A Geek History of Time - Episode 224 - Hulk Hogan Media-Made Media Murderer part III

Episode Date: August 12, 2023

I'm one hit the grocery store item two Audrey I'm three over through capitalism you know for somebody who taught lab Your inability to pronounce French like hurts Oh look at you getting to the end of my stuff Mother fucker but seriously I do think that this buccolic Like hurts. Damn, look at you getting to the end of my stuff. Motherfucker. But seriously, I do think that this bucolic, luxurious, live-your-weird fucking dreams kind of life

is something worth noting. Ah, because of course he had. I got new an argument essentially with some folks as to whether or not punching Nazis is something you should do. And they're like, no, then you're just as bad as the Nazis. I was like, the Nazis committed genocide. I'm talking about breaking noses. Drink scotch and eat strict nine. You can't leave that lying there luxury poultry. Yes. Yes. Fancy chickens. This is a key history of time. Where we connect an Ergoree to the real world, my name is Ed Laila coming, world history

and English teacher at the middle school level here in Northern California. And just earlier today, I encountered what I think is one of the most evil plants That that you can encounter in in suburbia So we're working in our backyard and I noticed that owing to neglect over the course of the winter One of the plants along our fence line had started taking up an inordinate amount of space on our property. And so I went out to deal with it with an electric headstreamer.

And in the process of doing it over the course of roughly an hour, I got attacked by a hive of red ants who I can only assume had made some kind of pact with the evil spirit living at the heart of this particular shrubbery. And then after I had dealt with that, I wound up getting stabbed, no fewer than three times through my work gloves by the thorns coming off of the limbs of this thing. So I have drafted a letter to the American Botanical Society to rename the Canadian choke cherry Satan's because I'm incredibly sexual. I am here for both. Yeah. Um, if, if you're into pain as a thing, maybe, but this is awful. This thing is fucking evil. She gave me a towel of hassle.

Well, that's better than a Canadian choke cheering. That's better than, yeah, that's, yeah, there you go. There you go. But I swear to God, this fucking plant. By the time I was done, trying to prune this thing, I was seriously looking into how much will it cost me to rent a fucking flame thrower. Well, and the fire ants. So you've got attacked essentially by NAFTA. Pretty much. It's from South of us of us and yeah, in a community. Yeah, that's a good point. There you go.

The Jeff Garcia of Backyard. Yeah, yeah. No. So that was that was an hour out of my day today. How about you? Well, I'm uncharacteristically chatty. And I'm Damian Harmony. I am a history teacher at the high school level soon to be no longer a Latin teacher at the high school level soon to be no longer a Latin teacher at the high school level. As of the time of this dropping, I'm done teaching Latin. But for right now, for recording purposes, still in the thick of it.

And this week, my daughter and I decided to make a new D&D subclass. As we do sometimes, we have done the college of the idiot, which is now getting play tested in a game that I'm in. Yeah. And so we came up with the Muppet Warlock class called the Old Felt ones or the Great Felt ones. And it's essentially, it's a warlock class lot class and you treat your patron as the all of the muppets. Okay. Okay. So like a third level, you could, you know, how you get Tomah the Pact, Tomah the Chain, Tomah the Blade. Now it's animals rage, Vengeance and Uncle Deadly's book. Okay.

Cool. I like it. I like it. You also can get Kermit's Serenity, Ralph's song. And then when you go up to like 10th level, you, Ralph's song is where you get a proficiency in a single instrument.

Okay. And then you get up to like 10th level and I think you get Dr. Teeth and the electric Mayhem's song, temporary, you know, temporary, uh, uh, uh, provisionsy in, in at least three instruments. And the final one, the final, final, like, the highest level thing you can get is walk a walk a walk a walk a. And nice. It's essentially you get a really high powered like mind whip essentially. Okay.

Where it's like Tasha's hideous laughter laughter. Nice. But way way bigger. All right. There was also you get one of the lower levels. You get like Waldorf and Stattler's heckling, which nice. Yeah, it paralyzes people. Do you get it?

At some point, Ganzo's resilience. Oh, we had something with, oh, you get there was a thing where you can see the exact way. Check it in a 10 foot radius. It close. You summon 12 regular chickens and they each take up a square making that square difficult terrain for passage and they only do one point of pecking damage, which is piercing and and they only they only get a plus two to do it, but you're doing it 12 times and around if they surround someone, you know, and they each only have one hit point. So we pick this is so awesome. That is 20. The levitation is 10, you know, oh shit. And it all came because we were watching an episode of the Muppet Show and I turned to her during the opening music and I just kind of deep

in my voice. I'm like, it's time to get it started. It's time to light the lights. It's time to raise the veil and summon them great felt ones tonight. And she's like, oh, and since then, he has decided to write a story mapping out the entire cosmology of the great felt ones. And the short version is they are created by the theories, because the theories are spinning thread, and the lint that fell from the fate's threads gathered. The fate's not the theories. Okay, yeah. She goes better than I. But the lint gathered on the floor. And because it was from

people's fate, it it gained consciousness and was swept into the side. And then it became kind of a who was the first one who was the second one. So we've gone into the research of what was the first mup it ever made by Jim Henson and on and on and on. And it turns out when you die for real die, like no more death saves or anything like that, the great and felt ones know. They know when it's not just you getting death saves or you getting resurrected, they know your fate because they come from fate. Yeah, yeah. Okay. When you do die fully completely, your character is completely dead, no longer able to be robbed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Scooter shows up at the door of the great felt one's theater and says, Oh, you're a special guest tonight. And you do the show.

And when you when when Scooter sees that you're not going to die, he says, uh, tonight's not your night. And so you get whisked back in whatever way you do. She's writing the whole story and the hero is going to die like three times so that you can see each time. Speechless. Yeah. I'm just sitting here, grinning like an idiot. Like, oh my God. Oh, it's so brilliant. Yeah. So she's having a lot of fun with that.

And you know, someone else is speechless actually in this group here. And our guest from last week came back for more Andrew Sutherland, who's still chasing his PhD one year down. And Andrew, welcome back. And thank you for joining us. Thank you for bringing me back. I thought you would have kicked me out by now. If you're enough of a glutton for punishment, keep coming back. We're not going to stop here. Well, some would say I'm a masochist. So, coming back, we're not going to stop here. Well, some would say I'm a masochist. So,

all right. First off, I want to make this point. I have not played D&D, but I really want to. I have always thought like maybe my first character would probably be a bard or like an arranger or whatever. I think I would actually end up becoming a warlock if I can play that class because talk to whatever DM you get and see if it's too old. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I mean, how could you not? That's a big thing. Um, I, can you not though? Like, come on, especially with my, especially with my love of the muppets. Yeah. Um, I, I'm Andrew Sutherland. I am as Damian Poinett finishing my first year of my PhD program, I study media literacy, psychophysiology, and what I like to point out, the cultic malew,

which is all the worst stuff like conspiracy theories, cults, political extremism, stuff like that. Since it's the summer, I'm doing a lot of projects. I'm on multiple different types of research studies and stuff like that. They're literally treating me like a workhorse. And one of the good things is that I myself and my advisor, really my advisor, got asked to write a chapter in an edited book. And our subject is on, what the book is focusing on health communication and pop culture.

And our chapter specifically on media literacy, health communication and pop culture. And so I'm in a way taking lead, I'm mostly writing it. And so far, what I've been mostly writing about in the introduction is kind of like, I'm basically pulling in all the muppets I can, up information, um, because a lot of health campaigns actually involve the muppets and Sesame Street. Yes.

Yeah. And so what we're trying to do is brain like a lot of popcorn Ted Cruz took on Big Bird. Yeah Talk about talk about pick and fights. There's no way to win. Yeah, no, no On so many levels that's just Well, that's awesome. So you're gonna get some of that sweet sweet. I was in an academic book money I heard that that's all the rage. Oh, it's amazing. It's actually my second one. I'm still waiting for the check for the first one. I'm sure it's just around the corner, man. Someday. Yeah, it's gonna pop. It's gonna pop. But so literally one of the things I tried to do and it's still working progress, but let's see if

I can find the article or the paper right now. I am trying to write the opening and what I tried to do was Open it up with the Muppets theme song. It's time to read a chapter. It's time to pop the culture It's time to learn about health come when it comes to media literacy tonight It's let's send it back a couple times. Let's say let's workshop that. Yeah, it's a workshop. It's a state. It's like I like the bones. I like it. Of course, love the approach. So yeah, yeah, so just off with that. Yeah, I like it. I like it. Talking about various muppet stuff and health

campaigns as well. Some bad stuff. Like there was something, there was a bad issue. A situation last year, I think, with TikTok and a puppet character who was spreading certain types of ideology using a puppet. I can't remember it. Is this puppet? No, not that one. It was a, it was a Star Wars puppet or something

and they were promoting homophobia and stuff like that. And so what I wanted to try to do is open up with like, hey, media literacy is important while the Muppets can be used to promote health campaigns, positive messaging that faith actors could use this image of something that is wholesome to spread ill ideology in many ways. Sure. So like, because he's all about it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's wholesome. Yep. Wow. Yeah, I guess, you know, I, I, I think I know we're Ed's going to fall on the Muppet thing because because you know, it's Muppets don't kill people people kill people

well, yeah But he's basically his background checks or yeah, well, I mean anytime you're gonna deal with plush You need to you need to have a background check before you before you get a hold of puppet-making materials. Yeah, you need a long, obvious. Yeah. So, yeah. You know. So a fun fact continuing on with this Muppets theme, I went to West Virginia University for my undergrad and my master's program, which is one of the very few schools that had

a puppetry program that was directly tied to Jim Hanson. Oh, wow. And that was because I think his wife went to West Virginia or was from West Virginia. Okay. Yeah. Cool. It's been a while. I haven't thought that it was cool.

