¶ Antonio Inoki's Wrestling Career in Japan
The second half of our great Antonio series . We do refer to a couple of pictures of Antonio in this episode and if you want to see them , well , you just got to go on to your favorite search engine and image search for the great Antonio and you'll find what you need Not a lot of pictures of the guy , so they're pretty easy to find .
We now take you to Japan , where Antonio is about to have his life change forever . We go back over to Japan for a hot moment and over there there's a man named Named Antonio and no key . He was a protege of Ricky dozen and the man who started New Japan Pro Wrestling .
This is also the guy who famously got and had a Fighting match with Muhammad Ali , where he just crab walked around the ring and just started kicking Muhammad Ali in the legs . Do you remember that match or heard of that ? No , oh , you never heard about that .
So , basically , antonio and no key and Muhammad Ali had a fight and his wrestler versus boxer who is stronger and and the match starts out and the two guys kind of start to walk towards the ring and Antonio and no key immediately Flipped onto his back and , you know , gets in the crab walk position , immediately just crab walks over to Muhammad Ali and just while
staying in the crab walk position just starts kicking the crap out of Muhammad Ali's Knees and legs . And because the dudes on the ground , muhammad Ali can't really punch the dude very easily . So basically you got Muhammad Ali kind of just like skipping around the ring with Antonio and no key crab walking after him , kicking him repeatedly for like four rounds .
It is a very bizarre , bizarre thing to see Be suppressed . Yeah , they brought up to Muhammad Ali . Were you pissed about this ? He's like man . I would just think about all the stuff I'm gonna spend this money on that I made in this match . Yeah , sure . You know what ? Fair enough .
Yeah , yeah , I mean that's the way you're looking at it Totally .
I mean that's yeah and that that's very Muhammad Ali thing to say too , because I , yeah , I'm pretty sure he was just there for the money . Then , yep , if you ever want to beat a boxer , I guess you just crab walk over there and just start kicking the crap out of him . Who ?
was it like that ? What actor was it ? Of course I know me and names . He was in Jaws 3 , Michael Cain . Yeah , Michael Cain .
There we go . Yeah , Michael .
Cain . Yeah , michael Cain played I think it was in Jaws . It was a Jaws 3 , jaws 4 , it was Jaws the revenge . He was in that and he's that . First of all , he's never seen the movie and when asked about it , he goes it bought me my house . Yeah , he's like I , he goes . I've heard it's terrible . It bought me a house , but yeah yeah . Jaws .
The revenge is a one one and a half star on IMDB .
So yeah , I have heard that thing was awful . So Antonio Anoki is . He's one of the most popular guys in Japan right now , but he wants to bolster his image even more and he wants to do the Unstoppable Invader story arc that he remembered Ricky Dozen and the great Antonio doing and he remembers how well that did for Ricky Dozen , so he wants to recreate this .
Also , antonio Anoki is the protege of Ricky Dozen , was actually trained by him , so plans were set in motion to recreate the encounter , complete with having Antonio the great Antonio pulled buses through town and dominate people in five on one matches .
We're there without the consent .
Your boss calls you in for like a meeting at work or someone's like you and five other dudes sitting in room back . Why are we here for this meeting ? Oh no , no , you're fighting this dude , have fun . Great Antonio just pops in . So the great Antonio just does a whole little hype up thing . Again .
He's pulling buses , he's wrestling a ton of people , showing off his strength . However , it should be noted at this point . Um , great Antonio is not quite what he used to be . The years of poutine and labats , elfin Canada , has made him much more Rotund and a little more out of shape .
If you look at the pictures where he's like big and slovenly , that's kind of where he does that now , not exactly in great shape and not as intimidating .
Let's see there's one with him stand there like Gandalf , and there's the other ones where he's like , looks like on a park bench or like the airport .
Yeah , that's actually one of the last photos him alive Photo at the airport .
What is up with that stick ? It looks like , I mean , he has the same stick when he stand there , like does it go around his back or his neck ?
So we'll talk about that in a moment .
Actually yeah .
Yeah , we'll get to that . So , yeah , uh , great Antonio . Not as great of shape as he once was , but , that said , this dude is in his 50s at this point and he's still pulling buses through Tokyo . That's impressive . You can actually watch video of him to . You pulled up four buses in Tokyo . These ones , I don't believe , are full of people .
Well then , he's a weak ass piece of shit . Yeah right , Pull the bus without people .
