Ep. 436: The Complete Hulk Hogan | Sweet Goodbye, Alabama

was overstaying his welcome, right, I'll be he was. He was pretty good at it, Like well, he wasn't as good as as Terry Funk, but he had his moments. That's right. That's a great point. Yeah, Well, perhaps if Terry struck gold in New York like Hogan did, he wouldn't have left either on such a rapid clip. But yes, you're right, that is an interesting contrast. But we have to we have to put a bow on this thing. Last time we were with you on the Complete Hulk Hogan.

Hogan had just wrestled Harley Race at the Rip Hughes Football Stadium in Dothan, Alabama for the NWA World Heavyweight Title, a match that ended when Austin Idol got up on the apron snapped a flash photograph and Hogan's eyes blinded him and caused him to get rolled up one, two three. According to Ron Fuller, I mean, there's not enough for you in there, and what I just said at all the things it says, I don't know what to tell you at this point in the journey there. There's too

much going on right there. And I would say definitely a lot of fear, a lot of fear, a lot of concern, you know, photographers to roll ups. It's getting real, it's getting real for hul Covid. Yeah. Yeah, he's already starting to learn to look out of the corner of his eye. And I think there's a lot to be said. I mean, the thesis basically is everything you think Hulkkein figured out as his career unfolded he did in the

first six months in Alabama. Yeah, in one way or another, he downloaded all he needed to download about the characteristics, the Austin Idel stuff that he lifted. But there's a home stretch here for the Alabama run. Chronologically, it gets a little complicated because at the same time he's working in parallel in Memphis around this time, almost as frequently.

But as we discussed last time, when he steps into the ring against Harley Race in July nineteen seventy nine in doth And, he'd already essentially communicated to booker Louis Tillette and owner Ron Fuller that he was moving on.

Ron Fuller, of course, as we mentioned, is sort of put the blame on Toilette for not putting a strap on Hogan earlier and making him feel like he was going to be a centerpiece of the promotion and thus very susceptible to an offer from Jerry Jarrett and Company up in Memphis for a bit more money and perhaps

a bit more spotlight. So Hogan has already made it clear before he steps into the ring with Harley Race, according to Ron Fuller, that he's not long for the world, And so we have to take a look at how Hogan played out the string because when you hear that, you might think it was sort of a hard stop. And after he fails to defeat Hardly for the championship, he hasn't really seen in the territory. Again, that is

not the case. In addition to Memphis, he goes to work for Georgia, and these are two offices that didn't necessarily have adversarial relationships with Ron Fuller in Southeast. It's not like when he went to these two territories he would never be welcomed back again. In fact, he even goes to New York to the WWWF and comes back to work a couple of some shows. Now Alabama by the close of nineteen seventy nine. Yes, wow, Bob Armstrong, of course, a long time staple in the area, father

of the road Dog for those among temporary fans. Yeah yeah, ends up back in sort of the power circle with Southeastern Championship Wrestling, and they work a bit of a program to close out nineteen seventy nine, and I think an extreme serendipity it all ends on what of all nights for Hogan and Alabama, but Christmas nineteen seventy nine.

crowd favorite varieties, Classic and Lime. Go to drink Garagebeer dot Com for their beer finder and support them this holiday season, and you know it toasts the new year. Let's ring in twenty twenty six, Yeah, with a cold garage beer. Absolutely, when the when the ball drops, head to the garage. Yeah. And when they leaned into TLF, all of a sudden the awards started pouring in on their side of the house. Think not, I think not.

So it's been terrific to have their support as we do really what it takes and spend what it takes to really dig and on earth as much as can be said about as we've talked about Boss, a criminally underdocumented part of Hulkgan's life in times you know the more we the more we dig into it, the more it's It's really shocking that people have not really talked about it as much as as they should have. It's a real shame, Like what do you what are you doing?

You're missing out? I mean, listen, I'm grateful, you know, if we're uncovering some stuff that maybe had been covered for quite a while. So I'll take that. But you know what, the fuck the fact that Hogan verse Harley in July of nineteen eighty and doth in nineteen eighty seventy nine in Dothan filled this football stadium the only time, according to Ron Fuller, that this territory had a stadium scale show, and not a single photograph exists of that show,

let alone the match between Harley and Hogan. Yep, just sets my mind into a tizzy. I mean it's just, you know, I guess all we can count on are these snippets of fans who have posted things on Facebook or forums over the years that that bore witness, Right, I mean, that's the best we can hope for, right, boss, the best we can hope for. Well, we'll see about that. But the complete Hull Coogan continues two unfold and is

mentioned he had just hustled with Harley Race. I did sort of parrot something that Ron Fuller said about the match that I'm going to reel in on this episode. And this is thanks to the homie Matt, who was quick to point out immediately that in fact, Hogan verse Harley seventy nine dothen yes, was not the only time that Hull Cogan challenged for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Fuck, turn your attention please, if you could, to your chat

window and observe. Tell the folks what you see. Hold on here, what do you see? What? Describe? Describe? Well, the first thing, obviously, you know, your eye goes right to the fact that you got Hull Cogan wearing yellow and red. By the way, yes, yellow and red. That's key. He is giving a roundhouse right too, uh uh Harley Race, who's holding the the NWA title. It says right there up in the ever left corner, Harley Race versus Hull Cogan,

but down on the lower left hand corner. This is what's kind of a little this is this is this is interesting. Is a lot of Japanese characters or some kind of Asian cash and say I mean, I'm assuming Japan because wrestling is in Japan. I don't know, but yeah, a lot of Japanese characters saying something. I don't know what, but it's saying something. So I imagine this happened in Japan. You know what. No, the photo ran in a Japanese magazine only, oh my god, I won't say only, but

it ran. What we have here is a photo from a Japanese magazine. No, what you're looking at with Harley Race to your point holding the license plate NWA World Title belt, the one that we just can't allow our minds to put in the same space time continuum as Hull Camanium. Yes, what you were looking at is Hulk Hogan wearing the red and yellow Yes, going for the NWA World title in October nineteen eighty three in Saint Louis. What how yep? Take your time? I mean, okay, so

I'm trying to think here eighty three. I mean, wouldn't have he wouldn't he been working for VERN sort of yes, but not exclusively. He's going to Japan all the time, and Saint Louis was a very close confident on office to Vern, just like it was to Fritz. You know, but I but I thought that, you know, why would I mean, I guess if you're not if he's not exclusive to Verne, then he's okay. But something Why would Verne let somebody go down to n WA territory when

he was very anti NWA. I but what makes you say he's anti NWA. Well, he made his own fucking company because he didn't get the NWA championshop. You go back to the fifties, Yeah, I got you. Yeah, I think by now he's kind of over that for the most part. I mean, he has his own world champion. But guys like Bockwinkle and Toura many others were allowed to go to Keel auditorium shows and work for Sam

much Nick and Larry Matti sick. Yeah, just like you know, well, I guess Fritz never really split off from the NWA in a clean breakaway until the late eighties. Yeah, but you know, when it was time to start pushing the boys, they went where to Saint Louis Television, particularly David von Erik to meet Harley in that handicapped matches we talked

about in a lamentable tragedy. I just it's one thing to say that Hulk Hogan challenged Charlie Race for the NBA Championship the same year he came back to WWF to start the whole Camania run, but with that belt. But it's another thing to say he was wearing the red and yellow. I can't. I can't accept that Hogan wore red and yellow trunks before January nineteen eighty four. Well did he? Or I should say December eighty three didn't? He didn't. Didn't he wear red and yellow for that

that Super Sunday match? Was it red? And Well? It was, but I think that the trunks were red if I'm not mistaken when I picture Hogan and Awa, and I'm sure you know it's very at everybody's fingertips to pull up counter examples, but I don't know. Man. When I heard about this match, before I saw the pick, I'm like, Okay, it's going to be him, and like, you know, light blue trunks wrestling Harley, Right, yeah, right, No, he's wearing red and yellow. He's wearing it's exactly like he did

in WWA. That's that's nuts. There were two matches in October of nineteen eighty three, and it's really fascinating because where do they go right when he's well a whole on a second, Actually, no, that I'm thinking about it, he's not working for VERN. He is, Yeah, he is. He's working for Vern. Yeah, because the shows that he know shows after giving his notice were Christmas Time eighty three and that's when he shows up in Wow in

New York. But well, where does he do it? Let's not forget where were the television tapings happening the very first time Hulk Hogan came back from the ABA Saint Louis Chase tell So that adds a whole new context of how the Saint Louis fans that saw Hulkogan make a surprise return with just a couple of days left in nineteen eighty three to the WWF, they would have seen him in that city at Keel going for the world title a few months before that against Harley Race.

So keep that in mind when you take in that famous footage of him returning in December ety three, and in what the Saint Louis fans had thought about this guy. He wasn't this distant guy that they may have remembered when he wrestled in seventy nine and eighty for the WWWF that they would have just seen him under the auspices of Sam Muchnick and the NWA. So Jesus I

thought it was highly appropriate to rein in that. Admittedly, the speculation from Ron Fuller that that may have been in seventy nine, Hogan's only NBA Championship shot just another example of how much there still is to learn as we go through this chronology about Hulk Cogan. It's absolutely oh, I'm I mean, it's just it's almost it's borderline unacceptable, right, Okay, the border line unacceptable because of the magnitude of his career.

