Robert Evans here, and we'll get to the Vince McMahon episodes in a second. I wanted to let you all know that for the fourth year in a row, we are doing our fundraiser for the Portland Diaper Bank. Behind the Bastards supporters have been helping to fund the Portland Diaper Bank since twenty twenty and bought millions of diapers for people who really need them. So if you go to GoFundMe and type in bTB fundraiser for PDX Diaper Bank, or just type in bTB fundraiser Diaper Bank, gofund me
into Google anything like that, you will find it. So please go fund me bTB Fundraiser for Portland Diaper Bank. Help us raise the money that these people need to get diapers to folks who need them desperately.
Oh boy, you know.
Robert Evans here, and I was just thinking the other day, it's been more than three years since I watched Demand Die last. I think I'm going to go to Applebee's. Hey, Tom Sean, you want to go to Apple and witness the the vast panopoly of humans suffering?
You know it, man, never ending ketchup bulls. There's just no, you can't. There's no place you can wallow like an Applebee's.
No place you can wallow.
And man, if you want to get just absolutely housed on the worst long island iced teas you've ever had in your life and then get into a knife fight in a parking lot, there's no better place than an Applebee's next to a truck stop.
Can I just can I just say I am partial to Chili's.
It's pronounced CHILEI okay, anyway, if you want to, I love that.
Sorry, I just saw a story that that they're like shaming this woman for getting like fifteen dollars worth of Chili's as her meal for her guests at her wedding.
And you know what, that's awesome.
Can you imagine a choice than that?
Yeah, you can thrive, right, imagine.
Look, man, like, you know I do the I do the righteous thing. You know, I don't pay for Chick fil A. But man, back when I was like a teacher and stuff, like sometimes we would just get they would cater an event or something at the school, and yes I did leave with armloads of their food. Like of course, you don't bitch about free food, like you just take it. You take it like a squirrel and you hide it in your cheeks, and then you you
fill up backpacks with it and you go home. You'll remember where half of the chicken nuggets you buried are. But that's still a good enough result to get you through the winter. Yeah, exactly, Thank you, Tom Robert. I had one more Applebee's joke. Please, if you want to replicate the experience of getting drunk at your parents' house, there's no other They'll just hand you a bottle of drim booie and you don't know that you're not supposed to drink it straight, so.
Just go go wild.
This is because in all of the wrestling clips we're using today, there's Applebee's ads, and now we're thinking of Applebe's. But this is Behind the Bastard's a podcast about the worst man who ever lived, Vince McMahon. For the last time in this series, we will briefly be referring to him as Vincent Junior because we have to talk about how Vincent Senior died. Good stuff good stuff not I mean, so, I don't know.
I don't feel you particularly made a promise by saying it that way.
Yeah, it's not good stuff. He contracts a fast moving cancer that defies all attempts at medical intervention.
And yeah, and the way you said it, I thought a train was involved.
I shouldn't have started the talk about a man dying of cancer that way.
You are right, Tom, That's what.
Sir, Vince proncess is the grief by killing many many musclemen.
Y just just together like two dollars action figures.
Like a scythe through corn that can't put its arms down all the way.
So Vince mcmahonck aside through corn that's being fought over by two carp in the mississip.
Nice callback.
So Vincent Senior takes ill at the end of nineteen eighty three, and in about six months he is on his deathbed. Vince goes to Vince Junior goes to visit him right before the end. And you know, in interviews since he has expressed that he felt shock, particularly at seeing his father without his hair. Quote it was like mine. He had a hell of a head of hair, he called it. He gave me those jeans. And like, obviously, you know, expressing shock at seeing a loved one, you know,
physically changed through cancer isn't weird. He does talk a lot about his hair.
Though, and one of these interviews to make that about yourself, he really much reframed his reframed his his father's cancer battle to be about his vinces awsome hair.
That is a little a little bit other thing. But but anyway, in Vincent's telling of their last moments together, he hugged and he kissed his father. He claims that he's always been very demonstrative when it comes to expressing love for his love for his family, especially his children, but that the old Irish in his father wouldn't let Vince Senior respond this way, and he's Vince Junior says that the very last time they saw each other in that hospital was the first time his dad ever said
he loved him. Vince was leaving for the night, like he's like, you know, Dad, I love you, and then as he's kind of like leaving the hospital room, his dad shouts I love you.
Back at him. Now, that's the very first time.
Yeah, that's the first time his biological dad ever said I love you to him. That's what Vince says. And that's a powerful story, or at least it would be from a normal person. There is some peculiarity around the edges of this, because most places that will write about this and like Vincent's reaction just kind of tell that story and let it be this kind of strong emotional beat.
But like Josie Riseman talks to Vince Senior like his other family, right, So he he marries this lady Juanita, who, by the way, is super tight with Andre the Giant and is why Andre doesn't have to sign a bad contract later on because she's able to pressure Vince Junior. Kind of cool, she seems like she ruled. But yeah, so he marries this lady Wanita, and they don't have kids together, but Wanita has a sister or sorry, Wanita has a niece who has a family, and they've all
been abandoned by like the their father. So like basically there's this like young family and a bunch of kids that Vince Senior is kind of adjacent to when he marries Wanita, and he kind of adopts those kids as his his children, and he basically raises them like those kids will say like we considered him to be a father, you know, essentially maybe it was him like kind of making up for the fact that he'd sort of like
left his first family. I don't know, I don't know what's going on in his head, but like they they speak very highly of him. And in the summer, this blended family would take to the coast in the Northeast where they had a beach house, and one of Vincent's adopted kind of daughters told Josie Riseman quote, we used to go around the house and just say I love you, I love you, kind of announcing to everyone that you loved them. Uncle Vince was the most loving person you'd
ever want to know. He was very genuine. He'd sit and listen to whatever you had to say, no matter what. Extremely a family man, family, family, family, And there may be some like conflict that I'm not super aware of between Vincent's Senior's other family and Vince McMahon. But her story of like how vincentor could not be more different from like Vince junior like, she does not describe him as like old Irish, She doesn't describe him as like
unable to express love. And her telling of Evince, he's super warm and open with all of them, and she says kind of by contrast, quote I never saw any warmth and young Vincent. So that's kind of yeah, interesting.
I love that.
Uh, it's such an innocent story. Well, my dad said, I love you for the first time. You're like, well powerful, and then someone just like poked it with the gentlest of journalism and that story just fucking exploded.
Yeah, is there anything you don't lie about? Yeah?
No, he said that all the time. So there's I think there's two possibilities kind of broadly here. One is, oh, sorry, Tom, you want to talk.
Yeah, well, I just think that's I think you're probably just about to say what I was thinking, Which is the other possibility is that they're both telling the truth.
Yeah, exactly, this kid, Well it's dark, it's.
Not necessarily hate. But I do actually kind of think that might be the most likely version of the truth, which is that like Vince Senior thought, especially because of Juanita pushing him, thought it was important to reconnect with his first biological with his biological kids did and like put a lot of effort into it, but also never
quite connected with Vince Junior. Like, and you know, maybe some of that's because Vince Junior is kind of like a weird dude, but maybe some of it's just that they were separated for so long, and maybe he was super affectionate with this kind of blended family that he has later on in his life, but he's never able to feel that way for Vince, which is probably something that would have an impact on you.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Like we'll never know, but it is interesting that you get these two very different versions of the man. I think they can coexist potentially though, Yeah for sure. So yeah, that's uh, that's that's the events, just.
That we have a good reason to doubt this story of.
It is wild that you could like poke a hole in that one.
All the things to not on earth.
Yeah, that's how dishonest a life this man has left.
Yeah, to make even this seem as theatrical as possible.
Starting in the late nineteen eighties, as part of his takeover of the Regionals, Vince had embarked on a difficult and cunning maneuver to build wrestling into something that, in his eyes, was better suited for the modern era that was coming. It was obvious to him that k Fabe needed to either change or kind of go at some point. Not only were all of the steroids making his wrestlers look larger than any but the most Russian of Olympians.
But the exploding market for cable TV kid shows meant that there were new kinds of opportunities wrestling had not seen before. And it's one of those things where like he kind of recognizes this sort of weird position wrestling is in where it pretends to be a real sport, but like most people know it's non particularly the kind of people who like run networks and run advertising.
