Ep. 433: The Complete Hulk Hogan | Alabama (Part 1)

I mean, that's pretty much what was what happened right in drinking.

detail without that experience. But I've told you what I had to when you said to him, well, as long as everybody was satisfied, and he was like, I hope the girls were satisfied. I was like, we don't have to do any more of these, really, I mean, he's not going to get much better than that.

where he's not wrestling. Yeah, Like I would want to know more at that point because that's because there comes a point where oftentimes if I if I like I've read, if I've watched a movie or something like that, and I want more, I will eventually. This is movies that are based on books. I eventually turned to the book because I'm like, I'm just not satisfied anymore with what

the movie gave me. I need more than that. I need more, and and so I always turn to the book, and then I get more, and then I'm left feeling more satisfied than I was. And I'm able to I'm able to kind of fit into pieces that are not in the movie. But now that I know the book, you know, I can I can say, oh, okay, well that would have gone in here. I see there at this part in the movie, so they must be doing this and that minute, you know. So, so I'm just

surprised that it's not more of a thing. Well, we took care of that, and we did. There'll be a little bit more to offer as it regards what was going down in Cocoa Beach and how it gave a direct tie back into the wrestling business for Hulk Hogan and indeed entree into the wrestling business for ed Leslie. As we go to Hulk Hogan's first Territory after emphasis emphasis on entree for sure.

with the Hulk Cogan ball, as it were. And if you thought that we have turned over things you didn't know about Hulk Hogan up to this point, you ain't seen nothing yet because you I can't tell you how fucking excited I've been. Oh no, since I first understood all of this. To tell you, it's all in nineteen seventy nine. Yeah, this idea that like Hull Coogan slowly worked his way into the wrestling business, went to work for Vince Senior, and over several years chase Stadium and

became this in Japan, became this top player. Every single thing that Hulk Cogan never did that was of consequence in his career. He did first in nineteen seventy nine in Alabama.

but a location, a territory, right, very small, very humble territory, so small it almost it almost confuses you as to like where it starts and ends. Think about Pensacola, Doti. I mean, that's the thing I couldn't even tell you. I couldn't even I couldn't even tell you one thing that I've ever learned about Alabama.

because you know, over the summer. I forget if I even talked about this with you or not, but you know, we did one of one of my my wife's clients, wells a couple of clients were in shows one and well it was when I went to Saint Louis, So you know this, Yeah, when I went to Saint Louis and then all of a sudden, I was in Alabama for like an hour because we want to go see a show in Alabama. And so it was really like a very fucking funny like that. That's it. That's I've

been to Alabama. I don't even never need to go again. We have had a longer than I have. I'm good, right exactly, That's just it. You know, I've been there. I was there for like five hours top.

half cinematic treatment of Louf for Riigno's Incredible Hulk. For a reason, because of the year that drops, it is absolutely correlated with a wrestling promoter getting a look at this Terry Ballet coming off the run in Cocoa Beach, hanging and banging at Whitey's, taking as much steroids as he could and saying, you know what, goddamn it, everyone's talking about the incredible Hulk and this louf for Urigno guy.

We got a wrestling Hulk right here. And it's here in Alabama, here in the Gulf Coast that Terry Boley is first presented to the world as the Hulk. The Hulk folks here I am when Terry passes, thinking, oh my god, there's so many things that so gradually became true about this guy. You know, everyone saw it in the beginning. He did it all in the beginning. He showed his cards in the beginning. In terms of what working promoters off of each other.

Yes say that. I think we opened and shut the case and Eddie Graham and the Briscos, as much as the revisionist history plays into it, they did not see the biggest star in the history of the business when Terry Bully was getting shuffled around the territory with shit dates where he was basically losing more money than he was making because he was traveling so far as Super Destroyer under the hood and being put out there for the locker room's amusement because he didn't know how to

go more than fifteen minutes without gassing.

all going to come back around. And all those motherfuckers who didn't see it and snickered behind his back and just saw him as some kind of whipping boy and some kind of tool or someone like a dusty who wanted to keep him away from the hesterly and pretend he wasn't worthy. This motherfucker is going to find a way to be undeniable as a drawing card in the smallest little area possible. You couldn't contain what this guy's charisma could do if you just leaned into letting him

be the centerpiece of your company. We're off to the races. We are very much off to the races. So this is so exciting. I mean, even five years ago, a lot of the stuff we're about to convey to you about Terry Bully's first year in the business after the hiatus wouldn't be known and possible to anywhere near the degree of specificity if it weren't for Ron Fuller's podcast. Because before he did that, there's a com leete dearth

of video footage. There's a complete lack of any real good, solid like newspaper coverage because it's such a small area. I mean, we're talking Dothan, Mobile, Montgomery, Pensacola, and that's pretty much it. That's pretty much the hilaria. Now, Ron Fuller also owned the Knoxville, Tennessee territory as well, but that was kind of separate and distinct, though he owned

both of them. One was called Southeastern Gulf Coast, which is those Alabama cities I mentioned, and the other was called Southeastern Knoxville, which eventually went on to be the territory that Angela Pafo would buy into and take over and where Machu Man would get his got No sheltlog group. And what's a real thrill as as part of nineteen seventy nine and the Complete Hulk Coogan We're going to be built, tell the story about the famous Plan B tape,

the Knoxville War. I bet you've never heard anything about this.

I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. It's incredibly germane to where Hulk Cogan found himself, for Terry Bolea found himself in terms of like taking off in this territory, but at a time that the territory was just focused on other things, fighting for its battling an outlaw group that was trying to basically put them out of business and take the territory from Ron Fuller, and doing all kinds of things that you do in a territorial wrestling war of the seventies.

sliver of a sliver of a territory. Right when we think about you know, Crockett or Georgia or I mean, I know one person, I know one person from Alabama, one person, and there was no fucking way that they were watching wrestling. And it was because of that. In a lot of ways, it was because of that smallness and because of that sort of upstart nature of this

of this part of the country. Under Ron Fuller, who had just bought in at a very young age, he became an owner of a territory pretty much younger than

anybody ever have in the history of the NWA. He's forced to find and make new stars because there's just not a dearth of marketable guys there for him to really reliably draw crowds, and it's small enough territory that they can't really get a ton of reliable dates on the NBA Champion, which is always right, you know, a way to really make your year from a box office

receipts perspective. So it's going to be so fascinating to not only talk about how Terry bollayup hits his stride in Alabama, but because of everything else that was going on in Alabama. It wasn't really appreciated at the time, and it wasn't really the sole focus of the decision makers and the power players in that area at the time, and how Hulk just sort of slipped. He just kind of you just kind of yed it out the back door.

You see you later, And thanks for the memories. So it's all here, it's all beer, it's all garage beer.

for good times, much like Terry Bully himself. Garage Beer No nonsense, four percent ABV lagger, just ninety five calories and three grams of carbs. Comes in two crowd favorite varieties, Classic and Lime. You can find their beer finder on their website Drink garage Beer dot com and just follow the ride their social channels. Follow the ride here on the Complete Hull Kogan they know that it's worth putting resources into getting to the bottom of Terry Boli's life story.

They get it absolutely, And you know what, it's great fucking beer. All right, it's great fucking beer. I love it. Not joking around, not fucking around. I keep I keep it in my keep it in the keep it in my garage fridge, no joke, keep it in my garage fridge all the time.

is actually quite legit. Yeah, yeah, there's a reason they shared the stage, whether us at Punchline Filly at our wrestling at forty Live show, there's a reason. When we announced that we were going to lay down the definitive audio history of Hulkogan, they said, I got to be a part of this.

to make all the sense in the world. If we're about to talk about how Terry Bowlay just hit the protein and other substances as hard as he had to to get as big as he needed to be undeniable in the wrestling business, doesn't it make sense that a new supplement company that has deep wrestling roots would turn to the co chairs and say, hey, I think this

makes a lot of sense, folks. Yes, this episode lapsed fan and those going forward here in the complete hul Kogan brought to you by our new friends at livett L I B I T ladies and gentlemen, built on a simple idea, put the most proven performance ingredients in one system at the right doses, so you don't need a shelf full of supplements to train at a high level. And Boss, we know something about shelf life.

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really about being this this this wimp. You know, they keep talking about Louf Forarno being a whim, but yet he's he's an athlete and he's playing baseball and he's a slugger and stuff like that, and it kind of it made me think of obviously the baseball with Hogan, but also made me think about how Hogan kept talking about how he was this this shy, non athletic guy, but yet he played sports. So it's just like, well, wait a minute, what how do you like I don't

understand that mentality. But you know this and also too, they they both they they they both adapt these this, this, these histories, you know, or adopt these histories that they've kind of not necessarily that they're completely untrue, but that they've.

It was an overbearing dad. And then just hearing about the parallels of Lufrigno's life in Hulkogan's life and stan Lee as as Vince McMahon to the character or oh, just amazing, just amazing, and the fact that of course these streams would very much.

series as Terry Blea. And you've got exactly credible hull his hull Cogan right right, and he hulks up and the shirt ripping, and it's oh, there was so much in there that I never even that I never even thought about, honestly, the posing all that shit, Like I was like, my god, like that really so much of of of Hulk Hogan was taken I'll say inspired loosely

but definitely taken from The Incredible Hulk. And you know, wrestling fans, longtime Hulking maniacs, know, like at the end of the copyright screen of any WWF cassette tape or anything, it says copyright Marvel Comics. Oh, even even his Hasbro figure. God, all right, even his Hasbro figure had it. And we're not going to miss something on a Hasbro casing. No, not at all. And I always wondered, like, why the fuck does Marvel get credit on this thing.

And it starts way before the hul Cogan and the WWF or even the hul Cogan and the WWWF that we talked about it starts here in Alabama, it starts in Memphis, his first territories where they're not they're not calling him Hulk Cogan that they are calling him straight up the Incredible Hulk. They are calling him.

ever happened, never, never, not once. I think one of the surprises of this episode is going to be the revelation I think that Ron Fuller was calling him Sterling Golden before he was calling him Terry the Hulk Boulder. I can't, I can't. At least he.

