A Geek History of Time - Episode 225 - Hulk Hogan Media-Made Media Murderer part IV

Episode Date: August 19, 2023

I'm saying that we were getting to the movies. Yeah, and I'm only going to get into a few of them. Because there were way too many for me to really be interested in telling you this clone version or this clone version in the early studio system. It's a good metric to know in a story art. Where should I be? Or there's beast. I should step over here.

Uh, yeah. At some point, at some point, I'm going to have to sit down with you like and force you, like pump you full of coffee and be like, no, okay, look. And are swiftly and brutally put down by the minute men who use bayonets to get their point across. Well done there. I'm good, Aimean. And I'm also glad that I got your name right this time.

I apologize for that one TikTok video. Men of this generation wound up serving a whole lot of them as a percentage of the population because of the war, because of a whole lot of other stuff. Oh yeah. And actually in his case, it was pre-war, but you know, I was joking. Did he seriously join the American Navy? He did. Fuck it. 1.0-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5- This is a deep history of time. Where we connect and remember to this real world.

My name is Ed Laylock, a little history and English teacher at the little school level here in Northern California. And this week, my son graduated from pre-K. And so my parents are visiting. And if you dear audience members hear odd sounds in the background, that's because I'm recording on my patio because my office is currently occupied by my parents. But the graduation was very adorable. The kids all declared what they wanted to be when they grew up as part of it. And my son's answer was he wants to be a police officer ninja.

And I had to bite my tongue to keep from immediately responding. A nap public. No. Well, no, in public, I'm okay with half of that. Like if you want to go to Japan and apprentice, I'm totally down with that, but we're going to have to have a talk about about the other part of that. Like, if you want to study the Shadow Arts, I am 110% behind you, my son, but be in a fucking cop.

They're there. Only like there are there are so many choices you can make in your life. I will I will love you unconditionally Accept Like I don't know man, but so yeah, it was it was one of the girls in his class said she wants to grab to be a unicorn Which which was adorable and then the part of my brain that spends too much time on the internet took that answer and I was immediately ashamed of myself. Yeah, so yeah, so but anyway, my wife got teary and emotional. And yeah, it was good times, it was good times. And next year he moves on to kindergarten

and his first day of that is going to be, it was gonna be an adventure. It'll be an emotional roller coaster. So that's what I have going on. How about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a high school US history teacher and a high school Latin teacher up here in Northern California. And the thing that I've got going on is I finally

Now parents will understand this Others will for the wrong reasons which happens often in my life. I finally cleared all the laundry off my dresser. Okay. Yeah. Now, when you're a parent, it's you are dumping and you're moving on so you can parent. You do not have time to put shit away. Yeah. Even when you're a parent of a 10 and a 13 year old, this is true.

Because you got, you got, you, you just fold the laundry and the dinners about ready you just dump and you go and I shaperone to dance a month ago the shirt that I wore to that is still folded up on the dresser until today um and so I did a I did a little thing because uh always be teaching right um because I always be teaching, right? I had Alexa play Even Flow by Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam. Yeah. And I raced Even Flow to see if I could get it done in the roughly four minutes and 57 seconds

that that song takes. I was, I lost by just a few seconds, but I called my daughter into my room. My son, you tell him to do a thing, he will grumble and then he will do the fucking thing. He will get up early to clean out the cat boxes. So he has more time to research, how to redesign a zoo or how to build a better role-playing game for Marvel. My daughter will grumble, grouse, and take an hour to do a task that takes five minutes. Your daughter, your daughter and I would get along famously.

Yes. Yeah. In so many ways. Uh, so I am totally that guy. Yeah. So I, I raised even flow and I brought her in and I said, okay, I did you hear the music I was playing? No.

Okay, I was playing a song and it only lasted about five minutes. I said, take a look at my dresser and she's like, oh, it's clean. I said, okay, I did you hear the music I was playing? No, okay, I was playing a song and only lasted about five minutes. I said, take a look at my address there. And she's like, oh, it's clean. I said, I know. I can't believe I waited a month to do five minutes of work. This is ridiculous. And she looks at me. I'm like, now you know where you get it from.

So. So now you have that self knowledge. Do with what I yeah, so that's what I recommend Pearl Jam for all your laundry needs. So all right. Yeah, I can buy that. Yeah. We have with us a guest yet again, because the whole Kogan story is a long and arduous one.

And I like to bring as many people along to torture as possible. Andrew Sutherland, welcome back. Still chasing is by the time we're done with this Hulk Hogan thing though, you might be done with your. He might, he might be doctor. Yeah. What a journey. What a journey. Now we get done with this. Yeah. Boy, how do you? So yes, everybody welcome just a small town boy. Andrew Sutherland. Hi, I'm ecstatic to be back. Let's make my day. I used to teach at the community college level. So we had Ed who's teaching at middle school, Damian who teaches at high school. I am your next step. Community college, hopefully eventually taking out a full university institution. My fun fact, fun thing I recently did is the other day was my

little brother's birthday. He turned 27. And I, we do this every so often because we've lived long distance for a while. We would send each other gifts. I sent them a night shirt from the university I'm at right now, I had a mug, a card as well as a box, just a regular box that fits snugly into the main box that everything was shipped in. But what I did was I cut a hole, a little hole at the bottom and just filled it to the brim with glitter.

And so, you would think like, oh, he would pull it out and just glitter would fall into the box. I did something extra there. I tied or taped, glued, tied, or wrote on the inside of the box, as well as to the main box as well. So when he pulls it out, the glitter would be falling, and the rope would be pulled with it, causing the box to fall over, tipping all the glitter onto the ground. So I'm kind of in a little bit of mischievous mood with him, but also the extra fun part is, is that he's in the military. He's currently doing some training in California. So that box is going to be sitting there for an extra bit longer. And if I know my brother, the first thing

he's going to do once he gets home is actually open his mail. So he'll be just so tired He's actually open his mail, so he'll be just so tired. Dealing with that. He'll brighten up his day. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. On behalf of your brother, fuck you. Like, I told my god, that's evil. That's good.

Don't worry. I'm so glad I never had siblings. My god. I told my parents I was going to do that. That's the exact response. My mom said to me. I'm so glad my brother never had siblings. No, she said fuck you. That's great. Yeah.

She made Christmas. Wow. I don't know how to transition from that. So let's just dive in, shall we? I mean, it's perfect. A sparkly murder glitter gymnastics. There you go. There you go. So last we talked, Shay Hogan was being funded by Richard Belzer, getting a settlement. Yeah. So three days after Hulk Hogan choked out 145 pound comedian Richard Belzer on March 30th. Yeah. Go ahead.

Okay. I'm just sorry. You mentioned Richard Belzer's weight and that immediately put me back in mind of the of the photos that we were looking at from the Grammys of the fact that Hulk Hogan is a tree, as you said, like, I literally picture Richard Belzer, like looking like a ventriloquist dummy. Well, is hanging from his forearm. Yeah.

Yeah. It's, um, that he never like, you know, some people they, they go up and down and height, but uh, Belzer didn't. Yeah. Like, yeah., some people they they go up and down and height, but Belzer didn't Yeah, like yeah, my god goes. Yeah, so anyway Sorry, let me see if I can pull this into the chat for you so that you can see the exact height difference. Oh, you did it for me. Thank you, Andrew. There you go That's oh shit. Yeah, that's right before so he puts his hands out He's playing to the crowd and then then he tries to tap Hogan's arm,

and he goes limp in the process. Wow. So three days later, Hulkogin, the night before WrestleMania, Hulkogin and Mr. T were the special guests on Saturday night life. They were co-hosts and they were both wearing matching Hulk Mania t-shirts, not WrestleMania t-shirts. Mr. T was wearing a WrestleMania hat. Or no, Mr. T was wearing a Hulk Mania hat. Wow.

They're so, I find that that's just kind of one of those things and I'm like, oh wow. Their opening monologue made fun of the Belzer incident immediately to the point where they actually left a guy laying on the stairs of the stage of the SNL stage. Like they, Wow. And that's such a wrestling thing to do. laying on the stairs of the stage of the SNL stage like they. Wow. I mean, and that's such a wrestling thing to do.

One of the most telling episodes I can think of is about six years ago, there's a there's a wrestler named Cesaro, vastly underrated, phenomenal wrestler, goes to dive on somebody who's up against the turnbuckles, right? And that person gets out of the way. He's supposed to hit the turnbuckle. He overdove. He hits his face on the post behind it. For real legit, not K-fame.

Hits it, knocks out his teeth. Oh, shit. Balls back. Like, he didn't knock him out. He drove them back up into his gums. From when they came. Oh, yeah. Okay. Got you both gagging. Oh, God. Oh, my God. You're both sweaty.

Oh, he immediately looks up. He finds where the hard camera is and looks up at it with his mouth open and a gap on purpose. Because you know that that shit makes money. You know that that will be a storyline. That's the key. You can, yes, you can sell, because he's gonna be wearing a mouthguard for a while you can sell that as merch you can put that on entrance videos to show how

fucking tough this guy is you can do all that kind of stuff I know I have the same reaction when I read that Perseus scrapes the the one tooth that all the grie I share on the snow. I'm just like, oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh. So, when you have an incident happen organically, you make money on that shit. You, you, you milk it as hard as you can. Yeah, absolutely.

You break someone's leg, that becomes storyline. You break someone's neck, that becomes storyline. Okay, so, so I have a question about that though. So they're on SNL. SNL, and this is 85. 85. 85. Now, of course, by that time, this is Eddie Murphy era.

No, this is past. This is the years of SNL, to be honest. Okay. Okay. Born Michaels is the part of this. This is the Dick Ebersold years. Okay. Oh be honest. Okay. Born Michaels is part of this. This is the dick ever saw years. Oh, wow. Okay.

Which explains the WWF connection because buddies were, well, ever saw and McMahon were buddies. They had regular lunches together. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. So yeah, go on. So you go first.