No, it's not.
Kind of keeps some folks so kind of keeps money away from it in certain ways. There's certain types of money away from it. And so yeah, because it's for ten year olds, and if you can kind of like, if you can admit to some of the fakeness of wrestling as a sport, you can get toy companies in Hollywood to treat it as a real business, right, and advertisers and stuff. So this is kind of the thing that he embarks on.
Next.
One of the first moves he makes in the mid nineteen eighties is he introduces exclusivity contracts to the WWF.
This locks wrestlers out of performing in other regional syndicates, and it's also one of the most legally questionable things because like there's a lot of well, all of these guys are independent contractors, but you're like telling them they can't work for other people in the same field, and you're like you are telling them what they have to wear and like when they can perform, and like you're not treating them like an independent employee. Yeah exactly, Yeah,
you're in you're treating them like employees. That none of this should be working the way that it does. And he also, this is one of the real fucky things Vince does. He starts to mandate as he's doing this process, where like he'll start you know, giving away you know to local you know, TV Networks wrestling shows, and then
he'll throw events there. Once the events get big, he'll start mandating that venues stop, not like basically like I will not have WWF events in this in this venue if you host you know, n w A events, right, which like cuts the knees out from these guys. Basically, it's a real fucked up thing to do. It's some Disney ship. It is some Disney shit. Hey, everyone, I think my my kind of summary of of how Vince killed the regionals left some important stuff out for a
couple of things. The process by which he was sort of offering up shows in order to use them as advertisements and local markets. That's called bartering, and he was not the guy to invent this. We do kind of mention that a little bit later, but I wanted to be super clear. He was kind of doing it with more weight behind him than most people, but he didn't
start the process. It's also worth noting that the way he got into a lot of these smaller local markets where he would then bring in WWF shows and kind of choke out some of these regional competitors was not by bartering with local TV networks, but by spending a ton of money buying airtime and basically paying more than the local smaller regionals were able to do so. And that's kind of how he was able to build up audiences for live events in those areas. So bartering wasn't
kind of the way into the new markets. He did pay for a lot of that. And while all this is going on, he also licenses the identities of his wrestlers for a whole Cogan focused cartoon in nineteen eighty five. Yeah yeah, well yeah, yeah yeah, and one of the things that this does, because it's not like I don't think it is like the wrestlers voicing themselves here, he's kind of like divorcing pro wrestlers from their personas for
cash purposes for the first time in wrestling history. I think Brad Garrett yeah right, Yeah, I mean that that is a good pick, which I'm not saying like, yeah, I don't think it's an ethical and a really like, especially by the context of wrestling, to have like Brad Garrett do Hulk Cogan's voice, but it is an interesting change for the business.
I honestly think Brad Garrett and Hulk Cogan should be legally forced to swamp lives like every six months.
Yes, and and you know what that means, Sean, Maybe that means a shot for shot remake of Everybody Loves Raymond God with the whole Commando Yeah, and Suburban Commando My God. Yes, this is what AI should be doing.
Yeah, putting just Brad Garrett into Suburban Commando.
And and also putting the whole ster and Everybody Loves Raymond where like every every every argument between Ray and his brother, he just gets fucking suplex.
Oh, you can just.
Getting Rader and Redder Peter Boyle is going on about some.
Shit man and that Yeah, through the window, Absolutely, that's a TV show. That's a fucking TV show right there. So Vince also launches WrestleMania, which we've talked about in
previous episodes. Today, WrestleMania is the eighth most valuable sporting event on the planet, although there's a real big drop off after the first few because it's worth like one hundred something million, and like, man, the fucking you look at you look at like the super Bowl or whatever, you know, which is obviously that's WrestleMania is a very successful business. Vince has has succeeded in making that valuable, but there's a big drop off after like number five
or so. At the time, WrestleMania is a huge gamble. It's so expensive, it's such a spectacle, and it relies entirely and this is very new for them, It relies entirely on pay per view to be worth the cost, right because he yeah.
Does He's sort of pushes it, at least the first couple as like a big pop culture event, like he's trying, Yeah, isn't it isn't that right? Like he's still he brings in all these celebrities. He's trying to give it like this, yeah exactly, that's exactly what And it's a general appeal as he can. Yeah yeah.
And this is there's criticism I think from like a lot of old wrestling heads or people who are like really into technical wrestling, because one of the things he does is he starts bringing in famous people who absolutely do not know how to fucking wrestle. And kind of the first of these is Ba Barracas mister T, who is a man I have absolutely no qualms with. But but it is fair to say not really knowledgeable about
like wrestling techniques. Fair, yeah, yeah, fair fair That nothing against you, mister T. Bouncer competition before this, So I mean that's close.
Yeah, that is.
I mean, he's let's saying he doesn't know how to fight.
My dad saw that bouncer competition. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah whever. He told me that story once when I was a teenager. He was like, you know, I saw this bouncing competition mister T was in before he was famous.
What a crazy thing to do to have as a bouncing No. I gotta know, for like the people the bouncers are bouncing. Are they like actors or are they legitimately drunken problematic people.
I feel like my brain might have conjured this, but I think there was dwarf tossing, okay, well, and the rest was mostly obstacle courses.
Right, Huh that's the way my dad explained it. It would sound like a lot of obstacle courses, which is just confounding for a bouncer competition.
Yeae, someone's doing cocaine in the bathroom.
You gotta saw some riddles to throw this coat down, idiot out of the bar.
I mean, we are in the middle of a writer's strike, and I want to tell Hollywood, if you guys want a free, unscripted reality show, launch a bouncing contest where every week a new group of bouncers has to stop me from ruining some people's nights, Like, because I guarantee you there aren't going to be winners. I am slippery and I can projectile vomit on command. Like there's no
Applebee's is strong enough to hold me anyway. So yeah, before this big inaugural WrestleMania that is kind of a lot of people will say he's basically betting the farm on WrestleMania one in nineteen I think eighty five, and before this happens, as we said, he goes on this big PR blitz and he starts getting particularly mister T and Hulk Hogan, who are going to have this huge showdown. He starts getting them to like show up all over
like kind of like mainstream entertainment news shows. And yeah, in March of nineteen eighty four, there's this episode of a show called Hot Properties, which is a talk show host by conspiracy theorist and beloved TV detective Richard Belzer. That's that's right, Tom, have you heard about this, You've seen this.
I've seen this. Critic Okay, glorious.
Yeah, So the Bells if you're not aware, as I'm sure we all of you all are, the Bells is was a number one like at this point, I guess he has a talk show, but he's he's like an extremely successful like TV detective actor and kind of the famous the probably the most famous role as in pop culture is that because his character is on so many like the same detective characters on so many different like TV dramas and stuff from like the late nineties to
the mid auts. He kind of connects the universes of a bunch of shows that like sort of by default are now in the same universe. This includes Arrested Development, The X Files, Law and Order and Law and Order SVU, thirty, Rock, the Wire, and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. In addition to this, he's also a my regular guest on Info Wars.
Wow, two episodes.
In a row we got Info Wars guests, but this one's not a wrestler, and in fact, the Bells was kind of outspoken one of these things, you know how we had, like in the early two thousands, like the kind of online atheist community where like it starts with people who are like reasonably you know, questioning of religion, and it turns into people who are like kind of insufferable.
Yeah, you have that.
This is something that's kind of been forgotten. You have that about wrestling in like the nineties, in like eighties and nineties, where like there's these these kind of like pseudo intellectual guys will be you know it's fake, right, right, Well, yeah, of course of course it is.
Yeah, there were some there's a couple of real ghouls. I can't yeah, I can't. I can't remember their names. But there's one guy in the steroid case that's like really gung ho about Oh, these guys are using steroids, and it's anyway, like fuck Vince, but also like fuck that guy.
There's some, there's some, like there's some, and the Bells is kind of he's he can be a dick about it. He's like really insistent that it's not real, and I get.
Very frustrated by these people. I once watched a Vince McMahon wrestling match with someone who was in a bar. Everyone's enjoying the wrestling show, and this one person was like this is fake and everyone's like, well, obviously it's fake.