Championship Wrestling at Sterling Golden all that to come first, I.

We're put on Earth for the shelf life, not for the now, but for the future. Because you know, you got to think of it as people talk about what would alien life forms think when they landed on this planet and saw, you know, a vestige of humanity left behind. What would they turn to? That's a word that that's the exercise we're engaged in. We want to leave something behind that the aliens in the future can listen to and understand. Oh, so this is what pro wrestling was.

This is why people were obsessed with this home Cogan. That's where our vision is. It's not on the here and now and the wants and needs of people addicted to junk food in the form of junk food podcasting co chairs are nourishing for the long term, and we're doing it hard, and we're doing it straightforward, and we're doing it in no small part because folks like you contribute on Patreon and say, here's fuel for the engine.

I mean, we're getting a lot out of this that you actually deserve something instead of us just just sucking on free content all day. Like somehow the model that took hold in the past fifteen years finally being turned over and we were at the vanguard of that, and yeah, it all makes it worth it, and we give you

so much more for your Patreon dollar. Of course, we mentioned that the live calls coming up under the cinema continues to pace Wrestle Mamia with the boss Man's Mom going back to the living room carpet Saturday morning vibes of your wrestling childhood. It's all very much there and rolling out in no small part thanks to our patrons and so many other members of the Solar System who participated. Soon to hit a podcast feed near you. It's the holiday season. It's the unwrapping.

Your co chairs are the big fat thumbs up. The big fucking thumbs up and a lot of the material we're going to get through here a huge shout out to one of the most intrepid Solar System members I've ever encountered, Matt, who just has done so much gathering for us, and we're really going to be able to reap the fruits of that because we've got we've got the material we need to march chronologically through Hulk and

with Gulf Coast. It's tough because, like I said, and this is you're going to be so frustrated by this by the time we're done with this part of his life. The lack of video that has survived, I mean, if you've seen the Clay, then we're gonna watch it of Hulk arm wrestling Andre in Alabama. It came out on a home video release called Wrestling Gold by Kit Parker Films in the late nineties. Part of you know, though the attitude era of videos that were flooding Fye and stuff.

A lot of people saw this for the first time. It gave you this, this inkling, this this scintillating hint that there was a deep archive of all of this Gulf Coast television that no one knew how to find.

so many times that they just reused tapes. They wouldn't fucking record over their shit. They would not there, there was no there was no reason in their mind to archive this stuff. And it's it's a fucking travesty because you know, we need it.

So if you think of your life as just a series of runs, and as soon as something hits, you're starting to think about how to exit, right with you with your fortune intact, right, that's the way your mind has been programmed to work, and how you've been programmed to think about earning money. Last thing you're going to think about is preserving the things you're doing, because it's on to the next hustle, it's onto the next territory, it's onto the next gimmick or whatever it might take

to keep the money flowing. And yeah, it is true. The last thing you think about it is like, oh man, we really need to savor this. Fortunately for us. Ron Fuller is part of his studcast has detailed notes that he's able to refer to how all of the television played out leading through all of Terry Boulay's run, and he has after going back even further and he reads it, he reads it off in kind of a week two

week fashion. It's it's a really it's kind of like the highest and best example of what to do with an old veteran wrestler who who's interested in doing a podcast like this is what you owe wrestling history is to just march through systematically and to give no fucks about anything but making sure it's all said and done.

And we're the beneficiaries of that here in the complete Hull Cogan Because like I said, if Hulk died five years ago, wouldn't be able to do this part of his life like this, We wouldn't be able to do this incredibly seminal part of his wrestling career in wrestling development like this.

was wrestling. And there are prominence in the territory and in his match record and match listings for this territory have been out there, even though as we'll get to they don't exactly match up with the very detailed notes that Ron Fuller has about dates and times and places, which you know.

pretty much the case here. If there was a paper regularly covering what was happening in Gulf Coast and publishing the day after the matches, those newspapers aren't archived in the way so many other newspapers have been archived these days. So you kind of have to piece it together by little snippets that make it in sort of like feature style advertising style things as opposed to match results reporting, and so the dates and times in the towns even

get a little confused and backward. We saw this when we went through his short lived CWF run in Florida. I mean, Brian Blair is supposed to be on the card that Hull Cogan, a super Destroyer, had his first match against Aunt Serrano. He not only does he not remember Hulkogan wrestling before he wrestled him, which is supposed to be his third match, the second match was also supposed to be against Brian Blair, who, Brian Blair himself

doesn't remember that fucking match exactly. Brian Blair was on the card where Hogan wrestled Serrano, and what the newspapers reported was as a late replacement as we talked about for Wolfman Smith, and Brian Blair doesn't remember that either,

and he was behind the curtain. So it's unbelievable. But there are published accounts out there that lead to these wrestling databases putting things in there, logging things in these results, and it's like you come around, it's like, no, it's actually it was a month later, it was two months later, the other guy won, or this wasn't there or wasn't

happening in this way. And even here Ron Fuller go through it chronologically, there's a couple of things that he kind of either breezes over or doesn't realize, such as Hull Cogan going to work in Memphis during the time

he was with Gulf Coast. Ron Fuller makes it sound like Holkovin doesn't go anywhere near Memphis until he gives us notice to Gulf Coast, but in fact, a closest examination and we do have contemporaneous newspaper accounts to support this out of Memphis, which was much more robust and covering what was happening, of course, and one of the most prominent wrestling territories rating for rating per capita in

the country. Yes, indeed, Terry Boley I was absolutely in the Mid South Coliseum, absolutely wrestling in Memphis when he was still in the midst of his Gulf Coast run and going back and forth. For reasons that will make a lot of sense is Ron Fuller gets into how his brother Robert Fuller Occuronel Robert Parker, it's actually booking for Jerry Jarrett and Jerry Lawler in Memphis during what this time period in seventy nine. Oh yeah, it's the

Welch family man their lineage, in their history. This business goes back further than any other tribe that really has ever existed. I mean, you go all the way back to like Herb Welch, and we we're talking like the twenties, the tens. This family has been involved not only as active wrestlers, but as territorial owners and bookers and executives in the wrestling business. It's just like you can't get

to like until you get to like nineteen ninety. The Fullers are involved somewhere running things, orchestrating things, pulling strings at some wrestling office, and making moves in that regard.

So that's gonna be fun too as an orientation to what the Fullers contributed because they're an underappreciated family I think in the business in terms of when you talk about the giants of territorial promoting, because the areas they ended up lording over ended up being relatively small compared to some of the major territories that resonated and really went to battle and went to war with Vince McMahon. So I'm excited to talk about all that and much more.

We got to go back to Cocoa Beach, though, because we've got to rev that engine and say by to White East for the last time, don't we?

hard and get bigger than ever. I was excited about networking and tapping some contacts to eventually try to make my debut in the squared circle. I also pushed Terry to do the same. Right at my side, my newfound career path got me excited, and I think in my excitement at the idea also started to restore Terry's faith in wrestling to pursue his dream once again. So they're there once again success as many offers, Yeah you know, ed Leslie basis saying it's because of me. The whole

coven got back into wrestling. It was a good thing, of course. Oh yeah, it was a good thing. We had a wrestling as a backup plan. As the saying goes, all good things come to an end. One day, Whitey Bridges got married. You see, Whitey was about twice our age. When he tied the knot, everything changed. His priorities went in a whole other different direction, even though he was a weightlifter too. The moment he said I do, his wife was saying you don't. We were no longer his

main priority. Wow, that's right, And we played second fiddle to his bride. She started pressuring him not to hang out with us. The writing was on the wall. The gym wasn't making any money and it was the first to go. After that, The Anchor Club was next. Actually, the Acre Club stayed open, as we chronicled in great detail last time, exactly just saw different managers. As another saying goes, when one door closes, another opens in front

of you. As we were packing our bags to head back over to timp I told Terry he should entertain the possibility of wrestling again. He admitted that he was getting the itch again and made some phone calls. Eventually we got a call back from Harley Race. Okay, what now begins the stories of like the twelve people that these guys reached out to, it was one of twelve people they reached out to to get back into the wrestling business after the Cocoa Beach stint. You take your

choices to which one you believe. Here here's here's Harley Race being suggested first, who talked about having us go to Kansas City. Now, remember Holke Hats said that part of the reason he skipped out on Florida Wrestling altogether is because when he went to the office with complaints about his pay and stuff, they said, we'll send you

to Kansas City get some work there. And he was like, that's that's that's like a fuck you because as far as Hull Cogan was concerned, Tampa boy, that was Hickstown. He doesn't he basically doesn't want to leave me. The Florida isn't but isn't. Isn't Kansas City like a top territory, No, oh, no more Saint Louis. Kansas City was sort of like the backwater to the Saint Louis wrestling reperation. It wasn't

a bad place to learn. Marty Jeanetty got started there, Scott Hall learned there, Shawn Michaels had some of his earliest experiences. That's Harley Races owned it. Yeah, but it wasn't a place. It wasn't really well paying territory. It wasn't a glamorous place to go and live and traveling. It just wasn't a territory that anybody would pick to work in the business at that time. It just wasn't Bulldog Bob Brown was always the top guy over there or somebody like that. And what's his name and to

be a president. Bob Geigel was in and around that area. Eventually, we got a call back from Harley Race, who talked about having us go to Kansas City. Harley enjoyed smashing beer cans on Terry's head in a bar when he was working for Ready in Florida. Harley liked the idea of doing so again. So what what it was? So what do you think should we go? Terry asked, absolutely, brother, I said to.

kind of like getting that. Dude, how do you know I didn't? And how does he know I didn't call him? Best question I have, brother, How does Holly Race know if I did or did not call it? I'm remembering something now. He told me that actually he's been calling Ruth because that's the only number he had, and I guess you never get the message ring ring, Hello, this is Harley Raised. Damn nice Harley, use some ribs with that meat loaf. I'm looking for a hul Cogan. Who

a what a hulk? What? Who the fuck is this? My dog? It is Harley Race, Damon. I wanted to get on the Diamn line with with that son of a bitch hulk Hogan. There's no Hogan in this house. We're proud Italians. Well, yeah, what's your maiden name?