So okay. So my question here is, the thing with their referencing, the thing with Belzer, yes, in the opening minutes of SNL, but Belzer, his show was a regional New York thing. And a weekly one. And a weekly, okay, weekly New-hmm. They're now on SNL Yeah, three nights later you said yeah, okay live from New York had had The thing with Belzer

Got in traction nationally so like people in California watching SNL Were they gonna know what this was reference to? Was this totally New York inside baseball? New York inside baseball. Okay. Yeah. It was the most you would have had like the segment at the end of the news cast. And Richard Belzer is in the news today for getting not, you know, that kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I just realized who Richard Belzer is. He was in Monchana on Lauderdor. It took me a moment. Going back to like my research interest, he wrote multiple books on JFK's

assassination. He was really into the, or was he was really into that conspiracy theory. Yeah, he and Oliver Stone, I believe, shared, yeah, shared interests in the same types of conspiracies, too. The ones that that kind of radiated around New Orleans. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Also took, oh, go on.

No, it took me a moment to realize who he was. I was like, oh, who is he? Who is he? He also had the absolute best Ronald Reagan impression I had ever seen in my life. In terms of getting his voice, really? Yes. And he, you know, I've seen him as a meeting because, okay, I didn't get cable till I was like 12 13 because we moved back to California and my dad was making enough money and rent was low enough in the early 90s that in fact you could get cable

um, and I would watch A&E's the night at the improvs Oh, right right yeah, Richard Belzer was on there A lot of comedians were on there, you know, and I also would watch on occasion I'd see different comedians interviewing comedians TV shows. So I loved comedy and Yeah, shockingly And so I saw him do an impression of Ronald Reagan just very quickly and I was like, oh my god, that's perfect So yeah, cool.

But yeah, so it's the Dicca ever saw years. It's the Nadeer. It is, I mean, this is around the time that Chevy Chase gets banned a second time. I mean, this is like around the time. I know that this is the one year that to give you a reference. This is the one year that Billy Crystal is on. And he's a, you look mobulous. That character. Mm-hmm. He had Hogan and T on it and he got them to

break. Um, yeah. Yeah. Um, because he's, oh, you make it look like a boobies go to boob to boob to you know, and like, and they just, just and he's like and why do you care And T is like grabbing this like flex bar and all this, you know, he's like, oh, what do you have there? And he's as a parking meter And he's like oh when you do that your boobies go put the book the book and you look marvelous and T just breaks character and Hogan breaks character It was so fun So you are you watching Richard Belzer impersonate Ronald Reagan? No, I'm looking to the Senate unit lives cast in 1985.

Pressing. Robert Downey, Jr. Yeah. Randy Quaid. Anthony Michael Hall. Yeah, Joe Q. Sack. Yeah. We're a done. Yeah. Terry Swini John. Love it. Yeah, I was gonna say that early. Yes. And, and nor done. And Terry Swini, I believe were the, no, I'm thinking of someone else. Um, but yeah, I mean, Harry Shira was there at the time. And they never took any of his ideas. Like, you talk about having a wasted pool of talent. Look at those fucking names. So was that just that the writers room suck nuts or like what? If you ask Harry Schurrer, yes, because he left after three years of never getting a single skit of his on. And he said we had creative differences. I was creative. They were different.

Wow. Very sure is famous for feuding with a lot of people though. Well, yeah. Okay. Yeah. I dare say that he and I would probably get along. I can see that. I can see that. I can see that.

I can see that. I can see that. I can see that. I can see that. I can see that. I can see that. I can see that. I can see that.

I can see that. I can see that. I can see that. I can see that.. Okay. So, they're on there. Billy Crystal manages to break them. Yep. They get to cut a promo. Straight up, just cut a promo for WrestleMania. On SNL. National, right?

Nice. Now, this is how you can get closed caption at the time. That was the, that was what the push was. It was closed captioning. So, closed TV rather close guy is with the captions. That's in the name, but close circuit. So you go to a bar and watch it on close circuit, that kind of thing. And that's what, and they're making, it is the night before,

they're making that push. Like wow, wow, wow, like look at, and again, look who's gear they're wearing. They're not wearing WrestleMania gear. They're all WrestleMania. Yes. And again, Hulk, Ogan has become bandids. He has become Kleenex.

The brand. Yeah. And a lot of brands. Yeah. And remember, all of this started because of a feud that Cindy Lauper had with Captain Lualbano. Right. Right.

And Lu Albano turned into a face. Right. And now we've faded away. Yeah. And now we don't need the MTV connection anymore because that was used to generate heat and light. And now everybody's eyes are on the actual product. Yeah. And this and I will say WrestleMania Vince McMahon bets everything on this. He absolutely does. And he didn't know until

three o'clock the next morning that he had broken it even. Oh shit. It was a fucking deal. Oh boy. Yes. And by the way, on SNL, Roddy Piper and Bob Wharton were on. Liberace was on. All to promote WrestleMania. Oh yeah. Liberace was the guest timekeeper for the main event. Oh wow. Okay. The Rockets were there.

Muhammad Ali was there. Billy Martin was there. Oh yeah. Wow. And then you add to that the backstage interviews of Andy Warhol, Danny DeVito at the war to settle the score. And then the promo videos that different musicians and celebrities would make on SNL or not, not on SNL on MTV leading up to the event. The following people made promos, shitting on a Roddy Piper saying why he's a little punk bitch.

Um, Patty Smith. Ted Nugent before he went bat shit. Um, D. No, no, he was okay. Look, he was always. Before he went politically bad shit. Um, D so it's bad. No, he was okay. Look, he was always before he went politically bad shit. There you go. That might save your favorite. Your favorite story of a Ted Newgent. Um, I think he was, he was paid not to perform

ones because he got so black blasted drunk. I want that. That he was was like I'm still gonna perform but there is like no we'll just pay you not to perform What we're seeing like right now like I know would you say like Before WWF or Before all this television of or before all this televization of WWF and wrestling, that it was more like kind of an obscure media type of thing. Yes, you could fly. So under the radar so well that like, remember I talked about the fabulous freebirds?

They came out to Leonard Skinner's free bird. Yeah. And that's insane. Yeah, it wasn't licensed to them. They just got away with it because no one looked at wrestling. Yeah, but now we're seeing like this whole push that we're now, I should have pointed out when they were on a Johnny Carson was the steps to mainstream wrestling. Literally make it more part of pop culture and part of the public consciousness.

Even though you don't, even if you don't watch wrestling, you know who Hulk Hulgan is. 100% true. Yeah. How you know who Ricky the dragon steamboat is. I do. Yeah. I do. He shows up on sidekicks for an episode with Ernie raised you and you're in Guildrad. Yeah. So, you know, and talk about mainstream. Here's who else is cutting a promo in favor of Hulk Hogan and or against Roddy Piper. Right. Deesniter, Tina Turner,

Dr. Ruth, Joe Piscopo, and Geraldine fucking Ferraro. No, what weight? Geraldine Ferraro cuts a promo on Roddy Piper, the vice presidential candidate from 1984. Cuts a promo on Roddy Piper. I'm just gonna sit. Cut this. Yeah. Yeah. She's sending it over. Geraldine Ferrara. Yes.

Cut. That's amazing. Yeah. On Roddy Piper. Like that's. I mean stream I Just I'm sending a photo right now. Okay. Oh, there it is. Oh, here we go. Okay, like Yeah, the the woman who ran with Walter Mondale with Walter Mondale. Yep. There's oh speaking and doctor Some names yep. Oh, hey, so you are one degree separated from Roddy Piper.

Yeah. I, uh, it was, I don't remember the year. I think it was, um, 2015, 2016. It might have been 2015 or something. I went, my parents said, and I decided, or my family decided to go to New York for Thanksgiving. And we watched the Macy's Day parade. And my mom and I were sitting, and we were watching it,

and there was this cute, a little door-gold lady sitting in front of us, and we were just like, she sounds familiar, she seems familiar. Then all of a sudden, it clicked and my mom said, it's like, that's Dr. Ruth. And I'm like, oh no, no way.

And that's awesome. We talked her, she was ecstatic that people remembered her. And the peak of my existence was she just said that I'm a very handsome young man. And I was like, uh, it's all downhill from here. That's the peak. Yeah. What are you going to do?

Did you get her to say penis for you? I feel like she did. She did. Oh, that's awesome. That's the best part. Like, hey, my saying penis. I can't ever think of Dr. Ruth Westheimer without without thinking of ramen Williams commentary on her. You know, here she is. Dr. Ruth, wonderful little little Jewish lady talking about sex. You know doesn't even will tell you about oral sex. And you know, she doesn't even eat pork. Oh, so that brings whole coke in her subunion. There you go. Yeah, less than 24 hours later. Because you remember SNL is like

11 o'clock out there, right? Yeah. So less than less than a day later. So god damn, they must have been exhausted. It's the first major WWF closed circuit TV event. It's not a pay-per-view. That's not going to happen until the wrestling classic in November as far as the research I could find. Okay, which is a so closed circuit. Yeah, closed circuit in this context meant that it's going to go out live to TVs all over the place, but not on a network. Okay. On a on a circuit that bars have to buy into. Okay, that's okay.

That's what I it was still it was kind of a pay per view. It's proto pay per view. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Or pay per view. All right. Yeah.

Now, the term has universalized. It is, I mean, literally the next sentence was, it is the proto-wrestling pay-per-view. The following people, I already mentioned them all, Mr. T. Liberace, Muhammad Ali, Cindy Loper, the rockets, Bobby or Billy Martin. They're all the front facing celebrities at WrestleMania, very New York conscious, but also nationally known. Billy Martin had been in Oakland, California. He has been all over the place.

I think he was a manager up in Milwaukee at one point as well, but very famous for being the Yankees manager, right? Liberace need I say more. All of this, this would as Vincent command would say plug the gap between the mainstream audience and the wrestling audience and it would get more eyes and more coverage. So now people who are like and Liberace today was dancing with the rockets in a wrestling ring. Anyway, here's a squirrel on skis. You know it would be that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. You know, it would be that. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So the naming of WrestleMania. Ah, yes. Was it more influenced by Hulk Hogan in this case? So I don't know about Hulk Hogan. I don't know about the influence per se. I do know that the man who came up with it was Howard Finkel, the announcer.

