It's The Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast special report. The Lapsed Fan presents the complete Hulk Hogan, a real American story, brought to you by Garage Beer.
Well, there had to be a first time. There had to be a first time that Hulk Hogan, that Andre the Giant Boss.
I I don't even know where to begin with that. I mean, the fact that it happened before nineteen eighty is really is really just it's borderline unacceptable.
Yes, tired is thinking Hogan Andre didn't happened before eighty seven. Wired is thinking it didn't happen before nineteen eighty.
Damn right.
Well, we're here to tell you and as much detail as humanly possible, considering almost none of it survives on film, precisely what went down Southeastern Championship Wrestling. Terry the Hulk Boulder comes face to face for the first time with the man against whom he created perhaps more box office than any pairing in the history of this industry, or at the very least lit the way to crowds and attention and spectacle theretofore unimaginable in the business of professional wrestling.
For all that so many of the greats created in all the stadiums that had been filled before, including by these two themselves in nineteen eighty as you just mentioned at Chase Stadium nineteen eighty seven, Hogan Andre showed us what was possible when we allowed pro wrestling to embrace the things that need to be embraced for us, to be allowed to believe, yes, to not be taken out of it every ten to fifteen minutes, to not be told it's a performance, and to not even think for
a second that this is some sort of figure skating exhibition where you hold up scores of one to ten upon execution, but in fact, know what you do is you let the wrestlers convince you that whether they win or lose this next match will determine everything.
Yep.
And where did Terry Bullaya the Future Hulk Hogan get that muscle memory from as it regards working with Andre the Giant. How were these two so let's say, fully
baked come WrestleMania three or nineteen eighty seven? It did all start Friends and doth in Alabama and that tiny television studio for WTVY that broadcast Ron Fuller's Southeastern Championship Wrestling and only a handful of Alabama cities were privy to it because that was as discussed last time on the Complete Hulk Hogan here on the Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast, how far those television shows reached the time wasn't really far and wide. And the level of preservation of this
footage criminal. And it's an especially sensitive time to be talking, isn't it boss about losing access?
I mean, I don't know.
I don't know what's worse having never seen the Hogan Andre matches and as we're going to talk about the Hogan Harley NWA World Heavyweight Title match in this promotion, or having been shown it, having been led to believe we'll always have access to it and then have it be taken away.
I I mean, I think it's always worse to have had it and then have it taken away. I always work that worked.
Like the archives, I mean, look words out by the end of twenty twenty six, by the end of twenty twenty five, rather yeah, right, I wish it was twenty six. I have more kind of we're holding solace in that by the end of this year. The ww WW and ECW archives the very foundation of the ww network. In twenty fourteen, the very foundation of this podcast, or at least the notion of it, will be taken away from
us and removed from Peacock with no certain home. I wonder if the AWA stuff will say, yeah, look at us grasping at what we can get. I mean, I mean, you gotta grab as much as we can while we can. It's it's it's it's I just don't I just don't understand it. I mean, it's so they're so careless with this stuff and you go ahead, please, I don't know, please. It just it just makes me feel.
Disrespected as a fan, as a as a lapsed fan, because we've had access for this stuff for eleven years now, and now they're just like whatever just goes back into the vault and it stays there until it's released on the Vault I suppose on YouTube, which just the problem is though as much as I love the Vault, they just don't drop enough, okay. And it's also so scatterbrained and it's so random you can't count on the what's being drop on any day, right, And also I mean,
I know, like, what do you you know? I understand that they're that they're doing, you know, the full match thing that they do on the vault. It just just don't do that. Just don't do that. If you're gonna, if you're gonna drop it, drop the whole fucking event. And that's it. Don't don't don't drop Yeah, exactly, don't drop these fucking one off matches from things that doesn't
fucking matter. Also, there's no there's no frame of reference except that they occasionally do some seasonal stuff like they've been doing Survivor series matches and they did the World Class Thanksgiving Star Wars f Min eighty five. But can't forget.
The pressure and initiative to put the whole archive on Peacock was because there was a new place that was representing itself as the home for this kind of footage, and it was pressure on Peacock not wanting to disenfranchise all these WWE subscribers that join them overnight, that pressured them to get the archives of WW feels no such pressure. This isn't some some new third party that's come to the table. It is afraid of angering all these WW fans that they paid out the notes to attract.
I just I just I. I mean, you just gotta grab as much as you can at this point, grab everything you can until until the year's out, and you know where where we're fortunate. We are fortunate that there we have had a massive amount of of listeners, members of the Solar System who have built an army. We've built We've built an army, and we have we have an archive. We probably actually have in many ways, we
have a better archive than than the we has. We certainly have certainly more more stuff than they than they originally had. But there's still stuff that we need and there's still stuff that we want, and it's all I mean, look, look, look, just the raw stuff alone is a disaster. The fact that they don't have the entire I'll be embarrassed, they shall be shaded that that should have been Like I don't understand why that wasn't a day one thing. The
fuck are you doing? Why that wasn't a day one thing? And why after almost a year there's still massive gaps Like whatever decades, decades, whatever.
Whatever justification you're gonna come up with on their behalf, put a clown nose on it.
Cloud, I'll tell you what. You know, you know what if you're gonna do, if listen, we we say it all the time. You know, obviously you know less is more in many ways, like you know, so if you're going to do that, just take it away, take it all away, don't don't, don't tease us with little bits and pieces. Just take it all away and gradually put up on the vault. If you're gonna do that, because it's fucking bullshit.
It's not lost stupid, it's stupid or born of the of the network. We started in twenty fourteen, the year the networks started, and because we picked up on the signals WW is putting out about who this whole service was really supposed to cater to, these so called lapsed fans, remember this whole thing, yep? And how ironic is it that almost twelve years on, here we sit the last bastion of a concept that they introduced and spawned us
and so many others. I mean, there's a ton of wrestling podcasts that were created because the network made on demand all of this archival footage, and we salute them as well. But I'm gonna say, man, like, how ironic is we're the ones left like making it hurt a little less because we're gonna do what it takes to keep the archives alive in a way that we've you know, sort of cornered the market on Yep, yep. Can't stop it at this point. I mean, I really want to
know what they're thinking. I really want to do.
I really want to know, and you know, I want to know what what in what frame of mind they said, you know what, this is the best thing. Yeah, this is the best thing to do. This is what we should do.
Why they just it's it's literally they don't care. Like Peacock is done paying they could give a fuck. I mean, it's no other might have interpreted this. Does that mean Saturday Night's main events are dead? Yes, after after John's said a great, I mean, as far as the contract runs, they're still in USA, so they reupt with they can re up to the NBC Universal. But as far as Peacock itself having WWE, P L E S and stuff, I think that's coming to an end. And uh the
beginning of the year, I believe so well. Forespn NXT cut a deal with c W for the television show and they took all the NXT archives off Peacock. It's like, what, so you can tell me the NXT archives are part of the c W Television contract and as far as I know, the there's no way to watch them. Why do you want to buy the rights to these things if you're going to not release them?
Right?
Had supported I mean, just put you could make millions of dollars tomorrow if you just uploaded, you know, one hundred thousand videos and just put ads in it, Like, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Guys. It's just it's just it's a fucking it's it's just just it's.
A fiduciary matter at this point. Ye, I would be concerned if I was a stockholder. Anyway, Well, we'll we'll get through it. That's the irony. The whole thing is Frankenstein created Frankenstein's Monster here right where we keep walking, just.
Like the Hulk, And that's the beauty of it. The monster outlast the doctor.
What I really mourn is the loss of the ability of lapsed fan listeners to follow along with us, right to be able to watch the show back as part of the enjoyment of our revisitation and recontextualization of the events. It's a much like under the cinemat It'd be as if people couldn't access the movie right.
Which you know, which does happen, Which does happen from time to time, there's some sometimes there are not easy ways outside of purchasing the movie outright, of following of watching the movie. It does happen. But this is this is just a fucking disgrace.
And even though we took the most circuitous and capitalistic way here, it's not lost under the irony that we're now once again as far as wrestling fans are concerned, on the doorstep of the rebirth of physical media, yep on a podcast that decried its loss in every way possible, from every angle possible, and laid down the irrefutable case that physical media was better for the fans. It was better for the talent that won remuneration from video sales.
It was better for Christmases where you can magically unwrap permanent access to magical moments. We just looked at a magazine for PWI years ago, forty four to ninety five, for a fucking compilation PWI tape with no WWF involvement in the eighties. I mean, you think about how much fifty bucks would be today for a VHS full of matches that you know, kind of of middleing quality just sort of a collection of names you've heard of, thrown onto a tape to make a quick buck. And we
gave that up. We gave all those margins up, We gave up the whole industry. Yeah, of selling physical movies in videos. Your problem. If it wasn't for this, we wouldn't have your problem. The Hulk Hogan Alabama stuff, we do have. What's your problem? That stuff was dredged up from the quote personal collections or whoever the fuck because there was a VHS market to sell it into. If these kind of things exist now, people, yeah, people might. People are more motivated to scrounge them up to get
views on YouTube. But that's not an industry. That's not the same thing as being powered by people with a profit mode of seeking out this stuff. That's where you really get the gems. And we were willing to pay for every little bite, every little glimpse, every little morsel. And it was proved over ten years and they just said, ah, not as many people watch that then a fucking WrestleMania. Well no shit, no shit, that was your expectation.
Then you was there'd be that many people watching all the time. Yeah, exactly, you're a fucking idiot. It's about keeping people, fucking idiot, It's about keeping people. But if you want to live paycheck to paycheck, show to show, hype to hype, be my guest. But this is what keeps you homestead and knowing it was all there and we had it across the entertainment spectrum. When you subscribe to a service, you knew you had that that that
IP library forever whenever you wanted to watch it. And now this ship is getting shopped around across streaming services annually, and we act like we're not getting fucked. We act
like this is this is clearly not an evolution. This is a devolution, yep, of the distribution system for entertainment in this country, and it's now finally trickled down to the last bastion of hardcore fandom out there such that would support a subscription with streaming service ninety eight percent of which we never even want to watch, but just because it has the archives of thirty year old wrestling shows. We've been subscribers to peacocks ince day one, and subscribers
to the ww Networks in twenty fourteen. Yep.
Yeah, sounds like a bunch of consumers you can definitely afford to, you can definitely afford to alienate the complete hul Cogan. What a great time to lunch. This journey we're cruising. We don't have to worry about someone hitting us with a request for a show that suddenly we
don't have access to. Right, We're a lot floaded for quite a while until the complete story of Hulk Hogan is told to a level that will remain unmatched forever more, particularly from an audio perspective, And we're excited to get to the point in time where we come to understand and crystallize why the Hulk Hogan Andre the Giant dynamic didn't just work in the capable hands of Vince McMahon junior or senior. It just worked no matter who the fuck was at the controls. Yeah, why does it work?
Why does Hulk verse Andre work?
Boss? Because honestly, it's it intangible. For me, it's it intangible. It's like you could take it. It's the it's the aura, it's the essence of these two giants of the business. Because I mean, I guess from a practical standpoint, it's like you've got under the giant who when did he start again in the sixties. Yeah, under the giant, who has been a spectacle since the sixties, late sixties, so a decade basically probably in many ways unmatched. Yeah, in
terms of that, in terms of being Matt spectacle. But then you've got another guy. Here comes this new guy who is a giant in his own right different ways, tall, massive, bloated at this point and showing signs of an un tapped charisma. Yep.
That and like Billy Graham and other big muscled up guys being sold as a supernatural force.
Right right, being sold as a superhero already, this is probably one of the first true irresistible force meeting the immovable object of the modern era. Correct, all right, that's what this is. That's what this this exemplifies. It is it's it's I mean, it's really you know, in many ways too when you look at it, it's it's a legend versus you know, versus the future. Yes as well, it's all these different things. And and it was sold that way in the beginning as this young upstart threat.
It ended up shoot being that at wrestling a three right, Right, That's why Hogan and Vince always cry when they think about this night, because even though a lot of it, I'm sure as crocodile tears, they know that if Andre did not think that Hulk deserved to run with the ball, it wouldn't have happened, right, It wouldn't have happened in the way it needed to happen to really cement the whole thing as magical and to give Hulk, you know, several more years of gasoline in the engine, and goddamn
were with the beneficiaries and God Dan are loss to be a fan in Dothan, to be a fan on this fucking incredibly historically significant weekend in nineteen seventy nine, and to be able to witness Hulk and Andre tie up for the first time. For that to be a completely new thing, you to be the first person to witness that interpersonal dynamic. I can't.
I'm going to go to my grave longing to be in one of those seats.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. I mean I want to know, I want to I want to talk to well, I want to talk to somebody who experienced that. Of course, of course I don't need to experience it. I need to know what people thought, because experiencing it it's like, I know I can never have that. I know I can never have that, But but at the same time, I know that there are people who are still alive who did see this.
And to your point, it's not even it's not even what they thought on that night. It's what they thought ten years later, almost exactly when the whole world was talking about this as a first of its kind matchup, and they're like, I saw these to wrestle down the road in nineteen seventy nine.
Is that there's a handful of people who are like, no, no, this is fucking old news.
And it would go to Georgia, and it would go to Montreal, and it would go to Japan before and around the same time it was in New York. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's not get awared of ourselves. The total, the complete Hulk Hogan allows us to, much like a Greg Valentine, take our time, but much like a Hulk Hogan, you better believe we're hulking up and dialing it up to ten in the goal on the stage. But it's time to put under the microscope
Hulk versus Andre for the very first time. As we established last time, on the complete Hulk Hogan charting Hulk's arrival in the Gulf Coast Territory, his first since taking a year off of the business and going with Ed Leslie to Cocoa Beach to run a bar. It is not lost on anybody, including territorial owner Ron Fuller, that this guy's money and booker Louis Tillett, they figured it
out right away. They positioned him incredibly strongly. He's taking on the top guys, including Fuller in the ring, squashing people, bear hugging them to blood runs from their mouths. They're just doing the things that you do when you need to turn a guy into money immediately, and Hulk Hogan was money immediately. That's a key takeaway I think so far from this whole thing is that it didn't There was no baby steps with this guy. There was no period where it was like, uh, you know, he's still
finding himself. If a booker wanted to, they could make hul Cogan a box office attraction from day one. Not all the bookers he worked for wanted to. That's the difference. Ron Fuller wanted to and he pulled it off. He pulled it off in such a way that I think you could argue it kind of sent a shock of panic through the NWA power structure. I think we're going to be able to make that claim by the time all is said and done, by the time nineteen seventy
nine is in the books. And as we've already soort a forecast in nineteen seventy nine isn't just about Gulf Coast and southeastern for Terry Bolea. It's also about Memphis. It's also about New York, all of the Georgia GBS. All these things happened for ull Cogan in his very first year back. It all happens at once. It doesn't happen in a very neat, predictable tidy, one year at
a time format. And thus you're going to witness the sort of format of the complete hul Cogan evolve to be able to pay appropriate respect to the fact that he's all over the place. He's back and forth, He's back and forth a series of runs. Sure life is a series of runs, Terry. But do they all have to happen at the same time? What happens when the runs happen in parallel?