I want to know where Hogan is now and you're gonna tell me or I'm gonna come down there and I'm gonna smack it out of you. I want to know where Hogan is.

Oh god, so surprised they didn't.

It made perfect sense. Before we accepted Hartley's offer, we made yet another called the Jerry Jarrett in Memphis to see if we could play the two promotions for some better money. Yeah, I mean, I mean this just sounds like like I guess, if there's one thing that I've ever learned about the wrestling business and our nearly twelve years of doing this, it's that I don't know, you can't outsmart the guy in charge. Rarely can you outsmart the guy in charge.

And I'm sure Jerry Jarrett calls around to Eddie Graham and others and say, you know, this guy's bringing us up. Do you know anything about this guy the Texas and potential there you might want to use him.

left right. And second of all, he skipped down on you. You didn't you didn't facilitate anything. He left the wrestling business,

he didn't go to New York. But he's like remembering that as how hulks first run in Florida ended, and it's you know, without appreciating the intermediate periods and we will say, I'm gonna say, but we're gonna put Memphis kinder to the side here because even though and we'll we'll touch on it as we go, they definitely bleed together the Alabama and Memphis runs for Terry and Eddie, we do want to give them separate and distinct treatments because there's a there's a whole rich Smorgus board of

materials to go through from those two, and to jump back and forth might be needlessly confusing. Considering, well, there is overlap, it is it is relatively little, so we'll get more from you know how Jerry Jarrett saw the situation in the Memphis side of things as we progress here on the complete Hull Kogan but this being the

alabam episode, let's continue at pace. The only condition Jerry was had Beefcake Rites was that he wanted us to go polish the gimmick up some with some smaller promotions before bringing us into Memphis.

And there was a lot of exchanging of talent because, as we'll get to, Memphis was in kind of a bad way as a territory in early seventy nine and late seventy eight, and Ron Fuller sent quite a bit of bankable stars that were drying in his territory to help his brother out in Memphis, or at least that's how Ron tells it. And Ron's always the victim. He's never you know what I mean, He's never wronged anybody. Yet there's a lot of people belu say Ron wronged them, you know how it goes.

for these guys, that's another version of the story. And here we're going to revisit a little bit of what we've conveyed earlier in the complete holl Kogan about superstar Billy Graham coming into contact with Terry Boleya when he was playing the clubs the Ruckus days, you know, definitely standing out as a big dude, definitely bending the ear of Bob Orton in the parking lot, or Bob Roup there in the club, or Jerry Briscoe backstage, or Graham or Dusty when they would come through and listen to

the music and to hear Terry Bullya tell it was actually a superstar Graham that he rang up first. Superstar Graham would come into the same gym that Terry Boleya and later Ad Leslie would work out in in Tampa before they were anywhere close to becoming pro wrestlers in their own right. So he was already kind of allotted figure in someone that they knew at least there were one degree closer to than the average person, or at least Terry Bullay was. So this is from Billy Graham's

WWE book. There was a fan at the for Homer Es sirly On Murray that night who I'd noticed before Terry Blea was a tall, skinny blonde guy who dressed in black leather and boots like a rocker from the ring. I'd see his big head hovering above the rest of the crowd about ten rows back.

knows Hulk from inception. He knows Hulk telling tall tales before he was on a television camera and could benefit professionally from telling tall tales. It's about attention. It doesn't care if it's flattering or unflattering, as long as it's a story that he can tell about himself that he thinks is going to sear him into your memory. He's going to tell the story. It doesn't matter for that's not going to I mean, I guess that's true, But still I still think that that's it's not no, no, no,

it's a bad one. That's that's where you that's where you draw the line for the beneficiary.

got a lot more sure about that. But I still think there's sure things that that Vince really wanted I mean you mean he wanted more stories in the book. That's what Vince. I understand Vince's expectations for the book to be, but it was just a very careful kind of you know, there'd be like three page chapters in there, just designed to scratch some itch that Hulk had about some thing someone said about him twenty five years ago. It's like, why was that in there? You know, it's

kind of a strange compendium. But eventually, damnit, Terry, I want the sex. Where's the sex?

less of an appeal to women than him. Oh I know, I mean, you know, because again he just he looks like a goof Hulk Cogan on his best day.

with the with the handlebar mustache. You're like, you don't want to fucking you don't want him ride me like a fucking you know, like that's like the last thing you want. I mean, unless you maybe you think he's got like a you know, when you're talking about twenty four inch pith time you're talking about twenty four inch cock. I don't know if that's what you're thinking about, but

like not, he's not. Again, remember when we when we watched No Holds Bar like the idea of him being as is are they thinking it's it's a it's atrocious, it's atrocious. He's not somebody who you like. Sex doesn't even cross my mind when I think about hol Coast is not one. It was never.

and it's like, that's it. Like, honestly, if it you know, either I turned that direction or you walked into my vision my viewpoint there, and that was it. Like I so many times it's happened where I'm like, oh no, sorry, I wasn't even I didn't even know you were there. You've been staring right at you, I was like miles away, well,

thinking of a different thing. Well, then we have established talking childhood friends and stuff here on the complete is said his mind was always all over the place, and he was always thinking about, you know, getting taken advantage of. He's always triple guessing things and always concocting stories, even before he was in the wrestling business. So you might be onto something there. His gaze Billy Graham Wrights was so piercing that occasionally I found myself looking back at him.

One night at the Imperial Room, a nightclub where the boys hung out in Tampa, Terry approached me. I was seated and he was standing towering over me. Like Jesse and Toro, and Terry wanted to become a wrestler, but he felt like the local promoter in this case that a Graham was shutting him out. Terry was frustrated, but not discouraged. We've read this before, by the way, but it'll be important. You're going to recognize this line coming up here.

Billy Graham is saying on that microphone. Now, Vince, who is holding the mic is out a frame at the time, so you can't see his reaction, but I'm sure right at him. You know, he's got those fucking horse teeth going out all like crazy. I mean, he's on TV. And also, I mean, honestly, I was, I was, I you know, you sure that's Billy grahams is not only Dusty real, No shit, that's the whole idea. Jesus Christ.

wait for taking it away, way, yea, yeah, take it away? Indeed, please can't wait to hear from this guy. Now, Python like Python like the python like Billy Graham's.

He always puts his foot in his mouth. When he does that, it completely takes everything away from from Billy Graham, like instantly, instant, everything is gone, like you write, honestly, it's amazing because if I feel like if that had been done, you know, it's fortunate that you've got guys again who who who were trained in a certain way and built up and you know, not necessarily within the the WWE system like people are today, but like you'd

sit there and that could that could have buried somebody in the last oh yeah, Python, like ten years, if somebody if somebody took your your your you know again, some kind of attribute and talk about your your your fucking pythons that are your arms and they call you python like today, it would be like, what, well, what is he like people would go crazy over that. They wouldn't know what the fuck is going on, and he'd

become complete goof complete joke. A few years later, Graham writs, he hit the WWF his Hohle Cochin where he brag about his pythons and ask what you're gonna do when whole comania runs wild on you? Borrowing from my standard line, what you're gonna do when the Superstar comes down on you? So you can definitely start to see, uh.

get as big as I possibly could. I had a pretty good starting porn. I was already in fantastic shape. But even without with the muscle, the base that I build and how fit I was from those Matsuda workouts and the god given gift to my natural size, there was no way I could achieve that over the top, thick, massive, golden god look I was after without help, Brother, Yeah, let's fucking go. The help I needed came in two forms. Like I said, you got a little more honest as

time went on. Yeah, I'll say, I like the title of the chat. When when Royds were the rage, well late nineteen to seventies, steroids were everywhere, all over the place, all over the place, just you know, doctor was giving him to INFI I'm.

talking about the wrestling world. You could walk into almost any gym or locker room in this country, like any locker room, so like at a high school gym or elementary school locker room, elementary lock there we go in fine steroids if you had, if you had her eyes open, it was a different era. They were legal, they were legal. Doctors were pretty much pretty much hand you prescription for whatever you wanted, right, I mean, it sounds like you

can get them over the counter. Legal legal doctors wouldn't have to give you a prescription to buy them, right, you can get them over the counter. You can just go to fucking CV as and you could buy steroids, buy a fucking well, you got the juice of riggs ale, brother, the orange juice is over there, and the rigs are down at the fucking Sportratorium every Tuesday. The rigs are down down in the dock, you know, the docks there, So if you want to do that, and the American males.

But as we litigated endlessly on the trial of his life and other times we've tackled the steroids subject. Even though federally, you know, using steroids was not illegal, and certainly possessing them was not illegal up until about eighty eight and then through to ninety one. There are plenty of states, plenty of state laws existed that criminalized the usage of them without a prescription before the federal law was so prescriptive about that. He said, part in the party.

like talking to steroids. Hi, I'm steroids. I want your ass.

I don't even have to go looking for them. Instead, steroids found me. They just walked him through, right in through the front door of Whitey and Terry's Olympic fuck and read that far ahead. A couple of local weightlifters came through the check out the facility, and before I knew it, they were taking like they were talking like traveling salesm and go, hey man, why don't you take

the Hannah ball. You won't believe the results. Just try it and see and if you really want to see some bulk, he should take this and that well, there was no occasion. This stuff could hurt you or kill you, could kill you. I'm sure there was fear mongering around that. Sure, I'm sure there were people that people said, oh yeah, he died of steroids, no question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when he uses stuff, was the best spokesperson possible because

they all looked great. You know, Brutus and I were sold. He calls him Brutus right then and there, and we got into it. We got into it heavy.

