A Geek History of Time - Episode 270 - The First Screwjob in Wrestling Part III

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

Item one, hit the grocery store. Item two, laundry. Item three, over through capitalism. You know, for somebody who taught Latin, your inability to pronounce French like hurts. Damn. Look at you getting to the end of my stuff. Motherfucker. But seriously, I do think that this bucolic, luxurious, live your weird fucking dreams kind of life is something worth noting. Because of course he had. I got into an argument essentially with

with some folks as to whether or not punching Nazis is something you should do. And they're like, no, then you're just as bad as the Nazis. I was like, the Nazis committed genocide. I'm talking about breaking noses. Drink scotch and eat strychnine. All right. You can't leave that lying there. Luxury poultry. Yes. Yes.

Fancy chickens. Yes. Fancy chicken. Pet, pet, fancy chickens. Pet fancy chickens. Pet Fancy Chickens? Pet Fancy Chickens. This is a Geek History of Time, where we connect mercury to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history and English teacher here in Northern California. And you are? I'm Damian Harmony.

I'm a US history teacher up here in Northern California at the high school level. And last we spoke, we had just gotten the rubber match declared, right? Like they are gonna have it in Chicago. Gotch is probably gonna be in Humboldt until August 27th and then he's gonna go to Chicago. There'd been some running around with Zabisco

and him taking on both guys. And as we know, Zbysko has a checkered history in terms of being a shoot versus a worked wrestler. And we're at a time where shoot and worked wrestling are blending quite often. And sometimes it's forgiven. It's you take on the local champion and let him get the purse money,

and then you drive up sales for that Friday night kind of thing But yeah, but also like some people are considered to always be shooters and and so there's this like yeah Yeah hazy gauzy period where and Now yeah Hackenschmidt and gotch Both were were they considered by public opinion to be no no this guy's always a shooter. Yes, although Although as we talked about gotch had been up in the Klondike area remember yeah, and and he He did that drum up interest

Work your own guys that kind of thing thing. But like for big level matches, he was considered, and it's kind of like when he comes back down to the contiguous states, he's considered to be sure. Yeah, when he comes back down out of the wilderness. Right, right. And by the way, just to bear in mind that this match, okay, their first match was in 1908. That's before Oklahoma was a state

This match is 1911 it's before Arizona and New Mexico our states Holy crap. Okay. Wow it's It's wild. Um so the New York Times the day before the match, which is supposed to be Labor Day. No, yes, Labor Day of 1911. The New York Times ran an article comparing the tail of the tape.

Now when you hear the tail of the tape, it's we give you all the measurements of the wrestlers. And that's a great copy for newspapers because you see these men's big beefy bodies in 1911 no, it's it's you can you can use some very visual stuff and And five sides. Yeah. Yes, I've been for a harried copy writers All the charting is something that that visually is gonna take up column inches Exactly, you know without without having to do a whole lot of meticulous work. Exactly. Right.

Both men were in their early to mid thirties. Okay. Gotch was by far the smaller of the two both in weight but also in reach height measurements of various muscle parts etc. It gotch is very much lean and mean. And I do mean because remember all the things he'll yeah well and and the thing is we don't have face versus heel yet

you know as a thing but like he absolutely is healing it up right and yeah he's a proto heel yeah he fights dirty and yeah the thing is there's so much jingoism it's like well yeah but he's ours you know and he's our asshole this damn british and the thing, well, yeah, but he's ours, you know, and he's our asshole. This damn British. And the thing is, American fans were like, oh, he's a Brit because he came from England. It's like, no, he's he's called the Russian lion. Like he's actually from Estonia. Like, yeah, like your eight levels wrong.

You know, but so they're set to meet in Comiskey Park, Chicago. OK. And here's here's a quote from the newspaper. So they're set to meet in Comiskey Park, Chicago. Okay. And here's a quote from the newspaper. Gotch won their former match in Chicago April 3rd, 1908, but he did not pin the shoulders of the Russian lion to the mat, right? And so like they are keeping that going. Let's see, for that reason, he has never received universal credit for his victory. I believe I said this last time but I just want to reset it. But

tomorrow both contestants insist the match will not end until one man has obtained two falls. Now I'm gonna break in here real quick. This whole best of three falls thing became the standard for most championship matches all the way up through the 1950s. Oh, wow. Okay. So I just, I always found that particularly interesting. The rules that we know them as now for professional wrestling, which is again, as real as Hamlet.

Right. Pro wrestling. I love that analogy so much. That's awesome. Yeah. The rules are if it's a championship match, unless there's a specific stipulation, and that of course gets worked into the storylines, the only way a championship can exchange hands is either by pinfall or submission. If it's a countout or disqualification Or no contest stays with the champion. It's called champions advantage Okay. Yeah now to win the title You need to get two out of three falls back then okay, and this is a statement for a long time, okay?

Okay back to the quote it may be necessary to finish the contest under the glare of arc lights be necessary to finish the contest under the glare of arc lights. Regardless of this, the wrestlers are determined to settle their dispute beyond all possible doubt before they leave the park." So it's been Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. Yeah, I love the mention of arc lights as like the cutting edge, modern technology being involved in this media spectacle. Right. Under the bright glare of incandescent lights. You know, it's like that. Yeah. So talking like an elf. That's really good. By the way, that's a great Mid-Atlantic news copy voice there.

Thank you. Good job with that. Thank you. I've made all the elves in my kids' D&D game talk like that now. That's brilliant. Yes. I love it. So now gotch is accompanied or was accompanied by a well-known wrestler named Jack car. Keek. Uh, that's car, like the vehicle. And then K E E K, um, as well as Dan McLeod, you might remember Dan McLeod as the guy he wrestled at the picnic. Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah

Now both carkeek and McLeod were heavily implicated in an eight month long $150,000 gambling ripoff in Seattle that broke in August of 1906 So what you're saying is he's hanging with a shady crowd. Boy howdy. So McLeod was the champion, right? He was the American champion, right? He wasn't the world champion because that's not until Gotch, B. Tacken, Schmidt the first time.

Yeah. But he's the American champion and he's really, and he himself has gotten involved in this kind of shit the main organizer of this local barnstorming effort to separate Seattle gamblers and well no how to put this the guy's name was Oli Marsh okay okay and he would go to different Seattle gamblers and tell them hey we've got wrestling going on and stuff like that and Essentially, I mean I went in deep on this but I'm leaving most of it out of this podcast just because it's it's yet Another thread that you know would take 14 pages But essentially they would take people out at night to these gambling halls

and they would have people gamble on them and then they'd rip them off on the way home. Like not quite beat them over the head to take their money, but threatened to do so sometimes. Oh, all right. So it's this barnstorming effort. It's meant essentially to gather people who got illegal money and then rip off the people's illegal money Okay, so you're robbing people who are breaking the law. They're not gonna go to law to tell you yeah telling you right? Yeah So remember there's actually a term Because of course, you know, yeah the the first people the first people who were were sent there were were criminals, but there's actually a term in Australian vernacular

For a particular kind of bandit is that other thieves? Bushwhacking I know broadly turned into Just ambushing somebody got it to just ambushing somebody. OK, got it. But I mean, that could have been where it started. But I know it actually came up in a cyberpunk novel, William Gibson novel, talking about somebody telling the main

character, this guy that you're working with, you need to understand where he got his start. This is how he got his start. You know, this is, this is how we got his money. Um, so just be aware of that. Yeah. So, yeah, but anyway, so they were, they were, it sounds like kind of engineering these people to be getting money illegally. Yes. And then robbing them of the illegal.

Right. Wow. Like it's, it's wild and it's a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of money back in 1906 In yeah, I mean that's that is holy moly, right? Yeah So that's I'm pulling up the inflation calculator now And Google's not cooperating of course Well, yeah, of course not.

There we go. So $150,000 in 1913 money, because that's as far back as it'll go. And today's money, that's $4.7 million. G-mini, flipping Christmas. Right. Wow. Yeah.

So Oli Marsh is trying to separate Seattle gamblers from their money and by isolating them and then getting them mugged. Um, and he and Jack Karkeek, these are the guys who are working with with Gotch. But now this is back in 1906. Now from 06 to about 1910, Gotch did his damnedest to distance himself from Oli Marsh. Oli Marsh, if I recall correctly, was also the one who went up with him to the Yukon territory. So it's just like, it's a very close knit pool of people. In silver. Yes. And it's all people who are comfortable with ripping people off, which calls into

question the validity of these matches, right? It calls into question the worked nature versus the shoot nature. So, and, and it, in, in my mind, it kind of ties back to the whole PT Barnum, Carney aspect of the whole thing. It's like, Oh, the whole reason we're doing this is to separate marks from their money. Yes. And, and marks is a really good use of the word because they would, they would mark these guys, right?