Oh, okay. He is the one credited with the name. Now, it certainly rhymes with Hulk Amania. And so was he thinking along those lines? I think very likely. You know, it's kind of was it? It's, yes. Um, especially because Hulk Hogan was the face. He was the face of wrestling. Right. And his whole like trademark was whole, commandia. Right. And so I, I could see that. And you know, you don't turn down good money that way too. Like it's. Yeah. So, yeah. So it's the the closed-circuit TV market that enables Vince McMahon to get over a million viewers of the first WrestleMania in March of 1985. Fun little fact about that is that the show went off the air in Pittsburgh at the Civic Arena due to a malfunction. So arenas and Stadia are not maybe not Stadia, but arenas and and stadia or not maybe maybe not stadia, but arenas and civic

centers and stuff like that. Basically, big wrestling venues brought in big ass TVs and charged people to come in and see it on closed circuit. But it goes off the air in Pittsburgh due to a malfunction. And in order to make up for it, the local ABC affiliate showed the entire WrestleMania for free a couple of weeks later. And I got to say again, for free, they didn't charge WF for the rights. They did it for free. You talk about free publicity. Like everybody in the Pittsburgh area gets to see it for free after some of them have spent money to go watch it. I know at this point in the podcast, my parents would be listening and my dad would be furious because he he's from

Or my family's from Ohio and they hate Pittsburgh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And look what Pittsburgh got to do. Yeah, exactly how dare they right now I went to West Virginia. Yeah, I went to West Virginia. Schools rivalry was the University of Pittsburgh. So I'm obligated to just say each shit hit that's right now. Totally fair. I had a friend who went to Oberlin and she was always obligated to say kill him Quakers. No, no, I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry. You'll look way. Curses. It was because there's a yeoman.

Okay. The Oberlin yeoman. Yep. And so. And so at the end of all of this, WF was a nationally known thing. The rental tape market helped that momentum continue. And Hulk Hogan was a juggernaut.

The next year would see Hulk Hogan in at least 10 different video cassettes that were released by Titan sports. 1986 saw the payoff of all the 1985 efforts, more merch, more tapes, more money. And on it went on through WrestleMania 3 where Hulk Hogan was a part of the biggest match in wrestling history according to people who thought that it was the biggest match in wrestling history. I would still say that George Hackensmith versus Frank Gatch was bigger in 1903 and 1905, I forget which year, because it drew over 100,000 people. And it brought the world championship to the United States. George Hackensmith came to the United States and legitimized the US as kind of the the locus of pro wrestling. I would say that that was bigger.

That being said, this is a very close second. Whole Kogan goes against Andre the Giant. And it basically is the end of the territory era because WWF had become the Coke of wrestling by this point and had packed out the Pontiac Silver Dome. They reported and claimed a crowd of over 93,000, although estimates of all kinds of people who examined such things, put it closer to 78,000, but they all came to see Hulk Hogan take on Andre the giant. That was the draw. It was a passing of the torch. And at this point, they started to shift Andre the giant who was a face to becoming more

of a heel. He's full heel by the time because the whole point of the of the match was that on Piper's pit. Now Piper is a good guy by this point. Jesse Ventura brought out Bobby Heenan. Bobby Heenan comes out with Andre the giant. Hogan freaks out. What are you doing with him? Andre, what are you doing? And Heenan does most of the talking. And he says, you know, this man has stood by you. He's been your friend for all these years. And not once did you give him a match. And Hogan's like, I would have if you had asked Andre, I just don't, don't let it be with this guy. Don't be with him. And Andre just full on heels on him, right? Grabs his shirt, rips his crucifix, digs it into his skin a little bit. That was accidental. He basically

it's Andre. Sorry Indigo, I drugged him too hard. And it's not exactly choreographed. Hogan actually had like Vicks Vapor Rub or like menthol cream on his fingers, and you can see it, because he was gonna put it in his eyes so it would make him cry. Instead, yeah, anything for the fucking K-Fape, right? But instead, the fact that he was bleeding

and the emotionality of it all brought him to tears anyway. And it's interesting because Hogan's like holding the again, this didn't mean to happen, but it happened. He's holding the broken crucifix in his hands and looking up to the camera and like, why? And Roddy Piper is right there and he goes, come on man, you're bleeding. You're bleeding man. Come on. And he's being the sensitive friend to Hulk Hogan by WrestleMania three. Piper is a good guy at this point. He's a good guy. He's computing.

You remember we did our episodes on they live. He'd been with Adrienne Adonis by this point. Okay. So he was pushing the homophobia button really hard. So he's a good guy. So really hard. So he's a good guy. So, Ogan takes on a monster heel Andre, who they, they had build as having never lost. But if you remember a couple of episodes

back, he did lose to Hogan before, but it was always, but it was always on some kind of yes, yes, technicality, yeah, something out out whatever. Now, okay, now I remember somewhere, hearing that right up until the end, there was some level of, nobody was really sure whether, what Andre was going to do.

Yeah, whether Andre was really actually going to let Hogan get over on him or not. So Andre let Vince McMahon know what he was going to do. He guaranteed yes, I'm going to do the job you want me to do. Okay, he didn't let Hogan know what he was going to do. So Hogan wrote out the whole matter. According to Hogan, he wrote out the whole match on a legal pad and and basically gave it to Andre and Andre is playing par cheeseie or whatever game he was playing with Arnold Skull and at the time, you know, get out and Hogan fucked off. He's like, all right and Andre starts calling the match and he starts calling everything that's on Hogan's list

This is according to Hogan Hogan also claims that he brought he's like ripped all of his litus misdemeanor side muscles when he body slammed Andre. That's not true either. Okay, of course. No. No. But a whole fuck ton of people came to see Hulkogin take on Andre the giant and it had, so you have 78,000 to 93,000 people there. You have Bob Euker and Mary Hart there. Mary Hart, who was really big in entertainment at the time. You remember? Oh, yeah. So was it entertainment tonight?

Yeah, ET. Yeah. You had Bob Euker there, which he was an amazing host for WrestleMania. He was really good. You have them there. You had Alice Cooper there for a match between Jake the Snake Roberts and the honky-tongued man. You have a lot of stars. You've got a lot of star power and you've got 93,000 people, according to the WF,

you've got 78,000 possibly somewhere between there. They're paying to be there. You've got 520,000 pay per view buys. You've got 450,000 close circuit buys. And that that means more than a million people paid money to watch Hulk Hogan beat Andre the giant and ticket prices, ticket prices at the event range from nine to $100, which sounds like a hell of a steal in today's money, considering it's like $5,000 for a ringside seat.

No, days, yeah. Two to five, yeah. Wow. Yeah. So now this all happened, okay, and it was not a very good match, but it is what sold the pay per view. There were other very good matches on the card, actually.

The famous steamboat Savage match, for instance. I think that the the can-am connection versus Don Morocco and cowboy Bob Orton was fun. It was a good match. I also think that Hillbilly Jim and oh God, who was it? It was Lord Littlebrook and the Haiti kid against King Kong Bundy, little Tokyo, and little beaver. That's right. What amazing names. Oh yes, especially when you realize that Hillbilly, Jim, and King Kong Bundy were the only people in that wrestling match who were not little people. And so you had a match with little people in it.

Oh, God. I'm going to use the term that they still use today, that little people who are wrestlers still use today. It's called midget wrestling um i'm gonna refer to that term maybe a couple more times but essentially little people doing wrestling most it's played obviously for comedy and then you've got king gong bundy whose nickname by some was shamoo because if you look at his singlet and his skin, he looks like a fucking killer whale. And you've got Hillbilly Jim, who's a really big fella.

And so you basically, the amount of fun that that match had. I mean, it's just all kinds of really good matches going on. And then Hogan and Andre, and it was only about six to eight minutes long. Andre was clearly in a lot of pain. It was not a very well done match, but it did the thing that it needed to do.

At the same time, it's still like, when I think about WrestleMania, I still think about Hulk Hogan. That slam. Body slamming. That slam. It's a cultural milestone. And in many ways. Yeah, because I don't know if anybody else ever body slammed Andre the giant. You can go on YouTube and find a video

that's over a minute long of other people body slamming on the giant. Okay. But what you're saying is speaking absolutely 100% to the legend that was built around Andre the Giant. You know, they said that he hadn't lost in his 15 year career he hadn't lost in his 1987. He had longer than a 15 year career. They said that I'm gonna drag something,. I'm going to see if I can drag something while I'm talking about it. They said that he had never been beaten. He's been beaten plenty of times. So it's, yes, the hype was that. The fact is that he, okay, there we go.

The fact is that that was part of the story going in. Very effectively done, I might add. But yes, that was the story going in. So I need to stop down here for a moment and address some accusations that were made down here for a moment and address some accusations that were made by a former governor, a former wrestler, Jesse Ventura. Jesse the body Ventura. Oh my goodness.

Yeah, but before I do, I do want to hear any impressions that you guys have up to this point because at this point, Hulk Emanuea is running wild. And at this point, Hulk Hogan is clearly the draw. By the way, he made almost by varying reports, he made a three million that night. And Andre and other people say he made 250,000. And Andre made 750,000. Like reports vary all over the place. Okay. So, and I put into the chat to actually,

a poster from my pun show for you guys that was inspired by WrestleMania three. That's just for fun, these. Capital. That was inspired by WrestleMania three. That's just for fun. These. So capital. Punishment. And you can see this is before we change capital to an O. Yeah. But I use the Andre Hogan motif there. So it's beautiful. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's I think it's interesting that you're the one Photoshopped onto Andre. I was bigger than my partner. Yeah. Well, yes. Yes. That's true. So I am bigger than my partner at the time. And also, there may have been some ego issues that I always had to try to swage. So, you're your build as the champion.