It's it's like an androgen that makes you hold fluid. All steroids are stressful on your internal organs. But I was young and invincible, you know it. I took pills every day, I shot up out every third day. The results were incredible and kept every third day. A man, I mean, that's that's right? When is it normal? Like when I feel like.

could do as much as we wanted. The local weightlifter dealers could provide if you want to pay a hundred pills, If you wanted to buy a hundred pills, you could, and if he wanted to buy ten thousand bills, you could. If you wanted to buy a whole fuck. If you wanted to buy the factory brother to make the pills, you could, dude, to make your own factory brother, right the way. I would not see it.

whole there's no limit. Waituh, he never sold? Yeah, right, Even if you get caught with a thousand bottles from a drug dealer, as long as you have that that prescription for that substance in your bag, you were Okay, I love carrying around a prescription Brutus's bag depending yeah right, But I love the idea like I mean, you know, oh, yeah, they all had a note. They had a little thing, a little gimmick. Absolutely they did. I just because, like, how normal is that of guilt?

I don't sell them. I don't deal them. I don't sell them. I don't deal them. I'm no part of the Tampa pipeline.

and I don't know. Whenever I hear street legal, I think of I think of Old School in the movie Old School, because you get Will Ferrell who's working on his car one way and he's like, he's like, like fucking he says, but don't say anything about it, because it's not exactly street legal. It's fucking engine that he's working on. It's like insanely loud. And then once we had his prescription for let's say, one bottle to toss roone would run right out and buy fifty bottles from

one of those dealers down the street box. So if you have a minute and so you'd buy. So you get a prescription for one bottle to a sauceron and you buy fifty bottles that street legal from one of those that's I guess that's street legal. Down the street legal, he says, if you only carry one of them at a time, right, I guess I can carry bro something like a whole fucking gym bag of pills. Uh. I got a script for that, dude, I don't know. It says one. It says one one bag, brother, one bag

of bottle. Peoples understand, and he unders gets that's right, du The thing is, I didn't have any second thoughts on pumping my body full of the stuff because everybody was steroids were safe. I guess it's kind of like in the nineteen fifties when everyone said smoking cigarettes was safe. They I didn't they didn't say it was safe. You heard that if you wanted to hear coming, right, But I think I mean, when do they when do they start putting We feel like they started putting labels on

that back then. You know, see, like cigarette warnings.

a shoot exactly exactly? Who shoot brother? Like he gets he's like, he's like reading the audio book in the studio, He's like, well, who's shooting brother? He looks at the producers, like the should shoot me? Where's the shoot brother? Where's the shoot dude? What's me? Terry Terry, I'm sorry what they're talking through that mic into the studio? Yeah, Terry where I'm sorry? You got to shoot? What are you talking about? Well, it's written Reddit, it's a shooting run.

You're pretending not to listen. Uh, I didn't write the book, Darry. You did, Terry Terry, You wrote the book. I mean, what does it mean? Why?

just some engineer that works at the studio. He and give a fuck who this is. I don't, I don't. I mean, listen, I'm just here to record that. Just you're reading your book. Man, I don't, I don't. I don't know what you want. Well, I think that's the problem.

going on? Brother? With my book coming out, Well, that's what you get for having Hulk read and in locker room circles, it was just a given that shooting steroids was safe too. Yeah. Yeah, I'd also like to like, you know that, you know, smoking pots perfectly safe, and you know it's not gonna kill you if you snort some cocaine, and you know in locker rooms, you know shooting steroids is safe too. And you know what else

is totally fine. Just walking down the street and fucking popping somebody with a gun, No big deal, No one's gonna stop you.

place to take steroids. Before long, everyone in the gym was doing it. Everybody who worked at the bar was doing it, and you could you could look at the way the top the top athlete looked and know that they were all doing it too. Brother, So it wasn't consider a reckless thing. In fact, you know that whole year I spent in Cocoa Beach was anything but reckless. And even though I was running the anchor, I didn't drink. I went all of nineteen seventy eight without putting a

drop of alcohol my body. Alcohol just wouldn't cut it with the schedule. That was not what yes, right, not at all? Listen. I can't I cannot imagine that hul Cogan could remember all of nineteen seventy eight when he wrote this book. So I don't know. I don't buy that for one moment. After working out and running the gym all day, but just don't know. I had a pretty standard routine. Would open up the bar and get everyone settled, and then we'd come back and watch David

Letterman's Late night show I Love. That wasn't on in nineteen seventy eight, hadn't come out yet, I don't think, so only that came out until like the mid eighties. And just mean Carson. I could be wrong, Yeah, I mean well late because late night was after sure.

wads of peanut butter. Probably the most fammy shit you can eat.

stay until closing at four am. So so they would they don't they'd open the bar, I'm okay, So they'd open the bar, get everything settled, then go back and watch Letterman. I don't understand they would just leave the flavor and watch TV. And then they'd leave the floor and just go we'd come back, meaning that they would be back at their apartment or back at the gym.

I don't know where they watched the show, but I think yeah, they would leave the bar to in someone else's hands while they watched that show and then come back after it was over. Oh, I would have been wrecked the next day if I had been boozing it up, so alcohol was out and pot was in. Brother, I still don't understand. This makes no that just makes any sense at all. That schedule makes no fucking sense at all. I don't understand. Why are you leaving the bar if you're working.

if he wasn't there to serve drinks? What about Brutus though it wasn't he He was the door man, he was the front zone man, many including don.

to go. I used to go to fuck the pussy river too, back in the day with Lakuchi River. And I finally smoked joint, nothing happened, smoking another one. Before he knew it. I was ordering thirty testosterone before he knew it. I was ordering thirty joints for one fucking joint. He finally smoked a joint, Nothing happened, so he smoked another one. I understand. That's what it gets even more complicated. Oh god, nothing happened. Also had four Oh my god,

most had four or five joints. That first time. I didn't feel a thing. Then all of a sudden, we stopped to pitch the tent. You pitch the tent down with the Lacuchi River. Okay, this now makes sense. That's all makes sense. With Lacuchi is what they called Don Wilson's penthouse above the with less satisfaxion with Lacuchi popping tents, pitching tents, I started started eating everything inside, potato chips, oreos, pussy, everything to get my hands on. And they're all laughing.

He's eating pussy. Look at is eating pussy. They're calling him Ahogan of course. Yeah, this is a running joke. Oh you're Stone, You're Stone. You got the munchies, man, Shure didn't feel like I was stoned? Well, I guess I was. Man, That's why those fattening shakes were down so easy and go go beach. I was stone, brother. I picture him as making a shriek on Tuesday, tight into the vents and be like pumping powder. Dude, Oh yes I do. Oh my god. I never tell you

the time I had a a pot brownie. Yeah, and you couldn't move, right, I couldn't move. Yeah, I told you that one. Yeah, totally, dude, just fucking I could not. I I just was so stupid because I ate it all so fucking fast. It's good in all, exactly what he's describing exactly. Yeah, you know, I mean I didn't get the munchies. I was just fucking done. You'd get the munchies because you right, I hate the whole brownie and I'm like moving, Man, you don't know, do you

know how you react to that ship exactly? I'm like, never again, I'm good. I don't need I don't need my my pot cocoa beach brownie. And he stayed fucked up, like, come on his whole life? Oh yes, come on, you know he was kind of blowing pot his whole life, blowing that cush. Give me break, folks, what do you think was in Brutus's uh fanny pack? Come on, all right, seriously, let's sign minutes words a little bit of the rattle rattle in there. Yeah, take the edge off, fire up,

but donald things up, now things down. Take these things back on track, brother, Take things in the next level. Take a down level brother, and you know, negotiate things they go along. Yep, regulation pop a couple of that wide glide. That's pick the long road or a short bus. Get a short road and a long metaphors. Run out of things to say here, I have the appetizer after the ontrosen.

there's nothing cube specific. I didn't know what he's talking about regarding cube, because I honestly talked that. It's like I usually thought of, like, you know, half a I honestly this is what I pictured in my mind because I'm looking at I think about it, like, right, you get the ice cream, you get an ice cream thing, right, and it's like it's like a it's like a tangle, a rectangular carton, like the round edges. I don't think I'm like half of that. It's ridiculous. I don't know.

I agree he's but you're talking about it, but you're talking about having a whole fucking blender of this ship. Come on, man, you can't fill a blender with it with an ice cube, a half ice cube of fucking ice cream. It's true. I don't know this metal. Yes, that's right, brother. I met a ball, dude, I met them all. I've done metal ball, done a ball uh Barbica have stayed in Cocoa Beach, just living that laid

back live forever. But but but setting in on one spot on the car, setting setting in on one spot of the cars in the cards for me wasn't in the cars for me. Life is a way of of always keeping you in check. Brother, Doesn't it just when you just when things seem to be settled and going great. The rug is he hanged down from under? You probably like,

wool brother, what's going on, dude? Exactly? The rug yanked out from underhe doesn't that tell you everything you need to know, that choice of words being in that year, Whiney decided to get married. He'd had it with the whole beach scene like this. You know what, Terry, I've had it with a beat saint. I'm getting married. I'm done nothing to do with the feds. Well, I just like the idea that that, you know what, I'm done with this. I'm gonna get married now. Fuck the beach scene.

I'm done. Gotta get married. Oh my god. And he decided to sell the bar, and I couldn't keep I couldn't keep the gym open without why he's backing, so I had to close down too. Poof our little bachelor party lifestyle was shut down. The thing was enough time had passed that I started to think about wrestling again.