And then they would take their shit So gotch does all he can to distance himself from March from about 19. I'm sorry gotch Yeah, gotch distances himself from March as much as he can from about 1906 forward Carkey got arrested in 1910 for wire fraud in San Francisco Yeah in 1910 for wire fraud in San Francisco. Yeah. So, now, Frank Gotch is trailing off on exciting wrestling and as we're building toward this match he's now just showing his dominance. He's not being flashy. He's not doing the cool move.

He is just dominating everyone, right? And remember, this is before the match is signed. So, Gotch, at this point, was kind of flirting with the idea of switching to boxing. And right, because there's more money in boxing. Also, there's a better story in boxing, because he wants to challenge Jack Johnson for the title. Okay.

Because Jack Johnson is black and you need a great white hope. Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, he's like, well, there's going to be a lot of money in that. And he convinced himself that that it was possible. Now eventually he gets talked out of it. Probably for the best. Oh very much so. Yeah because Jack Johnson was prodigious as hell when it came to boxing and Gotch is a wrestler. Like there is a difference in skill sets. Everything. Yeah. So Gotch got talked out of it and instead a guy named Jack Curly who?

Was a wrestling promoter who had originally promoted the first gotch Beal match in 1907 you might remember that Yeah, I remember the names yeah, and Curly had specific dealings with Oli Marsh and Jack Karkeek and McLeod and He's telling gotch he's like look and so so I'm going back to catch gotch back up to this right? Yeah tells me He tells him he's like, you know what? You should do a return match against Hackenschmidt. We could make it even bigger than it was before You should do a return match against Hackenschmidt. We could make it even bigger than it was before

So this is what convinced gotch to get into this right and his convincing argument was was this I Will put $20,000 directly into your Humboldt bank account That's a pretty good enticement good argument right now right? Now, again, that's $20,000 back then. That's $625,000 in today's money. Yeah, that's not at all a bad argument. I would be willing to agree to a lot of things for $625,000. You give me enough to buy a one-bedroom, one-bathroom, 580-square-foot condo on Lombard Street in San Francisco? And yeah. Yes. Or, you know,

or literally any two houses in Humboldt, Iowa. There you go. Yeah. Money meant different things back then because it wasn't goddamn insane. Yeah. by the way, that is the comparisons Like I I went on Zillow and I looked for what? 625 thousand dollars to buy me in SF and then in Humboldt and in Humboldt, Iowa I could buy any two houses. I wanted for that much. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah So Curly was trying to copy what he had done with the Johnson Jeffries fight You remember Jim Jeffries the great white hope and he lost right right and so he figured okay This is the next big thing so Gotch is not gonna be the draw that everybody wants it or that he thinks he's gonna be against Jack Johnson that that train has sailed

That's not gonna work. That's not gonna work. Right, but if I could convince wrestling fans to come and watch the rubber match of Hackenschmidt and Gotch, I could repeat what I did. Well, that's a moneymaker for sure, yeah. So that's his push toward Kamiski Park. It works with Gotch, and now we're catching Gotch up to this, right?

So, Gotch was quoted as saying, quote, I certainly expect to win for I am basing my plans for victory on my condition, which is better than ever before in my long wrestling career. I also believe that I will be able to outlast him if the match becomes an endurance contest such as our former match. Okay. Pretty reasonable. Yeah you know I'm in really good condition. Let me tell you something me and Gene you know I'm in really good condition. I've never been in peak or condition. I'm stronger than him. I'm better than him whatever. Actually he would never say he was stronger than him because everybody acknowledges that Hackenshmoe was stronger.

But he says, quote, "'Just how I will try to defeat Hack, I cannot say. My tactics will depend somewhat on his. I am prepared to wrestle all night if necessary. Hack's great strength makes him a hard man to defeat. It will be a match in which generalship, as well as strength, will count. My greater experience will bring me victory which

He hasn't been wrestling as long. Oh, yeah, I was gonna say greater experience Wait, yeah. Okay, but I mean that's that's so he's he is Honestly, this is white meat babyface stuff again. There are no heels yet. He wrestles Yeah, he wrestles dirty, but he's still a good guy to Americans. Yeah, and he's cutting a promo. Yeah, yeah, and you know, and he's putting himself over. He's like, you know, this guy's amazing,

but I'm gonna beat him. Yeah. Yeah. So Hackenschmidt says, quote, "'In all my professional wrestling matches, "'I have never tried to predict the outcome. "'I will not boast. "'All I can say is that I'm feeling fine "'and have trained faithfully, says, quote, in all my professional wrestling matches, I have never tried to predict the outcome. I will not boast. All I can say is that I'm feeling fine and have trained faithfully and I want to sail

home September 9th as the world's champion. I have never been satisfied with my other match with Gotch when he was credited with defeating me. I have learned more since then and have more confidence. Now I do like the parsing that he does there. He was credited with defeating me. That's a nice... Yeah.

It's very gentlemanly and at the same time, it's... Cutting. Yeah. There's, yes, you got credit for beating me. That is undeniable that you got that credit. Yeah, that mad dog stare afterward. Yeah so Hackenschmidt goes on says quote I have waited two years for this chance and everything depends on it. I have all the money in the world I shall ever need. I am not in this for money. I want to

whip Gotch, want to wrestle the mantle of the champion away from him. I shall be the most disappointed man alive if I fail. All right. So both have cut their promos. Yeah. This is the go home night, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. Curly, the promoter said that straight up that this would be a match, a rematch of Ajax and Ulysses. I don't know who's who in this one. I don't think it matters. No, I don't think it does. I think you're right. So when I say that professional wrestling has always been this way, I mean that it has

always been this way. Professional wrestling has always been this way. And then here comes the swerve within a swerve. Whirv. There's a guy named Ed or no, Ad Santel, whose actual name is Adolf Ernst, which took fucking forever to research. By some accounts, this guy was on Hackenschmitt's crew, all the guys that help him train, along with Dr. Roller, who he had defeated before in England, Vladek Zabisco, the younger brother of Stanislaus Zabisco, Americus, there's your Mr. Beal. No, no, I'm sorry. That's a different guy. It's a German named guy, Americus. I forget his real name. And Jacobus Koch or Koch. Okay. Koch's job largely was to just sing Russian songs to Hackenschmidt to calm his nerves.

Okay. So, interesting. Cool. Now, if you recall, Hackenschmidt in 1907 had had to rehab his knee. Right. And it was Roller who had accidentally been the one who hurt him in 1904. Right, right. And he had what was called housemaid's knee, which is essentially like if you think of

housemaids they go down to their knees to scrub things, they go down to their knees to get things. So what ends up happening is you get bursitis behind and around the kneecap. Oh, oh. Yeah. Fuck. Fuck. Hackenschmidt wrote about this in his book and in fact I couldn't find any mention of Ed Santel being in Hackenschmidt's camp other than his reportedly telling Lou Fez years later what happened. So take all of this with a grain of salt. Okay. Okay. 10-4. Yeah. But

Ad Santel says, he says this to Luthes. So Ad Santel is one of the guys that trains Luthes. Luthes is considered one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, professional wrestler. He was able to shoot in a time of works so okay, he you would not get the belt off of him if he Was not down for it, right? Um, and he'd be down for it. He'd be fine to do business Um, right, right, but he is the bridge between the carny and television Okay, he's kind of that guy He's the guy in the 40s and the 50s and the 60s and and Jesus Christ his his 10 years amazing Okay, he was trained in part by ad Santel ad Santel told Fez and this is related through interviews that Fez has

He says oh Santel once told me, right? So we kind of have a Plato and Socrates kind of thing going on here. A bit, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Right. Yeah, because Fez is a wrestler. Yeah. Nice job. Yeah. Proud of myself with that. Yeah. Let me tell you something, brother. You could chain up ten men in a in a cave And I'll still come out and the light will be blind. No

so I Want to teach that that way so I I really do so Santel claimed in according to Fez's discussion that Gotch's people paid him five thousand dollars that gotch's people paid him $5,000 to injure Hackenschmitt's bad knee in training but to make it look like it was an accident. So there's that and by the way that's a little over $150,000 in today's money. Okay and that that that's being related Years later right that's Santel saying I got $5,000

Okay, by gotchas people and he's saying this to Fez Okay, according to Fez Right, so we're many layers removed. Yeah, there's any like your say of hearsay. Yeah. Yeah You know Fleetwood Mac is like, yo tone it down. All right So the idea was that this would guarantee that hack and Schmidt wouldn't be a hundred percent for their bout and it would give Gotch a body part to target Well, he kind of already had a body part to target. Yeah, he was always going for those toe holds, but this would be which leg now this would be like, hey, I'm going

to, I'm going to keep shooting to your right side, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Now here's why I kind of believe it. It doesn't quite feel wrong. Like a lot of it's like this is tall tales. This is, you know old Russers, you know, just yeah ribbing on the square. Um the reason it doesn't feel wrong to me is because Ad Santel is listed by his other name Adolf Ernst in a plethora of articles that lead up to the event So I could not find an ad and I could find a earn it all Okay, here's here's from a newspaper find an adzantel and could find a Ernst and Adolf Ernst. Okay. Here's from a newspaper.

