PayPal jar open for Andrew to Tollvey, who sends us a quick buck and says, you know what, making up for being a loser skipping my morning coffee.
Hey, you know, I appreciate the fact that he admits the truth.
I mean skipping your coffee for that cast. Yes, we're back in the main event nineteen me some coffee for that matter, or some uh what was it Nordelli's m We got a we got a gift card there and it was for and we were like trying to figure out what the what the reference was to and it was apparently, uh, we had made we had made some kind of comment about pall Bearer uh being buried in Hash.
Rob Writes writes to us.
The Nardelli's gift card was inspired by The Buried, a live episode The Lapsed Tight and Office's lunch order while brainstorming dropping truckloads of earth onto Mickey James and Tristratus at WrestleMania twenty two.
Oh My God.
Episode also featured audio with Paul Barre being buried alive in hash. Lapsed Food.
You got damn right, damn right, that's a good shirt right there.
The Lapsed Food, The Lapsed Food the lapsed Cuisine if you will there we go said, do you remember joking about Paul Barre being buried in hash?
I don't even I don't even remember that. I don't. I don't remember it per se. But that doesn't mean it didn't happen. But it won us a free sandwich. I guess, god, you know, people don't I think. I think also the order from Titan Towers that they order from Nardelli's we joked about, which I do remember that.
I remember them deciding what to have for lunch because it's going to be a long, a long, a long meeting, long strategies.
Nordelli's Yeah, down the street perfect? Can I get an I'm gonna get a one of the the the full, the you know, a whole Italian with you with everything on it. Nordelli's way.
Let me ask you something. Can you put a protein bar in a sub?
Let me have something? Do you listen? Do you put protein in your subs? Well? Yeah, we put more of you down and I understand that. Do you put protein?
Do you put unadulterated way protein in yourself?
I'm talking about do you like the powder? Do you drizzle it on the sandwich? Absolutely not. No, I don't. I don't think so, well, why not do you understand? No?
What a wonderful follow up question. Do you understand? There's why not? And there's d what do you understand? Speaking of which, we talked quite a bit earlier this year about WWF taking off on NBC do you do covering the very first Saturday and it's main event from nineteen
eighty five? And we were talking a lot about the main event nineteen eighty eight, which of course we've covered in the archives with Hogan and Andre, but which did all those ratings and everything, and the Solar System was extra sharp on that, keeping us in check when we forgot certain things or didn't place things into the appropriate context. And so in the spirit of that, let's go to a couple of pieces of correspondence. This one here kicks us off, kicks us off from Josh, who starts starts
at a high level. He starts with Barth.
Yes, and that's where you that's where we all should start, honestly, uh Boston, Part one of this episode, you wished there was a time where people could just appreciate wrestling for what it could be. I'd like to share something I wrote earlier today, and inspired by you guys, that I'd be very interested in the co chairs and the solar systems thoughts. First, let me start with a quote from Roland bart quote. The virtue of all in wrestling is that it is the spectacle of excess. Yes, here we
find a grandiloquence. Wow, that's when you don't hear every day a grandiloquence, A grandiloquent word indeed, which must have been that of ancient theaters. And in fact, wrestling is an open air spectacle. For what makes the circus or the arena what they are? Wait for what makes oh, no, no, I see? And in fact, wrestling is an open air spectacle for what makes the circus or the arena what they are is not the sky a Roman circus was covered. It is the drenching and vertical quality of the flood
of lights, even hidden by red velvet. Wrestling partakes of the nature of the great solar spectacles, Greek drama and bullfights. In both, a light without shadow generates an emotion without reserve. There are people who think that wrestling is an ignoble sport. Wrestling is not a sport. I mean fucking says it right there.
Sports even has to has to make sure that nobody thinks he thinks it's real.
Yeah, exactly, even he's got a little bit of shame. Shame. It is a wrestling is not a sport. It is a spectacle, and it is no more ignoble than to attend to wrestled a wrestled performance that went down. Hold on, I know it's not done yet.
I know.
A wrestled performance of suffering.
Capital s yes, I mean what have we been saying, folks? Barth knew the great philosophers know what we're on than a performance of the sorrows of a mole?
Is it a mole? Our novel? Our novel? Arnolfi? Or Androma? Queen drama Kay? And Rama Kay? Isn't that?
Wasn't that Charlotte's husband and Rama Ka? Well, there's only was a lot of andrama there. Of course, suffering in wrestling is not a sign. It is the very meaning of the spectacle, even hidden by red velvet. Wrestling partakes of the nature of the great solar spectacles. Greek Oh that he repeats himself, Greek drama. Bullfights in both a light without shadow generates an emotion without reserve, and then from Wyndham Rotunda. Yes, Bray Wyatt quote, wrestling is not
a love story. It's a fairy tale for masochists.
Wow. A comedy for people who criticize punchlines. Wow wow, Oh love that. That's that's What do you like.
About a comedy for people who criticize punchlines? What does that do for you?
Like it? It's it's for what that says to me in a way. It's kind of funny. It's like, this is a place for the cynics. This is the place for everybody, for the people who don't like anything else. Yes, yes, yes, that's true. Yep, yep. A fantasy. Most can't understand a spectacle. No one can deny. Lines are blurred, heroes are villains. Budgets are cut businesses, business budgets are cut. It must
have been that year got laid off. But it can also be a land where dead men walk, where honor I mean, especially with the video games, that's all they do is walk. They always bring them back. Where honor makes you elite.
Were demon capitalized, agent capitalized, d so corny, where demons run for office and rock bottom is a finishing maneuver. No is a reason is a reason to rejoice. Woo, it's an escape.
Think about him, man, think about him, Man rock Bottom, Man, I know rock Bottom, but it means I'm a different man than this world we're in. Man, you know your dad doesn't talk like that. Right.
Where did this develop? Where did this kind of voice develops? Honey, I think we need a different accountant. Yeah, he is not a chip off the old block.
No, not at all.
He's not a chip off the old H and R block. No, he's not H and R shoulder block. How was that not a finisher?
You know what? It would be great, you know what, it would actually great if at one point Vince McMahon made bray Wyatt be an accountant, like be like, you know, I don't know like some some you know, play off of the I R s. And He's like, Vince, I can dig him in. I can do it in the Blues clues, man, I can it can be.
It can be a run. I can self referential. Vince's like, no, Pal, you get the wrong idea. No, no, certain no, no, this is it. This is your character you're gonna be.
You know, you're the son of an accountant, just like Dusty was a son of a player an accountant. Yeah, we we decry.
All the occupation based gimmicks of the mid nineties, But I ask you what's worse being the wrestling garbage man or being the son of a wrestling garbage man.
You're gonna be the son of a wrestling you know, a tax collector. You know he he taxes the wrestlers, and you tax our time. Hell bell, he might just tax his way to the title. He might tax his way to the title. Maybe you will, Maybe you'll do what your dad couldn't and tax your way to the WWS champions I can see it. I can see it right now. Pal.
You can grab a hold or you can rab a withholding.
You know you could, you know you got well how about this? You know you got brock Lesner's got the F five. You could have the W two. How about that he wrote them off?
One could say, you have a certain I don't know into it, shin.
You could be the Turbo tax collector. Well then, big fan of that. We could sell that to Turbo tax foul, right, we can You know you could do commercials. You just know you could that if they came up with the I R. Skimmick, in twenty twenty five. They would find a way to sell it to Turbo Tax. Absolutely all
the logos all over the fucking arena when they wrestled. Yes, yes, And you know he would have been they would have made a deal to have him be the spokesperson for TurboTax, and he had been in all the commercials and then he'd like beat people up or something.
You can see you can see bray Wyatt, like the commercial opens, he's got the spectacles on. He's kind of like dressed like a square accountant guy, and you know, the tax season can be distressful, and then he rips it off and everything blows up like the Super Bowl commercial they did.
Oh my god, it'd be so great. I think it'd be so fucking funny. Well, they still got a Rotundo, don't they. Isn't is it one of them? His brother? Yeah, although he's disappeared, but well, you know, it's tax season, after all, they could bring him back as a tax collector.
And after all, like the tax office blows up and bray Wyatt walks out the front door. They just show Mike Rotundo in the background with his his glasses down at his nose, shaking his head, like, what is going on?
Oh, I think that'd be great. I think that would be great. Uh, demon's running. Brock Botto is the reasonly woo. It's a it's an escape, a reason to point at the blame at any one but yourself for two to three hours, an excuse to be a kid again, and nothing matters except the moment we are in.
He's describing, by the way, all entertainment.
That's fine, I know exactly. Wrestling is not a love story. It's much more.
It's oh, hope, Well, it certainly has a way of attracting the hopeless.
So I can see what you're trying to say. And in a world surrounded in hate, greed and violence, a world where closure may never come, we all know a place that has that has hot and cold hope on tap for better or for worse. Not anyone who has never understood professional wrestling. These two quotes might seem contradictory. Barth paints it as grand theater, a morality play of suffering. Why it, on the other hand, describes it as a sanctuary, a place where reality bend is just enough to let
us breathe. But the truth is they're saying the same thing, because wrestling isn't about competition, It's about emotion, Daddy, And for those of us who have lived through trauma, who have led our who have had our lives rewritten in ways we never asked for, wrestling offers something no other medium does. It takes pain, the kind of pain we bury, the kind of pain that festers in the back of our minds, and turns into something we can see, something
we can feel without consuming us. Wrestling externalizes suffering. It makes it something you can cheer for, rage against, invest in, and most importantly see resolve. It used to be that way.
It used to be that way because I never you know, I've never, when considering my deepest, darkest pain, broke out in chance of this is awesome.
Yeah. No, No, or even my my biggest joy usually my big my happiest moment. We be speechless, right.
Yes, And rarely when I see something I cheer, rage, cheer for, or rage against or invest in become resolved and real in front of my eyes, do I think to myself, where's the herd camera? Can I get onto you? I'm always looking for the hard camera. Hold on here? Where was I?
I just accidentally because here's the thing, and the real world, closure is a myth. The bad guys don't always get what's coming to them, well neither in wrestling, for that matter. The people we love disappear and sometimes there are no answers. But in wrestling, Oh, in wrestling, the score always gets settled. The hero does come back from rock bottom, the villain will pay for their sins, betrayals are answered, debts are collected, especially if you're irs, and every tragedy serves a purpose.
It's catharsis plain and simple. But more than that, it's escapism. For those few hours, we don't have to be ourselves. We don't have to be the people carrying whatever weight life is dumped on our backs. Instead, we can step into an absurd, ridiculous, beautiful world where pain is temporary, where the fight is never over, and where the impossible
can happen. That's why bray Wyatt could create monsters and demons and yet still be one of the most human figures in wrestling, because wrestling is where pain transforms into mythology. We're suffering isn't just something that happens to you. It's part of the story and the world that often leaves us adrift wondering why things happen the way they do. Sometimes all we need is a place where the suffering means something, even if it's just for a little while.
Thoughts well, Josh, I would agree that it it does. It does provide a respite from the reality that people suffer all the time and nothing comes of it, no one, no life lessons are gained. There's you know, there's no there's no upside, there's no there's no silver lining, you know. That's why it's so uh, that's why it's so comforting to lean into visions of what happens to us after
we die. That's the that's the currency of religion in a lot of ways, is trying to offer that comfort when the plain fact is you see people who don't deserve things get shit all the time, or you see people who don't deserve to die die all the time. You see people who don't deserve to live live all the time. Yep, And so yeah, I guess, I guess
I get what you're saying. And that in wrestling, you if you see something that impacts you that way, you can take comfort in the fact that the storyline is set up so that eventually that person's going to get their So now the problem is that in wrestling, a lot of the people that are set up to be the good guys in those scenarios turn out to be complete pieces of shit in reality, right, which is not something you have to worry about, is it regards Peter
Parker or Clark Kent. But in wrestling, these are actually living, breathing human beings deeply flawed, which explains why they're in the business in the first place. And that really fucks it up because you can't always rejoice in a I don't know, in a hul Cogan winning in the end that gets taken away from you eventually.
But I don't know, do you have anything to say, Boss, it's you know, it's interesting. I can I can appreciate the the that that idea I mean, I think I don't necessarily I mean that that to me that this description of of this, this place is could be anything. Honestly, I don't think of it as just professional wrestling. I think if it is anything a book, this this could be the movies, you know, it could be movie theater, could be the exact same thing.
But because like for me, it sounds like a lot of what he's saying. It sounds like what they say every year at the Academy Awards, you know, when they have those big, long, drawn out like what the movies mean moments.
Which is equally annoying to me. Yeah, as someone who loves the movies, who wants you know, you know, just always had a fascination with with movies and being a part of it. I I it's like, come on, like what you what are you doing? Like, yes, there are listen. Art is art is the most to this day, is like the most underappreciated thing we can we do with that.
That that that in this world, you know, everyone everyone wants other things more than or things, other things are more important than art, even though there are a million reasons to show that art can be one of the most important things to to to help people or to do anything like it's but at the same time, it's like there are yeah, this this thing they do with making the you know, the movies feel so like this like it's saving people lives, save with people with lives,
and listen, it does. For sure, there are people's lives who are say by by watching movies. In certain way, it's not necessarily directly for sure, but it's like it's you know, those films are one in a million, you know, like you can probably count on maybe two or three a year that that could and don't necessarily don't necessarily get to the point where they have that impact. Now, wrestling, for me as a kid, when I first got into it,
I was not a real sports fan. That's not a sports key agreed, because I just never you know, it just I don't know it was ever. I like, I like, I've always liked going to games. I've always liked going to games, but I was never into sports like a
lot like most other people are. And that is the key deliinegation, because it's I'm not saying one's better than the other, but if you came to pro wrestling being a huge fan of real sports, then you want pro wrestling to be something different than people who came to it from comic books and and this is what I wanted sports to be. To me. That's what drew me in was the fact that holy shit, you know, like
they they're treating it like a sport. But this is what I want sports to be, right, Like, I don't even like boxing when I was a kid, like it just it bored me, you know, like I just never found it interesting, but this did because it was like, yes, this is what sports should be.
It's all high spot, it's all it's all what it's all towards the goal of making the most exciting things possible happen in front of your eyes. It's not all high spots. But it's also like it's like, you know, what do I want on like a football field. I want the other team to attack the team on the sidelines. I want the team to I want the teams to fight on the sidelines, you know, like have a pull apart brawl on the sidelines that doesn't get pulled apart.
Yeah that's what that they actually, you know, and that's all that's to me what wrestling was like, here are athletes who are kicking each other's ass because they don't like each other, and I'm like, that's amazing.
Yeah, it's boundless in that way, like you can. Pro wrestling allows you to let people react as we would all like to react deep in our souls, you know, but we can't because we live in a society and unless you want to be a total fucking idiot and you have to keep that inside.
And like and and and I can, I can, And it is interesting. It is a very curious thing. I will say this. One thing that I think wrestling has over any other form of entertainment is that at its best, there are at its best, it is a way to to to like, see, I take the you know everyone everyone Austin McMahon. Okay, everyone loved the idea of, you know,
being able to beat up their own boss. That was the way most people lived vicariously through Steve Austin's They would watch this to see, you know, to feel like, yes, that's what I want to do my boss. For me in high school, that's what I wanted to do to my principal, right, sure, any authority, you know, anybody exactly.
It was like, you know, there was that one you know, well not the not the overall principle, but the you know, the the dean of the junior, the dean of students juniors, and anybody that you felt was abusing their power, right right, or at least like didn't let you do what you want? Abusing their power? Yeah, well, not necessarily. Sometimes there are rules in place in which they're not abusing their power.
You just don't want to go by the rules, you know, And because like I'll say, the Dean, she never fucking shed an abuse her power, Like she just followed the rules. But you know, when you go to a Catholic high school, you don't want to have to fucking tuck your shirt in every fucking minute of the day.
And you tell yourself that if they really wanted to, they wouldn't have to follow that rule to a t and nothing would happen to them, right, right, And that that that's kind of what I mean by abuse of power. It's not that they're going outside the rules, which is a great point. I mean that is abusive power is when you go extra judicial in a way. But but the you know, if anybody can tell you what to do, it's very easy to to say, you know, you didn't
have to do that. I don't care what the rules say, you know, right, And that that's kind of like Vince, you know a lot of the things that he was telling Steve Austin to do in the beginning kind of makes sense just coldly on paper. Is if he's the guy who runs the organization and wants to keep it,
you know, respectable or whatever the gimmick was. You know, you can understand why he's acting this way, but you also, you know, wrestling gives you license to just stomp all over that with no consequence, you know, and we can't do that in life. You know, there there are people who will own us until the day we die. Yep, there is no other way to organize a society. That's when it lasts. And so agreed, we we navigate it.
We navigate accordingly. We download the rules of the game, and we don't drive ourselves insane trying to pretend that we can somehow circumnavigate that that whole thing. We just play the game. So good stuff, thought provoking.
Stuff, now, I yeah, and then they're they're they're parts of that that I totally, I totally can agree with, But you know, I just think, yeah, I don't know, in a weird way, I feel like Bray Wyatt, It's wrestling is too deep for him, Like, well, calm down,
I agree, Yeah, he got he rest in peace. I really enjoyed a lot of the stuff that he did, But there's a reason that it always hit a wall with him because eventually it gets cringe, you know, Eventually it's like this is this is calm down, you know, like, and most of us are not watching it so that we don't go into a depression watching it, right, because it can be pretty cool if done well right, And listen, all the power to him, because he's the only person
in the world who could pull off a fucking exactly a horror monster character and to that degree, like.
Off the kind of promos he was cutting, you know, just so abstract. And but there's something really kind of like sad when wrestling has to be abstract art. You know, it's like it's the one thing that should allowed. It should be on the nose. It should be what you see is what you get, you know.
Right because again, like I like I said, I see it like a sport. I see it like a fantasy sport, right, Matt, Right, again, you see athletes just want to beat each other up. They don't they don't hold back in their anger. They let their anger take over.
And there's room for character there, I mean, every sport. When you learn about some of the craziest personalities you find out Brian Pillman was Brian Pillman in a lot of ways before he ever became a pro wrestler of course, you know, and football players share a lot in common with the wrestlers, as Kim would talked about, So it's not like this is unique to wrestling. That you know, these people can have characters and successful at their sport. But I'm sorry, somebody wired like Bray was in any
other sport, it's not going to be a pro. He's too scatterbrain, like you can't. So so it kind of it starts to get a little ridiculous. And this was always Bray's problem when he took that whole thing and then try to get in the ring and make us care about wins and losses. That there was those spark moments where people felt he was so good at his care that they wanted to see him get his flowers.
But wanting someone to win the title to get their flowers is a lot different than wanting someone to win the title because they fucking rule and you know, right, and it's their time and they're finally getting their hands
on somebody and their opportunity. Bray, it was always like, okay, now now he has to wrestle, and everything that makes him interesting doesn't translate into a match, right, And when they tried to do it, it became a complete shit show, right, the right shit show, The Purple Match, what was it, the the Mountain Dew black Match, the worms on the canvas. They had to do so much of that because it's so impossible just to put them in the ring, and
you have people care you know, right, interesting stuff. Yeah, it definitely is on twin Peaks, Chad writes. Once, during a vacation of Seattle, a couple of friends and I took a twin Peak side trip to Tweet's Cafe, which is the real life Double R. Yes, I ordered some sort of open faced turkey sandwich. There was so much gravy on the plate it must have been a leader. My friends were making fun of my choice, so I decided, fuck you guys, and I ate the whole including the earth gravy.
Wow, good for you.
After lunch, I agree, I do like I do. Like what's the word I'm looking for? Spiteful eating? Yes, there is something to be said for Oh you know what I'm gonna do about it? And you know what I'm gonna do about all the anxieties that food gives you. I'm going to eat right now. Yeah, whatever the fuck I want? How about that exactly exactly after.
Lunch, we lot.
We hiked down to the bottom of snow call Me Falls. It was a steep trail. I knew I was going to be in trouble on the way back up.
Ready to go.
Nah, I'm enjoying this, let's say for a while, I said, But I couldn't keep k fabe forever. And during and after the walk back I had the worst heartburn of my life. That Solar System was the day I sweated. A leader of Brown Wow should have opted for coffee and pie.
Yeah, Oh my god. That's brutal.
The stuff that the Twin Peaks Journey is brought out of Solar System members. It's quite something to see a whole different side. Daniel James done. We want to thank you very much for your or his pledge. Welcome into the EPT or same to you, Macbuddah, Marty. We appreciate
the support that piece of shit. Hulkgan followed back up and asked why was Shawn's boyhood dream a big deal in ninety six but not when he was trying to win the Rumble in ninety four or when he actually won it in ninety five and got the shot at Diesel I call bullshit. I don't think Sean had dreams during his boyhood. I didn't realize.
I also don't think he lost his smile either. I think he had it all in a time in his pocket right all the time.
It's true, like when they were building Wrestlmingia twelve, Shawn never reflected on the other times he had title shots and lost. That wasn't part of it. It was like, this is the first time he ever got the title shot. I know, well, it was the first time he ever had a.
World title shot as a babyface, right, But that's kind of you know, that's kind of his point, like it wouldn't have been the achievement of a boyhood dream if you were a heel and won it. You know, no, I guess not because that makes you because I mean, listen, I agree. I'm not saying he should have said it when he was a heel. I'm saying when he was a face, maybe reference to failures in the past may have made some sense, you know. Yeah, well, no, we
don't want to acknowledge that stuff. It's a different time didn't happen. But pal anything, anything, anything prior to nineteen ninety four was old generation.
I think yesterday was anything I want to forget.
Is right. I think I don't want anything. I don't want to acknowledge anymore. Is not ever happened? Also right.
I didn't realize at first that Sean was calling his fans the click. I didn't even know what the word click meant. When the April Lank, I know, huh. That was the first time I hear you know, you know uh, because I I it was. It was so funny I heard it. I heard it there. I didn't really know what the fuck that meant.
And my mom, believe it or not, was the one who kind of she knew what a clique was, and she knew like and she started like, I remember she said it one time. So I heard it first with Sean Michaels. And then my mom said something about a clique, like are you gonna hate? It's just like that, she said, you know something. It was like she said, oh, you're gonna like hang out with your click or something like that, And I was like, what the fuck is it? What
do you know about clicks? Mom? Exactly are you gonna Then she explained to me what a you know, a click was kind of like a group or a you know, or I mean she put it as a gang.
But you're not going to buy me that sewn Michael's deadam jacket for Christmas?
Please don't, mom, Please, I have a little bit of pride and so yeah, but so like that's what I'm And then and then I heard it all the time after that, then I heard it all the time, and like there was even a group in high school, in my high school that people called the Click. Yeah. I was like, the fuck?
Is this ship very very clicky? They sometimes?
Yes, oh yeah.
When the upper linkediny six issue of WI magazine arrived in my bailbox, he writes, I remember the cover had a picture of Seawan Michaels in the headline kicking it with the click.
I remember that. Yeah.
Since I didn't know what click meant, I thought k l i Q you were the call letters of a radio station.
Oh that's good, there you go, that's yeah, that works.
Why is there an article in this magazine about Sean Michaels hanging out at a radio.
Station hanging with you got a kali q pop radio? I'll say?
And I had a wonderful point made here in conclusion. German Wrestling had a round system, but Auto vance was a round system, or was systemically round, systemically round. Suddenly it sounds like an area of academic study. Whenever you say something is systemic, all of a sudden there's professors around.
Yes, I believe, I believe Otto Vance was studied.
The question is it? The question isn't did it happen? The question is is it systemic? Question is is there somebody we can blame and displace from the top echelon? Is there a secretary or an executive director or a CEO that we can get rid of because of this? By claiming it is there, always is there, always is, looking for that sculp, looking for that scalp.
You know, wrestling podcast, the wrestling podcast that knows the boys need their candy. It's the lapsed Fan. He's the lapsed fan. Wrestling podcast with.
Jack, And.
It was always it's always so funny to me, Like, you know, journalists take on politicians all the time, but when they do an investigation and they want it to be perceived as having consequence, they need politicians more than ever because they need someone to submit a bill to change the problem that they spotlighted in their reporting. Because if no one wants to introduce a law to change what it is. They pointed out that it isn't a
really big deal, now, is it? Strange Bedfellows? Strange bedfellows? Chris writes coach chair, as I'm convinced there's a supernatural and centrifugal force prompting a twenty twenty five TNH re Listen.
Oh my god.
Years after the fact, I see posts from Brandon in New Jersey and he's feeling the same left wing vibration sweeping the nation. Brother, hide the ball ring around the Rosie motion for summary judgment, apropos, Hogan and Bishoff. Everything that was once bad is back and worse than ever. Those outside the Solar system are finally getting a taste of the established lesson that doubling down on the same tired formula produces and even shitty result the second time around.
Spoiler alert, everyone loses DNH. Pat Addison, we want to thank you very much for your increase in pledged. It seemed to you Richard Kimmel, thanks very much for stepping up in a very big way. Cliff has mort say in Royal Rumble ninety six to year co Chairs on the Night of Rod rum ninety six, I tried to bite my dad's neck. I'm just kidding. It's an old you bitter goodie real ones now n ninety six I got the biting thing under control. I did, however, have
another irrational fit of anger. Allow me to explain where Rumble ninth ninety six was the first Royal Rumble that I was going to watch live on pay per view. Like most of the pay per views I'd watched by the time, I asked my grandmother if she could ordered on TV since she had the pay per view box. I paid for it using the money I made from mowing lawns the previous summer. The night of the show, I gathered at my grandmother's house with her, my grandfather,
my parents, my sister Carrie, my best friend Tony. When eight o'clock came, the pay per view channel was still scrambled. Oh God, do we know the struggle? Oh it's the worst. Panic, panic, yep. I grew up from every minute counts. At this point, my grandmother called the cable company to get the problem fixed, but no go. After a while we all realized the problem.