You think, if there's one wrestler that I have a handle on the biggest things he did, it's Hult COVID and you don't even have forty percent of it. Yeah, right, exactly, because he did he did so much more before he went full time for the McMahons that then we can

handle handle. I mean, it's one thing to look through a chronological list of his matches, but when you see the pictures and you get the texture, and you hear the testimonials from people who were fortunate enough to lay eyes on the things that he was doing, that do not survive on videotape or even still photography. That's a whole different matter. And looking back on the match in Dothan against Harley, Ron said in his podcast that they were trying to figure out how to see all these

people in this stadium. It was a football field, wasn't as secure as a typical wrestling arena was. And so what do you have to worry about? I mean, all of a sudden, you've got to worry about people finding ways to sneak in. I mean, think about a high school football stadium. There's a million ways in that motherfucker who's exactly no less than Terry the Hulk Boulder wanted a full security plan. Ah, but I mean I could there must have been hundreds of people that did not

pay and found a way into that stadium for this match. Oh, I would imagine I'm listening it. I mean, I don't know high school football stadium. I figured that's pretty easy to fucking oh. And Ron Fuller said his podcast you remembers asking announcer slash businessman businessman, I should say a promoter Charlie Platt, who helped with a lot of his logistics. How many people do you think the Ripheus Stadium is

going to hold? And he recalls plat say about eight thousand, and Fuller said, I trusted that was an accurate figure. And that night he's sitting at home. He just wrestled in Knoxville, where the war is in full tilt. So Ron Fuller is spending all of his time there, not down in Dothan. And he had his cousin Royley well chandled the box office down there, waiting for the call. Ron's waiting for the call from down there to see

how many people they did. Comes in seventy eight hundred people, two thousand more fans that had ever attended an event in Dothan. Wow, he said, you get to keep this in mind. If basically eight thousand people were at the stadium and fifty thousand people lived in Dothan, think about what you're saying there. Yeah, I mean that's not to say everybody in that stadium is from Dothan. There are plenty of shots on the territory. There were a couple

hour drive. But still, I mean, when you really it's one thing to say these territories, these old school territories used to put thousands in the building or every every week. It's another when you step back and say, well, the population wasn't that big. That's remarkable. That's like the only thing going on in town. No wonder, these territories, in these areas that didn't have professional sports teams thrive so much, right right, of course, of course, because you know they

got nothing else to do. That's much easier to convince you in a city like that that wrestling is kind of like the prestige night out, you know, like the thing, the sporting event that has the most consequence. I think that's often overlooked when people talk about why, uh these people were, you know, chanting and reacting to these matches like they were real, These old ladies and these adults you see in the audience in the territorial days and

equal in greater parts than you see children. That's what Hulk Hogan did at w w F, of course, is switch the demographics to primar ely kids. But before that it's adults. They were looking for blood, They're looking for pieces of ship to get their asses handed to them by good old boys, and that works, right. I mean, you know, end of the week, you know, it's a perfect time everyone's everyone just got through a hard week at work, and they they want to they wanna to release,

to say the least. Yeah, And the thing is they have not. They have not they have nothing else going on. There's no other sport, so like, I don't know, man like if if there's not you know, three major professional sports teams in my city, or even a collegiate sport that's convenient to get to to speak of a lot easier to just say, you know what, even wrestling's phone. Yeah, I'm going to take it seriously because I don't really have a lot more on the way of sport entertainment

options here. I don't know, I don't have a lot going on in my life, right, I mean just they're not going on around me, not my life, but just no in my life. I gotta treat something like it's real. Oh my god. But Ron Fuller starts getting calls from Louis Toillette and it's deep French accent. Louis sounds extremely upset. Ron said, I could hardly get him to calm down. He was ecstatic. The crowd was way over ten thousand. Actually he was as he estimated, Rather that the crowd

was way over ten thousand, well, seventy eight hundred. There had been a fucking revolt backstage because the wrestlers were all pissed off with their pay and assume that someone had stolen thousands from them, and the wrestlers because when they assessed it an eyeballed it. They said, there's no way, there's only seventy eight hundred people. That's what you have to remember about, you know, the double edged sword of

doing too well in this territory in this era. Yes, just like we talked about the idea that Ron Fuller didn't want the photographers from the national wrestling magazines covering this stuff while we have such a dearth of pictures

of Terry doing his thing down there. It's because that would spread national awareness of how much money they were actually making and cause all kinds of fucking headaches when people start adding up how much they should be owed, or their promoters start salivating at the prospect of stealing these wrestlers who are filling buildings in this sort of low key territory. And this is part and parcel. I think of that same psychology of like, yeah, we want to go big, but I mean Ron Fuller refers to

it its podcast. It's always been the kiss of death to have a huge crowd and a new location like that. Can you imagine doing a crowd like that and the first way you choose to describe it is the kiss

of death. Yes, I wonder hull Kgan doesn't remem this fondly, you know, you know, no wonder people didn't talk about this for years and years and years because all this intrigue swirling around, these wrestlers breaking off and running opposition, everyone bitching and covetching about the size of the crowd and if they're getting screwed in the payoff, alleging people skimming money off the gate. It's all this negative shit,

you know. It's like everyone's succeeding despite themselves. And the second you do something really big, my god, do you have a headache on your hands? Right? He said? The wrestler's eyes get big when they see crowd like that, And so Ron trying to put this fire out, gets Charlie Platt and the phone and they ask himate how

many people are on the field. It's one thing to say how many people are in the seats and the bleachers, how many people on the field, but four hundred, and they said that stadium would have been full if they were sitting out there. Gordon Soley actually came to the show,

if you can believe that. Wow. Gordon Soley had done about a year on television in the territory, working side by side with Charlie Platt, kind of in an interregnant period before he became again the voice of a WTBS superstation wrestling for Georgia Championship, and he had presented Charlie Platt during the show with an award from the National Wrestling Alliance as the best new television wrestling commentator in America.

So that was certainly a proud moment for Charlie Platt and one for the Alabama wrestling fans to remember fondly. It doesn't get any more through and through Alabama than Charlie Platt. He spent his whole life in that state and working in television and radio. So he was one of those you know, sort of like Dave Brown and Lance Russell and Memphis so many other examples Bob Coddles

we talked about. These are people who were part of the community above and beyond the fact that they were the wrestling announcer part of the local news station, for example, or the local news radio station above and beyond the fact that they were wrestling announcers. And Ron Fuller says in his podcast This Night, Hogan Harley should have catapulted the territory into one of the best in the country. Should have caught us on fire. But instead this controversy

over the size of the crowd did just the opposite. Yep, did just the opposite. What lessons being learned here? Boss? Do you think for a young Terry bolea browler, I don't know who to trust me more? Dude, right? I mean I filled this house too definitely not fill the house, but that I'm told I didn't fill a house, brother, and I filled the house too much, dude, or a stand brother. You want me to sell out, Dude, I sold out. That's a lot too much. Kind of freaked

me out. Freaking me out as and felt this betrayed since Eddie Graham told him it was fake and that Matt Tudor broke his leg for no reason. I don't say any or or when Mike Graham did anything. I know hadn't been this betrayed since Mike Graham didn't call him on his birthday every year since nineteen sixty five. So yeah, fuller'sa's. Call after call came in from wrestlers after the show, all with the same complaint, and finally Ron just had to stop taking their calls around midnight

because it's just getting so ridiculous. And Ron said, you know, looking back, I shouldn't have worked a wrestling show in Knoxville that night. I should have taken myself off that card, put the war to the side for a minute, and I could have been down there in person and Dothan and straightened a lot of this out instead of you know the fact that his absence seemed to make things even worse because nobody feels like they're talking to the person that can make it right. You know, they're just

dealing with middlemen like Louis Tillette. Looking back round, Fuller simply said the Knoxville War cost him everything and that this match was the high point of Gulf Coast Wrestling, the Knoxville War, the Knoxville Five. That's right, but's a go. As for Harley, he would go on, He would go on to continue raining, I think we know this. Harley's got a ways to go before starr K eighty three when he really passes the torch. Here's how he looked

and sounded. This is Harley late August, Okay, just a month after doing this match with Terry Bulla and Dothan Alabama, back with the Strap making the towns, including this promo that survives from nineteen seventy nine down in Houston for Paul Bosh, I think.

being and wrestling. And I think you know what I'm talking about, mister Bosh. I just proved it all over again. I am now three times World's heavyweight champion, and I can truthfully say I can beat any man in the world, and that includes that big over stuffed water buffalo.

inadvertently coming up in Florida. Guess who got his ass right in line to work Harley for the championship after Terry Bowlea did this kind of business with Harley and doth And guess who all of a sudden was right

at the front. Mike Graham, Dusty Rhodes. That all come on within a month, within a month and a half, within a month and a half of Hogan selling the show out with Harley, Dusty Rhodes defeats Harley Race to become NWA World Heavyweight Champion August twenty first, nineteen seventy nine, in Tampa, Florida for the first time. Baby, I'm going through around waiting, Daddy. I gotta get my I think ione else was doing some business. Baby, I gotta take care of bet to my fail you say, oh, don't

overextraplate that. That's ridiculous. It was just his time the rate. No yet he lost the belt five days later. Back to Harley's Oh, Dustin's I refuse to not connect those dots because Dusty sent You know, Dusty was pretty much running the territory with Mike Graham. I'm part of me, Eddie Graham. They sent Jack and Jerry Briscoe to that show. They worked underneath Hartley versus Rays, Hartley versus bolea Boulder. Can't claim they didn't know, can't claim Dusty didn't know

that Terry was doing this kind of business. Here's maybe some reconnaissance. Maybe the brisk Goes engaged in some kind of reconnaissance, maybe engaged in some kind of you know, retroactive you know, damage control around letting this guy slip through their fingers in seventy seven. I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud here, boss.

I really was. I couldn't believe it. I mean this Tury Bowley and we had come through this stadium like I hadn't seen. The people were up. They wanted to see a being Harley. I couldn't believe it, Dusty, I gotta tell you, wait, wait, what do you think the bull thought? I was saying, Daddy with his who he is? I mean you he didn't hesitate to make sure he

never worked the Armory. There has truly Armory Wall. Then fucking Jimmy Stewing on the phone, Jimmy stew what are you doing on the phone, baby, I'll be talking about the Brith Goes. Daddy, I'm asking you to elevate your game and do a Dusty that's passive aggressive about Terry Boley doing this kind of business and making his way to negotiating a world title run.

the road, NWA World Heavyweight Champion. Your only thing at the time is now to call our favor in a barnette of all time. Now, I'm just saying, daddy, because you look, you look, baby, I'm concerned about the NBA. You consider out the NBA. We got Terry Bowley doing things that ain't never been done before because they shouldn't be done, right, Why why not? Why shouldn't they be done?

Because Daddy, he's he's breaking traditional. Baby, Well about NBA, it's all about tradition, and that's not that we can Yes, we can evolve tradition, Baby, New traditions come and go every Christmas. There's a new tradition in the road. Half, Baby, that's what happened. But the thing is deaddy when don't break ranks like.

especially you know Crocket Television. The country saw it in late eighties, mid to late eighties, particularly mid eighties when when Flair started to become more popular in those TBS studios than him, and he was a fucking basket case.

He didn't know what to do when people we were cheering the flash right and the heeled mannerisms of Flair, and he starts, Dusty starts desperately wearing like fur coats on TBS, like mink fur coat to try to like out out glisten Ric Flair when he's supposed to be, you know, when the straight bunk house cowboy, you know, counter image to Ric Flair's playboy image, was supposed to be his whole bread and butter, and now here he is trying to wear like Louis Vuitton bags on TBS.