This is from the, if I recall, the Bridgeport Evening Farmer, August 23rd, 1911. George Haggenschmidt, the Russian lion who's to meet Frank Gotch, the champion wrestler of the world, in a title bout in this city on Labor Day, is fast rounding into shape at his training camp on the North Shore The foreign wrestlers ret knew of trainers will be augmented this week by Tom Jenkins and remember Tom Jenkins by the way from Madison Square Garden, right? Right and Jim Flynn the Pueblo fireman who defeated Al Kaufman some months ago All right, cool. So he's got a really good camp with him Okay Kaufman some months ago. Alright cool so he's got a really good camp with him. Okay. The challenger now has a capable string of handlers and they're working

to their wits end to put him into championship shape. Working out with HAC are Dr. Roller, the Seattle wrestler, Johan Coach, Americus, and Adolf Ernst. Okay. So as of August 23rd 1911, Ed Santel is there. Okay. Now, Curly, you remember the promoter, Mr. Curly, Curly, whose first name is, say JB, but I think I'm mixing him up with the other guy. Where's Curly's name? Jack Curly. Jack Curly, for his part, straight up promoted this to be... No, I'm sorry. I just... the thing jogged on me. Curly's memoirs. There we are. So Curly wrote in his memoirs something entirely differently. So Curly wrote in his memoirs something entirely differently. But Curly is a reporter and he's inserting himself into a story frequently in places where other

people didn't have him. He's not a reporter, he's an unreliable reporter. So take this with a salt lick, but this is from Curly's memoirs. Curly said that Hackenschmidt was rolling around with Dr. Roller a week out from the match, and Hackenschmitt said quote, I heard three distinct little pops like small corks being drawn, and I dropped to the floor and lay there like a dog. Oh.

Yeah, now I myself have had shoulder issues where I've heard things pop wrong. Right. It is not a fun feeling. Curly says that he asked Dr. Roller what happened later that day and Hackenschmidt called out from the other room, quote, Oh, Jack, I'm finished. Roller has ruined me. We will have to call off the match. Now, according to Curly, it wasn't Santel or Ernst, as he is also known. it was Roller who fucked it up

Okay, but again Curly inserts himself into stories quite often. He is a promoter first and foremost, right? now according to Curly Okay, the promoter he then limited press access to Hackenschmidt and let Hackenschmidt focus on the match But also according to Curly it was to keep knowledge of the injury away from Gotch to protect Hack, right? Okay, yeah. Hackenschmidt did have a similar accounting to Curly about a trip that they took up to a beer garden in Chicago the day before the fight.

And so there are some things that line up. In his own book, Hackenschmidt said, quote, I knew the trouble he would be in if I said I would rather abandon the match. All these things with recollections of the man's unfailing kindness to me, his unhesitating belief in me as a wrestler passed through my mind before I answered whether or not I would want to call it off. Right. Now, this could also be a part of Hackenschmidt puffing up how nice Curly was in his own books later on. Right.

Interestingly, physicians went to examine both men before they set foot in the ring. Okay. But wrestlers and physicians have a long and storied fuck-up history of not taking care of people. Yeah. But they attested to their peak physical condition. Again, I could see very easily such doctors getting financial incentives to affirm such a condition regardless of the condition, right? Yeah. So by September 4th, though Ernst is left out from all reports. Now this could be because of word counts or it could be what I think it is.

I think Ernst did hurt Hackenschmidt in a training session, and then he was dismissed. OK, that makes sense. Whether whether it was intentional or not, we can't be sure. Right. OK, I think it was intentional. I actually do think that at Santel, who is also known as Ernst Adolphus Ernst, I think he did injure him on purpose.

Really? I think it wasn't. It was a faunt on your heart. Yeah. Wow. I think so. Because there is some circumstantial evidence. There's a report that I read from the Bismarck North Dakota Daily Tribune's

September 4th report on what the doctors who examined Hackenschmidt had found. Quote, he was less optimistic, he being the doctor, was less optimistic about Hackenschmidt. He said that he was pale and evidently in nervous state following his sleepless night. He examined one of his legs. First off, fucking this reporting Can you please just like stop using so many pronouns? but I Think we can figure it out We know who's examining home But he examined one of his legs which was reported to be a bit off-center as the result of a training accident

But could find no apparent deficit or defect That sounds contradictory to me, right? It's off center because of the training accident, but there's no defect. Um, you just described one. Yeah. Well, right. That, that, that seems not optimal to me. Yeah.

I, you know, yeah, just saying. Okay. To me. Yeah, you know, yeah just saying Okay further the reason that no mention Of it was made by Hackenschmidt's crew afterward was because this was a way for them to deny that Ernst Sattel had actually hurt Hackenschmidt and therefore keep him from getting paid by gotch. I Think they knew that he'd been, he was a hit man. Yes. And so this is their way of double reverse swerving him. Okay. All right. So prior to the match, the referee announced to the crowd to stop betting, call off all bets, and to exchange no money at the match, the referee announced to the crowd to stop betting, call off all bets and to exchange no money at the match.

Now that declaration settled into the crowd's mind that something's already amiss. Why would you be so specific there? And the thing is, the crowd is going to be like, oh, are they, is this a work? Yeah. But I do think that there there's anti gambling laws all over the place. And so this could be a, we need to make sure we protect the promoter by, we said these words, the cops are present. We said these words, right? Yeah. Yeah. And here's the part where I think that it wasn't a work,

but it was in fact a screw job within the first eight minutes of the match. Gotch targeted Hackenschmitt's left knee specifically. Okay. He was going for it from the jump. Just, just as you know, devil's advocate, is it possible that he was able to notice Hackenschmitt was favoring it and like, well, I know where I'm going, you know, absolutely You know you do a couple of testing moves and you're like, oh he didn't react as well off of the this jump I'm gonna keep going. Yeah, that's entirely possible. Okay But yeah, it's all circumstantial. That's the love. Yeah about wrestling with all of the pebbles in that pile of circumstantial evidence, it's like, yeah.

Right. Yeah. So the referee, Ed Smith, reported later, quote, I saw needless absolute acts of cruelty on Gotch's part that I did not like. Wow. Yeah. Now, within six minutes of that first hold on Hackenschmidt's bum knee, Gotch had actually pinned Hackenschmidt.

And it was one of those, you're either breaking my leg or I'm turning over. So I turned over, right? Oh crap, really? Yeah. Wow. Now, the second fall only took five minutes after that. So you remember they get the refractory period and then they get out there. Um, so the first the first You got first eight minutes. He's targeting like crazy six minutes from then

He's got him pinned the second fall is five minutes after they start up again And holy shit. Yeah, and he goes straight for hacks left ankle and the thing is if if If the thing that's hurt is a shoulder you could position your yourself, right? You can use your legs to get away from any efforts at your shoulders. Yeah, you can't use an ankle You're fucked right and if it's a knee knee, your leg is hanging out there, right? You can't use your legs well to get away from a guy going after your legs if your leg is messed up.

And that makes it easier for them to catch. And Gotch gets ahold of Hackenschmitt's left ankle while Hackenschmitt was trying to keep him away. Gotch drove his own knee into Hackenschmitt's right leg, which then crumbled Hackenschmitt to the ground. So think of, like, just a massive fucking charley horse into the leg. Oh.

And from there, Gotch got his leg into the crook of Hackenschmitt's left knee and twisted the left ankle, and he bent the knee. You remember the pictures that I'd shown you before, right? Yeah, yeah, I do. Now, according to several sources, Hackenschmitt called out to Gotch, don't break my leg. He then asked Smith to declare the match,

which is what we would call a verbal tap out. Wow. Now, Smith noting that the infield was largely empty, meaning that thousands of people who gathered in Comiskey Park were in the grandstands, he knew that if he called the match without an obvious fall, that would not sit well with people, especially with what he'd just announced. Right? Right.

So that would make it look more like a work. So he leaned down to Hack and said, make it a real fall. At that point, Hackenschmidt flopped his body back and let himself be pinned. Because the alternative was, you know, breaking his leg. Either break your leg or blaming crowd get upset. Yeah. Yeah. Jesus. Now, according to so that's that's it. The match is over. It is a quick goddamn match.

It like this. The match of the century, the rematch and is less than half an hour. Yeah. Wow. By guys who are known for going two to three hours. Gee, many Christmas. So according to a report on the match afterward in the Birmingham Age Herald on September 5th, 1911, quote, for his defeat, Hackenschmidt offers but the one excuse, that his left knee,

which was injured in training two weeks ago, weakened under the pressure of the iron hands of Gotch, and it was useless to continue at the risk of being permanently injured. Hackenschmidt went into the ring with the member in a bandage. Regardless of whether there be any merit to his claim that his knee was in bad shape, it cannot be denied that the challenger was in no state mentally to enter into a grueling contest. Hackenschmidt was unnerved before he entered the arena. Whether it was from worry of his injured knee

or his fretting over the match cannot be said. It was Gotch who first turned attention to the legs. While Hackenschmidt was trying to regain his equilibrium, Gotch struck the lion's injured leg with his right knee, and the Russian crumbled into a heap upon the canvas. Instantly Gotch was on him, his powerful right hand firmly locked upon the underman's toe. Hackenschmidt screamed a couple of times, rolled over on his shoulders and gave up. Wow.

