do this and like, yeah, you could, but yeah. So I think you were likely that. Yeah, I can do it. You can generate X amount of bite force and then you put that into a Vice and with blades and then you put a cadaver finger or the equivalent thereof

Ballista's gel is so much fun in the early 2000s. Yeah, and then see if that you know you replicate the conditions and see if You're gonna have results. There you go What I'm thinking about and I know like both my advisors are going to be listening to the set so it's so high doctor Austin, high doctor bulls. I'm sorry to both of you. No, they, I apologize to them daily. They chose to accept me. So they love me. They're great. Doctor bulls studies psychophysiology, which the best way to describe it is like, hey, you're watching something we're going to put like electrodes

on your face to measure facial EMG, measure your pulse, heart rate, and also your sympathetic arousal nervous system. And I thought about this. So, Docuables, here's the idea for the study. We get our VR system and create like a program where it looks like they're biting their own finger, but they bite a condaver and we measure what's going on with their body. That might be the best approach to do it. Oh, wow. I like it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. You mentioned that, It's, it's funny. Um, you mentioned

that, you know, let's see if this can get going. Um, my friends and I, uh, we, every once in a while, we'll have a weird competition. My brother and I had a competition for years, um, and not really competition, because my brother always won, um, because he's smarter than me. Um, but it was, it was the most ridiculous reductio out hit laryme you could do, right? So find a thing that Hitler also did and then accuse somebody of being like Hitler. So what's that? You like vegetables? You know, who else was a vegetarian? Shit like that, right? So he would always win that. Like, oh, you like blondie? God, damn it. But another one that he would do was that I had a, that's just the worst part of the internet. Yes. Yes. I look. Yeah. Yeah.

Also dealing with like the extremist side of my research, I have to deal with a lot of fascists. Oh, I don't get it. Fuck. Yeah. But another thing that we did was it was come up with something that absolutely sounds like a sex act, but is not. And there were two formulas. There was one that was using a present participle, plus a some sort of flower or plant. plus a some sort of flower or plant. And the other formula was come up with a city and a mundane item. And so they came up with the quiver in orchid,

which 100% said that's exact. And I came up with the Tampa Bay Butterknife, which also sounds like a sex act. Quivering orchid came back to them about two years later that somebody was bragging that they got their girlfriend to give them a quivering orchid. That's amazing. What? I'm still waiting on that Tampa Bay butter knife. Don't. I don't know if you want to be on the receiving end of whatever that turns out to be or the giving end. I you know again. I am a I'm still I'm gonna yeah, okay. I don't know back back to the whole Cogan. Yeah, so

he Hogan trains with Missuda for over a year. This is an established fact. And it's reported that his first match took place on October 10, 1977 in Fort Myers against Brian Blair. Now you might know Brian Blair's B Brian Blair, who has both run for office and also was one of the killer bees later on in the WWF. But the only match that I could find that took place in Florida on August 10th was actually a Miami Beach

and Blair wasn't on the card. Blair was in St. Petersburg on August 13th of 1977 and he was in Orlando in July of 24th, but there's no record of him wrestling Hogan in Fort Myers and there wouldn't have been a rogue territory at that time in that place. And here's where it gets even tougher to figure out. Blair claims that he, I look for interviews on this, he claims that he had Hogan's first match in chief Lynn Florida, which is not too far from where I lived in Bronson, Florida. And that's near O'Calla and Gainesville.

And there certainly were smaller spot shows, So it's entirely possible that he's mostly telling the truth or telling the most truth. Anyway, Blair said that he was practicing with Hogan for their 15 minute Broadway match. Now a Broadway is where you go to a draw. It's it's it's it's it's possible that back then you've got a little bit more long form going on. So you have a 15 minute match for first timer because it takes so long to break in. And as Blair seemed to draw and lose more frequently than anything else, that's also possible. So he got over by sympathy. Hogan was a heal at the time and Blair had only been working since June.

So both of them are green as grew, and according to, to Blair, it was turned into a 30 minute Broadway, which could have been a rib by the guys in the back, like they were waiting for the bell and the bell never came. So they just kind of kept going. All of that's entirely possible. It is unlikely, but it is possible. Yeah, I've heard weirder stories. Yeah, well, and there's plenty of shit. Like when you get out into the weeds of the edges of wrestling, I feel like from all of the other stories you've told.

Like the further you get away from the searing spotlight of the big show, the more likely it is for weird shit to wind up happening. Like does that make sense? Yeah, the more carnivates it gets, the more it returns to its carnivates. Yeah, and the idea and the idea that, you know, the guy's, you know, whoever was it was running the mash be like, you know

Keep them at it. Let them let them let them cook as the kids say nowadays like you know, keep them going. Let's let's see how long Let's see if one of them Yeah, you know comedy that happens sometimes like it's rare because you're it comedy and wrestling have a lot of overlap You are fighting for minutes and every once in a while you'll'll be going really well. And the guy who runs the show is like, fucking, let's see how long you can go. It's a whole yes and type of situation. Exactly. Yeah. So, it's a violent committee of Del R.T. Yeah. I think I've said before. Oh, quite so. Yeah. So, so shortly after, super destroyer starts showing up on the cards. And this seems to have been Hogan's first real ring persona.

It's your standard master hooded character who was somewhat interchangeable and usable in different territories at different times. The most modern equivalent we can think of would probably be Dwaynec the clown. There have been at least four Dwaynecs who wrestled for the WFWWE. And now, doink is called other things, but it's basically, it's a standard one. There was also the mask superstar, Mr. Wrestling, stuff like that. So he was on some pretty cool cards that year as the super destroyer, but not in any particularly good matches, which is fine.

You know, your brand new. That's what the territory system allows for quite ultimately, and that's what massed identities are for. Now from there, it seems that he left the CWF and managed a club in Coco Beach for a time. He turned down a stint in Kansas City, which makes a lot of sense because the Kansas City city territory was notorious as the territory where great wrestling happened. And it was run by Bob Geigel, the chair of the National Wrestling Alliance. And Kansas City had a long and storied history and was often where a new champion would

be crowned for the NWA. In other words, the pay was lackluster and the wrestling was tough and bitter. And for someone who idolized dusty roads, I can see Hogan looking at the grittiness and grimy wrestling that happened out in St. Louis and saying, you know what, I'm going to stick in Florida and just take some time off. So we almost, we almost didn't have Hulk Hogan. But after a year away, So we almost, we almost didn't have Hulk Hogan, but after a year away, um, he runs into a friend, his new friend named Ed Leslie, and he convinces Ed Leslie, who's really good at working out that they should be a tag team together. And he comes back into wrestling with Ed Leslie, you will know Ed Leslie as the Brutus beef cake. Oh, and this starts a friendship. Okay. For damn near 30 plus years, it does end as often happens

because of, well, maybe I'll get to that. But superstar Billy Graham helped them land in a non-flat Florida territory in Alabama. And the two wrestled as Ed and Terry Boulder, the Boulder brothers, which made my little avatar fan heart cheer. So have you ever seen Avatar the last Airbender, Andrew? Yes, I have. Okay. So you know that the character, the Boulder, the Boulder, when he was fighting tof. I yeah, that's one of my favorite scenes where he just like, you know who wrecked, you know who voiced the Boulder.