Wasn't going to be fixed.
I walked across the street to my house with Carry and Tony. Feeling dejected and disappointed, we hung out of my sister's room, listening to the show through a scrambled feed. It probably wasn't the best idea because all it did was remind me that I couldn't watch the show, but we listened anyway. When the pre Rumble promos began, I was shocked to hear the voice of Jim Cornett speaking
for his newest charge, Vader. I was confused. The last time I had seen Vader he was in WCW and had become a good guy, joining Hulkogn's team of Hulk a Maniacs for the Wargames match at Fall Brawl the previous September. When ww F anounce which I know, and that funny that Vader left is a babyface. Yeah, like Vader Left is an ally of Hulkogan, not his you know, chief foil. When WWF announced that Vader would be debuting in the Rumble match, I just assumed that he would
continue to be a face. So you can imagine my surprise when I heard Cornett's voice hyping up the mast to Don. That surprise quickly turned into anger and with the lingering disappointment of not being able to watch the show weighing on my heart. My angle anger boiled over and I shouted, Vader, you're a trader legendary. Tony just looked at me and said, Cliff, come on. Not only did I feel betrayed by this fat piece of shit by us, I felt embarrassed for acting like such an ass.
The night wasn't all that bad. My mom ended up going to Blockbuster and renting me a wrestling tape. Oh that's sweet, so I could at least watch something that night. She brought home w W Hollyween Havic nineteen ninety four. Tony and I watched it and decided during the wow Arn Anderson Dusty Roads match to have a steel chair match. It was really just a pillow fight, but we pretended the pillows were steel chairs. I think I lost.
Oh yeah.
Anyway, my grandmother was able to order the replay of Royal Rumble two nights later. So you see, there was such a thing as happy endings. And I'm not talking about the kind that Robert Kraft got at that day Spond, Florida few years back. Yours truly, Cliff, and he says, I don't know goes on in New England to catch up is entirely appropriate for eggs and eggs sandwhich is you know, we're not going to do this.
No, we're not going to do this. Nope, nope, nope, you're wrong, You're wrong. Listen. That is the thing about ketchup, all right. The thing about ketchup is if if on certain foods, it completely overpowers everything. You know, some foods it doesn't. It did overpowers it does.
It really is a condiment that you use when you don't like the taste of the food on the plate.
I'm sorry, no, I don't agree with that because I love I love French fries with ketchup.
I love friend, but I love good French fries without ketchup. I like decent French fries with ketchup. I no, I love French fries with ketchup all the time. Okay, you need and and I need and listen, by the way, yeah, I need it on a burger listen.
And I don't want to just just ketchup. I need the full you know, I mean a lot of different things on on there. But yes, you do, all right, you know, listen, I want to ketchup and the mayonnaise and the yellow mustard and the relish and then tomato and cheese, all that shit. I want to I want
a loaded burger, but ketchup is a must. Without it, there's a weird like and I've had it without it, you know, someone you know Sometimes I feel like that, you know, I don't really want the ketchup and then everything else that I have on it, it just makes it too rich. But just having mustard and whatever, it's like it's just too rich all of a sudden, and like there's the vinegar miss of ketchup cuts that. See.
I agree, I agree with what you're saying. But when I I hold that against the burger, if it's too rich without ketchup, see, I think that burger doesn't.
Have to be that way. No, it's not the burger though. It's it's like if you put the condom, let me listen. Listen. Sometimes I have a burger with nothing, just a cheeseburger bread that's it too. That's spectacular and I love that. But when I want condiments on it. When I'm feeling condiments, I I need to have ketchup on there. I can't not have ketchup on there.
I need ketchup mayonnaise, mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, raw onion, and moroccan.
Sure, yeah, we need any manaise for sure need mannaise on there. Mayonnaise is like it's yeah, it's it's a miracle worker.
I've said this before and it's very clear. McDonald's cheeseburger's tastes like ketchup, Burger King cheeseburgers tastes like mustard, Wendy's cheeseburgers taste like mayo. And that's that's the So whatever fast food chain you grew up eating the most, that's what you want in your burger. That's my personal opinion.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean you're not wrong. You're not wrong with that, and uh it's just uh yeah, there are there are some things, you know, ketchup is it. I'm picky with it, like I can't just have it, like I can't and I usually can't have it alone, you know, like I can't have it alone. I need to have something else with it. Except with French fries, French frise, I can have ketchup and it's it's wonderful. I guess, I guess, I guess we are going to do this. Yeah, we are doing this. You can't. You
can't put it on the table. Listen, it's there, it's there, and it's gonna be it's gotta be cattle, all right.
So rolling on here, because Rob, he put a lot of work into this, boss, and I know we don't always like to encourage this, but he makes a hell of a case. He says, the Fantastic Four movie qualifies for Under the Cinema? Which one you're about to find out? Oh, you can convey his uh, his findings.
All right, let's see, let's see him dear openers of my anus, Like you know, I picture you got one hand, I got the other. Like we just let's go, Rob. Yeah, I feel like a real bitch. What do I to start? Because I'm rewriting you an email last May I wrote into my favorite college podcast and it was pretty cool to hear Jack read out my name in the summer mail bag. But the excitement ended right there when the email itself disappeared quicker than the tag team of Kwang
and Hakushi in nineteen ninety five. So here, I am pathetically rewriting that email to you guys, like the absolute bitch that I am feeling like I've called a girl on the phone, She's hung up on me, and now I'm calling your back. Ah, you know, I would you know? I think the line's good. Disconnected. I do this mainly because I saw the latest trailer for the new Fantastic Four movie and realized I had some info that might be of use to under the cinema and the solar
system at large. I've hesitated to send an email like for fear You'll think I'm looking for some free promotion in advertising. Just do it. Just do it. Won't make that decision. Just do it. I wouldn't dare. I'm well aware I don't have that PAPS money. But hearing about the whole ballgame in recent episodes, I thought the Chairman would got a kick out of hearing about another one
of their podcast children outside the world of wrestling. For four years now, the Marvel versus Marvel podcast has been applying a good, healthy chunk of that TLF approach to the world of Marvel movies and the long history of
the Collic books that inspired them. Hmmm, that's interesting. From the beloved greats like Sam Raimi, Spider Man two, the Avengers in Infinity War, to the terrible failures like Morbiasts and Madam Webb, to overlook slices of history like Howard the Duck, the Japanese spider Man TV show from the seventies, and the failed, low budget nineteen nineties Captain America movie starring the son of J. D. Salinger as Captain America. It's like TLF. We have no we leave no fucking
stone on the turn. That's right. I've been a member of the Solar system since not quite day one. I jumped board during the WrestleMania journey, and since then, I've been letting this college podcast ran my rear end to an embarrassing degree. Hey, listen, what have we done? Yeah, listen,
we've done the right thing that we have. I ruined an entire family holiday for myself by spending it going through the truly emotional Owen Hard episode telling my seven year old niece to blame Martha Hart's book for why I'm in no mood for family fun time. Please not recommend it recommended, but not at that time of year. Yeah, and then the pandemic ruined my life. I'm a comedy writer.
I've written for TV and radio shows in the UK, and I spent a lot of the year working with comedians on their tours and on shows for the Edinburgh Film Fringe Festival. But my job took a beating once COVID brought us a pain across the Pacific and shut everything down. During the UK lockdown, we were only allowed to leave the house once a day for an hour to exercise. For you fucking prisoners, you're fucking outdoors time to exercise or do some essential shopping quote essential shopping
to help stave off cavin fever and true madness. I began binging the laps fan from the very beginning, but I knew I needed more. I needed everything else to occupy my mind than the same way that TLF occupies my ass. It's like a you know, it's like a like a like a like an insect that kind of finds a little you know, like a like a carpenter bee.
You know, it's good. That's what we are. Like, we're like carpenter be's, you know, he's kind of like, you know, we burrow a little bit and kind of like nestle inside. I love it.
Well, it's good to know the ass stuff lands with a professional comedy writer.
Exactly, and once again TLF showed me the way. Of course, I couldn't do a wrestling podcast. I couldn't follow them directly in your massive footsteps for fear coming the Greg Gagny of the podcasting world. I've had two obsessions in my life, wrestling in comics. My parents even taught me to read using Marvel comics. They'd wipe out Spider Man word balloons and then write in simple things for me to read, like dog and ball That's pretty cool, Yeah,
a nice idea. One of the things I loved about early TLF shows is that it very much feels like an expert in the ins and outs of an industry discussing shows with a die hard fan to get the two perspectives. So, as a Marvel expert of nearly forty years, I got together with a friend who likes the movies but has never read a Marvel comic in his life. Answering all those questions, it's great and hopefully achieving the true yin Yang of the fan experience. We had no
idea how to put a podcast together. The first few episodes were a shambalic mess, until eventually I decided to borrow liberally from the format of The Men who Were going to town on my ass like a used chew toy do daycare yep. Every show starts with us exploring the production history of the movie, the behind the scenes shoes between Disney and Universal, the failed Marvel projects from Jim Cameron and Darren Aronofsky, the rewrites, the friction between
cast members, and everything else. Then we take a look at the business side of the comic books and how these characters were created, how Marvel Comics got started, and how the X Men and Hulk were failure to begin with, the fights between the publishers and the creators, and the legendary artists who died in poverty while their creations became beloved billion dollar intellectual properties. Like William Reegal says, don't
ever forget it's a bent business. And then, just like my beloved TLF and just like the whole ballgame, we deep dive of an entire movie or TV show to pull apart the great moments and the terrible one, stopping along the way to explore comic book history and trivia along the way. We're a modest little podcast, but the format we took from this Goddamn College podcast has helped us attract an audience for four years and deliver over
one hundred episodes. We've been able to run some small live shows, meet our listeners, and even won the Best Live Podcast award at the Nice Good Comedy Felt. The big part of that is thanks to the inspiration from your podcast. Sure, when we started, everyone told us that long form podcasting was a big mistake. Welcome. Fuck Uh, they ain't worse shit, Yeah exactly, But TLF did it, so we went from ninety minute episodes to four hour episodes.
Your commitment to telling the whole story informed how we approached our subjects. We wanted each episode to be the definitive account on each movie in character. Your mantra of no sacred cows informs how we report the history between companies and powerless creators and helps us call out the history of Marvel that is often racist and sexist. I even beg for Patreon support by browbeating the cheap listeners who don't support us and telling them they need to
do the right thing, which I ripped directly from TLF. Hey, beautiful thing. You know, like you know, good writers borrow, great writers steal.
Yep, all right, proof of concept just keeps rolling in, folks. I don't know what else we can say.
Last year we celebrated one hundred episodes, and soon we'll be marking five years of making shows, and a large part of that modest success comes down to the from the TLF inspiration. Now, obviously we're not going to tell the boss Man about wrestlers who've appeared in the Marvel movies. He's all over that front of the cinemat. But do the Chairman know about the uc WF in the Marvel comics? In the Marvel comics, there is a federation for wrestlers
with superhuman strength called Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation. That's better than World Class. I guess so Unlimited Class, that's kind of and included Ben Grimm aka the Thing from the Fantastic Four as one of the wrestlers. The UCWF first appeared in Marvel Comics just three months after WrestleMania one. And what was happening in that first UCWF story. It's about how most of the wrestlers were hooked on a dangerous drug to give them super strength for wrestling just
three months after the first Mania. This was such a prevalent thought in the public's mind that it could form the basis of a comic book for kids. So I submit for consideration that Under the Cinemat can include any Fantastic Four movie as it features UCWF wrestler Ben Grimm, as well as the twenty twenty one movie Eternals, as the character Icarus played by Richard Madden also laced boots
for Marvel's Corrupt Wrestling Company. Thanks for ten years of TLF and thanks for years I thanks for four years of MVM. Well that's interesting. That's an interesting thought.
Yeah, I think that was worth passing on because that's kind of something we never would have We would have just looked at the cast list, you.
Know, yeah, like does does the character like? Because because, if I'm being honest, like it is kind of an interesting thing because with comics translating into films, it's a whole different it's a whole different kind of beasts. So I wonder that if I kind of using even though like the I don't know how they're going to do this new Fantastic Four movie, but in the Fantastic Four movies that they've done already, there is no mention of
the wrestling. But does because the wrestling, because the character in the comics wrestled, does that make it qualify. Yeah, it's a great question. It's an interesting it's not I'll tell you what. It's definitely something I'm going to consider.
Robin followed up with a tremendous piece of proof. Take a look at what I just sent you. This is from a nineteen seventy two thing comic.
Gotcha. This is the way Dory Funk starts wrestling matches. And if it's a good enough for the champ, it's good enough for old Benjamin Grimm. He's fighting a hulk.
Yeah, that's thing talking. And they reference Dory Funk Junior.
Is that fucking Matt Murdoch down there? I think so, Like down there with the cane and the glasses, I think that is Matt Murdock. That's very interesting. I do not. I'm gonna I need to look this thing up the u c WF. This is I've never heard this before.
Yeah, that sounds definitely like a little side project for sure.
Yep.
Maybe we could call upon the expertise that we know is out there in the solar system around comics and really make that one say.
Wow, that's wild. Are you ready for this? Are you ready for this? I'm just stumbling upon this here. What the fuck? The Grapplers is a fictional organization appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. It is a loosely organized group of female wrestlers, most of whom game superhuman strength to the group known as power Broker in corporate I've never fucking heard of this shit. Well I'm not like, listen, I love comics, but I'm not like, I'm not an expert in it. So this is this
is wild. Yeah. The thing is that they've got it's got a bunch of different kind of you know, wiki wiki pages, it is. It is really cool.
I love instances of how wrestling is mainstreamed before Hogan. Yeah, I adore those examples because it runs so counter to the narrative that like, only you know, weirdo wrestling fans knew who the big wrestlers were before rock and Wrestling, and it's such bullshit. You know, It's like they're wrestling fans everywhere, including people at Marvel. And if you drop that, if you drop that reference in a Fantastic four comic
in nineteen seventy two. You have to think that most people would know who Dori Funk Junior is, Like, yep, there's no way you just say that. So I think it's really interesting.
They list forty nine members. This is a Marvel fandom, the Marvel fandom wiki, and they list forty nine comic book characters who from specifically from the Earth six one six the universe, which I believe Earth six from six is the real is like our Earth right, And let me see here who I reckon? I Ben Grimm, the Beyonder is one. Let me see. I don't know them. I don't know that. So were you a big Fantastic
four guy? No, not really. I mean, like you know, when I was when I was uh uh, when I when I was a kid reading comics, I was definitely a DC guy. I mean, Batman, Superman, those are my things. I liked X Men two, but definitely was a was a Sharon Ventura, I Wonder, I Wonder and slaughter Boy. There's some little uh, there's some there's some names in here that make me make me think that they're getting some uh, you know, some inspiration from from some folks
in the ring. Joseph Hogan brother, right, I mean Joe Hogan, who's talking to dude, Joe Hogan brother? What Joe Hogan is gonna fly? Actually? But like you know, more recently, I'm definitely more into Marvel comics and stuff and the movies. Really I did that. I love the movies. I'm I'm very forgiving of most of the movies, even the crappy ones that are currently being made. But you know, it's a you know, there's I want to say, you know, there's uh, there's stuff bruin. So maybe I'll be in
touch with Rob at some point. There's stuff bruin. I love it.
Hey, you know, if we can put a pod on, so to speak. Yeah, it's a good it's a good situation. Jarra Vargas, thank you for increasing your pledge. Welcome to the executive Duscer Tier. My friend Sam O'Connor same to you. A big ballsy move. We appreciate it, uh, Sammy writes to us, Hello, coach. Heres recently the latest okay, recently the latest iOS update. There is now a way to convert your own voice into your own sery voice by reciting a bunch of lines. Sort of vice will analyze
your voice create your own serie voice. I would pay big for Boss to record these lines so I can have my own personal Jesse or Vince.
Let me do that.
Holy shit, perhaps a cameo was an order?
Do you know that? That feature? No? Very interesting?
Well, Sammy, hit us up your email. Maybe we can accommodate.
Create a personal voice on your Oh you can do hey, hey, hey, oh you want to tell me? I want to tell you where to go fantastic union protection. By any chance, I'm going to tell you right now, I'm going to I'm going to do. I'm going to shed you down completely union union recognized roads. That's funny, Okay, everything. I read a series of randomly chosen text prompts and to
record fifteen minutes of audio. If you have difficulty pronouncing or reading full sentences, you can also choose to record short through. This is amazingly. Shits are changing rapidly. Oh my god, things are changing very rapidly. Oh my god, paranoid hogan. Brother, why are you making that turn? Dude? Right at the stop side, make a let Wait? What do you mean left? Brother? I mean yeah. People would be fucking like confused, like would I take a left
or not? Brother? Right, Why all of a sudden there's an emergency. Why can't we all chill out here for a second? Brother? Brother?
Whoa? Whoa, whoa?
What's the dizio? Whoa? Let's calm down, brother, shit, fuck you.
Appear you appear to be uh shifting in and out of the lane. Let's get this thing back on track, dude.
So you're shifting in and out of the lane, brothers, kind of get this thing back on track, dude.
Oh, Scott, I felt bad. I described somebody as he looks like a guy who comes to the restaurant to set up your POS system with a blazer on over a polo, and Scott writes me at work yesterday t shirt with a blazer who does set up POS systems? Feeling very yet act but accepting my fate.
I felt that. No, I don't know, I just had this. I just had this, like.
This image in my mind of somebody that like is at a restaurant at two point thirty in a blazer on a on a Tuesday, because he's working on the technology in the restaurant.
You know what I mean, He's not there. I don't know.
Sorry, you felt attacked. Not not that sorry, but it was funny that I nailed it like that. He probably deserved it, right, I love I love the thought of a listener hearing something we say and just looking down at themselves.
Being like, oh shit, I know right, like just called them out. Jeff has a great point. You see, it could be the exception of the rule. I don't know. Maybe you will.
Absolutely you are everything we always say. Let me make this proviso. I can't believe it took us ten years to say this. Everything we ever say is always present, company excluded. That's right, Jeff says, we need to list out every wrestler who's used their fat rolls to store food in eleven years of laughs. Oh shit, he says, hulk HOGI is a food truck at the farmer's market where everyone looks like Jeremy Allen White.
That's good.
The sandwich has caused thirty five dollars, take an hour to make and taste awful.
Yeah, of course, that's right. I'd be right with like it's like with Rosemary jam It's like right and uh and uh sprouts, Yeah, okay, stop, its fucking mess is what it is. Whenever, whenever Sprouts is involved, I'm gonna throw it in somebody's face. It is always very forced. It is I great sucks sprout like, don't don't fucking give me spear.
Here's a sandwich. Let's make it taste like grass.
Listen, I want to have eight a sandwich that tastes like you know, what a fucking human being would eat, not this fucking sprout, what a rabbit would eat. Right, Eric Holman's thank you for that big plage.
Eric, We appreciate that very good stuff. Carla Wright sad demize for the luscious one. Luscius Johnny Valiant. Everything tracks tragic and fatal collision. But then five thirty am puts a whole other spin on it, another world, black, whole of time. Five thirty am, he was valiant while staring down the headlights, no doubt. For those who don't know, he is run over by I think a bus and killed. And for close listeners of this American work, Jesus. For
close listeners of this American work. Who knows the kind of admiration one Vince Junior had for the Valiants, and and and Jerry in particular. One does wonder if that that fatal crash was ever fully investigated.
Fan wrestling podcast, the wrestling podcast that knows the boys need their candy. It's the Lapsed Fan. He's an lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack and and.
Jpiro Carlo also says, I'm popping like good old or orvile Reddenbacher over here every time. Jeanne says Baltimore and Bruno San Martino.
Yes, oh yes, yes see.
He says, the more I'm exposed to his personality, the more Monsoon comes across as the JB l of his era. Oh interesting, I did read that some of the talent. I think this was like in The Observer, anonymously sourced
at the time. But part of the reason people did like Goerrilla and commentary is because the talent was told to only hook the leg if it was the actual fall, and Gorilla would come on, deviate, rip you to shreds for not hooking the leg on every pin, just so he could like look cool to predict ahead of time that it wasn't the finish, you know, kind of getting himself over as prusciant, you know, and a sage observer of the wrestling that's going on.
I thought that's funny. I have no problem with that. I'm totally fine with that. He's allowed to do that. He's you know, he's he's sacred. I will say that, girl, Monsoon is sacred. Nothing you can do about him, He'll always be that way. There you go, no matter how, no matter how much you fucking hate his commentary. Don't care. Don't care, because he is a fucking he's yeah, don't care.
I can see old Italian ladies having paintings of him hanging out.
I don't know what. Perhaps, of course they did, of course they did.
Saint Marilla uh Steve says in Ireland, I think that w W Legends book and I didn't bother to look it up also has the story that hay Stacks Calhoun crushed to death his pet dog when he rolled on top of it in bed. Also popped at Boss's disgust that Oakerland's appearances. It has always been a joke in my family that my Gene Oakland is my dad's skinnier doppelganger.
That's pretty fun, that's funny.
This is the reason Pedro went back to WWF. This is in the Colosseum collection where we were kind of seeing eighty six stuff. The reason Padro Morales went back to w WF could have been because of a couple of bad territory runs in the Carolinas in Florida where he didn't have the work rate to make it higher up the card. I've seen results for JCP from the early eighties that have Pedro in the opening match. Yes, yes,
that's a good point. I don't think he ever was, you know, committed to go into that territory full time. It started to happen was as things got super intense between Crockett and Vince in eighty five, after Crockett took over TBS from Georgia, well they bought it from Vince, and so it was fucking war at that point because Vince failed on TBS and that can't happen right, And Vince started to run a lot of you know, Georgia cities and Georgia Championshiprestling cities in mid Atlantic cities and
start trying to push in those areas. They tried to clap back and go into the Northeast. They went to Philly a lot, they went to Boston a lot, did Crockett. And what they would do is they would they would pretty much sign up anybody who used to be used to be a top guy in the garden who wasn't for whatever reason, with Vince anymore. So you'll see a lot of those old JCP results with Backland having one off matches. You'll see Pedro, You'll even see Brunos San Martino.
I think a couple of times. I know Bruno went to Georgia in the early eighties with his son, like eighty two or so. He was on TBS when he was on the outs with Vince, with the McMahons, and and so that's more what it was. It was more and they would put Carlos Cologne in those cards to try to get the Porto Rican fans in the northeast to come out. That's that's more what it was. It was just like when they're in the Northeast, they would
call these guys up. They wouldn't go, you know, they weren't working fucking Winston Salem and you know, Greenspo or anything like that. Ryan writes, nobody getting limited from a rumble until the end sounds like a terrible idea. Oh well, got to see it once. Yeah, Yeah, We've had so many rumbles that now any any novelty that's left, I just want to lay eyes on it, even if it
doesn't sound like a good idea. Yep, haystex Caloon points out very smartly that the we're talking about Scotland, and how the hell does our Arnold Scoland get pronounced that way? He says, the double a in Scoland is an alternative spelling for a with the accent mark on it, which sounds more or less like oh oh h in English. So whenever you see double as, if you are to pronounce it like an oh Scoland.
Okay, well, so far you're telling you stuff that I don't find acceptable.
If you're wondering if it checks out, the answer is no. Christopher writes on the Colisseum collection, this is a unique journey. It's the journey we all took his VHS sluts. Yes, it's the journey of ww's video production and marketing machinations. And it's the journey of what the public would see in the video shops and aisles while they shook their heads and walked away.
What does this? What's this world coming? You know?
They have the wrestling now on video. I was at the grocery store today I saw hul Cogan. They had one with a luel Bano is that his name?
Like? What is this? What's this world coming to? Where this stuff is put out for public consumption? I couldn't help ask myself who's renting this stuff? Yeah?
Well, I mean, you know, like deviance. All right, Mary, I almost asked to talk to the manager. I'm serious.
I listen, I'm gonna I'm gonna put it. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna make a petition. All right, We're gonna this is this is not happening in my town. I'm gonna I'm gonna take Listen, no supermarket that I go to is gonna have that fake ship right out in front where where where people were good, We're good.
This is going from people. This is going from shaking your head to militant acted. This is getting very strange. Decent people, okay, good decent people.
When did wrestling hurt you? Pal? I'd like to recruit you. I like to make you a reporter of mine, please. I like that.
I like the way you sing, and I heard you got you got some concerns that very much aligned with editorial stance on this wrestling stuff. Not for nothing, Legion ao D, Legion ao D, thank you very much for upping your pledge on Patreon my friends. Charles writes, Hello, co chairs, first time, long time. I just want to pass along little newspaper blurb from nineteen ninety three about the Holkstore attending a bass fishing tournament on Lake Minnetonka.