Pull four of them without people . That's even easier than pulling one , cuz you got the other buses pushing . The really hype of the match even had a non-title match between the two Antonyos , where the great Antonio actually beat the hometown Favored , and the disqualification just to show that the threat is real .
Was this what he was , like you said when he was 50 .
Yeah , okay , let's see we're 1976 . I believe , 1977 , so he is 52 years old right now .
I mean again , let's let's be real . I mean , yes , that's old , but let's also remember fucking Rick flair was still out there where it has stupid going Whoo , he was like 60 plus . I mean I don't think he's doing anymore , but I remember seeing him wrestle when he should not .
Yeah , I know what you mean .
It's kind of like this kind of sad man yeah it's like at this point , it's like there there's no winning when fighting Rick flair , because if you win win ago You'd be a 70 year old Ric Flair if you got taken out in geriatric If you lose dude . You got your ass kicked by 70 year old .
Ric Flair .
Oh .
Anyways , back to the great Antonio . So great Antonio actually had a pretty good setup going here in Japan , because first he wrestled Ricky Dozen , japan's biggest star at the time . Now he's over there right wrestling Antonio and no key Japan's biggest star at the time .
So essentially , basically what he's doing is it'd be like wrestling Hulk Hogan in the 80s at the peak of his popularity , then 15 years later popping up randomly and wrestling stone called Steve Austin at the Ivis popularity and going over huge each time . So that's kind of impressive .
Oh yeah , I mean it's yeah , we as Americans that we talk about this , for just forget , there's a whole world out there with their own , like you know , levels of stardom . Yeah , that is actually . You know we laugh , but that's actually pretty impressive .
Yeah , I know cuz like
¶ The Brutal Fight
you're saying . It's like maybe people know about this guy . But yeah , it turns out a lot of people know about him , right . Yeah , it's kind of like the Vita's episode to where it's like , oh wow , this dude might actually be a bigger star than most of the people I know of . Listen to .
Japan . I mean each star , each country has their own levels of , you know , interest . You know Burt's beeswax yeah , there was actually a documentary on him . Apparently he's dead now .
But the guy who played Bert , like he is huge in Japan , he go , he actually would go to pay like there would be crowd the green up as he came off the off the airplane and he , you know , it's just huh .
Why I know that that's kind of yeah , I .
Mean if you really like his story , is it kind of sucks . You know he apparently cheated on his wife and so she'd like just took him to the cleaners , like she took these entire , like he lost all of it because of a spiteful woman , that this would be real . And but this guy also didn't need it .
I mean he , even when he had money , he lived like in a bus in the middle of a field , like Willingly . He wasn't like he was destitute , he's like I'm gonna live out here , let me just live off the land and just he grew bees and and in order to make sure , is the most green House he ever lived in .
He probably had a poultop place to place by a big Eastern European man , right , exactly . I mean , yes , well , I would fuck it . I Don't use gas here , I use manpower . There's $50 . Pull me to the store .
He's only allowed to pull me from his beard . He was offer he wants offer me a pull from his nutsack . I was tempted , was like no ha , beard only , hair only .
You offer me a pull from his nutsack Sounds weird and drip bring some weird images to my mind . So , unfortunately , some of the same problems from the Ricky Dozen tour reared their ugly head with the great Antonio . You began demanding more of this , more of that , more money , more fame , more everything . When will they learn ?
And uh , basically , yeah , he was fully believing right now that again he was the main draw here , not Antonio and Okie . As before , though , the Japanese wrestling crowd they tolerate it cause they're like , hey , this match is gonna go over pretty big people are loving it .
And again , like I said , crowds were still showing up to see great Antonio pull buses , cause it's still impressive . Alright , december 8th 1977 , antonio and Okie vs the great Antonio . Battle of the Antonyos , antonio Geden , the one , true Antonio , will be decided here . This match is , in fact , the incident that Bill Burr will speak of some 40 years later .
This match is short , with only a scant few moments , but man , it turns brutal fast . Alright , the match starts innoculously enough , with the two just exchanging blows and doing their standard posturing that normally ensues , but for reasons unsure possibly the whole , you know I'm the bigger star here the great Antonio decides to start no selling .
Well , that's what it's called in the biz . Basically , anytime the great Antonio and Okie would do a move , the great Antonio would just act like it was nothing . He'd get Dropkick . He would just shrug it off . Absolutely no , you know , work give and take here in this match . All of a sudden that's a big no .