Yeah, man. Then Vince got it.
Vince got his head busted open. I want to say he was fighting the one legged kid that they hired wrong. That's another ten part podcast series, but they hired the wrong one legged kid and he like busted open Vince's head the hard way, which means he did not mean for the hit to bleed, yeah, and he was hemorrhaging blood.
And so Vince McMahon, who's who's in his wrestling uniform which is like black slacks and no shirt, but went over to the ring apron and was just gushing blood out of the ring because this would have turned the entire ring red. And this person is still saying wrestling is fake, and everyone's trying to explain to them, no, look the man's bleeding from their head and they're like, yeah, it's all fake.
I'm like, well, didn't get in you're a blood pump and is like naked, how did he do this?
Right?
What world are you living in?
So I guess that's what I equate with this type of person, where like they're so dumb. They think they're smart because they spotted the fakeness, but it's like you're like eight steps away from being just the base level of not dumb.
And look, Richard Belzer, an actor who we all have a lot of fond memories of not the smartest man who ever lived, and it's kind of evidence for that. Mister T and Hogan are on his show and he starts insisting over and over again that he wants to be put in a wrestling hold, and he goes after mister T first, but mister T is number one not an idiot, and number two doesn't know a lot of wrestling, so he's like, I'm not going to put you in a hold on life TV.
He's not going to tear a white man's head off on TV. He's a little too tiny.
Yeah, my career things are I am mister T and it's the mid eighties. Things are going well for me. I'm not going to gamble on this. But hul Cogan has, you know, the brain of a goldfish, and so it's like, okay, i will put you in a wrestling hold and I'm gonna play the audio of this. Sean, would you announce what's going on to the audience pleasure?
Okay, punched over, we's got him in a front headline.
Oh wow, Okay.
Watching it in On the other hand, he's got a figure flour on it and Belzer looks like he's passing out. He's completely limp and he's on the floor seemingly dead.
Mister T not surprised. Mister T has watched many rough housing engagements.
Endless way, So this is this is like, uh, the dumbest asshole party wants to play wrestle and you're like, well, this is only going to end with someone like nearly dying, like guillotine chokes some.
And it's one of those things it's Belzer's fault that this starts. Hogan fucks up because, like, it is possible to put a man in a headlock and he to choke somebody into unconsciousness and not seriously injure them. People do it with some regularity. Not that you should, because it's also very easy to kill them if you don't know what you're.
Doing, but you can do it.
The problem here, I was gonna say I had heard a version of the story where Hogan may have done this on purpose because he was kind of sick. If bells are running his mouth.
I don't think we'll ever know, because like there are a lawsuit results from this, So Hogan's not going to be like, yeah, I dropped him on purpose. He says that he slipped out of his hands. Maybe Hogan let him go hard, Like I can't prove that one way or the other, but either way, Belser. The problem in this is not that Belser got choked out. It's that Belzer gets dropped when he is unconscious and he smacks his head into the ground and suffers a significant head injury. He's serious.
Shit, Yeah, I probably should have explained to this idiot, like, hey, you gotta tap me when you're running out of air.
Yeah, it or like sit down, turns.
His neck away from the blood choke, Yeah, just to prevent an instantaneous like death.
There's a number of things that could have been done, like if you're gonna do this, okay, let's get on the ground, you know, so you maybe have.
Less to fall.
I was gonna say it was like, for instance, don't do this at all, but don't do this at all would be ideal.
Do not choke a man in New unconsciousness on Life Television's arm is wider than big. Yeah, Like each of his biceps is fifty percent of Richard Belzer's body weights, Like those twenty four inch pythoughts.
It doesn't take hindsight to think, no, is this going to end? What? What are the end what's the endgame of this? Will it be? Yeah? An awkward like he'll release me and I'll say, well that kind of hurt, Like that's not.
Fucking because it's also like, even if you think wrestling is fake, do you think Hulk Hogan isn't much much bigger than you?
Like?
Do you do you Richard Belzer disbelieve that Hulk Cogan could choke you into unconsciousness.
Right, it's not outside of the realm of possibility that hulk, the hulks of a giant, dumb guy might accidentally not you well and a smaller than him.
This was not like a wrestling choke like generally a front hand block, and wrestling is a resting hold, which means you're just kind of hanging out catching your breath. Yeah, he locked his hand over his other arm to like to get his forearm.
To cut off his fucking blood.
Yeah.
Yeah, he definitely wanted him unconscious.
Yeah, this is a real like kill a guy choke, not a wrestling it is. So if you sorry, I think that fucks have any story Hogan's telling because he's he did this with intention to choke him out.
Yeah.
I think definitely with intention to choke him out. I think the question is like, did he intend for him to like hit the ground. I don't know, right, we can't prove it, but it is if you want to watch a guy get choked the fuck out and drop like a sack of potato instantly, that this is this is a pretty good one.
So somebody granted a wish that you'd be conscious, Like he's just Richard.
Belzer suffer ahead injury. It's like wishing to get into a fistfight and then going to an Applebee's at one in the morning. You know, It's it's just like granted by a genie.
Man.
How many times has a guy that looks like the hulkster choked out a guy that looks like Richard Belzer added, Applebee's.
Almost a daily encounter, Tom almost a daily encounter. So somehow, because the universe is occasionally giving, In the exact same year, another TV journalist is assaulted by a pro wrestler and suffers at least allegedly a serious injury.
John Stossel, John Stossel, this is the other guy.
This is the other guy I was thinking of. It's kind of a dick. Yeah, and it's a clip after this swash get smacked.
Yeah, you love to see it. So Stossel is the host of twenty twenty, or at least one of them. Uh, and he's got a reput he's like a hoaxbuster, right, that's like one of the things that Stossel does. And like there are real problems, like people are starting to get really concerned with like steroid abuse in the WWF and the impact that's having a people's health, and Stossel is like kind of on that beat, but he's much more interested in proving that wrestling is a hoax.
Yeah when I jump in real quick, what please about? Oh? Sorry? Nice? And please? Oh please?
Okay, Yeah, what bugs about Stossel is like he the guy he gets to like help him demonstrate how wrestling is choreographed. I forget the wrestler's name, but like that wrestler has a very legitimate grievance about the fact that there's no union and no healthcare. And he's like if you watch like the Dark Side of the Ring episode on this, like that guy's talking about all this stuff
and like he's telling Stoscle this. But like you said, Stossel is way way way more interested in like this is fake and not like pointing out the actual problems with the industry. It's like he gives a shit if it's fake, Like it's.
Not actually a problem if some people are pretending a thing it's not a sport. When it's a sport, it's a problem. If guys are dying, Yeah, that's what you should care about.
Exactly like he was, he treated the fact that like wrestling is choreographed as like this big bombshell scandal and it's like, bro, who cares.
It's like if one of those like Renaissance fares, if there's like a fucking uh cholera outbreak because of some infected food and you go there to proof that the Knights aren't really nighted, Like, no, man, there's like.
A problem here. Somebody needs to look into this. People are dying.
It's like a Chinese genocid and you show up and be like Jackie Chan didn't really kill those guys with a letter.
Yeah, it is just I don't know, it's wild.
So John Stossel, host to twenty twenty is on in his trying to bust the wrestling hoax era, and on December twenty eighth, he shows up outside of a match at the Madison Square Garden to do a segment on pro wrestling, and for reason I haven't really found a convincing explanation why. I think it's just that he wants any kind of press he can get. Vince lets him in. Now, this is not a good decision because again he's very much like Vince knows he's going to try and like
make the business look bad. But also McMahon is fine with this. He wants to kind of generate conflict, so he sends out David Schultz. David wrestled under the name doctor D, and David's kind of like getting dressed in the locker room when mc mahon comes in and he's like, Hey, we got a guy out here making a joke of the business. I want you to go out here and interview with him. Blast him up, tear his ass up, stay in character, doctor D. That's what he tells him.
According to Doctor D, like blast him right, like that's Vince's exact words here.
Yeah, I want to be a clear doctor D.
Tear his penis off, Yeah yeah, your hands right off, straight off like a paper towel.