Figured you guys would a kick out of it. I can't help but wonder if he stopped to visit the Ghania estate while he was there, and if Old Verne tried to take ninety percent of the fish caught thanks Rob A glory to the war Lord, ol glory to the Warlord. He said, I can't disagree with that. I want to send to you just so you can soak it in. It's not it's not a full article. It's just a picture of him standing up on a boat. It kind of looks, honestly, it almost looks like, I know,
I know what it is. It's an event he's appearing at, but I would say he's on set for a thunder and paradise almost the way he's dressed. Hulk line, hulk line and sinker.
It says, oh my god, fresh and resident hulk Hogan Center scan the waters of Lake Menatonka on Wednesday during a pro am segment on the fourth annual Don Shelby US Invitational Bass Tournaments Go. The event, which begins and earns today, raises money for the Ronald McDonald House, a program that offers a home away from home for families of children who are hospitalized for treatment for cancer and
other blood related diseases. On board with Hogan was pro Best fisherman Ted Capra left and Twin Cities business man Irwin Jacobs. Erwin Jacob's like on the fucking cell phone, like, get me the fuck out of here, honey.
You won't believe who I was on the boat with today.
Oh my god, it was he was you know the day. Remember we used to go see him at the uh you know in in uh, you know, Minneapolis.
We saw him in the in the ring, you have to say, at the Civic Center. We saw he blew the roof off the place. Roof, he sure did. Were you talking to Cogan? Hul Cogan raising money here for the Ronald McDonald House. Vad are raising money for McDonald's.
Crazy money to eat Ronald mcgradlem. Yeah. You can either raise money to support McDonald's or can raise money to eat McDonald's.
There's two choices. Declann malloy, Thanks very much for your pledge, my friend. We appreciate you being at a corner. Kirk writes, the point of winning the Rumble is to get a world title shot at WrestleMania. So giving a title shot to the runner up before the winner gets their shot defeats the purpose. What makes the concept specialist the guarantee.
No, it's the guarantee of the main event in WrestleMania to get a title shot.
The idea think it's making the champions next title defense against the Rumble winner a date with destiny.
No, it's the idea that whoever, because the idea is that you could. No, I disagree, because the idea is that the way they've always said it and the way it's been perceived, he's going to WrestleMania. Is that what WrestleMania. Winning the championship at WrestleMania is in the main event of WrestleMania is a bigger deal than winning in the main event of any other show. Yes, if you win it,
then you're crowned a true like legend. If you win it anywhere else, fine, but WrestleMania is the place where you get I mean think about mc foley. Mcfoley, the same fucking thing. He said this, and and and he said uhh. When after he lost his career match to Triple H, he said, the one thing I never did was main event WrestleMania. Yes, cm Punk, the one thing I didn't do was main event WrestleMania.
You didn't want to know something? Boss quickly on that. Yeah, him versus Roman Verse, Seth and a triple threat is the night one main event and he is. Cmpunk has been on TV crying that he achieved his dream of main eventing. But you're not, dude, Come on, man, like that was the one thing we were supposed to be
able to count on cmpunk for that. He wouldn't lean in to a bullshit narrative even if it flattered him, you know, like he would he would absolutely not rest until he knew that he was actually fuck If this is the main event, then he may evented against Undertaker in New Jersey. It's the same position. If it was one night, it'd be the Komain. It is the same thing, right, It wouldn't give me right break. This night one main event ship makes me absolutely sick.
To my stomach. I don't I don't. I don't mind it if it's done with something. You know that, I mean, I mind it, like I don't mind it. I'll tell you what what what bothers me is? I think it's an opportunity every year to have the women main event a WrestleMania. Yeah, fine, night they should do that. I think I think the main event should always a night one. Top two would always be right the or no championship match wherever it is, Championship match women and then championship
match men. That's what that should be. It shouldn't be this change of the ship like just settle it. It needs to be one of those two things.
I mean, God bless Sammy's ain, but like him and Kevin Owens versus USO's it was a highly anticipated match. Sure, Sammy Say's walking around calling himself the main event. Do you think a tag title match will ever headline WrestleMania. Well, I thought Hogan and Beefcake versus Money Inc. Was going to and it didn't for a reason because it's not a main event.
Well, well, because Hogan needed was gonna win the title anyway.
Well, you know, I wonder I wonder if Brett was gonna if Yoko was just gonna win, or if Brett was going to retain, if they would have done that, if they would have put Hogan on for last, I still somehow can bet.
If they if they were better, if they if they were gonna have Yoko's going to win and win actually win the title, then then they would have probably had Hogan and the tag titles going last.
Oh, there's a WrestleMania nine documentary coming out soon on Peacock. Maybe we can get some hints.
No, that's very interesting. I mean, I know, like the reason they're doing that is because of Vegas Vegas, but like it's like, of all the fucking WrestleManias, I.
Think that was one where they actually like kind of like Wrestlmingia nineteen, where they went in with a with a game plan and make a documentary so they have the footage. I think the other ones it's probably very scattershot because I don't think they went into every WrestleMania shooting the you know, the preparation, because this one was like way over the top in terms of like pageantry, you know the result of that.
I mean, they needed to do something for the fact that that they were going from like, what was it like, like sixty thousand people or whatever, or forty thousand people at wrestlming eight to like ten people. It's terrible in fucking Vegas. Yeah, you can.
Definitely see its ordering a documentary to like compensate for that. Like, this is actually bigger than anything we've ever done.
We need to ramp it up. This is Vegas now, you know we're not talking about Yes, indeed, maybe we have a smaller crowd, but you know, in terms of grandeur, right, I mean the camels, look at the cameras then everything, this is the most This is the most extravagant wrestlemaning we've ever had.
We are show business, Yes, somebody are the Biz show. Someone said as a clip events on bite this when they had that show of him saying that if there was one thing that could bring the Jews in the Arabs together, it was WWF.
Oh my god. But to go back to the thing, I don't mind because because the whole thing about the it's like they always said, they'll meet whoever is champion because the idea originally, the idea originally was that the champion was defending the belt almost every night on the road it's like Brett Hart, even though we're not seeing televised matches, he is supposed to be defending the belt
every night on the road. He doesn't defend in thirty days and more than thirty days exactly, so and he could potentially lose the belt on the road, you know. And so Yokozuna in ninety three would have faced whoever was champion in the main event of WrestleMania. So I understand the point. And I know you've argued that they shouldn't have a show in between, and da da da da. I I don't know. I mean, I I think it
only serves. It serves the current time where you've got like eighteen thousand world champions and so you need to like set up contenders. So I don't mind elimination chamber. And I think, I don't know, I think it would be a unique idea to have the just that the you know, then they then then like the runner up, they get an opportunity to main event WrestleMania if they win the championship, which you know, depending on the situation,
it's a different way to Mania. But everyone trying to get to Mania, not to the Bell right, which seems weird, but well, no, I think everyone. I think people want Yeah, I know that there is a weird thing that everyone wants to go WrestleMania, which I think is stupid. But I think the because like especially because it's not like you're not going to be at WrestleMania. Yeah, like you're going to beat WrestleMania. We know that, So just act
like you are going to be a WrestleMania. The idea is that you want to be in the main event of WrestleMania, and you want to be in the main event to win and not and you want to be in the main event going for the gold. That's that's what the Royal Rumbles about. Yeah, the Royal Rumble is is and the fact that you know, the fact that
it's not happening is stupid. I don't like when they have someone win the Rumble who is not going to even though I don't want, I didn't want seeing it to win a third Rumble because I like Austin having that that that that record. I still think I still think he should not have he should have won it. I mean, I know storyline purposes, it wouldn't have worked, but I still think you should have won it, Yeah, and because you know it'd be one.
Thing if Jay vers Guntu was going to be Night one main event, right and you were trying to actually make a straight faced case that both world titles are on equal footing. But if you're not even going to put that as the main event of Night one, what you know, who's Who's Who's shitn't who here?
And and honestly too, like the Sampunk doesn't want a main event WrestleMania. He wants to be in a world title match with the main event Wrestleman.
Everybody knows what Sampunk wants was to win the Rumble and then he wants to beat the top guy in the company wrestle Everyone knows that to be in the main event WrestleMania, it means you're in a world title match one on one. That's what being in the main event wrestlemanium could be a triple threat. But you know what I mean, right right? See if we know what
it is, and you know what, it's not Sean Michael's undertaker. Sorry, that's not the main event WrestleMania, even though it went on last Like to me, that never is the case.
It's just so I don't again. The idea is that the champions supposed to be defending their titles on a regular basis, again thirty day things, so they have to defend the title, and so they have to defend him a certain point. I don't know. I mean, listen, I I appreciate your your opinion. It's wrong, but that's the way it is. You know.
I'm revising my stance on Chamber in a way because I'm seeing how much they're struggling to keep the scene of thing hot between Chamber and Mania. If they did this at Rumble, oh my god, they would, they would. They would go stir crazy trying to find ways to extend this thing for two months.
Sure, sure, I listen, I don't that's because they put him on TV. Well we know what the solution is. But yeah, they're not going to do the most interesting thing about it was the fact that he wasn't on TV. That's what were talking that he wasn't on TV. Don't put him on TV.
They're they're almost like a discipline in the booking office. Do less, do less, do less. Like as you're laying out an idea, right like, and as you lay it all out, Okay, give us give me the full pitch. Okay, do less, do less, do, keep keep going until all you're doing is what's absolutely necessary to get the angle across. Because that's that's the that's your essence right there, you know,
that's your essence. When you gussie it up beyond that, like you're just making pro wrestling way more complicated than it needs to be. And the fans don't appreciate that. There's some because they need something to write about every week or tweet about that, that like that. But for the most part, it is like so suboptimal. It's like the reason for a match has got to be a
sentence or two and that's it. Yeah, And you can't be can't be booking a match, you know, with with thirty minute monologues in mind for seven eight straight weeks, you know.
Oh, I know, I know exactly like you know, I mean again, you know you think about too WrestleMania is of old, and I know it's a different day and age, and I know you can't follow the same format, but think about even a WrestleMania eight, like you know, half the shit that was that that would that would create feuds and drama happened not on this not on the screen. Yes, you know, like all all the Flair shit happened via like promos, off site, off site promos and the fucking.
Magazine like they used them a point. Show me, show me, I'm sure it happened. I'm not saying like, if you show me, I'm I'm wrong here, because I'm sure there was moments. But you know, show me Randy Savage and Rick Flair face to face in the same ring before WrestleMania. Show me Hulk Hogan and Sid face to face in
the same ring before WrestleMania. No, not, No, didn't have this idea that you have to have a wrap battle with your pay per view opponent every single time is so wrong, especially in a social media age where these guys could keep things alive round the clock and they report, they report to television to do whatever the promotion has
for them that night. I mean, I mean it would have been you know, would have been great, like like to to you, you know, you know, in a weird way, you know, would have been great to have like dood b cameras. I don't know where Sina was, I don't know if he was filming a movie or not, but like to kind of be wherever he was and trying to get a word with.
Him, and he doesn't. He doesn't take it like you get like that. To me, that would be the only thing to have him on TV is to have like you know, like they're trying to get on a film set and the security is not letting them come on. Say you know, mister Sena has said no one's allowed to be on set, and yet you see him kind of walk by in the background. They do a quick zoom in and you see like a very very quick thing that that would have been great. I don't know, that's hard to come up with.
It took us like fifteen minutes. Yeah, here's how your detox. You set a soft rule that this is going to be the year where our main eventors never come to blows ahead of the match and they never even really cross paths with each other. It doesn't mean that they're it doesn't mean one party is absent from TV, but we just have to get career creative about keeping the tension boiling outside of the four walls of the of the arena where raw happens to be that week. Yeah,
and I know that that's kind of it. What it does is it kind of dilutes why people buy tickets to see raw, to see all these stars. I know that, but I feel like, but you're not seeing But listen, you're not.
You're not. You're not You're not. If you're buying tickets to see John Cena every week, I mean you're not anymore. That's those days are gone, Yeah, very much. So you're not buying those those tickets. You're not buying tickets to see Roman Reigns every single week. You know you don't or I'll say this, Uh, even though they're not on every week, people still buy tickets to go. So there's
something there. There's something that people. You know, people want to buy tickets and people want to see Cody Rose, people want to see uh Jay Uso. They want to see all these other clowns and and and it's like, you know, you still have that, but you can still play the you know, the anticipation of it sometimes. Like for me, when I was a kid, part of the reason I wanted to make sure that I was watching wrestling whenever it was on was because maybe Hulk Cogan will be on this time.
Yep, that's why. And you weren't it wasn't, like you weren't it turned off if he wasn't.
No, no, But it's like, maybe he's going to show up this time. Maybe he'll be on Superstars or Challenge. Maybe he will wrestle a fucking jobber. Never did, probably never would. But you know that was kind of the you know, that was the thing that that maybe he would. And I think that is a good thing you're paying for, maybe him coming someone coming out, maybe seeing something interesting. You know, that's that's I mean, that is certainly a
lost thing. You know that that is a another something that used to be better that that I don't you know, we, if I'm being completely honest, was destroyed because of the Attitude era and the Money Night Wars. I mean that's the thing. You know. As exciting as they were, the Money Night Wars in many ways ruined the simplicity of wrestling. Yeah, and because now you can't have a television show so true without all main event caliber matches and a bunch
of showdowns and this and that. And that's why Russo caught such fire for them at that time is because he was writing it with no regard for that. He was writing it like you would write a television show designed to have peaks and valleys and beginning, middle, and end in one episode. Yep, yep.
And when you do that, you really do sacrifice. You really do kind of elevate expectations in the fans mind such that you know, you're kind of you're kind of fucked if you want to take your foot off the gas, which is necessary to make people want something, you know, but it feels like a sacrifice every time you take a break and let let let a guy cool off a little bit, or let the fans cool off on expecting something from them every week. I don't know, it's
just this is all what we've always been saying. The reason it used to be better is because it can't be the way it used to be. It's not because people are failing to make it the way I remember it. It's because the structure that they operated in in the past was superior. It led to a superior enjoyment of wrestling, a deeper enjoyment of wrestling because they didn't have the pressures they have today. You know, as much as you say,
you know they get guaranteed money. Yeah, that's all well and good, but they still have to make everything a fucking super spectacular all the time. And that's not that's not what leaves you remembering things. Everything bleeds together when everything is fucking epic like that. Yes, you know, if you have like if every month on Raw there's like a thirty minute classic, or every week on Dynamite there's a thirty five minute four star match, I'm sorry, I
think we all know. All that does is make four star matches mean less. That's all it does. Exactly credit to the guys that can pull that off. But we know better. We know that two or three of those a year is optimal, not not two or three a month.
Yeah, or at least you know, if you're gonna go if you need to have something, you have, have one of those. You know, have one crazy ass match per pay per view. That's fine, Sure that can be a slot. Yeah, but that's the idea is that you do you have those good matches, you have those epics. At a certain point, you don't make it so that it's the identity of all the time, you know, And again it was done
out of necessity because of the of the competition. I understand that you're trying to you know, ratings and stuff like that, but it just it it ruined. It ruined the wrestling like kind of the simplicity of wrestling, because you could have you know, think about all the if you think about all the matches like a WrestleMania eight, the one that had the most kind of dramatic and over the top storytelling was Savage and Flair the magazine
And you know, maybe it needed it. It might have needed it because on paper it might not necessarily have looked like a crazy ass, you know, big selling feud, and I I would argue that it was that and then them having a kick ass match at WrestleMania that made that feud more interesting and be able to last throughout the summer, you know. And but yeah, like just you know, less is more, even in wrestling, less is more. Yeah, I mean, so it's a lost thing.
And we're getting these promos and they're great promos, but there are too many of them. There are too many, like there's too much of a reliance on like did.
You hear what he said? Oh he was supposed to say that, Like like like how how cool would it have been if you think if like throughout this whole thing, like Cody comes out a couple of times, and he's promised seeing to see to know shows and then Cody's like, you know what, then I'm gonna I'm gonna take my time and I'm gonna fucking train. I'm gonna do something so that I'm ready for anything John Cena can give me.
And so he goes off TV. I'm like, you simply get the cameras are like following him around wherever he is, whether he's working out, whether he's at home, whatever, and he's doing you know, he can say something to uh to John Scena that way, but.
Instead they have to take the mic every week and start with something like the year was two thousand and nine, right, And a lot of people don't know this, but I looked up stop stop, do you want to win? Why do you want to win? How are you gonna win?
Right? That's your true north. Not it's not a biography every time, it's not an A and E biography special rights. There is a place for that.
I feel like when UFC was really rocking and rolling, their countdown shows were excellent at that. They take the main event and even if they told the story before, because the guys you may invented several shows, they would tell you their whole story and how the story leads to this fight, and how this fight it represents kind of like an intersection of of these two guys stories, and that's that's the format for that when you're really sitting down to try to add depth and history and
context to your match. But you don't do that in arena. You don't do that face to face on the microphone. Right, that's just kind of goofy to me at a certain point. I mean, I can enjoy it. I'm not saying it's bad television. And the guys, some of these guys are wonderful promos. We're kind of in a golden age of
that talking. But that's kind of my point. When we're not in the golden hage of talking, it's going to be a tough look, you know, like, yeah, all of a sudden, people that can't carry on in a thirty minute like fucking history lesson, can't main event.
That's stupid.
Think how many big money players you would have boxed out if that was a hard and fast rule. So yeah, Ben Buck, thank you very much for that big contribution. We deeply appreciate it. Seemed to you esc we love it.
Darren McAlpine, thank you very much for your support. On Patreon, we talked a little bit on the Colisseum video collection about how Bruno s and Maartino once talked about being booked against Hulk Cogan and Wheeling West Virginia in nineteen eighty five or eighty six, shortly after he made his comeback. A lot of folks looked in that Forrest Connor writes, Hi, guys,
first time, long time. I was listening to the latest episode and heard the Bruno audio clip about facing Hogan and how Hogan ducked him and Sergeant Slaughter ended up taking his place in Willing, West Virginia. I looked on Cage Match. The only time Bruno wrestled Slaughter and Wheeling was on March eight eighty one, which of course was before Hogan came in in fact perk Cage Match, well not before he came in, but before he was read and yellow in fact perk Caage Match. On the wrestled
three matches and Willing in his career. Connor rights of Bruno. Hogan was working in Japan from March sixth to the eleventh that year. So as funny as the idea of Hogan ducking a match with Bruno, as it looks like that isn't true. It also appears that this match, if it was considered, would have been when Hogan was still a heel, which makes sense to me. Yeah, I did kind of take Bruno's remarks in that shoot interview as
saying it was during Hogan's run as world champion. Yeah, but I guess we can't necessarily disqualify that he was actually thinking about before Hogan was the made man, before he be four.
That is true.
That is not sure he really delineated that. But the context that they were talking in when that question was pose was what did you think of, you know, the company turning the whole, all the keys over to Hulkogan And that's when he said that. So it's kind of weird. Mike says, first off, this is a good one, Okay, sick with us. First off, still sucking on Musk's tit while begging for money. Remember when you didn't care if anyone listened, then cared if they paid money. Whoores like lapsed?
Vince loves at least acknowledge you were horrors. At least JP is talented with his caricatures.
I can.
I can read other people's actual research. It's not a skill anyways. Listen to edges reaction today, aw grand slam. There was still real emotion, even if it is an old school heat. I'm giving you shit. I love your college level podcast. That's what's what's even better is being able to assume the form and manner and speech of a detractor. Right, Yes, that's the key. That's the key is.
When absolutely that is the key.
When you because it lays bare, how basic and thin the critique is when somebody who doesn't even believe it can convincingly convey it, you know, it's like, okay, that's it's not complicated to just be a contrarian. It's actually quite easy and easy to mock as well. By the way, Yeah, Sam Wrights where I'm from, the lapsed fan always plays I like that line, Carlos says, shout out Stravinsky, very apropos regarding Lynch. Twin Peaks is a rite of spring.
The co chairs have a very sharp blade to discern the pretentious s thet from the mad genius. You're goddamn right, Carlo, I want to say that again, and don't you fucking forget it. If you're within the sound of our voice. The co chairs have a very sharp blade to discern the pretentious s thete from the mad genius.
That's the sound of a sharp blade.
Very good, very very exceptional judges of character around here. Yes, and we're not going to let anybody get away with carrying themselves like a mad genius without us deciding they've earned it. I'm really glad, he says, David Lynch fell in their favor. Give us an open question. You're you're hearing this from the Solar system. When it came to diving into Lynch, they didn't know if we'd like him, boss.
I know. I mean listen, I I I wasn't sure because you know, again, I don't. I don't necessarily, like I said, I don't necessarily like his movies. Uh for the most part, I I they they don't. They don't for me. They don't mesh with the actual individual all the time. Oh and we well they do. It just takes a long time, right right, But like it's like a it's a it doesn't necessarily like you know, it isn't.
It's not obvious, it's not all you know, And no he's just you know, and the stories you hear about him, he's just such a genuine, a genuine, fascinating human being. Was because he's you know, dead.
Yeah, yeah, we have to use the correct tense. I mean, that's why we're that's why we're here after all, that's why we decided to pay tribute in a lot of ways. That's right, and I think that's that's a point very well taken. He says, I'm really glad David Lynch fell in their favor. Could have gone either way, that's true. Yep, could have been either.
He could have he could have he could have come across like a complete douche, you know, But he's just he's too genuine, honestly. That That's that's what's about. That's what makes him stand out. He is so genuine.
At the time it aired on TV, he says, there was equal applause and derision in my house for sure. Yeah, we can't discount like as much as where to looking back and retrospect it at Lynch and Tree Peaks, there are people who lived through it who remember just how kind of polarizing his style was on mainstream and television like that.
Of course, no question.
Rob writes, Terry Funk is too wonderful? What David Lynch is too incredible?
Mmm?
Rob Or Luthernoli writes, Hello, gentlemen, I hope this note finds you well. I just learned that Quentin Tarantinos Once upon a Time in Hollywood qualifies for under the Cinemat.
Which one was it? Once upon a Time in Hollywood? Oh yeah, yeah, I knew that that one's on the list, but he can tell me.
He says that Wikipedia explains why Booth is inspired by Gary Kent, a stuntman for a film made it the Spawn Ranch while the Manson family lived.
There, and and he's it's also partially, supposedly partially based on Judo Jene Bell. It's based on him partially. The character is partially based on Jean Le Bell. And there's another connection, yeah.
Says here as well as stuntman professional wrestling two times Judo jam Jean the Bell.
Well, there's another connection as well, and that is the fact that Jungle Boy was a PA. He was for real, Yes, he was that he because his dad was in the movie what's his name? Oh my god, Luke Perry, Yeah, Luke Perry and Prairies in the movie great movie too, Is it.
Really Oh my god, we'll that'll have to go, that'll have to go into the cinemat for sure.
Oh yeah, Oh yeah, yeah, it's it's been on the list for a while. It's I'm I'm I'm waiting for a real uh you know it's gonna be it's a doozy. It's yeah, yeah, so I'm I'm waiting. I'm waiting it'll happen.
Though that the conclusion of the Twin Peaks journey, Jerome makes a great point. He says, what other wrestling podcasts, what have the willingness to do something like this? I think one of the biggest issues people in the bubble have is never leaving their bubble and absorbing other forms of art. The Chairman hero willing to sit through borderline experimental short films, and one of the weirdest filmmakers ever. I think watching the movies and shows really enhance Jack
and JP because they're not just focusing on wrestling. Am I the biggest Lynch fan either?
Know?
Am I glad this weirdo got to make a number of movies and shows. Yes, this is a unique, one of a kind journey that no other wrestling podcast would even consider this is how they all earn my Patreon dollar. Mm hm put it on a fucking headstone, man, I mean, that's the bottom line. Josho had that very thought provoking email about Barth and stuff that we read in a moment. Ago also did the following, gentlemen, Well, my current situation only allows for a modest pledge to the Patreon and
my dad will ever reach at one K club. It's fine, pal, See, I'm going through a lot of shit right now. Most days of late have been more lapsed to Barnett than anything. But after seeing Hogan's reception on Netflix, and after the momentary thought that Jack's Skinner theme was somehow on Netflix raw, I smiled, I have faith in wrestling fans again, just a little bit. Then I figured, what would lapsed Vince do?
Inspired by what I am calling the varied Vienna voyages of softball, said Uty, I sent hel Hogan a twenty pack of roll ups. I have the receipt right here. He sent it.
He sent it to Hogan's beach shop. Oh my god.
Figured, you know, the boys need their candy, and it's not like Hogan hasn't accepted shipped candy before.
Good mind.
Not sure if he had someone's signed for it, but would love to see the reaction. But I'm pretty sure we all know how it'd go. I think I'll get an autograph picture. God, I hope not unless it's the look on his face upon opening and reading the note. There it is proof of delivery, Betty Crocker Fruit roll Ups variety pack delivered right to the Hulkster. Wow, I'm sure he was concerned. Jordie Angus, thank you very much
for that executive producer pledge. We appreciate it. Matthew Folk to welcome very thank you very much, and welcome to the inner Circle. Let's see, Matt writes to us to your co chairs, well you got me.
That's a shirt.
After many years of plundering my puckered and prolapsed poop shoot, I've decided the time has come to pay you for such a circuit.
Puckered and prolapsed poop poop shoot and got it. That's a lot of alliteration. I mean, shooting broke exactly. How do you spell shoot? Brother? What? That's not how you spell shoot? Dude? What you're trying to work me over? Brother?
You're trying to avoid detection by Ai.
Brother. Why brother, what are you doing? Dude?
Do you know that I systematically scrape emails for the saho.