I am going to say no, Mick Foley. And you know who the Boulder is on yet. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no's no word for the rock. God, who talks in the third person. So you have Mick Foley of the rock and sock connection, aping the rock as a character called The Boulder. Oh my goodness. So good. Oh, it's just that's so meta. It's so beautiful.

I love it. It's the best kind of stunt casting. It really is. It's so beautiful. I love it. It's the best kind of stunt casting. It really is. Yeah, it really is. If I ever go to a convention and McFully is there, I'm going to have him sign something as the Boulder. Oh, man. I'm going to ask him to obviously. Yeah, well, you know, yeah, we have to receive it at a convention. Yeah, I'm going to have to like, there's no getting around it. So you've got the Boulder brothers and they found some success and more importantly, they found exposure. The two wound up in Memphis working for Jerry Jarrett, who also just died

this last year. It was here in Memphis that he got the nickname Hulk. And again, I had to come track down competing stories on this one, but they all either refer back to Hogan's autobiography or they simply agree with his autobiography. He was on a TV show in Memphis, a local Memphis talk show with Lou Farrigno. And Hogan was taller than Farrigno, had bigger arms than Farrigno ignore and at the time the incredible Hulk was on TV. So there you go. That's it. That's it. Okay. And that is honestly it is very kind of a letdown. Yes. It's also very plausible. I kind of want to I kind of want to believe that just because I hear that and I'm like, do we know nearly dramatic enough to be made up.

Well, well, we don't know what show it was on. It could have been, what year was it? 70, let's see, he's in Memphis, so that puts it at 78. Yeah, 77, 78, they're about, and that's the thing with Hogan stories, is like time compresses and shifts and sues But yeah, I would have been amazing if it was like an early episode of Sesame Street. That would have been even cooler It would be great. That would have been incredible

Mm-hmm, but um, thank you. So But um, thank you. So, uh, this was, this is actually plausible because people used to fly under the radar big time, um, when they would use music, like music companies wouldn't go after them for licensing because they were so low rent. Mm-hmm. Okay. So he works for Continental Wrestling Association, this is the Memphis Territory, the CWA. Okay. It's a local small territory and he's starting to use a decades-old nationally-known televised name for himself. And wrestling, like I said, flies under all the legal radars partly because of the ghettoization of carreneness that it has. And this is how groups like the Freebirds got away with using that Leonard Skinnerd song for a while when they were in Texas and in Georgia. Leonard Skinnerd famously wrote a song called Freebird.

Uh-huh. Yeah. Now he's still not. I actually, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You actually, um, one of the last records that Leonard Skinner made, you know, the one where it's the street on fire and everything like that. Mm-hmm. I own one. Oh, very nice. Yeah, it was so I was my mom. So, yeah, it's cool. It's fun fact. Yeah, cool. It's fun fact. So he's he's still not Hogan. He's sterling golden and or Terry the Hulk boulder. And he's starting to make use of what's out there in the media landscape. This is this is Hulk Hogan. Um, I mean, okay, I keep calling him Hulk Hogan because that's the name we all know him by the most, but you'll know if I'm talking about Terry or what or sterling golden. So, but he tends to use what's out there in the media landscape and he'll bounce around a bit between Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia for the better part of 78 to 79. In 1980, he meets a man named Terry Funk being from Texas. You might know Terry Funk from the double cross ranch. One of two brothers who were both champions in the NWA, his brother Dory

Frunk Jr. The son of legendary wrestler Dory Funk, but Terry Funk also won the title. So former champion Terry funk himself introduces Hulk, Sterling golden, Terry the Hulk Boulder introduces him to Vince McMahon senior Vincent Jessett McMahon, who ran the New York territory at the time, newly minted as the WWF because previously it had been known as the WWFF, the Worldwide Wrestling Federation. And then he shrunk it down to the World Wrestling Federation. Now New York was another territory, but it's the beltway essentially. So it's a 400 mile territory, which is pretty normal. Plus you get all the upstate New York, Connecticut, all those territories.

You don't get main because that's the Grand Prix territory, run out of, I think Montreal, but they've got agreements. For instance, Bruno San Martino goes up there one Sunday a month. So New York is a territory, but it's also a very important one from a media standpoint because there's a lot more publishing houses in New York

It was also where you had the Madison Square Garden Network Which was originally known as the Madison Square Garden Sports Network which got going in 1977 and it was a nationally distributed local sports network Centering on New York sports and things like that that was owned by Gulf Western and as such New York wrestlers and wrestling had a bigger market than just their territory. So okay, here's the question. Sure. Do you say they had a bigger market than just their region? Right. Was that did that did that market blanket the country geographically or was it? Not yet.

The coasts were was it a certain distance like did it get to Chicago and then stop at the Mississippi late. It overlapped with some and Vince McMahon and the WWF. So Vince McMahon senior and the WWF they weren't affiliated with the NWA and they hadn't been since the 1960s. I remember that. Okay. But they were still, well, they weren't under the NWA.

They were still affiliated with the NWA, which helps because so you had Vince McMahon and then you also had Cowboy Bill Watts, his territory down South. And the both of them were used to prove that the NWA was not in fact a crime syndicate because they did not hold them in Opli because you have these outlaw organizations. The thing is they knew they were outlawed. We're not the mob. Right. But they were 100% the fucking mob. Like the stories. Oh my god. The stories. stories. The wonderful book, I'll probably recommend not at the end of this episode, but the next one. Okay. Um, but about the NWA, but, um, these two guys stayed on a, un, not under the umbrella, so that the, the NWA could have the cover of like, see, it's kind of like that, um,

the, the country club that has the one black guy or the one Jewish fellow in it so that they can say, of course we allow their kind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's it's Bob over there. Right. You know, yeah.

It's thin cover, but it's covered nonetheless. But the kickback is you'll send your stars over to us fairly frequently. And Vince McMahon sent Andre all over the world, Andre the giant. He tended to be the one that helped Andre the most and Andre would, you know, get bookings through Vince. So in 1979, Bob Backland was the champion of the WF and he was the widest meat baby faced you could ever get. And Vince McMahon senior hired Terry Boulder, but told him that New York has ethnic heroes.