I've been reading a lot of books about you know, these difference called to eunuch units in the in the Ottoman military. I think it's a good idea. I think we should try here. So why don't you, why don't you geld this TV journalist?
I understand this.
I was gonna say, this is the thing you need to understand about David Schultz if you've never seen him before, those those of you listening, is that he's like the shitkick and his ship kicker that's ever lived. Oh my god, yeah, like yeah.
Yeah, he looks like the kind of guy you would bring with you in a fight if you needed back up, but who would need like an explanation.
Of how your car door works in order to get out? Like he looks.
He looks like he's been questioned in every unsolved murder in his guiltest.
Yeah, he swallows two gallons of chewing tobacco spit every day.
So I'm gonna play you this clip here, or at least I'm going to make Sophie do it and then take credit for it, because that's that's how the entertainment industry works.
Baby.
I asked Schultz questions that I assume all wrestlers have been asked dozens of times.
What it is a good business? Yeah, a good business wouldn't be in if it one.
Why isn't it good?
Because it's only the tough sur vibe that's reading you ain't in it And this punk holding the camera reading, he ain't in it, reading he's read next out here, ain't in it. Because there's a tough business that's terrific. What is that all you got? I'll ask you the standard question, you know question, I think it's a fake? Do you think his bike that's an open hand slap?
He does, kind of playing off like I'm showing you a move, like isn't this like you think it's not real. Here's like a slap that we take, but because it's so funny, yeah it is a second time. He does get him a second I believe he does get him a second time, and it's it's like it's one of those things. Obviously, doctor d horrible decision, but you shouldn't do that, but also can't pop he's just.
Done a knife hand chop or something.
Is like, yeah, let me show you one of our moves that we do, and then just fucking put a handprint on his chest or something.
You're big and terrifying, He's John Stossel, Like, throw a fake punch and get him to like back up and flinch and be like, I don't know, looks real to me. You flinched, you know, I don't know. Something you could.
In fairness, also on the list of things you don't do is go up to a guy that looks like David Schultz and tell him, hey, I think you're.
Fake yeah, I think you're a liar.
It was no hesitation, he said, a fake in hand his mouth.
Immediate immediately, and you know there's a cobra strike.
Like STOs You've got this foreign life without like seeing that guy and thinking that dude is seconds away from punching.
Yeah, you can see it in his face on the mind. Yeah, just back off Stossel. It is like it's like somebody trying to pet a rattlesnake while it's making the noise, and you're.
Yeah, it's it's the it's the confidence of somebody who's never been punched before.
That's exactly what it is. And unfortunately John Stossel has a platform and is able to sue. I'm not saying what Schultz did is wrong. Also, I think some of this is Vince's fault, because if you have a man at Schultz's level of like smart capacity, and you're like go out there and fuck up this journalist and then he hits him, some of that is on you, Vince.
Like this is not a tire just Schultz. That is, it was bad decisions leading to this, and that reporter made the worst of them all. Like I hear, like nothing could have been made more clear to this man than like if you fuck with him, you're gonna get punched in the vase, and he still did it. Well, it's natural selection at best.
It'd be one thing if like Schultz had been involved and something like you know we talked or yeah, we talked about the the Snooky case right where he fucking murders a woman. If you're going up to like a fucking gorilla like that because of a serious crime and you ask him that kind of question, knowing you're gonna
get fucking hit, well that's that's kind of heroic. But like Stossel, the thing he is trying to bust is that like wrestling's not real, Like it's it's pointless, you know, it's it's it would be like.
Interrogating a mal Santa. Yeah, it's like what's your endgame here?
Yeah? Why are we?
Yeah, it's like waging in this case, it would be a Malsanda with lots of tattoos.
It's like waging a desperate and ultimately fatal insurgent war against the storm troopers at Disney World.
Like there was no need for this cameras to bust the Easter Bunny for Yeah, why are we here.
Anyway, Stossel claims that he suffered permanent ear damage, and that is quite a slat. Maybe he did, Like I'm not I'm not questioning him on this. McMahon settles with him for I think it's like four hundred and fifty thousand dollars, Like it's a significant amount of money.
And so too much money to pay for a bitch ass ear.
So despite the fact that Vince was allegedly happy to provoke violence to protect k Fabe, and you know, you can say which I don't know that Vince is to blame. I don't think I haven't seen any evidence that like Vince is really to blame for what happens to fucking Belzer. But he's definitely part of Stossel getting assaulted here, and I think you have to describe that as like he is happy to have violence occur in order to protect
k Fabe. In nineteen eighty four, despite this fact, and despite the fact that he like damages doctor D's career forever by sort of inciting him to go out there, Vince spends the nineteen eighties, the mid to late eighties and an active and engaged campaign to kill it right to kill the concept of k fabe if you have forgotten, in the late nineteen eighties and early nineties, wrestling was
mostly treated as a real sport under the law. Referees are licensed by the same reps, you know, as the same way that like reps for the NFL are, right, like there's no difference to the state between them, because people are saying wrestling's real, right, so would there be matches? Are thus subject to these same kinds of health and safety requirements, And you know, it's a little silly to have like the same sort of refs for wrestling, but it's totally reasonable that like the NFL and WWF would
have the same health and safety requirements. Right they're both huge guys slamming into each other. Presumably a lot of the same problems are going to occur. Despite the fact that Vince and other promoters have a big issue with this state of affairs, it is not particularly strict strict.
There's a lot of like wink wink, nudge, nudge. Doctor George Zahorian, who was going to become the WWF steroid dealer, is like Pennsylvania's state appointed medical doctor for wrestling, So not necessarily the strictest situation imaginable here still the modest regulation that wrestling existed under cost money, and the McMahons
weren't about to stand for that. They started by lobbying in Connecticut before the first WrestleMania, and they succeeded in getting Republican state Representative Lauren Dickson to introduce a bill ending all state government oversight of wrestler health and in ring safety measures. A lawyer for the WWF appeared in the state legislature to make the argument that, quote, we consider ourselves in the same class or league as the
circus and the Harlem Globetrotters. Wrestlers, this lawyer argued, were quote terrific athletes engaged in complex performances, but they shouldn't be regulated because there wasn't a real competition going on. This passed. This bill passes without much talk, and it you know, it's significant obviously for the business because now they don't have to deal with like these additional taxes that you have to pay in Connecticut for like running
a sporting event. It doesn't get a lot of attention, but this is the first time that a wrestling promoter publicly acknowledges that wrestling isn't real, right, this is this is the first time that there's an official break in cafe from one of these big wrestling organizations. The state legislature buys the argument, which is kind of insane when you think about it, because, like, well, again, the question
isn't whether or not there's a competition. It's like our people endangering themselves sometimes they need health and safety standards.
But the McMahons win. So next, Ncent, it's a good thing. No wrestlers die in the ring after this.
No, no, that's not what this entire series is building towards.
To compare themselves to Harlem Globetrotter. I mean for those guys lose a leg every month.
Yeah, oh god.
The graveyard of the globe Trotter's limbs, it's like one of those burial pits for severed body parts. In the at Waterloo, one of the pulse chainsaws out of his hair. I don't know if anyone knows this, but his hair is filled with weapons. We'll do our Globetrotters episode soon. So Vincent Linda next move on to Delaware, where they win a similar victory in nineteen eighty seven, and they follow by pushing anyone who will listen to them in
New Jersey politics to deregulate wrestling there. This is kind of like a process for them, but they started in the late nineteen eighties, and while they're kind of slowly trying to build support there, they move on to attacking the wrestling regulations in the state of Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission there has a sunset provision and it was about to expire. So the whole state is having this debate of like, do we keep having a state
athletic commission. The McMahons wanted dead, and they hire a fancy law firm to try and ensure this happens. So said law firm is put to the task of arguing that Pennsylvania should kill their athletic commission, and they put this job on a brash, young lawyer who has a real hatred for government regulation. Now who here wants to take a guess as to which modern political shithead this guy is Giuliani. No, No, thankfully it's not Juliani, although
it could have been. You gotta guess, you gotta it's Rick Santorum. Oh, I never would have got there there, Rick is, Vince McMahon's like like trigger man to kill wrestling. Uh regulations in Pennsylvania. Pretty yeah, exactly, yes, sir, it hurts people.