Boss chaos, chaos, chaos, trouble and destruction.
I can only think of one way to take the edge off of that for your co chairman.
I think it.
I think it fits very coolly in the palm of your hand, doesn't it.
M H.
I think it might be a presenting sponsor of this one of.
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Nothing like popping a cold one, even on these cold days, you know. It's like, yeah, I know right, It's it's nice to just be able to, you know, sit by the fireplace and just have a can of good old fashioned American beer.
We can we can tell you, folks, We can tell you. These guys get it. These guys get what we're doing here.
Yep.
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If you're going to crack a can you know you're going to do it, especially over the holidays. Make it garbage. You can make it garage. Look, look, you know what this is. Here's here's the deal. Holidays are here, all right, and a lot of us are going to be around family. Correct for better or worse. Okay, and when it gets to the worst, excuse yourself. Yes, take a little moment, say you know what, I'll be right back and head
out to the garage. Have one, crack it open, take the edge off a little bit, have a six pack ready like your Terry Boleya about to negotiate a heel turn with Eric Bischoff.
Or you're about to fucking convince Macho man Erney Savage to come to WCW Right, all right.
I mean live in the spirit of holkg and as the complete plays out this holiday season.
With just to live in the spirit of Terrible laya please, And.
That's how to take that is edge off, brother, that's how to get things calm down and dialed in.
Damn right.
But when the new year hits and it's time to dial it up and pump up. When it comes time to unwrap something under your Christmas tree this year, that puts you on a different plane. Brother, almost fires up those jets like the hulkster knew how to do when the time came. You need to support our friends ad live it. Yeah, 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. We just got done talking about how Ed and Terror used to mix it up on the couch and cocoa beach. We're talking spoonfuls of peanut butter. We're talking cubes of hogends.
So did we ever what a is? No oka?
Plenty of people offered suggestions that I appreciate all of them. I can't say any of them land that is exactly what Hulk meant by a cube of hogendas.
I just don't understand it.
That's the whole point. You don't have to do anymore. Folks like lived have figured it out. They've dialed it in with real wrestlers that hit the real mats with real ear muffs on, who understand low inside singles, cement mixers, gata rolls. I mean, come on, folks, It's not sushi in Florida.
Gator roll is a.
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Get it under that ass.
If we're not going to have the archives on Peacock, we're gonna need a little extra gasoline in this engine, brother, Yeah, on that wide glide that we got on those guns that were Revin Brother. Let's fucking go with live it.
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Fuck yeah, I mean, listen, we're already fucking cooking with this, with the complete Hull Cogan line, all right. We've got Terry Bowleia with the bowling the Bowling League, We've got Alan Rules, we've got Kenny Mania, we've got Infinity's end all right, and you know, we've got more down the line, more in the pipeline, and uh, it's just it's going
to keep coming. Your not to mention the fact that we've also got a thousand previous Hogan ones, you know, and and other shirts of course, just a gallery of shirts that speak to how we ended up in a place where you know what it makes sense to do something like this. I think it's important to remember that we do have Christmas themed.
Absolutely glad that there are so many classics buried deep in the back catalog that people forgot about.
They slept on. Tell them about them. Well, we got we got the lapse hard one with the Knakotomi gogle. We've we've got TLF. You'll need it as if it's a IBC from Scrooge. We've got the lapse fan home alone style, a lapsed fan Christmas as Charlie Brown christ is the laps fan in the night member before Christmas. We've got the lapse fan with the uh in the style of a Christmas story. We got TLF in this in the the like elf. We got them all. Not to mention, also, we go even further back. We've got
we've got a Fritz based one. I forget what the the actual thing was, but that was all he's got. He's got a Santa Claus hat. He's got a Santa Claus hat one. It's a I think, uh something old Saint Fritz or something like that. Sure, Jolly old Saint Fritz. That's it, Jolly old Saint Fritz. It's all there inspired by so recular podcast. I believe yes, and it's a particular podcast and fuck this, let's get it.
Dot com Slash the laps Fan, Fly the Colors Proud in twenty twenty six and BS and this holiday season and this holiday season, you buy one of those holiday shirts pots just mentioned, you're gonna find yourself wanting to wear it every Christmas time. You're just gonna be some itch you have to scratch. You're gonna go to a wrestling show, or you're gonna be out and about. And these aren't things that necessarily scream. I like pretend fighting,
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series coverage. Deserve it. We've settled on a theme song for the Last Time is Now coverage, and I'm sure that these I'm sure that these these strains will impact listeners' years coming up. When Sina takes the ring for the final time in Washington, DC, why don't you let him have the Last Time is Now?
Oh go?
Last time is no? The last time is no, Last time is no, Last time is no, Last time is no.
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I know, it's it's it's it's such a it's turned into such a fucking ship show. It's so pathetic. Really is like they've just lost all sight of what you know, what you know the problem is is that they they all I mean, listen, I've said it a thousand times. They all looked at what Netflix did, and they all thought they could do it, and they all thought it
would make them easy money. Then they realize and that's and that's where the problem is, because they opened the floodgates and they fucking they the toothpaste is out of the tube and they can't put it back in. That's right, And now now the resolidation is happening, no one can stay in business anymore. And we all act like this is something that was inevitable and yeah, and they realized that, hey, shit, you know what we're we can't have all our stuff
out there because it just won't work that way. And it's like, yeah, no, shit, right, obviously that's the case. But you did it anyway. And now we suffer as fans because you suck exactly because you're fucking morons, tremendous Now you have more.
You're a copycat bitch, yeah, copycat, but you're a fomo bitch, just like somebody somebody chasing a fucking slot machine.
Except the problem is is that unlike umlike being a copycat, you have you have now uh, what you've done, what they have all done is given us access has given us access, They've proved it's possible, and now they realize that doing that was a mistake. And I don't know, I don't disagree with them in many ways it was a mistake, but you did it, and now we're being punished for it, right, And it's like why, Oh, because you want money, And it's like, okay, great, well I
want money too. What am I paying for? Then?
What am I bothering doing? Because you know what I've I've got at least we can go to the Royal Rumble next year and in WrestleMania the year after that.
Yeah, as long as we can go, you know, I mean, listen, the USA, Okay, the United Saudi Arabia.
Big fucking thumbs up from your coach chairs, big fucking thumbs up from the coe chairs. You already know what it is. You've presided over it a bunch of fucking idiots. So let's go back to Let's go back to God's country. Let's go back to where they were A man still fears God. Let's go back to Alabama. Let's go back to the Southeastern Championship Wrestling Territory owned and operated by the Tennessee stud Ron Fuller and Terry the Hulk Boulder is just beginning to make Let's do it his impact.
We talked last week about the feud with Fuller. Fuller goes in there as someone who actually towers a bit over Terry Bully in terms of height, not necessarily musculature,
but what a great opponent. Fortunately for him, that the guy who ran the territory and had all of the self interest in the world and making this green kid a box office attraction right to save his territory, went in there and actually let a hulk bear hug the shit out of him, the blood out of him, and do the same to his old uncle Leicester Welch, and do the same to Roy Lee Welch and all these other family members that have been longtime veterans of the
circuit down and around East Tennessee and Alabama, to feed to the Hulk and having no hesitation about it, having no bullshit Dusty Roads games about it, which drove Hogan almost out of the business in the first place, yep, or Mike Graham, bullshit, whoever you want to peg it on. And here he's just taken it to Ron Fuller and proving that he can hang with the biggest and baddest guy. So this territory is known, but under the Giant is
kind of a different story. Yes, Andre, like so many territories across the country, and indeed the world, would come through at predictable but spaced out intervals to different territories across the country. He'd often come in for big battle royals, like the one at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. You'd often bring him in for your big annual battle Royal show because you know, he's sort of difficult book one on one against somebody. Unless you're going to sacrifice
one of your local guys to Andre the Giant. He's not going to come in into a job for you necessarily. But this way the circumstances aligned. Here in the spring of nineteen seventy nine, Andre just happened to be coming through at the same time Louis Tillette had begun investing in this halt guy and setting him up, and it
made a perfect match. As we discussed last time, Louis Tilette is a French Canadian, knew Andre well and on that deeper sort of French Canadian mafia level that courses so distinctly through the pro wrestling business.
To you.
You look at the Rougeaus and Patterson and Garvin and Thedino, Bravo and so many others. They run as a pack, and they are willing to do things for each other that they wouldn't be willing to do for an average booker or an average promoter that they might have a relationship with but don't have that deeper homeland kinship with.
I think that is a big factor as to why Terry Bully I got the shot like he did, and Andre this early and this often now there it's generally accepted that May fourth, nineteen seventy nine was the very
first match between Hulkgan and Andre the Giant in Dothan, Alabama. However, like so many things, when you go back and actually look at the wrestling data record and other career records, it shows a May third, the day before nineteen seventy nine match at the Boler Wrestling Arena in Panama City, Florida, where Andre teamed with roy Lee Welch to take on the Gladiator and the Hulk. So bullshit is what you're saying.
I think so bullshit. I think you know the best we're going to get is Ron Fuller going back over his notes and recalling what he can recall from his personal archives and his personal memory about how he booked all this stuff and how it played out, and what struck him as the first instance of something happening and what struck him as the time. He has very specific dates on the studcast, which of course is an invaluable resource.
The podcast that we pointed you to last time, on the Complete Hulkoken, where Ron Fuller really just goes through his date book from the Southeastern Gulf Coast days and Knoxville days and just delineates all the cards and all the very first times that people showed up in the territory and who they worked with, what the feuds were, what the television segments were, like the personality profiles with announcer Charlie Platt that they did on television to introduce
the fans of the Gulf Coast territory to new wrestlers like Terry Bolea, And so if you follow that trajectory, there are a lot of things that he says that contradict with the dates that exist in these sort of complete career records, which if of course, thankfully have become a thing on the Internet over the past ten twelve years, these master databases, these master list. Richard Land's history of
WWF is another great one. And so we have a conflict here in that it appears this is, you know, no different than Brian Blair swearing to God he had Hulk's first match, and you look it up and Hulk had two matches, including one with Brian Blair before the one in Chieflin, Florida. And we put Brian Blair to the test on that when we had her on this show as part of the complete hul COVID, and he stood by it. So it's not like people are just failing to ask. It's just right. There's just going to
be conflicting recollections out there. That's the nature of everything, let alone the pro wrestling business. But if this is to believe, there actually was a tag match where Hogan and Andre steered across the ring from each other in Panama City, Florida, before their first one on one meeting
in Dothan. But suffice to say, even if that is the case that they did meet in a tag match, we can say at the very least, this is the first Hulk Hogan Andrew the Giant one on one match, which is really what counts anyway.
Full Yeah, I suppose that is true.
Full Of recalled that they had to do the personality profile for the doth And market only because when Andre came in Boss, they didn't have a lot of time. They just had one weekend of Andre dates and not every city in the territory was going to get Andrea
in Hulk. So think about this. Not only did they not only did they narrow cast at the time because they had so few cities to broadcast their TV, and they even had to split that up into pieces because they didn't want to promote Hulk versus Andre to a city that wasn't going to get the match. So you had to live in doth in Alabama to see this shit like not you couldn't live in Mobile either, And I know it's mobile and not mobile. I'm just trying to make mobile phone jokes. And then it just set
problem with that. Then people get it. They can go fuck themselves, but you're going to say something there I don't remember. It's okay, well we'll get it back. So Ron Fuller recalls having to do the person profile on Terry the Hulk Boulder and Andrew the Giant and the matchup in the Dothan market only all about this match and that Mobile and Montgomery got different personality profiles the week that The Hulk Andre won aired because they weren't going to get the match. They didn't want to get
people interested in the match. So, man, that makes this even more of a needle in a haystack to ever find this. Jesus Ron recollects that after they shot their normal television show with the matches before the fans there at the TV studios in Dothan with an empty studio, they kept Hulk Hogan behind there with his heel manager Billy Spears, who he introduced you to last week on the show. And Hulk was still part of the Spears family.
Is a heel at this point in time, of course, in the great tradition of manager run stables of heels. You know the heen And Family, Jimmy Hart's first Family, jim Cornett's Cornett's Camp, and the Dangerously Dangerous Alliance. All that shit, it's all part of the same formula. Wow, And Hulk was there standing behind Billy Spears as he went on and on as one of his many muscle men.
One thing I didn't even really appreciate until spending some time listening to podcasts that a guy named Bo James has done over the years, both on the Between the Sheets Show and the six oh five Super Podcast. Shout out to Steve on Patreon for pointing out that he has a lot of good insight because bo James was a teenager growing up in this exact market and actually got a job working for the territory down there as a young kid who wanted to get into the business
and became a very much historian. He spent a lot of time documenting on the Exile from Bad Street sub series that Chris Selner Between the Sheets has done on the South Eastern Territory, particularly when it became Continental in nineteen eighty five after Vince has gone national and Crockett too Fuller tried to get back into the business as Continental Championship Wrestling and tried to get you know, national
ad sales going. He wanted to make a run at it like Bill Watts wanted to make a run at it with UWF and so many other folks that were trying to navigate this new post WWF takeover world, and a lot of that stuff was produced and preserved and it can be rewatched. So a lot of that stuff from the mid to late eighties in Continental in that area survives on tape. One of the insights that bo James has brought is that Ron Fuller we talked about how weird it is that none of this survives and
there's so little coverage of it. He didn't want the coverage. According to bo James, Ron Fuller would not let the wrestling magazines come to these shows. Why is it so weird there's no after mag coverage of these epic hult yeses Andre backlets?
