The Complete Hulk Hogan: TLF Interviews Vic Pettit, Terry's Childhood Friend

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<v Speaker 6>So Boss says, we go through the life and times
<v Speaker 6>of Terry Bolea, even before he became Hulk Hogan. There's
<v Speaker 6>so many figures in his life that he has talked
<v Speaker 6>about that we just were endlessly fascinated by the perspective
<v Speaker 6>on Hulk Hogan before he was Hulk Hogan growing up
<v Speaker 6>in Tampa, and we were going through, of course, his
<v Speaker 6>exploits in youth sports, not only in the baseball diamond,
<v Speaker 6>but in the bowling alley as well.
<v Speaker 7>You recall this, right, boss, I do indeed crazy. You
<v Speaker 7>know stuff we didn't even we hardly knew about Holcogan.
<v Speaker 7>And you remember that picture from I believe the Tampa
<v Speaker 7>Tribune where there's a collection of young men who had
<v Speaker 7>just won some bowling trophy and there's Terry in the
<v Speaker 7>background with his massive head taller than everybody else. In
<v Speaker 7>the foreground, dressed to the nines was a young man
<v Speaker 7>by the name of a Vic Pettitt, who we talked
<v Speaker 7>a bit about, who was a childhood friend of Terry
<v Speaker 7>Boleys went on to become a very serious bowler in
<v Speaker 7>his own right. So we figured we'd roll on and
<v Speaker 7>see if we could get a strike in our own right.
<v Speaker 7>And we're proud to tell folks here in the lapsed
<v Speaker 7>fan solar system that is part of the complete Hulk Hogan,
<v Speaker 7>we have found Vic Pettitt himself in Tampa kind enough
<v Speaker 7>to join us here on the show. Vic, thank you,
<v Speaker 7>so very much.
<v Speaker 2>Now, you're very welcome.
<v Speaker 6>It is great to talk to you. And from what
<v Speaker 6>I understand, you grew up. Was it five houses from
<v Speaker 6>Terry and Tampa.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, we both lived on Paul Avenue of South Tampa.
<v Speaker 2>I met him when I was like seven years old.
<v Speaker 2>He lived down the street and I was short and fat.
<v Speaker 2>Of course, he was a big kid. So I had
<v Speaker 2>a little bit of a problem with a neighborhood bully
<v Speaker 2>and he should get picked on. I go home crying
<v Speaker 2>and my dad would say, hey, don't come in here,
<v Speaker 2>cry and get back out and fight with battlest I
<v Speaker 2>got tired of getting my butt kicked, And fortunately I
<v Speaker 2>became good friends with Terry and that probably just kind
<v Speaker 2>of went away after that.
<v Speaker 6>So that's that's awesome. Yeah, he paints he paints a picture,
<v Speaker 6>you know, in his book and stuff of being kind
<v Speaker 6>of afraid of confrontation a kid despite his size. Uh,
<v Speaker 6>and he kind of was reluctant to get involved with
<v Speaker 6>the hijinks his brother was involved in and stuff. Uh.
<v Speaker 6>Do you remember him being kind of tough and intimidating.
<v Speaker 2>Well, no, I mean his his father, his brother was
<v Speaker 2>his father was a very easy going guy. Terry was
<v Speaker 2>a very mild manner guy. And uh, his brother Alan,
<v Speaker 2>that was another story. Was he was a lot tougher
<v Speaker 2>guy than than Terry was. Uh, you know, his kids,
<v Speaker 2>and he was older than Terry. And I think he
<v Speaker 2>used to pick on Terry a little bit when they
<v Speaker 2>were younger.
<v Speaker 6>Sure sure, Uh brother's right? Did he say brother back then?
<v Speaker 2>Vic?
<v Speaker 6>I doubt it.
<v Speaker 2>He well, not not like he does now, you know,
<v Speaker 2>or very good you know. Uh. And and I told
<v Speaker 2>a lot of people, I said, well, you know he
<v Speaker 2>really was because I was an only child. I said,
<v Speaker 2>he really was like my brother, right and uh and
<v Speaker 2>he would say brother to me. Uh you know. So yeah,
<v Speaker 2>that's kind of when that started a long time ago.
<v Speaker 6>So when you called on him to back you up
<v Speaker 6>against bullies, would he face these kids down? Would he
<v Speaker 6>punch him in the face? What would he do to
<v Speaker 6>make sure they didn't bother you?
<v Speaker 2>Again? Well, we had a kid, We had a kid
<v Speaker 2>on the neighborhood name was Butch Smith, who's passed away now.
<v Speaker 2>And Butchers wanted just to pick on me. And he
<v Speaker 2>was a little bit older than me, and Terry was
<v Speaker 2>nine months older. But I remember one day and we
<v Speaker 2>played football in the street and Indian ball where you're playing,
<v Speaker 2>you know, with a baseball of that and uh. I
<v Speaker 2>remember one day we were playing in the street and
<v Speaker 2>something happened and Terry was turning around to walk back,
<v Speaker 2>and Butcher took the ball through it and hit Terry
<v Speaker 2>right in the middle of the back. And Terry just
<v Speaker 2>walked over and just spidered his nose for.
<v Speaker 6>Him and wow, but problem did uh wow. Okay, so
<v Speaker 6>the right hand, the right hand was there all that time.
<v Speaker 7>I mean, I can, I can, I can, I can.
<v Speaker 7>Also I can see him definitely getting upset when someone
<v Speaker 7>hit him in the right in the middle of the back.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, and he had his back turn to him,
<v Speaker 2>you know, so yeah, that's kind of a cheap shot.
<v Speaker 6>But yeah, cheap shots. He's funny because in wrestling he's
<v Speaker 6>always talking about getting cheap shotted by you know people.
<v Speaker 6>Was he like afraid of people coming up behind him
<v Speaker 6>as a kid.
<v Speaker 2>I don't remember anybody. People just didn't mess with him,
<v Speaker 2>you know, he was such a big kid, and he
<v Speaker 2>was a nice kid. He didn't, you know, cause trouble
<v Speaker 2>with people, so people didn't bother him. You know. He
<v Speaker 2>was just kind of a very smart student of school,
<v Speaker 2>very smart, and just a quite very good athlete, very
<v Speaker 2>good baseball player. I mean we both made the All
<v Speaker 2>Star team and Little League inter Bay, right, yeah, Enterbay
<v Speaker 2>Little League. We both made the All Star team. He
<v Speaker 2>made it as an eleven year old and a twelve.
<v Speaker 2>I made it just as an eleven. And I recently
<v Speaker 2>did an interview with Netflix and I said, you know,
<v Speaker 2>growing up in the same neighborhood with Terry was not
<v Speaker 2>really easy for me because I had I had, you know,
<v Speaker 2>some He was always, like I said, a better student.
<v Speaker 2>He could throw the ball out than me. We both
<v Speaker 2>pitched to his dad in the backyard and he, uh,
<v Speaker 2>you know, would always throw the ball harder than me.
<v Speaker 2>He could hit the ball a lot farther than me.