You should be fine with this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. Jesse Vendura has launched some accusations at Hulk Hogan of late. And again, you need to take these accusations

with the Saltlicks that they deserve because Jesse Ventura is also a huge conspiracy theory nut. And he is also a former wrestler. Yes. So just a range of lies. Yeah, there's a whole, yeah. Okay. So what are the accusations here? I think Jesse always liked being the smartest fan in the room is part of it. Yeah. Really? Yeah. I never would have guessed that from

seeing his public persona. Right. Yeah. So no, no. And he had what was that TV show he used to have where conspiracy theories. Yeah, conspiracy theories. Yeah, no, it was. It was. There was one episode. I remember watching it. And it was like, I think it was some sort of like virus episode.

And it was, you could tell when that you can tell this was a point when he was part of this episode that he was like, this is the dumbest shit I've ever heard. I think it was, yeah, it was, it also, that episode also involved Alex Jones. Yeah. Oh, wow. He used to be on Alex Jones semi-frequently. He's been on the view.

He's been on, he used to come on to Fox when they were reasonable. And it's interesting because like, you never really know which way he's gonna cut on something. And then even when he cuts on it, you wonder why? Because you can't ever predict his reasoning either. About half the time he's a pretty reasonable guy. Yeah, and the other half the time, you're like, oh, oh, you just never had anybody tell you shut the fuck up.

Yeah. Like, Oh well, with yours tell you shut the fuck up. Yeah. Like, well, if you're as big as he is, you know, and like, you know, remember Hulk Hogan, Hulk Hogan ripped off Superstar Billy Graham. So did Jesse Ventura. Mm hmm. They were both very much influenced by, you know, of course. Yeah. So he used to let people think that he was a seal

because and and Ed you can kind of get into this. He He basically did all the training that seals ended up doing before there was a seal team. So his buds Yeah, basic underwater demolition s. Yeah, um sabotage probably. I don't remember. So I have to look it up But yeah yeah, according to most people who are seals, they're like, yeah, he did the training. It's fine. Yeah. So yeah, the, the, the, to anybody who's, who's been in one of those organizations, most of the time, if you have done enough to qualify, right? Like, you know, it kind of cuts one of two ways.

I think for the majority of folks who are in that kind of elite level operation, kind of culture. No, look, this guy has chops. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, I don't have anything to prove. I'm not going to get all worked up over. Right, over my Chris Kyle over here. Come on. Yeah, that's the one way.

The other way is you do get some people who get a chip on their shoulder. Yeah. And I mean, and I mean, they've earned it. Because like the shit you've got to go through to, to earn those, those badges and, and to be part of those organizations is, it's, it's fucking nuts. And, and as I understand, you know, in my understanding might be limited or in fact wrong, but I'll, I'll make my case in a second, but Andrew I want to give you a second to here.

Yeah, yeah, like I'm just trying to think like what would my dad say? Because he was a colonel in the army. Okay. Yeah, so He probably would be like he did the training, but You could like pay to do like sear training and stuff like that too But that doesn't mean you are a Naive seal or like Yeah, if you if you if you went through the the actual school because the thing is if you you, like, yes, it is true that as a private individual, you can spend however much money to go to a camp where, oh yeah, no, we're veterans, we're gonna,

we've done this and we're gonna put you through the authentic, you know, extended escapes, your training, you know, experience. And it's like, well, okay, look, you were paying for the privilege. So how, you know, there's this kind of that asterisk, yeah, as opposed to like, no, no, you were in the service, you tested in, like you were, you were judged to, you were, you were a chosen individual, chosen man, chosen woman. And like you went through legitimately,

you made all the cuts. Yeah. There's a distinction there that I think is important. And you know, it's easier to say, and I think this is part of the reason that a lot of folks let them to kind of get away with it. It's shorthand, it's easier to say, well, you know, I was a seal.

Right, people know what that is. People know what that is. People know what that means. Yeah, whereas like, well, you know, I went through, you know, I got chosen for it. I went through, you know, underwater demolition school. Right, like, okay, what is that?

What does that mean? Is that like a seal? Yeah. Yeah. It is. It is. Yeah. Actually. So, you know, and that's so, I think, I have no combination of things there. What I've noticed here is that the training for buds is 24 weeks and the seal training is called seal qualification training, SQT. That's 26 weeks. And I don't know if those are two separate courses or if they're, or if, if one got subsumed by the other, I couldn't, I couldn't figure it out. And I, I don't have the working knowledge of the organization to be able to get

there. So I know that he graduated from Buds in 1970. And I know that there's no record of him going into SQT, but if it didn't exist at the time and Buds was the top end of what you could do and then that later gets folded into SQT, there is a record of him going on to being on a UDT under water demolitions team, which were commonly called frog men.

Yep. And usually people who finish buds go into either the frog men or seal training. Now, I guess, and Ventura later said, quote, today we refer to all of us as seals, that's all it is, and quote, and other seals have come to his defense. He went through the UDT training

according to all the other seals, or according to other seals, not all. But according to other seals, quote, the UDTs and seals are essentially one and the same. It's why the UDT is still part of the training acronym, but end quote. So that tells me that seals think, yeah,

he's fucking a seal, like it counts. He can, he can say that. It's like if someone was in the OSS and then you're like, oh, so they're in the CA, it's like, yeah, close enough. Yeah, you're essentially, yeah. You know, yeah. All right.

All right. I'm also gonna use this as an opportunity to make a see if this would happen. Hey, dad, I know at this point you should be listening Um, I have sent you the link to this podcast and I know you love me so much So you would listen to the full thing at this point Text me your thoughts Yes, and then leave it if he doesn't yeah, and leave five star reviews. So. There you go. Yes, please.

It's also powerful. If he actually, yeah, there you go. Listen and thank you for your service. And by your service, I mean, leaving a five star review. There you go. Yes. I'm not about to do the, the, what is the, the, the performance of Genuflect, of the Instanceer person wearing the lapel pin. Yeah, no, he wouldn't, he wouldn't appreciate that. Good. Yeah, just just buy him a good beer and he'll be happy.

There you go. Yeah. So a cigar, either one. Okay. But, you know, the thing is, um, Jesse Ventura has this career ending condition of blood clots in his lungs. Um, and that is a truth that is wrapped in all sorts of weird half truths as well. He claimed that he got it from Agent Orange and Vietnam. He never served in Vietnam. So that's a little bit of a problem. Yeah. All this said, he ends up,

again, he's a wrestler. Like, I don't know if the job creates the personality or the job attracts the personality or as a few days. Little column A, little column B. I don't think Colonel DeBeer's was ever actually in the South African army. I don't think Sergeant Slotter was actually ever a Marine, you know. I don't, I don't, you know, those kinds of things aren't, you know, it's wrestling. It's, it's, it's, yeah. You know, uh, Baron Von Rashky was not a unreconstructed Nazi. Kamala was not a Ugandan headhunter. I mean, yeah, I don't like, yeah,

no, you really don't need to. No, I'm curaging so hard right now that I hack my head hurts. And those are the least racist examples I could come up with. Yeah. Oh crap. All right. So Jess even juror claims that while he was on set for predator, he saw the benefits of being in the screen actors guild.

I think that's probably true. Cause he's a wrestler. And while he's talking with Arnold Schwarzenegger on the set for Predator, Arnold convinces him of how good it is to have SAG because you have permanent life, not life insurance health benefits. That movie was filmed from April of 86 to February of 87.

So this means that Jesse Ventura brought this sag desire with him sometime between WrestleMania 2 and 3. And the thing is, by that point, he was almost entirely retired. He wrestled a few matches through 1985. And by mid-March of 86 he seemed to stop entirely. The final match that I could find that he wrestled was in Winnipeg in a losing effort against Tony Atlas on March 17th of 1986. The next month he's off to Mexico filming with Arnold and Carl Weathers and all the rest. So according to Jesse Ventura, he'd come back to the locker room to talk with the boys

about starting a union, but that he did so prior to WrestleMania II, and this is where I struggle with the chronology because WrestleMania II happens after April 7, 1986. Okay. Now, this could be just compression of time, you know, as you tell a story, or, you know, any number of possibilities. So according to Ventura, he approached the locker room to tell them to refuse to do WrestleMania two until they unionized. In a later and he's the only source I could find on this.

In a later interview, Jesse said, quote, Vince McMahon is lucky I didn't go for the Senate. Because had I gone into the Senate, I would have started a senatorial investigation as to why pro wrestlers are called independent contractors when they're not. This was absolutely about Ventura's claim that McMahon busted up any chance at a union that the boys ever had. Now this is the Hulk Hogan episode, so here's why I'm bringing this in. Ben Churro was one of the first proponents for the formation of a wrestler's union, which he tried to start. Jesse the body was able to join the screen actor's guild due to his role as Arnold Schwarzenegger's movie The Predator, and he wanted to bring that to his fellow wrestlers. He told of addressing the locker room prior to WrestleMania 2, noting that no one's agent

was around, and an agent is a wrestling agent. It's not actually an agent agent. It's somebody who will help you develop the matches. And he quote, gave the speech to the boys and quote, encouraging his compatriots to refuse to go without the opportunity to unionize. And then he says quote, the next night I got a call from Vince who basically threatened to fire me if I ever brought it up again and read me the riot act. So when I came back to Vince, I told him point blank Vince, I want ever bring up union again. I

said, if these guys are too stupid to fight for their rights, I have my union now end quote. And he means sag. Now there's another wrestler who also has been in a movie at that point, Alcogan, who also has the benefits of being in SAG. Now, Jesse claimed that he did not know who stooled him out for years, and he said stooled me out for years until he was involved in a court case over the amount of roughly $850,000 with Vince McMahon. There was an issue regarding royalties around the use of his commentary on video cassettes. So he's doing commentary on almost every pay-per-view, every main event, every wrestling thing.