What is?
What's the why? According to bo James. And I haven't heard Ron Fuller say this. Maybe he has said it somewhere. According to bo James, ron Fuller.
Is actually think I keep thinking of me to say bow Jangles, and I'm thinking of fried Chicken. I will not say bo Jangles. Well, maybe now I will because you said that, But I know I keep thinking like it. Honestly, I keep thinking you're going to say that, and I'm getting hungry because they have incredible breakfast biscuits. They sure do.
Oh yeah, that's the way it stuff today. Yeah, I can't deny that. According to Bo James, Ron Fuller was concerned that if the national wrestling magazines featured his stars and the kind of houses they were doing and the kind of sensation they were careering in their part of the world, that other bigger territories would raid his wrestlers. And I wonder if that mentality is set in chiefly after this, because as far as I can tell, that's exactly what happened to him. Visa VI Hulk Cogan, He's a.
Lapsed fan wrestling podcast.
He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack and Carno.
M J. P.
Sorow Like he found the star in Hulk Cogan, Him and Louis Tillette found the star in this guy and drew the kind of houses with Andre and others that would get the attention of a Jerry Lawler and Jerry Jarrett in Memphis, get the attention of an Olie Anderson and Jimmy Barnett in Atlanta, get the attention of Vince Senior in New York, and whoever was running the Bravos or the Brideaus, whoever was running Montreal at the time, all these places Japan that booked Hogan right after this.
I mean that might have been the lesson learned in part is because this might be one that word got out because certainly people in the business knew about it, that this this new this new guy. Insiders knew that this new guy. Hull had drawn huge with with andre in this market. But Ron Fuller liked it that way. He liked that lower profile because I think he was concerned about his ability to retain what was working for him if word got out about how successful it was
all being. So it's really counterintuitive in a way, but it kind of makes some sense when you think about it. Because he had such a small territory, he didn't have to worry about too many people laying eyes on the show, and the wrestlers could come there knowing and knowing that they could actually work and do things that not everybody would see. So it's kind of it's kind of more
chill atmosphere that way. It's not National TBS right right, You're in a territory of the size of the AWS where you're pretty much reaching half of the country already anyway, or New York. So that was something apparently to be preserved about this part of the country and wrestling in this part of the country where they took it very seriously and had a great, great sense of local ownership. This idea of this is our wrestling, These are our wrestlers.
And while people would cycle in and cycle out, it seemed very important, particularly to Southeastern, to keep alive in the fan's eyes, the sense and this is sort of just for us, you know, this is cooked to our liking, precisely to our liking. So after the normal show, as
I said, they kept hulking. There were Billy Spears according to Ron Fuller, and the Samoans are in there and Billy Spears family, the gladiator Eddie Sullivan, and they're talking about how big ox Baker will be joining the family soon. And they're putting over how ox Baker had suppose killed two wrestlers in the past. Right, let's not forget that.
Tell the people how we know about that, Well, we talked a lot about that when we did escape from New York under the Cinema where we went into a pretty I mean, honestly, you know, because he's a guy that we you know, oftentimes we you know, we don't there There are are our big time, big name wrestlers who were not going to really come across on the main show, which you know, it's it's I don't think before now, I don't I mean, have we ever, I don't know we ever talked about ox Baker before now
on the main show?
Would we? I mean, he's not exactly any you know Lapsteer of shows. No, no, no, no, no exactly. So we we went into a full, a full dive on him and some of these encounters and some of the riots that happened and all that ship. It's it's not the me. Let me let me look into there. Let's going to find some of my old gems there from from from back then.
One thing ox Baker himself has said was that it was supposed to be Bruiser Brodie getting that role and escape from New York.
Did we did he? Wow? Did I Did I know that? I don't know if I even knew that?
Not sure, but he's definitely talking shoot interviews, and so it was kind of a there was an opportunity that I think took him out of circulation at a time when he really could have found a way to integrate into the you know, the nationalization of wrestling. Sure, her face at your time. But that kind of created a potential separate Hollywood path, and Southeastern was a great territory to go to when you sort of didn't want to hustle as much as far as driving, the towns are
very close. You could live on the beach, as we've talked about, and a lot of the guys were from and around Florida. Anyway, you could live in Pensacola and make all the towns in Alabama in just a few hours in the car. You could be home at night. One things bo James said is that I think you said about Royally Welch. You know he's about Ron Wright. He said, ron Wright just decided I don't want to
work at a territory. Think about this. I don't want to work at a territory where I have to leave before my kids get home from school that day.
Wow.
And he didn't have to this in this territory, and that was a huge selling point of working there and why guys like the Fullers and the Armstrongs and the
Goldens were so homesteaded there for many years. And so ox Baker was being talked about on television at this point in time, is coming to join Billy Spears' family as well, and during this particular segment, Ron Fuller recalls Billy Spears asking the Hulk in particular to step forward, and then he tells the director, does Billy Spears, the director of the television go to run the video that I provided to you, And what the video was was
the submission match from three nights earlier where Hulk was wrestling Ron Fuller in the submission match and Hulk had Ron and a bear hug, and eventually Ron Fuller went out cold and Hulk's hand was raised in victory, and Billy Spears requested the tape be run back with Ron Fuller pounding the Hulk and putting the leg lock on earlier and apparently Hulk Hogan has talked about by Ron Fuller had conceded, but the referee didn't see it, so you know the sort of a visual pinfall gimmick going
on here. Spears says someone doctored the tape, yes, because he claims to the audience, Ron Fuller never had the Hulk in that hold and there's no way that this is real footage. At which point, those are the liberty liberties affonded to you? Well, I think this shit is ourn't artificial intelligence? Oh my god, I believe that artificial intelligence has taken a hold of this videotape, in this footage and has has has has perverted it and something
that didn't happen. Well, if everything else the wrestling business is artificial, the intelligence ought to be too, right. I've seen a lot of artificial intelligence in the wrestling business. Let me tell you. Whenever someone's talked about as a genius, you watch them talk for more than forty five minutes, you know, this guy's pretty much a fucking moron. But it's fine feigned intelligence. So the studio empties out and spears calls him Sterling the Hulk Golden. According to Ron Fuller,
I can't emphasize this enough. It's incredibly confusing to me. But Ron Fuller swears that Terry Boleo was interchangeably called Sterling the Hulk Golden and Terry the Hulk bolet on.
His test show. Yes, listen, it's it's in the newspapers, Okay, I saw it in the New Georgia though. No, no, not a Georgia. No it's not. It was from earlier.
It was from earlier, in seventy nine, yes, I remember the date being November of seventy nine.
Am I wrong? Hold on?
Because I found what I found for the Hulk read during the Incredible Hulk Under the Sad episode that was.
Shure to go back. Maybe I've listened. I'll fully admit if I if I if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure I saw it fairly early in the year where he was Sterling the Hulk or something like that, or the Hulk Wrestling's Hulk Sterling Golden something like that.
Right, Yeah, let's run that down. The Solar system has already heard it, so I remember finding that away in my mind is okay, that makes sense. It's a Georgia newspaper and it's after he had left Alabama, at which point no one disputes. I mean, there's tape of him being called Sterling Golden on WTBS.
Yeah, but Sterling the Hulk Golden.
No, the tapes that I've seen from the territory, which I believe is the full extent, and we'll talk about it as the Completehull. COGA and unfolds from Georgia always just calls them Sterling Sterling Golden, not sorry.
This is this is the Knoxville New Sentinel Sentinel. Okay, yep, the Hulk this is from I guess this is from This is from later in the year. Okay, so I'm wrong about that. This is from November and he is the Hulk. Sterling Golden.
Does it give a date line as far as like where the matches took place that the reporter was.
It's the uh I have? This is the ad here, I have the w It was a the W Knox Auditorium, Okay, Tennessee. Yeah, and it's it was. It was on Thursday, November twenty ninth at eight pm.
As we'll talk about November, right, as we'll talk about it gets really hairy out round here because those guys like Bob Rupe who defect from Ron Fuller and take over Knoxville, or at least try to run opposition, they do run up position in Knoxville and try.
To take it over.
I'm not entirely sure that we get the whole story from Ron Fuller as to where Terry Bullay has loyalties.
Lie Holy, he.
Kind of makes it seem like Terry just, you know, ferried off to Memphis and didn't really take a side in the Bob Roup versus Ron Fuller war, but I'm pretty sure that there's evidence that Terry essentially picked Knoxville, he picked the outlaw group, which I think might also be a part of why Terry has very little to say about this the particulars at this point of his career in his books and such, for a million other reasons that maybe perhaps among them, and further to the
point earlier about Ron Fuller showing away from magazine coverage out of fear that it would, you know, attract people to steal his talent and get hip to what he was doing that or you know, another thing he said was like this is what bo James said. It also kind of makes a promoter who has expansion ambitions say, wait a minute. If they're packing out every arena in this territory, we got to run down there. You know, you're just inviting Vince to come even sooner. And it
wasn't just Vince he'd be worried about. Is this Knoxville drama demonstrates and others had made moves. This is a part of the country where you got like two three city territories and there's been four owners of six different ways of slicing it over thirty years, they're always making moves. It doesn't have to be the big, bad New York guy.
It can be to the you know, the country boy from you know, two towns over that could try to take their shit too, right, And so I think, you know, I think there's there's evidence that Hulk actually went against Ron Fuller in this war. I think too that Jimmy Barnett, who of course helped run Georgia champion to Presting at this time with oly Anderson, had some loyalties and ended
up backing the Knoxville guys too to some degree. I mean, eventually Ron Fuller sold Knoxville to Jim Barnett, and so maybe selling Knoxville to Jim Barnett his version of Knoxville obviously not the version of the outlaw version, right, Maybe that's what sort of put Hulk in a comfortable position
to work for him. But it looks optically like Hulk leaves southatern Gulf Coast and goes to the part of the territory that was up for grabs, so to speak, and kind of was a beneficiary of all the trouble caused, and he has to have some level of not loyalty really but just straight familiarity with guys like Bob Rup, Bob Orton Junior, and some of the other guys that
made that jump. We talked a lot in the early stages of The Completely, the initial stages of The Complete, about how formative and central those guys were to Florida a CHAMPIONSI Wrestling from Florida when Hogan first was training. So all that you have to factor in as well.
I will say, by the way, in regards to ox Baker, so I guess a lot of the stuff that I had are actually sound bites, So you'd have to go listen to you'd have to go to listen to that episode of Escape from New York regarding an ox Baker, Except there is one thing funny here that that ox Baker didn't want to lose his fight New York. Yeah, he didn't want to lose, and he he would. He was upset about that for the rest of his life. And even where Hogan got it from. Yeah, and even
claim this is this is the best part. So you know that there's a sequel to Escape from New York, Escape from La coming soon to the Cinement, and he says, and it didn't do as well, and he says the reason that the sequel failed was because he wasn't in it. Of course, I mean, come on, folks, everybody knows that, everybody, because everyone came to escape from New York for the Ox.
Okay, for the Ox, I'll tell you looking ahead of it, not only is he coming in to join Billy Spears family, he's coming in to work a series of matches with Theulk. Ox Baker is waiting for Hulk, and in fact, here Ron Fuller tell it, they would have started the Ox Baker Hulk Hogan feud a lot earlier than they did, and in fact, it may have even preempted the Andre the Giant idea. If Ox was available at the first time, they had the idea of matching these two up, which it's just wild to think about.
As well.
So as in the Empty Studio once again, on the Gulf Coast television, Billy Spears calls him Stirling the Hulk Golden and he has them watching an interview that had been cut in New York and sent to Dothan three days earlier by the Giant.
Wow.
So Andre's there shooting TV for WWWF and he takes a moment to shoot TV that's going to be sent down to Dothan for this hoping. So can you imagine sitting at home in Dothan, Alabama watching Southeastern Championship Wrestling and you see a tape shot in presumably Allentown, PA, with Andre at ringside at the WWWF taping setting we all know so well, and he's cutting a promo on
Hulk Hogan and he's coming Terry the Hulk Bowlder. So that WWF has that because that's their fucking equipment being used. That's part of one of the marathon taping sessions somewhere. So if you don't produce andres first promo on Hulk, out of your fucking minds, guys.
We'll never see it. Why is that because they don't want us to, they don't care. Suck it.
This was not the week for this news to come out. When we're sucking and we're knee deep in kneeds and wants around Hulk Hogan and video.
Plats the kit. That's what I'm gonna have to do. Like the kids, and like the kids in school used to say, yeah, bad because bad kids. Eyebrow rings right, Yeah, just unbelievable that a New York promo was sent to Dothan from Andre's lips to Hulk Hogan before he'd even laid eyes on the guy, just cutting a promo on,
you know, his most lucrative foe. And he's talking about coming back to Dothan, according to Ron Fuller, because Andre had come to the territory several times before, and they had opened Othan in nineteen seventy eight, and Andre, ron Fuller says, was on that first card when his family opened up their own their uh their promotion and doth in Alabama. When they opened doth into the promotion, they were running elsewhere, and Andre said he looked forward to
coming back. And then Andre, according to Ron Fuller, here for the first time, that's just from the stud cast his Ron Fuller's podcast again highest recommendation for the first time our promo turns his attention.
To Hulk, and he said he had never heard of this Russer, which is true. You know, he said he never heard of this Russer called the Hulk, but everyone that knew him said he was a very big guy. And you know, and then andread ended up in his normal fashion, he said, but I don't care. The bigger the better. You know, he wasn't concerned about it. So Spears jumped in, you know, the second the video ended, and he said, this was the moment he and Sterling
had been waiting for. And then suddenly, for the first time Hulk had done anything like this, he just stopped Billy wrighting, Hey, Hey, hey, I got this wow, and he asked, you know, he says that he says to Billy, he says, how many times have I told you my name is Terry. Then for the first time, he didn't just say that little thing to say. He took over the rest of the interview. He was like a different person in this personality profile than we had seen from him.
So Hoaks said, basically, you know, they're going to be two big phenomenal things in wrestling that were going to happen this month, and both of them are going to happen in Southeastern wrestling, and both of them are going to change wrestling history forever. He said. Next Friday night, he says, I'm going to beat Andre the Giant, and then three weeks later, I'm going to beat the NWA World Champion Harley Race.