No , yeah , you can tell Anoki is getting kind of annoyed because he's just like hey , man , give me something to work here , because I mean he's doing like full fledged , you know , running into full speed with the Dropkick and the great Antonio is just like roar . So Antonio and Okie is annoyed by all this non-selling shoulder rams , dropkicks , nothing's working .
And then things got really bad because at one point the great Antonio has Antonio and Okie kind of bent over and starts hitting him on the back . And then all of a sudden he starts hitting him harder and harder and then next thing , you know , he starts hitting him , starts wailing on the back of Anoki's head and neck .
Now , in case you don't know , this is actually what's known as a dick move in the professional fighting world , because you can severely injure somebody by hitting them in the back of the neck or the back of the head , like it doesn't even take that much force and when you're a big , you know 450lbs , 6ft4 bodybuilder you can hit pretty hard and not realize it .
So all of a sudden Anoki gets this rain of really stiff blows to the back of his head and he realizes he has had enough at this point . He pops up and immediately just starts smacking the ever loving crap out of the great Antonio . Very stiff smacks to the face and I guess smacks probably makes it sound a little less brutal .
I mean , these are full fledged , knock somebody out , kind of smacks to the face .
Oh yeah , I mean , once in a while I would have like that doesn't sound bad . But I have been graced with little YouTube short slash , tiktok , clips of the slapping , you know , the slap olympics or whatever , I don't know what it is .
And good lord , I mean my favorite to this day is this little skinny olive oil looking motherfucker slapping this Bruno dude and he just slapped the crap out of him and of course nothing happened . And then , basically , this giant thumb of a man just takes his fucking head off . I mean it is amazing his head to go flying across the fucking stadium .
It was glorious . So yeah , I could picture what you're talking about .
Yeah , and you can actually see the ref at this moment . As soon as Anoki pops up and starts smacking the hell out of the great Antonio , you can see the ref get this look on his face like oh I may have just lost control over everything here . Several stiff hits to the face and the great Antonio does his posture thing .
He literally kind of looks at Anoki and is like okay , you want to fight , let's fight . Rawr , let's do this . And Antonio Anoki said alright , I'll honor you on this . We can actually have a real shoot fight right here in the middle of the ring .
So it should be noted that great Antonio was a huge dude , but he was not a professional fighter by any means , or even really like a trained wrestler by any things . He was just , you know big dude , went out there and just swung his big ol' ham fists .
Anoki , on the other hand , was an actual professional wrestler and a trained professional fighter , even trained by wrestling legend Carl Gotch , who is known in Japan as the god of wrestling because he was so influential on wrestling style there . So here's how the fight kind of went down . The great Antonio slowly moves towards Anoki .
Anoki definitely moves behind him and grabs the great Antonio's left leg out from under him and trips him up , leaving the great Antonio on all fours in the middle of the ring . Anoki then proceeds to kick the great Antonio repeatedly right in the temple of his head , over and over and over . At one point great Antonio tries to get up .
Anoki runs around , grabs that leg , sweeps out from under him and goes right back to kicking him square in the temple Very hard . Wow , blood starts flowing . Antonio's head hits the great Antonio's head hits Matt unconscious Antonio . Anoki keeps on stomping him after he is unconscious . It's actually kind of hard to watch the way Anoki was going at it .
You would think he was Mark Walberg and great Antonio was an elderly Vietnamese man . He was just stomping the crap out of him .
That's sorry that got me . I'm glad it did . That's pretty messed up . He obviously had it coming . I don't want to like that's pretty . You know they both broke the rules .
But yeah , I mean with Anoki might have taken a little bit far , because he's a significant amount of blood in . At one point the great Antonio's manager runs in and he's basically like dude , stay down . You're trying to get back up . Stop that . He's just going to keep kicking you in the side of the head . Yeah , that's yeah .
It's like , oh my , like the whole thing , like you're killing him , yeah , stop , stop he's already dead .
I tried counting him . The way the match is cut up it's kind of hard because it's not like one seamless cut , but it looks like he delivered probably about a dozen kicks Rage filled kicks right to the temple of the great Antonio .
I'm going to think about this next time . My kids high school play football . They play . They played the other day and my kids football team lost to , strangely , my wife at high school alma mater . This is not exaggeration 70 to six . The first thing I was like stop , stop , he's already dead , now go for it . I'm going to think of this .
I'm stopped , he's already dead . Stop kicking him in the temple .
Yeah , then high school games they can get some wacky scores sometimes , especially when you see like the one team pull up and it's like , wow , every player of theirs is over six foot and you're like your own team , you're like , mmm , yeah , I never really cared about my own high school football .