Wow. That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. Other stuff I'm trying to write about in the chapters, talking about other types of pop culture, icons, such as Tom Hanks and Dolly Parton when it came to vaccine messaging and comparison to Joe Rogan and Russell Brand, who promoted more conspiratorial thinking around it. Right. Right. So you mentioned two people who have said yes to most things in life, and then two people who've never heard the word no. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And the reason why is because yes, media literacy, we can talk solely about the bad stuff, but we can also talk about the good stuff too. Absolutely. Absolutely. Speaking of the bad stuff, when last we talked, single opera was beating the shit out of out of a little bit. And cap a little bit.

Yeah. Okay. With her purse and David Wolf had to yank her off. Remember? Right. Yeah. Well, the next the next week on June 23rd, uh, Rady Piper, Roddy Piper went to Cindy Loper's recording studio to confront her and ask her for an apology because she behaved so badly on Piper's pit. And in fairness, she started assaulting men on a talk show. I mean, who does that in wrestling? And he of course heals it up completely. And of course, there's

like three cameras there too. So and she looks to the camera at this point, right? And he's like, you know, and you know, Cindy, you're going to need to apologize. And yet, and he just goes in on her and she looks straight at the camera and she cuts a promo on albano and piper. It's not very good because it's Cindy Loper cutting a promo, not a seasoned wrestler, but she says, quote, let me tell you something, Mr. Albano, which I love the foreshadowing there. I challenge you. You big fat bag of wind. I challenge you, you big fat bag of wind. Um, oh, now, all right. At this point, Hulk Hogan has not been mentioned at all.

At all because from February through March, he's now the champion. New champion goes to Japan and wrestles all over there. And when he gets back, he's got a few heater matches. Now a heater match is where you don't have a main feud. You have bad guys that everybody loves to hate. And essentially, they're just kind of seeing what's going to stick with the fans. So he has a short feud with D David, Dr. D David Schultz. You might remember him as the guy who slapped the shit out of John Stossel. Right. He has a few matches with Tiger Chung Lee, who is a Korean

wrestler who spits green stuff in your face. Or I might, yeah, there were stuff. It was a weird thing. Like every Asian wrestler for a little while, who was a singles wrestler, spits green stuff in people's faces. The great Muda did it, Tiger Chung Lee did it, because Hogan even caught it on tape once and rubbed it in Tiger Chung Lee did it, because Hogan even caught it on tape once and rubbed it in Tiger Chung Lee's eyes. And essentially what it is, it's, I wanna say it's like Kool-Aid powder and you just get a mouthful of spit.

I don't know. Okay, all right. And he wrestles with Paul Orndorf, Mr. Wonderful. And he has a heater feud with Big John Stutt, again, a main bad guy. And this is kind of trying to figure out what's sticking and also establishing him as a guy who can really beat a lot of known heels. And this one is the foray into Piper and Hogan beginning their feud, too.

Like what she's doing, what L lawper's doing is going to lead to Hogan and Piper finally feuding. And then in May Hogan goes back to Japan for about a week. He even teams up with Big John stud because it's different over there because if you're American wrestlers, you're a Geijin and you know the fans love to hate you and sometimes they'll they'll cheer you on. And then he does another trip to Japan in early June. And when he comes back, he was involved in a few battle royals. And these were where he was able to safely put over big John stud. Now a battle royal is anywhere from six to 20 men,

is the original, anywhere from six to 20 men in the ring at the same time. And the last one still left in the ring wins. The way that you get everyone out is by throwing them over the top rope. Now, as I had said before, throwing somebody over the top rope was usually grounds for disqualification. So that's what makes the battle royals so dangerous. And battle royals were a tradition at the Cow Palace in San Francisco in December. It was a big deal. They were a big draw of a match because you get to see all the wrestlers, you know.

In these battle royals, Hulk Hogan would often get thrown over the top rope by Big John stud while he was distracted or fighting off three other guys or whatever. And it puts over stud without really hurting Hogan and thus elevates stud for the feud that he's going to have with Andre the giant. Okay. All right. And Hulk Hogan also wrestles Moon Dog Rex, but not Moon

Dog Spot. And yes, I'm serious. Those are both guys. Wow. So creative. Yeah. They would come become wearing torn up jeans and carrying a bone. That's a little rough. Yeah. Oh, God. Well, and it was during the dog days of summer. Look at Ed pinchering his nose. I'm just hailing over here. Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, honestly, if you take a look at a picture of Moondog Rex, he is pug ugly. Yeah.

So then at one point, Hogan fights a guy who is, he came off of the sheep station in the He was a German Shepherd. Um, uh, uh, anyway, though you can't even come up with this stuff in laboratories. Exactly. Or Ed, the problem with the podcast, and I've heard this complaint from people is that they just hear me laughing at Ed's silence, and it's uncomfortable.

So I frequently listen and I did not imagine like I always just thought Ed just puts his head down and just like he just leans back and it's just like, ah, you can see the frustration just like again. Oh, it's so. So anyway, you need another minute? Yeah, no, I'm fine. I'm fine. Carry out. Wow, doxoo.

All right. So meanwhile, on July 13th, 1984, as Ed is ready to punch me, is why I didn't want you to come over to record. Um, on July 13th, 1984 on MTV. You remember MTV? That was the thing. There was a panel hosted by VJ Allen Hunter who asked Captain Liu, quote, why should anybody believe a man who has rubber bands on his face?

And Luz response was because my honesty and my integrity is beyond reproach Which okay good heel work like yeah, that's great heel work. Yeah, yeah, yeah, especially Sounds like a politician That's perfect. Yeah, I mean like both the similar politician. That's perfect. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like both the similar, the, the, the relationship between politicians and wrestlers are just who lies more frequently. Yeah. Yeah. It sells better. Yeah. So then then Alan Hunter goes on to chide, Roddy Piper, calling Piper's pit a quote, disgraced a professional wrestling and journalism. Piper gets up and comes around the desk.

So it's just basically two tables with a curtain on them comes around it and begins cutting a promo and he's like, you sit there 140 pounds. Obviously, you've been taken female steroids half your life. You're going to come and insult me. We can do it right here. You skinny little jerk and or geek. Any grabs hunter by the, drags him over the table behind them. You can see Lual Bano giving David Wolf a few punches, but they're absolutely

working punches. Um, like he's lifting him up by the back as he's punching him in the gut, you know, it's that kind of, um, that kind of thing. Cindy Lauper then jumps over the table to attack Roddy Piper and that causes Roddy Piper to flee Screaming get this witch away from me Then she picks up a chair and attacks captain Lou with it And all of this work through this point has been to cross promote WF and MTV because WF is still largely a regional promotion and it's trying to become Global and MTV was riding the cable wave into households across America because WWF is still largely a regional promotion and it's trying to become global.

And MTV was riding the cable wave into households across America. So if you have WWF on MTV, it's a big fucking deal for WWF. There was a huge increase from 1980 to 1984, cable households went from 23% of the country to 46% of the country. I don't do math very well, but I'd say that's almost double.

And MTV was mainly, it was mostly a basic cable channel. So everybody who had cable had access to MTV, almost 100%. By January of 85, that represents over 32 million subscribers. And so the WWF is pushing its main villain super hard on MTV and MTV is like, oh cool programming because they were having trouble keeping up with programming. There was a time when the screen went black. Yeah, there were times where the screen went black because they were switching VHS cassettes

for the different videos. So I'm not fully up to date on the history of professional wrestling. Sure. How long at this point has the WWF been televised? So you remember the Madison Square Garden Network, right? Yeah. So that goes back into the 70s. Okay.

They're televised. Now Vince McMahon Jr. took over in like 82 83. Okay. And he's giving the programming to to different networks around the country, different locals around the country, basically for free, which they're not going to turn that down. And that's he's basically, you know what he's doing is he is, he is, um, Microsoft Internet exploring wrestling. Yeah. He's offering it now free, whereas the other territories were charging for syndication rights. And he's, and he's doing that in order to make it ubiquitous. Yes. And yeah, to, to make them think, you know what, I don't want to spend 20 bucks for net scape. I want to just get this free browser.

But also, now you've saturated that market. So when WWF does come in, they're making money because people want to see those stars. Yeah. No, okay. Okay. So at this point, yeah, going. So Vince really kind of like took that as an opportunity to make it more nationally recognized. Yeah, instead of having these various different local dimensions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And then from there, it's not just, oh, I know this one wrestler

who is mostly in this area. I now know it more as a national thing. Right. Yeah. So we'll yeah, then by using MTV as an extra, as an extra advertising, um, fear, whatever, you're reaching much more potential for newer audiences. And he's reaching a certain demographic too. So you wrestling up until this point had largely been a guy's my age and maybe guys your age kind of spectator, it was, it was working class people coming, uh, and, and usually in our 30s, maybe, maybe mid to one, you know, parents, right? But you leave the kids at home by advertising on MTV. And by the way, all he's advertising on MTV is their top feud, not all the fudes, just the top one, just enough to what your whistle, just enough to keep you interested.

And it's, it's getting in front of the eyes of kids. And that's different. Yeah. And it really helps because the whole marketing strategy of MTV was we are different from regular TV. Yes. And many ways. Yes. We are your generation. The we represent you and kind of going back to what we previously talked about with with Colgan engaging in that populist rhetoric. We're kind of seeing that in a lot of ways and avenues to pull in new audiences. I would love to see data on if people early watchers of MTV are still consistent with watching wrestling today, I would love to see that. Yeah, all I've got is anecdote pretty much everybody my age who watches wrestling usually had more money than me.