Whoa wow, and he walked.
Off the set. Billy Spears chasing behind him, apologizing, Hey, you hope, whoa whoa. You know, that was a pretty short little deal, but it was very effective so that it showed the different personality.
So Hulk steps into the foreground and says, I got this, spears Andre. Not only am I going to beat your ass, I'm gonna turn around become NBA World Heavyweight Champion.
Yeah, yeah, where's the fucking footage? Didn't happen?
I mean, this is him coming into his own in every conceivable way.
Didn't happen. There's no television evidence. Didn't happen. How do I know?
H nothing. I'm electrified just hearing him describe that. I know, I mean, what what are you seeing? When he's hot? When he's utting that picture out? I mean it's hard because I know, why does his voice sound like I want to see like I want to see Hull Cogan in like eighty five. But the problem is I know what Hull Cogan was sounding like, you know, and it wasn't pretty, you know, because I because I also think of so I wanted to be Hulk Hogan in his prime.
But I can't help but think it's hl Hogan on Johnny Carson. Yes, right right, devoid of any over the.
Top right exactly. That's that's that's my concern. But I don't know, you know, very well could have been but for him.
Even just for a small amount of time, to be portrayed as this silent killer monster you know who said less than Goldberg in those early days. Yes, by the way, shout out to everyone on x and Patreon who noticed that, Yes, Hulk Hogan was indeed the first coming of Bill Goldberg. That it's precisely how he was pushed in Gulf Coast. The for him to suddenly like not only talk but offer more than just a grunt and acknowledgment of what
Billy Spears is saying for him is so huge. Yeah, And to step into the foreground and say those things, It's like, whoa, this guy is not only ready to take on Andre, they want us as fans to now think of him as a potential NWL champion. It's been in the business for like three months since the return, yep. So it's very clear. And so there's something that does survive and we are deeply fortunate for this. And according to the Wrestling Gold series the Kid Parker Films put out,
this comes from some private collection. It's not Ron Fuller's. He said he doesn't have footage going much before nineteen eighty I believe.
Is what he said. Fucking he is, Oh, I know, idiot.
The word salad he must throw at you when you ask him save these tapes.
Well you know, yeah, yeah, fail. I just oh wow, you know what the problem? I wanted to my memory more than I want to live on Okay, it, so we do have. I prefer to just sit there and think about it and dream about it than I do to actually experience.
We might not know anything about this if it wasn't for this VHS that found the Hult versus Andre in the arm wrestling match at the doth And TV studios to set up their first match. We have footage of the angle. We have Billy Spears at ring side with his back to the hardcam. We have you know, two three rows of bleachered fans with that like pink spotlight on the blue wall like it's fucking a w A teen Challenge series over here, and we have we have
the full texture of what it looks like. Yeah, we're gonna watch that along with you. You can find it on YouTube. A simple Andre Hulk arm Wrestling Alabama. We'll get you there, but we're gonna watch it here along with you. And if you're ready, boss, I am ready. Have you ever seen this before? First, No, I have never seen this before. This is a man. This is brand new to me. I'm very very this is you know.
I used to always find want these these kind of tapes of the unseen Hulk Hogan stuff. Yes, this one, I've never seen this.
Here we go three two one, play.
And headed for the ring.
Terry the Hulk Bowlder is in the ring now.
Yes, we have a challenge here. And Andre looks huge.
There you see the eighth wonder of the world, Andre the Giant.
The history right here is like and.
Terry the Hawk Boulder Nicky Steinborn into instruck the gentleman on the rules of his arm wrestling match.
No, I can't hear the grips.
Look at the size of a.
Yeah, stronger going on? Here we go?
Here we go, Steinborn laying in the rules all across this wooden table.
In the middle of the ring. The xplaining Hogan's locks are flowing.
What must be done to win this match?
We get there, have started evenly matched so far.
Struggling.
Willie Spears at ringside still looks like he's hurting, right that seven Dickie Steinborn, the lean.
Wolf, got park Old looking who andric But the whole looks like on these frings some expressions the haultage, it looks like on the half springs and expression duck.
Maybe ongres coming down? Oh yeah, o Russell.
Then you want to be.
Shaped like it says.
Here and tell him the whole time back he's gonna split. Let's look at him, look at him God and his sandals. Yeah right, that's montre A. Matt Billy Spears is got in the ring, Aldredes after Spears, look for Spears.
Plugget's got the table, Holgan's got the table after on the table roll and stumping the ship out of him and sandals like he's called Ardwarf to Vader Sweet clubbing entre, the off road entre, y Ronhouse rats on the classic rights and I blade too. H is trying to do what's the andre the clubbing gloss in the.
Funds to the floor on the manager of the Hulk sus him back Yender again, he dogs Hunger again.
So I'm hearing that cut place on and.
On the.
Giant is down in the corner and the Hawk is still on.
He's paring at him.
He's trying to really open him up and.
Take him out of him.
Had a commission for good. He's bowling at me now, Charlie, Let's see if we get somebody in there to stop this.
Andres the word and the Hawk is back into a game.
This is the harst time I've ever Sirs shop to stay alive.
I've guys coming back where he comes.
Said, halt, why bit right?
I hate the man Terry Boulder shoes now, but he's fighting him.
We're those two superman in the way and ten other shot and Terry Bales. Andre's got a whole of them.
That's the wildest thing, obviously.
And there was that wrestling world's biggest man right there, and he's been busted open.
By the first time you've seen that. I'm so happy that you hadn't seen that before. I've never seen that before, So just say things about it, please, I am. I mean you know what, I I take it all back. I mean, Hogan was like Hogan was a was a was a madman and really yeah, yeah, I mean he's like he's got he's got there's such a.
A sense of him that you know him in the future. You know, he's got that. That the way he was holding Andrey's hand and he was like shaking his head and all this stuff, that's that's classic Hogan right there. That's vintage Hogan. A lot of the mannerisms and no he it was. And but you know what I love the most, and it's what we talked about and discovered in in the Uh in the AWA is the kind of the badass Hule Cogan. Yes, the whole Cogan who's coming in with with you know, is it. He's just
got intensity and he's he's trying to hurt. He's trying to hurt his opponent.
He's not trying to entertain, he's not trying to be a fucking matinee idol. He's just trying to kick ass, which is why people fell in love with them the first place, and why he became the biggest baby face attraction in the business. Yeah, because money drawing babyfaces come to kick ass, and you believe they're here to kick ass, and if they have a ton of charisma on top of it, that's all gravy, except your babyface isn't here
to fuck somebody up. They're not maximizing their box office appeal, right, and had that in him and he had that in him from from from the beginning as a heel. I mean, I'm going to notice all kinds of like first journey of things as we go. But the way he's shaking in that Armorsson contest, that's the way he shakes in any test of strength he would ever do in the big w af Matt exactly exactly, same trembling we recognize even on this grainy footage. And he's got wild like
you know, almost like pajama pants on and sandals. Yeah, that's fascinating to me. The whole corpse sell goes into the ring and there's Andrea his cowboy boots with no shirt on in his own right, flailing all over for the whole I don't know, man, Andre's not doing that for many guys in seventy.
No, no, I mean he ah the way that Andre sells for Hogan in that I mean he is, He's letting you know that this is a big deal.
Right exactly, especially if you're in the business and you know what it takes to get Andre to sell like that for you, what you have to show Andre in terms of spark to get him to believe it's worth handing over his equity as this you know, monster that can't be stopped to somebody like. And that's that's what everyone says, from Ron Fuller on down, what Andre we saw in this guy was a guy I could actually
work with. When you're of such freakish proportions, it's really hard to find an opponent you can go around the horn with and make money with that the fans will buys a legitimate physical threat to you, and Hulk was the right place, right guy in that regard. Andre saw
it right away. He's in the territory for just one weekend, just one weekend, and we shoot this TV angle that were privileged to watch all these decades later as a first glimpse of a chemistry between Hulk Cogan and Andre the Giant that would to say they very at least
go to the bank, go to the fucking bank. Yes, So it's time for the match in Dothan, and according to Ron Fuller, it set an all time record not just for Southeastern at that point, but for the building they were running in itself, of any farm it's called the Houston County Farm Center, where Hulk and Andre wrestled
for the very first time. According to Ron Fuller, the building was built to hold five thousand people, but they had six thousand squeezed into the building because people watch that angle that we just saw were Hulk waffles Andre over the head, Yeah, with a fucking wooden arm wrestling table, and Andre blades like a motherfucker and bleeds and suffers.
And you don't think the fine people of Dothan are gonna think it's worth five six bucks to see Andre beat the shit out of this guy, Yes, or maybe even more tantalizingly, to see if maybe Hulk can actually take the fight to Andre. Because they've seen nothing but credible physical opposition from hul Hogan, they have reason to believe that maybe this guy is actually gonna beat Andre the Giant. I got to be there to see that
shit the all time record. Houston County Farm Center a very important building to this territory, and a very important building, come to find out, to the history of Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant. Recently, the building was undergoing extensive renovations, and this television news clip from WDHN Television down there puts it all into perspective as to what's happening at the former Houston County Farm Center site, which now it's firmly established thanks to the complete Hulk. Hogan is a
pilgrimage site. It's a holy site.
Yeah.
If it's where Hogan and Andre first wrestled, it's got to be a holy site.
We got to make that a thing.
So here we'll bring up to speed on what's there now, what's happening at the site now, and you better believe that this ends. This clip here ends in the most money way possible.
The Wiregrass Tonight, a historic landmark in Houston County, is undergoing a multi million dollar makeover, and almost a year later, the foundation is starting to come together. The WDHNS Robert Smith has the story.
Not even a full year since the makeover on the Houston County Farm Center began, and county officials are blown away by the progress of the iconic landmarks.
I'm very excited, you know, a lot of work is finally starting to come together, and we're starting to see kind of things take safe and so very exciting.
Months ago, the roof was replaced with standing scene metal that will last about fifty years. And now a majority of the work has taken place inside the arena.
Interior is pretty close to being done. The bath rooms are gonna be flown down pretty soon. It's closed to start laying the concrete foundation next week, so that'll be good. And you can see we've actually been able to save some of the other structures that used to be here on the grounds, like the horse barn, so the horse born is now the way is coding for the arenas.
With the farm Center being historic to many, Shoop says they wanted to make sure history is preserved but also make it more modern into a flexible event space mainly used for the home of the Farmer's Market, but not only limited to it.
Future generations will be able to enjoy the structure just as as much as the previous generation has. We think that this building is something that will be special, and we think it's something that everybody will appreciate that everybody will do.
Product Shoe says. County Services will also occupy the farm Center. The Commission to prove the Sanitation and Building Department to be a tenant there.
Offended this property so it will join the arena it will join the new DHR building and needs something new coming to the farm Center property. The space that we have now is just not conducive to taking payments, and there's just a law of you over step with literally still and let each other's stones in there.
Shoot says he's thankful that the City of Dothan canceled the original set of the Farm Center and allowed them to invest in it, also using multiple local contracts. Right the center has expended to be completed.
In February, looking forward to having a grand opening. I don't know what the first event is going to be, but if I had my pick, it would be wrestling.
If if I had my pick, it would be wrestling. I mean, is there another option if it is to be wrestling? If there is to be a wrestling card upon the reopening of the Houston County Farm Center in Dothan, Alabama, site of the very first Hulk Hoganonner, I think I can commit to making the pilgrimage. Yes, I don't care who I can card.
Yeah, it'll be some fucking goofball, probably headlined by Billy Gunn or something, and we will.
Make We'll make pit stops at any video archive and library in the Tri State area. Yes, to see what we can find. Let's go to the courthouse. I mean, let's fucking go. Okay, let's go to wherever he lived. Well, he lived in the beach, So maybe we'll get an RV. That's what we should do.
Yeah, we should written RV and just fucking drive down and and live life like hul Cogan Leslie. Yeah. Well, I don't know about Ed Leslie to come with us. Imagine show us where so much where you showered. I mean, all right, it's kind of weird, guys, but oh I don't I don't know about you said I do it. Then you said you pay me in travelers checks, right, Yes, if that's what you want travelers checks, don't worry if we have cash. Jesus, it's that time. It's that time,
holidays are here. It's time to get home alone. I can't. I mean, this is just too much the history. I mean, yeah, dude, it's.
It's I mean, you don't have any idea about this growing up, no clue. I mean they didn't know about this until three years ago when he started doing this podcast.
Right, Because that's part of it, too, is the is there's so much you know, because like, like we've been saying that there's so much stuff that that's really just a very like not even not even a handful, but like a pinch, a pinch of the United States population witnessed any of this shit a pinch, and it was like no one knowing any clue. It might have well have been buried by the rest of the country. It's unbelievable.
And the more I think about it, the more it does fit Terry in a lot of ways in his personality because one of the things with him looking there was book you really feel this way, But both of them, there's these chapters like why did he write a book? A MiG read chapter about that there's a fucking reason to address this one thing out of the million things
that happened to him. I think what you realize is he's got the kind of brain, the kind of organizational brain and like photo recall brain, where he doesn't forget a single thing that was ever published about him, right, and what's reality to him isn't what happened to him. It's what other people can confirm happened to him. What
right independent verification exists. That's why he freaks out when he's on these modern podcasts and they can pull up video and the snap of the finger via Google of things he actually said and the way he actually put things. He's not comfortable in that world because no, no, he's
for him to settle the narrative to his advantage. He's got to be able to characterize what was said in the first place, counting on no one having the wherewithal, if not the motivation or time to go track down the source material themselves, which of course is one of the many reasons that doing something like the complete Hull Cogain is so invigorating for us, because we can go we have all the time in the world, and all the resources in the world, and all the support from
our listeners in the world to go right to the mat to find the source, the primary source every time yep. And so here he is not having to talk about this part of his career because it wasn't documented anywhere.