You where dude? That brother? You don't? Brother, I know what a shoot is, dude. Right, so we're talking about Bamba bad were shooting? Brother?
Shoot you behind my back like you're obliged to say it to him?
Right, right? Right.
I cannot remember exactly when I first started listening to you. I am only certain that the first time you had me doubled over in pain from laughing was the debut of Hulk La Orange. The rest is, they say, is history. My earliest memories of watching wrestling involved sneaking downstairs in the wee hours to greet my dad after he had been on the road all week as a lorry driver,
truck driver if Here and Trump Land. I distinctly remember getting comfortable with him on the couch and both falling asleep to the vision of Yo Kazuna sitting on Brettart's face. After my parents' divorce, I continued watching throughout the Attitude era, only one minute around the corner with my new step siblings. Seriously, my dad moved six houses away. Weird, right, We would often pile on to a friends trampoline and wrestle, acting
out what we had seen on the TV. After all, it's not like there were any warnings to not try this at home. Right this is where I had my accident. Around eight of us had climbed to the trampoline no net, and we were acting out our NWOWWF fantasies. I'm not sure exactly how it had happened, but I was on my back, as often being the smallest, getting ready for my big comeback and hot tag. I leaped back up to my feet, ready to power bomba motherfucker, but instead
became the victim of en ring miscommunication. My opponent and an apparent bid to get his shit in, came down on me for his favorite frog splash. There was a white flash and a sting of pain in the top of my head as we both found ourselves on the patio floor. I placed my hand upon the top of my head to feel a hard alien protrusion and could see my opponent sat sobbing with his hands covering his
mouth as blood trickled down his chin. Upon reflection, my opponent was a bit of a shoot bully and still to this day. I get a sense of grim satisfaction at this memory. As I came to I came to the realization that he had bitten my head and the confusion as we tumbled off the trampoline and left his front tooth embedded in my head. His tooth is stuck
in his head. I came away from this experience with well earned respect from the boys in the locker room, and after having my head glued back together, quickly returned to action. And the following years my interest in wrestling was up and down. I remember looking in on Booker t, appearing on Raw and the Invasion Cinemania, discovering TNA on UK TV, and then Cmpunk. It was Punk that led me to seeking out ROH than PWG and NJPW. My
wrestling net had now been cast wide. My girlfriend now wife at the time, soon discovered my interest in wrestling, despite my best efforts to keep it my shameful secret. Slowly but surely I introduced her to Choice New Japan matches. Oh, this is this is not the move Matt to Choice New Japan matches. See this is different. This is like serious wrestling, closer to a sport. And we began to watch and enjoy Luca Underground together.
Oh that's nice.
We both loved Prince Pumah, the Lucha Brothers and the Bullet Club. This led to us being diehard aw Marx since its inception, as it featured all our favorites, dropping off briefly around the birth of our daughter. We attended all in Wembley and had a blast, but I must admit we are now a year behind on TV. We have a few other hobbies and shows who'd like to watch, and although I keep up with wrestling news, watching aw
TV is just unfortunately the bottom of the list. Anyway, I've now subscribed to you on Patreon as the sound of Fritz trying to open windows. I guess I sort of have a tentative request. Would you ever be up for charting the history of the NWA World Heavyweight title post ecw Oh my god, that's such a rotten idea. Who I believe it may be a glorious indie rific shit show. Yours and payment, Shane, and thank you for me. I mean that's bad. I mean we're talking unflattering situations.
That's just yeah. I mean, it's never had a glorious period since no, I mean really, since WW dropped it such a bad idea.
You know, it's funny, though it's funny, it's a funny idea. But I don't know, man, I don't know if we have the stomach for that. I mean, there's going to be a way one of these days. I'm just gonna say it, there's going to be away one of these days. If you want to really make it happen, you'll be able to. But be fucking careful, be very careful. The the sound of Fret's opening windows just became an eight eight eight pound pledgure. Thank you so very much, DP,
thanks very much for the pledge. Michael Tremarco, thank you for boosting your contribution to your co chairs. Sean wants us know that Bruno is all about the man of the community restaurant eater.
Oh absolutely.
When he had an interview on Jericho's podcast, Bruno insisted that it would take place over dinner at an Italian restaurant because it's not all about food.
Listen, I have no doubt, yes that for Bruno San Martino, it wasn't real food unless it was Italian. Absolutely all right. The SECONDI yeah, I'm not saying he didn't have other foods, but he would only do it out of like you know somebody else, right, politeness, somebody. You know, if someone invited out to dinner and they went to you know, like some other but no, no, no, listen, ninety percent of
the time he's eating Italian. Yep. It's like I imagine I imagine that that his kitchen was just lined with hanging spaghetti all right, just drying. It was brand you know, fresh fresh spaghetti, just drying on racks around his fucking kitchen. Like pretty much. I'd say, I would say every morning, like first thing was he would make he would make a a. You know, he'd make pasta. Do, let's do it every morning, make pasta do and he just kind of do it. And then he'd make his pasta and
he just drape it over there. You know it's going to be eaten at some point in a couple of days,
without a doubt, right, the longest couple of days. So he's always he's always got fresh pasta in the house, right, And then you know, and then he's like every Sunday, you know, every Sunday he's got Every Sunday he makes a giant vat of sauce, of sauce, of gravy, all right, like and and then listen, he puts it in and he puts it in containers, and he puts it in the freezer, you know, like he's it's ready, it's ready to go at a moment's notice. Like he's probably Bruno,
Sam Martino. Okay, listen to this. This is what it was. He had a garage freezer that was specifically for sauce, no question, all right, and he just had just you know, as much as he would put in there, he would take out at some point during the week, all right. That's it. He just always loads of sauce. Just what he had to do. Like everything. It's like it's like it's like a it's a requirement to get the week gone. You know, you're gonna make the pasta in the morning
and then you gonna make sauce every Sunday. I'm hungry's fucking go, let's go to Bruno's house.
It's like that video of him like having like a thirty five minute meal with a bunch of other hangers on and suits and yeah, just clang in the forks and everyone's just kind of sitting there waiting for him to say something so they can laugh at what he said. And you know, I mean he's he's running the whole table. And that's that's a big part of it for Bruno. It's the power of being, Oh, the guy at the table who knows the owner, you know.
Right right, he listen. He wants to be fucking Tony soprano Vesuvio. That's what he wants to be.
I'm so sorry to go there, but that's that's that's what I mean, that's it.
He wants. He wants to be that guy who knows the owner. Hey, we went to high school together, you know, like like the old friends. You know, he maybe you know what chances are Bruno gave him some money to start the restaurant. You know, like this is And I.
Want to ask you a question. When you go into a place like that with Bruno, do you have any fucking choice but to say you love the food?
Oh no, If you don't love the food, then you eat like it's the matter, what's something wrong with it? Stops? Like just just imagine the you know, how's your you know, how's your real scallop? Uh? Yeah, a little, a little, a little tough. It's like everything stops bearing at you. Well, it's stuff. I can't picture. That was wrong.
The main is thoughts, and so come one, it was you want to know what tough is? The toughest hair that arm, hair covering your wrist watch.
That's come here, I'll show you tough. Okay, fine fucking fist.
I'll tell a little story. Dana White, Dana White for the UFC, is from Boston and he loves I don't know.
That really, Oh yeah, I had no clue.
He always talks about it, and he was he was born in Maine, Connecticut and Maine, but spent.
Like his was born in Connecticut and Ma was born in.
Connecticut, up in Maine and Vegas. It's a very complicated thing, Jesus Christ. I know, it's very strange what what was what his parents?
His parents?
I don't know anything about his dad and his mom is like estranged from him. So it's hard to really piece that part of his story together. Frankly, so he uh, he loves this steak tip place in Southie, Okay. He talks about it all the time and he actually one time when UFC came to town, he actually had a media lunch there, and so all the media, like you know, goes and has these steak tips at this like you know, it's like one.
Of those.
Bar and grill you know kind of deals, like not not many windows, you know. Oh yeah, the shiny wood bar, you know, the whole deal.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, like dark wood everywhere. Yeah.
And and Lorenzo Fertita, who was the the guy from Station Casinos, the Vegas guy who Dane actually met in high school and became the big money man behind buying the UFC when it was on the verge of bank and turning it around and his kind of right hand man. And from a business perspective, he was there too. And Lorenzo has always been a guy of money and higher tastes. You know, he's he's uh, he's eating at the finest restaurants, I'm sure all the time. And I remember he had
he had some of that. He was there, and he had some of the steak tips. And I don't know if it was it's Dana that asked him, but somehow he was put on the spot just like we're saying, just like we're saying, he was put on the spot. How steak tips and I remember he's chewing, he's looking down and he goes solid, and I was like, solid, that is as close as he's going to get to saying I don't understand how anybody could eat this, how
anybody could seek this out? Why do these steak? Why do these little pieces of steak taste like terry aki? What the fuck is that? This isn't a Chinese restaurant? Why does this taste like teraoki? It's like, well, it's a boss. Why That's all I got out of Yep, it's looking at the plate chewing solid, solid, solid.
That's not what you want to hear. Solid, dangerous, very, That's the fucking danger in the eye of the beholder. At that point, that's where my mind went when you
did the Bruno like you know what I'm wrong? Yeah, yeah, Well, because you know I remember that too, Like I remember I had friends when I lived in La I had friends who you know, they heard me talk about Duncan Donuts all the time, you know, and it's like, you know, and how I missed Duncan Donuts coffee, and it's like, you know, then they go there and they're like, hey, we had duncanos. We're not dunking the most comedy. I'm like,
all right, I mean okay. I was like, you know, here's here's the moment of truth, Like, oh my god, how do you you fucking like this coffee? Yeah? I love it. I choose nothing else over it. Go fund yourself.
It's amazing, isn't it. Yeah, Splash Bandicoot, thank you very much for the pledge. We appreciate the supports to you. Golder Stern, Thanks for the cake. We'll earn it. Joseph al Paul, thank you very much for bumping up your
pledge to the co chairs. Haul Cogan writes, in the spirit of Ring of Honorable Mention, which is one of the greatest things you have ever said, Boss, ever ever ring of Honorable Mention for Ring of Honor, I stand by that, Haul Cogan says, in the spirit of that his favorite still is Boss is lapsed Vern calling the WWF in Wringling Brothers?
Did I said that? In Wringling Brothers, I said, as Verne as Vern, that's brilliant. Life and death baby, who the fuck new life? And we're going back to Minnetonka. Christian Hollister always such strong support. We appreciate your recent remote upgrade, Ruben Villigercia. Thank you very much, he writes, clearly a t left three matches nineteen ninety Nikolai Volkoff versus nineteen ninety six. I ed Johnson the yells. Oh, yeah,
of course that would be something to hear. Oh, there have to be a yell off.
You know, we did the t lf x X Games best tournament, Uh, you know, tournament to determine the best character ever. We should do one determine the best noise maker ever. We got Louis Albano Volkov, We've got Vince who makes noises. We've got, as he mentioned, the dust doy of Ahmed Johnson.
Who else fits? Yeah? Ah? Who else? Who else makes guttural sounds? Oh? Well you say, did you say Luger? Luger? Sure?
And there's Hogan all the things he said in t N. Yeah, that's the greatest utterance. What's the greatest guttural? Fucking suck.
Hard to beat? I mean, especially like you know when you're getting I mean there was there was an undertaker one too, What about Gian Gonzales. Oh yeah, that's a great one, man, I don't care what anybody says.
That's a great one, Adam writes, I finally joined the eptire. Thank you too for over ten years of entertainment. You've all been around the world with me. You were there in the hospital for the birth of all three of my children. You were there one morning the loss of loved ones, and you were still there. TLF is life. I love you, guys, and thank you for all that you have done for the solar system and my ass. Well, thank you, Adam. We do it for listeners like you,
Paul writes, we do it for ass. Sunday dinner, Bruno to David, garlic bread, Sammartino. Oh you come from good stock, my boy. I saw as man no stroll, nay.
And then he says, look at this, Carol, you've outdone yourself again. Oh you picture him huddled over a steaming bowl of ministras. Oh my god, it's the little condensation is forming on the gold rolex. I would love to have been a fly on the wall of the Sammartino home when Bruno was eating dinner. Oh, still in my heart, just the scenes, the absolute scenes that would have been spectacular.
That's brilliant, It's positively brilliant. What a scene, What a thing to picture Chris Man writes, the CoA Chairs enjoy talking about Bruno San Martino. The man is a walking continent of material. He is. There's no question about that.
So Adam, thanks for that big bump up and pledge. We feel you, man, We appreciate that. Steve writes, it's funny Boss mentioned Sopranos as Bruno constantly claimed he was offered a role in the show but didn't want to say that he was an unsavory character. Oh my god, Bruno is one of those guys. He he adds, that would act a Paul that being offered a happy ending.
What do you mean?
And then he puts an ellipses and says, while getting into a more comfortable position to receive said ending, yes, yes, has to play.
He would have to publicly decry that, all right, he would have to publicly say no way, But deep down he knows what he needs, Oh my god, what he wants. I think this is like a well known thing, but one of the my favorite things I've ever heard. Is one of the reasons that you don't see as many undercover stings in rub and tug joints as you'd expect. These these massage parlors that pop up in in areas where nobody wants a massage with no you know, absolutely
no light in every windows covered. They're everywhere. That one of the reasons you don't see undercover stings is because of a fear that the cop won't stop the massage therapist from finishing them off and actually, in the process break the law and succumb to the succumb to the pressure. That's just the funniest thing in the world. Some like dip shit lieutenant just like coming all over the place because god damn he did. Exactly.
Fuck, okay, all right, can we can we move? Can we go in now? Like there in the van outside, you're ready to fucking break the door down. This guy's curling his toes, his fucking sad sack, pathetic chief brunch motherfuckers sitting there fucking letting himself bubble over off. And they're like they're in the van, they're looking at the monitors. They got their index fingers on their ear with the earpieces, like, oh my god, Oh my god, he's coming, he's coming.
This is unbelievable. Exactly, it doesn't even enjoy it. It just it boils over, you know, oh motherfucker. Oh, They're like, this is a total bust. Now we've got a whole other problem on our hands. Like, oh no, is that chief? That's him again? She ticks all limp after all, just slaying there knowing he fucked up, knowing he fucked up, like button size cock.
You know.
The post nut clarity is on another level as he realizes, like absolutely, I have months of work to do to make this go away. This could follow me the rest of my career. It will that I couldn't stop Mama son from finishing me off here. Tremendous stuff. And that's what I think about when Bob Kraft, as much money as he has, can't help but pull a hat down low and get tugged off in Tampa wherever the fuck
he was. Tremendous stuff, that piece of shit. Holkogan writes, club Yeah, sure together, that's the new open.
Yeah.
John writes, I could listen to huge pops in old arenas all day. This is, you know, Colosseum Video Man, Colosseum Collection, Bruno's Comebacks, Adro's comebacks. Listen to that audio if you want to get an idea of what we're talking about.
It's phenomenal shit, he.
Writes, I could listen to huge pops and old arenas all day, whether it's wrestling, boxing, music, basketball, et cetera. There's just something about the way fans sound in pre HD film and that's it. The sound isn't digital. It makes a huge difference because it can flood, it can drown out, it can reach a level where it's just not being captured anymore. It's taking over the levels.
It's huge, it's a very it's a it's a massive, massive thing.
Such an effect. Anonymous, thanks very much for the doubling of your pledge. We appreciate it. Rick S, thank you very much for the support. Crosley Bendix, We thank you very much. Welcome to the EP tier. Same to you, Omari Corey Smell great homie. Thanks very much for bumping up to the vip tr. Chad writes, Hey, gentlemen, few insights for the next time there's a feedback show here. We are as far as Owens and Cody and the
winged Eagle belt. Didn't know if you caught it, but that's actually just a WW shop replica anyone can purchase. Wasn't a legit handmade belt?
Yeah? I got I figure this. Yeah, of course it's not gonna be because they can't do the real one because it's got the the F in it, and isn't the F the isn't that F the one that's a problem. I don't know for sure. I thought it was that F. I thought it was. I thought maybe more so I thought it was. I thought I thought that's what it was. Maybe all f's are. But yeah, they can't. They can't even use that one because it's not and of course
not they have they're not. And also they're not going to use that one, right, They're not going to use the one that isn't it doesn't have the current the w W logo, right all right, they're not going to have the F. The F is gone. The F never happened, The F has been gotten out, Yeah exactly.
I mean, how sad was it when they were going through their old school phase and started coming out with all the old merch with the old logo on it and they had to lob off the F. What what a laughing stock they made of themselves? Like yep, the raw thirtieth were like it was all everything was old, but it was the WWF logo without the f on.
It so pathetic, so pathetic, I mean even worse when they had that that Ultimate Warrior documentary or that something I forget what it was, but they showed a clip or they showed a still of the WrestleMania six contract signing with and they and they, they digitally removed the logo and put the E logo in.
They've shown like scans of articles from back then and gone to the trouble of manipulating the scan of the newspaper article to say WWE, when yes, there was no such thing at the time the article was printed. Yes, what's happening here?
They're they're they're doing the right thing for business.
Really, do enjoy Chad right to the SNME live call Saturday Night's main event. Glad you've kept up on them. Must suck to have to watch all that modern stuff. Though, crazy idea, but why don't they just go back to having Saturday Nights main event replace the lower lower level pay per views. It's a good question because now it's all on Peacock anyway, and they're making the same amount of money. I don't know if Peacock necessarily cares if you call it no mercy or Saturday Nights main event.
I'm sure they don't care at all. Just do about eight snms a year. I love this.
Yeah, and have your big six four to six pay per views, because then you can use the Saturday Nights main event to shoot the big angles for the pay per view, which was always the magic of Saturday Nights main event. That's where you shot your big angles that had to move units on pay TV.
But but it kind of defeats the purpose if you're like, if you're if you have like two Satura Nights main events in the run in a row, you can do it.
It's a little trickier. You just have to be you can just do less snmes. But I like this point where it's like, why do those have to be on top of And as we're seeing with how strategically they're deploying these shows, maybe it's starting to make some sense. Did you hear that they they booked a Saturday Night's main event to run the same weekend as aw's big all out Texas Stadium show in July in the same market in Texas.
Not they're intext they're gonna be doing in Texas as well. Yeah, holy shit.
So that's that's what Saturday Night's main event is there for whatever they need to fuck with AW on Saturday Night.
And like, I mean, it's kind of funny, like you'd think, though, are they gonna Is that gonna work? Though? With a mean because its main event is kind of less than a.
Pay per view it is for a pl what what's happening? It looks like is AW is actually gonna move their start time back substantially so that their pay per view it's pretty much going to be over by the time Saturday Night's main events start. So it was to not split at least the television audience. And I think they're like, it's it's Texas. So there's I think one San Antonio and one is one is Dallas, so it's far away enough that it's you know, it's not the same two markets.
It's an incredibly long drive if you're a ticket buying wrestling fan, right, So it's not like it's hurting, but the fact that they would do it, it's just classic shit.
You know. Oh yeah, that's old school, man, That's honestly, it's the way it should be.
And it was so weird because WWE shifted to Saturdays, which fucked with AW. But then AW now is the Sunday night pay per view company, because now they have a Saturday night television show and TNT Collision that they have to do. And so if they were to run Saturday night pay per views, which is very optimal for them, I think they have to cancel Collision, which which of course I don't know why they're just use it as a pay per view pre show, but that's neither here
nor there. And yeah, they're moving it up. And they're also now holding off on announcing dates too far out. They don't want to announce these dates too far out because wwe can can play aimes and counter program.
It's pretty amazing. Chat that's funny, Man's that's funny. Fucked up it is. You didn't you wouldn't think they would have to do that, but I mean you right, Like I mean, I guess all they wanted to do is just wait so they can fucking, you know, buy the company.
The craziest one I saw because UFC did this too big time. When number two groups would pop up, they would run head to head and book shows on the fly to compete with pay per views and other upstock groups are trying to do the best.
One was.
Bellatore, which was at the time a rising number two. It was no threat to the UFC, but it was you know, they were signing big time fighters. They were competing. Bellatour was at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut and UFC was in Foxwoods and Connecticut on the same night, almost the same night, running to the two Connecticut casinos.
That's how crazy it got. That was a wild night.
Wrestling podcast. The wrestling podcast that knows the boys need their candy. It's the Lapsed Fan. He's the Lapsed Fan wrestling podcast with Jack and carn S mjpro.
Chad writes, less belts, What the fuck are they doing with a women's US And I see, yeah, that's the thing too. You didn't see like, I don't know, maybe I'm a little unplugged. I gotta get some catching up in. But you don't even see like why they did it. It's very rare that. I mean, here's why they introduce those belts. It doesn't hit you over the head. It's not because it's not it's not a hit you or the type of thing. It's a it's a fucking all it is was about the equality of it.
I guess that's what it is. No reason, there's no reason to actually do it because it just, you know it, it just there's no value to it at all. I am there's no value to it. I am all for people making a living in pro wrestling. I don't want anybody to lose their job. Don't take this the wrong way.
But if you look at your roster and you say, you know, we've got so much women, so many women, that we need to introduce a second belt, so a lot of these women have something to compete for and to you know, orient themselves against, what you might be telling yourself is you might not need that many women. Frankly, I don't understand why, like you don't just employ the people you need at the time that you actually have plans for, you know what I mean. It's it's very.
Strange, like the tale of both rosters, Like what the what the company has in mind?
You know?
Like I said, I absolutely am not advocating that they just get thrown out on the street, but I do wonder what the mentality is of having so much talent under contract both companies. WW is better calibrated than AW. AW has so many people that they pay just to sit home, because unless they have a storyline for you right now, they don't even bother flying you to TV.
But they still pay you every week. So it's kind of a great set.
But the thing now is the talent is so much more geared towards They want to work, they want to contribute, they want to show off, they want to show out. It's not like the old days were, like you know, if you told a carneye in the eighties or nineties that like will pay you to not do anything, it's the greatest fucking thing they've ever heard of, that's right. What they get up in the morning forest to stumble into an opportunity like that. That's where everyone loved working at
WCW and the mid to late nineties. But still it's it's really weird why they don't just kind of say, all right, we've got we've got a couple of programs here. We're going to employ these people until the program is over, and then we'll cycle someone else in and get them locked under contract. Like why have like a bench of thirty options when you can only deliver one match of pay per view anyway? From that roster, it's it's interesting
to me. So yeah, less belts, of course. I mean, god, we all know three is the magic number the women's title for come on, I mean, this is not complicated, This.
Is not I mean part of Also, you know, it wouldn't be as big of a deal if they didn't have so many fucking world championships. Yeah, that's part of the problem. That's a big part of the problem. Like if they were just if they would just let the other belts be subservient to the big Belt, if they would just well, if they would just fucking cut a world championship, I've never under I still don't understand like what that does except dilute the other the real world championship.
Guntor should be IC champion. That should be enough, and then one day he's ready for the Big Belt, and that's a beautiful day, right exactly. You know, like it because because nobody thinks of it as equal, it's introduced it like last year, because the only time, the only time it was equal, there was only one time when it was equal, and that was that was like two thousand and four, two thousand and five. They did it.
They did such a great job at because I remember, you know, when when when Triple H first got the belt, it was like it was such a joke. It was such a joke, and it meant nothing. But when they you know, especially I think of WrestleMania twenty as being the time where both championships really meant something.
Yeah, I thought by then the World the Big Gold had so thoroughly eclipsed the WW Beltah's Belt of Choices. He wanted to cosplay as Rick Flair, of.
Course, and and I agree that it kind of had. But at the same time, you know, when Brock had the belt and when had the belt, yeah, there was like you know, when they have those, there was some Even when Sena and Batista had it, it was close, there was like there was a real like these guys aren't equal planes, Like there I can see them both.
But but since then, it's like it's just a fucking it's it's a joke, it really is, and title is what it is, right, there's no need to have two world champions and this in order to have two women world champions like you could easily. I like having a US Belt. I always liked having US belts. I think having three championships for the men and then tag titles and then three champions for the women and then tag titles. Is great, that's it. That's all you gotta have.
Clearly, and I think introducing all these belts it just goes to show that like they're not as creative as they like to think they are, because they don't know what to do if they can't orient the show around everyone chasing something that's perceived as the world championship, right, like they can the ideas that the ideas that you are supposed to be always chasing the world championship, but you're doing that by winning matches and winning against Imagine
that more prestigious, more prestigious opponents. Imagine that, you know, like yeah, and you can have it doesn't have to be one show has the world champion, the other one doesn't. The World champ can go from roster to roster. You know, they can be on SmackDown for two months if the top contender happens to be there, and they can Beyond Raw for two months if the top contender happens to
be there. But the idea that both shows have to operate on these two separate islands, because the only way we understand is this waterfall structure where everything comes down from this one world champion at the top of the hill, and we have to almost pretend for the sake of this self contained show that there isn't another world champion in the world, that the person doesn't exist. Almost is
completely stupid. It just begs people to not take the world title seriously, and they shouldn't, frankly, because it was just clumsily thrown back out there because Triple H didn't know what to do on raw. Because here it's no coincidence that the company absolutely lit on fire when Roman had both belts on his shoulder. There was one champion. That's how you fucking do it, and he proved it.