It growing up so they they all had cable and most of them did grow up and most of the people I know who love wrestling at my age are either professional comedians or and there's a lot of overlap with comedians and wrestling or they are, oh God, I guess teachers would be the next level. So the people I hang with, but I saw like there was a greater representation of in comedians, but interestingly, most of them care a shit ton more about music than I do. And I bet you they grew up on MTV. Yeah. That would make sense. Yeah. So now at this point, have you noticed who's not on MTV? Well, Hulk, right. Yeah. And in fact, the next step of this feud was called the brawl to end it all. And it was on July 23rd, 1984 at Madison Square Garden in front of 23,000 people. Now, at this point, TV is absolutely there to drive interest in the actual live events. Okay. You don't have pay-per-view yet. You don't have

stuff like that quite yet. It's coming. It is, he's, he's, he's definitely seeding it. Cindy Loper had picked Wendy Richter to fight against Captain Lewis wrestler. Because you know, Cindy Loper is not going to take on Captain Lewis. So you pick your wrestler. I'll pick mine and we'll settle this, right? Um, Kat and Lou had picked the fabulous Mula for the women's title. Now K-fabe Mula had held the title for 28 years. In reality, she'd held the title for maybe seven, which is really fucking long. Um, Mula is her own story and it is rife like, you know, most wrestling stories are rife with abuse, you know, because it comes from carny culture. Mula's is especially terrible and she is on both ends of it, but for most of her career, she's on the really awful end of it. She is the one doing the terrible things. To the point where they announced a fabulous Mula battle royal and

Twitter took took to the streets. This was years ago. This is like four years ago, five years ago. They took to the streets and they're like, oh, so does that mean every woman who wrestles in the battle royal is is only going to get 60% and the rest will go to Mula's estate. You shit like that, like you. And that was, you know, was amongst the tamer things that they said. And so they changed it to the May Young Memorial Battle Royal. And May Young had also been friends with Moulins. And May Young has her own really interesting history. Women's wrestling is a fantastic study

of just how awful you can make things. So that's all whole different podcast. Anyway, women's match was the only match that was shown on national cable TV on MTV. This women's match at the war to set or at the brawl to end it all. The other matches, including Hulk Hogan facing off against Greg, the hammer Valentine to retain the title. That was recorded and it was shown on the Madison, Madison Square Garden network, but it was not on MTV.

So Hulk Hogan is not on MTV yet. It is a women's wrestling match. It's the first wrestling match shown on MTV. How. Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting too because of Wendy Richter's history. And I'll, I think I'm going to go into it a little bit later. But, um, okay, this was apparently not a successful brawl to end it all.

It did not end at all, as it turns out. Well, of course it didn't come on down. Yeah. Um, Cingiloper continued to make appearances with the WWF even celebrating with the fabulous freebirds which I mean you want a very truncated run you go to the fabulous freebirds. You might recognize them from the opening scenes of Highlander. That wrestling match that he's at, that's the freebirds when they were in WWF and they were in for not even a hot cup of coffee.

It was warm. Like, they essentially the fabulous freebirds, they're famous. They're one of the first, first wrestlers to bring to, to have music playing, have rock and roll music playing. They went all over the Southern territories. They did great work in Texas. They did great work in Georgia, all throughout the Midwest. Um, really, really good solid team. Like really just you paid money to want to see them get their asses kicked. Um, but somehow they pissed off Andre the giant. And he basically scared them out of town that night.

And he basically scared them out of town that night. Okay, like K-Fabes scared them out of town. No shit, we're fucking leaving because we're out of Elisol. Yes, see that one. Really, you gotta fuck up hard to get Andre the giant, the boss mad at you. Yes and no, like he was very particular. Like he...

Mercurial. Yeah, yeah. So if you in any way fucked with the business, you were dead to him as in he would try to kill you, not literally, but pretty close. Yeah. Uncareer wise. Yeah, yeah.

Big John stud, he ran, Big John stud out of town because Big John stud had the temerity to step over the top rope and that was Andre's thing Oh, and that was the whole thing though, uh, you know big John said was like I'm challenging the giant and Andre's like You're gonna have to fuck with my money boss and so gone Like he beats shit out of stud in a match and stud leaves the match right after and goes like by all reports. And again, keep in mind this is a carny culture. So everything is like, you know, turn it up to 20. But by all reports, he just went and grabbed his shit and left, like in gear just left. And sure enough, he did not, you don't see him after the

first WrestleMania until he comes back for WrestleMania five. Oh, my God. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, if you get, if you get intimidated by a wrestler, that's one thing. But getting intimidated by Andre the giant, the man was how many feet tall? Seven foot four. Yeah. Like, you know, I mean, the pictures, the pictures of him and Wilts Chamberlain standing on either side of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In the whole thing, you're off the ground like you would hold a child. Yeah. Yeah. Like, that's, that's Mr. Universe, you guys are holding off the ground. Like, what the fuck? Isn't there a story about Andre the giant picking up Arnold Schwarzenegger and putting him on like a like each show? Yeah, they're arguing.

Okay, so while they're on the set for, um, Conan and the story. Yeah, yeah. Uh, Arnold Nondre hang out because they're both the Europeans. This is before they decide to involve wilt in anything. So they go out drinking and dining. And Andre's whole thing was he always paid. And Arnold was like, no, no, I'm going to pay.

And Andre was like, no, I pay. And Arnold's like, no, no, I'm going to pay. And so Andre just picks him up like a baby and sets him up out of reach of the check and then goes and pace. The best story though from that is actually one the Ed told when we were talking I think about Conan and they took, they took will took with them drinking. And the next day will just he couldn't keep up. You can't.

No, he's not keep up with Arnold and Andre. And afterwards, will it's just like kind of what was it? He was he was kind of ashamed, right? He went to them. He's like kind of eating row. And they're like, no, you kept up. Good job. You did you did. You did great. Yeah, you did better than most. No, you could hang. Yeah. No. My god, because I mean,

for God's sake, Arnold was only six feet tall, six, one or whatever. Yeah. But like solid muscle. I mean, that was that was the so like his metabolism is such that like, he could drink as much as he wanted to. Yeah, he got, he'd get, you know, shit faced drunk. Right. Right. You know, he'd, he'd recover quickly because all the, all the muscle was just burning everything off. And then, and then Andre has, you know, seven foot four and weighs 500 pounds.

I remember, you know. And so, in, in the other thing was that, that, even Arnold was taken aback at how much Andre drank. Yeah, the thing was, you got to remember that Andre was in constant, low grade pain all the time. Oh, he's meditating. So he was self-medicating basically constantly. And like he and Kerry Elis is a memoir of,

probably he describes exactly what Andre would drink and it's those really large pictures that people pour water for you out of and it was loaded with mostly hard alcohol and then wine and that's like what 40, 50 ounces. It's a yeah, all that is Americano and he would just chug that down like it was a Stein. My goodness. What a man. Yeah. Well like Holy cow, you know, it's it's amazing that you know what killed him wasn't cirrhosis at the liver, but You know and and so these these two guys are are you know who who you're going out to party with like there's the most athletic men in the world To yeah, well and will chamberland of course is yeah you know in that same category of athletic but it's a different kind of athletic

well will chamberland remember was a track star yeah like he was setting records and track yeah he's seven feet tall but he is he you know you had you had to Bill Russell who was skill and fundamentals. And Wilk Chamberlain was muscle. Yeah. He would pound you on the mission on the basketball court. It's like context is everything. Like, yeah, you know, also he would pound you. I mean, you know, you know, but, but yeah. So Andre the giant, uh, there were a number of wrestlers that he ran off.

Three of them being the fabulous freebirds. Here's like, fuck it, we're out. Peace, we're God. Yeah. Bubba. So on December 1st. Thank you. Good night.

Vince McMahon, on December 1st, we're in 1984. Vince McMahon interviewed David Wolf, saying that that and Wolf said that Cindy Lopper was going to present the WWF with a platinum album since hers had gone triple platinum. She had sold more than three million albums. I had to dig into what all that means. But essentially she sold more than three million albums. And as a thanks to the WWF for helping her do that, she was going to present them with one of her platinum albums

at Madison Square Garden at the end of the month, so the end of 1984. Okay. The next week, Roddy Piper had Captain Luel Bano on Piper's Pit. And at this point, you see Roddy Piper starting to form his alliance with cowboy Bob Orton, second, second generation wrestler, father of Randy Orton, actually. And cowboy Bob Orton just kind of stands there in the background. His nickname is Ace, and he is Roddy Piper's bodyguard. And Piper would interview, he does the standard interview where like he asks the question, hold the mic to you and then comes back and asks the question. So he didn't let Lou get a word in edgewise.

And he ends up cutting a promo on Cindy Lopper saying that she wanted a date with him, but he was always turning her down. And you see here that Lou is a little stymied by this. So this begins Lou's face turn. Oh, okay. This also brings us to the guest VJ Hour where Hulk Hogan joins Cindy Loper to introduce music through the next hour.

This was just ahead of the December 28th Madison Square Garden spot. So this is the first time you see Hulk Hogan on MTV. Okay. Watch the whole thing. Now Hogan is fully enmeshed in this feud that had nothing to do with him. He wasn't wrestling as a part of it. He wasn't connected to any of the wrestlers that were part of it. And now he's there. And he's getting all the prime time attention. He's getting all the hype and he's really doing a great job with it, to be honest. Like if you watch, he is electric. You know, most people when they're doing, well, hey there, MTV, we're really glad to bring you the cars. They're one of my favorite bands. He's cut and full on promos. Let me tell you something brother. I'm so happy to

see. Have you seen this? Just go. I mean, he is a natural at this. The moment to the bit is one of his strengths. Yes. Yeah. And he's wearing the yellow and red and he's wearing the championship belt. And further, he rips off his shirt in the beginning right after an intro is made using I have the tiger. And it shows him walking to the ring to win the title. And Don't worry, he puts on a different shirt throughout the show, which is really good marketing. Like you don't like the yellow with red, we've got red with yellow. And I'm pretty sure.

We've got the photo negative of that. Yeah, pretty much. And I'm pretty sure that the guest VJ spot was live or it was taped to live too. And he introduces himself as quote, the incredible Hulk Hogan, which goes against what the contract with Marvel had stated, but it seems to have been worth the risk because look at the exposure he's getting.