<v Speaker 2>So you know it. It was tough trying to compete
<v Speaker 2>with him, you know, but fortunately it was my buddy.
<v Speaker 2>And I remember a lot of times we'd go places
<v Speaker 2>and people that saw us, you know, together all the time.
<v Speaker 2>If he wasn't with me, they'd say, where's your brother
<v Speaker 2>at And I'd say, well, I don't have a brother,
<v Speaker 2>And I said, have a big, blondhaired kid brother, right,
<v Speaker 2>So so I said, no, that's that's my buddy. That's
<v Speaker 2>not my brother.
<v Speaker 6>That's cool. So did he You probably have heard this
<v Speaker 6>vic He in his second book said he he said
<v Speaker 6>he went to the Little League World Series and absolutely
<v Speaker 6>cleaned up that. He said, uh, and this is this
<v Speaker 6>is the stuff of legend. Because you know him, you
<v Speaker 6>tell some tall tales.
<v Speaker 2>He said.
<v Speaker 6>We went to the Little League World Series where I
<v Speaker 6>got up to bat fourteen times and I went ten
<v Speaker 6>for fourteen. I had a seven fourteen batting average in
<v Speaker 6>the finals of the Little League World Series. It was
<v Speaker 6>unheard of.
<v Speaker 2>When he was fourteen years old, he was playing the
<v Speaker 2>Pony League and he was playing. He pitched and played
<v Speaker 2>third base, and he had a ground ball to third,
<v Speaker 2>or he was playing third and they had a ground
<v Speaker 2>ball to him and he made the throat to first
<v Speaker 2>and snapped a bone in his arm. Oh no, and
<v Speaker 2>that was the end of his career right there, as
<v Speaker 2>far as baseball games.
<v Speaker 6>So you were there at that game.
<v Speaker 2>No, I wasn't. I quit playing at twelve because I
<v Speaker 2>was just I decided to bowl all the time. My dad.
<v Speaker 2>In fact, my father and I were the first father
<v Speaker 2>and son and Tampa in the Hall of Fame together.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, let's not waste any more time telling the listeners
<v Speaker 6>about your achievements in bowling, because it seemed it seemed
<v Speaker 6>pretty clear from what we were reading that you were
<v Speaker 6>a pretty precocious, gifted young bowler. But tell folks how
<v Speaker 6>far you went.
<v Speaker 2>Well. I bowled on Pro Bowls tour from nineteen seventy
<v Speaker 2>three to nineteen eighty seven, on and off, and we
<v Speaker 2>ended up owning the bowling center that Terry and I
<v Speaker 2>used to bowl. And it was a small, sixteen to
<v Speaker 2>nine bowling center, and my parents bought it. But by
<v Speaker 2>the time they bought it, I was already preparing to
<v Speaker 2>go out on tours. So you know, it wasn't like
<v Speaker 2>we owned it all along. And I just grew up
<v Speaker 2>with my parents owning the bowling eye. I did grow
<v Speaker 2>up in the same place, So yeah, I did pretty well.
<v Speaker 2>I was averaging close to one hundred and ninety when
<v Speaker 2>I was twelve years old, and so that was the
<v Speaker 2>one thing I like. I say I couldn't compete with Terry,
<v Speaker 2>but that was the one thing I had on him.
<v Speaker 2>He couldn't compete with me bowling wise. I was the
<v Speaker 2>bowler and Terry was good at many other things.
<v Speaker 7>When he was Bowling. Did anyone ever like make fun
<v Speaker 7>of him, like Terry bowl Lea, No, you know.
<v Speaker 2>That's the funny thing you say his name because really,
<v Speaker 2>and a lot of people don't know this. His father
<v Speaker 2>was Italian and his last name is actually pronounced bowl yah.
<v Speaker 2>Yes it is not Bolea, but his mother didn't like
<v Speaker 2>the Italian pronunciation. She would say bolet and that's what
<v Speaker 2>ended up coming out with blew bolea, which sounds French yea,
<v Speaker 2>but yeah, his real pronunciation. I don't know if his
<v Speaker 2>son even knows that. I want to tell Nick that
<v Speaker 2>when I get a chance.
<v Speaker 6>Sure. Yeah, that's that's the family lord that probably has
<v Speaker 6>lost in time.
<v Speaker 2>Now.
<v Speaker 6>It was Ruth wasn't Italian, right, I think she was Irish, right.
<v Speaker 6>I think her mid name is Moody.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Moody, Yeah. I remember her. Her parents Virginie and
<v Speaker 2>Pop Moody. I mean, like I say, Terry and I
<v Speaker 2>would get everything together, so his parents and my parents.
<v Speaker 2>You know, I'd spend time at his house, he spent
<v Speaker 2>time at my house. I got to know his grandparents
<v Speaker 2>on his mother's side, and I also met his grandmother
<v Speaker 2>on his father's side. She came down from New Hampshire.
<v Speaker 2>His grandfather on his father's side died in nineteen sixty,
<v Speaker 2>so that was before I met Terry. But yeah, Pete
<v Speaker 2>Terry's father was just the sweetest gentleman. No construction worker, uh,
<v Speaker 2>very smart man, but just a hard working general soul
<v Speaker 2>and like I said, like a second father to me.
<v Speaker 6>Sure Terry talks in his book about the neighborhood as
<v Speaker 6>being called if I'm not mistaken, s o g south
<v Speaker 6>of Gandy. Does that sound right?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? SAG. Yeah, that's what I call it, Saga South
<v Speaker 2>of Gandy. We were, we were two blocks south of Gandy.
<v Speaker 2>He was right off McDill and I was right off
<v Speaker 2>the sixth street on Paul Avenue.
<v Speaker 6>So what what's the rep What does that mean? The SAG?
<v Speaker 2>What?
<v Speaker 6>What kind of neighborhood is that?
<v Speaker 2>Well, it was just it's just a middle you know,
<v Speaker 2>middle income neighborhood. It wasn't it wasn't real poor, but
<v Speaker 2>it wasn't you know, rich by any stretch. You know.
<v Speaker 2>We got a new bike at Christmas time. That was
<v Speaker 2>a big thing. And I remember I saw a thing
<v Speaker 2>in a magazine that we could get. I mean, we
<v Speaker 2>were Christmas was coming up, and I said to my mother,
<v Speaker 2>and of course she said it the ruth. They had
<v Speaker 2>these bell and hell for eight millimeter cameras and also
<v Speaker 2>the projector on the screen. And uh, Terry's aunt, her
<v Speaker 2>name was Heavy and she she would come down each
<v Speaker 2>year and film things. They had films from the eight
<v Speaker 2>millimeter movies from up in New Hampshire and all over
<v Speaker 2>and they lived in Baltimore, and uh so we got
<v Speaker 2>to see those movies. In fact, I've got copies of
<v Speaker 2>all that stuff. Wow, the video you see on him,
<v Speaker 2>the stuff that I had, and I've got them all
<v Speaker 2>on DVDNAS.