It's too mud so so Dusty wasn't the only one that Terry Bullay is starting to leave in the dust. Back in Florida. We cannot forget that Bob Rup, who were on Fuller would say is the architect of this whole Knoxville exodus, even though you know, Ronnie Garvin was was double the star. Roup was in the area and in fact held Ron Fuller's belt. Ron Fuller later sued Ronnie Garvin to get back possession of the Southeastern Championship belt that he had. We'll have some fun with that

a little later. But but Bob Roup too, and certainly it's going to be difficult for Hope to stick around. He you know, is he gonna go? Does he have any loyalty, any affinity for for Bob Rup, who was who was certainly around then a top guys in terms of a shooter and a trainer as well as a wrestler in Florida when he first started to break in. I don't know, I mean, fortunately for us, mister Rup not too long ago started podcast The Wrestling Stoop, and

I would like to play now for you. Wrestling Stoop correct his recollection looking back on first encountering Terry bully Uh and how it all ended up as it regards their relationship and why let's say Knoxville was not was not going to be Terry Bullay's choice over Ron Fuller, and why pretty much skipping town uh seemed probably like the best decision for him during this promotional war.

have me work out with you. And uh, uh I said, okay, uh yeah, I said, I have an idea that let me. Let me get back to you on that hang around here a minute. So I went back inside. I asked Eddie about it. I said, what's that about? And h He's said yeah, he said that guys are hippie. He said, uh, hair and everything. He said. I hate him. He said, h, you know, I want you to I want you to stress him. So uh, okay, I went back.

Another time I took my girlfriend and later became my wife, and we went out and listened to him play, and we danced a few times to his music. Another time he played in Sarasota, I went out there on a weekend night that we were we weren't wrestling. I went out and listened to him play. So, you know, I had some little association with him, and then I left. When I left Florida a few years later. A couple three years later, he had been broken into the business. Uh,

and I was working. I was booking in Knoxville. I got a call from a guy named Terry Gibbs who had worked for me.

He said, know, why would you do that. The only way I can hire somebody else is I have to get rid of somebody. I said, we don't have any wrestlers on it our programmed that don't work every night, so you know, if you want to, I don't have room for him, I says. What I'll try to do, though, Louis to Leette was booking pasta Cola, and so I said, what I'll do is I'll call Louis and see if Louis can get a man down there. And I did

call Louis. I told him about him. Then apparently I'm not sure, but I think that he actually worked there for Louis.

So that's even that's even more dramatic that people even within the business didn't know necessarily what Terry Bullay was doing. It's wild. So add that to the soup of the origin stories of how Terry ended up down there. You know, apparently Bob Rup was offered first DIBs with Terry Gibbs, of all people, being the intermediary that was, you know, testing the waters to see if Rupe might book this guy.

And and no, he didn't really have a spot. And so he according to Bob Roup, I mean, he doesn't like pat himself on the back for this, So I feel like he kind of probably is telling the truth because I don't think he realized the significance of this. He doesn't know what Terry Blay did in the territory. He ends up referring Bolea instead to Louis Tillette, Hogan has mentioned. In prior episodes of The Khalet Hulk, Cogan and his book gives credit to superstar Billy Graham for

the referral. Other times it seems to be Bob Orton that had something to do with it, or Bob Rup, I think, if I remember correctly from that episode, Ed Leslie in his book does give credit to to Bob Rupe in some way for making the connection, But I

mean that's wrestling, man. Like you're just when someone becomes a big enough deal that everyone's going to ask you about them for years and years and years, you end up concocting a story that's probably sixty percent the truth, that you repeat so often that you forget where you took liberties with the truth. Just put yourself, you know, kind of in a position to not, like we talked about with Jerry Briscoe, to not be seen as someone who missed this, can't miss starr And so it's so crazy. Yeah,

that's first frustrating. It's like it is you think Terry's the only one fabricating things. Fabricating is a strong word, but you know, just not caring enough to remember like who called who first? Because at the time he's a nobody,

you know, why would you remember it. But now that he's so big, you're being asked about him so many times, and the truth is you weren't paying anywhere near enough attention to recall the precise details because he wasn't a big enough deal, right, So we're stuck with these stories that contradict each other about who called who first, but

it's possible. It's no different than when you did under the cinemat for Rocky three, right, And it's like who actually gave Hogan the fucking phone call to come to be.

business from coming back and trying more. And I think Bob Roop as a shooter, as a high level Olympic caliber wrestler in his own right, has a pretty interesting perspective on why you would do something like this to a young wrestler or a young hopeful.

time we worked out. Uh, he did it with me and I where I'm down in the referee position, where I'm on my knees and my hands on the mat like it's an amateur U referee posis and it's called and Hero stood behind me. And then one when he to go, he dropped his knee on the back of my ankle, like on the Achilles tendon, which the bat in itself could have break the Killes tendon. Then what I turned sideways with it because in wrestling, one thing you learned to do is you go, you know, you

go with the pressure. You don't go against it, you go with it. So I had I turned so they didn't hurt my ankle. He reached down, I grabbed my toe. Well, I had turned to facing by this time, I mean the face backwards. My body was between us. But he was close enough, I reached out and grabbed his hair. I struck my thumb on his eye and I didn't press hard, but I him know, if you fall up a mincle, you're going to have a different outlook, and at a very near future, if you're going to have

a very different outlook on things. And he let go immediately and within five seconds he started teaching me how to hook. That was the last thing that he ever tried. That was that was like initiation, and that's what he did to hook and see if he could defend himself. Okay, and he couldn't. If you know how to defend yourself at all, you know how to avoid that when when they do that, you know what to do. If you don't know how to defend yourself, well then you get hurt.

And so that's what the test was. Also there's another part to it. Terry had no value to them at the time. You know, they know they had a lot of big muscular guys that never did, you know, never did anything. But what is another test to see if he was hurt, will he come back? And so that was it was like a double test. Can you defend himself? And if he can't, if you want to come back and learn how to defend himself.

I've never. I don't abuse steroids. I don't do steroids deal currently. I don't deal steroids. I certainly don't. I certainly don't inject steroids. You bock to seven a corner on that one, man, What I do? How do you take them? Then? If you don't inject them? What eat? I don't do them? So how could I What are

you saying? Brother? Well, I'm saying Plan B. I'm saying since last time we were with you, when we talked about the Plan B tape, I hope that's still ringing in your head, as they call the business fraud, and it's been bringing my head every everything you fucking played it. She can't believe your ears when you when you hear it. It's like when they say when they say that, I like, I've never been in a in a legitimate match. Everything that I've done has been fraudulent. So good it's it's

it's absolutely it's it's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. A little more color on that from Bob Roops podcast in terms of explaining why they did that, which I didn't really appreciate it first. So this isn't something that they're doing to counteract Ron Fuller stopping them from going independent like

a sort of damicles. This was a little later. This is like nineteen eighty and they did this because the NWA had marshaled so many resources to crush them when they try to run their shows, you know, bringing in big time star power from around the country to do shows on the same night in the same city that Bob RUP's Upstart group was trying to run and just doing all kinds of things to fuck with them that they thought, according to Bob Rupe, that doing a tape

like this was almost like a last ditch effort, like the last bit of leverage they possibly could have to stop the NWA power structure from fucking with them, you know, like maybe, if worse comes to worse, if we tell them there's a tape where we all say it's vague and when give it to the news, you'll back off and let us actually try to survive here running our own wrestling operation. It didn't happen, but was That was the mentality of the tape was they were all ready

on an island. These guys had already failed in their attempt to break off and run opposition, so it doesn't

mean the battle is over in the court room. However, of course, this goes well beyond Terry Bolea departing the Gulf Coast, but eventually, if you can believe it, Ron Fuller sues Ronnie Garvin over a lot of the fallout from this, including the fact that ron Garvin had taken that the Southeastern Belt is mentioned, and also the idea it's so convoluted and We don't need to get into all of it because it has nothing to do with bolea, but it's just too delicious that basically, like Ronnie Garvin

wanted money to buy another boat, and so concocted a thing where they did like a the winner of a television tournament they used to call it the Bayliner Boat tournaments would win a boat, and he's booked to win it, and Fuller is in court having to testify about predetermining the matches. Ron Garvin used to like to tell a story that Fuller, you know, basically let him win the case and go home with the be yeah, because he

didn't want to admit in court that wrestling was fake. Meanwhile, there's a great book out there called Professional Wrestling in the Law, Legal Battles from the ring to the courtroom where he pulled the filings, and Ron Fuller is totally in court saying that it was completely predetermined and that

Ron Governor was booked to win the whole thing. But I just want to give you a little flavor because this is sort of like the fumes of all of this intrigue that's happening while Terry Bullay is in the territory up in Knoxville, and this is like, this is sort of like a whiff of the absurd end it all came to. This is from nineteen eighty at a Knoxville boss that sent you a clipping. I think you ought to just start reading that headline loud and proud.

I think we know who is editing this paper. Oh brother, hold on, Oh should have forgot that picture. There, there we go, Judge pins fake wrestling scheme? Fake wrestling scheme? Is that redundant? Yes, it's not redundant if you have such a fucking disdain for wrestling that you have to let it drip through your headline. Read come on, put it in. Put it in right there. How about Judge Penn's wrestling scheme? Just no, no scheme gets across the idea that no, it does not, No, it does not.

The word has to be in the headline, Boss, it's gotta be fake to be in the headline. It's gotta be fucking fake, your stupid fuck chancellor, Chancellor. Yeah, that's the Corederick Boss. Frederick D. McDonald today denounced from the bench what was described in his court as a fixed wrestling tournament with the winner of a luxury boat determined before the tournament. I forbid, I love this.

if we decide this case between two phony wrestlers. The public will assume we're a work, I'll say, and then the whole justice system in the whole world is gone fuck. The issue in the suit was twelve thousand dollars, which Welch said he gave to Garvin as a down payment on a twenty seven foot bay liner boat and trailer. Southeastern filed suit June sixth, nineteen seventy nine for recovery of the twelve thousand dollars from Garvin, and asked that the boat be seized for it by the court. The

order was issued by the court. Evidence today showed that Southeastern entered in an agreement with Garvin in which there would be a wrestling tournament with the boat and trailer as a prize, yes and in which it was further agreed that Garvin would win the tournament and the boat. Testimonies showed that Garvin had agreed to repay the twelve thousand dollars when he had sold another boat but not

sold the Headlock. Apparently, Southeastern contended when it got the court order to seize the boat, that Garvin was going to Tokyo to wrestle. Garvin's attorney argued, quote the doctrine the doctor in the Unclean hams Unclean Hands of Stone, saying Southeastern should not come to court with a complaint resulting from an illicit agreement. Chancellor McDonald said Garvin's agreement was to win the tournament and win the boat. He said the plaintiff argue that the tournament was Garvin's idea.