With a crap I went through took a back seat in my mind with that amazing feeling of being in the ring with a crowd of people hollering and coo and cooing, oh oohing and ooing and aweing to every every move. Plus now I have this body on me. I finally looked like one of those like those heroes I worshiped as a kid. In fact, I look better than them. I don't think I think nobody looked like Hulkogan. It's a story of steroids, that's all it is. It's

a story of steroids. But like, nobody looked his size. Ever, No nobody did. I started to wonder if I had a out of Florida and, you know, away from the stigma they had put on me, because of the way I had got into this and got into this thing, you know, maybe there was a chance that I could make the big time. I had a newfound confidence that didn't exist back in Tampa. So I called up Superstar

Billy graham Dude, I think my arms are bigger than yours. Now, Dude, I just take my biceps and they're twenty four inches. When Superstar Billy Grahams hit twenty two inches in the mid seventies, they were considered the biggest guns in the world, and all of a sudden, mine were twenty four inches around. I couldn't touch my shoulders for like a year. I was so blowed it out. Graham couldn't believe his ears.

If you're that big and you really want to wrestle, I'm gonna send you to Louis Killette, And there it is.

defeating Lester Welch of Ron Fuller's Welch family. So there's a connection there all the way back in the sixties. He worked with Wahoo McDaniel. He had that up in Los Angeles in the seventies and he worked for Continental which is another word to use for the Southeastern Territory Yeah, to be known as Continental Championship in eighty five, in particular, when Fuller tried to put the band back together and do a promotion from the ashes of his prior enterprise

in Knoxville. And after settling in seventy six in Knoxville, he basically spent the rest of his career there and that's where he comes into contact with Terry Bolea. To Lay would wrestle on and off even while booking the territory. To hear, Ron Fuller tellent to cut himself in on talent pay as well as office pay for now.

Tillette was a man maker. And here in his first book, Hogan talks a bit about Louis ti Lett even remembers him being an interesting character. Hogan remembers he had these dentures to Louis Tillette that he would take out after we ate at McDonald's so he could suck the cheese out of his teeth.

My question is, what's the problem, right? And I think I careful consideration, right, Listen, I'm not I'm listen you know what, and I'll say this, I don't think there's any problem at all. It's he's always curious, not at all. Listen. It definitely does not make me feel uncomfortable nor is it inappropriate. It's just it's just a new a new way of looking at things, and I'm always curious as to how people live their life.

the country. He knew all kinds of people, all lots of promoters, and he had been all around the world wrestling, and so he had connections and he just asked and just kept looking for something different, somebody that could really pop things. So, you know, in the last couple of stuchgas, you kind of begin to see these new wrestlers are arriving and some of the you know, as some of these present wrestlers and started are going to Memphis. He's

pretty good at bringing in new people. So Louis had a great relationship with Eddie Graham and my father, and both of those guys were stockholders in the NWA Florida territory, and Louis himself had been the booker in that territory on several occasions over the ten year twelve year period of time. So he contacted Florida office man, which was, you know, been probably my first place to call and ask,

you know. And he asked about new guys that we're training, because they trained them there all the time, you know, and anybody that he asked about, anybody who had been recently trained in the old snake Pit. That's what the building was called where they did TV there then that's where they trained at. And basically I kind of grew up in that snake Pit, so I was very familiar

with that building. So and he was told about one guy in particular, Charlie Lay was the guy that said at the very Wrestling Office, which was in that same building, been there for many years, and he told Louis that there's this big, huge dude that came come in here.

uh from continuing to be trained. And he did it by breaking his leg on purpose.

and training un Hero Matsuda. Charlie Lay was the guy that basically you know, sold tickets at the front of the Sportatorium, and he was basically like the building manager, if you will, the office representative in there, and he was the guy that would kind of let Hogan in the side doors and give Hogan a little bit of advice and kind of tell Hogan when he was overstaying

as welcome. In certain contexts and situations, you could tell that Hogan really thought Charlie Lay was his eyes and ears in terms of like being close to the power

nuclear of Championship Biston from Florida. And how lucky for him that Louis to let phone down there trying to make an impact as a booker that it was Charlie Lay who picked up the phone, because he is the one that named Hal Cloak, not Jerry Brisco, not Bob Orton or Bob Roup, not Eddie or Mike Graham, Charlie Lay, and we're on our way and Louis Wow to let

being familiar down there. It's also very fortuitous for Terry that you're in a situation where there's a new booker in a territory and he's trying to make a name for himself, and how do you make a name for yourself draw money with a guy that wasn't already a money draw to begin with. That's what you want to do,

but you don't want to upset that apple cart. You know, if Terry was looking to break in at a time when you know the booker and Gulf Coast was the guy that had been there for ten twelve years, something tells me to be a lot harder for him to get this kind of opportunity, because that booker isn't looking to completely reinvent the wheel and create a new reputation for himself. But Louis Tillett was in exactly that position,

and so the timing was perfect. As Hogan says in his first book, to Let was this French Canadian guy who were in the Alabama Wrestling Territory, which covered Pensacola and Panama City, basically that whole northern Florida Panhandle. I was pumped, I was ready. I asked Brutus if he wanted to come along. He didn't know a thing about wrestling, but I promised to teach him everything I knew, and I wouldn't torture him like I'd been torkuh So now

he does about wrestling. Now, all that training didn't happen in Coco Beach. Apparently all right, we already had the body in the size, and I figured wrestling would be a lot more fun with a partner in crime along for the ride, Which is the inverse of him of at Leslie saying that it was actually him inquiring about becoming a wrestler himself and Coco Beats that got Terry

interested in trying wrestling again. Here Terry is taking the initiative, making the contacts and asking Eddie, who has no interest apparently in coming along. He was one hundred percent in Terry writes, and so was I. So we packed up my customized gold Dodge van that I'd bought from Whitey, I said goodbye to Cocoa Beach and I drove off to Alabama. It was the start of a whole new adventure. I'm reminded of some lyrics that Solar System member pointed

out on Patreon. Songwrite by the name of Connor Oburst, who wrote a song Cape Canaveral, which of course is proximate to Cocoa Beach. Right there, as we talked about a Whitey Bridges would even set up, like you know, cocktails and promotional events for his bar when people stood around to watch. Tourists would come to watch the launches

from Cape Canaveral. And A Kalico is the Solar System member's name, And he pointed out as we were chronicling the end of the Cocoa Beach run for Terry, the lyrics go something like this, and watch the migrants smoke in the old orange grove and the red rocket blaze over Cape Canaveral. You've been a father to me. Your nineteen sixties speak give me comatose joy like rerun TV while the mountainside was shining wild colors of my destiny.

I watched your face age backwards, changing shape and my memory. You taught me victory sweet, even deep in the cheap seats. Hey, hey, hey, mother, Interstate, can you deliver me from evil, make me honest, make me wedding cake a tone? I will atone. Wait wait, wait, mighty outer space. All that flying saucer terror made me lazy, drinking lemonade a waste. It just went to waste, like the free on cold out the hotel door, or the white rocket fade over Cape Canaveral. You've been a daughter

to me. You're a buried shoe box grief. I felt your poultergeist love like Savannah heat while the waterfall was pouring crazy symbols of my destiny. I watched your face die backwards, little baby, in my memory you told me victory sweet, even deep in the cheap seats. Time to leave Cape Canaveral behind, Boss, time to leave Cocoa Beach behind, and time to make a run for this thiszing.

make a note for himself. This is from Hogan's second book, and to hear him tell it, this is how the worlds of loof for Rigno's Hulk and his wrestling Hulk collide in Alabama. You know, later on, while I was wrestling for Louis to Lay, I showed up at a morning talk show in Mobile, Alabama to promote a wrestling event. The other guest was a guy named lou f Forrigno, who was staring with Bill Bixby on a TV show

called The Incredible hulk If. Rigno was travel around the country to plug his series, which wasn't doing so well in the ratings, which if you know, if he listened, wasn't well in the ratings. We know it was doing exceptional phenomenal in the ratings. It was doing exceptionally well in the ratings all in, and when it could talk about it seemed like to be right.

working all the local markets, which also they didn't. Okay, like I'm going to tell you this, I don't know if I even really brought this up as much, but if you do, so, I did do lengthy, lengthy, lengthy searches to you know, in different you know, like I went down I went, I tried. I went down my own, my own rabbit hole, okay, trying to find any evidence of this. I wanted to find something. I wanted to see if there was any inkling that they were ever

on a talk show together. So I would just sometimes even do just do a search for Lou Farigno and just isolate the area, like isolate Alabama for example, and see what you know where lufrigo and you know, it still brings out so many different But what I did notice was that there he was on talk shows. These were nationally televised talk shows. These are not local talk shows. Not once did any local newspaper ever say, hey, he's going to be on our little fucking rinkeddink talk show. Never.

It was always big Lu Forrigno was a big star at that point, and not just because of the hope, but because of pumping iron like it's to even insinuate that he was doing something like that was just complete it's just complete blowney. Yeah, especially for him to be on the same TV show as this local rest right right. I find that because here's the thing. He was Hulk for the beginning, right right, There wasn't it. There wasn't like a period where he was in Alabama for a

while and they weren't calling the Hulk. All the evidence we have, and the testimony we have from A. Ron Fuller, is that he was brought in and called the Hulk from the beginning. There was a time when he was called Stertling, the Hulk Golden, but the Hulk was always in play, according to ron fully and according to the results you see everywhere. So where is this time period for him You're going to read the rest of the story, But where is this time period for people to get

the bright idea to call him the Hulk? After he had already been a big enough star in Alabama to be invited on a local talk show in the first place, right exactly, So, in between shooting schedules, they kept him on the road working on all the local markets. And when I got on the show, the host looked at for Ignot and he looked at me and he said, my, oh my god, you're bigger than Loof for Regno, you're bigger than the Hulk. And I said, that's because I'm the real Hulk. Just in case Lou.

talk show. He does not talk about anything in that regard, which also means like, why are you saying he remembers something when he doesn't even mention it, right, Like what do you? What is that?