<v Speaker 6>So that's awesome, that's incredible. What was the what was
<v Speaker 6>the dynamic like with Alan? Because you know, Terry talked
<v Speaker 6>a lot about what ended up happening with Alan. We
<v Speaker 6>were reading all about it, you know, as he had
<v Speaker 6>all his troubles in Tampa and then what happened to
<v Speaker 6>his his ex wife was Alan the Alan you knew?
<v Speaker 6>Wild man? Like, how how would you? What are your
<v Speaker 6>key memories with me?
<v Speaker 2>Alan was always very nice, very respectful to my parents,
<v Speaker 2>very respectful to me, never picked on me at all.
<v Speaker 2>But I know as he got older, you know, when
<v Speaker 2>he drank, he would get pretty pretty wild, and I
<v Speaker 2>know he h most people for John Matusac played with
<v Speaker 2>the Oakland Raiders. Of course John Tusac. Terry is playing
<v Speaker 2>in the band, and uh, there's a place called the
<v Speaker 2>Islands Club on David Island. Well, Terry, here's Terry, you know,
<v Speaker 2>six foot seven. He's up there playing in the band,
<v Speaker 2>and he's looking out over the crowd. And my Tusac
<v Speaker 2>was playing at the University of Tampa at the time
<v Speaker 2>in college and number one draft pick. And uh, anyway,
<v Speaker 2>my Tusac was six foot nine and had this big offer, right,
<v Speaker 2>And so Terry says, up there playing in the band,
<v Speaker 2>he looks out in the crowd, he sees Mythusac out there,
<v Speaker 2>towering over everybody. He looks and he sees his brother Alan,
<v Speaker 2>who Alan was like a bow and brawler. I mean
<v Speaker 2>he was. He was a bad hombre. And he's saying
<v Speaker 2>to himself, he said, I'm thinking if the two of
<v Speaker 2>them go at it, I'm gonna drop my guitar and
<v Speaker 2>jumping on my brother's side. Ah, he said, sure enough.
<v Speaker 2>He looks out there in a little while and there's
<v Speaker 2>Alan in the two sack going at it. He goes
<v Speaker 2>and drops his guitar and about four guys are trying
<v Speaker 2>to pull his brother off in the two sack. Oh
<v Speaker 2>my goodness, just pund in the two sick. He finished
<v Speaker 2>fourth in the world in the almssing contests in Polooma, California,
<v Speaker 2>So I never lift their weight in his life.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, there's all kinds of well not all kinds, but
<v Speaker 6>there is some publicity on the California papers about, you know,
<v Speaker 6>Hulk Cogan's brother, because Terry tells the story that his
<v Speaker 6>brother first stopped off in Texas and maybe even changed
<v Speaker 6>his name. So there's like this gap where you don't
<v Speaker 6>really see much of Alan, and then when Hulk becomes
<v Speaker 6>the television superstar in the mid eighties, you know, of
<v Speaker 6>course the papers are like this guy Hulk Cogan's brother,
<v Speaker 6>that's that's amazing. But he had that that in between time.
<v Speaker 6>I guess where he became a totally different person.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, yeah, Alan. I remember Alan used to you know,
<v Speaker 2>like to ride motorcycles, and so did Cherry end up
<v Speaker 2>like to ride motorcycles also. But Alan was a pretty
<v Speaker 2>tough biker, you know. And Terry told me he goes
<v Speaker 2>out to uh, he's wrestling in La and he said
<v Speaker 2>he gets a note from a security guard that Alan
<v Speaker 2>wants to come in. The security guard says, Terry, this
<v Speaker 2>guy wants to come in and meet with you, and
<v Speaker 2>he said, okay. He saw it was Alan's handwriting. As
<v Speaker 2>Alan he said, let him in. So he lets him in.
<v Speaker 2>He's got like two or three of his buddies and
<v Speaker 2>by then Terry's you know, six seventh, three and a quarter,
<v Speaker 2>and Alan starts to give him a little little passle
<v Speaker 2>and he looked at Alan and said, hey, Alan, not
<v Speaker 2>not going to happen anymore. Brother. Allan just kind of
<v Speaker 2>backed off and kind of teared up, you know.
<v Speaker 6>Yea.
<v Speaker 2>But he was in pretty bad health by them. So
<v Speaker 2>he died at thirty eight years old. Yeah, yes, And
<v Speaker 2>that after he died, the Inquirer called me. A guy
<v Speaker 2>from the Inquirer called me because he saw magazine and
<v Speaker 2>the articles and things and asked me about Alan Ba
<v Speaker 2>And I said, that's when Terry was wrestling gas Andre
<v Speaker 2>and at that time. And I said, I don't know
<v Speaker 2>who Alan boy is. I just played stupid, you know,
<v Speaker 2>I didn't. I don't want to talk about it.
<v Speaker 6>Sure, Sure, what's funny you say that? Because we were
<v Speaker 6>looking at an article. I think it was eighty nine.
<v Speaker 6>There was a paper, a paper I think out of Georgia.
<v Speaker 6>I mean it' been in Atlanta Constitution. I don't know
<v Speaker 6>what it was. But they they knew that Terry grew
<v Speaker 6>up and Terry was born technically in Augusta. So they
<v Speaker 6>wanted to do this piece about, you know how Hulkogan,
<v Speaker 6>the big you know, superstar, actually has Georgia roots. And
<v Speaker 6>the reporter mentioned that he called WWF and their spokesperson said,
<v Speaker 6>if you're going to get into any of his actual
<v Speaker 6>real life background, we're not going to talk to you.
<v Speaker 6>It seemed like there was kind of like a thing,
<v Speaker 6>let's let's keep this Hull Cogan guy as mysterious as
<v Speaker 6>possible for for a while.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, yeah, Alan, I mean Terry he was actually
<v Speaker 2>living in South Carolina, I think that's right, Aiken a Acon,
<v Speaker 2>South Carolina. And then but there was no hospital, so
<v Speaker 2>Ruth went to deliver Terry, so she had to go
<v Speaker 2>to Augusta. And uh so there was really you know,
<v Speaker 2>he didn't grow up in Augusta, who never lived there? Really,
<v Speaker 2>he was just born in a hospital there.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, so yeah, they kept that though. Ruth used to
<v Speaker 6>say Georgia Peach. They didn't They played that up big,
<v Speaker 6>didn't they.
<v Speaker 2>Oh? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, there's so many funny stories. I
<v Speaker 2>remember when he was on uh Johnny Carson. Oh yeah,
<v Speaker 2>if you've seen that clip, well, he's on there with
<v Speaker 2>Johnny and he says, you know, wrestling and ring is
<v Speaker 2>really tough and this that, and he shows Johnny his hand.
<v Speaker 2>He said, you know, like some wrestler had bit his hand. Well,
<v Speaker 2>that wasn't the case. I was kind of laughing when
<v Speaker 2>I watched it because I knew the whole story. Terry
<v Speaker 2>caught a guy ripping off his eight track player out
<v Speaker 2>of his car over and the guy was guy was
<v Speaker 2>sitting there laying on the seat trying to unbolt this thing,
<v Speaker 2>and Terry just reached in and punched this guy and
<v Speaker 2>the guy's tooth, I guess, caught his hand and then
<v Speaker 2>it got infected and they had put a little drain
<v Speaker 2>in there and stuff. So I said, yeah, okay, play
<v Speaker 2>it up. Yeah, the wrestlers are biting on the hand now,
<v Speaker 2>biting on the hand.