I just didn't you know I don't care . But my daughter actually kind of cares . She heard about that . She's like oh , that's painful , like yeah , what ?
are you going to do ? Miami Dolphin scored 70 points yesterday , actually second highest score or third tie for the third highest
¶ The Great Antonio
score ever in a game .
I believe I've been getting clips of that . Like I don't care about football , but they're using anime memes . So I like anime and there's these anime memes or cartoon memes . Though one I actually remember .
You know that clip from family , no , the family guy , american dad , where the alien walks up , he's , you know Stan walks in , he's like take that sir , and then the Stan beats the shit out of him . You've seen that meme at all ? I don't think so . Okay , but I've said you that .
But again , I don't really care about football , but I've heard about the shlaking of the 70s or whatever .
So this incident , this match , this is what ended the great Antonio's wrestling career . His attitude and unwillingness to work with people just wasn't worth a potential draw he could be . And also the writing was on the wall too .
I mean he was old now to shape and still strong as hell , but yeah , it kind of looked like he was one of those guys that he probably sweat when he ate if he was like a very vigorously eating yeah . And Okie would later in life be elected to Japan's House of Counselors in 1989 and met with foreign dignitaries like Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro .
Then in 1990 he converted to Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Hussein Anoki . There's a follow-up on him Back to the great Antonio when it was all said and done . During Antonio's wrestling career he wrestled in nearly 200 matches . That's , that's a pretty impressive . Yeah , that is pretty impressive . And well as wrestling crew is over .
His career as an oddball local celebrity was not . He continued to do strongman exhibitions on local variety shows and talk shows and doing his whole singing act , and then in 1980s he even got some acting . In 1982 the French , canadian prehistoric adventure movie the Quest for Fire had our boy Antonio in it . He plays a massive caveman from the Kazam tribe .
He also gets killed in it . He's only in it for a brief moment . Remember that movie Quest for Fire .
No , I don't think anybody does .
Actually , there is . There's like one scene in it , if I recall . It's spoofed a lot but I'm not positive on it . Yeah , it's a base about caveman when a tribe has a power of fire and then another one steals it , so they gotta go back and get it back .
And yeah , I think it's kind of famous too , because it's all done like grunts and moans and cavemen speak no actual dialogue really .
I don't like that . Fins the bird of a sub . Sure , there was an episode of Fins the Bird where they did caveman and they , like they literally did the entire thing and cavemen speak , oh yeah . And they explained it away . It was actually they explained it away .
They actually interjected like a little like the creators talking about how they're like whatever it's great . Fins the bird is awesome . You should watch it . What is ?
it , quest for Fire . Quest for Fire . Yes , well , they can't run . Problem is that it that makes sense because he's a . He's kind of caveman looking . Yep , I've never heard of this . Oh wow , ray Don Chong's in it too . That's a Tommy Chong's daughter , okay , yeah .
She was a , wasn't she that female ? Yep , she was a commando . That's the first thing I like . Hey , she was a commando .
She wasn't Okay .
That's we're done .
We're done with that you know , commando was a movie Speaking of strongman . Yeah , yes indeed , he lied Anyway In 1983 the great Antonio appeared in a 20th in the movie called a 20th century chocolate cake , which is an independent comedy movie where he's seen doing what he loves pulling a station wagon . He's in it just for a brief moment .
Then also later on , and we've hopped forward to the 90s real quick for his last movie appearance where in 1996 he appeared in the low budget action horror movie the Abominable Snowman , where he played a snowman . I'm sure how long he was in this movie because I couldn't really find a clip on it . It's like super low budget .
I mean it's barely gotten IMDB on a kind of low budget movie . Oh , wow , okay , we're going to hop back to the 80s , 1985 , and the great Antonio approaches boxing promoter Don King and asks him . Asks him for a million dollars to finance an action film that he wants to make . Don King declines but hey , you miss 100% of the shots you don't take .
I mean again .
once again , like you know what good on you , you gave me a shot . I salute you , sir .
Honestly . Yeah , kind of makes me realize maybe I should just ask rich people for money sometimes to just see what they do .
Right , I mean honestly , I mean that's definitely .
¶ The Great Antonio's Eccentric Life
I mean there is a you know , going back to back , when I was a GameStop days . We were one of those conference . We were doing a little conference .
They break it out and me and some other bunch of other store managers in this room and the rep was up there with a bunch of stuff at the table and he's like , yeah , talk , the guys like talk about questions and blah , blah , and one manager's raises hands , goes , can I have that ? He's like , yes , you pay . And he gives it to him .