I'm there. That's my bat signal. Get those kids back into those minds. It is.
It is very funny. So, in true Rick person fashion, he says ship like this to reporters about the case Pennsylvania was the most pernicious of states when it came to regulation. I mean, you pay all this money to the boxing commission that used to just rape these guys.
Was no.
Good guy. Love that his career ended there. So one of richards. The boxers have had it too easy for too long. I think we can all agree on that. Yeah, boxers, I think with too much regulation boxing. But you know what isn't regulated? Yeah, I saw Sophie. You know what's not regulated in any way?
That's pretty true.
Podcast advertising, whatever ad you're about to hear by their gold Yeah, don't tell the FTC. So we're back. One of Rick's tricks as he's lobbying to deregulate wrestling is to take state lawmakers backstage at WWF events where they got free food and liquor. In a way that didn't technically violate the law.
Sounds like he's trying to whine and dine some nine year olds. He took me backstage, they got to meet the Ultimate Warrior and shake the Snake, and Big boss Man and Big Bless.
Driver was there.
We're grieve. We're joking about this. But when I get into politics, like, I will vote on anything. If you take me backstage to meet Hulk Cogan and get me drunk, you know, anything, anything you want to invent to rack again, let's do it. I'm on board. No body count too high. If I get to meet the Holkster and talk about Suburban Commando with him, I'm fine with it.
That's my limit.
And that was these guys' limits, right because you know Santorum takes these guys backstage. They all get to take their photos with Hulk or whoever. This all culminates as
they're kind of doing this charm offensive. In Lynda McMahon's June eleventh, nineteen eighty seven testimony in Philadelphia to a committee reviewing this commission, Josie Riiseman writes, quote she was preceded by two executives from the Athletic Commission who pleaded with legislators to allow them to make sure the wrestlers
were safe and safe and healthy. The chairman of the State Athletic Commission, James J. Binns, argued that if the state got rid of wrestling regulations, they would be replaced by the good old boys system of live and let live, and let's just see what we can do to get beyond this problem. The committee members were less interested in workers' safety than they weren't trying to parse out the question
of whether or not wrestling was real. After Bins delivered this opening statement, the first question from a legislator was, do you believe honestly that wrestling is a competitive sport?
It is not.
Serpents replied, wrestling is an exhibition. No reasonable person like, it's so insane. It's the same stoscilshit where it's like sim embarrassing that they're this hung up on it. The only adult in Philadelphia state government is like, well, these these men are really encountering dangers and like we need to have health and safety regulations, and the entire state legislatures.
Like, but is real or is he real? Sins can really talk?
Right?
Can the Undertaker really bring back the dead. Yeah, I don't know about that. Is he some form of necromancer? If I could eye control him? My constituents, you want to know, yehs.
It's remarkable how dumb these fucking people are and how many bad.
Consequences there are to it.
But everybody's like, yep uh, this this is a reasonable thing to be debating on. And to her credit, not credit, because this is an awful thing to do, but it just Linda is very savvy at what she's doing. She's much better at certain aspects of the business than, certainly than Vince is. And she follows up with an extremely disingenuous argument, but a very successful one. And this is me pretending to be Linda McMahon. But I'll just I don't know, yeah, I'll do my Ben Shapiro voice.
Probably I'm listening. I'm letting the illusion take take me over.
Just just close your eyes. We provide quality family entertainment for all age groups and for people from all walks of life. Unlike professional boxers, professional wrestlers are not competing in contests where points are scored and the winner determined by potentially injurious blows struck at an opponent. Instead, like the skilled athletes you see in the circus or the Harlem globetrotters. Our athletes are well conditioned professionals who are the best at what they do, and what they do
is entertain people. Does the Liquor Control Board assign an agent to every tavern? Does the Game Commission assign a game boarding to every hunter? To such questions, the answer is obviously no, And these are areas where real dangers exist to society. There is no such danger in wrestling. And there's a lot that's silly about. For one thing, like every hunter might encounter a game warden. There are
game boardens out there. If you are if you shoot a deer and a game warden is there, they will like make you show your tags, They'll check to make sure. It's like that's a part of hunting. Yeah, I absolutely do not understand that part of the argument. And also yes, there's not one game boarden for every one hunting. No, And like yeah, like the liquor Control Board doesn't have like a sky marshal guy in every bar, but like every bar could be investigated by a liquor controvery bar.
I can have its license pulled if you, yeah, break the rules, like that's a that's a nothing argument.
It's it's a nuts argument. But you can see why this could sell to a room full of guys who are dumb enough to like listen to a man beg them to take seriously the health consequences of wrestling and going. But is it real, Like it works.
Yeah, yeah, it's and one of the things that say.
How everyone is today and then like take them back thirty years. Yeah, and they just like didn't know anything. Yeah, like nothing at nothing at all. Not a single brain in the room. They are all like all all of these guys, cognition is like sixty percent old fashions and forty percent camel cigarettes. There is there is just not a thought in their head. Their brains look like the inside of a Playboy spread.
Yeah. Tragic.
So after this kind of big testimony, you start to get a little bit of leak into like the public consciousness that like some like some people who are paying more attention are like, well, actually, like WWF's claiming that like what they're doing isn't real. That's kind of interesting. That's a change, but it has no impact on how Vince treats. It's his own people. When they break KFA right, like,
there's still very aggressive about it. In fact, the month before Linda's testimony, the Iron Shake and Hacksaw Jim Duggan get into a traffic stop and there's like liquor and drugs in the car. They're supposed to be bitter rivals in the ring, and Vince fires them because like this is like an unacceptable breach of KFA. He does not care that, like this is like we just talked about, you know, the murder that he doesn't care that they're drunk driving. You know, the issue is they're not supposed
to be friends. Now, in the middle of all this, in nineteen eighty eight, Vince is getting ready for WrestleMania four. This is the one that has the epic showdown between Andre and the Holkster. It's a very famous event, although because there's so much cool shit happening in the event, it's often not being remembered as like as much of a shit show as it was. And part of why the actual event itself is kind of a shit show
on the ground is that it's held in Atlantic City. Now, if you're not a Springsteen fan or from the East coast, Atlantic City is Las Vegas, without any hope at all. Right, That's that's kind of how I would describe it.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's also where a certain real estate mogul named Donald J. Trump had a casino in the late nineteen eighties, And there's kind of a little bit of wonders like how this exactly happened. But basically, one day at an event, Trump and McMahon meet and they get to talking and McMahon is like, you know, we're doing a big wrestling event, you know, one of our WrestleManias. And Trump is familiar with wrestling and is like, well, you know, I got this casino, I got this hotel. You know, you should
do an Atlantic city. I'll sponsor it. And this is in fact what happens. Trump agrees to sponsor WrestleMania for the future President records some awkward promos for the event it is. They kind of lie about it on TV and they say that it's being held at the Trump Casino, even though it's actually being hosted quite a while it's like at the Pier or something like that. There's a little bit of like fuckery with that kind of stuff. Not a big deal. There are also some really awkward
moments from that time. And my favorite is this video featuring Rilla Monsoon and Bobby the Brain Heenan, who are both like wrestlers who have become like commentators. And it's like a video of Bobby Heenan trying to check into the Trump hotel and casino. This is part of like a twenty minute thing that's like basically supposed to be an ad for Trump properties, you know, because he's sponsoring this shit, but it's like deeply off putting and and to show that, here's here's just a clip from it.
This is a clip from like what Trump is meaning to be an ad for his property of Bobby Heenan like checking into his hotel.
Oh boy, have any reservations, And we all completely sew.
I got the whole top floor here, I got the suites on the top four here.
Don't give me that, bimbo. Do you have all the sweets on the top floor? That's right. Excuse me, there's no reason for you to be calling me in. It's okay, for no reason. I don't know who you're talking. I'm just sitting here. I'm trying to be in the park my parking cards in about twenty minutes. Please just bear with me. It's just like really kind of off putting. Well that's just really unpleasant.