<v Speaker 6>So did that did that break in the car and
<v Speaker 6>the atrakt thing? Did that happen when he was wrestler
<v Speaker 6>or is that like a really old injury.
<v Speaker 2>Oh that that thing that happened with his hands before
<v Speaker 2>he ever even got into wrestler.
<v Speaker 6>Wow, that's really funny. You played it up there.
<v Speaker 7>One of my favorite something, one of my favorite parts
<v Speaker 7>of that interview is when when Johnny Carson takes out
<v Speaker 7>the old class photo photo yes, and and and Terry
<v Speaker 7>kind of freaks out a little bit, like he's like,
<v Speaker 7>where did you get that photo from? He's nervous. I mean,
<v Speaker 7>do you know what he was? He really nervous, do
<v Speaker 7>you know?
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, he was.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if he was nervous. Yeah, Ruth, Ruth
<v Speaker 2>gave that to Johnny's staff. The teacher I was his
<v Speaker 2>third grade teacher. Her name was missus Armstadt, and I
<v Speaker 2>was a grade behind Terry, and I had missus Armstrot
<v Speaker 2>in the third grade. I ended up having her same thing,
<v Speaker 2>same teacher, so I remember missus Unstein. But yeah, he was.
<v Speaker 2>He was kind of surprised because I guess he didn't
<v Speaker 2>know that Ruth had given that to the staff. And
<v Speaker 2>then Johnny pulls it out and he's like, where'd you
<v Speaker 2>get that at the funniest part of that interview was
<v Speaker 2>Johnny's looking at his arms. Of course by then they're
<v Speaker 2>like twenty six centches and he says, God, my god,
<v Speaker 2>I wish I had anything that big, and Terry looked
<v Speaker 2>at him. He's very quick winning. He goes, yeah, how
<v Speaker 2>about your bank account?
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, that's awesome. I could ask you this, vic. I mean,
<v Speaker 6>I'm you're probably the only person you might not know,
<v Speaker 6>but you're probably the only person we could ask now
<v Speaker 6>that you know. His father's gone and his family. We
<v Speaker 6>were going through mentions of Terry Bolea in the papers
<v Speaker 6>and the Tampa Tribune in nineteen sixty four, so he
<v Speaker 6>would have been what eleven years old. There there's this
<v Speaker 6>column and it just lists like civil action damages that
<v Speaker 6>had been issued in the local court. And it's got
<v Speaker 6>us of names. It's just names. It's not an article
<v Speaker 6>or anything. It's just a bunch of like cases. And
<v Speaker 6>one of them is Terry Bowley at all, meaning him
<v Speaker 6>and a lot of other people as well as his father,
<v Speaker 6>Peter Bowley Junior, won civil action damages from someone by
<v Speaker 6>the name of Alfred L. Smith. Does that name mean
<v Speaker 6>anything to you?
<v Speaker 2>No, nothing about it. And I've never heard that, jeez,
<v Speaker 2>I've never heard that. Yeah, that's that's one on me,
<v Speaker 2>And I know Terry's background probably as good as anybody.
<v Speaker 6>I mean, those records are so old now you could
<v Speaker 6>never find them. But I don't know what would have
<v Speaker 6>been at that age. Something he his dad would collect on.
<v Speaker 6>Maybe an injury or something. No clue, but yeah, I
<v Speaker 6>got I have no clue. Yeah, all right, Well we
<v Speaker 6>did our we did our honest best there when he
<v Speaker 6>was doing baseball, he remembered there. Well, that's why I'm
<v Speaker 6>asking you. I'm not sure if it's the case or not,
<v Speaker 6>he says, I'm not sure if it's still there. But
<v Speaker 6>for many years there was a plaque hanging at the
<v Speaker 6>Inner Bay Little League Baseball Fields down near the entrance
<v Speaker 6>to McDill air Force Base noting that Terry Bully had
<v Speaker 6>the most home runs in a single season.
<v Speaker 2>True that I don't believe. I don't think he led
<v Speaker 2>that season his twelve year old year. I think it
<v Speaker 2>was another kid named lou Garcia, his fathered up being
<v Speaker 2>the coach of the all Star team. I think lou
<v Speaker 2>led led the league and home runs. I do remember
<v Speaker 2>one home run Terry Hitto. He played on the Little
<v Speaker 2>Generals that was a convenience support and food mart in
<v Speaker 2>our area, and I played on the red Wing Carrier Indians.
<v Speaker 2>I was a you know, transportation of gasoline, and I
<v Speaker 2>was a pitcher and my team wasn't very good, and
<v Speaker 2>Terry's team wasn't really good either, you know. Uh So anyway,
<v Speaker 2>we're playing them and we're ahead. We're up by like
<v Speaker 2>one run, one or two runs going into the last inning,
<v Speaker 2>and I think we're up by a run, and so
<v Speaker 2>we get two out and now there's a man on
<v Speaker 2>and who comes up with Terry? You know, he's my
<v Speaker 2>best friend, you know. So he comes up. The coach
<v Speaker 2>comes out and he talks to me and says, look,
<v Speaker 2>don't give him anything good to hit, because you know,
<v Speaker 2>if you're walking, okay, no problem, we can we can
<v Speaker 2>deal with that. But don't give them anything to hit,
<v Speaker 2>because you know how far can hit? I say, you know,
<v Speaker 2>to tell me. I know. So I throw the first pitch,
<v Speaker 2>I throw it down and in. I throw a curveball
<v Speaker 2>and it goes down and he swings over it. I said, oh, okay,
<v Speaker 2>I think maybe I can get in here. So then
<v Speaker 2>I throw another fastball down and in, and he swings
<v Speaker 2>over it again. So I got him two and zero
<v Speaker 2>and I said, okay, to see I'm gonna try and
<v Speaker 2>throw one outside just to see, you know, don't throw
<v Speaker 2>it over the plate, just throw it outside. I tried
<v Speaker 2>throwing a curveball outside and it broke. It broke too good,
<v Speaker 2>went over the plate and hit it over the He
<v Speaker 2>hit it over the lights.
<v Speaker 6>God damn.
<v Speaker 2>Man, I will never forget as long as I live.
<v Speaker 2>He's between second and third and about shortstop and he's
<v Speaker 2>looking at me. I'm just turning around looking at him.
<v Speaker 2>I got my head down and he's got his hand
<v Speaker 2>over his mouth and he's laughing and looking at me
<v Speaker 2>and like pointing at me like I just got you man.
<v Speaker 6>Wow, Well now I know why you didn't forget that one.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? Right?
<v Speaker 6>Was it true that if he grounded that it was
<v Speaker 6>like a laughing stock watching him try to run to
<v Speaker 6>first or would he exaggerate that? Did he hat you?