And that was it. The second fall was specifically the toehold. Now that reporting is very indicative of most American reporting at the time. Okay. Hackenschmidt was a beaten man. He was not anywhere near the man that Gotch was. And it's very similar to the reporting in 1908 was, you know, Gotch used some rough tactics and then they gloss

over that to talk about his victory and it's like, wait a minute, if someone's trying to like fish hook your fucking eye. Yeah. Like maybe there's something to that. They're trying to oil can you. Yeah. You know? And they're doused in oil, remember?

Yeah. But, you know, they're just glossing over it because their guy won. The jingoism is there. Now, here's what Gotch had to say about the match. And this is some heel shit. Honestly, I didn't think it would be so easy. Wow. But here's the thing, you have just beaten the number one wrestler in all the world.

Yeah. You beat him. And then you come back with, honestly, I didn't think it would be so easy. There's no chance of the third match here. You've decidedly beaten him in two of them. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

And then quote. Yeah. And the way you beat him guarantees he's not going to want to get in the ring with you again. Mm-hmm like Yeah Okay, yeah keep going I have a question but keep going before I get to it Hackenschmidt gave me such a desperate struggle in our first meeting that I

Was prepared and expected to go through with a hard drawn-out battle the very minute we locked heads I felt confident that I would win but I really did not think victory would come so quickly. Hackenschmidt did not display the nerve and strength he did in our first contest. He wasn't aggressive. He appeared afraid. When I saw that Hack did not break down my defense or score him out of holds, I became determined to end it as quickly as possible. I am sorry he laid his miserable showing to an injured knee, for I wanted to make the victory a clean one. When I defeated him three years ago, it was charged that I won unfairly. Today I hoped Hackenschmidt would be at his best, for I wanted to prove that I was his master.

Wow. Yeah. I'm disappointed he wasn't better. Yeah, I can't get ready for a fight. Yes. I'm going to have to go somewhere else to find a fight. Damn son. Right. That is some heel shit. So how aware of whatever machinations there were to, you know know put in a hit on hack and Schmidt's knee Do you think gotch was could this has been the promoter?

Being like I know how I want this to turn out No, there's no money in hack losing For a motor if you're promoter you want hack to win because then you need a third match. Okay. All right. And the promoter was with hack the whole time. Okay. All right. So, you know, gotch on the other hand had his camp had access to other wrestlers all the way leading up to it and some guys would break from the circuit for a while and then meet back up later on, you know, because hey, I

need a break and I also need to go make some money. I've got this match over here. I'll be back. You know, I'll meet you back in Niagara Falls in two days. Right, right. That kind of thing. Now Hackenschmidt said, quote, it was the cheapest world's championship ever won. I entered the

contest with an injured knee and had my shoulders pinned to the mat for the first time in my wrestling career. I have no one to blame. I shouldn't have gone into the match, but I was advised that I could wrestle without further injuring my knee. But we scarcely had got to work when Gotch began to torture me with his toe grips. I then realized I was in no condition to continue. I am not a quitter. Neither do I desire to charge that I was not treated fairly. I am satisfied that my defeat is as due to the injury. I would like to meet Gotch again, for I feel deeper than words can tell the loss of this match I did my best

under these conditions. That is all I can say. Okay. So all right. Wow. Yeah. Now, later in one of his memoirs Hackenschmidt would write, quote, there was nothing for anyone to talk about.

It was also different from the many hundreds of other matches that I had wrestled in my life, yet I had no regrets for what I had done." So he's fairly consistent. All right. You know, I was injured. I shouldn't have done it. I did it. That's on me. I lost. Now, I shouldn't have lost because I shouldn't have gone in there injured, but I did go in there injured and that's why I lost. Nowhere in here does he say that Goch was the better man this time. Oh no. Oh no. Now referee Ed Smith says quote, Goch won honestly and fairly. Hack did not show his usual gameness or aggressiveness. I do not doubt that he was in the best condition, but

he looked worried and frightened when the match began. He begged Gotch to release his punishing toehold and evidently was in great pain when Gotch forced him to defeat. On cleverness alone, Gotch should easily remain the champion for ten more years. His work in the first fall was marvelous and so fast that I could scarcely follow it. Gotch first faked a crotch hold. Then suddenly he secured a half Nelson on Hackenschmidt. In the wink of an eye, Gotch pivoted on Hackenschmidt's stomach, switched to a reverse body hold, and had downed his man. It was the speediest shift I have ever seen made on the mat.

Hackenschmidt was in great pain during the period when Gotch had his toe hold on him. Don't hurt my toe, he cried at first, but Gotch continued to put on the pressure don't break my leg was his next appeal the end came a second later wow now the timetable adds up to hackenschmitt's being injured while earnst was still getting mentioned in the stories on training camps okay remember he is he is no longer mentioned after a certain date. The focus on the one leg, the bandage, the quitting to avoid permanent injury, all of that adds up to me that he was injured. This may actually be the only screw job that we have on record while the sport still had

some legitimacy. This may be a screw job of a shoot instead of because most screw job of a work yeah well in most yeah so this may be that the work was the screw job of the shoot because every screw job thereafter would be that somebody decided to shoot when it was supposed to be a work okay now as for Ad Santel he actually ended up doing a lot of style versus style matches with Judo and Jiu Jitsu practitioners from Japan, and he did quite well. Back here in the States, however, most of his success financially in wrestling came

after this match. This match is deemed to be the turning point in wrestling from being a majority of genuine contests, maybe sometimes a work to generate interest in a bigger gate later in the week to predetermined contests. At some point in the middle 1910s, Ed Santel went into business for himself, defending the Pacific Coast Championship against Charlie Cutler. Somehow Cutler pissed him off, something fierce during the match, and instead of winning in a work, so Santel was supposed to win.

It was a work, and he's supposed to win. But instead of winning the worked way, he spent the next few minutes fucking Cutler up bad. Oh, really? Yeah, he broke Cutler's hip and gave him internal injuries. Oh shit. Yeah. Santel was especially skilled with leg locks and Cutler had been trained by Frank Gotch. So I think it's possible that Santel did things this way on purpose to remind Gotch of what he had

done to earn $5,000 a few years earlier because the leg lock would explain the hip issues and the internal injuries seemed to indicate that Santel just slammed Cutler to the mat several times. Wow. Yeah. Now Santel would then go on to train Lutez, the most famous NWA champion of the early TV era. Hackenschmidt, for his part, he challenged for a rubber match again while he was on the train to New York. He said that he would put up $5,000 for a private return match. But Gotch, when he heard of this, he agreed only if it was within the next two months and Hackenschmidt said no it can't be in the next two months I have to heal my fucking knee. Yeah. And so that was it they never met again. At the end

of September of 1911 Frank Gotch again took on a protégé and he kind of got called out for it in the Winnipeg Tribune. Quote, displaying a wily trick of class that won him several international matches of importance, Frank Gotch has formed an alliance with a man who might have caused him a lot of trouble if he hooked up in some other fashion. Gotch had taken on Mamout as a wrestling partner, thus effectively removing the Bulgarian strongman from his path of the future. Incidentally, Gotch can use the Turk as a buffer. In any case, or in case any dangerous looking man comes along to challenge Gatch,

Mahmoud steps into the breach, backed up by the champion's remark, quote, beat my partner first before talking business to me. Catch the idea? Pretty foxy of Gatch and his manager, Emile Klank, wasn't it? Part of the scheme here. Gatch won't have to wrestle any of them until they have beaten Mammoot. And when you figure out that none of them, or not more than one or two at the very outside, can trim the Mammoot fellow, Gotch is in for a long period of peaceful idleness. Down in his heart, Gotch doesn't care much about wrestling anymore. He loves his title, loves the big spotlight, and relishes

the coin that trots side by side with the honors. But that grind of training, wow. But that's enough to stop any of them, especially when a champion gets along toward the seamy side athletically. Gotch told me in Humble that he never suffered such torture in his life as he did training for the George Hackenschmitt bout. It isn't likely that he will want to repeat the process in a hurry. Wow. So he full on embraced his supervillain. I am the Ur-Heel era.

And I'm going to manage people now. And I'm still the champion. Now, by the way, there's a guy who did this as well in the 1980s, Rick Flair. Oh, yeah. I'm the champion, but you got to get through the other three horsemen to get to me. Right. And what a story that makes. Yeah. So they're, they're. Wow.