Like what the fuck man ? He got this ? Like really expensive , like $300 statue , like a little anime statue . I'm like , oh man , oh , I had to ask . I didn't realize that was an option . So , yeah , I mean again . Yeah , I mean it sounds ridiculous .
That dude probably asked for everything and gets so much that he asks for surprisingly good money because he's like , oh , you want it , well , go ahead and have it , I don't want it .
Hey , what's the word say ? He say no , there you go . Yeah , it's .
During the 80s he also managed to grow his hair into two real long dreadlocks that he started using for his feats of strength . Those are the clubs you were talking about hanging on his side . That's actually his hair . He would use these dreadlocks and he would challenge people to tug a war with him .
Be like , hey , grab these dreads and see if you can pull harder than me . He would go on shows too , and he's got two dreads , one on each side , and he'd have pulled straight out and have guys on each side trying to pull him around .
I guess it is hair . I was thinking that was like what kind of stick is that that would wrap around the best bet .
Yeah , it's hair . Yeah , he's going for full twilight , look kind of thing or something I don't know . And also , at one point he would even get metal rings braided into these dreadlocks too , so he could just quick hook stuff up to those rings and pull it . And , as you can see , these dreads were impressively long , nearly touching the ground .
He also decided to take them and he covered up the entire ends of them in a duct tape or electrical tape , and that way they became club like and he would use these clubbed ends to play golf with . Oh , you know what I was , like you got a little bit of a little bit of golf , just hitting a golf ball with his hair .
Yeah , I mean , it's like fucking the air butt thing , like there's no rule that says you can't so yeah , he would also let little kids grab on to his dreads and you just pull , pull them along like he was a horse and the kids were plows , just like hey , kids , grab on to this and just have like a dozen kids , just like Daisy , chained behind me , just like
ploop . Even in his sixties and seventies , this dude was still showing off his strength every chance he could to anybody who would watch .
To the horror of the game .
Travis , get away from that strange man . You don't know where he's been . He'd also become very large by the size of this point . He now bragged that he wore a size ninety suit and size twenty eight shoes .
Should we know , the shoes do look kind of big on him , and so does the suit I mean , yeah , he , he looks impressive , but then again it's like it's kind of hard to tell there's no context .
Yeah , there's like yeah , it's not just standing next to a bunch of people in a lot of these pictures .
Yeah , I mean I mean I'm seeing pictures of him . I see a picture was taken . He's standing in front of that VW bus . He doesn't look that big ?
Yeah , well , he's six foot four . Yeah , I mean , I mean I would , which is impressive . He's taller than I am . He's taller than I am .
You know , he's six foot four .
I don't know . Yeah , back then , back in like the fifties and sixties , when he was making his name six four four is probably a little bit taller than it is nowadays . Yeah , I feel like they have a person who wants taller than they used to be .
Yeah , I mean a lot of those things . It's like you know not only taller , but then you look at you know a high school yearbooks back then , like even in the fifties , like they look , like they're the thirties . Yeah like you look at the high school yearbooks now it's like , well , they look like they're fifteen .
Nineteen ninety four , the magazine the Montreal Mirror gave the great Antonio the title of the best great Montrealer . That's a nice award to win , I guess . So sometimes in the eighties or nineties I couldn't figure out when his name was going to be he kind of started to go on a downhill slide , going into disheveled poverty .
He began living in a tiny little one bedroom apartment by himself and made side income by selling photo montages that he made himself for five to eight dollars a pop .
Apparently , over the decades he held on to nearly every article that he could ever find in newspaper for him and he would take these and cut them up into little like almost like ransom note looking photo montages and then make photocopies of them . And then he would just buy this giant bag just full of those .
And if you ever came over like hey , great great Antonio here , to immediately try to sell you one like you want to buy this and buy it . If you bought one , oftentimes you like literally just reach right in that bag , grab out another and try to sell you another one right away , sometimes often the same exact one he just tried to sell you .
Well , you actually find a lot stories about him doing this on a Reddit and places like that and wrestling forums , because this guy made it all the way up until two thousand , so you actually get to see some like internet interactions with him , which is kind of neat .
If you look at the photos , too , you can actually see one of these little photo montages that he did . Yeah , I was just looking at him , yep , yep , all the words cut out and everything and yeah , honestly , they're kind of neat in a way they are kind of neat .
I mean there's really no like rhyme or reason .