Yeah, just it's raight weird. A heenan's doing his heel stuff. Yeah, not like a charming way. He's just being really mean to this one. It's being deployed in a weird way. Like this woman's clearly not an actress, and it's exists.
You get like exists, like you get like a lady wrestler or something here and maybe like they have a conflict or something, and like there's some betwet back and she she does seem like someone who works the front desk at a casino and is just really uncomfortable and scared. Like it's just very off putting. But what else do you expect from Donald Trump's casino and hotel.
This is why any gorilla monsoon next to him at all times to go, would you stop?
He does come in eventually rescue the situation, but yeah, it's it's awkward. So, despite Trump's friendliness to the sport, Atlantic City has one big downside for events, which is that it is in the state of New Jersey, and the state of New Jersey charges a tax on TV sporting events. The bill comes to like sixty one thousand dollars, and you know, WrestleMania four, the first couple are really
big hits. He's seeing kind of declining revenues in the late nineteen eighties, so like the fact that he's just kind of getting annoyed with all of these additional charges he has to deal with. So again, the McMahon's call up a lawyer and this is a lawyer with more firepower than Santorum, and this lawyer successful or starts to lobby a Democratic state Senator, Francis McManamon to try and like in some of these Jersey state laws, and that guy's.
Name probably led to a McMahon and mcmannonon hall. Yeah, yeah, it is. It is frustrating.
So they apply the lawmaker and his staff with gifts and tickets to WrestleMania four. They like put McManamon and his aid right next to Donald Trump. The AID, I think Riisman talks to the AID and the AID is like years later, like we were so close that macho man Randy Savage fell into our laps.
God, that's it. That's a dream, lady.
It is for him, It is for him. He's so happy about this. The senator and his staff like have this kind of perfunctory thing where they talk to a couple of wrestlers about health and safety backstage, and the aid recalled quote. They told us, look, we've got a lot of money invested in those people. It's in our best interest to make sure they're safe.
You know. Well, that's enough research for me.
Yep, sure, I want to talk to you about making it less safe and putting more toxic waste in the rivers.
Yeah, I don't want anyone to scan my head to see if I got CTE.
You better not do your due diligence.
That was a much better Macha man. Yeah, damn, that was That was exceptional. We got to get you into a Trump Casino to.
Be one of the staff members because it's haunted.
Yeah, like a giant man was falling into my lab rate there.
So Spring of eighty eight, Senator mcmannonon introduces a bill to deregulate wrestling in New Jersey, New Jersey, as it's more accurately known, he took the McMahons out. Mcmahnonon took the McMahons on a tour of the Capitol, and they, in turn started like finding other lawmakers as like he's showing them around. They're like, you guys want tickets to some wrestling shows. You guys want to see some shows. So they try the same thing. It doesn't work this time.
Actually to this, and I very rarely say this. To New Jersey's credit, the bill dies in committee, and wrestling actually stays regulated in the Garden State until nineteen ninety seven, which makes it later than most. It is a technical loss for the McMahons. But also I'm not entirely sure why. I guess maybe just because, like Jersey is bigger news than Philadelphia or.
Connecticut or whatever.
But this is like this kind of the crew say it in Jersey to deregulate wrestling by admitting that it's fake. This is the thing that actually like blows up and becomes like massive, like national news.
And I'm going to.
Quote from the book Ring Master by Josie Risman here, Now, what can be told? Those pro wrestlers are just having fun To clear a front page headline in the late edition of that day's New York Times, Cara began his article by writing, the promoters of professional wrestling have disclosed that they're terrifying towers and spandex tights, massive creatures like Bam Bam Bigelow, Holk Cogan and Andre the Giant are really no more dangerous to one another than Santa Claus,
the Easter Body, and the Tooth Fairy. But please don't repeat this. Millions of grown men and women just don't want to know, and like you see, it's like the
subtle side bastard here. In addition to Vince is like all of these journalists and lawmakers who either like just desperately want to know themselves if it's real, but like, really, what's the worst thing to me is these journalists who are like ignoring all these serious issues and like the dangers of the sport to its performers and being like, aha, we were right, it's wrong. Look these idiots who think wrest don't tell these idiots it's fake, like and like really.
In New York Times too, Yeah, like it's like, it's no more dangerous to each other than Santa Claus or the Eastern Body or the Tooth Fairy.
It's it's fucking they're just like offended people are watching wrestling and not reading Camille Paglia or some shit it's like stop being like there's a real thing to investigate here, guys.
Several real thing. Lot of shit, Why are you writing this article?
Yeah, they're getting so up in arms about it being fake and whether or not wrestlers were using steroids when they were legal.
It's like Jesus Christ, part of when.
We talk about all of the guys whose hearts are going to fucking explode, who get like CTE and you know, as one guy does kills their entire family. Behind it,
there's a lot of things behind it. It's not like, you know, just the times of fault here, but behind it is like years of people whose job was to take this stuff seriously and who couldn't get over the carnival right right, Like they couldn't get they couldn't get over this like reputation built in kind of carne stuff to like be like, well but this is these are still human beings, Like this is real. What's happening, Like even if the game isn't a real game, Like and they're.
Watching tigers get tortured to death while they're like, you know, I think they're using mirrors to sign lady in.
Yeah, it's like there's a anyway that's pretty gross. So once again the news media is a side bastard in this story.
Cool.
So, despite fighting in court to the care clear wrestling just entertainment, Vince had his wrestlers leap to k Fabes defense yet again. So they have this guy, he has this press as guy's go on shows and be.
Like you, Joe calling me this fake?
You know this isn't fake and kind of likewise the only other big game in wrestling, which is so at this point, Ted Turner is kind of the functional heart of the very weather withered NWA. Right, He's like running a lot of shows and stuff on his network and they declare the NWA like launches a new tagline which is like the NWA we Wrestle. So it's like the WWF have admitted that what they're doing is fake, but our wrestling it's real here in the NWA. Very funny
that said, McMahon still plowed ahead. He never kind of entirely gives up k Fabe, but he also starts introducing new terms to describe what is wrestlers are doing, and the ultimate conclusion of this is eventually kind of the somewhat replacement of the term wrestling with the phrase sports entertainment. This is first added to the introduction logo of televised WWF matches I think at the late nineteen eighties, and as logo appears on screen, a voice reads the tagline
the recognized symbol of excellence in sports entertainment. And that's kind of the that's what sort of replaces, you know, the the era of like KFE being taken seriously is like the sports entertainment era, right, which you could say we're in now to an extent, although there's other terms that you used, but like, yeah, that's kind of that's a that's a you know, not a bad thing that he transitions away from taking it as seriously as people did, but like a bad thing that it's in order to
end regulations. Yeah, and there's going to be some consequences of this, but there's going to be consequences to a lot of Vince's decisions because, as a serial entrepreneur in nineteen ninety decides to launch a new enterprise.
Now, shock, you.
Are a recognized expert in this one, so you know where I'm going here.
This is nineteen ninety. Yeah, that would be the World Bodybuilding Federation.
That is that is exactly correct, sir, And this.
Was Vince who decided there what bodybuilding needed was more steroids.
Yeah, these guys aren't huge enough. Yes, Cape's top outs, yeah.
Command to outfits, sure, but more steroids is really what we're going for there.
He walked into a competition and saw a man who was almost able to reach his pocket with his hand and was like, absolutely not.
Not on my watch.
So every year prior to this point, miss the Mister Olympia competition crowned the best bodybuilder in the world. And afterwards, you know, after you get your your your the winner declared or whatever, there's closing ceremonies, and a big part of the closing ceremonies is all of the different companies that had sponsored the event get to like, you know, give, you know, say shit in order to kind of like try and pump whatever products they're selling. Right, that's a
pretty normal thing to do in a competitive event. That year, McMahon had paid five thousand dollars for a booth at the event in order to promote a bodybuilding magazine he'd launched called Bodybuilding Lifestyles.
You know what, I already know this booth is a trap.