<v Speaker 2>Well? We we were slow. In fact, on the All
<v Speaker 2>Star team there was a kid named tom Riley who
<v Speaker 2>was a big, heavy set kid. Me and Terry we
<v Speaker 2>were the last three always when we wait and when
<v Speaker 2>everybody ran, we were the last three in Terry was
<v Speaker 2>ahead of me and Tommy Riley was ahead of me.
<v Speaker 2>I was dead last because I was short and fat.
<v Speaker 2>Now I'm six one and the wait about one ninety.
<v Speaker 6>But wow.
<v Speaker 2>In fact, Terry came to watch me play softball years later.
<v Speaker 2>I played some pretty big competitive softball. I had a
<v Speaker 2>ground ball of sour stuff and beat it out. He said,
<v Speaker 2>oh my god, you never could run like that when
<v Speaker 2>you were young. I said, yeah, I know, I grew
<v Speaker 2>up something something short that anymore. That's funny.
<v Speaker 7>Something that kind of just occurred to me was, you know, everybody,
<v Speaker 7>anybody who's watched him as a wrestler, and uh, you know,
<v Speaker 7>beyond that, we know that that kind of that that
<v Speaker 7>that loud, deep voice. But you kne him as a
<v Speaker 7>kid before before his voice changed and was adult voice.
<v Speaker 7>What was that like?
<v Speaker 2>Well, he just had a normal It wasn't deep, and
<v Speaker 2>it wasn't it wasn't high. Yeah, you know, it was
<v Speaker 2>just a normal I'd say, a normal tenor voice, you know,
<v Speaker 2>octive voice, and uh, but yeah, he was he was.
<v Speaker 2>He was something I remember. I used to get so
<v Speaker 2>frustrated because I couldn't beat them anything except I did
<v Speaker 2>get him on bowling. But we'd play this electric football
<v Speaker 2>game and you take your little men set him up
<v Speaker 2>there and he turn on this thing and they vibrate
<v Speaker 2>and they go down the field. He used to kick
<v Speaker 2>my ass and that thing all the time. I used
<v Speaker 2>to get so mad. I take all my men who
<v Speaker 2>were up there front block. I just put him in
<v Speaker 2>a pile there with the football, if you know everything.
<v Speaker 2>I just could not beat him at it, you know,
<v Speaker 2>and I'd get snow aggravated.
<v Speaker 6>Did he ever challenge you to see who could stuff
<v Speaker 6>more rocks up their nose?
<v Speaker 4>No?
<v Speaker 2>I know he did that when he was younger. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I never did that one. Did you ever witness it? No? No,
<v Speaker 2>I never saw it. I think I was before I
<v Speaker 2>met him. I say we were like seven.
<v Speaker 6>I read that. I read that like four times in
<v Speaker 6>his book, and I'm like, is he trying to make
<v Speaker 6>some kind of like euphemism for snorting cocaine or something?
<v Speaker 6>Because this makes no sense to me. Why is he
<v Speaker 6>putting rocks up his nose? I don't get this.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I don't know. I don't know on that one.
<v Speaker 2>I do remember him saying that he did that when
<v Speaker 2>he was younger.
<v Speaker 6>Well, he was a big he was a big boy.
<v Speaker 6>Take us into the breakfast, the lunch, the dinner, table.
<v Speaker 6>I mean, how hard would he go in that kitchen?
<v Speaker 2>Well, we I remember the face. We used to like
<v Speaker 2>to eat. We used to like the smoke turkeys, sandwiches, sure,
<v Speaker 2>And I'd go on Friday as with his mom to
<v Speaker 2>to win Dixie and we you know, she'd go shopping
<v Speaker 2>on Friday, so that's when Pete got paid. And we
<v Speaker 2>love the Kibler chocolate chip cookies. And my mother would
<v Speaker 2>buy Charles chips and that type of thing, great big
<v Speaker 2>cans of them potato chips, you know. And and we
<v Speaker 2>used to go to there's a place in Tampa, the
<v Speaker 2>very famous steakhouse called Burns Steakhouse r NS. It's a
<v Speaker 2>world renowned steakhouse, largest privately owned wine collection in the world.
<v Speaker 2>Almost at one time they were close to a million bottles.
<v Speaker 2>And in fact, my wife and I just ate there
<v Speaker 2>a couple of nights ago. But anyway, it's been nur
<v Speaker 2>since nineteen fifty six. My dad was in the tropical
<v Speaker 2>fish business and he used to take us customers there
<v Speaker 2>from New York and things like that. And uh, but
<v Speaker 2>Terry would go with us. And when he and I
<v Speaker 2>would go to Burns with my dad, my mother and
<v Speaker 2>the customers we would destroy thing on the table. We
<v Speaker 2>were twelve years old. We're kind of sixteen ouse tea
<v Speaker 2>bones and if there's solid left, we're taking care of
<v Speaker 2>that too. And I mean even the creamers on the table,
<v Speaker 2>if they didn't go in a coffee, we're drinking them.
<v Speaker 2>That's why we were both. We were both fat when
<v Speaker 2>we were young. We ate everything.
<v Speaker 6>He's talked about these huge and I don't even know
<v Speaker 6>if they still exist because it doesn't sound right to me,
<v Speaker 6>these huge baby Ruth bars that sounded like they were
<v Speaker 6>like two feet long. Do you know what he's talking about.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know about the baby with I know we
<v Speaker 2>we would eat a lot of candy, you know, like
<v Speaker 2>salt Orter taffy and baby were so I'm sure we
<v Speaker 2>ate those and a lot of candy bars. You and
<v Speaker 2>I would go down the seven eleven or the Little
<v Speaker 2>General and walk down there if we had a couple
<v Speaker 2>bucks in our pocket and go down there and hit
<v Speaker 2>the candy store.
<v Speaker 6>You know, I would us so great. I would be
<v Speaker 6>remiss Vic if I didn't ask you to reflect on
<v Speaker 6>getting into wrestling with Terry. He talked in his book
<v Speaker 6>about how really it started in some ways watching you know,
<v Speaker 6>matches from Florida Championship Wrestling with you and then in fact,
<v Speaker 6>it may have even been your father, right that took
<v Speaker 6>took you guys to your first match.
<v Speaker 2>It was my father, you know a lot of times
<v Speaker 2>he would say on TV that it was that his
<v Speaker 2>father took us to the Matchless Pete hated wrestling mats.
<v Speaker 2>It's uh, it was it was my father. My father
<v Speaker 2>took us to the massive. We'd go to Fort Homer
<v Speaker 2>Hesserley when we were young, and uh yeah, then Terry,
<v Speaker 2>you know, he liked it and so did I and
<v Speaker 2>I remember I of course I tried to wrestle him
<v Speaker 2>in the front yard and that was a mistake, I forget.