He proved it still the case. You look at how much of an attraction he was when he had both belts swinging, swinging like a big dick all over the place, and Becky the same thing. Becky never felt as big as she did holding those two belts high. Oh, of course, no way, come on, folks. And for rumble, he says, you think you miss gorilla on the death toll? I don't know think ninety six rumble is that what he's talking about about, uh rub ninety six is Gorilla on there.
Yeah he is, Yeah, because the next night he gets splashed by Vader, right did I?
I mean, well, I can I can see Meg. I must have missed him. I don't know how I missed it happens. Don't miss Gorilla of all people, he says.
And you are right to think of the rumble as where Razor always loses the icy Belt. He also lost it in ninety five to Double j and I totally agree to the rumble match would always go last Chat agrees. But so far as double Duty goes despite the negatives of it, years when the roster is so thin like in the New Gen years, wouldn't it benefit the Rumble match to do it instead of having tons of Jabroni's
in it. I kind of feel like anyone besides the guys in the World Title match should be on the table the years they didn't doubled dip, like ninety three to ninety five and ninety six or some of the least exciting rumbles to me. So he's saying, if guys can't come back to compete in the match at the end of the night, it just hurts. The rumble just makes the brumble too thin. I mean, he's not wrong, but I still hate it. And I never liked the double dipping at all.
I still hate it. Yeah, I hate it. Hate it.
You show up to the building trained and focused to win the Brumble, and then the other guys are trained and focused to win their matches.
You can't. You can't do both.
I mean you can, but it's just like one of the two is going to suffer needlessly, rightly, because the whole reason you put matches other than the Battle Royal and the Royal Rumble is to spice up the card and make it more attractive from a marquee standpoint, right, And if all those guys are just also Rumble participants, it doesn't really spice up the card because those guys are in the Rumble anyway. It's not something extra. Martin Wilson,
thanks very much for your pledge. We deeply appreciate it. My friend Matthew Johnda, thank you very much for the cake. It will be put to good use. Tim l thank you very much for generously doubling your pledge. We see you and appreciate you. Asked Blaster eighteen sixty five, that's the fucking ticket right there there.
It is absolutely and.
Rumble ninety six. Paul writes Dorance Junior wearing a two pey and thinking that it's the funniest thing ever that everyone is no selling. It just tickles me. He might actually be as simple as lapsed Dory. Ryan Harvey, thank you very much for your increased pledge, Sam writes, Jack brought up DJ Dwayn Johnson the idea of Dwayn Johnson entering at number thirty one this year. In the rumble,
we were talking about what if? Right, Yeah, that's literally and I did forget this, I'll admit it what Triple H did in twenty sixteen entered number thirty one and won it. Totally forgot that that was the rumble, that it was for the title. And then he he wasn't thirty one, he was thirty.
He wasn't thirty one. I don't think so he was. Let me take a look.
I think they did this thing where like, because he's the power player, he pulled a power play and got the things were a rumble.
Twenty fifth, twenty sixteen, twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, Pretty sure it was. I think it was twenty sixteen, because it was it was a year we went to Dallas, Texas for wrestling. I was sixteen. Yeah, no, he was thirty, Okay, he was thirty. He was thirty.
That's not what I meant. I said thirty one. Yeah, it should be here. I am falling on my sword. That's not what I mean.
I mean.
He pulls power play and adds a spot to the rumble.
Right, right, that's the idea. That should be an extra spot. Not that he's in it, but that all thirty guys have entered. And then like four minutes later, the clock goes down again, right, you know, or like when there's like or or even better, even better, the guy wins the rumble and the clock starts going down and then out comes Dwayne.
He didn't win, right, William, you ran. Thank you very much for your pledge. John Lamb, thank you for.
Remember remember remember when you know, remember like this was such a that that was actually one of the biggest fucking triple H bullshit moves ever when he when he won that, because not only did he did he win it, but then he's like, you know, here they are, they're trying to build up Roman reigns as the guy and he tossed triple H just fucking tosses him out, and then he crotch chops him and does all that ship
and comes across as the biggest fucking all time. It's such like a fucking like, you know, you're not you're not doing You're creating so much more harm than any sort of I mean that that's his m O really, up until most recently, I suppose, is that's what he would do. He would fucking know until that heart attack where he wasn't like a lie to actually get in the runing anymore exactly clips everybody.
Yeah, that was pathetic. There was something. There's some backstory too, and I'm trying to remember the details. I feel like it was supposed to be Roman and somebody else, and that having Triple H went it that way and get into the main event was like a plan B. But
I can't remember. I can't remember if it was just people wanted it to be someone else, or if it was going was supposed to be a Rock, because I remember Rock had done the thing where he came out with Roman, remember, and endorsed him after he won the Rumble that year.
Right, yeah, the year the year prior so, and everyone and everyone bowed the shit out of rock. They sure did, They sure did. That was the hint of things to come. Yeah, not pathetic.
And then you know, you know, you know Triple Agency in that record Gate and that record one hundred thousand plus crowd number, and it's I pulling the whole coga. How can I sign myself to that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah it was.
It was a decent match, but it didn't get didn't get Roman off to the races.
I'll tell you that. No, well, nothing, nothing really could at the times true, honestly, he was fucked.
I was searching for what David Lynch thing from the past. Someone had written to us about people leaving the theater. Carlos says he saw a racerhead in theater. People walked out. The people I was with were pissed. I felt that warm pariah feeling like being a wrestling mark, the sense of really connecting with something that earns contempt from the normis a racerhead. Mahalan drive in the twenty twenty two Weather Reports are personal faves. Blue Velvet was too much, too much.
I wasn't ready. Wow, you no shit? What is this movie? Why is people?
I'm ready for it. I'm fascinating I know, I know, got to make time to watch this thing.
I gotta do it.
Patrick Weisberger, thank you very much for your support and increasing your pledge recently. We appreciate it very much. Paul Epton, thank you for the support. Michael Tremarco. Another shout out coming your way for increasing your pledge earlier. Tim Lee, thank you very much for doing much the same. These people see these live calls, boss, and they need it. It's not complicated.
Yes, yes.
Nicholas Chapara, thank you very much for your increased pledge. Same to you, Andrew Mansow. And that's a meaty number coming our way. We appreciate that. Eric red Bee, thank you very much for your support. Sam also clarifies that yes, Fordfield does have one of those windows where you can see the sky during the day. Remember we were wondering about that, Yes, and you had that foggy memory that when we went to ford Field for WrestleMania that year that it was like it was yep, Okay, I can
confirm right, Sam Rivers, thank you for the pledge. Pete, thank you for the support. On Patreon. Josh Wright, welcome, my friend to the moat tier. You mighty mighty Motor Michael Kaprio, thanks very much for the support. Tim Weiss jumped all the way up to that fucking moat tier as well. These people don't fuck around man, No, they're not intimidated, Curtis writes, Love Rumble ninety six show.
Thank you.
Also loved your idea of having a rumble where all thirty people get in the ring before a single elimination. See he loves it. What's it going to be?
Is it?
Is it a bad idea or is it a good idea? It's not a bad idea, idea they haven't done yet, he says. Would be for one guy to be standing alone in the ring as the buzzer goes for number twenty nine, and those who immediately brawl and double eliminate each other, leaving an empty ring as they milk number thirty. Who would be the winner by default?
Yeah? I would that'd be. I mean that would be. I have mixed feelings about that, Like, it's definitely something that would be cool to witness. At the same time, it would be such a you.
Would have to choose that wonder very carefully. It'd have to be some big time heel or something, right.
I have be somebody who who honestly had no chance in hell in winning, but it needed to be someone yeah, kind of legit. Santino, No, I don't think so. I think that would have been bad. But it could have been m Alberto del Rio yea, Seamus Yeah Alberta now yeah, yeah, either of them like im not.
Just smarmy heels that you know, don't deserve to be.
There, right, and they really had no business fucking winning that thing, right, but they did. Yeah.
His idea, Curtis's vision is what you have is the announcers aren't emphasizing that they know who the last person is, so they did they haven't figured it out yet. But once this emergency occurs where the last two guys before number thirty are out and therefore number thirty is gonna win, they're like scrambling trying to figure out, like, who haven't we seen yet? Who the hell is this gonna be? Who's gonna win this fucking match? It'll be like the longest countdown ever.
And what would be amazing too, is if it was is if it happened they eliminated to each other with like a minute to go. Yeah, you know, like a memory before and everyone's gonna wait there and like, who the fuck is it?
You know when this would have been a stroke of genius ninety nine, that's how Vince wins.
Oh that works. That would have been pretty cool. Yep.
It has to be a rumble where you don't plan on putting the winner in the WrestleMania Maine.
Event like that year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep.
Kevin writes, I'm watching the nineteen eighty nine rubble Jesse. You just said you weren't eliminated until you go over the top rope and both he't hit the floor.
What the fuck? I thought it wasn't until ninety five? He says it what n Kevin reports back, Yep, all right, it's a look at it complicates things. That does complicate things. I will admit that if that is the case, and then then my argument is, uh is fucked. Although they didn't play by that rule any other year that year, that was never specified.
Absolutely yeah, there's apparently early evidence of it, but they did not emphasize it anywhere near as much through the night.
I mean, once you, once you, I mean, I'll uh. It is hard. I will say this though. What really bothers me more than the more than the two feet thing, more than the two feet thing. What bothers me is when somebody is somebody clears the ring. Yeah, when you clear the ring, if you're like hanging onto the rope like Sean Michaels did, I can kind of I can see that as being somewhat even though I still think
it's bullshit. I'm willing to excuse that. But when you've got fucking uh Naomi who is on the fucking announced table and hasn't touched feet, that's bullshit. You are cleared from that ring. You have been cleared. To me, more to do with It's got more to do with the fact that your foot hit the floor and you you let go of the ring. You let go of that ring rope, like you're no longer struggling to stay in.
We're not connected to the ring anymore. Yeah, right, you're floating right outside of the field of play. You're out of bounds. Essentially, you can't make a catch out of bounds, even if you're standing. Yeah, it's it's it's It gets on my nerves too, because it was creative for a while, but now it's like every year everyone waits for the spot and that's annoying, right. Shout out to Andrew for
bumping up to the moat teer. We appreciated, Austin says regarding breakfast sand, which is yes, a great breakfast sand, which is amazing. However, a great breakfast taco burrito absolutely properly will change hundred life absolutely, no question, he says.
JP's description is really good, but I have to say top three thing I miss about living in Texas is the ridiculous availability of top quality breakfast tacos, not only from the usual taco restaurants, but more importantly at hole in the wall joints connected to gas stations where you get the real amazing stuff.
Great. Oh yes, now I'm hungry with zero good taco spots around me in northern Virginia. Yes, sorry, Austin, that's the name goes, and I gotta make my own burritos all day breakfast tacos. Oh, I love breakfast burritos. Holy shit. If you do, you get a breakfast burrito, all right,
and you got? I mean I like sometimes I like a crazy one, no question, but more often than not, all I like in a breakfast burrito is eggs, bacon, cheese, and potatoes, all right, and if you've got the right amount of both ingredients, I put what I like to do. I put a little bit of like I'll cut it in half, all right, and I'll put a little bit of sour cream on on part of it. And then I put usually it's my own, my homemade salsa, and I'll put it on. Take that bite, forget it, forget it,
forget it. So I'll tell you what. I'm not crazy enough to have two. But when I'm done, I want another one. And I get big ass fucking flower tortillas like I'm not like the like like like kind of the size that we had at the fucking Mexican place in Brooklyn. All right, yeah, exactly, and I want another one. I want another one. Potatoes, bacon, and it's it. Yeah, that's it. I'm gonna have one tomorrow. That's it my fucking morning. Now, do you have all the ingredients you
get to go? Get? Absolutely, I'm ready to go. Wow, fucking nail that ship, my man.
That's how we fucking live around here. But Austin does write hard disagree on one thing. Hot sauce is a requirement for a great breakfast sandwich taco burrito. Maybe that's the textan in me.
Shit for burrito, Yes, not for a sandwich. Depends depends again. Sometimes I like to go crazy, like there's some places nearby they've got like a you know, uh volcano breakfast sandwich or whatever, and it's like, okay, you know I have that. It's got like jalapenos and mix it with the egg and it's like good hot sauce and great. Fine. I'll do that every now and again. But in terms of day to day no, not in a breakfast sandwich.
Like if I'm gonna do just fucking English muffin, bake an egg and cheese, it's with grill the English muffin, you know, like you do it a fucking New England diner. Se I don't know. Not everyone grilled English means like if you go to I remember the first time I was like embarrassed when my fucking parents would ask for a grilled English at a at a at a diner in LA They're gonna actually like, no, you can't, They're
gonna put it on the grill. If they're actually gonna grill it, like it's not it's not what you think it is. They're gonna put it on the grill where they make the fucking burgers, and you're gonna have lines on it. They're not putting butter on it and pressing down with it with a fucking spatula to make it flat and crunchy. That's again so grilled English, very specific, okay, very You have to cut it. You can't fork o. You can't just pull it open. You can't pull it open.
You get to slice the the English muffin with a knife so that both sides are flat, the insides are flat. You put butter on the on the sides of the uncooked English muffin, and then you fucking put that down on your pan or if you're looking up to have a griddle, you put it down there and you and you gotta have something to just put some pressure on it. Unbelievable, so that that that everything that's you know, it's got butter, so it creates this crunchy surface. You put a fucking
you put bacon, egg and cheese and that ship. Forget it, man, forget it. I went out of that as well tomorrow. And the fucking breakfast burrito. Yeah, no fucks given, let's get it, oh ship, it's all about breakfast sandwiches. Man, Oh, it really is. You can you can survive your whole life on breakfast sandwich, like late in the morning, like count me in. Oh, there's some listen. I'm sometimes you know,
I don't. I don't usually do it, but if i'm if I'm home alone for dinner, dude, do it, no question, fire it up. Yep, yep, Because I got to make three meals in my house anyway for my fucking family. I'm not like, I won't necessarily do that. I'll try to keep one of I'll try to keep my meal to be something like the other meals, but usually with with meat. But no, I'm I'm cooking three meals for everybody every fucking night. Yeah, that's the way it works.
That's so much and we're all the beneficiaries. Yeah.
Having tasted the Thanksgiving sandwich for it, h great, heavenly uh Neil Wrights, I guess I always had trouble see Shawn Michaels with the belt in nineteen ninety six, this, of course in reference to Rowbald ninety six, which we did this year. I understood at the time that they were positioning him as this Michael Jordan ESK human highlight reel, and there was some appeal to that kind of guy. Being the WWF standard bearer, you could certainly do worse
than pushing someone who is so exciting to watch. But I think I even knew back then that it was more jab at WCW having Savage and Hogan than Vince believing he had found the guy who could lead his company. Our guys are younger and more athletic, et cetera. They were even airing new generation ads that attacked older styles
of wrestling had on. They sure were seeing him in the Rumble and the rest of his nineteen ninety six Sean is an athlete performer is such a big part of the presentation, but it feels like they are masking the truth that everything else isn't working that well. The promos angles character work aren't very good, and even if the matches are exciting, you don't really care about the people Sean is wrestling. Yeah, I think that becomes true when Diesel leaves. I think they would have had a
hell of a program if Diesel stuck around. Yeah, I think they could have gone a SummerSlam with that thing, And I think he could have worked a Razor too, you know, yep, oh yeah, the world title Razor turns heel on him or something. He never had a had a world title after after Brett A. Razor never wrestled for the world title again. That would have been a great program, like Turn Turn Razor heel. He needed that so bad at that point. Oh yeah, that was the time, like.
He was so he was so stale late ninety five through ninety six, he was so fucking stale.
And that's part of the reason Sean was so despondent, as he's talked about in his book and other things about Kevin and Scott leaving, because they had built the whole that they had established a way of running the WWF. The clique did such that you know, they really found ways to only work with each other, and if they stepped out of that, it was for a very limited period of time and they eventually through some kind of
fit like a Dean Douglas or something. You know, it just didn't It never worked out unless they were working against each other. And if they were working against each other, they were motivated and it was all good in the hood and it was good stuff. You know, they would go out and really really try hard on promos and matches, and I think Sean could have had that kind of ninety six if those two guys were there, But without them, all of a sudden, he's casting about trying to find
people to work with. You know, Davy is someone he was close with, in particular, someone he could score drugs with back in the day. I remember Davy was the one who was there when he got beat up by the Marines. Not not Hollan Nash they were overseas at the time, or even Kid. You know, I'm not sure he would have had a great program with one to three Kid, but he was gone by the middle of ninety six.
I'm sure would have been I'm sure would have been good matches, yeah, but for sure again, but Kid was not. I mean, Kid was nowhere near main event level, even on his fucking best day.
So even if they were people, even like Vader, that the fans could be led to care about, I think it's I think Sean would admit that he wasn't. He wasn't in the headspace to accept those guys as guys he would really help elevate as much as he would if it was his buddies working against him. You know, ye, he was hitting a wall just as much as the fans were in terms of perception. He was really doubting himself, you know, throughout nineteen ninety six. Matt Anderson, thank you
very much for the pledge. You appreciate that. Chris writes imagining the person who saw TLF winning the award for Best Wrestling Podcast and hearing a thirty minute discussion on breakfast sand which is you heard another one, and what that person's reaction is, Now, I need to go get some bagels to make a late dinner. See that's the point that so what we're saying, that's it. That's it,
Chris Man. It's tip from my fellow Englishman. When making yourself a breakfast bag at, get yourself a tiger stick from Cyose Bakery. Slice it horizontal, remove the bread so you're basically left with a crusty shell. Fill it with sausage and bacon. Less bread equals more pork. Complete game changer. They know sausage over there.
They do. They do? Remember how remember how Subway used to cut their sandwiches? No, remember that, you remember that what they used to do? I don't know what happened, Probably they're just like, all right, let's just fucking be
normal here. But what they used to do, instead of slicing it down the middle like a normal fucking sandwich, what they would do is they'd cut the top offs and they had like kind of like a they'd create like a a valley of sorts where they'd kind of stuff it in and then they'd put the cutout piece on top. And it was a weird little thing, but that was the subway side instead of cutting in. But they create this like little hold wouldn't take out more of the bread, but that's you know, it's not a
bad idea. You know, just pull out some of the some of the bag at bread and just you have more room and it kind of stores stores, you know, meat, eggs, cheeses, whatever a lot better. Today it's a nice less gluten option as well. Yeah, it's like a.
Big thing is like how can we people People know bagels or some of the most delicious food in the world, but there are people who just they can't They just can't eat something that they think is going to make them fat. They just can't do it. So we have to find ways to make bagels without gluten, or we have to scoop them out like we do in l A.
You know, like or you could, you know, you could do yourself a favor and just shut the fuck up and stuck out eat your fucking bagel.
I don't know, man, It's like, if you have to do that, you're acknowledging that, like.
They're the perfect food. So why are you fucking with it? If? If I understand, you know, I know that people who have gluten and I'm not excluding that, I'm not yeah, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the fucking idiots who who because I mean, I think I've even too that it doesn't really actually it's not actually a good diet to lose weight anyway, take out gluten. It's like it's not necessarily one that works.
Just to wait, you know, if you think you've got it to wait six months, right, someone will find a way to make money off offering you the exact opposite advice. And they will also be on steroids, by the way, Right, it's not that complicated.
Everybody's on steroids. Everybody's on steroid.
Everybody you think you can look like it's on steroids. That's trying to sell you. You know, sell you something that's you know, the opposite or counterintuitive, you know, or or highly complicated. Highly complicated, you're got to get up at three thirty in the morning. It's like, okay, that's enough. Thank you, Simon. I think he nails it. He says, Sports podcast awards make a mistake letting the lapsed fan
and the debates. M Ain't that the truth? That it better for us not even to put our name in the hat, because you know what happens once we do. Daniel James Dunn, thank you very much for your generous pledge. We appreciate it. Brian writes to us, that's just I'm sorry, it's Todd. Pardon me. He goes by Todd dear co chairs after the last two TLF releases, mentioning the fabulous Mula. I have to mention that here in the city she
lived in, she was a bit of a celebrity. The road, of course, to which her home sat, was named in her honor. Boss, have you ever seen Mula drive before? That's a World Heritage site. Take a good look at it. That and Fritz Lane right down in Dallas Lake Dallas. Yep, that should be there. Since her death in twenty oh seven. The property has passed through many hands until the house burned down in twenty twenty one. The burnt remains are
still there. There's a local restaurant chain that displays her WW book. The Fabulous Mulah first got us of the squared circle in a display case but facing away from general view.
That's pretty funny. Yeah, so that's a I can imagine that. You know, a lot of shit comes out about her and it's like, no, maybe we should you think that's what it was. They downplayed it. Yeah, we should kind of ma return this around a little bit so it's not in public.
Was in Lapstom Todd, thank you for that one, Bud.
Wow, that's funny.
Chad Linquist, thank you for the increase in pledge show and we deeply appreciate that and your support. Zach has a whole Royal Rumble thing.
Man.
He was fired up and we didn't get it in before he went. I hope he had a great time, but he was headed to the Rumble this year and he wanted Voss to let us know all about it. Please take it away on behalf of all, right, Zach.
Here we go on behalf of Zack Holy shit, dear co chairs, I'm very excited to let you guys know that I am going to the Royal Rumble this year. Now, normally I wouldn't send you something like this. I have been to countless shows, just like the next fan, but this is different. Ever since the moment I had become a fan, I have been memorized, mesmerized by the Rumble, just like UJP. The Royal Rumble nine ninety one was
the first show I had ever seen. I started watching in ninety eight ninety nine as an eight year old, but this was the first show I rented and saw the love of Hulk Hogan and the artwork alone drew me in. I mean, dude, the fact that you could find fucking ninety one Rumble in ninety eighty nine is actually real, absolutely yeah, because I remember it was not easy to find older, not that I was looking for him per se, because I was so like jaded and like, oh no, I don't want that old shit, I want
them new, real stuff. Yep. But you know the fact that you were able to find that is really remarking.
You had to find a video store that didn't really turn inventory. They just kept stuff forever.
Yep, that's crazy. Uh. The lore of the Love of the Lore, Law of Hogan and the artwork alone drew me in one of the most underrated rumbles in history, I agree. Even if Knobs was in the final three, that show was the springboard to my fandom. It was a renting spree for life from there. Next I went into the eighty nine Rumble. I didn't know how to duplicate tapes of the time. Then later it was pulled from my video store due to being too old. I guess yes, So it was all but a vague memory.
Mostly mostly just remember the unforgettable moment of Jake busting out the snake on Andre, Brother, bust on your snake on Andre? Dude? What cock dude Brother, seeing him terrified, the epic start with acts and smash charting still to this day, the greatest start to any rumble in history, and seeing the boss Man for the first time, and my five year old brother Nick saying that that was his favorite because he was a policeman. From there it
was the ninety three to ninety four rumbles. Austin and Hogan were my favorites at the time, but Brett quickly rose up My rankings as I concurrently watched these old tapes along with discovering Nitro and Raw. At the same time, I got to watch my first live show at my uncle's The Royal Rumble nineteen ninety nine. I was playing with my cousin throughout the night, but I vividly remember Mankind being thrown off the balcony by the rock under the exploding entrance equipment. This was is one of my
favorite matches of all time. M full too. He loves that match, loves that match so much. Right then, my other family friend taped this along with sold Out ninety nine for me. So this was the first pay per view tape I ever owned. You guys know how that is no matter how weird or bad the show is, it's your show, right, I agree, I mean, listen, that's the only that is the reason why I can love an awful show at the ninety three Rol Rumble, because that was my first ever pay per view and I
and I kept it that way like it was. I didn't even ask right to buy like I was. So I was so enamored by the idea of the Royal Rumble that and I wanted to you know, I wanted so badly to buy the ninety two Rumble, but I said, I don't want another show, like I want my first pay per view to be a Royal Rumble. And that's what it was, and I'm okay with that. I like that show, and to me, it is a It is another tour de force performance by Bobby the Brainheenen and
that's all I need. No matter how weird about the show is, it's your show. You may say Vince winning was weak, but you have to admit it was a very original idea, the ultimate swerve bro Austin and Vince starting off the match fighting in the bathroom in the middle of the match, then Vince winning. We all knew it was a foregune conclusion. Austin was winning in main eventing mania, Ah right, I know. It was like I was like, there's no way he can't win. But how's he?
You know, are they really going to put a guy over the Rumble three years in a row like that never happened three years in a row. That's crazy talk. That'd be something. I think it would have been something. Honestly, I think that would have been a great idea actually, But I mean, obviously you get a swear bro I understand. Royal Robot two thousand was another early recording I owned by my other U, my other uncle, with the beginning of the tape showing an infomercial for five seconds saying
have you been called fat or fatty? Oh my god? What? Oh man? I love those fucking like still even those two thousand, late ninety barely two thousand like late nineties commercials, just like so awful. Then it quickly cut to the show. Fellow Laps fan Damien and I still laugh about this to this day. It also had another one of my favorite matches of all time, Cactus versus Triple H. I went to a SmackDown in two thousand as well, the
first show I ever went to. I was there when Mankind turned into Cactus Jack and beat Triple H's ass. This moment played in the promo package at the Rumble, and I would always say I was there. I also bought the rock shirt that said layeth the smacketh down on your candy ass. My mom was so pissed off, pissed that my uncle let me buy this and made him laminate black all over the word ass. I love that.