There's not a photo out there that he has to explain and have a story about, particularly how maybe the photo would conflict with all he told people for years about how the first time he ever met or saw Andre the Giant was in New York Because as I point out last time he does talk about Dothan, he does talk about wrestling in Alabama and living with Ed Leslie on the beach and seeing Ron Fuller rob Fuller's cock, right, and when he's jumping off the diving board with a
titlele he acknowledges that he came through this area, but he never mentions crossing paths with Andrea the Giant for the first time in his life in this area. Why would that be Why would he act like the first time he ever saw Andrea's when he goes to New York the next year or at the end of the year seventy nine. I don't know, but I think it's probably because he didn't think anybody would ever see it or hear about it, and therefore it's not part of
his reality. But what about this video though, this videotape, This videotape, I agree. I mean, I don't think as unplugged as Hogan seemed to be around YouTube and what it was, I wouldn't surprise me if he didn't even know this was out there, honestly by the time he sat down to recollect for his two books. But it's just so weird that, of all the hours and hours of interviews Hogan has done about Andrew the Giant that he never talks about where it all started. He never
talks about this arm wrestling angle with the table. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. There's just something about it. He doesn't want. In my way of thinking, Hulk doesn't want people to start directing their attention to this stage of his life. They don't want to. He doesn't want them to be asking questions about this stage of his life. And I think we've nibbled around the edges a little bit. I think doctor d David Schultz may have told us exactly why that might be.
There might be, I don't.
I just envisioned some police stations somewhere around there having one too many documents about what other ways Hulk may have been making ends meet at this particular point in time. Brother, I didn't know.
I'm not saying, I'm just in my mind. I know, brother, you know, you know sometimes true. I mean, I have done something, dude, but you're implying that I did everything. I think David Chelton implied and I just repeated it. But it's fine.
Jesse and Randall call Randy Coley and the publicists that you used to have around the story trial, and and in your own book, how you talked about how you're afraid that the government might have evidence to flip I don't call you a dealer.
Well I don't have Well, probably they they may have evidence on Hulk Hogan. They don't have answered Terry Boy about Terry Boulder. There's a curve ball he's never had to deal with before. You're talking about Terry Boulder. Who bring Terry Boulder? What do you bring him for? Why did you bring up Terry Boulder? Which wamp we've been here about. You're talking about who you're talking about Terry? What if I asked you about No one ever asked you about this guy ever in your life. Tell me
about Billy Spears. Oh, I don't know. Well, you're telling him Billy Spears brother. You think you know so much about him? That was brother. That was my original idea of my name for Goldberg about you know Billy Spears, Goldberg brother. You know the spear man, Billy Billy Spears, Philly Spears brother, he'd be spearing motherfuckers. I mean, why do you ask me who was that? Who's Billy Spears. Have you seen tape? Yeh, there's something called the newspaper archive. Now,
but you got tape, dude, you taping? Not right now?
I'm just asking you about Billy Spears. I know he was an important part of your early career.
But you recording this conversation, dude, Oh it is a podcast? Oh?
He says it like, Oh, I'm not I wasn't born yesterday. Brother, I've heard that one before.
I don't want this podcast, busess. Brother, I'm talking about Blue Spears. Dude, who told you about Blue Spears? Where you getting your sources from?
Brother?
Oh?
I don't know if you know this, Terry, but a lot of some collectors had tape of you when you were being managed by Billy Spears, working with Andre, doing an angle with Andre before anybody even heard about you in seventy nine in Dothan.
I never, I don't even know who Andre is, dude, What Andre under the Giant? What do you mean what Andre and and the Giant? Brother? Yeah, Andy Russ Andrew the Giant? Correct, Andre the Giant? Broll I never, I mean, see, brother, here's the thing, do you see. I'm Hulk Cogan never saw under the Giant brother Nady. But I asked you, what about Terry Boulder. We don't know what what about Terry Boulder.
LA fan wrestling podcast. He's lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack and.
This Terry Boulder cease to exist when you got back to the trailer on the beach the second you stepped out onto the onto the beach in Pennsylvania, Brother will Hop dude, when I leave the house, brother on Hulk Hogan, what about what.
Yet? Where I left the house Hulk Hogan. But you weren't in seventy nine. I was. I just didn't know it yet, Brother Hulk cogd. But I didn't know it yet.
Hey, that's kind of makes some sense anyway, because we just saw the raw material in that clip there, one of the precious few we have, and I want you to know just so to to lower expectations, yeah, you know, in a fair way. And that what we've watched him in that match against the mask guy where he gives them the bear hug. We just saw him attacking Andre and the armor.
That's it.
Yep, that's all the video that anyone is. There's one more match we're going to talk about, but it's sort of it's after a Hulk leaves Alabama and then kind of comes back, and it's it's more than of a Knoxville clip than it is a golf closed clip.
But as far as him in his.
Earliest stages is Terry the Hope Boulder.
This is it. We just saw it all.
Unfortunately, thanks to Ron Fuller, we haven't heard it all. What a fucking what a fucking travesty. Andre was just coming in for three days and agree to do all this stuff, shoot the angle and do two matches with the guy, and part of his agreement will close.
So he's coming for three days? What do they do it?
Like?
So what are they gonna do?
Like?
Is he gonna come back?
Or is he he comes in, he does the angle on live TV to promote the match that night in Dothan and then they have another match.
So and that's it?
Wow?
Is it?
And uh here, Ron, I'll put it. He kind of he tells different versions of this and we'll go through both of them. I kind of get a little confused as to when Ron says Andre first laid eyes on Hulk because of course they have to get you know, put their heads together backstage before encountering each other in the studio.
When and how that happens. There is a couple of different versions. I think he's told just imagine imagine Wrestlingia three. Okay, Andre comes to Hogan in the back, goes are the words from all about your dolphin? What we talk about Dothan? What are you talking about? Brother? Also doctor dollhund and whole brother. I think he's losing mine. But I don't know, is he okay? Brother? Brother? How many he had? Dudes? He had one hundred and fifty. Brother, he's one hundred
gas like you, brother. I don't even know what Alabama? What do you talk about Alabama? Dude? But I didn't. I didn't. I don't even know what you're talking about. Dude. I've never abandoned.
Anywhere.
I can't say it. How about this?
How about this for a complete hull Coogan pull quote that that will be remembered for years.
Say Alabama?
Eye shut dolphim.
I mean, who would have thought that we'd end up laser focused on Andre trying to Pinhogan down about this actually having happened, quib and just insisting on referring to it only as Dothan, So that Hogan can't run away and pretend it was somewhere else in Alabama.
What episode was it? Oh, yeah, you know what it was.
Oh Jesus was the first Hulk Andrea edition of the Complete Hulk Hogan. Now Here is Ron stud Ron Fuller in some more detail describing Andre's sort of feeling about the whole program with Hulk and meeting this guy.
So after just meeting Hulk the afternoon before their first match, Andre was shot man with the response in the size of the crowd that night, and he had nothing but good things to say about the hope. He was sold on the fact that we had found for him the opponent of his future, you know, someone big enough for
Andre to have a legitimate match with. So no wonder he was all in when Louie and I we went and suggested to him Saturday morning TV day we do a little arm wrestling contest that day on the TV, and he was all in.
Wow, it was all wud So the arm wrestling contest we just saw. This is to clarify the timeline, happens the morning after the first match. Okay, So he saw that just Hulk looking into the camera and saying, I'm going to beat you and then beat Harley Race and Andre's tape from New York. Filled this building in Dothan, Phill Winderston County farm Center. And here's a description of that match, also from Ronstad. This is how it actually
played out in the ring. These are the details we were missing until Run did the podcast.
Well, I can tell you this, man, It was absolutely electric in that building.
Man.
When I walked out, I looked at it. The only way I could describe it. It was a see of human team that farm Center. Every seat was filled and there maybe a thousand people standing behind the ringside on both ends of that farm Center. You know, you had the two bleachers on one side, but on the other end you had a great expanse between the ring side and the entrances and exits to the building, and that was all full of people standing.
Uh.
And you know the strength versus strength match, Man, this is what it was. I watched this match and and basically it was a strength versus strength match. In the early part, the fans were so into it they stood up on everything.
Wow.
And at the end of it that kind of turned violent instead of just being who's the strongest, and spears got hoped basically disqualified intentionally, and Willie Spears ran to the dressing room I remember by himself say round the ring there before he went back after it was all over. Wow, And there were so many people in there he could uh, Spears could hardly get to the dressing room.
So the disqualification caused by Billy Spears. But the building is full and Andre notices the building is full, and Boss Andre makes a mental note, doesn't he that this hul covid guy is someone I can make money with? And the first place he realized it was in Dothan, Alabama, off of just the promos we just played for you.
So the next morning, as Ron stud just laid out when it comes time for television, which again the magic of shooting live TV in the morning to sell tickets to the arena that night, the immediacy of it, the the your ability to just attribute one piece of height to one gate. You know, it's like, we put these guys on TV that morning, and we featured this angle and we drew this many people. We did these two guys and we drew this many people. What a fucking great way to tell what's.
Walking And it's exciting too, Like it's exciting to think that, like what you're you know, because even even watching you know, you don't get that they would never have live TV in the morning right of like a pay per view or something, you know, like we never had live TV. They always said they were live you know, they always said, you're watching you know, All American or the Action Zone, and they're acting like they've got to wrestle that night
after wrestling in the morning. But that didn't happen. So to think that you can turn on the TV undecided, perhaps undecided whether or you're going to go to the matches tonight, just think about that. Just think you have kind of an open Saturday night. Yeah you know, I went last week. I'm not going to go this week, you know. But yeah, well, alt's see what's going on. You throw on the TV. You see this angle with Hogan and Andre and you're like, well, guys, I got
plans for tonight. Fuck it's drivable. Yep.
It's not like you watch something and now you've got to make a week's worth of playing to get there. You just go and you get to the building, you buy the ticket, you get in, you sit down. It takes two hours because your territory wasn't that big. And that's that's the buildings they were trying to point you to were so close that you could make a decision that morning to go that night.
That's also the beauty of the lost, the lost, I don't know what you call it, but.
The magic, the lost dynamic, the lost the law.
Yes, you're right, the lost dynamic of local television. Of course.
Oh this opens that whole vean, doesn't it. You know, when I'm talking about Bill Cardill again, let's go exactly, that's what I mean, Like, you know, we we we there's really nothing, there's nobody. There's nothing like that anymore. Everything is close, you know, except for except for like local news. But there was something so cool that I didn't apprecialling, anyone really appreciate it at the time, the
idea of local television. This is a thing that hundreds of years from now, if we haven't blown up the earth by then, is people aren't even gonna even pay attention to in the history books. It's gonna be such a small blip in the history of humankind. Experience one city and one and two generations. You know, that lasted for just a just a small, little bit of time.
It's it's just it's such a idea that you could have a TV station that made money broadcasting to and only selling to people within a certain radius of the TV studio, and that was more than enough for everybody to become stars. Everyone was happy, and everyone was going back home at night, including the talent themselves. They were home. They didn't have to travel over the place to make impact. They didn't have to, you know, be vagabonds to be
television stars. That was something available to them locally, and you could become a local celebrity as a television presenter in your city, and that was a damn fine living and you were beloved for it, you were remembered for it. And I'll be damned if professional wrestling wasn't the absolute
best at figuring that out. There were, as we've talked about, you know, shows like local horror movie specials, right presentations that you would do, other shows with local flavor that people from these cities remember for years, kids shows, you know, people portraying kids show characters that only broadcast in certain markets, like mister Rogers started and I think Pittsburgh, and it's like those generations will never forget these people that presented
that were sort of the the prism through which television entered your your mind at a time, and there was only so many channels, and the local ones are probably the ones you watch the most because it had local information on the news and all of that. And there's a reason that the legendary television wrestling announcers of the territorial days by and large came from the news divisions of the same studios where they taped the fucking wrestling.
You think of Lance Russell and Dave Brown and Memphis television newsmen weather men. You think of me and gen Oakerland Minneapolis area radio personality Charlie Platt, who we've heard on commentary in Southeastern over and over again. He was a very prominent broadcasting figure in that part of the country and in these markets before Ron Fuller set up and hired him to do commentary.
You can go on and on.
The list goes on and on to these people that were Bob Coddle, who just passed away. He was a weather man in Charlotte who became the voice of mid Atlantic wrestling.
Folks.
It was where it was at, It was where it was at. It was a way to experience wrestling in a way that was just engrossing.
And here's the thing.
These markets are so small. You had fucking half of the population of some of these cities watching these television shows. So no television manager worth as salt could afford to GFA at pro wrestling. It was the goddamn biggest rating straw he had in his little station. Everyone he knew was watching it, even if they didn't admit it, and advertisers.
I wanted to be in front of those eyeballs, those captive eyeballs, for sixteen ninety minutes, one hundred and twenty minutes every single Saturday morning, live in the city that you were based in, coming to you from a building where you knew where it was. You watched championshipressing from Florida from the Sportatorium. You knew where that fucking sportatorium was in North Albany.
You knew you could go. Might I get in? But you knew you knew you could go.
You knew where the the tech would drive studios were for Georgia Championship and then later, of course some World championshiprestling under Crockett. Fuck this man, God damn it.
YEP Nope.
As if I needed further proof points that I was born in the wrong decade, I know, man, you got to see Hogan wrestle Andre after watching the fucking arm wrestling angle for anybody else, So that was the finish DQ. Andre's pleased to punch with what he's seeing, very happy, and we're on our way. And this is the seed that will sprout into superstarredhom for Hulcogan because he wins over Andre right away, right away.
It's not that he did it.
He did it in his first two months in the business. I consider it. You know, if you don't count seventy seven and the aborded run is super destroyer in Florida, if you could please navigate bosson your Alabama folder to
nineteen seventy nine, dash oh five, dash oh four. This for now is probably the best we can do as far as want to talk to somebody who was there, want to talk to someone who witnessed it last time on the complete hullcog and we read from a Facebook post where people were conveying really general memories of who Hulcogan was to people in and around Dothan who were watching wrestling in nineteen seventy nine, people reflecting upon his passing,
of course, and Facebook threads and comments about what they remembered in these little moments of seeing him in and around town at the gym, or at a restaurant or whatever the case may be, and being a personable guy. Here is a comment posted to the Wrestling Classics message board all the way back in two thousand and three by someone by the name of Callaway and this, this is one of them in the wild boss.
What does he remember? Waitineteen seventy nine, Dash O five dash four dash secw Oh okay one, oh okay? Is this.
No?