We will leave the parties exactly where they were before the lawsuit. Chancellor McDonald said the doctrine of unclean hands applies to the plaintiff as well as the defendant. He ruled that Garvin would gain possession of the boat. I don't give a shit. Was this a w I mean, I gonna know probably what you all do is so so so what you all do is fake? All right, it doesn't exist. It's not a real thing. So I don't give a shit. Who gets what? Just fucking let

this Garvin bastard take the damn boat. Judge Mischler, it was hardly the first, hardly the first. Judge Mitchler is an archetype. He's not an individual. Okay, I'm a I'm a Chancellor of this court. I do not need to be handled with fake, fake lawsuits. Okay, how do I know? I know y'all ain't gonna get together and have a big steak dinner and a big laugh about this when I'm a big done wasting the court time?

I just was walking through. Dude, I was walking through. Brother. You just think you could just roll up here and just you know, well, brother, what you say? Roll up? Dude?

their handcuffs, on their belt. I'm just walking through. Dude. Well, when to live on the beach again, I can and Boss, the brilliant thing of it is, he would only be the first Terry to put his ear up to a courtroom door. You damn fucking right. And it all came full circle, Boss for Bob Rup and Terry bolea some time later and here he uh some parting thoughts, I guess you could say on this little extra snippet of the Bob Roop Terry Bowleio dynamic.

just turned around walked away. And I've never had any use for him ever since. I mean, you know, that's fine. You know, when I think about it, I thought that perhaps he didn't want to be remembered before he'd become a star by this time. Sure, yeah, so he didn't want to be reminded of his days when he wasn't a star.

so annoying, it is. It is really annoying. And I just just delight in the fact that at some point, after hitting a big hulk ran into Bob Roup after you know, cow towing to him at the Imperial Room when he was in the band trying to get into wrestling, and now Hulk is in the position of acting like Bob Roup doesn't exist. And exactly, I think he kept a very strict and very carefully attended to tallly of people who fit that category. Did our subject to joor

Terry Bulay, Absolutely he did. He is not he is not letting anyone off the hook. It was well boss, a hell of a way to make a living. As the Pensacola Journal here so adequately and aptly chronicled, we always like when we visit a new territory on the lapsed fan and get a flavor of it to pull, you know, the prototypical people come to the matches and these parts, and yeah, here are three old ladies describing why they come to this thing. And here's us asking

them if they know it's fake. And here's us asking a wrestler if it's fake in the locker room and taking a picture of someone lacing their boots. In this case, Austin Idel Hogan's a foe at the time in the territory gets the honors. But as we wrap up the Alabama leg of our journey and the Alabama leg of

Terry Boley's journey. It's perhaps extremely appropriate that we bring you this article from the Sports section of the Pensacola Journal on June twenty eighth, nineteen seventy nine, just as Terry Bolea was ramping up to challenge for the World Championship.

He's using a blood capsule or something. It really hurts these guys when you when people yell fake.

a leg injury sustained the night before. Nervously running his fingers through his shiny black hair, the man in charge of the night's festivities confronts this latest slipped gear in the pro wrestling Merry Go Round. Well, these are things that set your program back, but it can't be helped, he says, disappointedly. Welch is one of the men committed to the success of pro wrestling in Pensacola, and he feels he is just on the brink of attaining it.

So he's on the brink of attaining success. Yes, apparently it's been the opposite so far, I guess okay, But there are always the setbacks, skepticism, skepticism, skepticism from sports purists, rival outlaw promoters. Yeah, sure, injuries. The crowd tonight is respectable, but many seats are given out as charity to the underprivileged, and there is always the rent. I've got to go see if I can round somebody up. I usually bring my wrestling out there with me just in case, but

I didn't tonight. I might have to send somebody for it, he says. The crowd takes the announcement of the cancelation well, except for a persistent course of boo birds in the back who chant give us her money back. Yes, this veteran crowd knows that unexpected lineup changes are part of

the carnival like atmosphere of pro wrestling. They also know that whoever is in charge of the entertainment tonight will come up with some behemoth for the idol to bounce off the ropes and slam onto the plywood with a banchy cry. After all, that's what they came for. Professional wrestling. It's rough and tumble, it's melodramatic, bordering on farcical. It's more authentic than some people give it credit for. It ordering on bordering on bordering on farcical. It's inconsistent. It's fun.

years out of his body. Then he wants to hang it up and go back to being a chemical salesman. Oh, this is definitely sales. This is definitely hell co good.

And I go to Vegas about once a week, walk down the strip, play with the girls, pull a few handles. You know, there is no form, no theory to get into the top. Either you have the ability to put fannies in the seats or you don't. Everybody loves the idol, his body, the glib tongue, whatever you know, Babe. Sometimes I yearn for the media exposure that other pro athletes

are getting. If I could just get on the damn Tonight Show, I know I could make it boom one shot on Johnny Carson and everybody would know the idol that maybe if Johnny quits, I can take his place. N When I quit, I'm going back to Vegas and follow and follow the sun. Finally, there is Rick Field, still trying to get out Joe Rogan today to this day.

By the way, o Ustin, I will remember you saying, why doesn't Joe invite the real deal on if Hogan's going to a show and give me credit for all the gimmicks.

ribs and chest. The next night I wrestled before thirty seven thousand people in the New Orleans super Dome. It was great.

my math is right. As far as when this happened, this would have been shortly after Terry Bullay made it very clear to Louis Toilllett and run Fuller that he was going to Memphis and he wasn't happy, and you know he's going to do the Harley match, but it would be after a bit of an extended absence, or at least relative to how frequently he was working a prolonged absence. So this is probably one of those leg injuries of convenience boss, if nothing else, it's being captured

in this article. Yep, I imagine that. So we got a flavor of the locker room and the talent and the logistical rigamarole that went into making Gulf Coast Wrestling. We also have a little sidebar here in the fans, as promised. So let's get a little bit more acquainted with the vox popular eye of Gulf Coast. Oh yes, indeed, let me go back here. Got start from the beginning here because that was the other one too, right, starts the yeah for fan attics. It gets rid of their frustration.

They come to the matches because they want to blow off some steam, that's right. The large woman in the lavender tent dress was seated front row center in the for the Tuesday Night wrestling card. She frequently was up and out of her out of her chair during every match, trying her darnedess to call the referees attention to the dirty work going on behind his back. Oh damn bad

wrestlers them, those main ones, disdained. Barbara Williamson referred to the mass Gladiator's tag team the obvious bad guys.

off and on. Where did she have the rest of the hospital. I hope ah.

her with the extra larch coke in her hand? I think so, yes, it is? And is Barbara Williams look at her, Oh my god, looks she looks on my aunt Martha. She looks like she's in for a scump, like a legit character. Yeah.

and it's over with. But this is every week. Williamson said, So it's like television then, right, Yeah, who's ever heard of that format?

I would I would, I would have lost my mind as every week. I would have loved it. Such a different experience of pro wrestling than we got to have. Yep, yep, Oh, it'd be fucking amazing. I used to come all the time. Yeah, I know, and then you had eight kids, said Robin Waltman, seventeen. But I've just started to coming here again. She and her friend have made the hours drive every week for the past five weeks. We had to use my daddy's call, she said, but he doesn't mind as long as we

feel it up. A referee for the night's program who used to date Waltman's sister, introduce them to their family their favorite wrestlers. He put in a good wood for me. Oh, Waltman said, with a giggle. The girls were hoping for a brief chat with one of them when the competitors came to the dressing room door to watch the match is preceding their own. It's more interesting when you know the guys, said Waltman. You don't want to get you don't.

You don't want them to get hurt. Last week, a blonde hair dude, one of her favorites, came out to the ring came out of the Ring of Redhead all bloody. I didn't want to watch, but she did along with the rest of the crowd, because blood and guts time is the most exciting time for the fans. Yes, I get excited about this. Oh my god, it really makes me mad when the bad guys beat up on the good guys. I tell you what, you don't want to

be around when I get that excited. Oh my arms, my arms, a swinging, a holler, and I slap whoever's next to me. What we're slapping to fill her up? What exactly?

They go crazy. Among the more passive spectators was Eric Chaffin, an eight year old clad in a Superman T shirt clutching his autograph book Bigpen and thirty one Cents, was at the wrestling matches for only the second time. He paused in the midst of a dash to the dressing room door to catch a retreating wrestler. I've only got two autograss but I want them all, he said enthusiastically.

She leaned over and spoke confidently, pointing to the masked man in the ring. He pulled something out of his pocket.

Hulk got hurt. That was real blood. I tasted it myself. I rubbed it all over my pussy because I love the Hulk. This isn't an amazing He's not even on the show, and every single quote is about the Hulk. He was ninety four, remember, no shit. I know this guy's over like a motherfucker and as a beloved babyface. Yep, exactly, exactly. He is already the only guy anybody cares about. It's amazing. Yep. The daughter was suffering from a cold, which impaired her

hollering ability. Fortunately we don't have that problem. Yes, you damn right. I have to admit. It takes with the thut out of it not being able to holler. She said.