It's like my mom with the fucking James Bond have that. Nah, uh, you're going to a Catholic school, No way you can have that. Woman's took us hanging out there. I actually, you know, I got you know what I used to like. One of my favorite shirts that they would do was whatever city they were going to, they would print rock shirts that said finally the rock has come back too on the front and on the back it was the city that they were in, And so I liked that.
I mean, I got woolster, but like for the most money making machine, it really was because like I was like, yeah, I wish it was Boston, but we were in Worcester, you know, Wasster Centrum after the two thousand and King of the Ring. So that was that. And I remember watching this show for the first time in the basement. It was rare that my whole family would hang out down there. It was a true I was a true basement dweller. But we had our family computer down there,
the gateway two thousand. Holy shit, that's a computer if I ever heard one. Old school. My parents happened to be down there when the Bikini Contest came on because it was the live recording. It showed May Young showing her saggy tested with a good three second lag time for the censor twice. My mom was like, what is this?
I was mortified. My mom didn't even let me watch MTV because of the women in the music videos, so I didn't know how she would react to this, But for some reason, she just made a joke out of it, bringing it up off and on for years to come. She didn't ban my nine year old self at the time for watching it. And of course the two thousand and one Rumbled, my favorite of all time, Jeff and Matt fighting in the beginning and Matt reacting a whole
two seconds after getting hit. I don't know that's funny. I don't even remember that. Actually, the hardcore moments, the star Power with some of my favorites of all time, Stone Cold, the Rock of the Undertaker, and of course the Man Austin winning for the third time. Needless to say, the Royal Rumble, but I still hate the end. I agree it could have been the greatest rumble of all time, but that finished with him fucking using the chair over and over and over again. I'm Caine, I hate that. Yeah,
like that, that's how he wins. He smashes a chair over Caine's head and that's what dumps him over the top rope. It's kind of goofy. I hate it. I hate it. That's why I hate the ending of WrestleMania seventeen. I hate the fact that he doesn't win with a stunner that he fucking just uses. I know, storyline purposes, great whatever, but yeah, that worked out. He sucks. Fucking sucks. It's like that should have been, that should have been really just unbelievable moments. But it's all.
Downhill from there. I mean, it was have zagged and sometimes you can't recover from that.
Like that fucking idiot Austin paranoid is ship like calm down, I know, like he stale. I can feel it. Yeah, you know what. He fucking destroyed his own his own character. He destroyed Steve Austin. Amazing. It's not talked about enough. It isn't that he did it. Isn't that he did it, because it was never the same after that, it was never the same.
He had like five six more years left as that Texas Texas rattlesnake that we all need kicking ass.
Oh yeah, he went back to it. You know that's the proof, right, but it but you know what, it wasn't the same. It wasn't By the time he came back to it, he was like third from the top, right, and then he's fucking mid caarting with with Scott Hall. Yeah he I mean, what was I mean? I guess the last show he made event it would have been Survivor Series, right, he didn't made event another show after that?
Are you talking about two thousand versaries? That's where he got hit by Rakishi series Versaries two thousand?
Yeah, the Winner take All if you consider him.
Oh no, he did. He did made event with with Jericho. Jericho would have been the last one, no way out. That would have been the last main event. Unreal. That's crazy until WrestleMania with Kevin Owens made event at Night one. Yeah he's a main event right, yeah, other rioter. I needless to say that Roll Rumbo is my favorite show of all time. The Rumble is wrestling for me. I used to play every Rumble match in a row from ninety one the earliest I had to whatever the current one
was in two thousands. I had other tapes, but these were always the go tos YEP So with all the anticipation leading up to this year's Rumble, you guys inspired me to get hyped. I decided to create my own journey. If you wheel, I'm playing every Rumble you guys have covered, which is most of them, the only casts missing from the laps timeline or eighty nine, ninety six, and ninety nine.
It's cool ninety six anymore, Yep, just eighty ninety's the two Wow the decade there, eighty nine and ninety nine. It's been cool to hear the progression and regression of the Rumble match year by year and just really taking it in and analyzing each year, and hearing you guys talk about the lost rumbles from eighty seven, eighty eight, and ninety four. I was actually able to track down the full shows of both ninety four rumbles. In ninety four,
wait both, I don't understand that. Didn't they have house show rumbles? Well? They did? What one? I think it was a MSG where Owen Hart, Yeah, one, something like that. I've only walked watched the match Owen won so far, and I've got to say I love that match. I think it's better than the actual ninety four Rouble Crush being the diesel of the match. Then Owen comes out and is the one to stand up to him. Then Brett comes out and is able to save his brother
from being outnumbered by the heels. Plus you have the great Michael's Jeannetti moment. Like the official ninety four Rumble, I was also able to see that there was an inkling of possibly the worst the first ever Royal Rubble type match in nineteen seventy six, with the likes of Kevin Sullivan, Bobo Brazil, Bruiser Brody, Stan Hanson and Chief j Strongbow. The winner is not known, however, but the show's flyer advertises battle Royal eighteen wrestlers two at a
time until we have a winner. Huh. Winner receives five hundred dollars two at a time. Yeah, that's not even timed intervals. That's one man has to be eliminated. Right. That's interesting though, But it's kind of a similar format in a way.
Should they try that one year, do away with a countdown and just make it.
Never never never never no no no no no, come on, you can't no no, they can do that for another show. Yeah, you know, that would be an interesting anything that would be the Saudi one. It's kind of like a gauntlet. Yeah right, It's kind of like a gauntlet type match, you know, but you throw them over the top rope. I mean, be interesting for sure, but definitely not. You can't. The countdown is key. Countdown is key for the format works. Don't fuck it up the two times they've tried to
change it. They fucked it up when you when you when you made it a minute, sucked when you added forty wrestlers. It sucks down. Don't fucking touch it how it goes. I also saw there was one in the us W a h on January third, ninety six that was won by Doug Gilbert and w House.
It's funny because we go on to cover Rumble ninety six and we go on to cover that that actually qualifies him for the rumble.
Yep, oh wow, that's right. That's right.
They had a pretty close working relationship with USWA at the time.
And a WW house show on November twenty nine, ninety six, which was a twenty man rumble in White Plains, New York won by the Blue Chipper Rocky Maya Villa. Wow did we talk about that? Now? I've never heard of that before. I've never heard of that either. I had no idea about the tag one on Raw in eighty eight with Caine ninety eight with Cain and Mankind winning.
I don't remember that at all either. I don't remember that that was the same night as the as the Raw Tag Hell in a Cell match, which is crazy. I also didn't know they had a five man rumble on SmackDown in September ninety nine. I remember that, like they've done like mini rumbles and stuff like that. I know to do stuff. The journey also brought on another thing,
making my brother an official lapsed fan. He used to watch shows and tapes back in the day with me, but as adults, he only really had time to keep up with current wrestling. It's on literally every day of the week if you follow TNA and a W two. He's going with me to the Rumble this year, so I told him about the journey I was embarking on. I have been bringing up the cast for years. He gave it a chance years ago, but determined it was
too long and he lost interest. With all the crevices you guys dive into with each show, it's the crevices that matter yes, pal, I say that again. All right, that's that's yeah. You try to block us from your crevis. All right, again, we find we borrow in where Carpenter fucking girling. All right, we find our spot, we borrow in and we live in that. Take up all right, take up residence in your anus. But this journey to go along with going to the Rumble intrigued him, so
he's been listening almost every day. He is also making time into his wrestling schedule to watch every Old Rumble show. In sequence, I'm so proud going on the journey. I've come to realize a few things. There is pretty much always a random tag match on the show with people not good enough to be in the Rumble. That's true. That's true. The boss Man, for some reason, always has a singles match ninety ninety one, ninety three nine. That ninety three match with Bam Bam was actually a barn burner.
By the way, I agree. I think it's an underrated match. He puts. He puts Bam Bam over Huge in his little in his swan song out of the company, and Matt got me thinking, who has the who has had the most non Rumble matches at the Rumble Roman reigns, Undertaker, Randy Orton and Triple H have had six. John Cena and Kevin Owens this year have each have seven matches. That's crazy to me, considering Ko only had the Universal
title for a cup of coffee. Some of these non Rumble matches are some of the greatest and my most favorite in the history of w Besides rock versus Mankind Form nty nine and Triple H versus Cactus from two thousand and I mentioned, it also has some other all time classics Rockers versus or An Express ninety one yep, yep, great, the opener of my life of wrestling. I mean, listen, I'll never forget. I'll never forget because I'm sitting there,
you know the first time I rented that tape. Okay, I rented that tape and I had my friends come over and we watch it, and that is the opening match, and we were fucking blown away by that match, Like what the fuck? I mean listen, by that point, I had I knew Pat Tanaka was a fucking jobber. I knew Cato was a jobber. What business did they have having a fucking match like that with the Rockers? Absolutely who gave them the right to do that? So amazing
Jumping Bomb Angels versus the Glamour Girls I n. Eighty eight. Absolutely, that is a that is great stuff, such a glorious fucking Remember when we saw that for the first time
and we're like, what the fuck is this? Oh, they're doing these moves in the WWF and Zerra Right Parties versus Dudley's Tables match from two thousand, Triple H versus versus Sean Michael's Last Man Standing in two thousand and four, Sena versus Rollins versus Lesard twenty fifteen, Sena versus Styles twenty seventeen, Brett and Owen versus the Quebecers in ninety four. Even other matches I wouldn't consider great but are still pretty damn good, like Brett versus Brett versus Razor is
way better than than bretton Owen versus Quebecers. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Yoko versus Taker Seiners versus Beverley's is awesome. I love that one one of the greatest Frankensteiners of all time. That's what I think of right away, as him spiking him on his head. Yep, because like the because you know, and I said this before, but what makes it so great is is is youo somehow? I mean, that's somehow. I mean, obviously there's something there is physics
here to work. But he he takes it, lands on his head, but then like his shoulders go down and then us that's been so fucking phenomenal Brett versus Diesel and Sean versus Taker, and I hate to call it a classic before it happens, but all signs point to Kao versus Cody in the ladder match being a class I don't remember. Was it good?
It probably cost him his career honestly, is he yea, he he's out or Mania. He basically announced that he might have a career ending injury to his neck.
No shit, wow, Codin, she better give him a fucking Christians another guy that Ko made.
I mean it didn't make like single handedly, but you know, put into a position to really stand out from everybody else.
Yep. But as far as the Rumbo match itself, eighty nine to ninety four of the Golden years for me, ninety five, ninety seven suck, ninety eight to two thousand are decent. Two thousand and one two thousand and seven are good great, good to great stuff dozand one and two thousand and seven are great. I don't think I liked much of the ones in between either. I think they are does dozend three is okay, doesn't four is good,
dosand five not good. Thousand and six is not good mainly honestly, it could have been the greatest rumble of all time if it wanted to be. But the problem is it's in the middle of the show. It's even worse than not going on last the middle of the shows. That the year they had Angle and Mark Henry in the end, yeah, because the and the reason they had it was because they broke the fucking ring. Maybe don't do that. Maybe that's at the end right one? That
year six that would have been that was Ray. It was Ray mysterious. Oh yeah, to get the triple threat, ye right right, Well, not yet. They were gonna he was gonna lose. Was he was gonna lose the title shot to Randy Yorton. They were they were obsessed with Randy Yorton and they were gonna put him over no matter what. But than the fans almost put him over. Undertaker of the Year before to break the streak, right right, that's right, that's right. And that's the only time I
ever thought they should have done it, that's true. The only time it made sense I thought they should have done it. Then I was like, you know, to me, to me him, I actually thought that that that that that Randy Yorton losing that match actually set him back quite a bit.
And that was that was them saying, I'm they flirted with the idea of putting him over, but he was such a head case backstage at that point. He was so pilled out, he was so rash and just acting like incredibly immaturely on the road.
And is that when he was shitting in people's.
Bags, prone to fits of anger, and he was he was high all the time.
It was bad.
They they they had a real problem on their hands with him back then. M It's pretty funny how it worked out.
But yeah, I know, right, that was pretty bad until I would say the twenty eighteen Women's Rumble. That's not the first one. Yeah, that was a good That was a great rubble. Actually, I like that one. Some good and bad ones after that. Twenty twenty was pretty great too. That's the Lessenard thing. Yeah, lessner owning the first half, with the star power at the end and the edge return made it one of the few all timers from this era. Yeah, okay, if you if you like that
kind of shit, sure, Yeah. I was reading the sport ki the sport Keita sport Keita what. Yeah, it's a website, oh, ranking of the greatest rumbles of all time, and they put ninety two number nine and twenty twenty number one. What that is bullsh that that's written by fucking idiots, fucking fucking idiots who probably never even watched the fucking ninety two rumble, And I thought that was just absurd,
Probably someone in their twenties ranking that shit. My favorite is two thousand and one, but objectively, I would have to put ninety two is the greatest of all time. Yeah, I don't think it will ever be topped. But on that note, what are your top guys, top five man biased favorite rumble matches of all time? Ninety two, ninety one, ninety I really like ninety seven. Actually I do like ninety seven quite a bit. Oh you're crazy, I know.
I don't know why that floated into my mind, but uh oh four oh one. I like, uh, I like ninety M.
I would say ninety one is my all time favorite, always will be. I'll never take that out. I think ninety two is the best rumble, but still not my favorite. But I put ninety two is number two. I would put ninety as number three, I would put ninety three is number four, and I would put two thousand and seven is as number five. Ninety three. Wow, only because it's just I got a love for it. I got love for seven the best. He said favorites A dozen seven is a great one. Forgot about seven is a
great one. Yeah, dozend seven has got the serious sea Yeah yeah, yeah, where you don't know who's gonna win. And it was fucking great. Yeah, it's true. I kind of just discount a lot of the post two thousand, onesousand and seven because it was also it was the first time where where it didn't feel like it didn't feel like guys are getting tossed left and right, like people actually were there for a while, like you know,
after ninety three and ninety four. Actually really it started in ninety five with the with the minute intervals were now all of a sudden, everybody's just being cost like there was just no, it didn't feel like people were in there for a while except for the people who were going to be in there for a while. It just it didn't It didn't feel as spontaneous as as as it did because it it felt like guys were in there for a while and then they just get tossed out and just like, oh wow, I can't believe
they were in there for that line. You know that that guy, like by the fact it was Valentine in there for forty five minutes, you know, Jesus Christ. So yeah, in two thousand and seven was the first time where I was like, this feels old school, Like it felt like an old school rumble, And then it had that crazy ass ten minute one on one thing that was just unbelievable. Yeah, it's a great one. I should have wound in there. Yeah.
I like the one with AJ and Diesel came back. I like that one. I think that's fifteen that Roman won that one, right or no he won and yeah he won fifteen. Yeah, so that sucked, but I like that felt very veentful that one. I feel like they really pulled some rabbits out of the hat to make the match, like really pop that first Woman's one. It's good as the ones in recent years have all been good. They've been you know, fun to watch, but they just they fade, you know, the memory.
They don't write. That's the thing, Like, they don't they don't stand out like.
The one this year seems so awesome when Jay won, but now about two months later, I'm like, really, what do I really remember about that? You know, I don't remember anything about it, Drew getting pissed off that any night got in the way, and these little like trivia notes more than I don't.
Yeah, the thing, I don't remember a damn thing about it all. I just remember, Yeah, but I can remember that. That's part of what I'm what I think of is like, what what rumbles can I really like? That have have meant so much to me that I've watched them over and over and over again. That's the only way I can rate a well rumble. And again It's why crappy rumble technically can like ninety three can be in my
top five because I've seen it so many times. I know every single beast in that fucking match, and so I'll always cherish it because it has it has a fondness for me, so we close this one. The reason I sent this email was to convey just how much excitement I have being able to literally live out a
childhood dream. Just something as simple as being able to count down from ten is going to be an amazing experience, living the surprises in person, being a part of and having genuine pops throughout the show, being able to see another possible five star match in the annals of Rumble history, I feel like I've relived the history with you guys. I know these are some of your favorite shows too, and now I will be a part of the history of the Royal Rumble saying I was there in twenty
twenty five. Thank you for rumble Mania, thank you for unknowingly giving me the evolution of the Rumble journey, and thank you for giving me this outlet to speak my excitement through.
Glad to do it, Zach, and we can identify because I will say, of all the wrestling shows I've been to go into that Rumble at O three, that was like one of the most like flutter of my stomach ones ever because yeah, you're about to participate in just like he's saying, the countdown and all the special things of a Rumble.
The only Rumble I've ever been to live. I think. I don't think I've ever been in rub Yeah.
Me too, wrestling podcast, the wrestling podcast that knows the boys need their candy. It's the Lapsed Fan. He's the Lapsed Fan wrestling podcast with Jack and Corn and JP Soro.
That's gonna go to just go to some of those, I know. I mean, I guess they've never really been close by. Not really, No, that's true, job they I mean, I'm one. Last one they did in New York was was it? It wasn't to us? And eight wasn't the last one.
I think it was because they've been doing all these stadium scale arenas now and they tend to do you know, second tier cities for Rumble. It's a it's a you know, a stadium show they can do without it having to be a huge metropolitan area like Indianapolis and stuff. But yeah, I can't think of the closest one to us when it was. That's a great point. Maybe they did Philly.
I remember, I'll take a look here and say, yeah, Philly was in twenty fifteen. I think yep, like Florida.
Never coming back to Providence again, they're never going to be in Oh no, no, had those dis.
I mean yeah, especially you know they can't even do a fucking stadium up here in the winter. It's true too, you know. Yeah. The last that was close by so like it was. Yeah, the last one that was close by was twenty eighteen in Philly. Yeah, and that's not really that close. That's kind of funny, like twenty to twenty fifteen and twenty eighteen were both in uh in Philly. That is funny.
It is funny now too that they're that they're all about stadiums for the Royal Rumble, like we're never going to get one of the East coast again, like the Northeast.
No ever, because we don't. We don't even have any domed stadium. We would, if we write, if we had a dome stadium, we could, but nope, we don't, So fuck it.
Uh.
Joe Bernina, thank you so much for joining the moteeer. My friend Tony Garvey, thank you so much for the pledge. We deeply appreciated Christopher Wright. This was literally like watching a rumble on the floor with my hasbros. You know what he's talking about When he wrote that boss wrestle Mamia to the nineteen ninety rumble.
Oh yes, Oh that's a long that's a long time coming. Yeah, like watching her. You know, we watch him, We watch I watched it. We watch it in preparation for you know, I mean we've obviously watched it way in advance. But I watch it every you know, right to the uh you know when I'm watching, and I always put a rumble right by the rumble, and I'm doing them in order with my mom. Unbelievable.
Yeah, another reason to keep your eyes locked to wrestle Momy revisit totally in the past versions of the upcoming show. Yeah, he remembers his rumble on the floor with his Hasbros, with his mom doing the ironing behind him, getting weirdly invested, but constantly forgetting the one rule of the match. The one rule of the match had to be reminded of Todd Wright, still laughing from when a few entrants into the match.
My fucking mom. My mom does the same thing, like watching these matches with her now, she she cannot remember that you have to be pinned on your back, right, She says, Well, wait a minute, why isn't he Mom? Is gonna be on his back and his shoulders aren't not counting out like boxing, So why aren't they counting? That's funny, she says that. But they do sometimes pretend to have standing ten counts in wrestling, you know, we do sometimes pretend that you only have ten seconds to
gheit to your feet. It's weird, I know, compending on the.
Match Todd on that same wrestle Mommy in nineteen ninety Royal Rumble episode right, still laughing from when a few entrants into the match, it is revealed it up until that point your mother was under the impression that she was watching the nineteen nineteen Royal Rumble. We got a lot of great feedback on our interview with Brian Penry, who was a creative consultant for Creative Director the first one WW have had design the logo, all the rest. You know, it's in the archives. If you skipped the
shame on you. It's really relevatory and such a great kind of download of a unique vantage point on a Vince McMahon that's coming into his own and realizing all these licensing opportunities, in these NBC opportunities and becoming a different person than the guy Brian knew, starting very humbly owning the Cape Cod Coliseum and getting started with Linda with out really a pot to piss in, so to speak, and slowly winning over his father and getting in control
of the company. But Andrew Key doing something that I think is so important from that interview, he wrote, Vince's failed construction companies and Linda forcing him to make amends with his dad to get into the wrestling business explains so much about that, It really does. And Brian's memory of Vince, you know, after a hard day's work, saying, you know what, it's time for a tall one.
I love That's That's still the greatest fucking ship.
Chris writes coach here, I don't know how you tracked down Brian Penry, but this was a first ballot TLFX Hall of Famer. Imagine living in a world we're moving down a Manhattan's mowing down rather a Manhattan squeegee guy is the rational alternative to returning Vince his defaced Lincoln Continental. Yeah, the phenomenal. Yeah, that's a great story. He tells of being responsible for Vince's Lincoln Continental once and you.
Know, are you ready for someone by the way, this is something I didn't fucking know. This is totally about shorty rumbles here do you know that as of twenty twenty three, As of twenty twenty three, the entry number that has won the most Royal Rumbles It took until twenty twenty three, by the way for this to happen is number thirty. Oh my god, it's sypathetic. It kind of is actually like bec is this year? Yeah, the
first one whoever won by No. No. Twenty twenty three was Cody Codens to number thirty and then twenty twenty two, twenty sixteen, two thousand and eight, two thousand and seven. Like the fact that two thousand and seven the Undertaker was the first one to win at number thirty is also pathetic, right, you know that's advantage, Like, honestly, if you know, to really set the thing going, it's John
Studd should have been number thirty in eighty nine. Yeah, honestly that should have been the thing because that been right there makes number thirty a.
Threat, protects the psychology of the match.
Yeah, if they had done it from the very beginning. If they didn't, they.
Probably didn't even know how long it was going to go. They probably didn't see it having the legs that did to you know, book with well, yeah, six rumbles in the future, you know, it'll be important to establish x y Z. Steve Key did another great thing from the Brian Penry interview. It was like he had just walked off the plantation with a mint jewel up in his hand.
That is Brian Penry describing Jim Barnett, which was so fun because it kind of felt like Brian forgot about jim Zy until we mentioned him, brought him up, and he said, oh my god, that guy. Tremendous to find someone out in the wild who has these deep seated memories of all these colorful, pivotal characters in the WWF history and never apparently ever having an outlet to tell these stories, you know, never having anyone ask him in a way that activated his mind about all these people.
And it turns out he was like right there for so many critical moments in time and decisions, and you know, the kind of photo shoots that he went out and did in the earliest days of promoting WrestleMania one just just amazing, really really proud of that one. And Brian's such a great guy. He's kept in touch with us. He's even sent us some of his prints and stuff. I hope some members of the Solar System were able to meet up with him at the Connecticut con that
he was plugging on the interview. But a big ups to that guy. Very glad to have made his acquaintance.
This phenomenal guy. Phenomenal absolutely spent.
A lot of time talking during the Saturday Night's Made Event Episode one coverage that we did about the time Hulk Cogan and Mister T hosted Saturday Night Live, thus beginning in a lot of ways the NBC relationship before WrestleMania won. A lot of digging as to why and how they became hosts. Was the host in fact sick?
Was he not? Was there a writer's strike? Was there not?
What really factored in to putting Hulk Cogan in Mister T in that coveted hosting spot in kind of an impromptu fashion? Well, of course Tomasinasio did some digging.
He knows how to dig around.
One of the things he contributed, he said, that's interesting considering the writer's strike was over by the nineteenth, so he's writing, let me let me try to keep this in order as I think, Corey. Yeah, Corey in Winnipeg wrote, I had read that about a year and a half ago, looking for info and why the host backed out. I can't call the specifics. The interview was not related to wrestling. Okay,
I'm losing the context here. Oh, he does say before I forget the switch from Animation's Obsession, the original theme song for Saturday Night's main event that we spent so much time celebrating. He said, the switch from that to the SNM a theme that we would later know Dent Dent Tent. Yeah, was the main event Febry fifth, nineteen eighty eight.
The oh wow is it?
That year's January Saturday It's main event still had the an emotion song. So that's that's good. That's something we were wondering aloud about and weren't quite sure how to take. Okay, so back to this back and forth, and there's a lot of it.
Yeah.
So Corey had written for Hogan and Tea hosting SNL. The host didn't get sick. He pulled out of the gig the week of the show because of an expected writers strike. I see an expected writer strike.
Okay.
Steve Landsberg from the TV show, Bernie Miller was the scheduled host. He still appears, that's right. We did establish that and does a stand up bit on the show. That's what struck us as weird. He wasn't sick. He was on the show. Ultimately, he was on the show. And we also noted this the show was the only one that doesn't have a weekend update segment on it.
Wow. So somebody even.
Asked us on Patroon, would we ever just deep dive the Hogan mister t Saturday Night Live. I don't know, kind of seems like under the cinemat adjacent more than the main show.
Worthy, but might have an idea. Yeah, that's something like we could do.
So that's I consider it an attempt to kind of set some things straight. But Tom wrote back a series of findings. One of them was, let's see that's interesting, he writes, considering the writer's strike was over by the nineteenth. He was originally supposed to host the show on the sixteenth Steve Landisburg, which was bumped because of the strike.