You've got Pedro Morales. He's the hero of the Puerto Ricans. You've got Bobo Brazil, who's the hero of blacks. You've got, I mean, because it's Vince McMahon senior. I mean, he's not racially all that progressive. He still refers to people as the adjectives. Yeah. You've got Bruno San Martino who's good for the Italians. And you'll be Hulk Hogan because we need one for the Irish. They need one for the Irish, but the guy they're choosing to be the one for, and I quote, the Irish is the

grandson of an Italian immigrant. Yeah, but most Italians were playing Native Americans. So it's all true, or they were playing Russians. That was the other thing. Oh, yeah, very much. Or or they're playing Arabs like. There you have a lot of work. Yeah. Oh, yes. Also, if you were, uh, that's pretty true. Yeah. If you were Jewish, uh, Boris Malenko and Dean Malenko and Simon Malenko and there are a few others. Yeah. Yeah. They were all the Malinco family, but they're all Jewish people from New Jersey, if I recall. They, I think I forget where they started New Jersey. I don't remember where they had immigrated from, but they, yeah.

Okay. So yeah, so you, Hulk Hogan, will be theman and and according to Hogan. So take this with the Salt Lake at deserves. Um, he McMahon told him to die as hair red. Uh, because that's Irish. Um, but since Hogan was already losing his hair in 1979, he refused. And he said, I'm just going to be a blonde Irishman. Um, because blonde is harder to show the baldness of.

Okay. All right. Yeah. You know, again, I hear that and I'm like, I can kind of like there are multiple factors that make that when not immediately fails sniff test. Yeah. Yeah. And, all right. You know, no, I, I fully believe this one too.

Yeah. Um, yeah. It's so plausible. Right. Right. And and don't get me wrong. He lies about, shit, he has no need to lie about. Yeah. Of course. This also completely makes sense. Um, and it was working fine for him.

Um, he wrestled on the WWF, WWF for the first time in November of 79. And that was on nationalized television. So the Madison Square Garden Network would go out to all kinds of syndicated spots. I don't know what their range was. I never got to watch the MSG Network living in San Francisco, but that's neither here nor there. But, but, but McMahon had worked out a way to get national or at least semi-national

distribution for the WF. He got it all the way to St. Louis, all the way to Los Angeles. And they would air WWF championship wrestling from 71 to 86. And this show is actually also where Vince McMahon, Jr. entered into the business. He was paired with the recently retired Bruno Samaritino and soon Pat Patterson in the time that Hogan first came to the company as an as an announcer and as an interviewer. And because of the coalescence of the New York, New York, the TV market, Marvel comics, Hulk Hogan's name gained fame. And he ended up in a lot of top tier feuds. He wrestled the champion Bob Backland in February of 1980. And he defeated him via count out. Backland fell out of the ring after giving Hogan the airplane spin. So put you up on my

shoulder, spin around a whole bunch. It's going to make us both dizzy. So, backland falls out Hogan wins. So, he's got a lot of heat on him, but backland doesn't lose a championship, right? So, shortly after this, he enters into a bit of a few to Dominic D'Nucci. D'D'Nucci is the trainer of Mick Foley. So, yeah. And you also have the Irish Italian rivalry, right? You know, one of the things that occurs to me, like explicitly right now, but always, always kind of pops up whenever we talk about this, is the extent to which within wrestling, there is like a lineage of discipleship. Yes. Like the kind of thing that in very traditional martial arts, you know, you have, you have there is, there is the master, there is the number one student, you know, there are the branching other students that go off and have their other schools.

But like there is a tradition of student ship and discipleship. And this is the way we do these things because this is how we were taught back to the first master. And like, if you just scratch the surface, you're like, oh yeah, I know this goes all the way back to, you know, the 18, 18, 17, seven days. And yeah, again, Frank got worked with Matsuda and Matsuda worked with Hogan like Like, that's, that's it. Like right. That's, that's 100% it. Like, wow. All right. I had to, I had to get that out. So anyway. Yeah. Yeah. So at this point, his finisher was the bear hug. Um, and also the leg drop. He used them interchangeably. Um, and at this time, he's getting a ton of matches in all of them in the WWE of territory stretching from Maryland up through New England.

In March, he was in Land Over Maryland. Um, he defeated Hogan defeated the champion again via count out this time at over 30 minutes. And this is establishing him as a credible threat to victories over the champ and as a credible heal. 30 minute matches with Bob backland are a way to make your name known because Bob backland could fucking go. And of course, he's a heal. So he's got a manager because this is a thing that happened at the time. He's managed by classy, Freddie Blassy.

The one who coined the phrase pencil neck geek. Yeah. Who was really big in Los Angeles in the 1940s. Like again, Blassy had been stabbed in the throat a couple times on the way to the ring. When he was a wrestler, like, oh, oh, thrown on him. Like somebody, and okay, you remember like TV shows and movies where people start throwing fruit. like Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh know what's taking it in. So, like, like, I mean, came in free. Yes. That's an attempted murder. Yes. Yes. Or just

wrestling. And the knife, and the knife through the throat, like, right, come on. Yeah. But, you know, it's, it's not like, you know, if you said, you know, the amount of steel beer that had been poured over his head, like, okay, right, and I see that. Sure. over his head, like, okay, right, and I see that. Sure. No, no attempts were made on this man's life. Oh, no. No. What happened?

He, somebody threw acid on him. Did he just go out and wrestle? I want to say it hit his calf. And then yes, he went wrestling. That's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was only a first degree chemical burn. What? I'm coming in from the mindset of being like, what post 9-11, where most of my entertainment came from, where I needed like get pat down and everything like that. Right. And then TSA takes me out to dinner afterwards. I don't know.

Sure. No, they should take it. I wouldn't love that. I need the money. Yeah, but like, I'm just, I'm so dumbfounded here. Like somebody just a rude acid, but it makes sense. Yeah.

And like such a, like kind of a tribalistic way, like the audience, fandoms, ultimately, you start to develop your identity around fandoms and then you start to ultimately perceive others as a potential threat, not just to the person you're a fan of, but also like to yourself in that many ways. To your drum.

Yeah. So it wasn't just like, oh my god, it's not just, oh god, who was it? I'm so dumbfounded just hearing that. Sure. Like for wrestling. That makes sense. K-fave is a hell of a drug, man. And you haven't even heard the stories about Philadelphia yet.

Let's Philadelphia. I'm a hockey back. Okay, you're a hockey fan, you know, I'm a hockey fan. I know a couple years ago, they're like owner like manager died and the whole fan base just through a bunch of batteries Onto the ice ads like the players. So it's Philly. Yeah, it makes sense. We give Philly a pass sure Well, we're a Puerto Rican wrestling where oh Puerto Rico I was about to also add that like after sporting events for Philly if they win they punch horses Yeah, oh my goodness that like after sporting events for Philly, if they win, they punch horses. What?