She was like, I remember doing that. Eventually people are going to ask the subjects of these stories about this, right, And again, what's so weird is that they that they would, you know, ask and he wouldn't even he didn't say it, and they still say that he said it. And this gets to part of my thesis of why Hulk himself always severely underplayed this part of his career in life is it's because it puts a date specific on how long back prior from a prior use copyright perspective, he

was out there calling himself the Hulk. And we know from from court filings that Marvel had a copyright on The Incredible Hulk since May twelfth, nineteen seventy. Republications, Books, magazine Stories, they had a copyright since nineteen sixty three on just the word Hulk in publications, they had a copyright since eighty three for Hulk for toys, games, and play things, which is going to be a problem when a certain company wants to start, yeah, marketing toys and things.

But going all the way back to even the sixties, they have a claimer in this name, of course, like.

so I looked larger. And that night when I got to the arena and went back to the locker room, all the boys started to call me Hulk, and they said they saw me on television. I was bigger than Lou Forigno, and the name just stuck, just stuck.

the folder boss. I mean, let's start marching through some of these materials that we have to present to the solar system. This is March twenty second of seventy nine. Okay, who's coming in? Why don't you read this article from the Panama City, Florida News Herald, Sunday, March eighteenth, nineteen seventy nine, Sunday, March very first one. You see right there in the Alabama twenty second That's what I meant.

Gladiator and the and the Wrestling Pro. These are all fucking great names. Wrestling Pro Ken Lucas Gladiator, the Rough Gladiator and the Wrestling Pro who prefers to wrestle clean falls will not count in this match, which will end only when one of the two men is unable to continue. A tag match between will Pit the Rough team of David, Doctor d Schultz and pretty Boy Wayne Ferris Oh against

Lucas and Norville Austin. Yes, there will be a special challenge match between Terry Latham brother and the Rugged Eddie Sullivan.

and they call him the Hulk. Okay, it's extremely clear what it is they're doing them. They're using this this mark without any permission whatsoever and running away with it. And that's going to catch up to them eventually. Not them, that is to say, but Hulk as he tries to continue building a multi million dollar enterprise and franchise around this name without ever bothering to see if Marvel has.

March twentieth, seventy nine. Let me read it please? Oh yeah, wrestling title about tonight, Norville, Austin popular the wrestling fans in these parts will try to dislodge David Doctor D Schultz from his Gulf Coast Heavyweight Championship belt. In one of the main events tonight at Bowl Air Wrestling Arena, a six man tag team will be a co feature. It will pit Rip Tyler, Eddie Sullivan and the Masked Gladiator against the people's choice of Ricky Fields, Terry Latham

and Roy Welch. The wrestling pro will take on the Hulk what six six and seventy five pound Mammoth in a challenge match.

anyone who would listen as he was working on a book, and things about how Hulk would shoot up steroids when they were friends. Guess where in this territory the Gulf Coast or in fact, for a time Hulk Cogan even lived with David Schultz and in exchange for what you'd ask, well,

not exactly rent money. Yes, according to David Schultz. As we'll get to, so you're trying to see this is the first time ever that newspaper readers would start to hear about the Hulk and think about Terry Bolea is massive. This is South Eastern Championship wrestling. That's pretty much the the go to market name of the territory. And so while we've got to quin ourselves, we've got to do this. It's got to be done. Even though very limited footage exists.

Here's what it would have sounded like when folks PLoP down in front of their TV and mobile or Montgomery or I don't know, how about a little uh dothan oh yet to take it in.

around producing like split screen. There are a couple of things that they would do in the Southeastern TV shows that, at least to hear Ron Fuller tell it, were innovations and televised wrestling, and we'll get into more of those as we go. So March twenty second, nineteen seventy nine, Panama City, and you saw the clippings there that speak to it. It's pretty much considered Hulk Cogan's first match back in the wrestling business after the short lived Florida

run that we've talked about. It was against Ben Alexander win or unknown. But Ron Fuller now is going to be in control of this guy's career. And fortunately for Hulk, Ron has a history with Andre the Giant as well.

They had teamed together in the past. Andre had gone to work for offices operated by him and his brother and his father in touring the country and Andre had a respect from Ron Fuller and this would definitely help when it comes to matching up this young kid Terry Bolea with an opponent that would, by God define his

whole cash cow. I mean, yeah right, his whole fucking rezon Deetra was to work against Andre the Giant and the fact that Andre the Giant saw in this massive hulk a guy that actually could present a physical, credible threat to him in the eyes of the wrestling fan, which is very important because Andrea almost always worked as a baby face, and when you're a babyface, you are always looking out for heels. They can get heat on

you even though you're that size. And so another great serendipity in terms of when he decided to lean back into pro wrestling is it was at the time not only that Louis Tilllette was taking the book and things were changing over there, but also that Andre was interested in helping out a territory that was really small compared to some of the other buildings he would work because of his relationship with Ron Fuller and his interest in working with someone of that size, and Louis to let

knowing Andre well enough to frame it that way in terms of why eventually he might want to come down here at Alabama and I give this Terry Buley a whirl, but to get a little bit more on Ron Fuller and how he came across in the territory. We're going to convey a little bit of a tape here. This is Ron Fuller in studio with the voice of Southeastern Wrestling. His name was Charlie Platt. You can think of him as as the Gordon Soley or the Caddle of the Territory,

the the trod Guard, or even the gene Oakerland. He's the guy at the studio desk monitoring affairs, and here he is talking to Ron Fuller in characters the Tennessee stud.

mask right now. My brother's in the hospital. He's not gonna be wrestling for a while. He's had a concussion. Not only that, he has a neck injury. He's in bad shape. And it's because of two gentlemen, and that's Arnt Anderson and Jerry Stubbs, and you could say Sonny King too, because the three men, and I've had calls for everybody all over the country. I've chosen myself a special partner for an upcoming match, and I'm very happy with the partner I have.

It's like Portland in that regard. You know, you could find yourself, you could make some mistakes, you could just get the reps in to be successful in the bigger territories. They had the studio format, you can practice promos with the studio audience. They had the turnaround from the studio television show to draw people into the building that night. Just like you know, whenever we go back and look

at territories, we're always so amazed. Like you know, you watch TBS and then you go to the Omni that night, you know, and what happened on TBS is a last ditch effort to get you to buy a ticket to just run out of the house and get there.

at the at the camera. You know, he's everything that Dusty was able to stand out in such great contrast to, you know, as a baby face. And then Billy graanmt's case is a heel. And the reason those guys stood out of such wild, colorful characters is most people sounded, including the top guys, like Ron Fuller did in that promo right there. That's kind of sit down, hyper serious

sportsmanlike sound. But he's out for revenge. And this is what it would have sounded like hearing the plugging of the live shows off the TV down in Gulf Coast. As I mentioned at the time, this is of course before hul Cogan's arrival there Terry Bullay's arrival, but it features a series of names you might recognize as we continue to acquaint ourselves with the sights and sounds of the territory that Terry first broke out.

Timmy Golden defends Agains Boris sirkof the just because of the incident Justine on TV. That's the main event Southeastern tig teen titles is the Tennessee Son and Bob Armstrong meet Terry Subbs and Arn Anderson Monday Night at Daltwell Auditorium.

kind of fell off as the time went. I think Sterling Golden was supposed to be associated with Jimmy Golden and family. I think wasn't just because he had yellow hair, but that if those representations were made to the fans, they melted away very very quickly. Interesting that wasn't part of the presentation for very long. But here on his podcast, Ron Fuller talks in a bit greater detail about what it was that made this Terry Boley special in his eyes.

of the fans from the first time they saw him. Man, and he is going to go on to become maybe the most recognizable professional wrestler in the history of the sport. Undoubtedly. I don't believe there's anybody that'd argue with that.

overlay keeping competitors out. But my God, is being that young and having all the money in the controllery make other people want to challenge you and make other people want to make it seem like you don't know what they're doing so they can try to move in and

take over your territory. And Ron Fuller would not only feel that pressure, he would feel it in nineteen seventy nine at the precise time that Terry Boleya is starting to show incredible returns at the box office, and Ron Fuller's attention is anywhere, but he really can't even afford to focus on it because people are coming for the throne. They're coming for his territory. They're running oppositioned him in Knoxville,

and that's where all of his attention will go. And a lot of those people that are doing that to Ron Fuller are people that were in and around the Florida territory when Terry Bulla first broke in down there. A lot of them are wrestlers who would come into the Imperial Room when Terry was up there with the bass guitar. So it's a small world, indeed, and I believe loyalties will be tested in that regard. But it's

important to know that about Ron Fuller. The TV show would hit Doth in his mentioned Montgomery, it would hit Mobile, eventually would hit Birmingham, Alabama.

were both juiced up musclemen. So we started wrestling as the Boulder Brothers, you know, Terry Boulder and Ed Boulder, and a lot of people assumed we were really brothers, and we were certainly as close as brothers. Traveling around the Alabama territory was fun at first, you know, we get to the arenas early and I'll take Brutus into the ring to teach him the ropes. So we taught him on the fucking road.

killing yourself. I don't make it look like you were wrenching a guy's arm without actually snapping his wrists or breaking his elbow. That's actually not that hard, you know that, that's actually one of the easier ones. You know, you just you don't even hold onto his fucking wrist, like there's nothing there, Uh Louis to lay locked us and put us out there seven days a week. But we were hardly making any money, only take home twenty five

or thirty dollars a night. So rather than waste our dough on hotels, the two of us just slept in my van. It was carpeted and had a loft bed where I could where I would sleep, had a fucking kitchen it brother you know, had a gas stove. Yeah right, Brutus had full plumbing. Brother at two you know it is a two bath. There's a three bedroom, two bath van. Brother, that's a huge van. And then lived in a van. I mean, think about Hogan and Eddie Boulder. How the

fuck they fit? I know, all juice, these gargantuan men, A couple of Tampa boys, bacon in the fucking mobile, Alabama son living in a van, work in the territory. I picture them like, you know, can you imagine on the side of the van. They've got like beach chairs, and they got those you know, they get those uh the way like a trig like a or a big green egg. Yeah, and they got those those those uh what do you call like like foil like things, you know,

they get the reflector them for their tamming. Yeah, they're sitting out there leaning back. Oh my god, I would have you know. That happened every fucking day. The two was just sleep in the van that was carbon and Moa Bruce was settled on the end on the floor. Is how do you have a loft bed in a fucking van? Can you can someone?