We got a couple? Oh, here we go? Start with yep, there we go. Yep, yep, yep, yep. I was in the Houston County Farm Center that night. If I remember correctly, it was late March early April nineteen seventy nine for romfo Or Southeast and Wrestling Terry the wrestling Hulk. Boulder was a bad guy managed by Belly Spears. The angle to set things up that night is available. It's the one where I dream Boulder you have the arm wrestling contest.
Well over five thousand fans crammed, creamed, creamed the Farm Center that night. They had to bring an extra football bleach just to accommodate seating. I can recall the finish to the match. A few weeks later, Boulder would turn good guy when the Southeastern title from ox Baker have what I believe was his first World championship match substituting
for Ron Fuller against NWA champ. Harley Race feuded with ox Baker, Austin Idol, and Toro Tanaka while in the area before finally leaving in October nineteen seventy nine.
Wow remembers it all. Guy remembers it all. And look, yep, as we go through run Fuller's recollections, all that tracks that that fan remembers. So there are some who are posting at least in two thousand and three, which is like a lifetime ago, now more than twenty years ago, reflecting I don't know that gentleman or that woman is still with us. But if you click forward a few times to get to nineteen seventy nine Dosh five six, you'll see what appears to be in shout outs to
the intrepid homie Matt for finding this. I'm not sure what the source of it is. But it's clearly a ringside photo that's not shot by a professional. But there is Hulk, and there is Andre and his big red trunks and red boots.
Andre that is, and.
There's Terry the Hulk boulder and what I'm supposed to be the blue singlet with the red knee pads.
This is this is the match.
And those ropes look red, white and blue. Although the white is up top. It looks so ratty and shitty, but it's raw. Yeah, I wanted to not be polished yet. I want to see Hogan Andre before people knew what they want, you know, right, I mean I want to see I want to see Andre and Hogan in front of five in front of five thousand people. That's that's
that's where the magic is. Right there, there's a newspaper clip seeing this whole thing, like from from a time when you know it just it almost wasn't supposed to happen, right,
that's right. And here's a clipping from their match. Let's see this had been the May sixth, the next nine, eight fifteen PM belt but the Municipal Auditorium, which I think is Montgomery or it wasn't, Houston County Farm Center obviously it was the Municipal Auditorium main event, hunder the giant seven foot four inches, four hundred and eighty four pounds versus the Hulk. All it says is the Hulk, right boss. Yes, no dary Bolea, no Arry Boulder, no
Sterling Golden, the Hulk. That's all I'm selling you. Yes, six foot six and ninety five. Okay, that's a farm primer.
At least they got the fucking ad write instead of in it in the actual copy for the news the news article. Yeah, that's nice and also only only eight eight pounds shy of three three. It's pretty amazing, isn't it? Yeah? Can I can I get the footage? Can I see this match? Please? Please? Nope, because they replay it on the fucking television show. According to Ron Fuller, they taped it. Nope, nope, you'll never see it. It's all erased. Think of that.
Think of that. Somebody said, you know what, we don't need to archive this, let's just fucking tape over it. Hmm.
And Ron's all distracted by the Knoxville War, so it doesn't even sink in and what is achieved here? In fact, Cogan wrestles hardly when we get there, he's not even there because he's so preoccupied with Knoxville. He's basically moved to Knoxville to run the war room over there. It's fucking amazing, unbelievable. That's what we deserve, I guess is wrestling fans.
Yes, Ron said.
When they announced it the fans that Andre would be in studio that morning. They announced it the week before. The studio was so packed for television time they couldn't get him in. And Andre came out with Charlie Platt right off the bat, and they watched the end of
the match from the night before. So that morning when they shot the angle with arm Wrestling, they had already watched with Charlie Platt footage of the very first Hull Cogan versus Andrea the Giant won on one matchup from the night before Houston County pharm Center, where it all started.
They watch it, So there's tape of it? What the fuck there's tape of it? Well, there was, it's over right, you're not. How did I not?
How did I not account for the pain that the complete Hull Cogan would bring. I mean, it's always been about come on, come on, I mean, I thought it was all laid out before I thought all the.
Hurt.
This is gonna Listen, if there's one thing we're.
Gonna watch it all and all I'm gonna to think about it at the end is what I couldn't see exactly.
That's what I'm That's it. You know. If there's one thing that you should have known, that you should have known, is that this is gonna hurt more than anything else. This whole journey is gonna hurt more than any anything else because of what we won't get, because of what we don't have, and having things actively taken away from us as we exactly exactly all right? Does that teach
us about life? Nothing fucking matters, nothing's permanent. Ooh baby, you better be careful too much truth Not everyone's ready for that. Oh listen. I have had in twenty twenty five, I have had more like I've become very I have been very introspective over the last year. Sure, thinking about mortality. Sure, thinking about immortality, immortality, Yes, thinking about legacy, not the faction.
But oh shit, I was just about to say, that makes two of us. I can't stop thinking about if Ted Dibiassi Junior still is ready.
To come back. I think you can put those lawsuits behind him. Thinking about like the for example, okay, thinking about I was talking about this with my cousins over Thanksgiving, actually talking about the idea that you know, I have this mental idea of what Thanksgiving is supposed to be, which stems from high school, college era thanksgivings. That's what Thanksgiving is supposed to be. But the reality is that
each Thanksgiving will never happen again. That's correct. The Thanksgiving that just happened is never going to happen again.
And what was so perfect about it you come to find out later is that it won't happen again.
Yes, exactly is that you can't have all these things like you can't you can't ruin it because you can't revisit it right, right, But and and also that things that nothing that that nothing.
Lasts, nothing lasts forever, and especially tapes of Hogan versus Andre at the Houston County Farm Center.
That's right, that's right.
So I knew that we would get to these kind of life lessons at the end of the complete Hull Hogan because this is in many ways the story and the love letter to wrestling.
From us.
But yeah, I didn't expect this much reality this soon. I mean, it's all crashing down right away.
We get it at the beginning. That's correct. Okay, we get it at the beginning. How about it ain't gonna stop anytime soon.
So Andre and Charlie Platt watched the end of the match from the night before, and at the end of the video, Billy Spears brings Hulkgan out to the set. According to run about the vis, no, I think we're.
Well, well, why why do you think you could do better? But wow, how about you go to that? I don't know, but something could be done that would make it better than this is his answer. It's stuff. Hell, how about you go up to the top rope? Exactly?
Well, those are about top rope.
Why don't you go up at top rope? See what happens? Oh see what happened to a mischievous son of a bitch this Charlie Platt is huh, why don't you just go up there? That's a Southern Uh, that's an opra? What do you think about that? And be Andy Giganty what you call? No, Andy Giganty?
I don't like that, un Charlie Platt. Fine, I go up to the top rope. I show you what happened. I go to the top rope.
Another thing Vince stole from the territories, making Andre go to the top rope and fall. All right, now, who was Charlie Platt? That didn't first Terry came here, Andre's going to the top rope?
What plot, plot? Other idea would import to New York. I want to want you to do what I want you to do, Terry. I want you to cut the top rope right when Andre's gonna jump. Bo bro what you heard me? Well, I don't know, I do that's hard of the drawing boiler. Now, I'm Charlie fucking blad Ship, Oh ship, oh ship, I didn't see that coming exactly. Drop names. This is dothing, all right, my name Travels. Let me tell you right now, we're not in fucking
sunny Florida, all right. We're in goddamn motherfucking dot And and I'm gonna fucking cut your fucking judgly if you don't do like goddamn saying you understand me a little fucking bitch.
Ship, I'm crying to the top he is, I see your dumb fat bitch, you.
Boy, what do you got I'll tell you how. What an absurd situation? You cut the damn rope right now with my with my my hunting knife. Okay, brother, al On, what do you want to do on the top rope? I want you to jump as high as you can. Andy Giganty, Now good luck coming back from that. Holy shit, I think the fucking die is cast. Andy Giganti, get on our level. Fucking hell no, Terris coach.
Oh ro ro.
Ro oh holding them, I'll cor.
War old hold road, our brogue wire, oh.
Char bribe wire, because I want to tell you who the god damn reel giant. He's this gold bracelet war and Southern boy. Oh fuck that. Yeah, I'm gonna expect that the soon either.
No.
After watching the video, Billy Spears brings Hulk out to the set challenges Andre right then and there to an arm wrestling contest Billy Spears does against his sterling, the Hulk Golden. According to Ron Fuller, he loved to call the Hulk sterling and Terry didn't like that. As has already established, Andre accepted the challenge. Studio exploded at the
prospect of this happening. In front of their eyes. They did not expect to see this on television, and indeed they saw this on television this same TV taping, Ox Baker debuts in Southeastern and Billy Spears brings in Ox Baker standing behind him just like the Hulk did. So not only his Hulk starting to take issue with how Billy Spears is referring to him and getting him involved in arm wrestling things and sending him in to double down on Andre when he was trying to get away.
He saw on the clip. He's also bringing in a big, monstrous heel that you can make Hulk feel like he's about to be supplanted in the Billy Spears family and further adding to his insecurities. And you can already start to feel that little nudge towards thinking of Hulk potentially as a babyface, which is also fascinating that it happened so soon that he started to rebel against his manager
so soon. Jesus and they knew. Ron Fuller knew that NWA World Heavyweight Champion Harley Race was coming to the territory in just two weeks to defend his championship. And here he has two men, two big men who are ready to beat Harley in the territory Ox Baker and Terry the Hulk Boulder. How will he play his cards? Well,
that is too unfold. So, as we just saw on the clip, Dick Steinborn, who was a longtime wrestler and a promoter for Ron Fuller in the Territory as well as a television color commentator, sets up the arm wrestling contest between these two as sort of the you know the Bob Geigel, you know office representative Stanley Blackburn type
figure on the show Connects. The hands went back to the set because you actually heard Dick Steinborn with that New York accent, commentating over the Hulk Andre arm wrestling contest. So they battle, and Fuller says, as far as he remembers knowing Andre well, teaming with him, as we talked about before he ever came in to work Hulk, knowing him around the Horn, being familiar with his work everywhere he met things. The only time he saw Andre bleed.
This may been the first time. Wow that Andre bladed for an opponent. Now maybe you can find examples of it elsewhere. I know, be interested and keen, but you would think Ron Fuller would have a vested interest in you know, yes, if this is the first time Andre ran the razor, you would think that would come up
as a point of conversation in formatting. What was going to happen on the television show that day when he asked him to grab a razor blade and slice his forehead open so as to attract the ticket buying public by bleeding for real on television.
You know that looks yeah, I think that would be an important thing.
So after seeing a huge crowded Othan and the arm wrestling contest on television and they wrestle, according to Ron Fuller and Pensacola Romra remembers telling Roy Lee Welch to call people at the Pensacola Auditorium and add as many seats as they possibly could, because if what they saw in Dothan was any indication, compounded by the interest of the arm wrestling angle that we just watched that morning on television, Pensacola was in for a full fucking house.
And that is indeed what happened watching, or at least hearing what's happening here, according to Dave Meltzer is Terry Funk. Terry Funk, of course, coming off his run as NBA World Champion, was still an executive and an owner in the I'marilla territory.
His father.
Very much involved in the NWA at the board level, as was his brother. They were power brokers in the business. They were, you know, the Funk family was royalty. They had influence everywhere, and they were always, especially Terry Funk, keeping their ear to the ground of what was drawing and what parts of the country at what points in time. Terry Funk of course known to the family. In fact, think about the stud Stable right in WCW.
Remember that.
Yeah, yeah, Stud Stable started in Gulf Coast with arn Anderson involved by the way, and Rob Fuller and company.
Yep.
And I think Jerry Stubbs, who trained arn Anderson and teamed to them, was involved to and the stud Stable was kind of like the precursor to the Horseman before uh sure, sure the Horseman ever attacked Dusty Roads in a gas station parking lot and slammed a car door in his arm. The television viewers of South Eastern Wrestling were told that Austin Idel had been attacked by the stud Stable in a gas station. Wow, they didn't According
to Bo James, the aforementioned bo James. They didn't film this angle because to film it would give away the fact that it was a big put on for television. You remember the horseman angle. They kind of made that. They took the time to explain why a camera would have been there, that the horseman essentially commandeered someone to film this attack, but they didn't think that. So, according to bo James, they did the angle at an actual gas station in Alabama somewhere where Austin Idl got attacked
by the stud stable and got his arm broken. They didn't film it, but they just let it. Let words spread throughout the community from people who happen to be bystanders and witnesses to this attack, that it in fact happened. Wow, that was enough to do business back then. Can you imagine that's insane angles happening in the wild at the fucking grocery store. That's another advantage. You fucking love it. I fucking love it so much. You run into the guy in public, and you got to have a at
least a shouting match with the guy. You know, at least a shouting match. Ah, many people being nervous, like fucking like, oh, my god.
Around nervous.
Ed Leslie said, Terry was when the Samoans would hang out and an Ox Baker would hang out with him at the camp on the beach, and they shouldn't be seen together because Hulk was gone, baby amazing. Hulk was so nervous about it. But I mentioned Terry Funk because he's an important part of the story.
Now.
Hulk has the thing in his first book about how Terry Funk saw him working at the docks after showing some promise as a professional wrestler and convincing him to give it another shot. That's pretty much Terry Funk never said that. That's pretty much accepted. It's kind of like, I don't know, Hulk creating an anecdote to explain something that he may have heard happened that reversed his fortunes in the business, but that he wasn't actually directly a
party to the conversation. But Terry Funk was involved and asking around and trying to understand what's happening down here in Alabama. As much as Ron Fuller tried to keep the lid on it. From a wrestling magazine publicity perspective, Bird's going to travel if you put a program together that fills the house like that, it's going to travel, especially in a smaller territory.
What did you do?
Who's involved? Who's this guy that Andre's working? And according to Dave Meltzer's obituary for hul Cogan and Meltzer stayed in regular touch with Terry Funk for years and years and years. This is how it went down. Terry Funk first took notice of Hulk Cogan when he heard then a match between Andre the Giant and Terry the Hulk.
Boulder and Dothan, Alabama had set the all time gate record for that city on May fifth, nineteen seventy nine, and An angled the TV tapings at WTVY Studios where Boulder and Andre were to to do an arm wrestling match. Boulder was losing and turned the table over and attacked Andre, leading to a match there and in Pensacola, Florida, and perhaps other cities that week. On the sur there wasn't, according Ron Fuller, was just three matches. In nineteen eighty.