Garden Toast of the Town MTV. What a legited position to be in, Oh for sure. So, as mentioned, Bob Armstrong is making his way back into the territory. He was kind of in and out. This will be relevant when we talk about how Hulk's final days and the territory went. So, you know, a couple of weeks before he wrestled Harley, this appeared in the Press Register. Professional Wrestling takes place Wednesday, Mobile's Expo haul opening bell sounding

eight thirty pm in the main event. Popular Bob Armstrong returns to Mobile to challenge for the Gulf Coast Wrestling Championship. He'll meet the current champion, Austin Idl. Terry the Hulk Boulder beat Idle last week, but it was on a disqualification and the title cannot change hands on that kind of decision. The King of the Cobra Hold from Atlanta makes his first appearance in the city, taking on Terry Latham. The bonus money in this match will be a one

thousand dollars and more details. Doors open at seven pm. How about this From the Mobile Register of June twenty seventh, nineteen seventy nine. A star Studed card will be featured Wednesday night when wrestling is held at Expo Hall, Bell time eight thirty main event Gulf Coast Championship match sending Austin Idl the champion against challenger Bob Armstrong, a great

favorite in Mobile. I do wonder and Ron doesn't knock about this if maybe Bob Armstrong's returned to the territory was accelerated by word coming through that Terry Boulder wasn't long for the area. They seem to be a coincident. Things that are happening here. In a thousand dollars match, the King of the Cobra Hold from Atlanta will take on Terry to Latham. If during the bat Latham can break out of the Cobra hold at any time, he

will win the one thousand dollars. And in a five hundred dollars half the price challenge match, Terry the Hulk Boulder will battle Herb Calvert. That's definitely a step down. That's definitely the match you booked Terry. Then after he tells who he's leaving yep. If Culvert wins, he picks up the five hundred dollars offered in Boulder's challenge. About

this from the Mobile Press. June twenty seventh, Austin Idol, the Gulf Coast Champion, will meet Bob Armstrong in a title bout to highlight Tonight's wrestling program at Mobile's Expo Hall. Other matches on the card, which starts at eight thirty, will have the Superstar taking on Terry Latham, Terry Boulder battling Herb Calvert, the Gladiator screting off with Ron Slinker, Rickey Fields meeting Eddie Sullivan, and Peter Bonet tangling with

Roy Welch. Here's a nice print ad Wednesday ex bohon Gulf Coast titled out It'll be Bomb Armstrong versus Austin Idol, King of the Cobra Hold meets Terry Latham. That is a picture of Ox Baker, but it does not say Ox Baker, so I don't know what that's about. That's fucking wacky. There's the five hundred dollars challenge. Instead of being referred to as Terry Boulder as he is in the print article, in this ad, he's still referred to as the l Hulk El Hulk. That's exactly right. Let's

fast forward a bit here. It's a Pensacola and it's actually Panama City, Florida. This is June twenty eighth. Idol defends wrestling title Austin Idol, who bills himself is the world's highest paid wrestler. We'll defend his Gulf Coast back in their Gulf Coast Southeastern Championship Belt against Ron Slinger tonight at bowl Are Wrestling Arena. Starting time of the program has been changed to eight thirty PM. Terry the

Hulk the Hulk in parenthesis this time. Boulder six foot six, two hundred ninety five pound giant will wressell Herb Calvert, who has challenged everybody within shooting distance. Pardon me shouting distance. Just want to see if you were paying attention there, brother. The Simoons will take on Terry Latham. What we'll take

will take on the Infernos. Rather in a tag team battle, Terry Latham will wrestle Letty Sullivan and Rickey Fields will face the newcomer Pierre Billy Spears, who has managed first one tag team and then another, has fallen out with his latest proteges. So it's Splitsville between the Samoans and Billy Spears Boss. That's big news down a Gulf coast. Big news. That's absolutely big news. Now finds himself. The

article reads, in the unemployed ranks. Wow, he will be on hand tonight to get another team or wrestler to manage. So that's presumptuous intrigued down there as Austin Idol starts to take kind of I don't know, some more top billing more than anything else. What does become of Billy Spears boss? Let's take a look at this nineteen seventy nine July twenty sixth article. This appeared in the News Herald,

Northwest Florida's Watchful newspaper. I don't know what this is about, but it sounds like we got some caf is abe into the piz apern. Mister unemployed is getting a little death in down in golf coaches. Wrestler charged in case.

Billy Spears, a well known professional wrestler, was arrested Thursday afternoon for allegedly hiring an undercovered deputy sheriff to have a fellow wrestler named Sheriff Tullus Easterling, said Spears, whose real name is William Fletcher Spearman, thirty seven of two hundred and two oh one Pensacola Beach Road Golf Breeze, paid the deputy one hundred.

Thursday and missed the match. Easter Link said Spears is charged under a Florida law making it illegal for a person to solicit or conspire with someone to commit an offense. Spears is charged with conspiras aspiring to commit an aggravated assault and could face up to five years in state prison. The wrestler was arrested at six pm and the Panama City Mall parking lot moments after allegedly.

a full glossy article here. You can scroll up from probably what appears to you until you see Terry Boulder with his mushroom cloud chest here and a picture of Ox Baker there at the top. Southern Exposure Tonight the Hulk versus Ox Baker? Can you reforce the quote from professional wrestling fan Mike Broughton right there in the poll quote from the Tomka Alabama.

Gulf of Mexico is only ninety miles away. Peanuts are the main crop, and the National Peanut Festival. Did you know this, boss? The National Peanut Festival is in Dothan. Yes, we talked about it actually as we did. Good thing and when I good memory, Yep, when I when I looked up Dothan on Wikipedia, that's when we're going to remember.

That's when we're going. Yep, that's right, exactly. Every fall many of the regions people still make their living farming, and on Friday nights they may come into town to the Houston County Farm Center for an evening of entertainment. The center is a giant barn, windowless, unair conditioned, and hot on two sides, banks of concrete bleachers reach to

the roof. The center of the arena is open with a dull red dirt floor modeled by tobacco spit and spilled cokes and littered with cigarette butts and peanut holls. A layer of blue smoke drifts across the room. Why is the smoke blue? Several rows of folding metal chairs are arranged in a square out in the dirt floor.

As much of the setting is drab concrete, dirt and metal, all the color is concentrated in the middle of the arena and a wrestling ring of blue canvas and red, white and blue ropes brilliantly lighted by a row of television lamps red white and blue ropes boss from the very beginning for Terry bullamb Wow. For eighteen years, the farmers from the Dothan area have been coming to this

ring on Friday nights to watch professional wrestling. In the years before that, reaching back to the nineteen thirties, they came to older arenas part athletic competition, in part soap proper wrestling is the honest, yeah, really early, way to really early to be making that connection. Pro wrestling is the only sport many of these fans know to our

point earlier, and they are intensely loyal and enthusiastic. The Farm Center will see about five thousand fans, and on a May night earlier this year, fifteen hundred more who wanted in to see the Andre the Giant seven four, four hundred and eighty five pounds were turned away at

the door by fire marshals. I wonder who his opponent was that night, bomm The fans had come to that night to cheer Andre, who some call the Gentle Giant because he is a good guy and the wrestling ring, good and eveler are distinct, and the fans pour into the arena to cheer the good guys in a jeer and curse the back ones. Generalizations are dangerous at MISS Wrestling promoter Dick Stein, born of Montgomery, but quote, it is mostly your blacks and your poor whites who come

out here wow. On a given night, the audience may include a handful of white collar types such as Houston County Probate Judge R. J. Stembridge, a front row regular, and the two women from Panama City, Florida, who drive up every Friday night come in the ringside wearing evening dresses check into the motel where some of the wrestler's study and spend center a poolside chatting with the behinders who were pounding opponents in the ring the night before

and pounding them in the hotel the night before. Ring rats getting pounded breathlessly, full mount.

fight poverty, I work BROTHERER what. Dothan's fans are probably typical in these respects, and nationally millions more share their passion.

The National Wrestling Alliance claims that for the six years from nineteen seventy two to nineteen seventy seven, professional wrestling drew two hundred and nineteen million paying customers, and that same period, the NABA says college football drew one hundred ninety eight million, Major League Baseball one hundred ninety five million, Pro football eighty three eighty three million, and basketball fifty seven million. The wrestling season, of course, is fifty two

weeks long. I'm sorry what I know. I mean also, you know it's kind of funny, I mean, taking consideration this though. Okay, professional wrestling is going every week. Yes, okay. College football has like a couple months in the season. That's why they draw more people exactly the wrestling season. Our season never ends. Matches are promoting countless towns and cities so small other sports would never give them a second thought. And estimated sixty percent of the national attendance

is in the South and arena's like dopans. The price of an average wrestling ticket is four dollars, and the annual paid gate for the industry is estimated between one hundred and million and one hundred and fifty million. Whether sport or entertainment. Wow, this guy's progressive with the word choice here. Professional wrestling is big business. It is also

a closed business in many ways of family business. At one time, promoters in almost every city in North Alabama and Tennessee were related by blood or marriage, and you don't say at Many of the wrestlers and promoters active today got into the business through their families or in laws. Dick Steinborn, for example, is the son of Milo Steinborn, who was a living legend in the wrestling world. A German, Milo went to see as a young boy and was

in Australia in World War One began. He was interned there with other German nationals and a prisoner of war camp. There was nothing else to do, so the men organized themselves in a prison intramurals. Every day, the prisoners wrestled and lifted weights. When the war was over and Milo Steinborn was released, he was a perfectly proportioned and perfectly developed young man of tremendous strength. In nineteen twenty, he stowed away on a ship for New York City and

eventually made his way to Philadelphia, penniless and friendless. In Philly, one day, Milo visited a gym where a weightlifting contest was in progress. Brother Milo realized he had been picking up more weight in the pow camp than these world champions were handling, so he entered the competition and astounded the other lifters, the spectators, and the press, which had a field Day with the man off the streets with the superhuman strength. Sounds like Terry Bowley to me, I

don't know. Yep, yep, Milos Steinborn was discovered. We go through the twenties, we go through promoters hitting new markets. We go through through Milo having two sons, with Vivian Henry and Dick Steinborn. We talk about Dick being the son who loved wrestling, the stink and the sweat of filthy dressing rooms, and then we quote Ox Baker, God help us, who says the following. A wrestling fan is not like a football fan. They are more vicious, more sadistic.

They want to see the bad guys out there, ranning and raving. They won't come to see anything else. You can have the NCAA finals and college wrestling and you can't even get a crowd. It won't even make the papers. In most places. People want action, and we're professionals. We're geared to it, so we give it to them. When there's blood out there, it's real blood. That is something they could say, that's a funny one. That is something they could say. Yep, they could say that. I didn't

say how it was drawn, but it's our blood. I've had teeth knocked out, my knees are boogered up, my wrist has been broken. But when there's blood out there, it's real blood. It's our blood. I've taken razors and just running across my fast Wait, you said, what again? Stick take?