Yeah. Oh my goodness. You didn't know this? No. No. So like at like what year was it that they won the Super Bowl? The people's. It was two years ago.

I don't know. Yeah, something like that. Time doesn't exist anymore. But like there was like talks about and conversations about like Billy fans would go out in the streets and they would just punch horses like these horses. Yeah in the face. Yeah. Yeah. My God in the teeth, which by the way, if you're gonna punch anybody in the teeth, like a horse would be the last animal in the world and what because if you've seen the teeth on a horse like dude, but you know, they can right through a carrot. Yeah.

Nice. Good fallback. Nice. We done. Yeah. So yeah, no, isn't, isn't Philly where they have to grease the light poles. They do. Yeah. Oh God. I love. Grady is my favorite mascot from the fly just in general just because he represents the city so well. Just a chaotic, neutral creature.

I love this. Oh man. So it's late March of 1980 as best I can, as I can track it. And he starts, Hogan starts a program against Andre the Giant. And even that wasn't the first time he'd faced Andre. So when you're Andre the Giant, you have to go against people that could be credible threats to, right? So having a guy like Sterling Golden, I mean Terry Boulder, I mean Terry the Hulk Boulder, I mean Hulk Hogan, having a guy

that big is a credible enough threat because he's fucking huge. They had matches in Southwest championship wrestling, which is the San Antonio territory, which is run by Joe Blanchard, father of Tully Blanchard. But those weren't at the level of exposure that these would be. And at this point, Hogan is the heel. And Andre is the face. And the two have multiple matches that end in double countouts in front of very large audiences for the time. In fact, Andre doesn't actually defeat Hulk Hogan until April of 1980, but also in April of 1980, a match televised in front of the 19,568 sold out Philadelphia Spectrum audience. Hulk Hogan defeats Bob Backland in a 30-minute

match by a countout. His exposure in major markets is growing and while he's borrowing heavily from the IP known as Hulk, he's not running a foul of Marvel just yet. So I got a question real quick. At this point in his development, was he getting this amount of time? Because managers were looking ahead and going, okay, this guy's fucking huge. Was he getting this amount of time? Because there was a level of sale that he was legitimately able to pull off. Like, is this his charisma that's giving him these openings, or is this,

or is it some combination thereof? Like what is getting him this kind of opportunity? what is getting him this kind of opportunity? He is, okay, so he is the credible threat to the champion and the championship title always is the main event. Yeah, all right. If it's on the card, it's the main event. So he is a credible threat and because Bob Backland

is known for a certain kind of match, same thing as if Rick Flair is known for a certain kind of match, right? Okay. Bob Backland is known for a certain kind of match, same thing as if Rick Flair is known for a certain kind of match, right? Okay. Bob Backland is known for certain kinds of matches. The audience has come to expect a 30 minute from Bob Backland, usually a victory. Okay. So when it's a double count out or Bob Backland gets counted out,

oh, this hogan is a hell of a threat. Okay. Yeah. So, I'm now wanting to know like, what is his win record at this point, but also like how many of those wins were contributed to count outs Right, rather than like pinning the his opponent or like even getting them to submit I mean like you said earlier on he he did bear hugs there. Yeah Yeah, like tap in the WWF.

Oh, remember, they didn't have tap outs yet either. Okay. In fact, a lot of wrestlers when the tap out came, right? It came kind of with the submission match between Bret Hart and Steve Austin because it was refereed by Ken Shamrock. Prior to that, it wasn't a tap out because and wrestlers have lamented that you've added the tap out because now you can't just say, okay, he nodded and he quit. Like, you have to show the tapping out and that takes away some

the storytelling. But to your question, Hogan is winning much more than he's losing and his count out victories tend to be against the most popular faces in the territory. And other than that, he is defeating people in four minutes, not quite squashing them, but he is defeating people rather quickly until he's going against the, the very known baby faces. And I mostly focused on the Bob backlin stuff because that's where he's at the top of the cart. He's making good money and he's getting exposure this way because what's about to happen with his name is is do in part to this exposure. So, no, and with that in mind, like, he's having those quick matches in a way it's telling a story like,

Hey, give me somebody who's more challenging and those challenging matches are going way more longer. It's like, it's kind of like that bully mentality like give me something better. Right. Give me something that I deserve. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, give me something that I deserve. Right. Yeah. Oh, so from April through May of 80, he, uh, Hogan and Andre are kept apart for a good long while. Uh, but Hogan is always involved in high profile matches. He's defeating well-known stars, including a squash match of Gorilla

Monsoon that led to a riot. And I forgot to note the city. Um, but it led to a riot and I forgot to note the city. But it led to a riot and you say squash mat. Are you referring to like, they're in that room and they're like playing, hitting the ball in the racket and all that. Exactly. Yeah, they filmed grill them on soon. All four of ours. No, it's squash match is where we come in in 10 seconds. I've got you being.

Oh, yeah, I squash you like it's it's. Um, King Kong, the best example of a squash would be King Kong Bundy against SD Jones and WrestleMania two. SD Jones runs it. Okay. And misses in the corner, Bundy then literally runs into him, which is his move called the avalanche. Jones falls to the ground, Bundy splashes him and pins him. Nine seconds. Okay.

So, all right. That makes sense. Yeah, squash is you get no offense and I show how bad I am. And you can use that on established stars to show like, oh shit, this guy is the real deal. And usually established stars don't suffer too much because they can come back the next week and get their heat back anyway. They can be like, hey, you know, he got the better of me. I was distracted

whatever or he cheated because he's a heel, whatever. Yeah. Well, it's the, it's the wrestling equivalent of the trope known as the warf effect. Yeah, he wharfed him. Yeah, he wharfed him. We want to show how scary the Borg are. They're gonna be mond in the bridge and they're just gonna kick the shit out of Wharf right off the bat. Also through April and May,

Hogan's hardly ever losing back to your question. And when he does, it's only by count out. He's not getting pinned by that every many people anymore. Yeah. So that's why I asked because it's like, okay. So I need this challenge. Mm hmm. I'm not pinning after what I'm going to say like if you last about 10 minutes with Hulk, mm hmm, you're not getting pinned. The only way for him to win is a count out, which the only way for him to win is a count out, which the only way to win against him is a count out. Yeah. We win via bear hug or or leg drop or something, but unless you're unless you're champion,

then it's he wins by count out. Yeah. Yeah. Or he'll get disqualified on occasion, but it's it's a fairly rare thing. But that's a heel thing. Yeah, exactly. Now in May, he goes to Japan and speaking of disqualification, he loses to Antonio Inoki via DQ. Antonio Inoki is one of the superstars of Japan. He is the whole Cogan of Japan before Hulk Hogan is the whole Cogan of the United States. And he also loses to Tatsumi Fujinami in multiple tag matches with his partner Bad News Allen, whom you might remember as Bad News Brown in the WWF. And it's okay if you don't because he was a mid card to upper mid card heel. He feuded with macho man at one point. He was the guy who feuded with Roddy Piper when Roddy Piper decided to paint half of his body black.