Yeah. All right. It's something like, and, and so now he's the champion, but he's being called out for being a chicken shit heel. I love it. But he's a chicken shit heel who can fucking go like He's beaten the best and now he's chicken shit healing cuz he can you know as he can get away with it Yes, I mean yeah, honestly it has Oh

God I just forgot his fucking name big Tully Blanchard vibes In that Tully Blanchard is this amazing technical wrestler in the 80s. One of the four horsemen by the way. But he would always opt to be the chicken shit until he was cornered. Then he'd start beating you with technical stuff. Oh, wow. Oh, he's like one of my favorite moments. Like there was a really big like 10 tag teams on either side match.

Oh, jee-bee-nee Christmas. And he gets tagged in and he just walks to the other side of the ring and tags another guy without ever touching the opponent. And suddenly the crowd is out of their seats foaming at the mouth at what a pussy he is. Oh my God, it was brilliant. He got so much heat for doing so little. It was just so good. And this feels like that, you know?

Now there was a film taken, which by the way, I'm gonna back it up just a second. There's another wrestler who does this where his bodyguard is a wrestler who keeps you from winning or you gotta get to me, you gotta go through him first. Shawn Michaels when he had Diesel as his bodyguard and then Diesel becomes very popular

and then they break the two of them up. Or a 100 Hearst Helmsley when he had China as his bodyguard. And there's the extra added like, oh, he's hiding behind a woman, you know? And it's like, there's some deep old chicken shit heel stuff going on here, you know. So good. So operatic. All of it. Just the pitch of emotion.

Oh, God. Now, there was a film taken of this, which met a really poor reception in theaters And the Chicago Tribune wrote that after the crowd filed out quote It was it was quote as if something had been done to them. They knew not exactly what but something So So the gate was not exactly what I've been violated. I don't know how I've been violated. Right. It's that line from Pippin, you know, like, sometimes I wonder if the fornication I'm getting is worth the fornication I'm getting, you know? Yeah. So the gate was about $96,000, which is just shy of $3 million in today's money, which could be enough to buy a 800 square foot house in San Francisco. Actually, I didn't look that up and I should have.

But that's $3 million in today's money, which more than any wrestling match match had ever made up to that point Was over and that's the half a goddamn hour, right? Oh My god, right How did how did everybody in the audience not just like because it was undeniable He did turn over and yeah shoulders went to the mat like there there was no there But here's the thing it was undeniable so much so that they were like wait a goddamn minute here Pat has never been pinned and you're telling me you hit him twice in less than half an hour. Yeah Really, you know and yeah

than half an hour. Yeah. Really, you know? Yeah. And so, and the only way for that to happen is if his leg is hurting, like if this is a shoot, the only way that could have happened is if he'd been sabotaged, which means it's a screw job. And if it's a work, it got everyone. Why would Hack, who made his living on being known as a shooter being perceived as a shooter

Why would he sacrifice his reputation for that? There's no evidence that he got a shit ton of money from this or anything like that Yeah, there's no yeah, right So this is more than bark. Yeah This is more than any wrestling match had made to this point and there was proof that such a match was possible because of this. But also the disappointment of the match led many newspaper men to opine that such a match would never happen again too. So it is you killed the golden goose. Yeah, it sounds like it.

And the Chicago assistant chief of police actually stepped in and said some stuff after the match, not day out, but like in subsequent week. Battling back against the growing resentment and sentiment that the match had been fixed because he said it would have been so much less disappointing if it was a work, it would have been more dramatic. You're not going to do a work that's 90 seconds long, you know, it's that kind of thing. You don't work a squash, you know. But here wrestling was at its peak to this point. It's at its peak. It has never made so much money And immediately people are questioning its legitimacy. Well, yeah.

Right, but that's the beauty and the awfulness of wrestling, right? Like, you've got the greatest wrestlers in the world at the time having a legit contest, I think. Having a legit contest, and even then, even then, somebody had to find some fucking way to cheat and the whole audience starts going like, that was way too much, it must be fixed. Yeah. It's like, goddamn.

Now it reminds me of there's a joke that Chris Rock said once. He said that, you know, you had the million man merch and then you had Marion Barry on stage. once he said that you know you had the million man merch and then you had Marion Barry on stage he says even in our greatest moment we had a crackhead on stage and and by the way when he said that joke the audience in Washington DC booed the shit out of him and his response yeah you know it's true that's that's what you got admire Chris Rock for his willingness to take a blow. This question in wrestling legitimacy opens up the door for boxing to step up as the more legitimate of the two.

Let's talk about that. Yeah. Now, I'm going to go back to Roland Barthes. He said that there were noticeable differences between boxing and wrestling. He said, quote, a boxing match is a story which is constructed before the eyes of the spectator. In wrestling, on the contrary, it is each moment which is intelligible, not

the passage of time. Now, of course, in the 1950s, I think it was written in 59, he's talking of wrestling as spectacle. But I do think there's plenty there that's true whether it's a work or a shoot. It is worth noting that wrestling saw the American beat the foreigner decidedly. Yeah. So what's left to tell of that story? Yeah. For Supreme, right?

Whereas with boxing, there's still a need for a great white hope like Jack Johnson, or not like Jack Johnson, to defeat Jack Johnson, pardon me. And just as a side, because I do like to include these little odd things. I found an account On october 5th 1911 in montreal so montreal The place where weird shit always happens in wrestling right found an account of a wrestling match

ending because the uh the wrestlers used chairs on each other. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, of this other shit but I've got to tell you this story. But chairs. Yeah so there's a German wrestler named John Pohlabs P-O-H-L-A-B-S. Okay. He's a German wrestler and he's wrestling a guy named Raymond Sezou. He's a French wrestler. Okay. They ended up swinging chairs at each each other. Now what it had, what it had preceded this was that Poulaps had actually come into the ring to challenge Suzu a week before while Suzu was literally wrestling another man. Interrupted a match, did a run-in to challenge the guy. So I guess this was the blow-off and it involved chairs. The ref begged both men to keep it clean and

of course both totally ignored the ref and according to the Winnipeg... Oh God, it's pull-ups with a steel chair. Right. In 1911. October 4th. It was probably done a steel chair at the time But but here's the thing with a steel folding chair The part of the chair you hit somebody with you can kind of control Like if you're gonna hit him with with you know the the the ribs as it were of right here That's that can really fuck him up if you hit him them with, you know, the seat of the chair, the flat part of the back, you know, that'll look really dramatic, but maybe won't be as bad.

It'll sound really good. It'll sound amazing. Right. But but but but a wooden chair. There's no way you're not fucking somebody up with that. Right. Like, OK. So this is, this is from the Winnipeg Tribune on October 4th, 1911. Quote, about 15 minutes after the start, Cezo pulled off some particularly vicious scragging and Poulaps

rushed to his corner, seized his chair and swung it at his opponent with it. The Frenchman dodged and snatched the chair, hurling it at the German who likewise evaded it. The chair left the ring and landed amidst the audience, and the men went to it with fists. Referee Birx and some spectators finally separated them, and the game went on. Wait.

Yeah? And some spectators. Yes. The tactics were scarcely less rough and at the end of 26 minutes, the referee awarded each man a fall for fouling and wanted to close the match. The crowd would not hear of it and after 10 minutes, the men recommenced viciously. Finally Cezo got the German where he wanted him and smashed his head down with such force that he was temporarily stunned. Cezo then put Polab's shoulders to the mat and was awarded the winning fall.

Wow. When I say that professional wrestling has always been this way, I mean it has always been this way. And the question I have is based on where we are in the history of the sport at that point, was that a work? Was that a work or were both of them that pissed? It is as likely as not right? That's the problem. Only can and that and the thing is that then set the either way that set the precedent for everything that came afterward. Yes. I like like like.

Like you said, running into the ring to challenge him. Yeah. You got to run in, you interrupted, right? You got to run in, you got the challenge, you've got the blow off. Yeah. And no holds barred. Yeah. It escalating, escalating to a chair being flung between two of them. Both of them, by the way, get a fall for that. So now it's down to sudden death. Yeah. And the audience has to come in for schmazz. Yeah. Yeah. The audience has to come in to help. Right. Like, like this, this sounds like it happened in Philadelphia. Right. Yeah. Like is a kayak involved? Right. You know. Now, it's funny because in Tennessee is where you actually see the first concession stand

match, which is a thing that happened in the 70s. Oh, Lord. Wow. Yeah. So now back to the real story. I just. Yeah. But that is just so delicious.