So his voice is on almost every cassette. And he said, you know, he's basically like, look, you're screwing me out of royalties. I want my cut. So $850,000. So when McMahon was being deposed with Ventura's lawyer on the subject of the $850,000, the subject of unions come up. And I think this is around 90 or so. When McMahon was in a deposition, think this is around 90 or so. When McMahon was in a deposition, oh, yeah. So McMahon evidently stated that Hulk Hogan had told him about Jesse's meeting so that McMahon could squash it because Hogan thought that it would benefit him more if they did not unionize. And Vittura said this recently on the Stone Cold Steve Austin podcast, quote,

it was like someone punched me in the face. This was my friend. And I thought, Hogan betrayed me. Hogan called Vince and ratted me. And when he was pressed by a Stone Cold Steve Austin, he said, quote, Hogan continued to lie and say it, he didn't do it. While in the trial, we got the records of WrestleMania 3, the big one, him and Andre, while Hogan made more money than all of us combined, including Andre, so naturally he didn't want a union. However, according to Dave Meltzer, a wrestling journalist who also tends to report not real stuff, Andre and Hogan each got 750,000 for WrestleMania, with Andre getting an additional 250,000 to put Hogan over. So that amount is in dispute. I have once heard that he got a payday of three million for that.

But to be honest, the whole thing seems to have generated roughly $12 million, so that seems a bit much. So it's entirely likely impossible that Hulk Hogan stualled out a union and that a union could have formed. And Jesse Ventura acts like that, that was the case and certainly seems to hold a grudge about it to this day. So yeah, Pucks Gabs. Exactly. You know, you want thoughts like that's the first one. Yeah, Pucks Gabs. Exactly.

You know, you want thoughts like that's the first one. I mean, I think it lines up. You know, and I think part of it. Sorry. Part of it is, is Hogan, you know, knowing, seeming to have this, this kind of almost instinctive understanding of, like, his own angle. And, you know, how to, how to get out on top. But the other part of it is, at this point, I kind of get the feeling that a big part of it is, Hogan

is a company man. You know, that the opportunities that he's got and the position he's in at this point, I mean, he's huge and he's capitalizing on the fact that he's huge and he knows that that gives him a certain amount of power But he also knows that like he needs he needs Vince and That makes him a company man and the loyalty Like on the on the Belzer show him him, you know preserving K-Fabe and defending the business and On Johnny Carson and defending the business. And on Johnny Carson, him defending the business. Yeah. You know, he's, he's. Now remember when he's on Carson, he's in AWA.

Well, yeah, yes. But I think you're still right. But when I say, when I say the, I mean, in that sense, when I say the business, I'm talking about, I'm talking about wrestling as an industry. Yeah, the profession. The profession and the image of wrestling. Yeah, the image of it and he's in the WWF now and he's gotten and he's with Vince, but earlier he was in the AWA and he was defending the organization.

Right. Whatever organization it is, he's defending the organization because the organization. Right. Whatever organization it is, he's defending the organization because the organization is what's getting him his position. Yeah, I could see that for sure. So, I mean, I think it's a little, like I've said before, a little column A and a little column B. Sure. Is the read I kind of have. And, you know, fucks, gabs. Yes. The inability, you know, the inability to recognize the potential, right? It's, you know, my kid needs a Cadillac, so your kid needs to get run over by one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the idea that, well, you know, there's limited

to a slices in this pie. I want to make sure mine is as big as possible. It's like, no, no. The pie can get a lot bigger. Right. Like, right. Or in this case, it's more about the pie is going to get a lot bigger.

And you don't understand how big. And not even just that, like, on the pie is going to get a lot bigger and you don't understand how big and and not even just that like on the pie I'm thinking about like if WWE or WWF of the time unionized how many wrestlers would have not had career ending injuries or even had deaths resulted in or even had deaths resulted in traumatic brain injury or a variety of other stuff, or even like, I don't know about this, but maybe like the notorious issue of like the pushing of steroids. Oh, that's Thomas.

Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, that's how it says. So in many ways, Hulk and definitely Vince are responsible of are responsible and for those. Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Am I blunting the thing that might have stopped that? Yeah. Absolutely. I also always fuck scabs. Right. Yes. We need to repeat that as much as possible because I like seriously. I think it's a life forever.

Yeah. And I think at this point, my dad would be texting me, fuck scabs. Nice. Cool. Yeah. It's, it's, yeah. Like you said, I mean, it's, it's that a year that like, well, that'll mess with my money. And that is a running complaint that people have.

They're both people are very happy when Hogan's on the card because it means everybody's gonna make more money. And I'll get into how much he up to the cards. Or did I already talk about that? You kind of did. Yeah, there's that 40% jump because he was on the cards. Yeah.

So they're getting raises like, you know, because he's on the card, but at the same time If something doesn't work for his money, he squashes it And that becomes a complaint about him in WCW So during this time Hulk Hogan didn't do very many movies and the occasional guest spot was on a TV series He appeared on the on one episode of a darling, Dolly Parton variety show in 87. Yeah, I love Dolly. I everybody loves it. But also, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, like, but it was a one season. No, no, that was it.

But also knowing that he's a scab. Yeah. And him being on dolly is like, nobody at that time knew he was a scab. Of course not. But like, it's like finding that there was shit on your shoe later. Exactly. So now he's busy wrestling and growing his brand that way. And he really, really is. Besides WWF properties, Hogan wasn't really out there very much. Even if we can't, if we count his, I can't believe it was snubbed by the Oscars movie, No Holds Barred. This movie, of course, was starring Joan Severance, Tiny Lister and Supernatural Stars, Kurt Fuller and Mark Pellegrino. Wow, Lucifer played his little brother. Wow.

Okay. Rip him. You know, his brother who ends up in a wheelchair. Yeah. Yeah. That's Lucifer from some from supernatural. Holy shit. Oh God.

Wait. Yeah. Oh shit. What? Okay. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. All right. I've had my moment. We can move on. Wow. Damn. Yeah. And also, of course, the guy who played, oh God, who's the angel that had the really nice suit that they ended up killing early on. He wasn't an archangel that I can remember. He was like the head of the angel mafia. Bald guy? Yeah. Oh, he's the main bad guy in this. Well, he was that right. He's that's it. He's the face.

Yeah. So he was the main bad guy. And of course, tiny Lister who played the president in Fifth Element. So, what do you got? He's not really doing that much non-wrestling content besides that. And I don't know if there's a media term for this, Andrew, you can help me out, but I call it smart saturation. Um, because he has become such a known commodity in the realm that he's in. But if you break out to try to do other stuff, no one's going to disdain your failure there. So you're safe failing. Um, and you'll land safely

back in what your momentum has built and curated. I think it's just saturation. Okay, but it seems like, because it just, it seems like he knows that even if he steps out and fails, he can fall back into this and keep going. And it is, that forgiveness aspect is really clever. Like it's rare to see people do that. Well, I'd point, I'd actually interestingly coming back to, you know, and another example from wrestling, that's kind of Dwayne Johnson. I think he's broken out completely.

Dwayne Johnson has broken out completely, but until he became who he is in the zitgeist, I think he got to that point as the rock. And then he spread out from there. And he has managed to now break K-fabe in a way and become and become Dwayne Johnson. Yes. Outside of all that. He has his own genre of movie in the same way that Bruce Willis had his own genre of movie. Yeah. Yeah. I would love now I think about it Dwayne Johnson K-faving on Kevin Hart. Just because it would be because Kevin Hart wouldn't know what to do. He would just be lost of words every time. I've never seen that man lost for once, but he would be terrified.

He would be terrified. Yeah. Yeah. He though so fun to watch that interviewed. They are so fun to work together. Yeah. They obviously either their K-fabe is that friendship or they have that friendship. Yeah, they I genuinely get the vibe that they genuinely love each other.

Like, yeah, like, yeah, there's there's something so remarkably wholesome about it. Like, yeah, there's a sweetness to it. about it. Like, yeah, it's a sweetness to it. Yeah. And I mean, it's them being being, you know, rude and horrible to each other, but you can tell they're doing it from a place of like, no, this is my brother. Yeah. If anybody else helps him like this, I'm going to rip your fucking head off. But like, I mean, I think they had a whole movie that that was a premise. Yeah. But so when he pokes out of his spot, which is the top spot in all of wrestling, when he pokes his head out of that, he does it in a national way that still builds or widens the Hulk Hogan brand. Yeah. In Gremlins 2, he played Hulk Hogan. I forgot he was in that movie. Now, once he loses the title to Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania 6, which is still the

most depressing WrestleMania because if you look at the amount of people who were on that card, and you compare it to the amount of people who were in the Super Bowl that year, or that year's Super Bowl, and then you do death rates. It's like there's this, oh it's bad. It's like there's entire matches where there's the only person alive still is the ref. Yeah. And then there's others where not even around his alive. Yeah. Yeah. So he loses, he loses to the ultimate warrior warrior he gets involved in a feud with the earthquake Canadian summa wrestler who ended up doing a lot of professional wrestling None of that is untrue

He he he tries to step back to give the ultimate warrior a better shot at getting over his champion And he wants to go have a rest because he's been Burn in hard for a long time and he wants to go have a rest because he's been burnin hard for a long time. And he wants to try other things. So on screen Hulk Hogan gets attacked during the brother love show by the earthquake. He was K Fabe injured so badly by the earthquake's attack, uh, compounded with the depression over the loss of the, uh, to the ultimate warrior that he was considering retirement Vince McMahon went on the air and asked all the little Hulk maniacs to write to him and urge him not to give up This is brilliant because when you write a letter to someone what do you have to put on the envelope?

a stamp and Your home address and now you've got catalogs mailing lists. Oh, God, damn it. And they get a postcard size. Yeah, oh yeah, they also get a postcard size picture of Hulk Hogan saying thank you, which, Oh, that is so dirty. Such a good carny con.