That angle was copied on WWF television in Allentown, PA, lead two Hogan vers Andre matches not only in WWF, but that tape of Hogan putting a foreign object in his elbow pad, hitting Andrea with the Hogan Hammer a closed line, and then body slamming him was playing on television and several other circuits leading to Andrea Versus Hogan matches all over the Northeast, including at Chase Stadium, as well as matches between Hogan and Andre Boss at the
Superdome in New Orleans, Bill Watsonster, the Omni in Atlanta, Olie Territory, the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, and the Paul Suave Arena in suburban of Montreal. All these cities got Hogan vers Andre off. The buzz that what we just watched created.
The Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast.
He's a Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast with Jack and Carno JP.
Hogan's only working Andre right away. He's working Andre around the fucking horn right away.
I'm I'm I'm I'm at a loss.
Gordon Meltzer Funk talked Jim Barnett, who of course owned Georgia Championship at the time, into bringing Hulk into Georgia, but Ole Anderson, Barnett's booker, always said he wasn't impressed and we'll get to that, and claimed that he fired him. Claim that he fired Hogan.
I'm all about that.
Hogan claimed the same and told the story.
Of starlang Sterlang Wah shit fuck, Oh he's coming.
He is.
He is flying to Hong Kong to get some of the finest knockoff suits tailored for this complete in his role in the Terry story. But yeah, apparently despite all the success, Oli doesn't see it in the guy, and Hogan's thinking about quitting again by the end of seventy nine, oh God, and working on the loading docks in Tampa.
That's where the docks come in. And that's where the whole story about how Terry Funk being the one to come to the docks to talk to him comes from from Hulkoga's first book, because he was on the docks before really leaning in to wrestling again. I don't know what he had to be so bearish about. I guess OI didn't believe in him, and there was more of a if you look at if you look at the chronology of it, it looks like he just makes a nice clean jump from Atlanta to New York and he's
off for the choruses. But as we'll get to there may have no there may have been a lot more doubt in there than than would meet the eye. We played some audio in a prior episode of The Khalete Hulkogan from Anthony Barcello, who of course was Hulkgan's bandmate in Ruckus courtesy of Brad Bluccian, and Barcello talks about remembering Hulk, you know, basically showing kind of a beat down nature and basically talking like he wanted to quit
the business. It was hard to tell when Anthony Barcellos said that if he was talking about nineteen seventy seven, after the Super Destroyer tobaccle and the Hero Matsuda stuff and not getting paid, he was talking actually about giving up on the business again after portraying Sterling Golden in Georgia Championship and going back to work in the Tampa Docks. And it's there where Hulk creates the fable that Terry Funk came up to him and talked him back in
to getting into the business. There's others who have different stories, but suffice to say, Hulk not only comes back, he goes to the number one territory in the world in New York and starts really earning the kind of money that will keep Hulk Hogan in play. Japan gets interested
because Andre's already a legend in Japan. Andre more than happy to bring Hogan with him to Japan to earn more japan money, because when you cannot forget as much as we glorify the territorial days and justifiably so from a fan enjoyment standpoint, the one thing that that did mean is that there was no place close to Japan as far as how much you could make for working
day by day, night in, night out. So that meant that all the top stars in the wrestling business in this country were gone for like six months of the year making as much money as they could in Japan. I'm pretty soon that's crazy. Ichibon is Hogan's song. Pretty soon ichi bon is Hogan's song on the fucking complete Hulk Hogan. That's all coming faster than you could ever
possibly expect. But the Pensacola match May sixth, nineteen seventy nine under the Giant Versitory, the Hulk Boulder winner unknown according to the results that survived. Pensacola is the second city in the territory. According to Ron Fuller to Mobile and the Samoans lived there, and that's, of course, like we said, where Roman Reigns was born. Ron full of a crowd recalls in Pensacola having the massive crowd on their feet, just like the Houston County Farm Center was.
It was less of an open expanse for this kind of standing room only dynamic, but still it was packed out, and Ron Fuller, indeed, anticipating a big crowd, said that the Pensacola Arena added as many seats as they could. Lots of people from Mobile and fifty miles away had come to Pensacola, he recalls to see the second Hulk
Andre match, and he told Roy Welch. By the end of the night, the management upfront of the building said it was one of the largest crowds they'd ever seen in the building, around five six hundred people to see the Hulk match versus Andre that came off of the arm wrestling angle we just watched. And Ron Fuller says he didn't even think they could put that many people in that building, and.
Roy told him.
Roy Welch told Ron Fuller that three thousand people as many as three sat three thousand people were turned away. Wow, being able to see Hulk for Sandre and Pensacola.
Wow, Ron believe that.
I don't know how they could possibly count, but I'm sure there are people. Yeah, they couldn't get in. Bo James remember seeing pictures of people on the steps of some of these buildings when they couldn't get in, you know, just sitting there.
Yeah. Yeah, But I don't know.
I don't know how he could possibly count how many people didn't get in at the end of the match. This is Fuller's recollection of how the match actually played out. Andre started to take over on Hulk and Billy Spears got in the ring, so the referee stopped the match. At this point, the Samoans come to the ring and attack Andre the Giant, and of course Hulk was still a line with Billy Spears and the Samoans in the stable at that time, so Hulk was on him as
well Andre. So there's four guys on Andre the Giant and along with Billy Spears and at this point Ron Fuller himself as well as Territory babyfaces Ricky Fields and Terry Latham hit the ring to make the save for Andre and a bunch of those guys and those heels, run Fuller recalls definitely had to fight their way back to the dressing room that night because part of the fun of going to the matches back then was fucking attacking the heels as best you can, of course, and
he recalls even doing another SALID in Pensacola the next Wednesday night, even without Andre the Giant, because the building and the territory got so hot as a result of this matchup, even without Andre.
So it's time.
If Andrea's leaving, if Andrea's done his duty and was glad to do it, I mean, that's pretty much the extent of it. I don't think there were three matches. I think there were just actually two Dothan and then they did the arm wrestling Angle, and then that night they worked Pensacola and that was it. Roup meets with Ron Fuller as they plan their Phase two for Hulk Cogan, the Phase two plan, as Ron Fuller refers to it.
After the Andrea program, Bob Roup meets with Ron Fuller and the war for the Knoxville Territory is about to commence. Oh boy, this will cause the full and permanent distraction from all of the things that the Hulk Andre program should have catalyzed, crystallized and excited him about. We're gonna read a couple more clippings from back in the day, just to track where Hogan's at in May. If you could, Boss, direct your attention to nineteen seventy nine Dash Out five
Dash ten wrestling card Thursday. This one from the Trustee Panama City, Florida and News Herald Sunday, May sixth, nineteen seventy nine. As the Hulk is riding the wave of being associated in such a high profile way with Andre the Giant. Wait, there are two here wrestling card Thursday. Okay that one may both of them.
An all star professional wrestling card will be presented Thursday night at Bowl Air Wrestling Arena. The main evental feature a tag team battle between the Hulk Giant Grappler and his manager Billy Spears on one side, and the popular Rickey Fields and Terry Latham on the other. Another tag team battle will pit the wrestling pros Numbers one and
number two against suitable opponents to be announced later. In other matches, Inferno number one will wrestle Burhead Jones, Eddie Sullivan will meet Superstar and Dave Doctor D Schultz will
face Ron Slinker. Action will start at eight pm. How about Giant Hulks will wrestle According to the Hulk, the giant wrestler who has been having things more or less his own way and matches here, will team up with Wiley Manager Billy Spears and a tag team scrap against popular Ricky Fields and Terry Latham as the main event. That's the night's professional wrestling card at Bowl Air Wrestling Arena.
In another tag team match, the wrestling pros Number one and number two will take on suitable opponents lowercase suitable lowercase yeah. There will be three other matches on the car beginning at a PM. At e Sullivan will wrestle Superstar Dave Doctor D Schult will meet Ron Slinker, and Infernal Number one will wrestle quote Burrhead unquote Jones.
And we move one click forward. Coming to the Municipal Auditorium here in Pensacola, Ron Slinker, the Gulf Coast Champion at the time, to take on the Hulk in the main event, as well as a lumberjack match hair versus mask Roy Welch to.
Face is that Ron Slinker on the on the right there. I believe that is Ron Slinker. Yes, well, all known in the area and little other places. I would imagine watch.
TV Channel five Saturday at one pm is when you could catch territory footage in Pensacola. Also c Toba champion Thunderbolt Patterson, who was a remarkable figure in the business for many many reasons, is also in the territory of the Austin Idol. We'll talk a lot about the significance of him being no, I'm sorry, it's Austin ivy I v ol. Great stuff. The Samoans Pro one and two
and Rickey Fields and more. How about Southeastern and Gulf Coast Championship at the Montgomery Civic Center on Monday, it appears to be May fourteenth, nineteen and seventy nine, the Southeastern Gulf Coast Tag Champs, the Samoans to face Rickey Fields and Cherry Latham. Thunderbolt Patterson to defend his championship against Eddie Sullivan in an attag match. The Hulk and Billy Spears versus roy Lee Welch and Ron Slinker with the Austin Idol on the card there as well. The
ringside What is it? What do you go for ticket prices four dollars ringside, three dollars general admission and two dollars for children. Why don't we read it to the Solar System Boss. The May seventeenth, nineteen seventy nine clipping from the News Herald Hulk once again you guessed it to.
That's the headline. Hulk to wrestle indeed one of the biggest professional wrestlers in the business. Two hudred ninety five pounds, six foot six terry in parentheses the Hulk Boulder. We'll team up with Eddie Sullivan in a tag team match with the Continental Wrestling Association champion Thunderbold Patterson, A Black, Matt Stares, and Roy Welch Thursday night at the Bowl
Air Wrestling Arena. The Southeastern Gulf Coast Hitaway champion Ron Slinker will wrestle Austin Idel, who has been termed the highest paid wrestler in the world. That clipping definitely got Hulk's attention. Brother. What what'll he doing?
Brother?
What? Hey? Dude? Man? How much you wait?
Brother?
How A'm you getting paid? Getting paid? Brother?
What?
What?
How much? How much? Brother? I just wont know who you're talking to?
You?
I get that, you know, highest paid buler. No, I don't want to be highest paid. I just want to be paid.
What's this idle mania I'm hearing about. You've been cupping your year brother, You've been tearing your shirt in the bag, You've been cutting.
Holes, your python's brother, blonde hair down on your shoulders. Dude, did you get what's helping your arms? You got a deep tan. You claimed to be from the West Coast brother or Tannon brother. Well you go outside of the beach. What do you do tanning bed? What's going on? Shades on indoors? Brother? We were red yellow? So with that you like red and yellow? That why are the highest paid wrestler red and yellow? Real American?
Brother?
Are you American? Huh? Nice to meet you too, sir.
I mean I'm the news Herald, brother. I see hulk of the headlines as it should be. A hold to wrestles is the headline. I'm in the lead sentence here. My match is the top building in the article. All of a sudden I read the second paragraph and it says someone else is the top I'm wrestler in the world.
I just want I'm just I'm just curious about how you know your top paid wrestler. Brother, How do you know how the paper know that?
Brother?
Is they print it some me? True? I mean when they get access to our you know, payroll where they work at the bank. I used to work at. Is there a bank look at in Alabama? What do you know? We're all the wrestler's bank. Dude? What do you know, dude? You work at the bank that all the wrestlers. Are you a banker? Brother? Right? Ron Slinker? Like banker?
Brother?
I mean, what was the deal? Dude's ron Slinker work at the bank?
Dude?
What are you saying? Ron Ston is a banker on the side due Slinker Community credit Union? Dude? Are you talking about? What do you count money? Wait? Sting there is he is? He tried to payroll?
Brother, trying to take the track of all what's going on. I mean, I understand you know the deal, but I've got to get a way up to speed here.
Brother.
Well, I'm just trying to you know, I'm trying to get kind of get things back from track.
Brother.
I just wanted to figure out what's going on in the cell. What are you doing that's making you the highest paid wrestler. I want to copy it for the rest of my life, dude. Basically, I want to know what the evidence of brother. I want to know how you got that at level, Dukes. I want to take things up for the next level. Brother. I wonder how I can take your life? Brother? Wow, And he will
and he will. But continue the article here. Southeastern Gulf Coast Tag Team Championship match will pitt the Samoens current champions against former title holders Ricky Fields and Terry Latham.
Push you ahead here. This is the May twentieth card at the Municipal Auditorium double main event as the Masked Gladiator to take on champion Ron slinker In in a special challenge match. You better believe. It's the Hulk versus Ron Fuller ce WA title on the line, Thunderbolt Patterson taking on Von Hess and it's Austin Idle versus Roy
Welch plus a six man tag team matchup. Southeastern Pro Wrestling returns Wednesday in this next article here, this is from the Press Register and Boss, I'd love for you to read the accompanying article. As we see a photo of Harley Race and all of his license plate belt carrying glory Mutton Shops on full effect.
Oh Yes Southeastern Professional Wrestling sanctioned by the Continental Alliance Wednesday, May twenty third. Bell time will be eight pm. After an absence of several months, wrestling returns with a tremendous card. Leading the way will be about for the World's heavyweight title with Harley Race, the National Wrestling Alliance Champion, defending his title against Ron Tennessee stud Fuller. Fuller get the
title shot. That's right. The challenger has faced Race before and has always been a good given a good account of himself. This then is Fuller's golden opportunity, but he faces a true title holder who was defended his belt many times in the last few months. In a Gulf Toast tag match, the Samoans champions will defend their belts against the youthful Rickey Fields and Terry Latham. This should be a rousing battle. Popular Bob Armstrong has his work cut out for the Moon he takes on the Hulk
in a single bout. Thunderable Patterson is back on the scene when he swaps holds with Inferno Number One in a Continental title wrestling match. Ox Baker makes his first appearance in Mobile when he takes on Ron Slinker. There will be others on the card, including Austin Idel. This great program marks the return of professional wrestling to the Mobile area Wednesday, May twenty third.