Well, yeah. He also called himself the incredible Hulkster as well. And he advertised that they're gonna show his championship match on MTV at the end of the hour. And later in the show, Hulk Hogan interviews Cindy Lopper, and he is praising her ability to combine wrestling and rock and roll. And Lopper goes into business putting over Wendy Richter as 145 pounds of twisted steel and sex appeal. And she then, yeah. And then she puts Hulk Hogan over for his energy and his ability to connect with the masses per what we've been talking about. Okay. So at this

point, like Hogan had nothing to do with this. And now he's stepping in. And not only is he stepping in, all the air is going into him. So that's a very Trumpian kind of thing. Like he shows up and all of a sudden nobody's talking about anybody else. Yeah. Yeah. Despite. And and despite the fact him like, why are you here? Right. Well, here's the thing. He is the world champion, right? And Wendy Richter had beaten the fabulous Mula, so she is the world champion. So Okay, but I got to say Hulk Hogan is a goddamn cartoon of a human being at this point. He is so animated. He is such great hype, such great energy. He's repeatedly introducing himself as the incredible Hulk Hogan. Any introduces Wendy Richter, who is a huge step down from Hogan's energy. So he's the heavyweight champion of the world. And it's the women's champion and Wendy Richter.

I'm Wendy Richter and fabulous Mula. You had better watch out because I'm coming after you again to show you a lesson. I don't lay down for no one. Like, I mean, it literally is that big of a level drop. And so I don't think they did this on purpose to highlight him, but he 100% benefits from it. Yeah, well, yeah. Well, he also has like a ton.

He probably has way more like media experience in that sense. He was on Jimmy Carson years ago. Yeah, as well. And he's been working on this persona clearly for years. Absolutely. And so he figured out who he is, and he's gonna really promote it.

And of course, people are gonna recognize the difference and pay more attention to Hulk, because he's exhibiting way more nonverbal immediacy behaviors. Mm-hmm. Okay, hold on, back up. That's, I think I know what that means, verbal immediacy behaviors. Mm-hmm. Okay, hold on. Back up. That's, that's, I, I think I know what that means, but when you see a nonverbal immediacy

behaviors, like what specifically are we talking about? What is that? Yeah, I get to talk about calm stuff. So nonverbal immediacy behaviors are, we have nonverbal behaviors and it means something. But there are specific ones, specific behaviors that exhibit a feeling of connection between you and the audience. So like the prime example, best one is eye contact. And in many ways, it is directly connected or it offers a moderating effect. Yeah, moderating or mediating effect

when it comes to perceptions of credibility. So if you are perceived as more open, your voice is more animated and you're excited, people are gonna be more attracted to that. They're gonna view you as either more competent having higher character or being perceived as more caring. And in all honesty, perceptions around credibility, caring is the most impactful dimension of credibility.

I feel you're paying. Exactly. But thank you, Uncle Billy. Yeah. But other types of nonverbal immediacy behaviors tends to be like posture, eye contact. I'm thinking, Moves in Nixon, Kennedy debate.

Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, Kennedy, we use that as an example when I teach it a lot of times. Kennedy is perceived as more approachable while Nixon is sick. He's literally sick at the time. Yeah. And Nixon refused makeup if I recall correctly. Yeah. That was another thing. Oh, no, no. Which, which I get excited today because my partner and I, we were watching, we watched

things because we're long distance right now. Sure. And we were watching a Taskmaster and an ad for YouTube came up. They're coming back with Clone High and I got ecstatic. Yeah. So like eye contact vocal variety is another thing. And that's what we see with Hulk. He's more animated and he's more, he's having a quicker rate with his voice and he sounds more excited and he's showing he cares. He's going at the camera, whereas Wendy is shrinking from it. Exactly. Yeah. And, and having more, uh, like you said, uh, more of a variation in the tone of his voice between sentences as, as opposed to clearly reading off a teleprompter and not really uncomfortable. Yeah, or just, yeah, or just, or just, I have these five bullet points. I need to hit. I got to remember. Yeah.

I've talked public speaking for six years in the amount of times I told people sound like you care that about the topic is sounding. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure hello everybody today. I'm going to be talk. I did have one student do a speech. And it's still one of my favorites about like the history of professional wrestling.

And he imitated either Hulk Holgen or, uh, or, um, Macheman, yeah, the entire time. Uh, he was at the end, but yeah. See, that's, that's perfect though. Like, if you put all of that out there, like that's the best way to have done that for wrestling. For example,

I'm like, 10% commitment. Well, you lack in substance, you know, you can make up for in sizzle, as if you look at any promo that macho man did actually fun fact about macho man, he had a one minute promo and a 30 second promo. And the difference was, I got 30 seconds. Okay. Oh cream of the crop rise to the top. Oh yeah. And if it was a one minute cream of the crop rise to the top.

Yeah. Yeah. It requires any extra like it was kind of wow. Kind of going back to like nonverbal immediacy. There is different effects with like the rate of your voice. If you are speaking, we tend to recommend what was it? 120 to 150 words minute. Like that's kind of the average what amount of time we

speak kind of like the page right now. If you're speaking too fast, people might not be able to pick up things while you might sound excited, you might also be perceived as rush. But if you slow it down and still have that excuse yet, enthusiasm, that's kind of appealing to the ears. Yeah. You know, I also have noticed that with certain white right wing demagogues, they'll

speak just a little faster than the 150. And it keeps you from ever interrupting them and they can just pepper you with like more words. It's the gish, it's the gish gal. It's gish gal. Yeah. I, um, the after the first presidential debate in 2020, then following day, my department had asked if I would like to teach, uh, argumentation and debate. And I literally looked at that, her and I was like, absolutely not.

No. On this day and age, fuck no. Granted, I, I do, thank you. I was like, absolutely not. No. On this day and age, fuck no. I granted I do. No, thank you. I did enjoy. I do enjoy something for the. I did enjoy something for the class. I'm not going to deal with that. Yeah.

Well, yeah, but I mean, yeah, having to, having come up with a, with a syllabus for that, like, thank you. No. No. I, I, I will, I will respectfully decline. Thank you. Yeah. So Hogan's there and and Wendy Richter is a huge letdown from his energy. And what's interesting is that he constantly is picking it back up. So again, it by contrast also. use these segments to advance the storyline. Cindy is talking about Lulabano's possible

redemption too. Al Bonabo. Yeah. It's where I went with that. No, right. Sorry. Sorry. Different, different wrestlers, different gimmicks. That's Adrienne Donnist.

But I'm not wrong. Actually, that's gold dust. Let's be honest. Really. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, she's pushing his redemption. Hospital redemption. She says, you know, here's the thing with with Lou is that he on account of the calcium deposit in the quote, Madula of his on blog, God, uh, um, which I again, if she really talks that way, that's cool, but also it does feel a little populist like you're saying, you know, it's, you know, Ted Cruz's twang comes back in election years, you know, stuff like that. She's really hamming it up. If she's, if she's doing it on purpose. And if not, then more power to her. That's cool that she maintained that authenticity. But yeah, she did say Madula of his oblongata. I had to pause and rewind three times to make

sure that's what I heard. She didn't really do that. Did she? Okay. Well, she did. Yeah. She, she, oh my God, she did. Okay. And she said that since the brawl to settle at all, he was going to turn things around. And she said that Albano apologized to her family and said he's going to change. Hogan put over lose sneakiness asking Wendy to keep an eye on Cindy for him. So now Hogan is now giving orders to the person who was the star of this feud. Now Hogan is now giving orders to the person who was the star of this feud. Cindy repeatedly is putting over that they've changed Lou and Hogan warned that it might be another wrestler or maybe Mula who would take the championship off of Richter, which

I want to put a pen in that thought for you for a second. Then Hogan introduces Rod Stewart's video infatuation like you do. Well, Kogan also got to introduce his own match to a national audience, where he beat the chic, the iron chic. This is incredibly good for the WF and this is incredibly good for him, specifically and everybody can see how dominant a champion he is in a six minute package. And this was his ability to bring eyeballs and interest to what was about to happen at the Madison Square Garden event. And so you know that's going to be hanging from the rafters as Gorilla Monson used to say. So on December 28th, 1984.

Oh yeah, what was that? Well, I just, I want to, I want to take a second. As you were saying to put a pen in something here, or to highlight something here. So all of this, the whole time you're talking about, him being in this position to promote, to show his match off to this global audience, I'm picturing, like man, like steeply his fingers, like Mr. Burns saying, yes.

Yeah, I mean, because because this is. Because this is. Because this is. I'm sure. Well, I mean, yeah, but yeah, the purposes of this podcast. Whatever. Uh-huh. Yeah, allegedly, right.

By how many? And by how many people? Anyway, um, but like, so this is this is This is McMahon. I'm assuming it has made the executive decision to put Hogan in this position. Oh, yeah Okay, I'm just I want to I want to oh this is an Hogan like stumbling on to anything. Yeah, no I just want to make sure to underline and highlight the symbiotic kind of relationship between Hogan's savvy and man's scheming to the point where later on down the road at WrestleMania 19, I want to say they did a storyline where Hogan basically and there's WrestleMania 19. We haven't even gotten to WrestleMania yet in this podcast, but WrestleMania 19, Hogan and

McMahon have a storyline where Hogan's like, I made the WWF and McMahon's like, I made Hulk Hogan. And they were both fighting over who had what influence. Okay. And you know who shows up with an iron pipe to hit Hogan in the head, by the way. Roddy Piper. Roddy Rife. Yeah. What? Yes.