Yeah. Yeah. Bad news Alan also, I think, had a bronze medal in judo, legit, like from 72 Olympics. Makes sense. Yeah. But Hogan did defeat Ricky Choshu on his own while he was over there too. Ricky Choshu is a very important wrestler in wrestling history in Japan. And when Hogan returned, he defeated people in handicap matches on taped shows. So he's taking his one on two. He double bear hugs people. He goes back on his winning ways against established stars, including a match against the legendary Canadian wrestler

Edward Carpentier, who was really big in Montreal, and he defeats him. So he's finally brought back against Andre in July of 1980, and he loses to Andre repeatedly. One of these includes a DQ loss on a live television match in Philly again. This culminates in the August 9th, 1980 showdown at Shay Stadium. This is in front of over 35,000 fans

and Hulk Hogan took on Andre the Giant. He loses, but he loses strong. So he body slams Andre at one point in it. And yeah, physically, how do you do that? Well, the guy getting slammed is doing it with your legs. Yeah. Actually, Andre, I, there is a YouTube video out there. It's like two minutes long of people body slamming Andre.

Okay. Yeah, including Harley race, Harley race body slammed him. I was trying to figure out who the smallest guy to body slam him was. I think it was a Japanese wrestler. Um, wow. But yeah, to figure out who the smallest guy to body slamming was. I think it was a Japanese wrestler. Um, Wow. But yeah, Andre does most of the work. Yeah. Um, kind of a little, I don't know if I said this already. Um, I used to wrestle a little bit in college, uh, wrestled throughout high school, walked on on

college, injured myself, and then I, uh, went separate ways from wrestling. And, um, went separate ways from wrestling. And I remember while it's not like WWF type of wrestling, we did folk style, we did learn how to like, live heavy things. And there are ways. I remember wrestling our heavyweight. I was 152. Our heavyweight was pushing 280, nearly 300.

And it's literally just technique. But also, they help in certain ways too if you're working together, like if your body weight is arm weight. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, there, and there you go. Like, remember, this is alkanie stuff. So, yeah, it's not like Andre's dead assing him, which is the, that is the actual term that they used to use. Like, so if you don't want, if you want to make someone look weak, or if you don't want them to put you up, or if you want to just fuck with him, you dead ass him.

No cap. Yeah, no. Nice. Yeah. There you go. Dead ass. But actually, Owen Hart famously deadassed his brother-in-law. Um, oh, God, what's his name? Uh, Davey, Davey Boy Smith.

Um, because Davey Boy Smith and the warlord were trying to legit figure out who was stronger. And they're like, okay, well, who can put Owen up the quickest? And Owen deadassed his brother and then just went up, light a feather feather for or for his brother and then went light as a feather for warlord because Owen loved gripping people. So, anyway, so Hogan and Andre, they take their feud to a few more big markets. Pittsburgh, Boston, Montreal, Springfield, at all. And at a September, taping in Hamburg, Pennsylvania, Hogan gives an interview, calling himself a superhero for laying out Andre standard heel stuff, right? But at this point, classy Freddie Blassy

says that Hogan was going to be the centerfold in a magazine with a readership of over 49 million. And McMahon was interviewing him. Benzwick, man, junior was interviewing him and asked would it be nude? And Blassy said, yes, it would. This is important as well. Promise of Hulk Hogan nudity. In September, Hulk Hogan alternates between losing to Andre and defeating all the other big stars. He actually wrestles Gorilla Monsoon in Gorilla Monsoon's last match because Monsoon actually had lost a retirement match against Ken Petera about a month earlier. Ken Petera and Olympic wrestler from 1972, famous chain smoker, who people like your wrestler, he's like everybody in Europe smokes to it. All right. Um, and Patera went to jail for three years for like destroying a McDonald's, uh, which cut his career.

Brad. Yeah. Um, well, Logan lost a lot to Andre the giant that year. Um, in fact, I couldn't actually find any real victories of Hogan over Andre. He, he loses more by count out and DQ than by pinfall against Andre. Um, and in fact, his very last match of 1980 is against Andre, uh, and he's disqualified. Um, 81, we see similar results, lots of televised matches, lots of near 20,000 seat sellouts, lots of exposure, lots of count out victories and de-hue defeats against champions. Lots of matches were Hogan fails to slam Andre and then gets pins instead. But in June, Hulk Hogan wrestled his last match for WF for that run. And this goes back to the showdown at at Shay.

at Che. Here's the thing. Hogan was offered the part in a movie because of his performance in showdown at Che Stadium. However, Hulk Hogan picks up the phone. They offer him a part in a movie and he hangs up because he thinks it's a prank because a lot of wrestlers used to rib each other by giving phone calls saying, Hey, it's so and so territory. Pack your bags. We want you. You know, huh? Yeah. Yeah. So, but I can see that especially now. Oh, yeah. Um, but now like straight up like Robo calls and stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So now he, so he instead goes on a tour of Japan and then he gets a telegram from the producer and the movie star of the movie. Anybody know what movie it was? What is it Rocky 3? It is Rocky 3. So that's a telegram. Yes.

Rocky III, Silvestre's most authentic telegram. Yes. Because. Oh, yeah. So he gets offered the part of Thunderlifts due to his wrestling against Andre the Giant. Now Vince McMahon Senior had a strict policy of being the only sugar daddy. And so he refused to let his wrestlers moonlight, even though they were independent contractors. And so he didn't like them moonlighting or getting any income through anything other than wrestling. This in some ways is a call back to K-Fabe, like

no, you are this character, you exist only as this, you don't exist in the movies. But also keeps his control over them. He was fairly generous for a promoter, but he still had his limits. And there is some discussion that maybe his generosity was just being kind when he was fucking you. Um, but he was known in most wrestling territories as being a good payout. Uh, but Hogan knew a good opportunity when he saw it and he took McMahon and it was ultimatum. And so he stopped working for the WWF as of June 1st. He did a quick Japan tour and he seems to have gone right to filming and then on to the

AWA run by Vern Ganya who didn't mind Hulk Hogan's moon lighting because Vern Ganya was like, I need a monster heel. And Hogan again is still a heel, which makes sense if you look at Thunderlips, right? And of course, the people connected Hogan, connected with Hogan very quickly. And at the end of July of 81, Hogan runs in and makes its save on Brad Reagan's against Crusher Blackwell. And he starts a feud with Crusher Blackwell that is gonna last through the rest of 81 while he's there.