I mean , yeah , I mean there's a well apparently also he was like borderline illiterate , like even if you ask him to sign stuff he did in big block letters which they say he was borderline illiterate , but I don't know . He's putting together these photo montages fairly well . Well , but he figured .
I mean with with these letters . He's just like he doesn't need to read them . He just needs , yeah , true , recognize words . Yeah , like it's recognizing shapes .
Yeah , that's like a lot of times when you see some like lower , lower quality , that's like lower quality but like animation on a budget , they'll send out their stuff to Korea and you know they'll have Koreans do like the betweens .
Oh , yeah , a lot of times .
If you see them writing like English words on signs and stuff , sometimes it doesn't look like it's like . It's like it's clearly drawn by someone who has no fucking clue what it meant .
I've also noticed too . Sometimes they'll flip books the wrong way because they read the opposite direction . Yeah yeah , I don't know if you ever noticed that before .
Every so often , yeah yeah , it's not like a super common thing , but every once I like I remember in DuckTales at one point Scrooge McDuck was flipping a book backwards while reading it and it's like , oh , that's funny . Yeah , then I learned later on it's like , oh yeah , sometimes in Korean animation they don't you know put two and two together and whatever .
Yeah , because I mean , you know , it's just like yeah , it's where the Simpsons is made , isn't it ?
Korea , yep .
Yeah , and every so often they'll reference like oh , the horrible conditions that the people that work at Simpsons .
But they don't do anything to fix it , yeah they haven't done anything about it Right , yeah , late nineteen , nineties and Tiger Woods has burst onto the golfing scene and the great Antonio is right there to challenge him to a golfing match . Antonio gets to use his hair and Tiger is to use his hair .
And he is to use his hair , which is disturbing , and out of his Motors . In this dialect , he gets into it's covered $60 million .
I get siebie an organization and the .
I mean that's what we're . That's never stopped people before not having x , y and z . Right around this time in the late 90s we also get the last appearance of antonio on television . He's part of a local montreal prank show .
Unsuspecting people go into a telephone booth and as soon as they use it , a mountain of a man with his back to them comes and blocks them from leaving the phone booth . At first people are annoyed at the dude blocking the booth until he turns around and shows himself be the great antonio . And suddenly the prankies are all smiles and laughs .
Because hey , who doesn't love antonio ? You actually see clips of this tune . It is kind of cute . He'll like sit with his back . People like what are you doing , dude ? And all of a sudden somebody will be like it's the great antonio .
He'll turn around , be like oh look at this , you are cute little scenes I guess , if they know who he is , yeah , he seemed pretty . Yeah , I mean , he was on local variety shows a lot and on the news and everything else . So when was this ? Uh , when yeah wait 90 , late 90s . Okay , yeah , sure , yeah .
And I mean he has been in Montreal since the 50s , so yeah , and again , I'm coming from a stupid American head where it's like well , I've never heard of him , so no one else knows .
Yeah , right , yeah , I'm sure there's some local Louisville celebrities or something that you could talk about and people are like , oh , I remember him . Everybody knew who he was .
I get . I mean I not really , you know , because that really pays it to look celebrities . But to the , I still will to this day . Or remember that fucking with Seattle . I mean I heard he's dead now , but the insurance guy Fonk , oh yeah , vern Fonk , yep .
Vern Fonk . I will always remember him . His name is Robert Thelike , the third . I met him once . Oh yeah yeah , got an insurance quote from somebody in his office . Nice guy though . Oh , I mean .
I OK , I'm not going to say he seemed like it , because everyone has their yeah .
Right , I mean , he's never know . He could have had a basement full of dead puppies , right ? I was just going to say something like that .
I'm sure when you go in private he's like I can't .
I love the tears of children that taste of blood , so crunchy of bone in sinew . Oh yeah , also around this time he gave an interview about his strength exploits over his life and he told the interviewer that recently he went to donate blood and they couldn't accept his blood . Why ? Because the doctor said that his blood was not of this world .
They said his blood was too strong to be from this world and that he obviously had the blood of an extraterrestrial .
Ok , charlie she back off . Yeah , right I mean maybe the ?
he went to donate blood and they were just like you know , you've got herpes or something we can't do . And he just was like I don't understand those words , I don't know what this hepatitis is , so he just came up with something .
He's like that sounds alien , mr Birds .
You know like you have all the diseases , so yeah , whether or not Antonio actually believed he had extraterrestrial blood or if he is just being a showman , we don't know , because this dude was a hype machine for himself . And who else would do it ?