Oh my God. And now they feel, I feel gross. Yeah. Should they feel connected to well, whole whole code. Obviously they feel connected. Yeah, the parasocial relationship. It would be well, fuck, it would be more. This is me going into my like specifics. It would be more of a parasocial interaction because the feeling of I'm interacting with this person instead of feeling like I have a relationship with this person. Okay.

Technically, but technically, it does break out of that mold because they are receiving that actual letter letter air quotes. Not that it's not real. Parasotional relationship or interaction because they're actually technically an interaction. But what it's really a feeling of it is, but it's a cave, like fucking cave, everywhere. It's really just dirty. Damn it. Taking advantage of the like the sympathy that you gave by having a 150 pounds Canadian.

Yeah, but also 40, but was only 26 sitting on your chest. God, but also it's like, you're manipulating kids. Yeah, it's pro wrestling. Like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're gonna hand out tickets at the Indy 500 while you're at it?

Like, their whole marketing strategy has been, I mean, the whole thing about being on MTV, the whole thing about selling good humor bars with professional wrestlers on it, or wrestling plush toys or all the dolls. But this one's different because you're getting their direct address. That's true. That's where it's more dirty. Like with the other stuff, and that's more like capitalism. We provide it to you. You buy it. Yeah, we offer it. You choose. You opt in.

Yeah. That's it. Now it you opt in. This is like this. This is where we're going to we're going to tug on your heart strings in order to manipulate you into giving us personal information. Yes. That they will. And we are. So you have a lot of and by the way, and by the way, here's how you know that we're recording this, this podcast

in the in the 2020s. Because in the 1980s, it would have been whatever. It's a catalog like now privacy issues and all that stuff are such a big fucking deal because it's literally everywhere. Yeah. You know, we're having this, oh my God, I feel so dirty. Like in the end, I'm sure parents in 1980s are like,

oh, hey, all right, I see what you're doing. Okay, you know, well played. Like here, but now we're so used to like, oh my god, my identity is now out there. Somebody's gonna like, you know, steal my shit, you know. But yeah. I think now, I'm trying to remember of Converse. Past day of Bill, I think Congress recently passed a bill

trying to like have phone companies Block or make it more difficult for robo calls Something like that. So that's a positive note. Yeah So there you go So whole Kogan stepped away from wrestling for a bit the thing that had built his brand to the thing that made him a Household name he was the first pro wrestler to be on sports illustrated in 1985 thing that had built his brand, the thing that made him a household name. He was the first pro wrestler to be on sports illustrated in 1985. I mean, there's so much that he has built for himself by 1990.

And and he steps away. And some of it's to get some much needed rest. Some of it is to try to do other things. By the time he's filming suburban commando, he's back on the road, though. He's starring in that movie alongside Shelley DeVol, Christopher Lloyd, the undertaker, just before he became the undertaker, and the brother of the guy who played Bud from marriage with children. All right. Um, put an all star cast boy. I mean, she'll evolve though. I mean, she was in pop.

I Christopher Boyd. Yeah. Yeah. Also in taxi. Yeah. I heard you did some other things like car commercials. I don't exactly remember.

I don't know. Dude. But so Hulk, Ogan is credited as Hulk, Ogan in suburban Cmando and he was the star of suburban commando. And he played an interstellar hero who ended up on earth and tried to blend into the suburbs. It filmed from September of 1990 through January of 91 and that kept Hogan in the game just

in time to come back and win the Royal Rumble. Now the Royal Rumble real quick. You remember I told you about battle royals. The Royal Rumble is what if we get that reverse? So instead of 20 men start and then you go, it's two men start and every two minutes you send another person in. And by the end, it's 30 people that have been in, but they, you know, plenty of been eliminated. And it's, it's really, really clever.

It is one of my favorite events. Yeah. There's so much good to Royal Rumbles. My, I remember, I, I, I've only walked, I haven't religiously watched wrestling, but I think the first Royal Rumble I watched was when, uh, was a great, it was Ray Mysterio winning. Wow. That's a good one to start with. But that's a bad one to start with because they don't get much better.

No. That was amazing. Yeah. So for the uninitiated, Ray Mysterio is a five foot three, five foot four professional wrestler who the previous year had lost his best friend Eddie Guerrero to a heart attack. And so he dedicated his Royal Rumble win to Eddie and to which Triple H said, it's really weird to dedicate a loss to your friend but go off.

And so you do this thing where you pick your number at the beginning of the show, kind of thing. And Ray picks his number and he just looks up and he goes, he got me man, he got me. And Ray comes out first. And he asked to outlast everyone else and still end up the only man standing. And he manages to do so. He sets a record that lasted until just a couple years ago. So that's a record of 63 minutes. And the drama is high,

cause he's this tiny little dude. Like at one point, the NWO used him as a lawn dart to prove how dominant they are. So yeah, Ray Mysterio is just an incredible guy. Clearly David and Goliath kind of thing, and you're always primed to root for him. Yeah. I, he's my, was, is my favorite wrestler.

And then if I recall correctly, because my brother and I also watched that WrestleMania, Randy Orton ends up taking his position who happens to be the son of cowboy or an yeah, yeah. So and then it and things happen and then it's a triple threat match between Ray Mysterio, Randy Orton, and then Kurt Angle. Exactly. So the prize for winning is that you get to challenge for the championship at WrestleMania. So you're guaranteed a main event slot,

basically. you get to challenge for the championship at WrestleMania. So you're guaranteed a main event slot, basically. And so that was in January and February, Randy Orton basically, I think he might have been the last guy thrown out by, by, right. And he basically, Orton cuts a very famous promo because of how over the fucking line it was. And he basically says, he's like, Eddie's not in heaven. Eddie's in hell. And everybody who knew Eddie agrees that Eddie would have loved that.

Because Eddie is a second generation wrestler himself. And the wrestling always came, he comes from the Guerrero family. And so there was some sensitivity issues that that were around that Orton, you know, very often bad guys will go too far. And so Orton beats Ray for the number one contendership, even though it's not a thing you're supposed to be able to contest for. And then Teddy long comes out and says, Oh, yeah, you've got the number one contentorship, but Ray is still in the match. And Ray beats then both Randy and Kurt, and then goes on to have the the shittiest run as a champion because Vince McMahon can only think in one direction sometimes. And so he sees Ray McSturgeon, you're being. being such a little guy that every match, Ray wins.

It's by DQ or Countout or he gets beaten up for like 99% of the match and he never wins strong. And then it kind of flitters out. But he very important. Yeah, very important wrestling history. I mean, I think it's really like one of the best examples of like a true underdog story within wrestling. Yeah, but they get putting him against guys who were giants literally against like the big show, the great Collie.

Like he almost comes up to the great Collie's, like just his belly button. Like it's, yeah. Like, yeah, you can, you know, Andrew, if you wanna pull up a picture of, right in the great Collie and throw that in the chat. So, let's see, Hogan comes back from the Royal Rumble. He's capitalizing, remember, it's 1991, January of 1991.

What's happening in January of 1991? Let's see, now I'm actually trying to think back to 1991. It's storm, yeah, okay, yeah. So as you're looking at this picture of Eddie and the great colleague, Ray Mysterio, not Eddie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Right. Um, yeah. Eddie is almost, uh, four inches taller than right. Uh, Oh, what does block? Uh, both men in that, uh, in that picture, uh, have been, uh, partially responsible for a man's death

in a wrestling match. Okay. Wow. So yeah, Ray was not directly responsible, though it was his blow that that set things into motion for El Peral and Collie killed a man by landing on him wrong. Oh Yeah, that was well before they were both in or no that was well before Collie was in the WWE too Hmm and just a mention what would have happened if they were unionized Scabs yes, yes indeed. I would say you can't have a scab if you don't have a union. So Hogan's even worse. Spiritually he's a scab. Yeah, always a spiritual scab. Yeah, all right. So so Hogan comes back,

wins the Royal Rumble, capitalizes on this rising tide of American patriotism and hatred for that turn coat, Sergeant slaughter, who had defeated the ultimate warrior at the same event and got the championship. And he, Sergeant slaughter was really good friends with Saddam Hussein and Saddam Hussein sent him his curved wrestling boots. And he had two advisors, Colonel Adnan and Colonel Mustafa. And Colonel Mustafa was actually the iron chic. Um, and wait, wait, wait, wait. Back the truck up. Okay. Hold on. Sure. Sargent slaughter. You've heard him. Sure. Sergeant slaughter you've heard of him. Yeah famously

a part of the GI Joe team. Yep and and whose whole stick is built on being a a Marine. Who better to be a director. Yeah Okay Just wanted to make sure that I'd heard that correctly. I, yeah, he generally missed that part in the cartoon. Yeah. So the cartoon. His president let me just talk about the cartoon. Yeah. Yeah. His cartoon presence was over by 1987, like shortly after the movie So wow and this is 1991. This is 91. Yeah, so okay, so so Raider Trader former marine. Yes turn coat X marine cuz marine rinse would be rock

That's the case he was even known as as an Iraqi sympathizer sometimes Wow, I need to understand how do they sell that to the audience? Literally in those words that I said, that's all you needed. That's so lead up. They were just like, no, out of the blue, he's a turncoat. So yeah, he comes out dressed in, if you want to look up, Sarge's slaughter in 1991, he comes out dressed in Iraqi military garb, like your standard looks like he was standing around Saddam. Yeah, Republican guard kind of, yeah, the A-10s or whatever you called those before.

Yeah, those shirts. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The very, the thing is the Iraqi, the commentary from an American advisor after the second and goal for was, you know, no matter how hard we work with these guys, they still march like the British. Make sense. The uniforms are very, very, very, very territorial British Army. Yes.

So yeah, that shirt and that very distinctive, you know, high belt line kind of trousers. Yep. Was he wearing jod poors or were they? Yes. Here you go. Okay. There. That picture right there.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hold on. I got to open it up. I got open that up. Oh my god, that is there in cheek. It is. Wow. Yeah. I love I love how they can they can totally recycle. Oh, when you find out that there's a character called the chic and then later on he comes back as Rikishi. Who is in hip hop sumo dancer. What? Okay. Yeah.