Say we're on TV and it's an hour program. Now I can beat my opponent in forty five seconds, but the promoter may tell me, okay, ox, I need seven minutes, So I'll entertain the people for seven minutes before I put the man down. It's a good one. Wrestlers also have an incentive to win consistently and to build up

a reputation because their earnings depend on it. A wrestler who can do preliminary bouts every night may earn as much as forty thousand dollars a year if he is willing to travel enough, but a main event wrestler like Ox Baker will earn three to three hundred to seven hundred dollars for fifteen minutes of work at the Houston County farm Center before a bigger crowd is evenings, pay

may run as high as two grand. It is the money, Baker says, that is in the back of every wrestler's mind when all the ranting and raving and posturing for the crowd has ended. That's why wrestlers don't get tough together after matches. We're like except you, Oxy, according to ed Leslie, were fucking pal around with Terry Bullay and the wide open public. We're like Magawity challenge coming at each other, and the fans wouldn't understand it if they

saw us later being friendly. At the farm Center, for example, there are two dressing rooms with the word white painted out but still visible over the door to each Wow look at that hadn't been too long since segregation there, boss, huh, I guess, oh yeah. The word white still. And the good guys use one and the bad guys use the other. The wrestlers who stay at the sherit and motor in and doth and I'll take rooms on the same wing. But a good guy generally will associate only with other

wrestlers of the same image. Some wrestlers then work out and stay in shape and try to get stronger so they can be more effective in the ring and at the bank. Some work out because they like it. Back at Gary's gym, Steinborn's face is twisted with pain as he finishes a set of reps and leaps up. The body wants it. The body says thank you every time you do it. The body loves it. He says wow. And Jesse Ventura isn't even in the territory yet. Across

are you ready for this? I want you to read this, okay, across the room, Terry the Hulk Boulder Bold are by the way, not like he's actually spells it is in pain too. He's already in pain. He's in pain. He is sitting on a bench with his arms on a little padded shelf built for curling. Terry has reached the sixth of ten repetitions in his set of curls, and he is almost crying in the effort to finish. Wrestler Ron Slinker, Boulder's friend and road roommate, is counting, yelling encouragement,

and standing ready to take the weight if needed. Weightlifting can be done to increase strength to or to increase what bodybuilders call definition or the prominent appearance of the muscles. Boulder does a little bit of both. Steinborn's chest, arms and thighs ripple with hardness and power, but Boulders body bulges and swells with knots of muscle. During his workout, Boulder constantly watches himself in the mirrors which lines the

gymnasium walls. He flexes his great tan brother, he noticed dude tanned body and studies at deciding which exercise he needs to do to next next to bring out some muscle not quite as defined as the rest. His body and his ring nickname the Hulk, are Boulder's trademarks, and they have made him the crowd favored and a main event wrestler in only four years. The sign outside the farm Castle flashes with his name Center Farm Center flashes with his name tonight. The Hulk versus ox Baker Terry

is six' three and weighs three hundred. Pounds his blonde hair's shoulder, length and he wears a sweeping. Mustache the hair on his chest is shaved into a geometric, pattern which tapers to a point and disappears into his wrestling. Trunks what what are? You geometric? Power what's going? On is a geometric Pat what are you talking? About you telling my thermos shaped? Cock?

sometimes it goes to their. Heads you wonder how well they can handle. It wrestling wives must also cope with the pressures of frequent moves and the regular absences of their, husbands sometimes as much as four or five days a. Week the wives of athletes and other sports, baseball for, example frequently band together for. Support but miss stein now that's not going to happen with wrestling, wives no. Way Miss steinborne says that rarely happens with the wives of.

Wrestlers so they outline so much of the rigors of the, road despite the fact that these guys barely have to travel anywhere between towns relative to what the business is about to. Become three nights, later In, Montgomery calvert will demolish two more challengers and progrest the wrong, slinker a crowd favorite will show up at ringside with five hundred dollars of his own, money Asking calvert why if he's so tough he won't take on another. Wrestler but that's

In montgomery and doth and three. Challengers despite the ease with which they are defeated or congratulated by others in the. Crowd Joey matthews joins his buddies in the, stands and, one grinning, broadly speaks of, hell, boy why didn't you call. Me i'd have thrown you my knife or pistol or. Something. Shit we could have used that five hundred dollars in the race, car could have bought a new. Radiator you're

gonna try him again next. Week i'm seriously considering, It joey, Says, Well i'll work you out all week so you'll be in shape this.

take advantage of. It so he shaved his, head grew a, mustache which makes him look even, fiercer and he cultivated an image as a. Killer AND i noticed how through all this and all the descriptions Of Terry boulegh And, boulder he's not interviewed at. All he doesn't have a word to. Write he's not. There he's not. There baker probably couldn't change his image if he wanted, to because it is so well set in the minds of the.

Fans melan frightening and he's. Frightening, yeah good luck ever being anything but a fucking killer with that look on your. Face Melanie kaepner Of daleville is sixty seven and has been in an institution and in an. Institution she has been an institution at The Dothan arena for two. Decades in an institution at The Dothan, arena she Gives Ox

backer howl from the minute he enters the. Arena she gets up from a ringside, seat walks right next to the, ropes Calling baker profane names names she would never order outside this arena until he over the ropes and shakes this giant fist at. Her the site is almost, comical the huge man towering over the little white haired. Women, Later Miss kaepner is telling some other people what she

thinks Of Oz. Baker you, know he's killed two. Men she, says, Yes terry is about to kill his future In, alabama but not before making these. Articles this is The News, Herald Panama. City this is flash forwarding all the way To october, now so there's basically like a period between the race match and the fall Where boulder kind of disappears and works primarily In, memphis which is the next

leg of our journey here on The Complete hulk. Cogin but By october he's back around and articles like this are. Running Wrestling Slate, HIT a ten round boxing bout Between Eddie mansfield And Kevin sullivan will feature tonight's professional wrestling card At Bowl Air Wrestling. Arena the two wrestlers have a feud going and decided to settle it by donning.

Gloves each will have a second in his. Corner the main event will Pitt Owk's baker against the HEF D terry The Hulk, boulder who is six six and weighs two Hundred now he's two hundred eighty five pounds? Boss what was he? Last? Yet he's? ALL i, mean he's he was three hundred. Pounds he was north of. Three, Yeah baker has had things his own way here in The hull copes to change that and a special tag team, event The assassins will team up Against Roy welch And Jerry.

Stubbs the opening matches EIGHT pm pits The hunter against Newcomer. Billiteo no idea who that?

Well now by this, point as you flash forward Here boss To october thirty, first nineteen seventy, nine thing gets things get very confusing because to Hear Ron fuller tell at a big part of the Reason Terry bolea bolted From memphis was because he wasn't belted in the territory and he took that is something that was significant and something that if this promotion had a future in mind for, him they would have given a belt a long time.

Ago so we leaves, yeh according To Ron fuller's kind of chronology of, things and admittedly he may talk more about the fall as the year goes on in his. Podcast but all of a, sudden not only Is Terry boleya back In southeastern but he is The Golf Coast. Champion let's read this article here From halloween of seventy nine in The Press. Register hulk defends wrestling title Against Professor Toro tanaka and, yes one Word saka is one

word Lowercase Tanaka. Tartonaka oh my. God Professor Torotonaka wrestling returns To mobile for the first time Since Hurricane Frederick wednesday night of The Expo Hall. Wow bell time is eight. Pm maybe that's why they weren't. Shows Hurricane frederick wrecked the whole fucking. Area there we.

Meet Kevin. Sullivan Jimmy, golden who hasn't been In mobile for a, while will meet the Super, pro And Norville austin Meets Bob. Owen's Roy welch Meets Troy graham in a one fall. About Expo hall opens at six thirty.

Of mobile lost, power no shit some for. Weeks it's sort of like a Before frederick and After frederick thing for folks from that. Area twelve on the death toll two point three billion dollars in nineteen seventy nineteen seventy nine dollars in. Damage that's, catastrophic to say the very, least and just just threw everything into a. Tizzy so we'll see if The hulkster can get the area back on its. Feet there it Is Gulf Coast Title, Match Wrestling Expo, hall EIGHT, Pm Gulf Coast Title match The

Hulk champion Versus Professor Toro. Tanaka now again to my point on an earlier, episode remember HOW i was saying that Those bible like title match histories never Had hulk winning this belt or anything like. That, YEAH i don't know who he want it. From he must have want it From Austin, idol because the last thing the newspaper clippings told us Was hulk Beat Austin idol in a non title, match and that was pissed him. Off, honestly

that must have. Been it's not Unlike awkwinkle in eighty. Three, yeah, YEAH i. Know it's seriously the same type of thing into a situation where his reign is supposed to begin and they get cute with, it and pretty soon he wants to fucking. LEAVE i, mean you, know can you blame? Him you, know he wants he wants to win a fucking world title and there and they're denying. Him there's wrestling set tonight at Ex Bo. Hall wrestling comes back To Mobile wednesday night At Expo, hall with the starting

time set for eight. Pm mobile promoters have strived to Bring mobile fans a top notch card and. Wrestling due To Hurricane frederick has been absent From mobile for over two, months but it's set to. Return The Halt Gulf Coast wrestling title holder puts up his belt against the challenge Of professor all In caps all In Caps professor Towards naka in a title, match with both men battling for

the coveted. Championship in a special challenge, match The assassins And Tom shaft will face the popular favorites Mob Up Bob Armstrong Robert. Fuller So robert's, back that's. Interesting the brother Of Ron, Fuller Colonel Rob, parker is done Booking memphis, apparently And Jerry, Stubbs Eddie mansfield Will, Mee Kevin salvan and a few bout another, Matches Jimmy golden will meet the Super pro in a single. Match NorVa austin Wrestled Bob owens in a one fallbout And Roy welch Faces

Troy graham in a singles. Encounter and there was some storm damage that hit the auditorium. Itself it wasn't just you, know the city environs that took, damage in, fact the building where the territory would have their matches and mobile. Damage here's an Article boss from The Mobile Register november, second nineteen seventy. Nine Go ahead.

can be. Completed he.

dollars worth of. Drapes four hundred thousand dollars worth of Drape that's a lot of, drapes, buddy that's a lot of fucking drapes in the. Arena all the drapes were soaked and may have to be, replaced he, specked and water dripped from the sound system's, cage which is suspended from the arena.

pressure Toward. Tonaka now it's two, words The Gulf Coast Wrestling. Champion you reading What i'm reading? Here mm. Hmm Wasn't hulk the? Champion? Yep apparently not. Anymore Did hulk lose The Gulf Wow Coast championship again and he's Wrestling Tony Atlas in the main event Is, tanaka, which of Course Ron fuller said in his podcast is the guy they rushed to bring in when the big muscle man The hulk had given him. NOTICE a fifteen man Battle royal

is also on the. Program Last man in The ring earns a twenty five hundred dollars bonus six man taged. Him elimination bout sends The assassins And Tom shaft Against Robert, Fuller Kevin sullivan And Jerry stubbs notice. Qualifications other. Bouts Roy welch Meets Jimmy gold And Troy. Graham i'm gonna try to do My Ron. Fuller here all bouts Of Royal welch Meeting Jimmy, Golan Troy graham square and off

with a super pro And Bob owens facing The. Mongolian the doors opened EX Ba hall six point thirty p. M as noted, here last week's Canceled halloween daycard at Ex Ball hall due to the storm had A hulk as The Gulf Coast champion defending Against Toro. Chanaka why Does tanaka now have the? Belt what? Happened that's the. Question where are the? Answers? YEP i mean the fact that title histories are incomplete For hulk Fucking hogan doesn't

say a lot for title. Histories according to not the WAY i see, THINGS i don't know about, You, ALABAMA Nwa Southeastern Championship Civic, coliseum here's a card for, you taped fist. Match now we're starting to see this Is. Knoxville this is this is not Only. Knoxville this appears to be, yes this is their answer to the Outlaw knoxville. Group.