It's not it's not gonna go right. So Tom Platts is a bodybuilder working for McMahon at this time, and he addresses the crowd on his behalf, on Vince's behalf, and he kind of surprises everyone by directing a tirade against the International Federation of Bodybuilders, promising we at Titan Sports and Bodybuilding Lifestyles Magazine are pleased to announce the formation of the World Bodybuilding Federation and we're gonna kick
the IFBB's ass. And this is, you know, kind of ghosh because you know it's the IFBB, you know, putting this shit on. And he's like, fuck these guys, and fuck your event.
We're gonna kill you. In an article from a.
Late Great Spy magazine, Irving Muchnik wrote quote, the audience fell silent and leggy models in slinky black evening grounds gowns and bodybuilding lifestyle sashes emerged from the wings to distribute handbills promising bodybuildings. It was meant to be a code phrase, some thought for no drug testing.
We know what that means.
Yeah, Vince McMahon in thoroughly upstaged the Whiters who ran the idea IFBB at their own event, and he still had one more trick up his sleeve. That evening, when the bodybuilding contestants returned to their rooms at the McCormick Center Hotel, they found WBF contract offers slipped under their doors.
Really really ballsy.
Now, look, the Whiter Brothers are our bodybuilding promoters, so they're not like they're not like morally peer here, right.
Like we're not.
This isn't This isn't the battle between good and evil. Yeah, but it is. It is like a pretty tasteless thing to do to go to an event promoted by this organization you're trying to destroy.
And almost needlessly evil.
Like, yeah, every sport or sport sports entertainment has multiple promotions where it's like, hey, I'm this promotions champion and I'm this promotions champion. Vince McMahon like made it so adversarial like before it even existed. He's just like, sucks, this is the real one. And that's it's still I'm gonna poach all your best talent with exclusive contracts.
It is interesting kind of that strategy of like before I'm even off the ground, I'm going to start this with a fight is a very wrestling thing to do.
Right.
Yeah, Like it's very much like a challenge promo between a heel and a face here that he's kind of like launching. He's you can see that, Like he's just got wrestling so deep in his bones.
Yeah, it's a real thing.
Is Yeah, it's the way his It's the just the only way ideas occur to him.
Like this was also something that Vince McMahon genuinely thinks bodybuilding is more interesting than most people.
Oh so love.
He was sure this is going to be a huge hit. Yeah, and so he was throwing money at it, and so like these these were offers these men couldn't really say no to in a lot of ways because he's like, here's I'll give you a fucking million dollars a year. I don't know where the numbers. The numbers were stupid, Yeah, numbers make no sense from a business standpoint. And so you're just a bodybuilder who, if I'm understanding industry correctly,
like kind of who's really unregulated. I think a lot of bodybuilders are considered amateurs even at this point in their career, meaning that you could just do whatever you want to them. None of what they do it counts, right, These are just like anyway. So Vince is offering these guys real money for the first time.
It's their live, yeah, and he does find some ways to fuck them because like the money sounds real good, but like there's restrictions on other stuff that you're allowed to do. And also people when they get into it, they find out that, like if you win a prize, like that's basically taken out of your salary, so you don't get extra money on top of it. Like he does fuck around with them, but like it's one of those things where like people don't realize the contracts not
as this is always the case with Vince. People don't realize the contracts not as good as it sounds like it is until they're already signed.
You know.
It is, by the way, worth noting I said in an earlier episode Vince was probably on steroids. He was absolutely on steroids, and it has admitted as a result of some of the court stuff we're talking about later that in this period of time when they were legal, he was using them. He says he stopped when they got made illegal.
You can no reason to think, no reason to doubt the word of Vince McMahon as a person who's watched Vince McMahon on television for I don't know, twenty five years. Yeah, you can absolutely tell he's doing steril.
No, that's not for a seven year old man to have four percent body fat and four pounds.
When I look at his late seventies, to look at.
Vince McMahon in like the early two thousands of sixty to fifty year old man, I see, that's a guy who's not on gear. That's a man who doesn't spend like a nice new car every month on fucking gear.
He just loves to jog.
He just like, yeah, he likes to jog. Just a couple of push ups, you know, stay, stays in shape. Maybe fights a couple of marines, you know, yeah yeah, eye goug is a handful of marines. Yeah, drops a platoon or two, you know, on the weekends.
Good stuff. So and again.
So critics will say that basically Vince's plan is just to throw more steroids at bodybuilding than the other guys who actually the IFBB is at least attempting to provide
a visual show of being against steroids. I think there's a lot of debate as to like how serious their testing program was, but they do have like a testing program at this point because people are starting to really in nineteen ninety really get concerned about steroids and like legal regulation is coming, so kind of part of what Vince is doing. It's actually so like, you know, the NWA responds to the WWF saying wrestling isn't real by
being like, our wrestling's real. Vince responds to the IFBB taking some steps to regulate steroids by being like.
You can do other roids, you want to hear shot and downplay the costumes too. He also had a costumes Yes, the vampire guy. He shared that Indian chief guy. Yeah, the college they gotta fight fight an Italian. Now this guy had like a blonde crew cut, like he should have been a surfer guy. But they already had a surfer guy. They're like, we gotta have an Indian.
Yeah, my god, every single time, like a sorcerer, a warrior.
They have a full D and D party.
That that part I do appreciate because I get bored by normal bodybuilding. I want to see them. I want to see like fucking a barbarian in fishnets, you know, call him Honan the Barbarian.
Like, let's go with it anyway.
Critics basically are like, yeah, he just wants to roid people up even more. And by the start of the nineties, steroids have become a regular topic in the news, doing part because like a bunch of guys, some of whom are wrestlers die right like, people have their hearts fucking explode from steroids. And even more than that, a lot of people who had been like Vince Seniors, big wrestlers like his, kind of like top guys, their bodies are starting to fall upon. You know, some of that's just
wrestling's bad for you, but like it's not. They also were like taking a bunch of steroids in a period of time where they didn't realize how much damage they were doing. And you know, the butcher's bill has come due by nineteen ninety and so they are starting to speak out against the WWF because they realize what they've done to their body and that more is being done to the bodies of young guys that are in the field right now. And I'm going to quote quote from
Uschnik again. According to superstar Billy Graham, a retired WWF champ crippled by bone and joint degeneration from steroid use, and Bruno sam Martino, who had has had a falling out with McMahon. Nearly all of today's WWF stars are on the juice. I love this business, and it's really sad to see what's happened to it, Sammartino says. With all the drugs they take, the guys are now like zombies.
Wrestler Jim Helwig, a former chiropractor and one time Venice beach Habitchu, who calls himself the Ultimate Warrior, is perhaps the ultimate example of the WWF's Bigger is Better ethic, even though he can bely pose and mug without getting winded. Hellwig was last year given the lead of the WWF troop when Hogan was temporarily detained by Hollywood commitments. I eat the chemical toxins that other men fear, the Warrior
huffed and puffed. In one TV interview, Dave Meltzer, wrestling columnist for The National and publisher of a newsletter called The Wrestling Observer, now refers to Hellwig as the anabolic Warrior.
Goes for it. They have his number. Yeah, he was, he was winded. I mean Ultimate Warriors so great. What a great beautoroul piece of Yeah, he runs out to the ring like a jackass. He's already winded by the time he gets there. He cannot do He's he can do less wrestling than Hulk Hogan. U pins people in thirty eight seconds and sprints to the bag.
And then becomes like a right wing crank.
Right. He goes on as as an older man. Yeah, yeah, he goes real hard.
Yeah, the aphobic way, Yeah, super homophophobic, racist, it's all the above. Yeah, it's it's good stuff. We all love the anabolic Warrior.
Yeah.
In fact, here's here's here's in two thousand and five, here's the Ultimate Warrior talking at the University of Connecticut, summing up his life philosophy. As Reisman says it, liberals believe in a utopian society where everything is equal. Life doesn't work that way. It's a good for nothing joke that it can, and worse, an oppressive, evil fraud to then pursue it as a.
Goally funny coming from a guy who has had the briefest of flash in the pan careers in a in an industry that he knew nothing about and didn't respect, and was only propped up by other guys covering for the fact that he was fucking terrible.
Yeah, he was.
He was willing to shoot the most steroids into his ass, and so he had a brief career and then his brain melted out of his ears.
Yeah.
For him to start talking about some kind of meritocracy, it's like, buddy, you are the last.