And this is his first time as a face. Okay. Okay. Okay. So yeah. So that whole rocky situation he was just in basically let him to become a face in his in the in the uh what did you say? A A W A. Yeah. It did accept that the movie's not going to come out yet. Yeah, but still. Yeah. Still is that path. Yes, that led him to that.

And go on. If Vince McMahon still had his grubby little paws on him, right. He probably would have just continued to be a heel and maybe never become the icon that he is today when it comes to W when it comes to wrestling. I think so. I think so. And I think it's a unconscious genius that Holkhogan has to use media in this way to

promote himself and advance himself. He there's a there's a phrase with immediate literacy. We want to teach people how to use media and not be used by media. Yes. And that's basically what's happening. Yes. Yes. Now at this point, history gets a little muddy. Some people have Hulk Hogan on an extended tour in Japan until the late September of 82 and only joining the AWA at that point. But most sources seem to point to some pretty clear evidence that he was in the AWA's earliest July of 81. But by 82, Hulk Hogan is having matches against the champion in AWA, Nick Bachwinkle. Now,

Nick Bachwinkle is a smart heel. Andrew, you might remember when Chris Jericho cut his hair and came in wearing a suit and always had kind of very purse look and would like to get a size like that's Nick Bachwinkel. He's doing. Oh, there. So he's the smart guy heel. The I will tell you how smart I am. I am a good wrestler. You are all beneath me.

That kind of. Oh, my God. He's like Joe Rogan fan boy. Yes. God at the worst. I love that analogy. Oh, I hate it. But Nick Bockwinkle is like fucking 45. I mean, he is an old, old man at this time. I say that at the age of 45, but the the AWS seemed to be about this. The AWS, I was like, you guys have some kids. I'm trying to figure out your age. Oh, yeah. I'm 45. Ed is significantly older, but I'm 29. There you go.

I just felt a gray hair sprout in my beard. Yeah. Well, that's the funny thing. Look at both of us. It looked like I dipped my face in graying oil, whereas Ed only has like, highlight. He's got the salt in the pepper. I've got mostly sugar and a little bit of cinnamon. So listen, embrace it.

Oh, I do. We have a choice. It Become silver foxes. Exactly. Well, I have to imagine it because that's what helps me up out of the chair. Oh, so he's wrestling against the AWA elder statesman, not the oldest champion that they get in the AWA either AWA runs old. But he's he's facing against Nick Bachwinkel and it's time and time again. He comes close, but he never completes the journey to the point where fans are clamoring for a change in the AWA. Now this is what you want as a booker. This is what you want. But this last through 1982 as Hogan's popularity is swelling And this is partly due to his appearance in Rocky III.

For $15,000, that's what he was paid for Rocky III. Hulk Hogan got national exposure and over Memorial Day weekend of 1982, he became a household name. Rocky III was tremendously popular and to date, it's the only Oscar-nominated movie that Hulk Hogan has ever been in. It was nominated for the music, but... Yeah, well, for I of the Tiger.

Which is entrance music from 1983 to 1985. That is right. Okay. What other movies was he in? I mean, you're probably going to talk about it. Yeah, we will. At that time, not much, but we'll get to Mr. Nanny and suburban commando. Yes. The film grossed over $125 million and the opening weekend sought make over 12 million. And Hogan was already over in AWS. And so just huge, right? Now this leads to him getting on Carson for the first time.

In June, on June 15th, 1982, Hulcogan goes on Johnny Carson and he was gentlemanly and he was fucking enormous. And he responded really humbly and really soft, spoken and really well to Johnny Carson. He immediately played to the crowd. He mentioned his 24 inch biceps, his 60 inch chest, his 320 pound frame, and he mentioned Hulk Mania on national television. This is this predates WWE or WWE. He was very humble. He showed his third grade picture where he's standing out

head and shoulders above the rest. Johnny Carson played very intimidated and very amazed. His great exposure all the way around. Hogan K. Faves everything when he answers Johnny Carson. So Carson asks, quote, are the bouts fixed or is that a bad question? And Hogan's response is very bad question. And then he says, I wish they were fixed. This is a quote, I wish they were fixed because then they'd be a lot easier. Professional wrestling is the cream of the crop crop. Any spoke about wrestling main events and that it'd be a lot easier if it was fixed. And Carson asks about throwing people into the ropes and Hogan parried back with quote, I could make believers out of everyone here. And he's being soft. Oh, yeah. Right. And then he talks about how pro wrestling has no off season draws a lot

of and draws a lot more money. And then he speaks of Japanese wrestling. And on this episode, he recalled the telegram story about Stallone's offer. So this is out there in the media here. And he spent a majority of this is out there in the media. And he spent a majority of his time on Carson protecting the business. And he ended with Hulk, a Mount, Hulk, a mania's running wild. He says these words. So now he's super over. And it's April of 1983. Now behind the scenes, it's a totally different matter. He's going against Nick Bachwinkel, the arrogant, well-spoken scientific, I'm sorry, 48 year old heel, so he is ancient.

So he's my age, fuck you. Now, here's what's wild is that, that Nick Bachwinkel can talk. He doesn't need a manager, and yet he has a manager. Bobby Heenan. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait Bobby really Bobby Heenan Bobby Heenan, okay. Yes, all right Bobby Heenan is such an interesting story. I could read biographies on that man all day long Do you know Bobby Heenan Andrew?

No, I'm trying to remember. Wow Bobby the brain Bobby the weasel before my time. Oh my god Okay, okay, I've heard Bobby the brain Bobby the weasel before my time. Oh my god. Okay. Okay. I've heard Bobby the brain Bobby the weasel Yeah, so okay, Hogan is is a young pup. He is 29 years old So he's 29 yeah And no no Okay, so it's so wrestling ed Yeah, yeah So what what gets me? Mm-hmm? So it's so wrestling ed. Yeah. Yeah. So what gets me when you say that he's 29 years old.

The first thing I think is, you know, for pro football players for, I'm trying to, you know, I'm trying to think what are the pro sports like any kind of major contact sport? 29 isn't really that young anymore. No, I mean, you're, you're, you're hitting your stride at 20. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's your big money time. It's usually your second contract with whatever team. Yeah. It's your big money time. It's usually your second contract with whatever team. You're a seasoned, you're not a seasoned veteran, but you are a well-respected veteran and you are getting your stride, whatever it may be. Yeah, no, and how many years he would be doing this,

then? Because the way, like, he's 29, he began when like 17, 18 so he began let's see it's 1977 when he starts and he's born in 53 so it's 24 when he started so this is only five six years in. God okay. I thought so listening to that and listening to that it felt so much longer. Well, it's an Odyssey. It's the, it's the, you're never going to go home to Ithaca kind of kind of nature of this story. And I like to think my delivery is apparently not kind of a great delivery. Yeah, your delivery is great.