That's too good not to include. Yeah on December 31st 1911 the New York Times reported that gotch told a crowd after his match quote boys. I am done This is positively my final appearance on the mat These few words addressed to the newspaper man at the ringside of in Kansas City Wednesday night after Frank Gotch had scored an easy victory over Alec Monroe, the British wrestling champion, was the final message to the sporting world of Frank Gotch, the world's premier mat artist. Turning to Jim Asbell, his trainer, Gotch threw him the bathrobe which he had worn in every match since his memorable encounter with George Hackenschmidt on April 3rd, 1908 and said, keep this to remember

me by. Ordinarily, the farewell appearance of those who are monopolizing the spotlight must be taken with a bit of doubt, but there are a few men who are gifted with the perspicacity and strength of the character and a lot of other things that like to like that to ooze gently and voluntarily out of the limelight before they are either thrown out or knocked out. But those who know Frank Gotch personally take what he says seriously. It is a habit one gets from hanging around in the immediate vicinity of the article is a huge hagiography speaking to his business successes and other realms, his character, and that he's free of scandal, and that he knows when to hang things up. And then in 1912, Frank Dodge came out of retirement to wrestle more, making it a semi-retirement. In March 1912, he wrestled four times in Chicago and then once in Kansas City in August. No more matches after that. Okay. When I say that professional wrestling has always been this way, I mean that professional

wrestling has always been this way. From the jump you can't even retire and say retire. Wow. Yeah. And then in April of 1913. Oh no. Gotch defeated George Lurick. And I don't know if you remember George Lurick from the first episode. I remember the name. He's the guy who defeated George Hackenschmidt back in 1896. Okay. Now, Gotch defeats him in Kansas City, Missouri. And after that, he hangs it up and he vacates his championship. He actually then recommends, he like picks his successor. He says, I recommend that Americus compete with Fred Beale for the belt. Okay.

Americus won the belt before losing it to Stanislaus Zabisco two months later. Zabisco then vacates the championship in October of 1914 and in January of 1915, Charlie Cutler claimed it. The one who got beat up that same year by Ad Santel. Cutler lost the belt to Joe Stetcher who is recognized as the first true champion since 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, 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, 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, Very few shoots and most of which are what underpin the screw jobs to come like shoots are only used to screw people now Right and then gotch came back for a show in LA in 1916 And then he came back again for a show in 1917 and Yeah, yeah, and then and then he died in 1917.

Oh. Which is a bit young. He died officially by uremic poisoning, although many suspect it was a year-long bout with syphilis owing to the fact that he was traveling with a circus in 1916, and he was reported as being really irrational in the final two months Okay So that would be a third stage, you know the brain stuff that happens there. Yeah He was 41. He left behind a widow and a very young son So when I say that professional wrestling has always been this way, I mean that it has always been this way

Now back to Hackenschmidt. Right. Goes back, rehabs his knee. He prepared for the long-awaited match with Stanislaus Zabisco. Remember the one that was supposed to happen back in England? Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah. But he found his knee just not to be improving enough and he instead sought to retire to write books, to garden, and to read. And for a very long time, he did that. And when World War I broke out, Hackenschmidt was living in Berlin, and he was interned there for the duration of the war with his wife. Oh.

Because he was a foreigner. Exactly. Not only is he a foreigner, he's a Russian. Right, right. His brother actually died in captivity. Afterward after the war Hackenshmet found his way to the south of France and he naturalized there as a citizen of France in 1939. Good timing.

Oh, fuck. Now he did seem to survive World War II's troubles by staying in the south of France and largely just staying off the radar. After the war, he also gained citizenship in the UK and moved up to England. So that tells me that's at least three places that he's a citizen of. He had mad respect for Tom Jenkins, as I'd mentioned above, the guy that Gotch had beaten in Madison Square Garden for the title, the American title. He had tons of respect for Jenkins. He had no respect for Gotch.

He never let go of what was considered to be Gotch as cheating him twice, or what he considered to be Gotch cheating him twice. First time with the oil, second time with targeting his knee. He maintained the healthiest possible lifestyle he could well into his final years. He died in 1968 at the age of 89. Wow. Yeah. Now, ironically, despite, oh, and by the way, there's all kinds of really interesting, like tall tales about like his feats of strength and shit that he did, but that he could still do, you know, like just 100 push-ups at 89, you know stuff that like makes jack palance look like a pussy, you know

Yeah, jack lillane is like yeah, I can't keep up with that. Yeah, you know that kind of stuff Yeah, um Chuck Norris type stuff. Yeah. Yeah Despite most of both men wrestling at a time of legitimacy It's ironic because it's clear that they both had a mind for spectacle. And despite the fact that Hackenschmidt seemingly stayed as legit as one could in wrestling, it was the matches with Gotch that drove audience interest to such an extent that promoters realized that it's the drama that sells, not the skill. And as such, after their rematch,

many cite that rematch as the turning point from mostly shoot to almost entirely work. So to return to Barthé, quote, foul play exists only in its excessive signs. Since evil is the natural climate of wrestling, a fair fight has chiefly the value of being an exception. Barthé explains that in the wrestling fan, or that the wrestling fan, quote,

feels suddenly moved at the sight of the general kindness of the world when somebody plays fair, quote, but would probably die of boredom and indifference if wrestlers did not quickly return to the orgy of evil which alone makes good wrestling. True wrestling derives its originality from all the excesses which make it a spectacle and not a sport for its natural meaning is that of rhetorical amplification.

Okay. So in the years to come wrestling would pretend it being legitimate but definitely exist more in a spectacle than in the contest. This would deliver high drama to the vulgar masses and it was at once easier on the bodies of the wrestlers and still harder on them too because if it's a work you could do it nightly. Okay yeah. If it's a shoot you run the risk of injury and you train for special bouts maybe once a week, once every couple weeks. Right. And if you could do it nightly, we don't have to pay you as much.

And we can travel you. Wow. Because with K-Fabe, it's's gonna keep them from getting paid decent wages. Jake the Snake Roberts said that kayfabe was a work that only ever worked the boys. The performance part though shows the artistry. Quote, wrestlers, this is back to Barthé, wrestlers who are very experienced know perfectly how to direct the spontaneous episodes of the fight so as to make them conform to the image which the public has the great has of the great legendary themes of its mythology. A wrestler can irritate or disgust he never disappoints each action

ceremonially offers the public a pure and full significance nothing but the popular and age-old image of the perfect in eligibility or intelligibility of reality. What is portrayed by wrestling is therefore an ideal understanding of things. Okay. So you're watching the chorus beating each other up at a Greek play. Yeah, it's really, that's a really great analogy. And because they're KFabe doing it, they can do it every night. And so if you're a little snug one night, oh, well, it's KFabe. You can't let on that it's happening. And again, this is keeping wages depressed because if you're working KFabe, you're doing

extra labor and not getting paid for it. And at this point, I'm reminded of what Barthé said at the beginning of his essay about the sport of wrestling versus the show of wrestling. He wrote Mythologies in 1957, and he was only able to see the work of pro wrestling, and he never could see it as a shoot, because when he's writing this

wrestling is completely a work and in fact it's a television work that the television is used to promote the live work. We hadn't gotten into the pay-per-view model and stuff like that yet. So now you have greater accessibility of wrestling because wrestling is one of the first things that really shows up on TV with any regularity and that's used to promote live events at different venues. All of it is a work. And Barthe only ever saw it as a work. He was born four years after the match

that I just spent the last two episodes, three episodes discussing. He only knew the wrestling that I'm talking about. He only knew it as a distinct species from the sport of wrestling. It's kind of like us only knowing about bonobos and chimpanzees in our lifetime. Okay. Quote, wrestling is not a sport, it is a spectacle. The public is completely uninterested in knowing whether the contest is rigged or not, and rightly so. It abandons itself to the primary virtue of spectacle."

And then he goes on, quote, the logical conclusion of the contest does not interest the wrestling fan. Wrestling is a sum of spectacles, of which no single one is a function. Each moment imposes the total knowledge of a passion which rises erect and alone, without ever extending to the crowning moment of a result. Wrestling presents man's suffering with all the amplification of tragic masks. The wrestler who suffers in a hold, which is reputedly cruel, offers an excessive portrayal of suffering. Like the primitive Pieta, he exhibits for all to see his face

exaggeratedly contorted by an intolerable affliction. And for everyone must not only see that the man suffers, but also, and above all, understand why he suffers. Wow. And that's how a very real screw job made a sport into a spectacle. Wow, and that's how a very real screw job made a sport into a spectacle Damn Yeah, that's That's that's kind of grim, um

Have you seen what's happened to most wrestlers since the 80s? Yeah, I mean, when they have a higher death rate than the Super Bowl winner or the Super Bowl competitors at the same time, right? So there's a famous comparison, wrestlers from WrestleMania 6, which is 1990 and Super Bowl, whatever 1990s was, I think it was like 23. Yeah. And they did a longevity study to like 2015. Right. Wrestlers outstripped football players in proportion, in earliness of death, in everything,

in terms of the grim realities of their job. And which one is the fake one? And which one is the one that abuses your body and which one is the one that gives you concussions and it's just like this wild like holy shit like like when football is the safer of the two options in terms of lifestyle that's that's deeply deeply deeply fucked up grim and and actually that raises a question go for in my mind because I earlier today before we before we started recording there was a post online

that I saw that involved Chris Benoit. Oh boy. Okay. And it was somebody's post from, I don't know, I don't remember how many years ago, talking about, hey, you know, I'm so excited. I had the opportunity to meet Chris Benoit. He was such a great guy, you know, and it's a photo of a fan smiling and Chris Benoit, you know, kind of hugging her and smiling and He's clearly got you know, some some kind of you know damage from a match on his face. Mm-hmm

And then the second half of the meme was you either die the hero or Dot-dot-dot right and I wonder in that longevity study you know football players get to get the shit beat out of them like there's no it's a it's a brutal goddamn sport but they don't have to carry the mental weight of KFAPE 24 7 365 forever. And so there is a higher than normal suicide rate amongst football players. That's very true. And that's that's awful. And that's part of the brutality of the sport. And I don't mean to minimize that. But I also wonder how much higher the proportion of all of those early deaths might have been due to psychological mental health issues for

the wrestlers because of the fact that like you can't ever admit to really being hurt. You have all of the fucked up interpersonal stuff that goes on when you and all of the people who are your closest colleagues are all dealing in 24 7 365 manufactured drama. Right. And like you have literally no one you can talk to about shit. Except for other people who are doing it and they're competing with you as well as cooperating with you. It's a very strange. It's weird. Like, that's gotta be... That has to contribute to depression. That has to contribute to all of the comorbidities that go along with depression.