He pulled out of that one for sure. Okay, so there was a Saturday Night's Live that Steve Landisburg pulled out of but it wasn't the one that Hulk Cogan and mister T ended up hosting. Now I get the confusion. The thirtieth Hulkin T's episode, he writes, was supposed to be a rerun. I see, I didn't know that. Really, I think hulkon T were going to make an appearance on the sixteenth. Tom writes, by the time the thirtieth show came around, it looks like Landisburg had a conflict
and couldn't host, So really a lot of dumb luck. Yeah, because he said something in the press that we read about having to go to a family emergency or a family related thing, like a right engagement of some type. Maybe not an emergency, but an engagement. Yeah, by the time the thirtieth show came around, it looks like Landisburg had a conflict that to say, March third, thirtieth and couldn't host. So really a lot of dumb luck went
into Hogan and Tea hosting the night before Mania. The no weekend update segment is fascinating, though Downey seems to have written on the thirtieth show, so not sure why him and Chris Guest didn't write an update. Has to have something to do with the strike, but lord knows what he says. Tom says further to Steve Landisburg, it looks like he had a conflict in the week of the thirtieth and couldn't rehearse. But that was also during a time they were using revolving guest hosts to give
the show more rhythm post Eddie Murphy. That's right now. We talked about that too, so who knows. They easily could have slotted someone else in. It doesn't look like Landisburg was specifically bumped from Mania Saturday night's main event promotion, but Eversall did make the call for Hogan and te to host as opposed to using one of their old standbys. So much dumb luck went into Mania one success.
It's just wild to think about. It's so true.
It's not just it's not just that they happened into the celebrities, it's what the celebrities are able to do with that time. Tom further writes a few notes on eighty five TV. Dear co chairman, all the talk of network TV history as my mind buzzing, But no one needs to hear another long die tribe from me. Yes they do about the mechanics of the TV business. So I thought I'd just thrown a few quick notes. One the reason why Vince couldn't mention Saturday Night's main event
on Tuesday Night Titans, Yeah, we talked about that. Why is there no promotion for this huge NBC thing was centered around the Time Inc. Paramount Co ownership of USA, Time Inc. Had a strong standing policy that any promotion of another network shows on USA had to involve a quid pro quo. USA wanted TNT promoted on NBC in exchange for USA promoting Saturday Night's main event.
That's not happening.
NBC's advertising team, already skeptical of wrestling's ability to draw the eighteen to three before audience that NBC had built their comeback on under Brandon Tartakoff, refused the deal, and hence the first Saturday Night's main event wasn't advertised or promoted on USA. It's great intel, and I trust that it's sourced well too. NBC's local affiliates had an outsized
influence in NBC programming decisions and how they were promoted. Yes, they've always heard this about NBC that, unlike the other networks like Fox, NBC's local affiliates really have a lot of power for some reason. They like I can straight up say like I don't care what you want to put in prime time, We're putting news, and you're just going to have to find another way, whereas Fox can force that and force the local news and the local
affiliates to do whatever they want. There's some imbalance in the contractual language that NBC has visa the affiliates compared to the other national networks. Anyway, in the late seventies early eighties, he writes, during Fred Silderman's ill Faded Rain, NBC lost local affiliates had an unprecedented rate, especially after Jimmy Carter pulled Team USA out of the Moscow Olympics, almost bankrupting NBC. Of course, we know the Olympics are
basically the heart of NBC's operation. That's where a lot of the money is made is advertising against the Olympics. When Silverman was finally ousted in eighty one, Grant Tinker became chairman and CEO of the network and immediately went to work wooing the affiliates back by offering unprecedented sweetheart deals. See that's where it comes from right there, they're under pressure, giving the affiliates a tremendous amount of freedom as to
how and what they promoted. This was an incredibly risky strategy, as affiliates were more likely to see overnights and abandoned shows faster than NBC wanted, and all likelihood it led to the disastrous nineteen eighty three season, which saw none of the nine new programs NBC had green Lip make it to the second season, despite Tartakoff pre Wow President
of Entertainment Undertinker, pleading for patients. Yet it also helped lead to NBC's turnaround the next season, as the affiliate saw The Cosby Show as a hit before the network execs and gave it twice the local advertising time that
NBC was giving it on their Holy owned stations. My guess is NBC produced fifteen second, very cheap bumpers for Saturday Night's made event, the ones on YouTube that you played in the SA Enemy episode, but the affiliates had carte blanche to advertise it any way they saw fit. As I mentioned my last email, my uncle claims that in Baltimore, Saturday Night's main event was promoted as a
mini WrestleMania. I think that was probably the case across a WWF strongholds in the northeastern mid Atlantic and only in the import affiliate cities like Saint Louis, Chicago, and Minneapolis, in which wrestling was a known rating straw. It was a safe way for NBC to dip their toe into bringing wrestling back to network while also being able to pull the plug if it was an abject failure. Yeah, that's true too. Gee, by being an NBC there playing a risky game of affiliates saying Nope, not on my
network wrestling. Are you fucking kidding me?
Three?
The articles you found mentioning Snemy potentially being a monthly show indicate that the first episode was a variation of a backdoor pilot. Backdoor pilots are usually spin offs of existing shows, a bait and switch that uses a time slot.
We were We talked about this with something on Cinement I don't remember h a reference to Twin Peaks. You, No, it wasn't. I was thinking that might have been it, but I don't think we did. I don't because the the spin off for Sherylyn Fenn wasn't. Wasn't uh a backdoor pilot, but I'm thinking actually Baywatch might have been it, because I think I think there was a plan m for Thunder and Paradise to a no no, Yeah, maybe at some point Thunder Paris was going to be a
spin off. We're going to do a backdoor pilot or something like that on inspired the show. For sure, I forget about I forget how that all worked. I don't remember some I know I've talked about backdoor pilots before.
Yeah, you're basically trying to saddle onto an existing hot against.
Well, what you're doing is you're you're putting you're basically taking an episode of of a of a of a show, and you're kind of instead of following with your normal characters, like you'll introduce a new character in that episode and that character will kind of take over that episode for the last one left off right and then and then that so that that kind of becomes what they call a backdoor pilot, so that they've they've added it, They've
included it in an already existing show with the intention of creating a different show. I love that.
N cis Tom Notes is the most recent example of successful backdoor pilot, with CSI as the progenitor. SNME was obviously not a spin off of Saturday Night Live, but by marketing it is preempting SNL a reorn of SNL, since, as the cast pointed out, SNL's season was already over. It's clear that ever Saul was presenting SNME as a potential monthly replacement for SNL, which wasn't officially even renewed
until Lord Michaels agreed to return. Although I have no proof of this, SNME probably didn't end up with the monthly time slot simply because it was wrestling. As Jack pointed out, SMMME drew similar ratings to the faltering Saturday
Night Live and eighty forty five. But even with the rock and wrestling connection and all the efforts to market wrestling as an ironic postmodern reimagining of the every man morality plays of the sixteenth century that the sophisticated and unsophisticated audience could enjoy on different levels, and that's a great description. It didn't fit NBC's idea of itself as the producer of slick, fast paced, high concept dramas and quick witted, sardonic with a heart sitcoms, making it the
go to network for yuppies. Despite Eversall's efforts, I doubt he could convince Brendon Tartakoff's acolytes that were dominating the network by the n of eighty five that wrestling fit the network's sensibilities since still since wrestling made money and no doubt was hot and never saw still had a lot of jews, it kept SNMY earned its spot as a special that could be relied on to maintain a good portion of SNL's audience three or four times a year.
And for mister T and Hogan, hosting SNL is probably the luckiest thing that ever happened to Vince. Not only did I ever Saul probably agree to the appearances that turned it into hosting because he knew SNMME he was in the works. The March thirtieth episode was actually supposed to be a rerun. The two weak writer strike of nineteen March fifth to the nineteenth caused the scheduled March
sixteenth episode to get bumped. Had the March sixteenth SNL gone forward, I don't know whether T and Hogan would have been on the show or not, but it definitely wouldn't have had the impact on WrestleMania the March thirtieth appearance, Did I have a bunch of stuff?
I never saw this.
Incredibly interesting but a bit overrated career. But since this is already too long, I will save that for another time. Maybe they ever saw tribute. Yeah, he's gonna pass. He's going to pass. Yeah, we gotta be ready to consider what that would mean happen. Oh and for anyone who cares. He adds that this info comes from a variety of sources. I used to create lecture notes for one of the entertainment history classes I taught back in the day. Fuck you,
I fucking bring it, Tom, Jesus christ Man. We have the beneficiaries of the downstream intellect and the downstream or sources, and life experiences and career experiences of our listeners. Yes, they're all tributary, so this mighty fucking stream, he said. I sent the sne to Me one episode to a few old TV lifers who really loved it. Made them nostalgic for the old days that indeed used to be better yours and cinemania, Tom, that's right, it's good stuff.
Now you were in Semnia, Myermania. I want you to take a look at what he sent us before I read off the the email. The description here it is a sight to behold. Tell the people, Tell the people. Before I read the email, what you see, Dotter be Frank Silva, You're almost there?
Wow, holy shit? What do you see? H Yeah, it is a sch Mortgas board of of Mattel w what it was this ninety seven? I guess huh, it's all ninety seven guys with in the front. You got Psycho sid with the ball water Yeah, pointing at sausage.
He's got a legit can of Vienna is set up right in front of this parade, almost like a nineteen ninety two Royal Rumble promotional poster.
Right, it's all ninety seven. You got the DX in the back, triple h China HBK, even fucking insurance policy, Rick Rude. You got the Heart Foundation on the right. You got the three Faces of Foli. You got Taker Austin, Rocky, my Via, the Sultan for fuck's sake, the Headbangers with tag bells of the Nation, Domination and Vodder. That's a that's a fucking that's hilarious. You're right.
I normally don't send the same stuff of emails. They don't patroon boards Rex, But the look of pure disgust my wife gave me when I bought this can of Viennas for my ninety seven display made me even more proud to be hashtag lapsed. Sincerely Meyermania, PS, Fox, Scott Norton and Buff Bagwell sit in a can Viennas are the real, vicious and delicious, incredible pictures, incredible scenes. We should post time with the.
Episode that's that's really funny with the ball water water truly special. Anonymous.
If you want to see the picture when you listen to this episode and we forgot about it, which is likely, just send us a message on X and we'll post it anonymous as or maybe Meyer will. Eleven years into the cast Anonymous rights and they got me dying laughing at King Kong. Bundy hooked up to a feeding tube. Chris Man, all that you got that episode?
Didn't you?
All that moisture? Chris says, that was always on SID? What if it was Vienna juice?
Oh oh, listen, listen. I have no doubt that the juices that flow from SID or Vienna come from Vienna, or at least a VJ and baby oil mix just to give it that very specific beating effect, that that salty, salty, meaty beat. That's so nasty.
It is salty. So yeah, the beats of sweat on Sid or salty age.
Yes, listen because you can see the like basically the salt on its flesh. It's it's so rough. Oh you know, it's so weathered, be so weather beaten. It's exactly right. It's exactly right.
Amber saw under the Cinemat episode one thirty seven, Death from Above speaking of Sid, and said, you know what, just upgraded my pledged access this one. Very excited for future discussions about bankers and tears as well. Oh I know, oh my god, Oh that's one to see. As we paid tribute to the short, short lived film career of Sydney, Darren sent us something that kind of shocks the conscience when you first see it. I'm gonna let you see the picture, boss, and then tell the story. Yeah, you know,
it's not just wrestling analysis that we're looking for. Sometimes we also get slices of life from our great listeners in the mailbox. Take a look at Darren here fucking tough time, Hey guys. He writes, you were talking about taking a headbut on the Death from Above cast and I had to share a couple of pictures of me when I got busted open by running into the back of someone else's head.
While playing oh shit.
Soccer, football whatever. It was such a weird sensation, but I know sold it and felt like prime mcfoley. The cut is on the right eyebrow. You can just about make it out.
E c dub dub.
You ever been busted open like that? I have not, h no, but I I did. Hi.
I was talking about when I, when I, when I hit when I, when I kit nogging my you know, with the but that was that was like right in the middle of my face there, right between my brows. I see. But the other time I ran headfirst into somebody's skull. I was in I think it was in third grade and it was gym class and I was running and I just I was looking to my to the side, and and then I turned forward again and I ran face first into the kid's skull and I
broke my nose. Oh like I I hit him. And then the next thing I knew, I was like on the floor and I had, you know, it was like in a movie where you you know, they had the camera angle of somebody who's passed out and you've got like a circle of people around you, like looking down at you. That's what happened.
Yeah, that happened to me. But I didn't get busted open. But I banged my head in a poll and the recess one time.
Oh, and I was so.
Mad because people just okay, okay, okay, and it's like you're putting more pressure on me to make you feel like I'm okay than than just letting me be and get over this, you know, and recovery.
I don't know what's going on.
I got knocked silly, Like right, I don't I'm not worried right now about giving you the answer you're looking for. Yeah, Like, was so pissed off that so many people were like, oh talking to me at the same time as I don't want anything to do with anybody right now. Absolutely, yeah, I remember, like and they were and the gym teacher was like talking about oh, yeah, you know, it's so
big deal. All they'll do is will just fucking you know, they'll put your nose in advice and just fucking crack it over.
I'm like, no, that sounds fine. You know, thank you. I never got it fixed. You didn't know. I never did. Fascinating, never did heal. Was no fucking way that I'm gonna have someone fucking touch my nose in uh no way.
Like it like cracking a popsicle stick? Ship No so sinewy, oh so much? Cracking so much like popping noises? Oh fuck? Don't Brennan fucking Myers rights happy to be the person who sent JP the pick of Jerry Lawler in the Bubbles. I'm not sorry and we'll do it again.
Lawla in the bubbles? Remember that one that was a bubble bath? What's the next email?
Ali says in retrospect, it would have made more sense for sibbyan owner Mula to walk out to she Bop instead.
Of Wendy Richter. It's hard to argue that. Big ups to Roberto for the place I forgot about fucking on the city or the corner of the Westinghouse dryer. Is that ship? Oh fuck sounds from Mula drive? Oh my god?
Yeah, we always know how how much it intensifies that the experience and the sensation to scream my pussy in the middle of it. Imagine, Matthew writes, after it.
By yourself like no one. Oh she's so old, So she's been through so much trusty fucking fucking lakes like oh flakes.
Oh fucking Marge Simpson's sister over here. Oh oh yeah, gross, Matthew writes, after all these years, it was a tag team called the Big Short with the Shareholder as they're finishing, move.
That makes Boss completely lose it. Oh God, so stupid.
Nicholas Moore, thank you for the pledge. Welcome to the VIP circle, my friend. Yes, this is a big one. We talked about the main event and I had this feeling that it wasn't live. Remember this, Yes, it's like, was the Hogan Andre match live? Why do I?
I messed up? It was live?
Of course the Friday night primetime ones were the Hogan Savage one to set up Brus twenty five was live. What I was remembering And I looked back on this and Christopher knows because he says he was in attendance at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee and he remembers Vince exhorting the crowd to make as much noise as it could as they counted down to going live on NBC. Yeah,
you don't do that unless you are alive. I guess now what it was was it aired on a three hour delay on the West coast, so it could air.
At eight PM. Oh sure, And a lot of the word.
Had traveled for people, you know that could pick up the phone. It's hardcore wrestling fans found ways to know what was about to happen. But further than that, there was reporting earlier in the week and some of the mainstream press, not just the wrestling newsletters, that andre was going to go over for the title, and WWF did not refute the reports. In fact, interestingly, they didn't even freak out about him. They didn't even care about them.
Well because you know what that's actually going to get people to tune in, right or because when you got like Hogan been champion for.
Four years, to see how they're going to pull that off, right exactly. That's an excellent point. I wonder if that crossed their mind. But whatever the case, they were nonchalant about it. And that's what it was. It was like people went into that show knowing that Andrea was going to win, That's what I was remembering, But they didn't know he was going to win because the show had been taped three days before.
You know what I mean, it was about to air.
That wasn't the case like the other Saturday It's made events, Jeff writes, with Netflix, because of course, we go back to our Netflix live call that kicked off twenty twenty five here on on Patreon with Netflix one of the most It used to be better parts of modern society, he writes, his boardroom speak being part of every day vernacular. Fans applauding to be part of a record gate, fans cheering on the ratings points. You're not in a boardroom,
You're in sweatpants on Reddit. Stop living vicariously through the company's analytics.
You're what are you talking about? He writes, like this is great shit.
He says, laps fan stories that make me want to cry one Mike Chris Van Eric two anytime they read stories about eighty to nineties television, a time when the networks created programming that we wanted to watch, not content to trend and vanish a week later.
We didn't about content.
We didn't know how good we had it. Yes, the best stuff is better, he writes, but day to day programming back then was so much better and easier to access, and just saying people were a lot more agreeable when they had something to watch every night with little effort required from the view that puts gets people agitated when they got to do all this fucking work to find something to watch. Sure, Marshall McDonald, thanks for your increase
in pledge. Further to the Netflix point, JW. Wright's of streaming and archives, they threw everything they could at it on that January what was generary third raw whenever the Netflix one was was the sixth.
It was the sixth. That's right, January sixth.
I remember that they threw everything they could at it, and it was the same remaining three million US marks tuning in as much less than that. I'm not sure if total minutes watched had been released, but expect some unique and meaningless vanity metrics. He was right and irrelevant exbot stats.
Once.
It's clearly the same sad remnant of two to three million fans in the US who were willing to spend time watching their bad live streaming sport simulation comedy sketch program. Just like one point six million Network subscribers are two million Fox viewers. It's not going to end up being worth it to Netflix, and the Carnival will pull up its stakes and head to the next platform archives. The problems are demand driven. Was also a huge Jeff One
fan as a kid in the nineteen eighties. Until summer twenty twenty two, you could see everything on archive dot org, ESPN versions with commercials or without BBC, you name it. Someone uploaded their vhss all the way back to nineteen seventy eight. When the F one Network pulled the plug, I was assured by fools that it didn't matter because they too had an archive. They didn't they didn't have shit ten minute recaps in race per season, whole seasons
covered in a forty five minute video. But the moronic fans on social media will say with god like certainty that the F one Network has an archive dating back to all the past seasons. The people who pay the most attention are massively outnumbered by people who think they are paying attention but really aren't. They are about to learn that lesson hard when it comes to the when it comes to the past, let me tell you I'm worried. Josh Rumbin, thank you very much for the pledge. Josh rumbin.
We appreciate it. Jordan Biddle, thank you so much for your support on Patreon. JB is really feeling it, he says, I'm not sure if this can be read on air, but I would appreciate it. Hey, co chairs, forgive me as I have sinned for far too long. I've been listening to TLF as a free loading bitch, going back to the Main's journey, and I have not offered my pension that gives me penetration. That has now changed. I'm happily in the twenty dollars tier for those who've taken
advantage of this amazing content. If you have not yet given look yourself in the mirror and asked, why stop being a bitch? Pay the men. Pay them not what they deserve, but what they have earned. I won't take up too much time, but really want to thank you guys. Years ago, I was struggling to quit smoking. Driving is always the hardest times. TLF helped take my mind away from that and help me steer clear away from SIGs. I love that. That's good stuff. That's a great use
of a podcast right there. Yes, you can turn it on when an urge strikes a craving strikes. That is a craving that is not good for you. I'm ashamed to say, work in life got in the way and I fell off of TLF for a period, and consequently I started smoking again. I quickly came back to TLF, but am back on my journey now of no smoking and it's been about a month. TF has come through for me again. TF is there to help my smoking
urges in my extremely long daily commute. Not only do I need TLF, but my mind, body, and soul does. My health depends on TLF. Love you guys, and can't wait to see what goodies you have in store for my anal sphincter in twenty twenty five. Color equals money, anal color equals TLF.
Money equals TLF. You're damn right, Jay, it's all, it's all, it's all true.
We're glad to be of service, and we hope, hope you're staying strong up in that twenty dollars tier GMB eighty five. Thanks so much for your media increase in pledge up to the mote tier. Not kidding around at all, Corey so excited to see the Colisseum collection back in twenty twenty five, It says, Bravo, this is what we needed most excited I've been in a while for a show. We'd need that sweet coliseum video action march this train all the way to the best of the British Bulldog's tape.
He says, how far down the road is that one?
Boss? I don't even know. Let me see here. It's it's not like two. I mean, well, it depends like it's hard with these Colosseum tapes. Let me see video. Okay, you're looking big.
Shout outs to Lucas Vincent for bumping up recently to the EP tier.
Different way, but that's okay, here we go. Let's see here.
DT, thank you very much for your pledge. Kate, well, thank you for your pledge in the ten dollars tier. We deeply appreciate that.
It's not that fighting, really, Bridge Fox is number thirty and what do we just do? We just best of w's the best of seven? Right? Yeah? All right? So then we at one, two, three, four, five, six more? What's the next morning Ago? Next is ww's explosive TNT show. Oh Jesus, that's a big one. That's a tasty one. That's going to be very very interesting. I agree.
Team Janner writes, democracy gives people the illusion of choice.
The last Yes, the.
Lapsed will last forever. Graveyard Entertainment writes, greetings, co chairs want to submit a request for Under the cinemat if looks could kill starring Richard Greicho. Oh god, IM sure, but any and connected for him? But Gabriel Anoir played a role. And it was also Fiona on burn Notice, which was paired with Raw on USA for years and featured an episode with Big Show season five, episode four doing scenes with Gabriel Andnoir. Could be more connections, but
that was the one I found that. I hope it is enough, not even close to being a connection. Yeah, that does Gabriel an war acting with someone's got to be on wrestling.
Yes, that's what to be. Someone's got to be on wrestling. They can't have interacted on a on a on a show that isn't wrestling. I appreciate the effort. I'm not trying to Oh yeah, I appreciate all effort, but they've got to be. It's got to be a real.
Childhood favorite of his. So he's hoping against.
Hope, but I know I understand. Listen, you know what, they probably there might be a one. I mean, because to me that that's even It might as well have been Richard Grieco being in the connection because he was an almighty four with fucking Kevin Nash. You know that's the same kind of connection and that that doesn't work. But what's the name of the movie again? Oh? Man, I just had it. I just lost it too. Uh,
let's see it is. Bear with me here for a second. Yeah, the movie is If Looks Could Kill If looks I feel like sounds familiar. Yeah, it does sound familiar. I'll sign me one. Yeah, I'll see. I'll take a quick consideration. Keep on.
Well, take a look Team Jenner. We need to thank Team Jenner as well, not only for that democracy message but a way to increase in pledge. We deeply appreciate that. My friend Chris writes, let's see, uh, this is the episodehere the chairman almost killed me. Okay, this is which one.
Let's see that could be any of the four hundred fucking episodes that we've.
Done talking to our villains of the Squared Circle Coliseum collection episode. Because what happened was this is the first time on the bench press with a way I haven't tried in years. Halfway through the second set, in the exchange between Dick Eversoll and Vince goes like this, Dick, this fucking guy over here, Vince George Steele, Do you want me to call him this fucking guy? I can
do that, no problem. Not an exact transcript, Chris writes, I was fighting for my life to keep the bar bell from dropping on my throat because I was laughing too hard while trying to rack the bar bell. Well, be careful about operating heavy machinery with that cast buried in your ass.
That's all I can say about that. Hey, listen, Yeah, that we we when it comes to working out, we strive as to fuck you up.
Christopher raises a sobering point, and we talked about it when we did some Colisseum videos with so many guys from the seventies on it. He writes, I wonder how long it will be until every single person on a show is also on the death toll.
Yeah, like a main It's gotta be like a like a main show, like a night like an eighty show.
Can't be that far away from that. We'll be casting when the day comes. I can feel it.
Yeah. I mean, you know, there will come a time where there there will be a uh, you know, kind of retroactively changing, you know, like if like Wrestlmingia too, for example. I know has got so many fucking dead people. Yes, and it's only obviously expanded since we did the show. That's gonna be the thing is there's going to be an older episode where everybody's going to be dead. Wow. Get ready for it.
Bess says, I often think about that. Sadly, I think by the end of the twenty twenties, no one from the eighty four to eighty six era will be around anymore. Think about that, Scott Gallagher, thank you very.
Much for that. I mean, I think I think Steamboat is going to be around for a while. I think so. I mean, is he any any health problems. I don't think so, No, not that I've heard of. I think he's all right. I think he's he's gonna be someone who fucks it up for everybody. Yeah for sure. Yeah, yep, that's a great point. You probably will do that. Yeah.
Tom had to write in this is a different Tom the Lapse Litigator. Tom, here's co chairs. It's been a while since I've sent a missive from the lapsed litigation department, despite the fact that we've been in the.
Car from our legal department. Oh yeah, we've got lapsed legal. That is the name of a TV show.
We've got that base covered. Not a fucking problem, not a fucking problem. Yep, it's been a while since I've sent a missive from the lapsed litigation department, despite the fact that we've been in the court room with Terry Funk and the Master and Ruler of the World, among others lately. Yes, plenty of court filings to pull. Oh yes, to be honest, Jack's legal analysis, he says, typically so good. You can't really have me on on a retainer. You
don't really need to have me on retainer. Every time I think there is a hole to be filled with MA expertise, a few minutes later we've clarified the issues and can move on to the good stuff. Today, I wanted to write about something outside the scope of work. I want to talk about the video store.
Mmmm.
You have waxed poetic and hit me right in the nostalgia hole many many times when it comes to that video store feeling, there really isn't much like it anymore. Picture it. It's Friday evening, your little league game is over and Dad has driven you to the mini mall. On the way home, he parks the car and you get out along summer light just giving way to dusk. Oh man, you're getting me, you're getting me good right here, yep.