Hogan still ended up eating with man, but yeah. Well, yeah, of course. Of course. But yeah. But anyway, okay. So it's December 28th, 1984. Okay, and these dates are important because we're seeing this build toward something and then something else and then something else. Dick Clark himself. Yeah, he is there

to introduce Cindy Lauper at Madison Square Garden to a sold out house for WWF's event there. Elbick was his check. Right. And this is this is money well spent because I mean, you're going to get coverage. Hulk Hogan and Wendy Richter were there that night right behind her because they're both the champions. And Dick Clark introduces Cindy Lauper presents a special achievement award from the so he's presenting the W. W. F. So ward for them to her. Hogan hypes the shit out of the crowd after that. Like, you know, you, you guys are the real champions of the law, bird turns around and presents Hulk Hogan with a golden platinum record award.

And I think she stumbled over her words really. But she takes it from David Wolf and gives it to Hulk Hogan and Wendy Richter. Okay, so here's this big thing that's in a frame. She then turned around and recognized Lual Bano and recognized that he has changed. And evidently, his calcium deposit has cleared up and she's very glad. She calls out the fact that Albano had helped her to raise, and this is legit. This is not even K-Fant. Helped her to raise over $4 million for the fight against multiple sclerosis. And she brought a cat and Lou out. He comes out to a ton of booze wearing as many rubber bands as any human being could have ever possibly fit onto a tuxedo. And the crowd still

doesn't like him. She's trying to help him turn. And the crowd still is like, no, no, no, no, no, no, we know he's a bad guy. We haven't seen him do anything redeemed yet. Okay. So she's been standing for him, but no, but then incomes, Roddy Piper and cowboy Bob Arden to, uh, Orden to disrupt the proceedings. Piper grabs the award and smashes it over Lou's head.

Now he's a good guy. Cindy dives for Piper's leg to stop him from kicking Lou while he's down and he kicked her away. Now by the way, Hogan had left the ring at this point. That's why he's not doing anything. So he'd left the ring now now the heels come right. So he she grabs on to Piper's leg to stop him from kicking Lou while he's down and Piper flings her off with his with his leg, you know, get off, you know, get off you little, you know, you little spider monkey. you know, you little spider monkey. Um, this looks like he's kicking her and everybody treats it as though he's kicking her.

And then David Wolf gets involved and Piper Power Slams David Wolf. So a body slam is where I pick you up and I lift you over my head and I send you to the mat. A power slam is where I hold you perpendicular to my body and I jump and land on you. Okay, both of them as I'm sending you to the mat, they are different from a suplex because a suplex lets gravity do the work.

A slam is it's powered. So a power slam is I'm jumping and slamming you. So he he power slams David Wolf. Um, and finally Hulk Hogan comes to the ring. This gets Lou over as a babyface and Lou is going to go on to manage a whole bunch of tag teams to championship gold. Oh, you're going to say, right? Yeah, carry on. Okay. More importantly, this whole stunt brought up the score that still needed to be settled. And it's going to take a lot to do so.

It's going to take a war to settle this score. Okay. Yeah. And from there, it's going to be a series of junkets showing Hulk Hogan along with Captain Lou and Cindy Lopper accepting recognition for fighting MS. Now Hogan didn't help raise that money. And yet now he is. And yet now he is.

And yet there he is. Yeah. It's like, what's the term? It's like by accretion now. Like it's almost, he's bonded with them via the transitive property. Yeah. But like, he is seen with them now and he gets, in wrestling, we call that getting the rub.

So he's getting the rub for all this credit about the MS stuff. On January 19th, so it's a new year, while Piper was healing it up, Hogan was on hand with Cindy Loper and Captain Liu. And now Albano endorses Hulk Hogan as a great champion. And now, Captain Liu is just, if you had any doubts, he's clearly a good guy now. Now, Captain Lou is just, if you had any doubts, he's clearly a good guy now. Full face turn status, but also now that he's face turned, he can fade out of this feud. We don't need Lou anymore. Because really, this is turned into a feud between Hogan and Piper. It's really masterfully done done storytelling to be perfectly honest. And so Hogan comes to the four Wendy Richter kind of fades away. And this sets up the war to settle the score also at Madison

Square Garden. So, you know, you do all the things and you come back to the big house, right? The one that has its own network, the one where you've got all the recording capabilities, the one that you can then show those matches and stuff like that. And on February 18th, 1985, you have the war to settle the score. Now, interestingly, although the brawl to end it all showed the match where Cindy Loper was directly involved, this one shows Hulk Hogan versus Roddy Piper on MTV. So now it's the main feud, right? No other matches, by the way. So now Wendy Richter has been groomed to the side as well.

Now grant you Hogan and Loper and Lou and David Wolf were all in his corner, we're all in Hogan's corner. And it also showed Hulk Hogan's corner. And it also showed Hulkogun's good friend, Mr. T sitting at ringside to watch the match. But the whole angle that started it all had been Captain Lou and Cindy and Roddy Piper. And then it brought in Wendy Richter and the fabulous Mula, and it kept them going, and then it turned into Hulk Hogan and Wendy Richter, and then it turned into Hulk Hogan versus Roddy Piper.

So, yeah, here's, okay. Do you think that whole arc of transition had been planned out, I mean, obviously by a man. From the beginning, that was like the whole arc was, okay. I think once Lou came to McMahon, when Lou Albano came to McMahon saying, hey, this is the L per character. She could be good business for us. McMahon started trying to figure out how can I get my biggest star into this big angle on the biggest network exposure that we could get. I absolutely think so. Was Dick was Dick Clark

involved in the second half? No, he was just there for that night. It's just a one spot. Uh, thanks. Single, single paycheck and out. Yeah. I thought Dick Clark would get the rub too. No. He was headed toward it.

So yeah. So I don't there, I guess. Yeah, I don't know if he got paid or if he did it for skin. I don't know. He was a bit of a schmuck. Um, but. So, But so well done. So, so, McMahon wanted this, Hogan presumably wanted this. And this means now, we've seen two whole Kogan matches on national TV via MTV under the WWF. You saw them replay his win over the Iron Sheik, and now you see him against Roddy Piper on MTV at the war to settle the score. And the iron is hot now, and it's ready to strike.

it's ready to strike. So this is kind of a tangent. But how did hyper wind up being the guy that they selected to like, okay, no, you're, you're ultimately, you're going to be our heel here. His whole gimmick was that he was insane. Um, not norming the lunatic insane, like we would see later, not man kind insane like we would see later, but he didn't back down from anybody. He fought like hell. He had a mouth on him that made you want to see him get his ass kicked every time. And then he wouldn't get his ass kicked. Okay.

Double your money down next time. God damn it. You know, he's really done it this time. And so, Piper was the only one who could reliably talk people into the building. Uh, the people that he partnered with, Cowboy Bob Orton was a phenomenal technical wrestler, not a good talker. Captain Lou was a decent talker, but he ran out of steam after the first four things that he would say. Piper could go forever.

The shit that he said, oh my God. And I'm trying to think, the only other wrestlers that I saw, they told great stories in the ring and in short, short promos, but Greg the Hammer Valentine was very subdued and laid back. He was a phenomenal wrestler.

Um, big John stud, really good, good, good presence in the ring, credible threat to Hogan, shit for talking. Um, that's why they stuck him with Bobby Heenan and we hadn't quite figured out we, the WWF hadn't quite figured out the Heen and family aspect yet having Bobby Heen and run a bunch of heels at someone and do all the talking for them. So you really want to see Bobby Heen and his ass kicked, but yeah, but you're going to have to settle for his proxies. Yeah, exactly.

You know, I mean, yeah, go on. He sounds like a true Scottsman in that sense. Oh, yeah. They just yeah, coming from a family. Oh, who is very proud of like Scott a shared. We love to talk. Sure. Well, the thing is he's actually he was from Saskatchewan, if I recall correctly, he's a Canadian. He was an orphan lived in a halfway home. Oh, because he ran away from home at like 14, because he just really didn't get along with his parents.

He actually had a really, really fucking sad life. And if you look at him as a father, it's actually a wonderful redemption story. Oh, yeah, it's kind of nice. But that being neither here nor here. So Wendy Richter, by the way, is going to lose the championship to Leilani Kai, who was managed by the fabulous Mula. And this is going to make it so that Wendy Richter is the challenger going into WrestleMania. Because then you have the good

guy winning at WrestleMania and getting the championship. Also, little, let's finish up the Wendy Richter story. Wendy Richter was later defeated for the title in November of 85. And I think there's something about November in the WWF and WWE that's when you screw over people who are champions. You remember the Montreal Screwjob? Yeah, how can I forget the Montreal screw job? Exactly.

This was the first screw job that Vince McMahon did against Wendy Richter. Yeah, oh, it's a wild fucking story. Wendy Richter goes in and she's basically like, look, I am the top women's performer. I am Hulk Hogan's level. I should get paid what he gets paid. That's the human talk and a monotone. Right. Right. Yeah. So I'm the one at the top level. Now here's the problem with that. That's what has been brought down to us by traditionalists

or by the storytellers who have been part of the WWF. To hear her tell it, she said that she needed less dates and she did want a raise. She never says that she wanted a raise at Hulk Hogan level. It could be that she did or it could be that she was just getting too uppity for Hogan's taste or for for McMahon's taste. But either way, she's making a big deal about wanting more money and McMahon doesn't want to pay it to her. So she's still got the belt. And at that time, if you've got the belt, you've got some power over the booker. And so you either have a good

relationship with the booker or you don't. And you know, you can see where this is going. So she ends up in a match against somebody called the spider. And it's a woman who had not normally in the back, you would go over your match and shit like that unless it was a Japanese wrestler because you can't speak their language anyway and you wouldn't go over with them. And then you would just figure it out in the ring. They would know the result, you would know the result and you would go and tell a story in X amount of minutes. But normally though, if you're with an American wrestler, you go over, you don't go over necessarily spots even. You just talk about, okay, we've got this much time,

is there anything you don't want me to do, is there anything you want me to do? She didn't meet her opponent at all that night, Wendy Richter did not, okay. This is November of 85. it at all that night. Wendy Richter did not. Okay, this is November of 85. So she, she goes out and she wrestles against the spider. And within minutes, not even three minutes, Wendy Richter is pinned, even though she's not pinned, they give the title to the spider and the spider takes the title and raises her hand and Richter is like legit like what the fuck just happened because she got screw job. This was a screw job on Wendy Richter