<v Speaker 2>Two seconds later I was pen you know. And uh
<v Speaker 2>he had a half brother. His name was Kenny, uh
<v Speaker 2>Wheeling Wheeler, Yeah, Kenny Wheeler, and uh he he taught
<v Speaker 2>me how to swim when I was like nine years
<v Speaker 2>old over Treasure Island. I didn't know how to swim,
<v Speaker 2>but he taught me how to swim. So wow, that
<v Speaker 2>was kind of neat.
<v Speaker 6>So you got so Pete hated wrestling. What do you
<v Speaker 6>remember Pete saying about it? It's kind of funny that
<v Speaker 6>his fun Son became the most famous wrestler ever.
<v Speaker 2>But yeah, yeah, I know, I'm not saying he hated it,
<v Speaker 2>but I know he never really cared about it. You know,
<v Speaker 2>he never really he had no interest in it. But
<v Speaker 2>that way, you know, he didn't really you know, think
<v Speaker 2>that was something great. My dad enjoyed it and we
<v Speaker 2>go watch Haystacks Calhoun and Eddie Graham and all those guys.
<v Speaker 2>And of course in high school, you know, we had
<v Speaker 2>quite a few guys that came out of our high
<v Speaker 2>school that ended up becoming professional wrestlers. Brutus of Barbara Beefcakes,
<v Speaker 2>of course, Terry and Mike Graham and uh, Steve Carr.
<v Speaker 2>Dick Slater too, right, Dick Slater, Yeah, dirty Dick Slater.
<v Speaker 2>He was in my pe class in high school.
<v Speaker 6>Dirty how dirty was vic?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that was his nickname because he was he was
<v Speaker 2>a bad ombra in high school and nobody wanted to
<v Speaker 2>mess with Slater in high school. He was a couple
<v Speaker 2>of years ahead of Terry. But uh, I remember the
<v Speaker 2>coaching in high school. Tom Man he uh he was
<v Speaker 2>a football coach and he was about six five, about
<v Speaker 2>two ninety and uh, he wanted Tory to come out
<v Speaker 2>for football because here it was a big, big played
<v Speaker 2>offensive tackle and junior high. But Terry just didn't. He
<v Speaker 2>didn't like coach Man. He wouldn't go out there. And
<v Speaker 2>he coached Man chas him around, you know, scream add
<v Speaker 2>him and everything else. But Terry said, forget that, I'm
<v Speaker 2>not not doing it, so he didn't play.
<v Speaker 6>Terry tells the story of it. I don't know if
<v Speaker 6>it was coach Man or if it was the wrestling
<v Speaker 6>coach that they were so frustrated with him not wanting
<v Speaker 6>to do a football or wrestling. At one time one
<v Speaker 6>of the coaches said, come on, get over here. I'm
<v Speaker 6>I'm gonna wrestle you and teach you a lesson. And
<v Speaker 6>Hulk has a story of how he turned it around
<v Speaker 6>and chicken wing the guy and almost broke his arm
<v Speaker 6>off and sent the coach into a tail spin because
<v Speaker 6>he got humiliated. Truth fiction.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, yeah, I know, I know of one
<v Speaker 2>thing and Terry, I don't know if it's a wrestling
<v Speaker 2>coach or if it was coach I think it was
<v Speaker 2>coach Man. You know we've had wrestling during pe class, right, Well,
<v Speaker 2>he put the biggest kid against Terry. Uh you know,
<v Speaker 2>and Terry was like a sophomore and put the biggest
<v Speaker 2>senior in the class up on Terry, and Terry uh
<v Speaker 2>flipping the Pending. Of course, that pissed off coach Man
<v Speaker 2>even more.
<v Speaker 6>You know, did you did you? Did you witness this?
<v Speaker 4>Vic?
<v Speaker 2>No, I didn't witness it, but I remember Terry telling
<v Speaker 2>me about it, and uh yeah, he said, yeah, he
<v Speaker 2>flipped and Pending. Then they took off run of coach.
<v Speaker 6>That's so when the football story is an interesting one
<v Speaker 6>because another thing he says about his boyhood and I'm
<v Speaker 6>not sure if you went to the same school as
<v Speaker 6>him at this age, but he vividly remembers being sort
<v Speaker 6>of forced to run around the goalposts and always being
<v Speaker 6>that kid that was sucking wind and way behind at
<v Speaker 6>the far end, and it being sort of like a
<v Speaker 6>humiliating experience for him. Do you recall that whole thing, Well.
<v Speaker 2>Well, yeah, I went out. I went out for football
<v Speaker 2>as a seventh grader in junior high. We played for
<v Speaker 2>a coach by name Herman Valdez, and Terry was a
<v Speaker 2>nighth grader and I was a seventh grader, and we
<v Speaker 2>had two other guys that ended up becoming pastors uh
<v Speaker 2>Donald and Ronald Satterwhite. They played little league ball too,
<v Speaker 2>and they end up playing high school football and h
<v Speaker 2>we all went out for football and junior high and
<v Speaker 2>they taught me into going out. I made it about
<v Speaker 2>a week and a half and I quit. You know,
<v Speaker 2>I was short and fat, and they put somebody up,
<v Speaker 2>some big guy off on top of me and I'm
<v Speaker 2>playing nose guard and they just pound me into the ground.
<v Speaker 2>So I said, nah, I'm gonna stay bold.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, bowling, I'd rather be the ball.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah, exactly started to getting my but driven in
<v Speaker 2>the ground. So uh yeah, I stayed with that.
<v Speaker 6>And you did see him get that workout that I
<v Speaker 6>mentioned that kind of left him his tongue down on
<v Speaker 6>the ground. He tells that story.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, yeah, we both we hated to run, both
<v Speaker 2>of us because we were overweight, you know, and uh
<v Speaker 2>we were slow, and coaches there figuring, nay, we'll run
<v Speaker 2>until we get that fat off of you, you know, right,
<v Speaker 2>And so I that's that's what I'm sure that's what
<v Speaker 2>happened with him too. I didn't happen to be there,
<v Speaker 2>but I'm I'm sure I was. I'll be running right
<v Speaker 2>alongside in the couple of weeks that I went out
<v Speaker 2>for football because we were towards the back of the pack.
<v Speaker 6>I don't know vic of this happened because of the
<v Speaker 6>famed Sheriff's Youth Ranch that Eddie Graham was so involved
<v Speaker 6>in Tampa. But somewhere along the way it started to
<v Speaker 6>be written about Hulk that he went to the youth
<v Speaker 6>ranch for like kids you know that got in trouble
<v Speaker 6>when he was a teenager. And he also brought that up. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 6>And he also said there was the Christian youth ranch.
<v Speaker 6>I'm trying to figure this out.
<v Speaker 2>That's correct. There was a Christian youth ranch called called
<v Speaker 2>the Youth Ranch. Now there was a Florida sheriff Boys
<v Speaker 2>Ranch was Eddie Graham and that was for juvenile delinquents.