perfectly comfortable for a while. Now. Pensacola Beach was central to just about all the venues we hit, so We parked the van right there most knights and basically made that parking lot our home. You know, there were public restrooms, so we had to place to shower, ship ship the place to ship right, oh, total place shower, ship and shave in the mornings. There was a great little all you can eat restaurant nearby too. Man, they were scared

when they saw me and walking out about food. By the way, he was basically that guy in bigger, faster strunger who lives in the fucking Venice Golds Gym parking lot. Yeah, right, exactly. I mean listen, they were they these people were as scared of Hulk Hogan and Brutus beef Cake as the as the the Boulder Colorado Taco bell is scared of fucking Vader. Yes, all right, you know, I don't know if they probably don't throw people like Vader would do,

but still it would be necessary. It's like they know, they know that they're gonna make that they're not gonna they're gonna have a bad, a bad day. It's an all you can eat restaurant, and these two guys coming in the morning. They're shutting down at nine am, solutely and they're not making a fucking dime that day, and think of how big those guys were, Like, there's no way you think you can feed these guys till they're falling. You have to Yeah, here, he says, right here, we

eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner in one sitting. We'd clean the place out right exactly so like these people would make no money, they'd basically be serving two meals, you know, they they you know, all you can eat. That's dangerous with these fucking clowns, very dangerous, very dangerous. Don't even exists anymore, like the old country buffet set up a No, I haven't seen it all you can eat place in a long time. No, definitely, definitely, I have not seen

one post COVID for sure. You know, I imagine a lot of I imagine a lot of those places closed down during COVID. Absolutely. There are a couple of the wrestlers who were living out of their van on that beach too. These Simoan guys name often Sika, who became known as the Wild Simans years later when we were all on TV. They pretended to be these wild brothers who were pulled right out of a jungle somewhere to wrestle and who couldn't speak English at all. Actually they

spoke English just fine. I mean, right, that's just fine. I mean I don't know, they smoke it completely clearly and fluently. Yeah, apparently, you know. And we all became friends, you know, just parking our vans by the sand. It was a perfect place for Brutus and me to work on our tans. I remember that feeling of walking out on that sand in the morning, looking on the ocean,

you know, feeling the wind. Not a bad way to live, between wrestling seven days a week, tanning all the time, and continuing the steroids off perfect to that bronze god a look, oh my god, big super tan guy on a beach in Alabama. The golden that golden fucking color. All right, just that may just imagine, Like I I want to know, I really want to understand the mentality of like needing to tan, right, like needing to tan. I don't get it. I mean, yes, you know, like

you go on vacation. It's like, yes, you know, I want to get I want I want to I want to come back looking like I went on vacation. I get it, But like I don't understand this need to always be golden tan. And where that comes from.

like like pasty white, and it's it's alarming. It's a difficult watch. Yeah, but I also don't consider him to be like crazy tan either. You know that's the thing about John Cena, Like, I don't think he was ever crazy fucking tan. Yeah, he's very few went to the degree Hulk did. I mean, very few could if they wanted to. I love when he says in his book it's because I'm half Pandamanian. It's like your mother was

not from Panama. She lived there, Panama Canal Project. She fu you can't you can't clean, you can't clean Panamanian.

wrestling ring. You know, technically I wasn't the best wrestler. I wasn't quick, wasn't athletic. I understand, Yes, you are athletic, right, I mean that's you have to be. Like even even the most grotesque fat guys in the business are fucking athletic. You know, you can't fuck hit the ropes up the athletic sports like the sports you didn't play. I know, I know, seems fucking weird, these weird lies. They fucking tell when I couldn't jump off the top ropes, which I've seen him do, I know?

the beach until three or four o'clock. Then we would drive the New Brunswick or Mobile or Montgomery or wherever we were wrestling that Matt Night, small territory, just a couple one hundred miles each way, so I didn't take so it didn't take more than a few hours to get to the venue. Did you imagine going to the building seeing this guy under the lights, looking like a superstar, looking like a fucking god among men, and he's living in a van on the beach. He has no apartment,

he has no home. I mean, that's you know, to imagine any of these guys who you're paying money to see. Whenever you pay money to see somebody, it's really weird to me. To me, it's always a weird, even even when you consider, honestly, when you consider any job, any job that requires you to pay to see somebody, it is a wild thing to consider that they don't have but they don't make enough money doing that to really

live a life. I mean, even going to regional theater shows, it's like you're paying to see these actors perform for the circus, but most of them are not living. Oh god, they don't even fucking I mean, that's even a whole other fucking shit show. I mean, Jesus Christ, the circus is a scary fucking thing, folks. I you know, we went I went to I went to a circus show. Recently, like within the last couple of years. We took we took my kid and some friends to go to the

circus in uh, like where was it? The Big Apple Circus is a big Apple circus still going around. I think it was a Big Apple Circus because they were at Lincoln Center, all right, And I don't know if you've been to the circus, Like, yeah, it's like it's amazing and what they've done to the show. They've made it this thing, but it's also like still sad and pathetic. Yess correct, because like they're now they're now kind of

glamorizing this completely pathetic. I mean, wrestlers are not to there's a reason that Wringling Brothers is the comp right right, No, listen, it's like because like, but but you're you're and as a part of me that totally understands. I mean, look, these people have found a family and they found the people that they can you know, they can they can succeed, So God bless them for that good. Good for you.

I'm not, but like it's also still like this, this this like this is your hope and dream is being in the circus, and it's like, okay, like I don't know, they're they're they're it's mean, it's mean to say this, but it is. There's just a sadness to it. When you kind of look at the people who are doing this, it's like, Okay, I mean, this is the best you can do. So as you consider some of the risks. I know, and I think about it, I mean, I want to know where they're living. I want to see

what they're foud away to see it, all right. I want to see because I know circus is a is a non union job. There is no protection whatsoever. See you, I'm like, no way, man, As far as I know it's an on union job. I can't imagine that this fucking circus is a union job. I think setting it up is probably an union job. But performing I imagine, yes, I imagine the people who are who are building that. You have to have union guys building up all your

fucking sets and your tents and whatever. But to actually fucking do it, I don't. I can't imagine that being a union job. I can't imagine a union wanted to cover that ship A good look at health insurance too, exactly, I walk on, yeah, exactly, you know, and I mean, you know it's a you know you you look at you look at an actor on in regional production of a show. You know, there they come from out of town. Oh we got New York actors going to go to Alabama.

It's like, oh my god, look at this like the works it does. But then you look at the fact that you're not making enough money to fucking live off of that. Even if you were making if you were making like they couldn't, you wouldn't. You wouldn't get it. They wouldn't they wouldn't be hiring people. They couldn't afford to pay people what they what it's it's awful, That's how right. That's exactly what I'm talking about. That's what That's what it is like. You know, these people going

to these matches and they're seeing it. And again I think it has to do with I'm paying to see you, right, I'm giving you my money, so you must be living a great lifestyle. And granted Hogan saying he was it was very it was very free. It was a choice of van. Right, he didn't have a choice living out

of his van with a fucking roommate. Nonetheless in his fucking vant to him right exactly, like like, come on, it's it's just like, I don't know, it's a it's a very it's such a such a fascinating it's more of the facade, it is exactly. That's part of the hustle is making it seem like these people are larger than life, and in factually they're barely living their life and they're actually making less than the people who think they're making a millionaires. It the people buying the tickets

are more likely making more money. That's why they need you.

I'll put yoko over them out of here. I'm not putting bread over I'll put yoko over the ties that bind are all starting to set in right here. Honky tonk Kayne Ferris follows him to WWF. Doctor d David Schultz gets some a job in WWF from the beginning awa as well, it gets Beefcake a job, follows him right in the door. There's a couple of other guys that are going to come through the territory that he

looks out for. Randy Coley is one of them, future Moondog, who he worked with and who actually testified in the steroid trial, and who even as according to Meltzer told her of much Nick that Hulk was his fucking hook up for whatever he needed when he was in the Gulf Coast area. It's not just David Schling this and many others. So Hulk's starting to build these relationships too. In Pensacola, of course, being the heart of this territory, or at the heart, but a key stop in this territory.

Roman Reigns is from Pensacola, and that's because the whole family coalesced around this territory and the very very beginning stages of their wrestling careers often SICCA and so there's a lot to be said about that. And the fact that they were not just working in the same territory but kind of like I guess, roommates, just not they didn't live in an actual building, they didn't live in an actual enclosure says a lot too. And Beefcake's gonna have some great color also about life in the van

with the Samoans. But are you done with your your snippet I was trying to follow, Yeah, here, yes, all right, here's Beefcake. Pensacola was perfect for us. We pretty much were brand new working in the territory. With many shows only a few hundred miles away from each other. It was a great way to break in because you had at least a little time before shows to breathe. Pensacola was very unlike Bill Wats's Mid South territory, where you were constantly on the run, having to drive all day

and night to get to the next town. The first show we did with the promotion was Panama City. We were there on a Thursday night, walking in all excited to be finally showing off our new personas some of the wrestlers you may have heard of in this territory were the Monkey tonk Man, David Schultz, Don Fargo in the Wild Samoans. In my very first match, I didn't

team with Terry just yet. They put Terry out in a single spout and they had me tag with a guy named Ron Slinker, an ex police officer turned wrestler, real nice guy. We worked against the tagson combination of Eric the Red an Ox Baker. Wow, another guy he's going to very much come into contact with in this territory indeed. And so it's important to note that while Hogan and Ed arrived together, well, Terry and Ed arrived together in Gulf Coast, they weren't aligned as Bolder brothers yet,

and they weren't even wrestling with each other. In fact, if you look at any match listing of Ed Boulder's history, he didn't even wrestle in nineteen seventy nine in a Golf Coast. He didn't show him at all wrestling there until nineteen eighty, after Terry had already moved to New York. So it's very confusing to me why these matches seem to happen at the same time Before Memphis in Gulf Coast, yet there's no evidence of Hulk and had being on the same car.