So there it is Harley Race come into the territory and he's going to meet or at least we're led to believe the Tennessee stud Ron Fuller for the World's Heavyweight Championship. You see there the poster to the left. Southeastern Wrestling returns Wednesday, May twenty fourth, eight pm, Bell Time World's Heavyweight Championship match Harley Race the champion versus
Tennessee Stud Fuller. The Samoans with manager Billy Spears defend the Southeastern Tag Team Championships against Ricky Fields and Terry Latham. Thunderbolt Patterson meets in Frontal number one for the CWWA title, and The Hulk versus Bob Armstrong. On the same card, we're Hardley Race to defend the richest prize in the game against Ron Fuller. Austin Iidel also on the card, and many more bouts. Watch wrestling Saturday one pm on
Channel five. So there it is Harley's coming to town and Ron fullernew this he knew he's got Andre comming and then he's got Harley coming big one, two special attractions for Tory Lake Gulf Coast. You better have big plans to leverage it and leave people behind after those
two leave town. That can draw for you, and you believe, you better believe that Terry the Boulder figures prominently as we just described, not just in the Andre scenario, but in the Harley Race scenario as well, Because if you think that, in fact, Harley Race ends up defending against Ron Fuller on this fateful night in Mobile, Alabama, you're not paying attention because Hulk Cogan is about to step into the foreground just like WrestleMania nine mmmm and come
to run Fuller's injured rescue and challenge right then and there for the world's have a right title.
So even that fucking angle is ripped off, that would be.
Correct and we will get there the complete Hulkogan I mentioned Bob Rup. It's important to remember that this is happening at the same time. According to Ron Fuller, right around this time, just as Hulk is hitting his stride against Andre and preparing to be programmed against Harley Race, the world's heavyweight champion Bob Roup comes to Ron Fuller running Knoxville for him. He says that he and Ron Wright both witnessed the ticket sellers that Ron Fuller had
put in Knoxville to two ladies. Oh, steal money, steal money from the gate.
Yes.
Ron Fuller is beside himself, said he'd never heard anything like that about these particular women that he put in that position. And he says there was a referee in that part of the territory named mac McMurray.
What are you accusing me of?
Huh? You accuse me of steal money off my goddamn what do you think? I'm selling tickets and I'm poking on the daddamn change.
There's not a whole lot of Kate Spade around here that you often see. Suddenly you gals are turning up, You're jangling with their rings.
So I'm gonna tell you so, I'm gonna jangle your throat with my goddamn hands in the fendll out two minutes you stop accusing that bullshit. I'm an artist, goddamn woman, and I got these through hard work and through the cut of my jib, And I'm gonna tell you I work sold goddamn, I don't mind killing the motherfucker a half tow wight to his face. I've killed before, and I'll kill again at that Bob rup and I'll put
your fucking name on my goddamn list. Ron knows how to pick him, and he knows how to deploy him, doesn't he knows how to depend. I'll fuck you afterwards too, after your dad. Your mama sure does love you, boy. Mm hmm.
So Mac McMurray, the guy that Fuller put, you know, sort of like the Arnold skulln position in charge of monitoring the gate and everything and a referee in that area, and in fact someone who had lent run full of himself money to buy the territory and get started as
an owner. He was the one that Fuller trusted to keep track and verify ticket saless in the Knoxville part of the territory, and he was the one that brought the money back on a nightly basis to make sure the office got what they were do And once Ron Fuller kind of according to him, pushed back at Bob Roop saying that these two women in particular were skimming tickets, saying,
I really don't think they would do something like that. Suddenly, according to Ron Fuller, Bob roops which is his story, and he says, well, you know what the payoffs forget that, we're just not getting paid enough for these shows at
the Knoxville Coliseum. He kind of accorded. Ron Fuller just kind of drops the whole conspiracy theory about these ladies keeps shifting around why he's discontented, and to Ron's conspiratorial mind, what rob Roup is doing is basically setting a series of pretenses to try to make a run on the territory and to try to set a bunch of pretenses for why the wrestlers would want to go with Bob Roop's alternative outlaw group instead of sticking around and still
work for Ron Fuller. Fuller says, you know, it's weird because I don't handle ticket sales at the coliseum, this venue that you claim is selling out way more than you guys are getting paid up per year percentage that's actually run by the building. The office, the wrestling office doesn't handle that money. It's kind of a unique arrangement out there. And you know, pretty good wrestlers have got pretty good a judging houses have been going there for years.
So Roup changes tack again according to Ron Fuller and says, A right, fine, Well all the wrestlers are very unhappy with their payoffs. You know why and how and who runs what and who's responsible is besides the point? And Fuller says, well, you're the booker. Attendance has been down in Knoxville. That's why the payoffs are down. The payoffs are a percentage of how much you draw at the gate. And if you're not booking cards, the people want to buy tickets to come to see. Of course the payoffs
are going to be down. You're not doing this on purpose, are you?
So?
According to Ron Fuller, Bob Roup changes history again, mentioning the two Knoxville Hardley Race states upcoming, and suddenly Bob Roup says, you know what, Ron Fuller, I want you to wrestle Harley when he comes to the town. I want you to wrestle Harley on my car.
Wow.
Ron's like, but I you know, I've been down in Dothan and Mobile and Montgomery. I been out in Knoxville in seven weeks. They're not even accustomed to me being out there, let alone building me up for a title shot. And the last time I was on a card in that market, I was like third match. I wasn't even the main event. Why don't you put Ronnie Garvin, who was headlining in Knoxville for Bob Roup at the time, in there against Harley Race?
Do that?
This is what Ron Fuller recalls saying, and he says that Rob Rupe responded that Ronnie actually wanted to see if Fuller could put the asses in the seats. Mmm, is she gonna come over here?
This is Bob Roup.
You'd come over here and say that payoffs are down because I don't know how to book and fill buildings. Will find Harley Race is coming here. That's the most guaranteed money night you could have in the NWA days. You go against him, We'll see how much Ron Fuller draws to see if you've got a point. And ron said, fine, book me. Book me for the world title on the first show and a Texas death match against Harley Race on the next show for the dates we have on Harley.
And with that, Ron Fuller recalls, Bob Roup left his house and it was the last time that Ron Fuller would be alone in a room with Bob rup things are happening, Sands are shifting, and Hulkovin is kind of just a party to it. But he will be caught up in the winds and the storm that old cyclone down there. But of course, Hulk isn't just Terry Bolea a brilliant mind is He isn't just subjecting himself to the vicissitudes of what might happen in this power struggle
between Ron Fuller and Bob Rupe. He's not leaving his fate in the hands of these two small time promoters arguing over small time money. No, Terry's always had his eye on the bottom line, and according to the match result chronologies that are out there from his career, even though he's just wrestled Andre in May and he's about to be programmed against Hartley Race later that month, he's already dipping his toe. Is Terry Bolea in Memphis, Memphis.
The earliest result I can see for hul Cogan wrestling in Memphis is May fourteenth, just week after wrestling under the Giant. He's the Mid South Colisseum, the mecca of wrestling in Memphis, and he's taking on the stumper for
the NWA Southern heavyweight title. Now, this might not be entirely surprising because, as we've already discussed on the Complete Hulk Hogan, Ron Fuller's brother Rob Fuller, was booking Memphis upon the onset of nineteen seventy nine, and while there had been some disagreements between Rob Fuller and Jerry Jarrett and Jerry Lawler about how much of the gate as the territory was recovering should go to the talent from twenty eight percent down to twenty two percent is but
Ron Fuller says Jerry Jarrett wanted to do it still wasn't, according to Ron Fuller, complete Splitsville between him and Memphis. They were still allies more than they were enemies. Yeah, but something tells me that Terry Boley as Antenna, very quickly picked up that there was trouble in Paradise. Yeah, and there may very well Boss be a rich opportunity for Terry for the first of many many times in his life, to play both sides against each other. This
is from Hulk's second book. I've just sent it to you.
Apologies for the color there of the font, No probably, but I think this is very clearly puts us into the mind of this cherry bolea who's now starting to see by the houses he drew with Andre the Giant, by the way, that it's trouble in paradise for the Knoxville territory and for the Memphis relationship, that he may have a chance here to parlay the buzz that's spreading around on the inside of the business around what he'd done with Andrea to much greater riches and much more
leverage at the bargaining table.
Technically, I wasn't the best wrestler. I wasn't quick, I was an athletic. I couldn't jump off the top ropes. On the other hand, I wasn't an old fashioned, thick headed fat wrestler either. I was right in between, and the more I wrestled, the more I developed my own style. In fact, it was right during this time that I started using the leg drop to finish off my opponents. The crowds went nuts for it a few months later. If you want us into this routine, Louis de lett
made a big mistake. So I'm I'm booking you out this Monday night. You told me I want I want you to go up to Memphis. By this time, brother it was a Memphis dude. Of course it wasn't his fault.
You know.
By this time, I had started to understand that wrestling this is a little bit more, you know, I'd picked up on things. I didn't have those blinders on like I did when I first started in Florida, and I knew that Memphis could be a major stepping stone to wrestle in New York City. The Memphis Territory, run by Jerry Lawler and Jerry Drartt, was known for doing the
kind of all kinds of circus stuff. They had tar and leather matches and loser leaves, towel matches and hanging the manager in a cage above the ring matches, you know, crazy stuff. It was also the perfect play develop a gimmick, and that was key because because all of the guys were making the really we're making the really big money in New York had a gimmick? Did did? Did Bruno Summer here have a gimmick? Right? Bruno having a gimmick?
You know there are sargeist laughter, the Russian Bear, Iron, the Iron Chic. You know, there there were no there were no Joe blows. You know, brother, what what Joe blow do Brother. You wrote a brother? What do you not wrote to do? What we're talking about brothers in your book? Brother? You know you wrote the book brother. I know I wrote, Dude, You've got a Joe blow push brother. Don't said anything about Joe Bull push brother.
You're talking about Joe Blow push Brother. Well, I didn't say that, Joe.
You would be a hell of a studio wrestler job or name.
You imagine. Also, I mean just the idea of now Hogan's getting nervous from himself, of course, is pretty fucking.
Uh.
You know, no regular name wrestlers just got in the ring and wrestled. You know, everybody had something extra, So Brutus and I drove up the Memphis by this one night to wrestle as the Boulder Brothers. I mean, they put on a hell of a show. I know because Jared and Lawler you know, pulled me aside immediately after the match and said, Yo, Terry, you know we wanted
to come work here. I told him I couldn't because I was committed to the Alabama territory, you know, Louis Tiletta, and give me a break when I really when I really needed it, and I couldn't let him down, you know. Then they asked me how much money I was making? Only one fifty one seventy five a week. I said, well, we'll give you an eight hundred dollars a week guarantee.
About a shocker. You know, I wasn't as much of a mark as I used to be, but I wasn't totally disloyal either, So I played really cool and told him I needed to go back and talk to Tilette about it, exactly what I did. Now I'm back Alabama and confronted to that, I said, we know I'm wrestling seven is a week for you. You know, the Bowler Brothers are making a name and draw on audiences. You know, how come I'm only making you know, one seventy five tops?
You know?
His response, that's all you're worth and all you deserve. So I hit him with the eight hundred a show week, eight hundred a week guarantee. I've just been offered a Memphis and said Ed and I were leaving and to let just about shit a brick, right, and we called Jared Lawler up the Memphis screaming, how can you steal talent? How did you a favor for one night and this is what happens. How can you do this? He was pissed.
It didn't matter, you know, Brutus and I had already had one foot in the van at that point, and we were on our way to the big time, and we knew it.
On our way to the big time, and we knew it as well. For Terry bulay A, Memphis counted as the big time at this fertile, furtive stage of his career, and it's going to be fascinating to watch him play many promoters out of each other simultaneously. He's established himself with the Andre match early and often, and Ron Fuller is not able to keep a lid on it. Other
territories are making plays. But what can't we forget? We can't forget that, According to ed Leslie has read from his book last week, it wasn't that all of a sudden, Louis Toilette had an idea to send these guys to Memphis.
According to Eddie Boulder, Jerry Jarrett recruited them out of Cocoa Beach and said, we'll bring you in as the Boulders, but we want you to go somewhere else to get the gimmick working first, and that would be Alabama now conspicuous by his absence and everything we've talked about thus far and Golf Gulf Coast results is Ed Boulder himself, who never appears to have anything to have had anything to do with Terry the Hope Boulder in Southeastern Championship President.
There are no match results that exist of him teaming with Terry or even wrestling on any of these cards, even wrestling in SECW until nineteen eighty, after Terry has
already left. But I think, as we've established, I think it is will to suggest that he certainly was living with and traveling with Terry at this time, learning the business along with Terry, ascending in the business at this point in time, and maybe got on some prelim cards or some cards where results are under reported somewhere around the way, and perhaps even teamed with Terry before any
official or surviving match results indicate. But that is a key distinction that the Memphis was expecting them from the beginning, and we're using Alabama as approving ground. Is that a story you make up after the fact to paper over the fact that you essentially just went for the higher bidder and said fuck you to Louis Delay, who made you a made man in the business when nobody else wanted to book you. Or is it as simple as what hulc Can just outlined in his book as it
can't be both. It can't be that they came with the eight hundred dollars guarantee, so I'm going to Memphis, and Memphis sent us here to work on the gimmick
with the understanding we were coming back. But at least according to Hulk Coke and it was Louis Tolay, the guy that brought the Hulk in, created the Hulk programmed against Andrea, had the stroke with Andre to make it happen and blew out the business in that territory that suggested that made perhaps the fatal suggestion that Hulk go and give Memphis a try, because he's gonna fucking hit it big out there as well, because even more than Alabama,
Memphis was a territory absolutely known across the wrestling world that would go super ridiculous with gimmicks and fantasy angles and monsters and the supernatural, and in the hands of artists Jerry Lawler, you think he's going to hold back in some of the sketch work he can do. Now that he has the Hulk marvel Ip coming to his territory, you get.
Another thing coming.
It's about piled up to a whole new level. Memphis is knocking, and just as hul Cogan is prepared to stare across the ring from NWA World Heavyweight Champion Harley Race in the Gulf Coast, it is just as quickly
over for Hulk Cogan in the Gulf Wow. Not only is it over for hul Cogan in the Gulf Coast, It's soon going to be over for Ron Fuller himself and then the territory that and so much more to come on the Complete Hulk Hogan as Terry the Hulk Boulder stares across the ring from n w A World Champion Harley Race,