Yeah , yeah , right , we are now in the early 2000s and the great Antonio now basically just visits the local donut shop , grocery store and sits on the benches outside of that and the local bus station hoping for a fan to come by and buy one of his photo montages , or even just hang out and talk to him because he is old and lonely .
At this point Again , you get to actually find a lot of people on Reddit and Wrestling forums talking about how they'd encounter him at this day and you'd walk up to be like hey , it's great Antonio , and you'd get really excited , like run up and give you a big old hug and maybe even like pick you up and toss you around if you felt like it , which you
know . It's nice that he's friendly and all that . But , as people will very obviously point out when they met him around this period , his hygiene wasn't very good at this point .
That's the first thing I thought of . Yeah .
And apparently he's one of those like when he came up to you you could taste him before you could smell him , almost kind of deal . And this was kind of unfortunate because he was lonely and people started avoiding him because he smelled so bad .
So that just kind of went spiraled , the loneliest and the more probably led to him being more depressed and not show that's easily fixable .
Like you know , I feel bad for him , but I mean he wasn't homeless , correct ?
Nope , he lived in a tiny little one bedroom apartment .
Yeah , that you know , theoretically had you know , a shower , and I mean he's . I know he's not making a ton of money , but soaps cheap .
So but also , I mean , once you just kind of get into that weird depressed funk , you probably don't even think about shower cleaning .
A fair , you know , and plus you know he had those giant dreadlocks , you know .
Yeah , and those probably kind of had a tendency to stink , I would think .
Yeah , I mean so I'll , I get it . I get it , you know . But I will say this you know , of whatever he was doing , he never got nine to five . Yeah , yeah . He , he lived on his own terms .
Oh , remember back in our John Water story how if you wanted to get a message to Waters , you sent it to a bookstore . Yeah , um , that's kind of how you did .
Great Antonia , if you wanted to get a hold of him , you went to a Dunkin Donuts and you left a message there and in the next couple of days he'd probably show up and get it , Cause he pretty much was just like show up to that store and just be like hi everybody every day or every other day , and then , uh , go about his merry little way on his route .
¶ The Great Antonio
September 7th 2003, . Antonio shuffles down to the Dunkin Donuts and gets his coffee and a little bit of a drink . He then goes to the grocery store he frequents , purchases a lottery ticket and sits at his favorite bench where he hopes to sell some more memorabilia to the locals .
He looks at his lotto ticket and thinks to himself is this the day the great Antonio strikes it big ? It is not . He passes away on that bench right then and there from a heart attack , peacefully at the age of 77 . Store employees came out , found him dead there , called the paramedics to come get him , took nine people to move his body .
Well , the paramedics took nine people to move his body . He died single , with no children or any next of kin .
Like we , we assume he died peacefully . It's like he died screaming .
It wasn't front of a store in public , so I would assume . I guess , yeah , because , or that was like people just want to cover it up .
All his muscles locked up , he couldn't scream . He's like trying to scream . Somebody pleased her . God , come find me . And no one like who else , pass the by .
He's like being . As he had no money and no relations , there was no money for a proper burial for him . However , once word got out , charities came out , raised up a bunch of money and the locals were able to get up enough money to give him a proper burial .
Mike Boone , a Montreal reporter , wrote that Montrealers flocked to the visitation at his funeral and he said in addition to television crews , there were goth girls , muscle boys and sentimental seniors here in attendance . So it's like he had an interesting little collection of people show up . Yeah , yeah . After his death .
Discovered among his Belongings was clippings from various celebrities , including letters from the office of Bill Clinton , old photos of the great Antonio , along with people like Pierre Trudeau lies in Manelli , lee majors , sophia Loren and Johnny Carson . As I said before , he was on the Johnny Carson show a few times . A few times .
Johnny Carson , yeah , I believe so . I think he was in there in the 70s and the 80s a couple of times .
I mean it makes sense . I mean I don't know why I was like you know , that was shocked as I was . I mean that's the thing , like you think , Johnny Carson like oh , yeah , the height of whatever . Like that motherfucker had you know 100 , 200 shows per year . I A yeah , they're not all like you know the most , but yeah , he had to have .
I'm not necessarily saying this guy's a nobody , but let's come on , you know .
You just really want to cut down the great Antonio just because you hey man , I know all Montreal loves him , in Japan loves him and candle loves him . But damn it , I haven't heard of this man . So obviously there's something wrong with these countries . So fuck that guy at . Everybody knew this great Antonio can get on a bus with Vitas and just go off .
Fuck off the rural China .