But if you look at his like wrestling data list of matches, he doesn't start wrestling in this territory until nineteen eighty. It's not like there's no mention of him wrestling in the territory. There's plenty of stuff on him working here, it just doesn't start till after Terry leaves. You do see him working with Terry in Memphis coincident with the Gulf Coast run. At the same time they're going back and forth at certain junctures, but nothing really

like this match doesn't exist in any record. You'll see ed Leslie against Eric the Redknox Baker. So it's kind of frustrating, but I guess we're just going to have to believe that ed Leslie's in the ring and nobody recorded a single moment of him. The next night, he writes, we finally debuted as our tag team. See that's huge to me. How is Terry Boley's record missing the first time he teamed with ed Leslie if it wasn't due in Alabama?

Speaking of actual brothers, we got to be really good friends with the Samoans Offa and Cicco. They were not the crazy monsters like they were depicted on TV. They were two big teddy bears. They were in the same boat as we were new and broke. None of us had any money, but titty bears. Titty bears. Yeah, well titty Bear before the surgery. Rock was too That's true. We couldn't afford motel rooms like the other guys.

down steaks. Brother, you know, Oh, yes he is. You know, he fucking is. Boy. You give me steak, dude, Wow, go off, give me steak. Amazing, Go go ahead, go go, go, go, go, go go.

and give me some training. The show would go down, and could practice some of what I had learned live in front of a real audience to perfect my craft. After the matches, we would drive back to Pensacola if it wasn't too far and we wouldn't stay at Pensacola Beach, we would try to park outside a nearby wrestler's house after shows. Oh my god, imagine that one who lived in the area. One parking spot was outside David Schultz's apartment. Yes, he was cool. He let us come in whenever we

wanted in case we had to poop. Hmmm, even let us use it. It comes back to food or poop apparently every time. Even let us use his shower in a while if we were in a hurry when there was no local wrestler in the area. We would leave the arena and then just sleep in our vans in a random parking lot somewhere. Hulk Hogan, Okay, wowing the dream. Yeah, well, David Schltz has a lot of memories of this particular pot.

And it's like there you fucking slaps John Stoscil or castlesmester t and it's like, well, actually he will do it, so yeah, but pretty amazing that this is where it all started between these two, and he remembers shooting him up so hard that it became an issue, became a real issue, and you could imagine Schult's not biting his tongue when Hogan's on our Sineo in ninety one acting like he never took steer. Yes, well they took him three.

And they were all like talking about as being great having freedom. I don't even know if Arne, because arn tells a similar story in his book because he broke in the same spot. I don't even know if he had an apartment. So I vividly remember him saying he would just fall asleep on the beach with a case with a cooler beer, just wake up and then shower in the facilities at the beach, the public facilities, and go to the town.

We would take turns using the bathroom to poop and brush our teeth or whatever, and then and then drive back to Pensacola. Eventually we would always circle back to Pensacola, Uh, Pensacola Beach and start everything all over again. Pensacola was home base. We would be tanning or in the water and then smell barbecue. Sens quite often would pull out a little grill and cook out. Man oh man, they fed Terry and me a whole bunch. They really were

generous and great to pay them back. Sometimes we would go to this buffet place called Moms. It was a little bit faced down Joy off the main strip, and they had the best fried chicken in the world. The moment we walked in, we would transform into savages. All manners were out the window. We wouldn't even sit down at the table. As the waitress showed us to our seats, we would walk over and acknowledge it. Don't get me wrong.

We would nod to our signed eating headquarters, but then rush right over to the plates and immediately go up to the food.

left when they were finally done was ridiculous. It was always like a huge mountain.

with her. The really wild days would come from our next territory, Memphis, after we were more widely known. But either way, I didn't want to clock cock block so or be their first hand to see what was going to happen. That would be breaking the bro code. So I decided to take off. Before I shut the door, I saw Terry out of the corner of my eye. He just barely gave me the thumbs up. I rolled out, knowing damn well that I shouldn't return anytime soon as

to let them have their space. Terry wasn't a big player like me, but either way, as a bro, you knew you had to follow the unwritten universal gentleman's rule that states if the van is a rockin, don't come and knocking. Tired as hell, I ventured out for what I figured would be a long night. I walked down a few spots over in the parking lot to the side of the Samoan's ride to look for shelter. A light drizzle was hitting my face as I was hitting

the van. Bump, bump, bump, nothing. I pounded a bit harder, bump, bump, bump. Finally, a dazed off a slid the side door open. Can you imagine bomb? My god, I imagine knocking on a van in the middle of the night in Pensacle, looking and the thing goes slides open off.

didn't want to stick around to find out. Okay, get in off appointed to the front. He slid the door closed, and then I saw his forearm unlock the front. I crawled into the passenger side. The seat was back pretty far already, but I leaned it back some. The head of my chair pushed back this drapery thing that they used to keep the light out of the back. I heard off I say something to Seeker from the back, and then I passed out. About twenty minutes later, I

awoke again. This time, however, my makeshift bed was not moving around. The thing that woke me from the dead this time was the curious sound of wood being sawed. I laid there for some time and listen to the wood sawing storm in full force. I tried covering my years with my blanket, but it was no use. I waited it out. After about ten minutes, I heard Cicca, I think, tell his brother to roll over. Fine, sure it was Terry over. Brother's a quick one, two, three

up brother? What Finally the snoring subsided. I closed my eyes again. I thought about the day. You know, for a moment, I thought he was talking about real wood being fucking like something through. I know, like someone's building a boat out there.

So I'm not sure sure he said all this, but yes, another saw chimed in in perfect harmony. It was magical, a full on wood sewing samo and symphony in stereo. Was being performed just for me.

But they're just fucking they're wearing whatever they wore them during the day. They just have regular clothes, like oh, so what do they do the laundry, by the way, Like no one talks about the laundry. These are important things that I'm curious about. But and they just sit there like, you know, it's unbuttoned, like all the way down, just like fucking offa's on his back, hair everywhere, all right, hair just fucking all over the place. Is welcome to

the business. It's the complete hull co good bitch. I imagine that there's just exactly you know, and there's no and these guys have you know. I I it's awful. But I also I cannot imagine a professional wrestler knowing good hygiene, right, Like, they're just always disgusting, right, all of them, all of them, and they're just nasty and just sweaty and body odor everywhere exactly. It smells like it smells like old lasso taco It's it's right, it's

a that and like peppers and onions. Ye, all right, you know that's that's the smell. It's all over the place.

Oh my god, right in the smoke filled dodge ram. It wasn't worth it.

wherever we were wrestling that night. There is ed Leslie reflecting. Here's further to the point about what's happening in the ring. Sometimes Ox Baker would show up to our vans to hang out there's another nice vision to have slamming onund your door in the middle of Psycho Maniac, this walking horror movie.

against each other that very night. Terry absolutely hated this. If he strolled up on the beach and saw me drinking with Ox, his face would go sour. He would say, disgustedly, if anyone's fucking strolling up, you know, that makes whole Cogan nastly. That's the one security blanket he has is none of the heels, none of the faces are going to be around him because of cave fame. But if all of a sudden like that isn't a hard and fast rule anymore, he can't trust that he's not going

to get covered. You know, let's not forget okay, let's not forget something here, Okay. This is Ox Maker is a classic example of what I have always talked about, and the fact that.

Looks like a fucking monster, mister, we don't serve psychos here. God, just I mean, imagine any normal thing, but with Ox Baker doing.

had the pizza you eat all that. I have some myself.

Fargo's room and then headed down to the pool. When he got there, guess what he saw. Bos He couldn't believe his eyes. Some nudest beach exhibitionist. Oh my god, hockey type conference was there and they were all out in rare and rear form. Everyone was naked and swimming. Just as he was about to turn around and leave, he looked over there. It was Robert Fuller aka Colonel Rob Parker wow on the territory with his brother Ron.

He was standing on the diving board and all his glory, completely naked, grounded by tons of wasted, drunk people cheering him on a dive. Someone reached over and handed him the Southwestern heavyweight title belt.

helped him finally take flight like a helicopter. Everyone's here, all right, thanks a lot, Kenny.

parking lot was packed. I didn't get it. You know, when I was earlier in the day the lot was almost empty, and all of a sudden, it was worth your life to get a spiller. Brother Jesus twice.

raising hell. It looked to me like the whole town was there as a final Later it wasn't the whole town, just everybody who'd been at the farm Center watching us wrestle. You know, when from the people in the front road, the guy's the nosebleed section. I mean, how big is the Farm Center? I think six thousand seats? Yeah, then would you consider those me nosebleed sections?

this is insane. Even that back then, I knew it wasn't right to run around naked like that with families and kids around who'd followed us from the arena back to the hotel. It was like a circus was in town. Yep, it was mind boggling. Even if Terry Boulder wasn't comfortable at times in Dothan, Dothan was real comfortable Terry Boulder.

point in time. She recalled from his second book. At a particular point, he and a reality show crew visit his childhood home in Tampa, after his marriage is beginning to fall apart, and after really hell Kogan's entire world is crumbling around him, and he spent some time in the backyard looking at the old remembering the old grapefruit trees that his dad used to tend to, and remembering

his mom. You'd be the one to stay indoors, and how they found a way to make their marriage work in that tiny house, no money at all, just tending to trees and really just loving the water, and he recalled I found myself wishing, Terry wrote that Linda and I could be happy again, praying almost even though I hadn't gone to church or spent any time praying for years. I thought about how crazy my life had become. What am I doing in a twenty thousand square foot house.

I think I was happier when I was living out of a van by the beach in pens and Coola, just waking up and feeling the wind on my skin.