<v Speaker 2>Terry would play guitar. We went over there and had
<v Speaker 2>Bible study and saying Christian songs was on the leon
<v Speaker 2>and the two brothers and the saturd White Twins, another
<v Speaker 2>kid named chit Yoakam who grew up in our neighborhood,
<v Speaker 2>and Terry and I we would go to a guy
<v Speaker 2>named Hanklein instrument ran it. In fact, my wife went
<v Speaker 2>to it too and uh yeah. Not long after that,
<v Speaker 2>after I think after he pinned Andre or he uh
<v Speaker 2>it came out and one of those magazines said, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>when he was younger, he went to the Florida sheriff
<v Speaker 2>Boys rants for juvenile delinquents. And I said something to
<v Speaker 2>Terry about it. I said, I said, you saw that
<v Speaker 2>arcause yeah, I said, He said, yeah, they kind of
<v Speaker 2>missed out one, didn't I said, yeah, I think so. So.
<v Speaker 2>Uh yeah, he was never a juvenile Lika.
<v Speaker 6>Right, It wasn't. He wasn't ever like forced into a
<v Speaker 6>program to be reformed. Yes, very glad to get that.
<v Speaker 6>Get that clarified. So I'm trying to picture you witnessing
<v Speaker 6>him become the kid you hung out with, to become
<v Speaker 6>this rocker, this hippie rocker. What was that like? And
<v Speaker 6>what what kind of crew did he run with? How
<v Speaker 6>did he evolve into this guy that was, you know,
<v Speaker 6>playing well bands?
<v Speaker 2>You know he in fact, both of us play. I
<v Speaker 2>was I was gonna start playing drums and he was
<v Speaker 2>going to play lead guitar. Well, same thing again. I
<v Speaker 2>was playing for a little well and then I quit.
<v Speaker 2>I'm in a bowl all the time. That's all I did,
<v Speaker 2>was bull bo love it. And uh. In fact, Terry
<v Speaker 2>watched me. I threw fifty strikes in a row and
<v Speaker 2>Terry watched. He talked about that one of the folks.
<v Speaker 2>I he watched me throw fifty strikes in a row
<v Speaker 2>one day, and uh, which is like back to back
<v Speaker 2>to back, three hundred games. But I was I was
<v Speaker 2>pretty young at that time. But uh, anyway, Uh, yeah, Terry,
<v Speaker 2>Terry was playing playing the lead guitar. Then I quit
<v Speaker 2>the band. I didn't even get in the band, I quipped,
<v Speaker 2>before be able to get into it. He played started
<v Speaker 2>out playing in a band called Infinity's Inn and uh.
<v Speaker 2>Then later on he started playing bass guitar. I was
<v Speaker 2>trying to play bass ball. I quit that too. So
<v Speaker 2>you know, my parents would give me lessons, give me lessons,
<v Speaker 2>and I quit.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>They always just to say a little lady. They said, well,
<v Speaker 2>he's out of practice. You know where he's at. He's
<v Speaker 2>in Panoramas. You know, he's bowling. That's that's the way
<v Speaker 2>I was at.
<v Speaker 6>So anyway, so did his personality changes he became a
<v Speaker 6>band guy? Did you were you in friends with him
<v Speaker 6>at that point?
<v Speaker 1>Oh?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, we were. We stayed friends all along, you know,
<v Speaker 2>he was. I didn't hang out with him as much
<v Speaker 2>because he was a year ahead of me in school.
<v Speaker 2>But uh, you know he played in the band. I
<v Speaker 2>remember getting them the job out on the docks and
<v Speaker 2>the shipping docks and you do it cold storage for
<v Speaker 2>like five bucks an hour. And uh he uh he
<v Speaker 2>was a checker and that's what I was too. The
<v Speaker 2>long showmen were there. They were all black guys and
<v Speaker 2>the checkers were usually white guys. And uh I got
<v Speaker 2>Terry a job. I knew the guy that was the
<v Speaker 2>head of his gun in Langston, Duncan, who passed away. Now.
<v Speaker 2>Uh so I talked to dunk and I say, hey,
<v Speaker 2>you know I got my buddy here. You thinking, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>no problem. So he got him, got him the job
<v Speaker 2>at you to it as a checker, and uh I
<v Speaker 2>remember Duncan played, like he said, he played pro football
<v Speaker 2>for the Colts, but I don't think so. I looked
<v Speaker 2>it up and I didn't see his name rub on
<v Speaker 2>him there. Yeah, I think so he Uh he would
<v Speaker 2>he would. He played at Maryland, uh Eastern Shore and
<v Speaker 2>uh but he was a big guy, a big strong guy.
<v Speaker 2>And uh I remember one day I was a bunch
<v Speaker 2>of black guys standing around, and Duncan came over to
<v Speaker 2>Terry and he was kind of blowing smoked up Terry's ass.
<v Speaker 2>And finally Terry got tired of hearing it, and he
<v Speaker 2>reached in his back pocket and he had like two
<v Speaker 2>or three paychecks in his back pocket. He told me
<v Speaker 2>about it. I wasn't there. He told me. He said,
<v Speaker 2>threw it down on the ground. He looked at Duncan.
<v Speaker 2>He said, if you're a man, a big man, go
<v Speaker 2>for it. And uh, Duncan didn't, didn't move, and all
<v Speaker 2>the black guys are standing there going ooh real quick,
<v Speaker 2>And uh that's what I thought. And he reached out
<v Speaker 2>and picked it back up and put it back as
<v Speaker 2>wallet and went back to checking the boxes. You know. So,
<v Speaker 2>uh yeah, I remember Terry telling me about that, because
<v Speaker 2>Duncan was kind of a He was a nice guy,
<v Speaker 2>but he was just he could be boisterous, a bragger. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>Terry got tired of hearing it.
<v Speaker 6>You mentioned how most of the guys other Docks were black.
<v Speaker 6>It got me thinking about, you know, when Terry went
<v Speaker 6>through that thing with the racist tape. Yeah, they came
<v Speaker 6>around the neighborhood and they were like because Terry had
<v Speaker 6>said something on Good Morning America like where I grew up.
<v Speaker 6>We threw that word around and people were like, not really,
<v Speaker 6>what do you remember on that.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I remember when we were on the docks, everybody
<v Speaker 2>threw it around. Oh yeah, no, I mean the black
<v Speaker 2>guys stew it around, we food around. But there was
<v Speaker 2>they knew, there was no intent. There was nobody. You know,
<v Speaker 2>we had nothing against them. They had nothing against us.
<v Speaker 2>In high school, you know that my senior year was
<v Speaker 2>the first year that was forced busting. But we had
<v Speaker 2>a lot of black kids in Port Tampa, which was
<v Speaker 2>just a little bit south of us, and we all
<v Speaker 2>went to school together and we all got along great.