Purely because I have not heard of him .
Yeah , in 2004 , sculptor Armand Vianacore , he donated a statue in the memory of the great Antonio to the city of Montreal , suggesting that it be erected in Bobine Park in Rosemont , where the great Antonio lived for many years .
The city of Montreal said thanks , but no , we don't want to slice you of what we consider a vagrant in our parks .
Yeah , the populace loved him . But I guess the higher-ups in the series is kind of like yeah , he was just kind of more of a vagrant in our minds or maybe just . Or maybe the actual stat you just sucked . I mean , it could be that too , a good just been horribly ugly and they're like or has made a meat and chocolate like no ?
2008 , that core becker in group may I live Recorded a song and homage to the great Antonio on their album la linger on there as well , as they put on a recording of him . So about the great Antonio singing at the very end as a bonus track , and , yeah , you can actually find that album and these things pretty good , really does .
And 2014 , at least Gravel wrote and illustrated a children's book about the great Antonio . It's standard kids book . It's kind of cute . Shows him , like you know , pulling buses with his hair and you know bending steel poles with his hands and carrying logs , and I do not believe they left in the area where he got almost kicked to death by a pro wrestler .
In 2015 , a plaque and bench were dedicated to him in the borough of Montreal where he had lived for last 20 years , and that bench is now dedicated to the great Antonio and as known as the Antonio bench , yay . Also , that year , the American Folk Art Museum presented the great Antonio's works .
Is little photo montages in their museum as and those were the first institutional presentations of Antonio's works . So , yeah , great Antonio's works are actually in a folk art museum somewhere . Oh , yeah , also , his personal papers are also in the McCord Stewart Museum . He's in two museums . I should read further down the list before I started talking on that one .
Haha , and we're pretty much at the end of it , but right now I would like to leave you with some final words regarding our subject tonight . These words came from Antonio's landlords in an interview she gave columnist Josh freed , and these are the kind of kind words that we could all be hoped to remember by later in life .
The landlord said Antonio was a nice boy but so big . Every time he sits on the toilet , bang , toilet breaks . My son fixes and fixes , but always the same boom toilet breaks again . There you go , final worst
¶ The Great Antonio
. Remember the great .
Antonio , from who do you have ? Hey , what do you say about this really famous ten you have ? He broke my toilet a lot , okay .
I have always hit it , my kid up there to fix it and fix it , but boom toy just breaks again .
Be one of the afterlife . He's like no mentions of all the times that helped you out . All those times like right . Your son's car broke down once and I pushed started right .
I pulled her son to work in his car weeks on end . I remember upstairs .
Neighbors gone Do piano . I carry it up there for you . Not a word about that , just I broke the fact I broke the toilet like you guys are dicks .
So that's all for today's episode . Nate , what did you learn today ? I ?
learned about the Great strong man who apparently broke his toilet a lot . He broke his toilet a lot .
The bane of landlords . Ever large people breaking toilets . I think they would have got like a heavy-duty toilet to save themselves time and money , because they do have toilets for big and tall people kind of thing .
Yeah , I mean I'm glad I heard by this guy . It's just you know it is you just hate ?
the fact you just now learning about him .
Well that means so much of your life is missing now . It's just kind of a shame , like I mean , I guess he wasn't that big , but you know I'm gonna try it . You know , giant of same kind of you know he would . But he went to wrestling more than this strong man , yeah , but I don't know . Just it seems like you know what . He lived his full life .
Yeah , he didn't . He never got stuck in an office . He was never Greeting people that came in and are upselling someone to buy some fucking magazine . I mean , he was , you know , he lived his life , yep , yep .
Eastern European farm boy who just happened to be extremely strong , like to tell tall stories .
Yeah , I mean , you know what . We're still talking about that .
Yeah , we are talking about him .
That's more than can be said . The majority of the people living , you know , in the past and now he , you know , there's still . You know he might not be super famous , but here we are still talking about him .
Yeah , best part to do it . When I'm doing the research writing this script , I realized that this is the most comprehensive thing done on the guy . Almost everything that I've Uh read about him either concentrates just on like the strongman part , or just the wrestling part , or just like what happened at the end Of his life .
None of them really bring it all together , so that's kind of neat .
On this , all right so if you listen to this , you would know more about this guy than most other .
Yep , probably more than the great Antonio knew about himself towards the end of his life . All right , so there we go . That's the end of the soft-off topic . Next episode is going to be Uh , we're going to finish up the Ahsoka series , which I still need to watch those episodes .