And he's played by, oh God, I remember those cards. Oh my God almighty. And you find out that he's played by a Samoan man. Well, I mean, of course he is. Cause, you know, wow. Yep. I'm I'm sorry. I'm still getting over the second one with the flames in the background. Yeah. Three of them there. And like, wow, that's, that's a goal on the kefya. Yeah. Yeah. Like, like, every one of these burns is Every one of these photos is like a fever dream to me.

Yeah. Yeah. So like you could find a type in sergeant slaughter burning flag. Oh, yeah, that's where he gets the boot from from so this is a picture of him with the curved boot. He got it as a gift from Saddam Hussein, his very close personal friend. Wow. And this is yeah, good marketing.

So and then of course, Sergeant Sutter goes out at one point and burns a flag in front of the whole audience. That's cheap heat. Yeah, come on. He burns the Hulk Hogan T-shirt as a flag. The Hulk Hogan T-shirt. No shit, really?

It's serious. Wow. That's good heat. No shit really. It's serious. Wow. That's good. Yeah. So. So yeah, America is fully going into desert storm, right? And WWF did not think that it would end so soon. So they had this plan for Sgt. slaughter to become the most hated wrestler. As I'd spoken of in our J.I. Joe episodes. And Hogan is the real American who's back to make us not the underdog against Iraq.

Yeah, there he is holding up the Iraqi flag with. Well, it's the 2000, it's the WWE 2K 16 game. Oh, okay, but they're pretty, pretty photo accurate, actually. That's yeah. Oh my God. Yeah, it is. She even Christmas. So, Jesus.

You know, Hogan is gonna make sure that the United States is no longer the underdog against Iraq because we clearly want to. Well, wait. Jingle as themselves and wrestling fans need to see the amount of the amount of metal gymnastics. You've got a go through every. Well, yes, mental gymnastics like, but yeah, how do you do the metal contortion ever create a situation where the United States was the underdog in that in that conflict? Like, oh, yeah, I'm still trying to wrap my head around how do they just like,

uh, he, he, he's associated with Iraq. Yeah, well, because he's military. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, here's the deal. I, the more we talk about wrestling, the more I understand what the writers room of a long running soap opera must be like. Mm hmm. I mean, that makes sense. Well, you, I mean, well, because it's episodic and it's, it's, it's episodic.

It's, it's everything and it down, you know, week by week, month by month, you you have to keep finding a new, you have to keep finding a way to raise the stakes, right? Like oh my God, feeling like they're raising. Yeah, keep the stakes or keep it seeming like the stakes are high. takes it to keep it seeming like the stakes are high. You know, like on on days of our lives, which my wife and my mother both watch. Sure. So I've known about days of our lives since I was a kid because it was my mother's soap opera. You know, they've had characters on there. There is there is a villain, Stephanie Dimmera, who the actor who played him, um, has been dead for a decade now. Right. And in most, in most of the time, like historically on soap operas,

when one actor retires quits, gets unpopular with the rest of the cast, whatever, you just, you find somebody else and like just carry on and Stefano and you're like wait that's definitely that's a completely different guy no role with it that's Stefano It's new actor, but yeah, he had he had a car accident and plastic surgery. Yeah, plastic surgery Like yeah, they they find sometimes they they put in the effort to find a way to to write in the change in appearance and and frequently They just don't and just like fucking roll with it. But they didn't turn out. Oh, yeah. But this particular actor had been in the role for so long that when the actor passed away, they basically said, okay, no, Stefano, Stefano is dead. We were not going to cast anybody else to play

this character because this was his character. So they found a way to bring him back anyway. Of course. Because you don't let a good villain like that stay dead. His one of his henchmen had found a way to create a mental program of him, like on a microchip that he could implant in somebody else's head and thus resurrect Stefano from the dead. And how Palpatine has returned. Yeah, somehow, yes, somehow Palpatine has returned. Yeah, like, no, you don't eat a pig that good all at once. Like, you know, and, and, you know, iron chic becomes curable stuff.

You know, and, and no, no, no, Sargent's Lawter's a bad guy now. Yeah. Like, no, this is, this, this, this, so proper writing. Like, it's not just a bad guy now. He'd been a bad guy. But now he's a bad guy. Iraqi sympathizer. Learning the Hulk rules t-shirt in front of an audience. Children to turn out to turn out that sergeant slaughter had amnesia the entire time. No, no, damn. Although he eventually does redeem, but it's such a buried story.

Okay. Partly because he got death threats for doing this. Oh, yeah. is redeemed, but it's such a buried story. Okay. Partly because he got death threats for doing this. Oh, yeah. legit fucking death threats. Security was a no for seven. Wow. Because to me, it seems like they just threw that out there.

Let's just do this. Yeah. Where was what was the lead up to it? There wasn't any. He came back in as an Iraqi sympathizer. He did not, he did not turn while he was there. He was away. I think he was with AWA for a while and then he kind of bounced around a few other territories, ended up down in Puerto Rico.

I forget where he was prior to this, but he comes back as the Iraqi sympathizer. That's his gimmick now. Wow. Yeah. He's still the Iraqi sympathizer. That's his gimmick now. Wow. Yeah, he's still the serge, but. So yeah, Hulk Hogan makes the rounds. He's wearing fatigues now. He's wearing the American flag, do rag now. He's visiting all the talk shows, especially Arsenio Hall.

Arsenio Hall has a very special relationship with wrestling. And he was a talk show host who really understood wrestling. So he would have wrestlers on. Specifically, he had Hulk Hogan on for this stuff. And that'll come up later too. Now because Vince McMahon had been pushing a more and more hyper-masculized bodies in the WDW.F. starting with Hulcomania as evidenced by our episodes on fantasy movies and masculinity in the 80s.

Thank you, Eddie. A more cartoonish aesthetic was needed and this was part of an attempt to appeal to a global audience in as broad a way as possible. And this meant heavily muscled fellas. And that is going to mean drugs. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where we're going to start. That's what we want.

Next episode we're gonna talk about Dr. George Sohorean, who, oh, good Lord, you thought it was dark so far. You're going to wish for these days by the time I'm done with these episodes. So, so what you're saying is next time we record, I shouldn't get a beer, I should, I should break out the bourbon. You should get all the beers. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Oh, look, maybe this time I'll bring some beer. Yeah. I say hit the hard stuff first. Maybe this time I'll bring some beer. Yeah. Here you go. I say hit the hard stuff first. I say, what do they say? Licker before beer. You're in the corner. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just liquor before liquor. Yeah. You know, Mary, Mary the moonshine is daughter.

There we go. All right. She can make you liquor all night long. Yeah. Well played. Thank you. Well played. So, so what have you all gleaned? That people go ahead, Andrew, no, you're still trying to recover. I'm still trying to recover from just like throwing sergeant slaughter as a I Iraq sympathize. You just like made him like, hey, made him start leaning towards like wars, vile and then he comes like and like a peacemaker like become anti column. Is Asian or something like that and then side with Iraq in that sense, which still wouldn't make sense in ways, but at least there's a lead up but

You're you're expecting there to be like narrative sense here like No, there's plenty of narrative sense you remember when the iron sheet comes into the WF Yeah, it's right after the hostage crisis. Yeah, I mean, I mean there's plenty of narrative sense. You remember when the iron sheet comes into the WWF, it's right after the hostage crisis. Yeah. Well, I mean, I mean, there's no lead up to that shit. It just comes in. It's like, it's okay.

When we were looking to go to Iraq, again, under a different president named Bush, like talk about lazy writing. Somehow, Palpatine returned. But when we were going to lead up to that, do you remember that France looked at the same intelligence and it was like, there's no there there. Yeah, there's said we declared that nothing burger

could not be served with French fries but instead freedom fries in the congressional cafeteria. The week after that, a wrestling tag team showed up on WWE television, La resistance. Wrestling is vulgar. It is not refined. And that that actually leads into what my my glean from this is do it. This is and I've kind of said it before, but this just reinforces my theory that professional wrestling is the modern incarnation of American committee of Delarte. And it's important noting that my thesis is that the original American version of committee of Delarte is minstrel shows. And the things that make minstrel shows probably less, this is a more racist version of minstrel shows.

It's the thing is, so it is still racist as fuck. But the, but the, the form of the racism is, is less, it's a word I'm looking for. It's, it's, it's, I don't want to say it's less overt because it's pretty fucking overt. But it is less direct. Yeah. It's, you know, it isn't, you know, you can't even say it's less capricious. No, no, no, it's just as capricious. But it's, yeah, I don't know how to define that kind of different. It's a difference of degree.

It's not a difference of quality. It's a difference of degree. I think actually it is a difference of degree. It's not a difference of quality. It's a difference of degree. I think actually it is a difference of kind. Okay. Because when you are, with the exception of Roddy Piper on half of his body, when you are engaging in blackface to make the punchline about race instead of using race

as a storyline, and upholding race as tropes as a storyline. Okay. Okay. I think those are different. There you go. I think they're both still committed to Dillarte. Yeah, I think that's a good definition of it. But yeah, it's still committed to Dillarte. It's still incredibly broad. It's still playing on all the tropes. Like, you know, if you know the narrative beats, you know there's only so many different ways this can go.

And you're there because you want that. Like you don't go to, you don't turn on a wrestling show. You don't turn on WWE, whatever the latest incarnation is when you turn it on to watch new episodes. You don't turn it on in order to see what's the shocking twist that I'm never gonna see coming. You turn, you know, what's the shocking twist that I'm never going to see coming? You turn it on to see what's the shocking twist that I totally knew they were going to fucking do. You know what I mean? It is, you are, you are, for the same reason

that like, you know, they're so proper. It's, I know that at some point, they're going to have Marlin and get kidnapped by aliens again or possessed by the devil. Right. Or both. Oh, you just opened the link. I did. I'm afraid to. You need to.