Surely that contributes to, you know, drug abuse. Oh yeah. I mean, the amount of self-medication that is required just to handle pain, never mind the psychological aspects. Yeah. And then, shall we go into the how to keep your body looking the way it does when you're traveling eight hours a day and you still got to get to the gym. You still got to be up for the match.

You still got to, like the upper downer cycles that we saw in the 80s and 90s. I'm looking through the card on WrestleMania 6, by the match. You still got like the upper downer cycles that we saw in the 80s and 90s. Like I'm looking through the card on WrestleMania 6 by the way. First match both guys are still alive and by the way I'm not even counting referees. Second match both guys are still alive. Third match Andre the Giant and Bobby Heenan are both dead. Fourth match, Earthquake and Hercules are both dead. So literally only Jimmy Hart is still alive. Fifth match, Mr. Perfect and the genius Lanny Poffo are both dead. So only Brutus Beefcake is still alive. Sixth match, Roddy Piper and Bad News Brown both dead. Seventh match, I think Bret Hart might be the only one

still alive in that match. So Jim Neidhart's dead and I know Nikolai Volkov is. I don't know if Boris Zhukov is. No, Boris Zhukov is still alive. Eighth match. Both guys are still alive, but Bobby Heenan was the manager of one of them and he's dead.

The ninth match. Dusty Rhodes Sapphire miss Elizabeth Randy Savage Sherry Martel All five are dead How was it 1990 by the way, so that's what 34 years later three years. Yeah 34 years 10th match actually only mr. Fuji is dead and he died of you know mostly old age 11th match Dino Bravo. He was murdered, but he is also dead 12 when when when one of the career risks is having somebody stab you in the neck because of kfabe like right No, he was murdered so no he was murdered for his

upsetting the mafia in Montreal oh murdered for his upsetting the mafia in Montreal. Oh, oh it's there's a whole thing about selling cigarettes illegally and all kinds of shit like Dino Bravo got into some shit. Okay. The 11th match yeah like I said 12th match Virgil just died so I wouldn't count that against them exactly. 13th match boss man Anna Keem both dead. 14th match Rick Rood and a keem both dead 14th match Rick Rude and Jimmy Snuka both dead and Then the final match the ultimate warrior versus Hulk Hogan ultimate warrior is also dead Yeah, like that's a lot of fucking people dead That's more than half the card and that's yeah

30-something years later and by the way most of those wrestlers were Hulk Hogan's age or younger So and he's, he's still kicking. Yeah. Well, I know, but I'm trying to remember how old he is. Oh, let's see. He's born in 54 or 52. So yeah, he's, he's close to 70. Okay. Yeah.

Which for the population as a whole is not, you know, old for dying. Wow. Holy crap. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a remarkably punishing, uh, art form. Yeah. uh Art form yeah You know industry whatever you want to call it It is all of the worst. It's it's the worst of both show business you know all the downsides of Hollywood and all the downsides of athletics Mm-hmm in in the same in the same place.

Yeah. And all the downsides of carnivals. Yes. So you've got promoters, you've got no safety regulations, you've got a shit ton of travel, and you've got the sport aspect of it. By the way, Stanislas Zabisco lived for a long ass time. I think he was even in a movie at some point. Really? Yeah. It was another thing that I chased down about him and I've since forgotten. But yeah, he was around for a good while. There's somebody he was in a famous movie with or something. No, I'm not.

It was interesting enough for me to remember that, but apparently not the rest. Lots of details. Yeah. Wow. But yeah, so this was the first screw job that I could find and it seems to have been a shoot screw job to turn it into what people suspected to be a work.

Right. And in many ways, the shooting that was done to turn it into a screw job made it by all measures a work because it was predetermined like you you injure a guy enough Frank God is gonna it's not like he's a gentleman Yeah, no clearly. Yeah, so what have you gleaned? well, I Number one that when you say that professional wrestling has always been this way You mean it has always been this way, you mean it has always been this way.

Yes. And, and the part of that, that I find fascinating is that this is a time when the mass media is only just beginning to come into existence. You know, and the mass media is print media and the wire services and you know, very, very, very nascent beginnings of maybe radio, but not even really at all that. Right. And that so much of this is so familiar. You know, I don't remember the name of the trope from TV tropes. But it's it's the you know, you read a whole lot of fantasy and then you read Tolkien and you're like, well, everything he's doing is derivative, you know, and anybody who knows the genre immediately goes into like, you know, has a stroke because no, you fucking idiot. You know, it's like, you know, you're telling the story and you know a modern wrestling fan who doesn't know

Doesn't know the history He's gonna listen to this and go. Oh, yeah. No, I mean that's like, you know, that's a plotline Obviously that's you know, they they cooked this whole thing up and this was all right. This is all work Yeah, this is all work and no This is this is what actually set the pattern for it. This is the this is the the the trope codifier in a way But it's more than the trope codifier Mm-hmm. It's because it's it's it's it's more than a it's it's even more than a than a trope originator. It's it's This this was the moment

where the genre shifted. Yes, or, or, or where it became a genre. Oh yeah, even better way of putting it. Yeah. You know, this, this is where sparkly murder gymnastics is born. Yeah. Yeah. Really.

And yet. And yet. There were little people matches, women's matches, guys with chairs. Yeah. Guys who were targeting injuries, guys who had very obvious injuries, like matches that were already worked already worked.

But this this sealed it. Yeah. And you know, the the the whole thing with the the Montreal chair match. What what it it what occurs to me here, you said what you said about there were guys fighting with chairs and there were guys with obvious injuries and there were women's matches and little people matches. The other thing is in the same way that modern theater is descended from the Greek theater and, and, you know, everything, everything that came before it, there are obvious parallels to the gladiatorial contests of Rome. Absolutely.

Because they had little people matches and they had women's match female gladiators. And the whole draw for female gladiators, much in the same way as it is for female wrestlers, is the titillation and the weird, violent, semi-eroticness of we're putting women out here to beat the shit out of each other. Now that has shifted in the last 10 years, and to be honest, it has been an incredibly good shift. Oh, I'm sure. But you're absolutely absolutely right up to ten years ago. Yeah. Oh, yeah

I mean I grew up summers as a glow fan newly newly pubescent young man watching glow on Weekday TV so you know yeah, and by the way those were all actresses that were hired to be wrestlers Yeah, and so then they were trained by actually Eddie Guerrero's older brother, Hector. But they were all trained by a wrestler and the way that he trained them is he shot on them. And it's just like... What the fuck?

So that they would learn to work. And very few of them went on to actually have careers after that in wrestling. There was one that I know of. Okay. But yeah, that was. Yeah. Anyway, yeah.

So, you know, I mean, all of this has happened before and all of this will happen again. When I say that wrestling has always been like this. You know, monkeys gonna monkey. Like, I don't, you know, and, and the, the catharsis model of entertainment that's involved is as ancient as public performance. Yeah. As Barthes pointed out repeatedly, like, yeah, he likened it to Andrew Maki Yeah, so yeah, you know And so I mean it you could you could at this point make a convincing argument to me that Modern day wrestling is not a sport

so much as it is a Continuation of the tradition of Greek theater. Oh, absolutely. That's why I keep saying it's as fake as Hamlet. Yeah. Yeah, only Hamlet's actually faker. Thank you for... Yes.

Thank you for tagging in. No, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. If you want to talk about the emotional the emotional truth, mm-hmm there's a there's a Statement that that my god that my godmother Has has used when because she's she's been involved in our CIA for years and years and years and years For you know people going through the catechumen process to, to join the church. And when she has to deal with people coming from a solo scriptura, you know, the Bible is the literal, literal, you know, literal word of God background.