As you walk up the concrete steps to the elbow shaped row of commercial properties, you pass the nail salon. Not interested. The Chinese place is next, no things, the dry cleaner's lame, the weird store with like beanie babies, and I don't know, picture frames or something you never even looked in the window. Then there it is the video store. Dad tells you to go inside and figure out what you want to rent this week. Then he
walks a few shops down to Brother's Pizza. He's going to order two pies because at seven pm and he worked all day and took your sorry ass to the little league, and he'll be damned if he or the missus is going to cook tonight. And Dad thinks, you don't know, he's going to sneak a Marlboro or red before he goes into the pizza shop.
Oh yeah, you know, you know what He's gonna smell like when he fucking comes out.
Because he told everyone he quit again. But you know you saw the pack in his shirt pocket when he came out of the woah wah yesterday.
This makes this makes me think of the you've seen the meme around that goes around with with an old eighties Mel Gibson photo with long hair and he's smoking a cigarette. Everyone told everyone people like that this is what eighties moms looked like, or something like that. It's no fucking great that it's awesome.
Yeah, and you know that smoke buys you a few minutes, he says, that's right. The anticipation is overwhelming before you even walk in the door. This is it all week and long. Whatever you rent will be the focus of your life. You got through school and sports and CCD all week suffering because you don't control anything about what you do day to day at this age except on Saturday, Saturday, burly before mom and dad and watch whatever you rented
all morning long. Yep, Saturday is freedom. You walk into the video store alone. You have no phone, Your dad has no way to find you if you something goes wrong, but you don't care. It's time to focus there are only two sections that matter in this video store, the cartoon section and the special interest section.
We know it.
Well, okay, that's not true, he says. You know, there's a third section that matters. You know this because that section is roped off from public access. You need to be an adult to go back there.
You got to like, oh, man, the the the the steak heart pounding, yes, oh, like a heart pounding when I'm in there, and I know, like, I'm just I just want to see if I can. You know, a guy went back to put it away, and I'm like, oh, god, just get a little peek. God, the heart is racist, just to see, just to see the fucking covers, right, yeah, because they were pretty graphic, man, of course they were. It had to be.
Oh, you need to be an adult to go back there. And you think maybe your dad did once, but you weren't sure. That's action isn't for you, and you don't know why. But the fact that you can't go back there makes you desperately jealous of everyone who does.
I love the idea like that. You know, it's kind of funny, the idea of of you know, the person who goes back there, who just walks back there. I'm gonna run born right.
Yeah, it's just a Saturday night, you know, Friday night.
Yeah, you know, I feel like jerking off tonight.
As in that long week of work and he goes home and just beats off, but he has to go to a video store first.
Yeah. Yeah, I gotta get some fucking you know, I get something to kind of, you know, inspire me.
I bet even that guy longs for the days where he had to put in a little bit of work to get a nut. Of course, now it's like, okay, just open the computer, like lower on my phone, like like.
You can fucking you can work and jerk off at the same time. Believable. Forget that.
Tom says focus the cartoons are tempting. You could snatch up G. I. Joe or he Man tapes and they're clear clamshell cases. Those are easy watches, fun and breezy and a guarantee. But damn it, you can't stop looking at the special intro section. Why do they call it that wrestling is a sport the best sport? Special interest makes it feel like these tapes are somehow not cool. If wrestling is in a sport, am I supposed to like it. No, despite your misgivings, the box art grabs
your eye. One is Hulk Cogan and Andre the Giant staring at each other. The artwork is dark and lonely and seems old. That can't be good. You don't recognize the wrestlers on the next one. No Hogan, no Warrior, though one guy has face paint.
Nobody you know.
And then you see it, cartoon versions of every wrestler you know, looking muscular and angry and ready to invade your living room. There's like a hundred of them. It's Royal Rumble nineteen ninety one.
Oh, don't even heavenly, you've rented it sixty times. Now we're talking. Dad walks in. He's gonna get a movie to watch with Mom later. You'd better hurry. The pressure mounts. Dad see somebody he knows and stops to chat. That gives you a moment. What to get. You've narrowed it to like eight videos. But what if you picked the one you haven't seen and it sucks? It would ruin the only good four hours of your life. Yes, Dad walks over, he's standing behind you. He doesn't say anything,
but you have a fucking movie. At for fuck's sake, Jesus Christ, I want to get home.
You feel the pressure. The pizza will be ready soon. And he's already holding whatever rom com mom demanded. You reach out and grab a box. You hold it close to your face with both hands, and spectcat.
Can we get when Harry met Sally? I haven't seen We haven't seen that one. We keep talking about it, right, we do, keep talking about it. We never rent that one.
I'll have what she's having, inspecting like it contains the secret to world peace warrior check Hogan, check huge opponent for the hulkster check. Yes, and that's smarmy, gross, smug, prick rick rude, SummerSlam ninety. That's it this time. You hope it delivers, and it does. Thanks for all you do, especially UTC. Hope to see some al Berke movies coming.
Soon, Tom, which one? Al Burke? Al Burke?
I don't think I know Albert. I don't know, did you We.
Talked about Albert Alberke movies. I don't let me see. Al Burke.
Known for the wedding singer, Cradle the Grave. Honeyboll Sure, I don't.
Know the guy. Oh, he's in the movies. I see his face. Is he a wait a minute, Oh, he's a wrestler. That'll do it. That's the connection. I think he must be a championship on Oh yeah. Sixteenth. Al Burke, also known as Mister Outrageous, is a sixteen time professional wrestling I don't know. Okay, let's look at his filmography. What do we do to your time? Sixteen times? That's right, brother, he's got two and thirty nine movies. Oh my goodness, under his under his hat here, that's a lot to see.
There's anything that's that's that that's been kind of lacking. I've been but uh uh is there a home fucking moves there even heard of? Which is great? I'm not saying that. Listen, he's all qualified. So it's noodles of Nudeland. Huh huh, Yeah, let's do it. I'm looking at Yeah. These a listen, these are all fucking all fine paranormal attraction Killer Waves to Killer in Suburbia. Yeah, we're gonna
plut albrok on. He'll get his time. Let's see. Uh, let's go back kind of, let's go back a little ways here, let's go sometimes these guys have been in like old let's see when he started. He started eight. N Oh, look at he's on fucking w Superstars and Challenge. Look at that ten episodes of Superstars, eight episodes of Challenge and IWF at the zone. He's in the wedding singer. He's in the wedding singer. Anything about this guy? That's amazing?
All right? Uh, his wedding singer already on the fucking list. I don't know. Let's take a look. The list is always expanding. I mean seriously, if I ever showed you the list, you'd be like, I can't even read this. Fucking need you tonight. It's so massive the list. Uh, wedding singer is not on the list. It is now. To not be on the list is a big enough deal. Yep, Let'll let alone qualify wedding singer. Al Burke, got it. That's fucking that's huge. So we're doing huh high crimes
on the Kingdom episode of the King of Queens. Oh my god. I love these guys who like had who were on like big things when they were younger. He did he did the wedding singer, and then he did like an episode of Mad About You. Uh uh, you know the Bold and the Beautiful King of Queens. And then as he goes on he starts to get into the really crappy shit. Yes, and that's where the money is. I love it. That's where the fucking money is. Well, you did it. You hooked the boss hook Line and Sinker.
He did a Christmas movie called It's Christmas. Brother. That's great. I mean it's Christmas, dude, what it's not? What are you saying? Nothing to forget it? Terry? This is great? All right? No, we got al Burke. We'll see mean, we'll see what we can do with al Burke.
Liam wants to throw something in play too over in Cork. He says, I recall JP saying Dan Severn, look like there will be bloods Daniel plain View and one of your old Attitude era pay per view reviews. That qualifies, and when you cover it, I will finally join the cinemat Deer. There will be blood.
Okay, So that's that's all it takes. If you're ever looking for twenty bucks. Yeah, if I say someone's looking looking at all, right, there we go. I guess that somehow makes it. That makes it more worthy than big show being on the fucking TV show with what's your butt? To qualify that other movie? I don't know. Yeah, gabriel Anwar Oh yeah really.
More eiks Le's good to Hawaii. Huh what do you say?
I listen? I love Hawaiian lovely.
Cultures, wonderful place and our homie Kaipo always holding it down over there, wants to let us know about his fiftieth state Big Time wrestling recollections. You want to talk about remembering the warm, golden glow of the way it used to be. So remember going to uh Owahu three or four years ago, and I probably told this story. There was an old head there. He looked like Buddha man. He was like this fat old guy with white hair
and a hugely friendly disposition, lifelong islander. And we were just sitting there and near the pool, and I started talking to him about Lord James Blears and High Chief Peter Myivia and neph Mayava and he was like, who the fuck is this guy from Wow, New England who knows about all these Hawaiian wrestling guys that I grew. It was a wonderful talk as he was what we're calling all these all these names and all these stories, it's not like he was the biggest wrestling fan in
the world. But that's what was cool about it, Curtis, I Ka, every buddy in the island knows these guys. You don't have to be a wrestling fan. You're just a Hawaiian right right, and Kaypo knows what's up, he writes toteer coach chairs. I wanted to write about him, and my experience is growing up in Hawaii and hearing some of the older generations talk about the wrestling scene out here in the sixties and seventies. I was tempted
to write this email. When you guys covered Goldfinger and put the spotlight on Harold Sakata, that would make sense, boss.
Right, mm hmm.
And that show Jack talked about interacting with the old timercy I knew I told the story before in Hawaii and seeing his face light up at the mere mention of wrestling in Hawaii. I'm here to back that up, as my parents both love and love to talk about their wrestling experiences growing up. First, my dad. My dad has since passed on, but he grew up in Khali, which is a town with the Downtown Honolulu district. Within
the Downtown Honolulu district. His house was about ten minutes by car to the old Honolulu Civic Auditorium where they would hold shows weekly. Man he was born in nineteen forty three, so we got to experience the good shit at an age where he could remember and in some cases get involved. I remember him telling me stories about Saint Kila Kawalsky and Sam Steamboat, how he would be in the mob with all the Samoans to watch High
Chief Peter Mavia. He admonished me when I met Prince Ikia from w c W and pronounced his name iakeya wow like the announcers did. He told me it was pronounced eokaya. Interesting roller. He absolutely loved the heels and would root for Fred Lassi and would get into constant
fights at school for calling people pencil like geeks. He would talk about Ed Francis and how mister Fuji, who my dad would call Fuji Fujiwara, that's a great would all we start as promos with Dankie Massa Franzis and the most pig pigeon English accent you could you could find. His love for wrestling as a teenager and young adult
male made it fun to watch wrestling with him. He loved Yokozuna because mister Fuji was his manager and because Yoaks looked like a big sumo and he used to hang out with And he immediately dismissed Leilani Kai as a Hawaiian and culture a hioala, which is slang for taurus or white person.
Awesome, Wow.
I love the words that non white countries have for white people. I think it's so funny.
Oh, please more more of them. They all have them all right, listen, we all deserve them all right now.
My mom, she's about thirteen years younger than my dad and grew up on the west side of O Wahoo in the town of Maha mccaha, pardon me Macaha. Fortunately for her. Ed Francis would run shows out of the Wainai High School gym, which is in the neighboring town. My mom and her siblings towne Town Mahine not Tom Mahaa Tom. That's how I say it. Shout outs to Max Holloway, by the way, for talking about whiney. My mom and her siblings would go and watch the matches.
She would see guys like Lord James Blears, Nick Bockwinkle, the Missing Link, gentlemen Jim Hady, Rippercollins and Hansy Handsome, Johnny Barand among others. Whenever I bring up wrestling in Hawaii, she always tells me the story of waiting outside to get autographs of the wrestlers and seeing them leaving the venue. She was astonished when she saw Ripper Collins and Ed Francis, who were feuding at the time, get in the same car together. Kay Fabe died for her that day, but
she still loved going to the matches. She also lived down the street from Lord Blears and would ride her bike down to where Blears's house was to catch a glimpse of her favorite wrestlers. Another story she had was that one day her and her siblings were walking on the beach and saw a washed up whale carcass. This happens from time to time here and it can get
pretty stinky. But the whale was freshly washed ashore and the carcass didn't start to rot yet, so my mom and her siblings started climbing it and jumping on it. Lo and behold, James Blears was walking on the beach as he always would, and immediately told them to get off the whale and go home. They all knew him from wrestling and instantly listened or else they would they
thought he could slap the V four on them. A lot of her memories a little shot now, but she can still recollect those times and also enjoyed that I got into pro wrestling so she can relive those days going to shows with me. She even remembered Harld Sakata when I told her I was learning about him on a podcast. I wonder what podcast that would be? By right, she knew all the accomplishments and accolades like the back
of her hand. Lastly, when my mom got older, she moved into Honolulu and worked at a Woolworth and the Ala Muana shopping center. There she saw celebrities such as Jack Lord from Hawaii five oh and would occasionally see wrestlers as they passed through. One such occasion had her bring to cashier for Andre. Had her being the cash for Andre the Giant. She described him as a huge
man with huge hair. Yeah, he was accompanied by four jobbers who were his handlers because Andre was one hundred percent completely blitzed off of marijuana and whatever else he consumed. This is all to say that pro wrestling still has a rich history among the locals here. I wish they would have some sort of museum for the history, but at least we still have some of the generation that lived it to educate us youngins about a great time in wrestling history. Thank you both for all that you do.
It's all too easy to just delve into the big companies, but you guys go the extra mile and discuss those great territories lost to time. Appreciate you and all that you do. Look for a care package in the mail for the next unwrappening with treats from Hawaii. Oh boy, Oh boy, chocolate covered macadamia nuts. Boss, give him caramel Macadamian nuts, ConA coffee, take care and as always.
Give me some ConA coffee. Yes it wasn't Gene Snitz. Also a.
Great and some con crush. Yeah, if we're lucky. How about some David Beltran pledges. How about Sean three sixteen about Lucas Vincent upping his pledge. How about Team Janner and Jake Anthony Martin and Cody Fague and Andrew Carpenter and Travis Wilcox and Brett Derizo and Liam Coucy and Jonathan and Zane Shima.
How about all these folks, boss that works for me? You know what I mean?
These are all folks putting cash on the table. How about Justin who right? Just want to say hello to the fellas that are getting me through this broken tibia and fibula.
Oh.
I've been a motor now for a little while, and it was the best fucking decision I've made in a while. My mom was just like Johnny Ace. I told her I can't go off the second step carrying this one hundred pound cabinet. I wasn't obligated, but she told me I had to, and I did it. Snapped my fucking leg into Jesus Jesus Christ. First words out of me, out of my mouth, damn it, damn it.
Just like Sid.
Oh, my mom runs out and that's what happened. And I followed it with a shut up. You guys are awesome and I appreciate the hell out of you. While Sid is up there laps Togan is still my all time favorite. Just another reminder it used to be better. Have a good one, fellows, and thank you all the way from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I hope you're on the man justin.
Wring my favorite, my favorite brother. We're talking about favorite, dude? What what was I supposed to be the underdog? What is it?
Wouldn't say that I'm favorite? Wait a minute, what do you are you? You said upper peninsula?
Brother? What my peninsula? Trying to get the upper hands? What do you Michigan? Bro? Is that that's kind of sauce? Don't you think? Dude? Isn't that where I slammed a giant? Dude? You work in silver dorm? What do you know something about the actual attendance that are you saying? Are you saying are you saying you had a cousin that worked at the box office? Dude? Are you saying brother? Are you saying that? Are you saying that it wasn't sold out?
Are you getting that? Dude? What? What? Well? Che Bobo Brazil? Cobo Hogan, Cobo Hogan, Hogan, Bro? I didn't know what's going on? Dude? What are you here? Where do you get off being from Michigan? What do you brother? Why do you say Michigan? Dude? Like that's like the third time? What's Michigan? Brother? What's going on? Dude?
It's a huge concern. I need did you brother, did you shut O factories and relocate jobs to the macchiadoras in Mexico?
Dude?
Are you taking advantage of duty free US MCA imports?
Brother? Are you taking what are you talking about? Duty? Dude? You're talking dooky brother. I didn't know these things. Dude, do they collect doukie at the border or duties?
John right on our Netflix show when uh you know what our Netflix show when we covered the raw Netflix debut. What was the first thing we saw?
Do you remember? Uh?
No, there was a curtain around the ring, wasn't there? And then a pyro explosion when the curtain came down. Who is in the middle of the ring.
Game?
John writes, when that curtain dropped, I was finally able to understand and appreciate why Vince decided not to leave the company to his idiotic daughter and dufus son in.
Law Wrestling Podcast, The wrestling Podcast that knows the boys need their candy. It's the Lapsed Fan. He's the Lapsed Fan. Wrestling Podcast with Jack and Carnaco and JP Soro.
Michael Allen, thanks for the increase in pledge meet uh let's see the Cutman. Thank you very much, DP, thank you very much, Name of Avery. We love the pledge. Thank you, Sir Snyder and SSI. We appreciate your support. On Patreon, Jacob writes, when thinking about the coach here is doing a hog contribute. I feel like the entire cast to spend a Hogue contribute all along. M something I think about you, there's some there's some truth to that,
Chris Hughes, We love it. Welcome to the executive producer here, Derek. Thank you so much for your support and pledge. On Patreon. Martin Wilson as well, Welcome to the Inner Circle. James writes, how early did you know about Vince McMahon's corporophilia? How about twenty sixteen? While listening to the star K ninety one stop on the Memorial Tour. During the discussion of Vader and Hughes versus Steiner and night Stalker, Boss goes into an extended description of Vince wanting to shit on
the talent in the middle of the ring. I mean, how fucking on the nose is that? Well, it's mostly on the chest, but I get your point.
I believe well, listen, I am not a you know, I'm not as stubborn as I come across on the television as you've heard. I am fine to you know. I don't have to drop feces on any particular any particular body part. I can do whatever is desired. My feces are very, very They go anywhere anywhere you need. I can drop here.
I am her rights, enjoying the shelf life of that fucking cast when I'm shook at how you managed to come up with exactly what Vince has been accused of nearly eight years before the Janelle Grant lawsuit which details the accusations of Vince shitting on her. I think this is just more evidence of how you managed to tap into Vince's psyche and plumb the depths of his depravity
for our entertainment. Just reaching out to thank you for ten years of quality entertainment and to remind you just how much truth you've been laying on the table since day one. Hashtag shelf life coming to you from Crockett Country.
James.
Never forget that, Never forget the point he makes. Yeah, Eric esc welcome to the Executive producer tier. Same to Liam McGrath, Matthew Muns. We deeply appreciate your bold and vainy jump to the moat tier. Andrew just wants to say you guys honestly make life better. Just want to say thank you for this today. Well, thank you pal. We'd love to hear that legion a AOD. Thank you very much. We already did shout you out, but you've been climbing the Patreon ladder, so we need to acknowledge
e'd step along the way. Anthony Desanzo, thank you for your support. William Webb, Thanks for going all the way up to the moat tier, my friend. We know it's a plunge, but you'll find it's worth it. Steve Maltez, thank you very much for your support on Patreon. Ryan Morris, thanks for bumping up to the Executive producer Tier Scott writes, thanks for keeping me hot the company on my hike today, healthy habits developing with the coach here is directly at
my ass. That's happening a lot. Yep, we are part of this balanced diet, happy to do it. Here is Paul very quickly wishing us a happy new year. Let's not forget we're going back to the turn of the calendar here on this Millback also wish you could share Paul sentiments.
Sure, CoA chairs. I was talking with a co worker when ben Walk came up for some reason, and I told him about the definitive tenth anniversary tragedy cast you gentlemen did nihon eight years ago. Now, I mentioned I needed to re listen to it half hashtag shelf life. I started listening this morning while making breakfast. The later later, my wife and I got into an argument, and I started and I started anger cleaning. I tried to channel anger into something positive, but it still involves a lot
of muttering to myself. That's amazing. My earbuds ran out of battery and the ben Wa Pott started playing from my phone at the table. She was sitting the concerned side. I stare, I got as we were all as we were still steamed at each other. I'm sure she was envisioning me texting my brother about the dogs being in the pool house. Oh my god, and already dialed nine and one and was ready to hit the last one.
The reader of the Simpsons, Oh yeah, totals of the Simpsons where Millhouse and his family are at his grandma's house, and and there's and Bart's knocking at the door because he sold his soul and I'll let shit and the grandmother goes, okay, you dial nine one and when I say go dial one again, it's so fucking great. And we already hit that last one if I tried to lock her in across face before we started rolling with laughter, which eased the mood. Thank y'all for that. Wow.
Look at that come absolutely speaker and bringing a little levity to tense domestic elements. We'll be there for that too, and we'll be there for Nick from Minnesota, who says, hello co chairs this summer, you guys read my email about my mom listening to the lamentable tragedy after she had watched The Iron Claw. She has finished the Wow, although she skipped the match breakdowns because she didn't understand
what was going on. Can you imagine some of the hasn't watched pro wrestling in their lives gets to the deep dive portion, they what's going on? I'd like take over head, says or ants her shoulder tackle by brett her Overall thoughts are as follows. Fritz is responsible for all of his son's deaths. Yep, the Iron Claw movie did not do justice to the family story.
Yep.
Why would anyone get into pro wrestling? It seems really bad for you.
Yep.
Lastly, she said she likes listening to TLF because she can tell you guys really are best friends. Here's to ten more years of TLF. Nick from Minnesota, Thanks for sharing that, Nick, That's really cool.
That's she And then you know how she felt about Vince beating the shit out of Fritz. That's important. What happens in the Yeah, what happens at the end? Mom? What did you think when he kicks him right in the fucking nuts? Yeah? Exactly. For all this, he just gets kicked in the nuts and that's the end of it. Christopher M.
Panda, Todd Harding joining the Mote Tier. Thank you, wire Tap eight oh four, Tom Bauer, welcome to that tip top tier, Jacob. Thank you very much for joining us at the executive producer level as David May and Sackster. Tony Allen has joined the Mote Tier as well. Since we were last with you in this format, Chris Awesome Mike Hogan has also joined the Mote Tier. What a way to start the year. Eric Ramos bumping up to EP Tyrone Terrell tom Bauer. Hmm, it's just an amazing and humbling roster.
It is, It absolutely is.
We conclude with two final notes. All right, that's when we recently received from Michael. It's entitled The Nature of Life and Wrestling. Yes, he put boy in parenthesis after nature, m Chairman, My chairman, lend me your as I weave a yarn into a work that is a shoot for those who believe that being the worker who does the job will generate the heat needed to put them over all others.
But can reverse the heat is a question.
I am but a humble craftsman of words. So I call your attention to the words of our chairman. Life is pain. If it doesn't hurt, have you lived? As our philosopher and residence Lapsenash reminds us, it doesn't matter.
It's all fake.
M This leads me to my greatest moment of clarity on what I have learned from being a fan as a child and as a lapsed fan. Now, why does society have such disdain for and contempt of wrestling or what he calls previously agreed upon and contractually obligated aggressive action. Please read this portion as a monologue of lapsed Stone or Nash giving a lecture at the bond.
Are you ready? Uh huh, trying to figure out where it stops.
Okay, here we go, I mean your way, take ahead of Sativa, bring bring us home.
Now and we all have the story. I was watching wrestling, I was sharing my interests in wrestling, when suddenly, out of left field, the other person goes, hey, hmm, you do know that this? Uh? And what are they doing? It's all uh? I mean it takes two to do some of those things and boom, just like that, life is no meaning anymore. Yeah, because they're lying. Wait who is lying them? Or them or both of them? You know, we claim it a work and they're trying to roll
us up from behind. You know. This brings me to my lesson for you today. What's life? Is life? A shoot? A work, a performance entertainment or a series of costume self promoting workers trying to get themselves over by making you sell what they're throwing because you believe them shooting on you. Also you can throw it to another due to do to do a job, so you can get them over them, put over them, you know, But do they tell you the secret that it's all fucking fake.
Your parents, your teachers, your boss, your spouse, your kids, you know, the strangers on the street, lease, the government, even the planet's rolling you up from behind, and the sun rolling it up as well. Then life shows as a Steve Austin, Rick Flair Dwayne Brock who shows us there's another way. Hope is out there for somebody who can finally get over on all those that got over on me. Huh. You know we're jubilant, you know, we go and we sell what they've done, and we have
a champion. Yet you break from the delusion of hope as others refuse to do the job for you the way others did for our champion, it all tumbles away because now we see that even through it all, if it was all fake, how doesn't it work for real?
Oh wait, you know that guy that time told me it takes two to do some of us, and the delusion that the majority of those around us have previously agreed upon and contractually obligated bigated aggressive action that they will force us to accept or force us out if we don't. But now, who is it that's trying to roll you up? Brother? Them at the top saying it's a shoot. For them telling you it's a work, I say,
claim it all of work, yep. That they're trying to roll us up from behind, hit someone's intro music, then drop the big leg on him, well frozen in their pre planned moment. Then ten ninety nine there ass.
Close with the words have been. I've been listening to TLF for years, and probably more intently than most, even though I'm not and never have been a fan of professional wrestling. That notwithstanding, I think that everything I've learned from that cast mostly boils down to this life is almost entirely just one big fucking work.
Hmm.
So like what you like, laugh at what you think is funny, support and cultivate the things you care about, do good when you can, and give a shit about the people who give a shit about you. Thank you for ten rock hard years, co Chairman, and thank you those in the Solar System for filling our till and our mail bag.
Once again. We'll see you next time.
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