It's just there's so much fucking going on. They're now I'm going to be, yeah. Now I'm going to be looking in the mirror later today and like looking at my God, I'm going to be, yeah. Now I'm going to be looking in the mirror later today. I'm like looking at my god. I'm just like, what, what, what? Yeah. It was the Taco Bell. I ate the other night. My girlfriend's going to be listening to this. And she's going to be like, I love you. No matter what. I was on Thunderlips. Now she hates Holk Holgan. So it's fine. Okay. Okay. Well, all right. Yeah. Yeah. She should be like, you have a full head of hair and I love you and I'm like I love you too

So I just look in the mirror and I'm like I am a real Anyone I can't yeah, there's a story to that song too. It's so much. Oh, okay. So I'm looking forward to it because I have some theories Yes, oh So everyone knows who Hulk Hogan is he's he's got a great body. He's powerful. He's charismatic. He's a movie star. He's been on Johnny Carson. And Nick Bach Winkle comes out first for their match. Now that is unheard of as the champion comes out second. That's how it works. Yeah. Hogan Hogan comes through the crowd, which happens on occasion,

but he comes through the crowd to eye of the tiger. Now by this point, wrestlers were not spending too much time or energy on merch, and Hogan had a few of his own t-shirts made, and they were starting to sell, and that itself would become an issue between Hulk Hogan and Vernon Gagniac, because Vernon Gagniac is like,

well, I made you, therefore I get all that merch money. But we'll get to that. For this particular match, Hogan had a shirt that said, we want the belt on the front and on the back now or never. I watched this match. But to rewind just a little bit, in 1982, Hulk Hogan had 12 matches with Nick Bockelinkold. 11 of them were for the title. One was a non-title. Every single, in 1982, Hulk Hogan had 12 matches with Nick Bockenwinkle. 11 of them were for the title. One was a non-title. Every single one of them saw Hulk Hogan leave without the title, but plenty he left with the victory, just not by a pinfall.

And at this point, people are referring to Hulk Hogan as the incredible Hulk Hogan. Okay. All right. That's gonna matter. But right now, actually, that's where I want to stop us because we're going to find out what happens on April 24th, 1983 in the next episode. So so far, Andrew, I'm going to give it to you. Like, here we've got Hulk Hogan and his nasancy. And just at the end here, he's really tied

into your layer of expertise. So what have you gleaned from this? Yeah. So right off the bat, the first thing I'm seeing is like, he, he, what, actually going back to when he was like watching and stalking those other wrestlers that going to their bars and gyms, I think he was learning.

I think he was trying to figure out like, okay, what is going to be my like persona, what how am I going to present myself? I think he came in early on with like, I want to become the face of this industry. And the big thing is, is that once he became a face, he instantly was started trying to sell. He was instantly coming in with like this marketing technique of, I am O'Chamanian and stuff like that before. It was like his, his catchphrase, his moniker, whatever. And he was, he's coming in with the purpose of

for Zenning himself, which that's seeing that line is really fascinating to me. Yeah, because you can, like there are different kinds of wrestlers, some are journeyman, right? Some are, I'm gonna be really good in the ring and that's gonna carry me. And some are, I'm going to be really good in the ring and that's going to carry me. And some are, I'm going to market my, like, it doesn't matter what I do in the ring so much. I'm a punch and kick guy. Yeah. Or, or I know how to wrestle, but that's not what's going to get

me there. Punch and kick. And, and I'm trying to think like we talked about Hulk Hogan wrestling Andre the giant. Yes. And I know there's this iconic moment where Hulk Hogan picks him up and throws him down. Has that, is that the body? We're not there referring to that. We're not there yet. No, we're not there yet.

That's not until 1987. That's 87? Yes. Oh my goodness. Yeah, that's in front of 93,000 people setting indoor record in the Pontiac Silver Dome in Michigan. That's also many of three. Yeah. So so judging from like all this, he in all honesty, he from a media literacy standpoint, like he is using media. He is using it much more effectively in a sense of marketing.

When he talked about on the Johnny Carson, the still-own situation. And so he's using these types of myths and to build up his brand, to build up who he is. And he took advantage of his image. Yep. And those little opportunities to build up who he is. Yeah, and he's great on that Carson appearance. He very much stays humble, soft spoken. His voice stays down low and that that is a juxtaposition with what you see in the Thunderlip scene.

Oh, yeah, and that allows you to see him as what you see in the Thunderlip scene. Oh, yeah. And that allows you to see him as a good guy in the AWA. Exactly. And I was in the back. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And he's approachable all he's in a way, like you said, soft spoken. So that's kind of more appealing to around just younger audiences, but maybe people who are kind of like if he on the whole wrestling situation and introducing new people because he's presenting himself in a kind and gentle manner, but he's also using humor in a lot of ways that to humble himself. Yes, or humble, be humble. that to humble himself. Yes, or humble.

Yes. And he's also, he's appearing on a national market for a territorial system still. At this point, you don't have, AWA has a really, really wide reach. It gets all the way to San Francisco and it's based in Minnesota. But you, you still have territories like you do not know about WF Wrestling if you live in, you still have territories. Like you do not know about WWF wrestling if you live in Arizona, you don't. No. It's exceedingly rare.

Like you have to be in one of those lucky cities that has Madison Square Garden Network. So no wrestler is a national figure. They're all territorial figures. And yet he is getting national exposure. And he's using it. What would he be considered the first nationally recognized wrestler then? Yes and no. So I, I, I, how to put this, there were 28, 33 different territories. And because

the NWA was in fact a cartel, the national champion would go to all the territories and wrestling, his circuit was all those territories. He would be nationally known, but only to wrestling fans. Hogan is being nationally known, not for his wrestling though. And I think that is for his superstard, for his super startup. So he or for his start on, he was, he would be considered the first nationally recognized wrestler to

a lay audience. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, then he wins. Now he wins right there. Yeah. Yeah. You could say that Antonio No Noki might have been the first internationally known wrestler to a lay audience because of his match against Muhammad Ali in 1974. That's true. But it's still that's kind of niche on some But yeah, and we also got to remember the only audience that matters is the American audience. Right. No, and they tried like, you know, I might need to do an episode on that particular match

because that is a fascinating match. It's boring shit to watch. Oh my god, it's a bit like that. But the lead up. Yeah, and the after effects are fascinating because it ruined part of it shortened all these career by quite a bit. Because all the blood clots he got has like from getting kicked so much by anoki. Yeah. But yeah. All right. Ed, again, the, the fact that the whole industry of, of wrestling

is so tied up in its own myth. Yes. Like they Well, yeah. And and there is no reliable history. Nope. Because the entire thing is based on a fabrication. It's okay. The whole, yeah, the whole enterprise is based on the mutually accepted It's based on the mutually accepted mutable myth. Yeah, yeah, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,. This is not, you know, uh, you know, this is there's that there there is some level of artifice involved. But as a fan, you choose to to not not think about the you suspend your disbelief. And as a performer, as an athlete, because they're fucking athletes, you choose to subsume whatever your actual experience reality is into can say, well, I'm writing an oral history. And okay, that's fine. But if you're like, no, no, no, seriously, I'm going to do the research. I'm going to, I'm going to figure out what really fucking happened.