Yeah, there is absolutely no merit and I'm convinced I don't think we should try to make the world better. I think right the dead maniac with a lot of problems might be right. Yeah, yeah, you know what, you know what, You're right.
Sean Behind the Bastards is now a podcast where we find people like filling potholes and just start kicking them. I mean, I mean kicking the shit out of them, like Applebee's bumps idiots.
A guy who wore that many bicycle streamers around his biceps cannot be wrong about this about them.
Not on social issues, no, absolutely not.
Never.
So during the period in which steroids are spreading throughout wrestling and Vince is getting into bodybuilding, he also develops this kind of This is when it becomes really obvious that he's like on gear. Colleagues would note that in between minor matches or meetings, he would leave the room and do barbell curls and then come back sweaty and shirtless,
and people who wanted to like manipulate him. It became known that, like if you told Vince that he looks better than his wrestlers, Like that's the line, right, everybody uses it on I'm like, wow, Vince, you're bigger than your wrestlers. He'll do like whatever for you, right, likes four thousan dollars, thank you. Yeah, that's how you manipulate him. The IFBB. Meanwhile, when you.
Get more toxic waste in your community, I think I.
Know a senator, Yeah, well we really want to poison some kids, can we do it?
Yeah? So yeah.
The IFBB during this period kind of has like a number of public firings of bodybuilders who are testing positive for steroids, and the public concern is enough that in nineteen eighty eight, the United States had made it illegal to distribute anabolic steroids I think without a prescription, and in the middle of nineteen ninety, Congress felt motivated to pass the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of nineteen ninety, which is why you can't pick up decaderobylin with your creatim
in hot pockets heartbreaking they go right together. Oh my god, two great tastes. So while Vince is at war with the IFBB, the United States is going to war with an even deadlier foe, Saddam. Who'ssein Ah friend of the pod Saddam Hussein al tacreedy. Are you guys aware of his intersection with the world of wrestling?
I remember the Sergeant Slaughter gimmick.
Oh I remember when he switched to the Diraqi side.
Yeah, yeah, we are that. We will be talking about that, but it gets much worse than that. So also, I think Saddam did more steroids and ulti oria. Right he was like the king. Yeah, yeah he was.
He was. That's what you thought. He could kuwait a several month title run in the WWF in nineteen ninety one. That's not quite true, Tom, but he does nearly.
He does nearly murder Andre the Giant, So post strap in for this one.
Boys.
So there's this guy named Adnan al Kaisi, right, you will know him later because he's the Shake, not the Iron Shake, He's the Shake. So yeah, the Iron Shake and the Shak are both noteworthy because they are kind of the racial stereotype wrestlers who are actually from where, kind of where they're supposed to be, both of them, Like the Shake is Iraqi, the Iron Shake is Iranian.
Now during the Gulf War, the Iron Shake, they're going to pretend he's a Raki, which is kind of problematic, very problematic, but y whatever whatever, Like what we're about to talk about is so far past that. So Adnan al Kaisi, the Shak is born in Iraq, and in fact he actually went to high school with my Special Boys,
Saddam Hussein al Dacredi. Both young men were intellectual and prone to debates and coffeehouses, so they kind of like were friendly for a while, and then they eventually drift apart in that way you do and your friend goes off to become the dictator, and like you go to Oklahoma State University and a study abroad program and fall into pro wrestling as a side gig because you're huge.
So al Kaisi loves wrestling. He does it for a while in the US, and then he comes back to the to Iraq in sixty nine when Saddam finds out that like a real pro wrestler because Saddam loves wrestling and apparently believes it's real. He invites his old friend for an audience. Adnon later claimed he said to me that he really enjoyed pro wrestling, but had never seen it in person, only on television. He wanted me to bring it to Iraq as soon as possible so everyone
could enjoy it. Now, this is pretty in character for Saddam, and unfortunately, like again, he's kind of bought the kfab line, or at least that's the allegation from Adnon, who is not an entirely trustworthy source. But we're going to choose to believe what he says here because it's amazing. So Adnon recruits some Western wrestlers and they come and fight in Bagdad.
You know.
Bagdad holds a number of like big wrestling expos and stuff. There are some problems, though. Adnon is obviously the most popular Iraqi wrestler and he's not supposed to lose matches. So near the end of nineteen seventy he brings one of his friends from the US over to Iraq, a guy who was very used to wrestling in foreign countries
named Andre the Giant. Now, the match they've got planned. Normally, Andre's gonna win, but in some of these like local exhibitions, he'll lose to like foreign like wrestling heroes, right, because that's just kind of the way it goes. And so they set up and they're like, all right, you know, me and Andre will go together. We'll do three bouts. All win the first, he'll win, the second, all win
the third. That way where it can keep everyone on the edge of their seats, you know, pretty standard stuff.
Right.
There's a problem with this. One of the problems is that this match is scheduled for a major military holiday, so the entire stadium is filled with Iraqi soldiers with their guns. So that's an unsettling scene to wrestle in. And Josie Reisman writes, Saddam two was armed and seated in the front row. Ad Non went over to him and wished and received a wish for good luck. Then Saddam pulled odd On close and whispered forcefully into the wrestler's ear. Be victorious, add Non. He said, we are
all counting on you be victorious. This guy is big, but he is a pussy. I know that you can beat him if he hurts you. In any way he's going to get this. Saddam lifted up his coat to reveal a solid gold pistol. I will put every bullet there in his fat head and send him back to France in a pine box.
Oh my god.
Now again, I don't know if I think this is one hundred percent true, but it's not impossible, right, not impossible. So a real trail, according to adn On, at least a real tragedy is avoided because Adon like gets Andre into a headlock early on, and which was like all that stuff we had planned about, like making this look like a fight. Don't do it, like just go flat, like dude, like Saddam will murder you if you are
seen to fight at all. And so Andre, terrified, huddles on the mat wondering, like am I going to be shot to death? Especially since the crowd celebrates Adnon's win by firing into the air.
So this is sh.
Shoin testinal system to know that fear diarrhea from Andrea the Giant could kill that whole stadium.
Oh yeah, no, it's a real problem for everybody. A lot of lives at risk here. Thankfully it ends fine, and for several years ad non is a big Iraqi star. But obviously, if you know anything about Saddam ad Noon's not going to stay in his good books forever, and eventually he has to flee the country before that becomes
a terminal condition. So you fast forward August second, nineteen ninety Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait and George H. W. Bush finally gets an opportunity to bust those rumors about being a wimp that have.
Dogged him for years.
We get our Operation Desert Storm, and the USA goes nuts with war fever all that good shit. This is going to wind up being super convenient for Vince because wars distract people, and in the late nineteen nineties he needed a distraction. And this is where we get back to the story of anabolic steroids. But you know what's even more active the n anabolic steroids. Hmmm, the great
flavor of Applebee's. Yep, well that is true. Sean played one nine hundred, Hot Dog and gamefully unemployed, both the only comedy website left on the Internet and the podcast network that features such great shows as Fox Molder is a Maniac. Yeah, glorious, glorious. Do you guys have do you guys want to plug two, you want to you want to expand on the plug.
I'll add just a little to my plug one hot Dog. I run that with Robert Brockway with all star cast writers including Tom Ryman who is here today, that's me, yeah, and Alex Schmidt who you both know Lydia Bug Yeah. Dale, Brendan McGinley just a huge Heroes superstar comedy writers.
I've crashed on his couch a bunch. Oh very nice, Yeah, very nice guy, Brendan great Tom.
Oh yeah, I'll just add that GameFly u employeds podcasts and streaming network I do with David Bell.
You guys know him.
Uh yeah, just check it out. Head over to our Patreon, patroon dot com slash game flun Employed. We have a bunch of tears you can get in on.
You can uh.
Commission your own podcast series, or you can just listen to episodes for free wherever you find podcasts.
So yeah, do that, do that, and remember, folks, you know, if you want to know what it's like to stare down the barrel of Saddam Hussein's gold plated handgun. Tragically, Saddam isn't with us anymore, but you can always find a man with a handgun at an Applebee's near a truck stop after ten thirty at night, So good luck and God bless everybody.
Tell me's fake.
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