Oh, okay. All right. But it's an action figure of rotting paper. Yeah, I I'm afraid to need to Okay, all right, but an action figure of Roddy Piper Oh, God And he's painted Yeah, that is that is so you're right there are And I love it. It's it's mellow drama, right you're yeah you are you are you are showing up to that in order to see a story that you know you know broadly

how it's going to unfold that's absolutely true it is morality plays. Yeah, it's a passion plays. You know, depending on which wrestling culture a story is coming from, you know who's gonna come out on top, you know broadly how that's going to happen. True. And yeah, and so all of the plotlines that we see are kind of secondary to the thesis that you're building toward with Hulk's specific story. Yeah. You know, what I think is interesting is that there are so many layers of constructed reality

involved in all of it. Yeah. K-fabes. That's a great phrase. K-fabes. There you go. That's it. K-fabes is a hell of a drug. And this is all, this is all committee of delarte.

And the thing is that we're watching how committee delarte is infecting the reality of it. As we go through this. So yeah. What do you think, Andrew? Okay. No, I think that makes complete sense. I need to know specifically how to say and what is the French word that you just kept saying, commit to. Oh, commandeered L'Arte. Sorry, that's a, that's a theater reference. Committee to LRTA was a vulgar form of theater in Italy

in the Renaissance, early modern period. Way too many consonants to be French. Yeah. True, entirely true. And he actually pronounced all of the vowels. You don't alter the pronunciation of any of the vowels at all. So it can't be French. It's spelled the way it sounds. But anyway, so community del arte was a it's kind of related in some ways to to mine. It was a it was a popular vulgar form of theater that involved a kind of

revolving cast of stock characters. You would have, you know, the old man and the daughter, the young, the young lover, the soldier, the loyal servant, and and there would be. event and there would be. And a lot of it was improvisational. And so every performance was different, but it all, but because, you know, you as a performer, you get into routines, it would involve set pieces. And I don't remember what the term was because there was a specific term for the kind of set pieces. But if you were an audience member, you knew, oh, this is going to be a story where, you know, the daughter and the young man are trying to get together and, you know, the father is trying to keep him apart

and they're gonna be two servants. And one of the servants is gonna be working for the father and is going to be a snitch. Any other one is going to be trying trying to get the two lovers together and there would be, you know, slapstick comedy on the way to whatever, whatever ending you got to. Okay. And so that's that's in a very simplified nut shell. That's comedia del arte. And so that's actually wrestling is basically that only with roided outdudes and sparkly trunks. Yep. Yep.

Okay. That makes way more sense. Yeah, but like overall, some big stuff that I picked up is like how consistently an opportunist a whole Colgan was. The big thing for me clearly from us constantly making the point of Fuck Scab's is basically how he was one of the main factors that prevented a union from forming, which is something that I actually thought about a while ago,

like has there ever been an attempt within professional wrestling to unionize? And this is the answer. But there was talk of a union shortly after the death of Chris Benoit, the death and murder of his, yeah, there was talk. Remember that. And it was a almost a throwaway line on a talk show on either CNN or MSNBC. I hesitate to say it was on Nancy Grace, said, I don't think it was, but I'm pretty sure it was Roddy Piper who said it. Really? I believe so. Yeah. But it was, it was such a throwaway line that I could not said it. Really? I believe so. Yeah.

But it was, it was such a throw away line that I could not find it. Cause when I, when I was doing that little part, I was like, I remember this, but I could not find it again. But there was talk. I remember. Yeah. So I remember when Benoit died. So, but here's the thing.

This is something I thought about mainly because we've seen. Can you say the Italian word again for me? The media del arte. I'm just going to point at the screen when I need you to say it because I'm not going to be able to say it. I'm thinking somebody, there's going to be this. The media del arte. Coming up soon because as we're seeing now,

there's much more greater union support going around in the country, as well as with the currently the SAG. Strike or not. The writers Guild Strike. And we've seen. The WG, I think. Yeah. And I think there's still a strike going on in Alabama.

I don't remember within a mine, but this has been come more in the cultural side guys. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a... I mean, the Delarte. Where they introduce a wrestler in a storyline who is trying to unionize all for like they've done that where they ultimately just beat them down as a kind of like symbolic representation of union posting. Yeah so uh Mick Foley, Ken Shamrock, the big

show and I want to say test I could be wrong. All four of them carried two by fours to the ring. And they went against it was when Vince McMahon had the corporation and undertaker had the ministry of darkness and they combined to make the corporate ministry because conglomerations of corporations and ministries of darkness is fine. But then these four guys, three of whom have been kicked out of the corporation or the ministry of darkness, they formed up with Mick Foley, and he says, I guess we're kind of a union. And it died within weeks. I fell apart, couldn't stay organized. Like those words were used. There was another time where the referees were sick and tired

of being abused by wrestlers. And so they had a picket line out front. And they were, and this is all K-Fame. And they were protesting. And so you had scab refs, and it didn't go as well. But then, you know, Vince did not make a deal with the ref's union storyline. So they've done that twice. Well, because as long as Vince McMahon is running that fucking company, they're never going to have a storyline where a union wins because he's fucking terrified. Maybe they would have won. Maybe the Union would have won it as you point out they came out with two by fours and they brought out hacksaw gym

Dougans. Good. Well, and I think it was calling back to his working class character. Exactly. Roots. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, but the other big, but the other big thing is like, I'm trying to think like were there other wrestlers who were like diversifying their like, um, in just themselves and other industries? Are there other individuals who were like, yeah, there we go. Because the only one, uh, that I, that I found regularly making sure that he got work every year to keep his sagged benefits. Yeah. And so that's another thing. Like you're seeing him, he has so much power within as the face of

wrestling. And he is using his influence to be able to diversify his appearance in other films. And even then, he's still credited as Hulk Hogan. Yes, and that is a big switch over that happened. Yeah, he's not Terry anymore. Terry, Eugene, I can't remember his last name, but he's not. So, but honestly, Hulk Hogan. Mm-hmm, I don't think we've seen him credited within the context of this story. I don't think we've seen him credited in anything as Terry Belaya since Rocky.

Rocky, that is true. Yeah. Yeah. And so that gets me to start thinking like, did he ever, did he legally change his name to Hulk and first off? No, okay. So he's, definitely he's, he's consistent with his K-fabe. He's consistent maintaining some sort of image, which I will probably try to talk more

about next episode. Oh, I'm going to get to the eye. There's, there's a lot of image management coming up. Yeah, and I'm glad you brought up image management. I will bring up like a ton of research around that idea. I love image management theory. And really also how he basically with that idea of populism, but also with how he took in a way worked with the WWE

to take advantage of those parasocial interactions. Yeah, that's a lot of interesting stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, absolutely. Yeah. Well, at this point, what do you all recommend and as far as stuff to read or listen to or look at? Let's see, Ed, we'll start with you. OK, I'm going to completely go out of the realm

of what we've been talking about. I know in not our most recent episode before this, but the prior one Andrew mentioned the New Zelda game, and I'm going to add my recommendation if you have any doubt about the importance of writing in the medium of video games. I challenge you to complete certain quests within tiers of the kingdom and not be left gutted at the end of them. It is a Nintendo has a very good track record

of creating very emotionally affecting content. And I very, very highly recommend here's the kingdom. So as an exercise in storytelling through the medium of video games. Excellent. I'm going to go and recommend sisterhood of the squared circle the history and Rise of women's wrestling It's written by Pat La Pradae or La Prade and Dan Murphy Pat is a fascinating interview if you can ever find Mr. La LAP RADE If you can ever find him listed as being recorded interviewing he knows so much about women's history

or women's wrestling history. And given that we talked about Wendy Richter last time, I found this to be a very, very useful thing. It gets into the deep and dirty dark shit that Mula was into or in Meshden and had to react to and then ended up doing. And it's just, oh, all kinds of Billy Wolf is easily one of America's top 10 villains.

So yeah, that is me. What are you recommending there, Andrew? I'm gonna recommend an anime. I recently started watching this anime called Mashel. The premise is this, it's an entire world where people have magical powers and you go to Magical Academies to learn how to hone these magical skills. However, our main protagonist, oddly enough, does not have Magic at all. He has no ability to produce Magic or perform it. So what does he do?

He figures out a different way to solve his problems. Lifting heavy things. So he's literally just constantly lifting weights and characters will like cling magic at him. Oh, I'm going to do damage to you and he just max it out of the air. And then through a weird series of events where like technically in the show, it's illegal to be non-magical or you're like, it kind of, it feels eugenic and a lot of ways and that's it. But that's it. But they do it humorously, oddly. So this cop who finds out, like, oh, your non-magic, here's the deal, we won't arrest you,

but you need to go to this magical academy and become like the top tier student. And he's like, I'll do it. And it's deadpan humor the entire time. Okay. But everything he has to do is just ridiculous in the way he performs magic air quotes through the use of just nothing but physical strength. It's just brute force. And it's all over the top comedy and the sense while also being deadpaned. It's ridiculous and funny. Just a good mindless watch.

Okay, and in that very Japanese, this is this is very clearly comedy, but we're gonna play it absolutely dead straight. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. Yeah. And then you only have that one character who's like, this is fucking ridiculous. What's going on? This isn't how anything works. And everybody's like, now this is how it works. Yeah. All right. Well, let's let's give right to it.

Andrew, where can people find you? Because Ed doesn't want to be found. And everyone knows that my shows are on the first Friday of every month in Sacramento at 8 p.m. except for September where it'll be the second Friday of the month. So where do people find you? Well, if you want to continue to follow me, you can follow me at prof.suds at TikTok or follow me on Twitter at prof.suds or you can follow me on Instagram at A.D.suds. And in all honesty, I'm also trying to think

about possibly starting a YouTube channel or whatever um where I just take my tic-tocs and do post shorts or whatever nice off dot suds that's a hope there all right awesome well thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you in the next episode when we talk about wrestling and drugs So just get charier. So hey or a geek history of time. I'm Damien Harmony and I'm Ed Blaylock and until next time keep rolling 20s