No, you're not. Right. You just, it, I mean, because it doesn't exist because there's no, there's no ground under your feet. You know, um, there are, there are certain things that you can point to and go, okay, we do know this thing happened on this day between these two people and we have film, right? Right. But anything that happened behind the scenes, who the fuck knows?

It's like being a Roman historian. Yeah, it really. Yeah. And then I go back to making me spit beer out when you said, you know I'm gonna be like livy like okay, great So we're not gonna know a fucking thing by the time it's what you're gonna say. Yeah So at the same time. Oh, yeah, yeah, but it's but it's it's It is it is fascinating and enthralling and fucking infuriating.

I don't doubt that. Go ahead. Yeah, no, this just makes me think about how myths and in ways misinformation gets spread. It begins within bite influencers, in this case, its whole Colgan or the wrestler, and then it goes to more tight-knit communities, the wrestlers themselves, and they start spreading and adapting those stories. So yeah, it's kind of really difficult to what is the official oral history of wrestling, or in this case, what is the official oral history

of Hokehogan, and with Hokehogan having that opportunity on Johnny Carson to basically tell his story, it's gonna be a lot more difficult for you. Yeah, it's much more codified and crystallized at that point. Yeah. Yeah. So we don't know if it's accurate, we don't know if it's like, honestly, like the whole Vince McMahon situation where he's like, oh, dye your hair red, that's probably the

most believable thing. Right. But yeah. What struck me about that one was, you know, nobody comes off looking good there. No. No. So because nobody looks good, I'm more willing to buy that. Exactly.

That's not you trying to look better than man senior. Right. And that's not you trying to lionize man at your own expense. You're not trying to be falsely humble and try to make the man look good for the know, for, for, you know, the sake of the memory of the man or whatever. Like, no, nobody comes at us. Or you look at, like, like his erasist asshole and your vein. Like, so, okay, that, like, or they both just had different ideas as to what would appeal to the vulgar masses. Yeah, okay. Yeah, there's that too. All right. So Ed, what are you recommending people read? In thinking about the extent to which Mr. Hogan, if that is his real name,

crafted his own legend, I'm going to recommend King of the Wild Frontier and autobiography of Davey Crockett. Oh, very nice. As an earlier example of somebody in American history, just saying, you know what? Everybody wants to know who the hell I am. Here's who I am. Right. Like, I dare you to prove I'm wrong. I love it.

You know? So yeah. And the other issue was, as I was looking through it, I was like, okay, and where is a scholarly history? Like, where is where is somebody who's done the real history? And much like with Mr. Hogan, I couldn't find one. Yeah. You're gonna have to go to the universities

that have a David Crockett department. Yeah, and everything I was able to find was like, oh, hey, David Crockett's story for kids. And here's this popular history that undoubtedly draws from his autobiography. Oh, oh, oh, oh, Livy again. Hi. How you doing? Yeah. Andrew, how about you? What are you going to recommend to people? So I got two thoughts. I'm currently playing Lexington, Zelda, Lexington, Zelda, Tears in the Kingdom. Oh, it's so fun. Oh my God. Yes. Yes. I'm just really enjoying exploring. I love the open world. Like, for example, like at the moment, my other favorite video game series is Pokemon. I've been playing it since I was little. They finally did an open official open world game and I just loved it even with all the bugs,

but this Legend of Zelda Legend of Zelda is starting is perfecting it. I'm loving it. I'm loving the new like mechanic of like where you can just combine things and basically make as many dicks as you can. If you haven't seen it, there's a great talk. Yeah, somebody just made a man with a fire penis. It's phenomenal. It's beautiful. It's art. It's nice to see 1980s glam rock coming back. Exactly. And it was the other thing. So because I am trying to promote more media literacy stuff, I would also recommend to your audience, check out the National Association for Media Literacy Education, or namely, I am associated with that organization. And it really provides a lot of insight into how to approach media literacy. I can also drop like the news literacy project and stuff like that, another organization that I

really like to, but generally like check out these organizations, they provide a lot of resources, they provide a lot of insight and strategies on how to approach media literacy. Very nice. Cool. Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and recommend the comic book story of professional wrestling. And it is a graphic novel, a hardcore high-flying, no-holds-barred history of the one true sport, by Aubrey Sidderson, or Sidderson, and Chris Moreno. Fantastic, especially given what we're talking about. There's a really good section on Hulk Hogan. It's a great discussion of the territory system.

So that's what I'll recommend. And instead of letting me and Ed plug our stuff, we're going to turn it to you, Andrew. Plug away. Hi, okay. Oh, what sort of stuff can I plug? Well, you can, my name is Andrew Sutherland. You can follow me.

I most, I haven't posted in a while is Andrew Sutherland. You can follow me. I haven't posted in a while, but I plan to. I'm writing scripts for stuff. You can follow me on TikTok at prof.suds. I mostly talk about media literacy stuff, education stuff, public speaking, or even just generally other communication studies theories. If you want to feel sad a lot, you can follow me on Twitter at prof-slaught-underscore-suds.

I just like things and retweet stuff that makes me frustrated, mostly politics stuff and media literacy stuff as well. So yeah, you can follow me there. I also do research, maybe read one of my articles that I planned to publish in the near future. None of them are fully written yet. I would love that. I will talk about those on TikTok because a big thing that I'm trying to do and I'm trying to get other scholars to do this is find ways to get our academic articles a little bit more accessible to the public, not just be behind a pay wall, but try to get them open source in certain ways, that ethical ways, kind of

have to make that point. So yeah, also support your local news organizations. Well, thank you. Well, let's see. First off, local teachers. Yeah, I'm into that. Thank you. Thank you for that. Yeah. So everyone, that was Andrew Sutherland.

And for a geek history of time, I am Damien Flyen Harmony. And I am Ed Blalocken. Until next time, keep rolling 20 days, brother. I am Damien Flyin' Harmony. And I am Ed Blalock and until next time, keep rolling 20 days brother.