Hmm But Hulk hogan has already left and gone To, georgia which of course will cover in focus on a future leg of The Complete Hulk Cogan journey and gone on A tbs working For Olie anderson And Jimmy barnett and Renamed Sterling golden because look who appears right here on This knoxville, card right Whe Ron fuller ran all those months That Terry boulder was. There Special Attraction Sterling golden The Wrestling hall Versus Pierre Lefevre Lefevre Lefevre la

Freev The Wrestling. HULK i see that as being quite. SIGNIFICANT i think you stopped calling him The hulk and start calling him the Wrestling hulk because a certain letter On Marvel masthead arrives at the. Office, yes SO i definitely whenever they say, that pay very close. Attention but elsewhere it's a tape fist, match Brass knuckles, Rules Dick, Slater Paul orndorf Versus Ox baker and The angel managed By Gorgeous George, junior who is back in From memphis

about a thousand dollars. Challenge look who's back in the. Area David schultz and the Future Midnight express Wrestler Dennis, Condrey Robert, Ronfuller MISTER, Usa Tony, atlas And, yes special attraction Startling golden right here In. Knoxville but boss. Come On november, eleventh this article hits The Knoxville News. Standard looks like we have a new owner in. Town In Southeast. Wrestling this reminds me of that period on the lamentable

tragedy Of World Class Championship. Wrestling we're suddenly Like Bo bright and these like Random dallas. People we're in the paper buying interests From fritz Fim. Eric that tells you there's not much time. Left that tells you a drain is. Circle tell us About Bob. Polk, oh, yes he's the Lap Fall wrestling.

Know there are two THINGS i hope to accomplish in the, broways Said polk thirty, three nineteen sixty EIGHT ut graduate and history masters in nineteen seventy. One, first said we should bring to the top wrestling town across the Country Tony, Atlas Stirling, Glodin, sterling Gold, Stirring golden three twenty pounds and known as The Wrestling hulk And Harley. Race, SECOND i hope to return something to the community through civic work myself and the. WRESTLERS a new wrestling group will

have an office On. MAGNOLIA i forgot's, sakes no hold, on, SORRY i accidentally close. It we're seeing. Here if you're not picking it up is the group That Ron fuller Sells knoxville. Too he throws up his hands and says fuck this and sells the you, know not Just. Knoxville he sells his company To Jimmy, barnett, who of course was the big power broker and as we've discussed on The Black saturday, episodes a strong shareholder and kind of a in some ways before he clashed With, oli sort

of like a controlling. Shareholder he was THE nba secretary and he booked the. Champion you. Know he was the one you called to get dates on the world. Champion he was the one that elected the ten percent champions fee and parceled it out. Respectively and now he And Fred ward have Taken Ron fuller's. Territory they've bought it from, him and so it starts to connect a little. Bit while all of a sudden in The, Fall Terry boleya

is coming back around the. Area while this article hadn't hit the press, yet and perhaps the sale hadn't been fully, consummated wouldn't surprise me to know that it was pretty well understood and in the air on the fall of seventy nine That ron was looking to get out and in fact sell to somebody That Sterling golden had gone to work, for Or Terry boleya had gone to work

for and been renamed a re Christened Sterling. Golden and now all of a sudden in this part of the, territory the newspapers or chocol block with mentions Of Sterling golden. Again so it comes back. Around that's kind of Why boulder's first exit from the territory is a bit of a head. Fake it's more like he Leaves Louis toillette than he Leaves. SOUTHEASTERN i got. You let me see. Here so the New Rusting group will have an office

On Magnolia avenue Near sh'll how Chill Howie. Park let's Let's THATCHER Tv productions and Public, relations And Charlie bauer promoter will continue with the organization. Quote he goes there will be no change in admission prices or location of m.

Race Ron fuller continue to Meet. RACE i don't, Know Dick slater And race don't really tend to make it a. Combination Ron fuller continues his feud With sterling The Wrestling, Hulk Golden sterling The Wrestling hulk in Parenthesis golden and another match In David Schultzen Dennis condrey take On Pierre Lea feyere And Jerry roberts in the tag team. Highlight the other two matches complete the eight thirty. Cards there it is, tonight eight thirty, Pm Civic Coliseum Fan Appreciation,

night no increase in. Prices the posters, says, wow what a special treat for. Us of course has mentioned race For slater with special Ref Don curtis and in the special grudge Match boss in my eyes deceiving. Me It's Ron fuller versus who The Wrestling Hulk? Golden but another fucking Type oh for the. Ages can you Pronounce stertlewig s t e r L i W g ster slug the Wrestling? Golden this is a combination Of Jim hellwig

And Sterling. GOLDEN i guess The Wrestling Hulk golden Versus Ron Fuller southeastern tag, Titles david Schultzon Denz Condre champions Versus Jerry roberts And Pierre la. FIV i can't say the name And i'm just gonna deal with. It Sterling

golden still. HERE i wonder if there was like A i wonder if they got a, refund if they misspelled the wrestler's, name AND i wonder and, uh you, know the promoter figured out like a kickback to the to the person who wrote the ad so they would get a piece of the refund so they could get a discount on the. Ad because there's way too many spelling area it's really, bad just about every time there's one of.

Them Knoxville News, Sentinel november twenty. Eighth All Star Championship wrestling Now All, Star, yes was the name of the group That Bob orton and The Knoxville five split off and. Created and look who they're attracting to the. Territory makes sense out of this for? ME i guess it's because they're still running As All Star, wrestling even Though barnett now is pretty much consolidated power and they're on their absolute last. Legs but you don't hear a lot about.

This they're still going to market As All star at the W Knox. Auditorium But Sterling golden's on the, card, Yes and not only is he on the, card he's Wrestling bob Rup that's, right in A hulk. Challenge, now you tell me if there's A hulk challenge for five Grand bob rup and The hulk Sterling. Golden how is The southeastern title match list that above also? HAPPENING i don't. KNOW i Guess bob is working double duty and who's he wrestling besides The hull Working All star? Risks and like?

IT i like. IT i like it a. Lot he don't do your right, Now Bob. Roop you're looking at one, man one man coming in taking care of a, business doing it the way THAT i, do because that is the. Way uh. Huh The Macho, Man Windy savage likes. IT i do like. That he started with you're looking at one. Man he was always big on not stating the. Obvious that's one thing we can say About Rainy. Savage BUT i, can't,

OKAY i, mean this has got to be. It this has got to be the first, time maybe In, memphis but That Hulk hogan And Macho Man Ready savage are on the same. Card. Yeah Hers, Day november twenty, ninth nineteen seventy. Nine knox that it's crazy because The outlaw group is kind of fading away and kind of getting

subsumed By. Atlanta another thing that happens in nineteen seventy, Nine absolutely, right but there's still secial traction still tells you where they, stood as The NO Dq No Time limit tag match puts the five hundred Pound Man Mountain dean And Ronnie garvin Versus Bob Orton junior And Professor Boris. Malenko we of course in The, Malanko orton And garvin part of The Knoxville, five but the See Bob roup

Versus Sterling golden on the card is. Amazing Terry Terry, gibbs that supposed intermediary getting a book down there Facing Barry, Oh Barry. Orton. Wow no FROM Wwf STARS wwf shows to, Come Southeastern Friday Night, coliseum The Don, show and the

absolutely The Donna Hue. Show most, specifically most Memorably november, thirtieth seventy, Nine Friday, night eight Thirty, Coliseum Southeastern heavyweight Titled Dix Slator champion Versus Ernie Ladd, Challenger Tony atlas Versus Sterling Golden mass in nineteen and seventy nine and the return match for The southeastern tag Titles David, Chelton Dennis Condrey champions Versus lathiev And Jerry. Roberts take a look at the next. Damage there's a big Old Dick

slater throwing a heavy elbow terry bowlet slash sterling. Golden you know it's sterling golden for the most. Part if he's now wearing long trunks but not a single et right right chest hair is, shaved but it's skin tight, pants not, trunks and no straps over the. Shoulder but he's got the white wrist tape dialed. In yes he. Does he's Working Dix slater and we're turning to seehim. Melding and what's most amazing is that we haven't talked about the Last Hulk hogan Versus, andre The giant match

In Gulf Coast. Southeastern take a look at. This here we are by the end of nineteen seventy, Nine andrea And hulk are mixing it up, again And hulk is he's got a different coat of pain. On take a look at The, hulk the state of The hulk here it appears not that we can tell why he's got the belt. Back, yeah he has the belt that's The Southeastern championship with the, red white and blue color designed to.

It hulks in skin tight white long, pants red knee, pads red boots And i'm not sure how to feel about.

Know fuller's out and so much has. Changed, yeah The giant had dumped The. Hulk the article reads from the ring When Dick, slater who was upset by The hulk last, week charged from the dressing room and began to beat The hulk with a, chair resulting in The giant's disqualification due to outside interference and other. Matches Jerry roberts Beats Terry. ORRANGE i don't think It's Terry. ORNDORF i could be.

Wrong that's WHAT i haven't heard. Before, yeah that was him when he turned baby face After WrestleMania won nothing DO i. THINK i just bear with, me. BROTHER i think what you should, do, dude is instead of a WHOLE maniai, brother not your baby. Face he shouldn't Be paul Or. DWARF i think you should Be terry On. ORNDWARF i am. DUDE i, mean come, on you, KNOW i think it's a good way to, go. Brother it does say later here in this. Article so later In

Paul oorendwarf Beat David, Scheldt Stennis condrey and the. Grappler. Wow SO i don't. Know maybe there was A Terry orndorff THAT i don't know. About could have been knocks only a. Sentinel here's another article from the same programs of the day Before Andrea Wrestling hulk meeting main. Event the biggest man in wrestling seven foot, four four hundred

and eighty five Pound andre The giant And hulk. Begins by the, Way boss undoubtedly reading these articles his LIFELONG i don't want to say, phobia but his lifelong you, know, obsessive compulsive thing about try to do everything he can to overtake his rival's. Numbers Headlines Friday night of The Civic.