Because the Catholic Church does not argue that the Bible is literally true in all places. Okay. You know, when, when somebody comes to her from a background where it's no no the world was created in seven days Right because it says so in Genesis What she says? The way she is phrased it is There is truth in what the Bible says about the creation of the world Without it being fact. Mm-hmm That wrestling baby, you know and that baby and that's

are you telling me that the catholic church is kfabe and i understand that you can't be on record for saying that yeah but you know you've given me you've given me a definitional question well not a crisis of given me a Definitional question well no crisis of faith, but but a definitional question

to consider But but you know I would I would tend to argue that a lot of stuff that goes on in other denominations is Holy kayfabe. Oh, you'll those Joel Osteen. I'm looking at you hard. You're the only shoot religion. Everyone else is a work. Okay. Oh no, there are plenty. No, no. There are plenty of shoot religions. It's just, there are some that are also really clearly work religions. And again, Joel Osteen, I'm looking hard at you. He's the Memphis territory of-

Yeah, he's 110%. Actually, Houston, but yeah. No, Houston had a different flavor. This is trust me. He's Memphis Okay, he's just it's physically located and he's no I know I know but he's Okay, totally. I get what you're saying. Yeah, but You know the the emotional Yeah, the archetypes, the, the, the stories, the emotional payoff from what wrestling entertainment provides is a much more, I don't know if primal is the right word, but it is, it is a, it is a, but yeah, there you go. Visceral. It is a really visceral level of level of

emotional payoff that the, um, the conscious artifice, like, like when, when we go see the Avengers in Avengers in movie theaters, right. And we have those moments in the movie that are either emotionally devastating or like, you know, stand up out of your seat and say, fuck yeah. Whatever they are, there is always on some level, the understanding, you know, what I'm watching here is, you know, it's a fictional story. It's a superhero story on a screen, right? Right.

For people who are watching a wrestling match, it is 110% artful. Oh, yeah. But the construct of kayfabe allows for that artfulness to be ignored. And so that fuck yeah moment and that standing up out of your seat or that crushing, you know, infuriating soul deadening moment of defeat, whatever the emotional pitch is.

Right. Because of kayfabe, it's more emotionally true yeah it's in bold yeah there you go I like that yeah it's just tell me on wrestling like yeah no I know I know but I'm I'm I'm thinking through all of this as I'm saying it. And it's, you know, the genre ghetto that wrestling exists in, I think, I think is a disservice. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I know I don't, obviously I don't need to convince you of that, but I'm more and more coming around to that.

Just like when people are like, oh, wow, I didn't want to think of they live that way, but now I can't. There's no other way for me to think of it. I do want to come back to that you said that Wrestling is less fake than Hamlet. I have a very specific instance where such is the case. Okay, my Dad's brother has a son. So that would be my cousin. I suppose I just haven't seen the guy since I was like eight Okay, he was playing. I think he was playing Hamlet Might have been playing Lertes. Don't know was Was in the scene, dueling, da da da. Sword broke off, went into his eye.

Oh, shit. Stopped the show. Because you fucking lost your eye, right? Just fucking lost your eye, yeah. So that happened. I think he's blind in that eye or he's got impaired vision. So, boom, that happened. That's awful. Mick Foley. Was thrown off a cage.

Then threw a cage. Had his shoulder separated. Had a massive concussion. Had a tooth come out his nose. Had a hole in his tongue and his lip that he could push his tongue through. And he did. And he did. Kept going.

Finished the match and that finish involved him being slammed on thumbtacks on his head. Bader, a good friend of his, was in a match with him in Germany and caused Mick Foley to lose his ear. Somebody put it in a baggie of ice and took it to the back with him and he was given his ear backstage. He finished the match bleeding from his head. Well yeah, I mean, obviously. Vader, speaking of losing an eye, was in a match in Japan against Stan the Lariat Hanson. OK.

And Stan Hanson. The moment you mention Japan, it doesn't count, because that's real fighting acting fake. We've established this. True. But these aren't death. This is not a death match. This is the match, right?

Death match is okay, yeah, I'll give you, because like, they're blowing each other up, literally. Stan Hansen hit Vader in the head with a cowbell. So, Bill in that joke. Vader reports hearing something pop and feeling something really warm down his face, and he's like, oh, that's blood. And it was his eye dangling. His orbit had been shattered. He shoved his eye back into his orbit,

pushed it back and finished the match. That's an eye injury. My cousin had an eye injury One of them finished the job I'm a big believer that neither should have but But we're gonna talk about like real My god, you know you hear the show must go on but you also hear is there a doctor in the house

God, you know you hear the show must go on but you also hear is there a doctor in the house? Yeah, Mick Foley got off the fucking stretcher to climb back up that thing like they had him on a stretcher on purpose Like my god. Yes, so I'm going to put out here that that All he isn't except. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's that's an outlier. That's why I went to Vader with his eye dangling out of his face Yeah, yeah, cuz I'm convinced Mick Foley is you know They say that all of us of European and really of European ancestry. I have a certain percentage of Neanderthal Yeah, in our genetic makeup. I'm convinced only just is one It's only just is one.

Like it's just I'm convinced that he might be like just as much as I may have given you a definitional definitional issue. Yeah, with your sense of spirituality. Yeah, through wrestling Mick Foley might bring me to to religion because Lazarus. Yeah. So. religion because Lazarus. So anyway, or, or a, or a guardian angel with a head full of white hair. Right. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Hey, why don't we get into this? What are you reading? What are you recommending rather? What I am recommending right now, tell you what

You go first. Okay, while I look up the title of okay, you know You could have just said why don't you go first and we could have left this production stuff out for me not to Sorry, and and I'm gonna leave this part in. Okay. So I'm actually gonna recommend, I found this for pretty cheap online. Okay. And it ties to kind of what we're talking about. I found a, it's called, a complete illustrated course of instruction, How to Enter Vaudeville by Frederick Laudel. And this and this was let's see I'm looking at the copyright 1913 so and in the back it has a list of slang that you can expect to hear in the vaudeville circuit. That's fun. It tells you man and woman how to do it. Liddell was himself a vaudeville entertainer so he actually is writing somewhat from experience.

It's written in 1913 so there's gonna be some fucked up shit in it. But like talk about a glimpse into the type of world. You know and I of course I strongly recommend the Hackenschmidt books and the Gotch books as well because I think those are definitely worthwhile. There's, I'm trying to find the specific one by Gotch and I think I lost it, I think it came off my thing. But there are several books by Frank Gotch and by George Hackenschmidt on wrestling. And to pair that with the Liddell book, I think is a really good combo.

So what are you recommending? What I'm recommending, while we're talking about gladiatorial combat is the last duel a true story of crime scandal and trial by combat in medieval france by eric yeager and it is the is a it's it's yeah it is it is the kind of thing that I could see becoming a wrestling plotline. Oh yeah. But it was a hundred and ten percent in deadly earnest. Oh this plot line already happened. This was Matt Hardy versus Kane over Leta and she was pregnant with Kane's demon child. Right. And then Gene Snitsky it was weird. Yeah. And also you could see echoes of this in the Ric Flair macho man savage Elizabeth storyline leading all right yeah eight so yeah right you're absolutely yeah but it's it's a fascinating story and Yeager's writing

is remarkably good for for lay people who are not history types he does really remarkably good job of explaining the historical context in which the whole thing happened and it manages to be dramatic without coming across as Like soap opera or being intentionally sensational So the last duel by Eric Yeager. Thank you. Cool You I presume do not want to be found. Is that correct? I do not want to be found right now Okay, I remain a shadow in the war but we collectively Can be found you are listening to us. So you have found us either on the Amazon

App or on the Apple podcast app or on Spotify We can be found at our website, www.meekhistorytime.com. Wherever you have found us, please take a moment to subscribe and give us the five star review that you know Damien's research deserves. And where can you be found, sir? Oh, man, the first Friday of every month. Okay, so we're talking, let's see, June 7th has probably already happened, but in case it hasn't, July 5th and August 2nd, you can find me and the crew of Capital Punishment

going into our eighth year of slinging puns, doing the eight mile with dad jokes, spinning that wheel, pun battle win at the Sacramento Comedy Spot. You should get your tickets early because we have a history of selling out there and selling out early to the point where people get turned away at the door. It's a good problem for us to have.

I would hate for anybody I know to have that problem. So go to Sacramento Comedy Spot's website. You could just type in Sacramento Comedy Spot and find it and then go to their calendar and find capital punishment. Throw down your 12 bucks and check it out. Now if you are listening to us, because I know we're big in Austria, especially in fucking. If you are listening to us in fucking, then I strongly recommend you go to that same website and stream it. It costs half as much as a ticket. If you are not living in the Sacramento area,

if you're not near enough to be able to drive there, you should stream these shows again first Friday of every month. And if you stream it, you can watch it later as well. Great stuff, lot of fun, incredible guests and you will not not regret yourself. So yeah, first Friday of every month 9 p.m. so there you go. All right well, for a geek history of time, I am Damian Harmony and I'm Ed Blalock and until next time keep rolling 20s.