to get the title off of her so that now she has no power and big man can broom her. She starts attacking and legit punching and kicking the shit out of the spider. Now the crowd sees this and they're like, okay, this Looks like something hinky went on. This is all part of the storyline, etc., etc. Right still looks cavefabe enough She's beating the shit out of this woman. This woman is like Trying to get away really hard ricketer ends up ripping off her mask Okay, she's dressed all in black. She rips off her mask. Guess who's under the mask? fabulous mula. Yes. And this all looks like storyline played out, but it was a fucking screw job. Um, I don't know,

there maybe there needs to be an episode where I just cover all the screw jobs and wrestling. Oh, yeah. Because that way we could also discuss game six of the Western conference finals between the Kings and Lakers Got a hate fake sports So back to pro wrestling. No, you're not bitter at all Literally like more than 20 years ago now like kids today hate the Lakers and Sacramento and don't know why. But you'll be happy to tell them. Oh yeah. Yeah. So anyway, back to the war to settle the score. So we're back in February. Hogan goes for a second atomic drop. That's where I lift you up and I drop your ass on my knee and apparently it causes a spinal shock or it hits you in

the grondle. It's never quite clear, but it's called an atomic drop, which is just a great name for a basic move. Back then they sold the shit out of it though. The best guy who to ever take the atomic drop was Greg the hammer Valentine. He oh god, his movements for it were just so funny. Um, but anyway, he goes for a second atomic drop and Piper counters with a quick punch, just like rabbit punches them in the face. Um, and this knocks Hulk Hogan into the referee, which knocks the referee out. And at this moment, Paul Orndorf comes out and drops a knee from the top rope onto Hulk Hogan while Piper's holding his legs.

The two of them put the purple boots to Hulk Hogan while they're not actually purple, but they put the boots to Hulk Hogan until Sindi Lopper jumps up on the apron. And as Orndorf and Piper, finally Piper feels brave enough, move to attack Sindi Lopper. Mr. T jumps the guardrail comes up onto the ring. T gets her to safety, Piper invites Mr. T into the ring. Now we've got something set up here. Oh, shit. Here's the thing. Who was the main opponent for Rocky or in Rocky 3? Mr. Tay. Yep.

The flamboyant and Belico star of the 18 which had been a hit since 1983. Now by this point 18 was ranking ahead of Monday night football. It had peaked at the number four position in the prior season It was sitting comfortably in this year in the number six season. And the number six position while Mr. team while Mr. T climbed into the ring. The character of B.A. Barakas was specifically written for Mr. T. And it wouldn't be until November of 1985 that Hulk Hogan, Gene O'Kerlin, dynamite kid, Ricky the dragon steamboat,

Bobby Heenan, Rick McGraw, Davey Boy Smith, big John study and Greg Valentine were actually in an episode. And it was specifically written to cash in on Hulk Hogan's popularity. So he shows up on TV, a national TV show. A hit. Yes. National TV show. Yeah, aimed at young boys. Oh, like, like, oh, money, money, money, money, money. Yeah. Also, Dirk Benedict from the 18. And Raudi-Radi Piper went on to star in the hilarious movie Body Slam that came out in 1986. If you want to pre drink, we should watch that as a watch. I'm there. Oh, God. Hogan was also in there. He was also in another episode the following year right before WrestleMania 2. No

coincidence there either given all the press around Piper and Mr. T's boxing match for WrestleMania 2. And all of the invading the set that Piper did in advance of that match. So back to February of 85, Mr. T gets in the ring, Orn d'Orf distracted him enough so that Roddy Piper quote, Pearl Harbor, Mr. T end quote, that's that's that was a That was a fuck. It is such a common term in wrestling in the 80s. A Pearl Harbor job or you Pearl Harbor him. And it's essentially where you hit someone when they're not looking. Sneak attack.

Oh, okay. Yeah. They always. I can't. They always lead it to a day of infamy. Oh, boy. Yeah. It's, it's, it is something. Now, this gives Hulk Hogan the chance to recover with, and he starts to Hulk up and he gives Mr. T a chance to get to his side. And at this point, security breaks in, pandemonium has set loose and God damn what an ending to the war to settle the score. This is on national TV with Hulk Hogan network star Mr. T

Embracing after what was called a pure six brawl because apparently pure six has a lot of fucking brawl's um, and clearly there is unfinished business between Hulk Hogan Mr. T Paul L Lorndorf, cowboy, Bob Orden and Roddy Piper. Wait, hold up. Mm hmm. Cowboy, Bob Orden. Yeah, he was. He was.

Yeah, he was, uh, he was in Roddy Piper's corner. Oh, okay. Yeah, he just constantly feels like he's a background character at this point. He really is. He really is. And by the way, at this point, he is constantly wearing a cast on his arm. But he uses it in the ring all the time to hit people. Or just like, and they're like, cool. And the whole thing is like, well, I've got a doctor's note so that I can have it. Like it's just so good. Are we in middle school? What the fuck? I got a writer's note. Come on now. So, um, yeah. So, so the only way you could settle this, of course, would be again in Madison Square Garden at WrestleMania.

This is the first WrestleMania. This is how they got there. Okay. Yeah. So afterwards, Hogan and T posed together and they start playing Hogan's pretty new music, real American. Mm-hmm. Oh. He hands his championship belt to Mr. T. He brings in David Wolfen, Cindy Loper, into the

ring, and they all leave to Rockets applause all on national cable television. All right. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah. Yeah. So. So here's the thing we keep there's there's event after event after event after event where I'm like, okay, so now now we are at Hulk Hogan's ascendancy. This is this is this is the pinnacle. And then there's another thing and I'm like, okay, so this is the pinnacle.

And nope. And now we have this whole thing and I'm like, this is not the pinnacle because you've suckered me too many times. Yeah, true. It feels like for anybody else, it would be right. But no, because I know that now we have now we have wrestlemania coming, which like also not the pinnacle. Yeah, but yeah. And and that's just it. That's the point of wrestling is to edgy you the whole time.

It really is. I mean, it's operatic edging. Yeah. So. So it's it's February 26, 1985. Hulk Hogan accompanies Cindy Lopper on stage as her bodyguard in a tuxedo that is missing its arms. Um, of course, I vaguely remember that. Yeah, this is at the this is at the 27th class. Grammys. She wins for best new artist and and it's live on CBS.

And he's standing behind her in his shirtless tuxedo with his 24 inch Python's crossed. And he looks like the fucking wall. Because she's only like 520 five pounds. Yeah, no, no, she's she's she's she's she weighs a buck soaking way. Yeah. Yeah. And he's, you know, he's six seven gorilla. Yeah. Build a six nine half a time. Yeah. Um, and at the end, she turns to him and asks him to pose. So he does a quick pose. And he is a tree. He is so I cannot. Oh. I can't. Oh my God. So big. He is. I'm just you're watching it. Yeah. No, I just went on to Google and I like a whole Colgan Cindy Lauper and Grammys and Jesus Christ.

Right. Oh my god damn it. Now I gotta look it up. Yeah. I'm just gonna pull over like, this is the first photo that came up and just bam. Yeah, right there. Yeah, look at that shot. They cut off his, yeah, they cut off his, it's out of a bitch. But like, Jesus.

Yeah. And there's also the photos of her being held by him and stuff like that. You can, you can, okay, in that pose where he's, where he's flexing. Yep. You can see his traps in the tux shirt. Yes. Yep.

These are not accidents. Holy fuck. And this is not the Grammys. This is everybody who likes music is now seeing this. This is the society. Yes. This is this is this is truly the Glitterati like this is legitimate like legitimate celebrity is not wrestling Not current these are not carny people these are like famous famous people like

These are like famous famous people like. Yeah, there you go. Shit. Look at these pictures. Yeah. He's like three heads taller than she is. That's nuts. Yeah. So here's a great photo.

I'm just, oh, I'm trying to adjust it because this is kind of relevant to what we're talking about. Bam, bam, there. It's the second. And there's, so there's, uh, Hulk Hogan in the picture, uh, Cindy Lauper and Mr. T, uh, what the? Okay. Yeah. When somebody is big enough to make Mr. T look like a dwarf, he is so tiny compared to

Hulk Hogan. Oh my God. Is he tiny? Like when I first watched WrestleMania, I was a huge 80 fan, 18 fan, and I was getting into wrestling, right? And if I recall correctly, I watched them out of order because by the time we had a rental store on our corner,

I watched WrestleMania three, then WrestleMania one, and then WrestleMania two. Okay. But in WrestleMania one, Mr. T was there, and I'm like, he's tiny. Like he is, I'll give you, if you wanna, if you wanna know what Mr. T's weight class is, he is the same weight class as Jeff Hardy of the Hardy Boys. Really?

Really? Both roughly about 217 to 225. So my weight class, okay, that makes me feel good. Okay, good. So I'm more of a Hulk Hogan in the NWO. Like, like, like, Devon is you shorter. Wow, yeah. So, yeah, and if you look at their hair in that picture,

it's like me a polytonic scream, it's cool. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It's like me a politician ice cream. It's cool. My God. So by the way, at this time, this man is also buying time up on Super Station, TBS on March 16th. Oh, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, man is buying time on TBS. Yes. So this is before he had turned her got into their rich guy dick waving contest. Indeed.

Indeed. Yeah. Okay. Because because those two guys being petty rich guys at each other is a one story. Like I live for it. Just root for injuries.

Yeah. Pretty much. Like the Dallas plays the Raiders like exactly. Exactly. And we hope there's a tornado. Yeah. Although you know if there is, it's not going to matter because there's never a touchdown. That one all allow. Yeah. That one all create a lot. That's that's thank you for that one. I like that. Andrew, you were going to say something though. Uh, no, I wasn that. Andrew, you were going to say something though. Uh, no, I wasn't. Well, I was going to make a comment about the hair.