Colisseum his opponent is six foot, six three hundred ten Pounds sterling the Wrestling Hulk golden AND i can't wait to get more into this time period because After hulk leaves and then kind of comes back, around they take The Hulk Andre show on the road The Wow, yeah Consider dothan AND i think it Was, montgomery the other match The Maris, pensacola The Petri. Dish, okay they figured it.

Out this thing draws, well this thing draws, big And Ron fuller was not the only promoter to notice this be prepared for way Before WrestleMania three and before Even Shay, stadium The hulk Versus andre to headline major cities all Over North america and Eventually. JAPAN i can't handle that

ride and out of The. Coliseum battle of The giants seven foot, four forty five pound under The, giant big ass picture Of andre to his massive mit versus six foot, six three hundred ten pounds sterling gold in the Wrestling. HULK i mean you're looking at you're looking at the raw material of The WrestleMania three promotional. Campaign it absolutely is right. Here, seriously it's seventy nine they're already promoting

it is sort of a a special. Attraction it's not even, like you, Know terry the Hult, boulder who's risen to prominence here, locally is going to welcome the international superstar under The giant and see if he can test his. Will he's not the local, boy you. Know terry is the other side of The this marquee sort of freak show that when it comes to town is kind of a special attraction match on the order of AN nba title.

Match so now he's kind of elevated a little bit visa dere and that he's not the underdog hoping to prove himself Against. Andre he's the guy that you want to see Test andre in your. Town and, man are they learning their lesson about this being the money? Match And i'm Sure Vince junr wherever he's, sitting is paying very close attention to this as. Well here's a card that was dug out by The Homie matt From december,

thirteenth seventy. Nine Southeastern Championship wrestling In. Knoxville Southeastern Tag Team, Title schultzen contry Versus Orn dwarf An Atlas Southeastern title, Match Sterling golden Versus Dick. Slater some wow is The southeastern title that he has there on his waist and you see it off to the right as. Well Sterling golden Versus Dick. Slater here's a post from The Wrestling Classic sport mentioning how the title switched around around this

point in. Time this fan Remembers hogan Is Sterling golden won The southeastern title From Dick slater On december, first nineteen seventy, nine worked his FIRST wwwf matches a few weeks, later and went back and dropped the title To Bob armstrong On Christmas. Night so we're worthy about to see to cap off The alabama leg of the Complete Hull Cogan, journey Is hogan coming back to do The Christmas day honors after he's already gone To New york and been

on their. Television that's, Insane really is. Wild you don't really think of their being kind of a anything except The awa In japan on the other side of Hul cogan leaving For New. York but there is a lot more to say than you might, think Because Southeastern Championship wrestling presents a Card Christmas, day and how as we

ride up on Our christmas here in twenty twenty. Five, Boss i'm sure they never could have guessed Back Christmas night nineteen seventy nine to The Civic coliseum And knoxville that we'd be doing something called a podcast about.

Champion they must be saying wrestling Because marvel got. Pissed they have to be all of a, sudden they must they have to. Be in, fact he's probably Called Sterling golden because when he got To NATIONAL tbs they were, like we, can't, no we can't call you The. Hulk that's. Ridiculous it's so obviously Versus Bob, armstrong as well as

A Texas Death match falls count anywhere in the. Building dick's later teams Of Paul arndoor Versus David schuls And Dennis condrey a seven girl over The Tarboro Battle royal fifteen hundred bucks to the, winter and in a special challenge, match It's Buzz sawyer with one ze Versus Ox. Baker snippet if like, task that's, right here's little sippet from The Knoxville New, Sentinel december twenty, Fifth Christmas, day nineteen seventy.

Nine wake, up open the presence with the, kids have your uh your a chicory coffee or, whatever and fried squarel down, there whatever, else whatever. Else Truman capote used to eat his a young boy when he woke up And Bob, armstrong, GEEZ i can't BELIEVE i missed the Whole christmas memory. Connection there's you, Know Truman Capote's Christmas

memory one of the Great christmas short. Stories ever written all about A christmas that these wrestling fans attending the arenas in nineteen seventy nine in this part of the country would have would have remembered and identified earth the smell of fruitcake wafting through the coming out of the

chimney amazing. Times Bob armstrong is back For christmas. Wrestling the headline reads local Favorite Bob, armstrong or as it, Reads Arman strong arm n another check cashed has returned To knoxville to Challenge sterling the Wrestling hulk in Parenthesis golden in a special wrestling Show christmas afternoon At Civic.

Coliseum Dix slater And Paul orndorf Meet David, Chulton Dennis, contry and the main event Of Texas Tag Team deathmatch seven lady Wrestlers lyne And over The Tarborough Battle, royal with the loan survivor taking home the fifteen hundred dollars. Prize In, Ox baker Faces Buzz all You I'S thna call Him Buzz lawyer in a challenge. Match so here it is fast forward one tick. Oh this is the only other match that survivest the f out of. Here they have this. Match they have this match we have

to bring to a conclusion The Gulf coast. Section so much has, happened we're going to push back the timeline a little. Bit BUT i figured With christmas right around the corner and this match happening In, christmas this Is Terry bulat saying goodbye to The rings Of alabama against the stalwart of the area in none other Than Bob. Armstrong my, friend are you? Ready i'm ready. NOW i

don't know how and why this one. Survived i'm pretty sure we're hitting a time period where George Championship WRESTLING tbs would air highlights from other affiliated. Territories knoxville having been bought By Jim barnett And Fred ward would definitely be one of. Them AND i think what we're seeing is not some match, that like The Hogan andre arm wrestling, match happened to survive in the personal collection of some.

Guy man if only some podcast out there one day could get to the bottom of that, one, yeah, Seriously but in, fact this was a match that happened to be from the, area that aired on another television show that while you, know Complete Georgia championship doesn't exist as. Either. Before of, course the proliferation of. VCRs there is a fair amount Of georgia from nineteen. Eighty we watched a bit of it In getting The essence Of Austin idol earlier on The Complete Hull. Cogan and now because of,

THAT i believe we are the. Beneficiaries we get to See Terry boulder mix it up with the Old Man Christmas night nineteen seventy. Nine what a year it's been For Terry bolat and what a way it ends playing in three two.

as a, heel you. Know and he kind of liked his oh, brother and he gets down on his knees and he's like looking into the, crowd, like why, BROTHER i didn't do? It. Dude, yeah he had reserves to call on when he Was. Hollywood, yeah, yeah, yeah for. Sure and the punches and stuff like there were just there's a lot of. It there's a lot of it. There he just there was like a little bit of a lack of follow through that he would develop the

punches and. Stuff, WELL i think of the back elbows and stuff that he did, There like there was it just kind of was a little it didn't feel, Complete, yes unlike a certain, JOURNEY i could, mention but if you think we're, complete my, friend we've only just. Begun look At Terry. Boulder it was nice knowing the THE Nwa southeastern heavyweight. Champion it was nice knowing as chest. Hair it was nice knowing. Him and look at look

at those yellow trunks on That southeastern. Belt too, little too, late but we certainly Get Terry bully strapping himself up a little. Bit we even get us and mentions in the paper as somebody that's interacting with some of the local. Athletes here from The News journal In, Pensacola gainesville Date. Line Danny, fike sophomore Tackled university Of, florida spent last summer lifting weights with a couple of theatrical athletes own

As Ron slinker And terry Foldat Jesus. Christ so he's now officially a theatrical athlete in their prof As Danny fike says from The university Of Florida. Tackle they're professional WRESTLERS i worked out with at The Pensacola Health, club Said, fike who played On Pine Forest High School state for a runner up from seventy to seventy. EIGHT i know they act kind of crazy in the, ring but they're pretty down to earth guys out of the. Ring AND i know one THING i wouldn't want to mess with

them in the. Ring slinker And boulder must be the hiss and boo bad guys who'll do anything, mean dirty and low down to gain an unfair. Advantage otherwise they wouldn't want to mess With Danny. Fike this Columnist Billy mitchell, writes so last vestiges perhaps of the Name Terry, boulder and it's traveling in an area that he LEFT i think way more of an imprint on than he had any right to. Expect M Ron, fuller it's off to court to try to get the belt back and the

boat if he's lucky From Ron. Garvin and it's really never going to be the same in this part of the countries it regards professional. Wrestling but for the last few months that it was the same for the last few months where you could go down there Typical. Hugan he comes in and he gets built up to be on this, megastar and then when he, leaves it's, like oh,

shit like the whole thing goes to. Shit lessons being, Learned lessons being, learned For Terry boleya and all who employ and book him going, forward and there will be a litany of said. Folks but the raw material is. Here we've done our level best to bring it to life for you here in The Complete Hulkoke and never let it be said That Terry Boleya's Gulf coast history is under documented. Anymore it Was, andre it Was, harley it Was Ox baker And Austin. Idol it was so

much of the. Signatures the first hint and whiff of the signatures that would define his career was the beginning of The andre. Feud it is the beginning of calling this, man This Terry. Boleya from The Infinity's end band In, tampa The, hulk As Lou forigno lights up television screens across the country with his portrayal of The Incredible. HULK i think things are. SET i Think Hulk Cogan boss is prepared to be. Born let the new year bring that to you and yours here on The Complete Hulk

hogan and The Lapsed. Fan we've got a couple of more legs of the nineteen seventy nine journey to get acquainted. With Because terry The Hulpe boulder made imprints In, memphis he made imprints In, atlanta and yes he would soon make imprints In New. York we leave you for, now coming off The Christmas night victory Of Bob, armstrong and wish you and yours a happy holiday two thousand and twenty.

Five And i'm left, Wishing boss that ALL i want to get under the tree this year is someone that can help me see what these fans In, dothan In montgomery And mobile And, pensacola and in so many other areas on The Gulf coast we're able to witness As terry The Hulk boulder morphs Into Hulk. Cocain don't know who that could, be but maybe they'll be under the tree this, Year god willing you, Know Charlie, Platt, yes, sir how are? You? Sir next time on The Complete Old cogan