I mean, like, technically speaking, it looks looking at how red Hulk is, um, with the sunburn on his literal scalp. It looks more like chocolate ice cream, sherbert, and then strawberry. Yeah, true. Yeah. Yeah. But damn. So four days before WrestleMania on March 27th, I'm going to end with this story because holy shit. Um, four days before, uh, March 20, uh, before WrestleMania on March 27th, Hulk Hogan appears on Richard

Belzer's TV show Hot Properties with Mr. T. They were promoting WrestleMania, it's a New York-based show. He's promoting it. Hogan plays his standard soft-spoken, reasonable, nice guy. Mr. T is way more heavy with his words. And Richard Belzer kept doing as many reporters and comedians tended to do back then everything he could to jab at the fakeness of wrestling and play to the camera. Belzer spends all his time trying to get over on Mr. T with the same arrogance as any lazy

cynical liberal. He goes on and on about how despite Mr. T's message of kindness, he's on a violent TV show. And T was not happy to be there. There was a lot of pressure on him. And by all reports, he was, he was, they needed someone to kind of sit with him the whole time. And Hogan kind of ended up doing that. But also I look this guy. But, you know, I could, I could understand T feeling that way. I tend to like Richard Belzer, but here he really was being a coked up asshole. I kind of pity him. I pity the fool. But T was not happy to be there with him, and then Hogan comes out after. So T's there for the

first segment alone. It doesn't go particularly well. Hulk Hogan comes out for the second segment and he calls out Richard Belzer's cockiness and he praises Mr. T's restraint. And he says, quote, I don't want you busting anybody up until March 31. And Hogan here comes off professional and incredibly good salesman. I mean, he basically said, this guy could have kicked your ass. He didn't. And by the way, March 31st, like all in one sentence. I guess really good.

Yeah. He got T over as a good guy, calls out Belzer's antagonism and promotes WrestleMania. Again, all in just like two sentences. Now, this leads to Richard Belzer taking off his jacket and pretending to get ready to fight. When Mr. T would point out that the news was far more violent than his TV show than the A team. Belzer shouted, yeah, yeah. And that kind of condescending tone that like, you know, when a kid tries to hype you up for

enforcing the rules in your own class, you're just like yeah fuck up. Yeah, that's Belzer Standup comedians really make terrible interviewers I found because they don't know how to step aside and let the other guy get over or help the other guy get over Because they still think it's only their time instead. I'm gonna be here tomorrow. Yeah so only their time. Instead of, I'm going to be here tomorrow. Yeah. So he, Belzer, all but pulls back the curtain on the match and he asks what the vendetta is about against Piper and Orndorf. And Mr. T says that they had a vendetta against anybody that they went up against to which a Belzer responded, quote, I was particularly addressing the specific match on which you're going to make a huge sum of money. He

literally can't let anyone else get over. And he has to appear to be the expert to be the one making the winking faces at the camera. He's the kid who tells the other kids that Darth Vader's Luke's father because he got to go see it a week earlier. And you can just kind of see by the expression of Hulk Hogan's face, fuck, here we go again. And Hogan actually points out that he still wrestles a heel style, but that he tries to do it fairly. And Belzer asks them to show him some moves. And Mr. T says, we ain't showing you nothing. And that's a quote, Hogan leaned over to T and told him, And that's a quote, Hogan leaned over to T and told him, quote, and you can hear it, I'm going to make him squeal.

Now, if you recall, Andy Kaufman kept K Fabe and got the ship slapped out of him on purpose on the David Letterman show three years earlier in July of 1982. Right. Yes. So Belzer goes Hogan into putting him into a front face lock, which immediately, like, he locked it in and knocked him the fuck out. And you can see Belzer just go completely limp. And Hogan asked Mr. T to, yeah, Hogan asked Mr. T to tell him when to let go. And Mr. T said to keep Belzer in there for a while, even after he'd gone completely limp. Oh shit.

Wow. So Hogan realizes at one point, oh shit, he's gone limp. And so he, well, no, he doesn't actually, I'm sorry, but because he was such dead weight, that pulls his head out of Hogan's grasp and he hits the back of his head on the stage. Oh, back to the back of his dome. And you know, heads bleed really badly. Yeah. And his definitely does. And he was out for a minute. And Hogan helps him up. He like grabs him by the wrist and he slaps him a couple of times and wakes him up. And Bells are you can see there's some overwhelm on Mr. T's face like, oh,

shit. But also, fuck this guy. Right. overwhelmed on Mr. T's face like, oh shit. But also, fuck this guy. The hogan is trying to be like, oh come on, come on. You know, and also like, I told you this shit is real, right? And bells are pops up. And tries to save face like, we'll be right back. And I've heard about this happening with comedians who've been blackout drunk for three years and wake up on stage. And they literally don't know what happened three years in the last

years. They've gone through their entire lives. They've done work. I've worked with them during that blackout. I've had other comedians that I've known who they are lying under the chairs in the green room because they're so sick. Music hits, they go out on stage, they kill it for an hour, and then they come back and they're just dead. So I get it, I get it. I mean, shit, Mick Foley gets thrown off the hell in the cell twice and stays in character after

waking up from being knocked out. Like when people in show business wake up, they seem to have a default setting, which is kind of cool. But Belzer's trying to save face when they return from the musical number, and I don't remember who the musical number was, but I think the producer of the show was on stage with Hulk Hogan and Mr. T and he's sitting in Belzer's chair and he said, quote, Richard was hurt. And he also said that Hulk Hogan didn't mean to do it. And Hogan stated that he felt really bad, but that Richard had asked him to demonstrate a professional wrestling hold, quote, and that's exactly what I did. And quote, Hogan here is absolutely protecting the business, keeping K fame. There's no Terry Baleia in this quote, if you're not a professional athlete or not a professional wrestler, don't try to copy what you see the athletes or the professional wrestlers do

on TV and quote. And Hogan and Mr. T spend their time putting over the business, keeping K Fave the whole time. Mr. T was still mad at Belzer the whole way through. Like he fucking had it coming. Kind of kind of a vibe going on. The producer pointed out that they did exchange a sign that they were going to teach Belzer a lesson. This is all on the show. The producers like, you you kind of did that. And and Hogan fired back that they were told, quote, there were, here's the interesting thing. This is a total pivot because Mr. T and Hogan point out

that, um, that they were told, quote, there were 50 crippled children here in will chairs, and that's why we're here today, end quote. Um, and then the producer said that Belsar wasn't laughing in Hogan's face, which is one of those these those things that's like letter versus spirit true, because he absolutely was laughing in Hogan's face the whole time without actually laughing in his face. And so to recap, and here's here's the thing I really want to remember. Hulk Hogan gives a really insincere apology saying that he'd assumed Richard Belzer had some modicum of physical fitness.

Wow. I'm I'm so sorry. You're a pencil necked. We have right. And for the Hogan Richard Belzer is a pencil necked we right. Yeah. But he is both protecting the business

and really not actually apologizing for what he did while sounding and acting contrite. He's putting on all the appearances of these things. And Mr. T, fucking doesn't want anything to do with it. He's not contrite at all. He does not apologize one Iota. But it's hogan that I'm focused on here. Yeah.

So it's a really interesting thing that we see all the way back in 1985. Mm hmm. About that. Now, interestingly, Jim Cornette, wrestling historian, former manager, a guy who carried around the tennis racket all the time, claimed that it was due to bells are being coked up that he went out so quickly. I'm not, uh, I know, know, no, nothing about these things, but apparently, if you're coked up, your heart rate is beating faster and if your heart rate is being faster, you're going to choke out quicker because when you cut off the blood supply, I guess it's pumping out of you quicker or something. I don't know. I'm not a doctor.

I'm not a wrestler. I'm not an expert on on veins. But Richard Belzer was a comedian in the 1980s who was acting hyper aggressive and chatty on his own show. Oh, so circumstantial evidence is there. Yeah, you know, yeah. Um, and Belzer a week later would host another episode of his show and he showed his stitches and then he highlighted John Stossel getting slapped down by Dr. D. Uh, and all of this is incredibly free publicity for Hoke Logan and the WF.

Uh, later on Richard Belzer would sue Terry Balea and it would be argued in 1990 it would take that long and they ended up settling out a court. Yeah, and the award went to Richard Belzer and he used the settlement to buy a country house in the French Riviera. Do you know what he named it? What? Yeah, that sounds about right. I can see that. So that's where I'm going to end this episode. We're still not at WrestleMania. In fact, we're not using this pattern. Oh, man. Shit. Yeah. But I know that there was a lot of meat on that bone. So let's let's noy into that a little bit like Moonog Rex would have. Goodness. Good call back. Thank you. Good job. Good job bringing that brick joke back around. Good work. So Richard, Richard, Jesus, I was just talking about Richard

Belzer. Andrew, what are you noticing in terms of all of, I mean, we're seeing more and more media exposure. We're seeing him active and right, but not being contrite. What's really getting what really makes me interested is that how Hogan knows his audience is. He, like just basic public speaking skills, you reflect on who your audience is, and then you construct a message tailored to them. So when he was promoting, what was it was the wrestling on MTV, he was more energetic. He was in your face, kind of staying in that K-fade mindset. And like, oh, the Hulk's gonna give it to you, whatever. But then on to Hulk you out. Yeah, exactly. And then on what was his name again, the little comedian, Richard Belzer, Belzer, Belend,

he's coming off as more polite, similar to Jimmy Carson when he was on there. He was like, hey, I'm here. Yeah. Jimmy Carson, Johnny Carson, Jimmy Carson. Yeah. Um Jimmy Carson. Johnny Carson. Jimmy. Johnny. Yeah. I'm getting my yeah. I'm getting my okay. Yeah. So yeah. Um yeah. No. I'm sorry. It's it's a long day. Um he's more light and and and it's based around the format most likely. Um it's more sit down interviews in comparison to, I'm getting interviews, promo stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And how he handles a situation

in front of that audience is very interesting too because he's like his where Mr. T is, Mr. T's basically K-faving the entire time too. He is. Yeah basically K-faving the entire time too. He is. Yeah, K-faving for a different thing. He is, yeah. Yeah, there's a really interesting, like the persona of Mr. T is an episode or three all on its own.

Like his, his, well, I, anyway, carry on with what, with what you're, cause the, actually, now I think about it. I think about it. Now I think about that. I don't, I think it's just Mr. T. That's his personality. Yeah, well, because he does,

he seems to have only one forward facing personality aspect to him. That is slightly irritated and aggressive. But if you listen to his interviews long enough, like the reason why he wears, why he, why he used to wear all the gold. And I think he stopped right after Katrina. He did. He did. The reason that he used to was that my people were enslaved for gold.

And we were made poor despite, you know, because of that, so I'm gonna wear as much gold as possible so that people see black people with gold. Yeah. Even in that, he was confrontational, which I got no problem with that. I know. But he is kind of bella-coast in his forward personality.

Now, as he's aged, he's a little less so. He's still kind of is talking. He's talking almost as though he's punching you. Yeah. He's like, I love him. I love him on Twitter because it seems like that too. Yeah. Yeah. Another fun following Twitter is the eye sheet because holy shit, that guy's an hinged on Twitter. It's so fun. Oh, like in a good way or like bad way. You know, it's entertaining and I think he's okay. Into it, but okay. But but yeah, I think Mr. T's forward for facing personality is that I've never sat down with the man, but I've seen deep enough interviews where he gets into some very

tender subjects and you see that mostly fading away. Okay. But I do think you're right. I think what we saw in the Belzer interviews was him turned up to 11 and most of the time he walks around turned up to nine. Mm-hmm. So yeah.

Yeah. You know, the thing I noticed there with Hogan is when he was with Wendy Richter, she was, she was bland so he was exciting. Yeah, yeah, that's the other thing. He, Hogan adjusts, because he's already being aggressive so he doesn't need to be, is what it feels like. And then as well as, oh, I can't get Bellen's name, right?

Bells are, Bells are. He also is Jimmy Belzer. Richard Belzer. Dick Belzer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He also is very eccentric in many ways too. True.

Now that I think about it, he, I, this is a big thing about Hulk Hogan. He, I think he's trying to make himself like, how can I be different from the other people I'm working with? If they are more monotone, I'm going to be more eccentric. If they are more eccentric, I'm going to be more calm and professional. It's, it's almost as though he had taken acting classes because one of the, one of the lessons that you get in stage acting, particularly, is, I say this as a drum and a erg, but one of the things that you get taught is you pull focus by taking whatever the energy is and not, you don't try to match that energy. If you match

the energy, you're part of the scene. If you stand out from the energy, you're pulling, you're pulling, you pull focus. If there's somebody over and wanted like theater etiquette, if somebody's in the middle of his monologue, don't drum your fingers on the table. Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. And I don't know whether Hogan ever got, or Terry, Balea ever got any any formal kind of training. He had bought by everything that I've looked at. Okay. He had not.

But he seems to have somehow intuitively figured that out. Mm hmm. Because he's he's figuring out what is the scene. Right. He's reading the situation and he's adjusting his energy in a way to complement that and draw focus. The other thing that gets me about this whole situation is when he is doing the high energy part, it's like he's creating layers to the persona.

Like when he's cutting a promo, when he's in the ring, when he's, you know, doing stuff with Lopper, it's the, you know, oh, here you brother, you know, and all that. And that is the Hulk Hogan is on. This is this is he is he is the incredible Hulk Hogan. And then when he's being interviewed, he's still Hulk Hogan. But well, you know, I'm not in the ring right now. And you know, this is this is me being this is me being a normal human being. This is being a normal human being. This is who I am. It's just, you know, a person. I'm not, I'm not on right now. But the thing is he's still on as Hulk Hogan. It's not Terry Balea being right or view.

Right. That's the thing about K-Fab. You know, well, I mean, yeah, it is, it is a hundred percent part of part of the business. But when we're specifically talking about Hulk Hogan and the way like when at the beginning of our first episode with us talking about how like we don't we don't know anything about this like everything we have you know everything that we think we know is coming from a source that ultimately may very well have been constructed by Hulk Hogan himself. Yes, as part of his own story. It's all that corny stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, and Now I'm just thinking about Hulk Hogan. Yeah. I'm sorry. Now I'm just thinking about like Hulk Hogan being like a theater kid. I'm just thinking about like Hulk Hogan being like a theater kid.

Just being like now is the winter of art. Just just content. Make glorious summer by this brother of York. Just thinking about that is making me laugh. I'm your thomad me, sir. Sir, I live by the four commandments. I, you know what? I'd pay money. I would, I would put money down to see that particular interpretation of either one of those characters

I would like to see like who I would like to see much romance average as Macbeth This damn spot will come out Is this the dagger in my hand? Is this a dagger I see before me? Yeah, the help turned toward my hand. Oh, and then it's got to be King Lear has played by the ultimate warrior. Like you got to, like if you've ever watched an ultimate warrior promo, oh, King Lear.

Oh, yeah, I love it. That's perfect. I love it. Well, but, you know, yeah, so it's just there are so many layers of artifice going on that it's hard to tell like when he's being soft spoken, Hulk Hogan, you know, reasonable guy, Hulk Hogan, is that if we were to sit down with like Terry Baleia and interview Terry Baleia as Terry Baleia, would he sound like that? Well, I will tell you.

Like what level? We will see Terry Baleia take the stage or take the the the defendants stage at one point take the stage okay and it's still K-fabe. Well okay he's he's the defendant trial so yes I mean he's the plaintiff actually oh yeah but it's still K-fabe and I still thinkame and I do not think that man knows How not to do K-Fame to be perfectly honest. I think he he has spent so much time in it that you are what you pretend to be Oh wow, so the mask the mask has has I'm taking over. Okay. Wow cool So not not to the extent where like he can still separate being Terry from being Hulk, but I don't think being Terry is an authentic experience for anybody around him.

Wow. Yeah. That's the wrong. I can't believe he been kind of that dad. Yeah. Yeah. kind of bad dad. Yeah. Yeah. So well, I think we've gleaned quite a bit there. Andrew, is there anything you wanted to close with on that or shall we go to recommendations and we're defined us? I think it's perfect to go on to recommendations. Cool. Well, I will start. I'm recommending this

week that you read National Wrestling Alliance, the untold story of the monopoly that strangled professional wrestling. It is a great book. The chapters are short and accessible. It goes kind of territory by territory at first, and then it goes to Europe, IERA, because leadership and ownership changes in the territories. And there's a lot of names that I didn't know, and it is, you know, I never got into the Holy Roman Empire. I think I understand it now. That's a feat. So I mean, we need to start with the fact that it was neither Holy nor Roman nor really an empire. But okay, this was neither wrestling nor national nor an alliance. So there you go.

And of carnivores. Yeah. So there you go. And speaking of historical K-fabe, by the way. Mm-hmm. So yeah. What are you recommending it? I don't have anything to recommend this week other than I'm actually going to say, go back and take a look at, no, I had something for half a second and it went away. So no, I have, I have no recommendations. I'm going to hand it over to our guest. All right. So I started reading recently because my research is in the media literacy, but I also look at like conspiratorial thinking I started reading through Mike Rothschild's no relation to the main topic of the book Jewish space lasers The Rothschilds and 200 years of conspiracy theories

Yeah, wow you read my V episodes then have you Rothschilds and 200 years of conspiracy theories. Yeah. Wow, you've read my V episodes then, have you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so it's basically just a book about like talking about like the conspiratorial thinking that emerged from these this one family and basically talks about like, why they're not accurate, but basically talks about like why they're not accurate but also talks about like

generally like a lot of anti-Semitism and why it tends to be associated with conspiratorial thinking. I love it. I love it. I do too, but I also hate it at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. So cool. Well, let's see. Ed, where can you be found or do you want to be found? I do not want to be found at this point. I remain a shadow in the warp. We collectively, of course, can be found at woeboeboeboeboeboe.geekhistorytime.com on the internet. You have obviously found the podcast since you're listening to it right now. We can be found on Stitcher and the Apple Podcast app, wherever it is that you have found us. I do ask that you please take the time to give us the five

star view that you know we deserve and hit the subscribe button. And you individually, sir, where can you be found? Let's see, you can find me in these streets, probably August 4th at Luna's doing capital punishment in Sacramento at 8 p.m. or September 8th at Luna's doing capital punishment at 8 p.m. I think that's the best place to find me at now. And of course, obviously on this fine podcast, you really should start rewinding through you owe it to yourself to listen to several of our other episodes. So I'm glad you found us. But you got some work to check the archives. Yeah. Yeah. Do it. I didn't know about you? Where can you be found? Hi.

Hi, you can find me at if you want to follow me on TikTok, you can follow me at prof.suds as you DS. And you can follow me on Twitter. I think it is prof underscore suds. And then you can find me on Instagram. It's 80s suds. I had a friend ask me recently why suds. It's just my last name, Sutherland. We take the first two letters of Sutherland and last letter of last name, suds. Yeah, family nickname. If you find me in the streets, you can say hi.

You should buy him coffee. I would love that. I'm a real grad student. You should buy him coffee. I would love that. I'm a grad student. You can buy me coffee. Nice. Or cool. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us on this. Oh, it was my pleasure. Did. Yeah, and you already recommended. Sorry. Yeah. You can also give this podcast a five star rating. I do. Yeah. There you go. Thank you, sir. All the cool kids do that. Yeah. And so does Andrew. All right, so for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony and I'm Ed Blalock and until next time, keep rolling 20s. Oh, yeah!