<v Speaker 2>And my senior year, a lot of the kids on
<v Speaker 2>the other side of the town came over and that
<v Speaker 2>was another story. Of course, Terry wasn't there then. And
<v Speaker 2>you'd see a white kid from South Tampa get into
<v Speaker 2>a fight with one of the kitchen and West Tampa
<v Speaker 2>get into a fight, and you'd see a black kid
<v Speaker 2>from South from Port Tampa jumping on the white kid's
<v Speaker 2>side because they knew, you know, we were We all
<v Speaker 2>grew up together. We you know, hung out and uh,
<v Speaker 2>of course a lot of the black kids from the base,
<v Speaker 2>you know, in the military. Uh, their parents were in
<v Speaker 2>the military, so you know, yeah, so Terry, Terry had
<v Speaker 2>black friends and everything else there. And I still have
<v Speaker 2>a very good friend with black you know, from my
<v Speaker 2>senior he knew Terry. He used to go to Terry's
<v Speaker 2>house and hang out, you know. So, yeah, that thing
<v Speaker 2>about him being oasist and that was a bunch of crap,
<v Speaker 2>you know. Uh And and that word was throwing a wend.
<v Speaker 2>Back in the day, it was different, you know. They
<v Speaker 2>they'd say howkey, We'd say, you know, the end word,
<v Speaker 2>and you know it's different. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know
<v Speaker 2>Cracker all that.
<v Speaker 1>He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack and Carno.
<v Speaker 4>And JP Soo. He's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast.
<v Speaker 7>You mentioned Kenny before, and I was curious how how
<v Speaker 7>was he around frequently? Was did you did you see?
<v Speaker 2>No? Okay, no, not very frequently. He came in to
<v Speaker 2>see Ruth. You know. It was his mother. Pete was
<v Speaker 2>you know, a stepfather, he said, his father down the
<v Speaker 2>Panama Canal Zone. That's where Pete met Ruth was down
<v Speaker 2>in Panama can Nelson. Ruth was living down there, and uh,
<v Speaker 2>Pete met her he was working on the canal zone
<v Speaker 2>and that's how the two of them got together. But
<v Speaker 2>she was already uh divorced, I guess, and had Kenny
<v Speaker 2>from a guy named Billy Wheeler. And so, yeah, Kenny
<v Speaker 2>ended up. I knew that he was a He was
<v Speaker 2>a pilot during Vietnam and flew a lot of missions,
<v Speaker 2>I think, becoming either a colonel or general. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>he was a very nice guy. I liked him, but uh,
<v Speaker 2>I don't know whatever happened with him and Terry. I
<v Speaker 2>heard there's some things happening wh Terry was making a
<v Speaker 2>lot of money, you know.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, Terry said in his second book that you know,
<v Speaker 6>he had hardly saw the guy, but then he hooked
<v Speaker 6>up with him one time and he let him borrow
<v Speaker 6>like five grand and yeah, and from there it was like,
<v Speaker 6>you're going to pay him back? And Ruth was like,
<v Speaker 6>are you going to pay him back? And he took
<v Speaker 6>that personally, and then he never talked to me. And
<v Speaker 6>I mean that's the story told.
<v Speaker 2>In the book at least. Yeah, Yeah, that's pretty much it,
<v Speaker 2>you know, I know, I guess Sidney Lauper, I guess
<v Speaker 2>she borrow some money from him too, and didn't pay him,
<v Speaker 2>and he called her Sidney Slopper, you know for that reason. Wow, yeah, yeah.
<v Speaker 6>Uh was he was? He a ladies man. I mean,
<v Speaker 6>I know he was awkward and weird and it was
<v Speaker 6>as far as physics. But then you hear about these
<v Speaker 6>girlfriends he had and I don't know.
<v Speaker 2>Well, he had a girlfriend, uh like towards like his
<v Speaker 2>senior year, there was a girl. Her name was Brenda Woods.
<v Speaker 2>Her father was a manager of the bullet center on
<v Speaker 2>the base, and uh uh he did her for a while.
<v Speaker 2>And uh then another girl named Debbie Smith's who lived
<v Speaker 2>down the street. But uh, we were you know, he
<v Speaker 2>and I both we had crew cuts and we were short.
<v Speaker 2>You know, he was short, but we're both fat. So
<v Speaker 2>we went well popular with the girls. You know, I
<v Speaker 2>never dated a girl all the way through high school.
<v Speaker 2>But uh, you know I got out and I spouted
<v Speaker 2>up and he wouldn't fat anymore. Didn't have a proof
<v Speaker 2>that and it was, you know, came on at that point.
<v Speaker 6>Man.
<v Speaker 2>He remembers Sherry Nashburn. You remember Sherry Ma Serry Nashburn. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>her brother Steve died a few years ago. Yeah, they
<v Speaker 2>lived down on Bay Shore. She had a sister named
<v Speaker 2>Spooky Spooky nash Fur, and she was Terry's grade. She
<v Speaker 2>was like the not homecoming queen. She was like the
<v Speaker 2>Night of Nights queen. That was like the big dance.
<v Speaker 2>She was that that queen shed long, long, straight hair.
<v Speaker 2>He liked girls from long straight here. I remember, that's
<v Speaker 2>for sure.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, that he said he would ride of them. He
<v Speaker 6>said we would ride his bike to her house just
<v Speaker 6>to get a look at her. He was obsessed with her.
<v Speaker 6>I guess when he was when he was a kid.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, she was pretty. I remember him talking about her,
<v Speaker 2>and now she was a great ahead of me. So
<v Speaker 2>I didn't really know her, you know, Yeah, I remember that.
<v Speaker 6>We've talked a bit about Pete who by the way,
<v Speaker 6>this is this is true, right, It was Pietro really
<v Speaker 6>his his his first name. Yeah, he was a junior.
<v Speaker 2>Yeh.
<v Speaker 6>What was Ruth like just you know, day to day?
<v Speaker 6>What was what were her characteristics? What kind of mom?
<v Speaker 6>You know? How how was she with Terry?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah she was you know, they didn't have to do
<v Speaker 2>much with Terry. You know, he was always smart in
<v Speaker 2>school and he wasn't a troubled kid. You know, Alan
<v Speaker 2>was a little bit more of a problem than Terry was.
<v Speaker 2>And uh, but Ruth was a stay at home mom.
<v Speaker 2>You know she cooked. Of course, I ate there and
<v Speaker 2>Terry come to my house and we eat both places.
<v Speaker 2>That's how we got this heavy as we did. I guess,
<v Speaker 2>you know, Ruth would get some something like she just
<v Speaker 2>get these little, these little steaks and uh cook them.
<v Speaker 2>And of course then I'd get my mother to do
<v Speaker 2>the same, you know, or Keebar cookies and uh the
<v Speaker 2>chocolate ice cream, the sealed seal brand ice cream from
<v Speaker 2>from uh when Dixie?
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, how how on the on the on the food front.
<v Speaker 6>How hardcore was was Peter as far as an Italian?
<v Speaker 6>Did he have a vineyard? Did he have purshoot hanging
<v Speaker 6>in the basement?
<v Speaker 2>I no, no, nothing like that. He's a small house.
<v Speaker 7>A wheel of romano somewhere in the in the basement.
<v Speaker 2>No. Maybe, No. I don't remember Pete really eating a
<v Speaker 2>lot of Italian food. I mean, I remember he liked
<v Speaker 2>to drink his uh is ale. He liked to drink
<v Speaker 2>his sherry, you know, like a wine. And uh. I
<v Speaker 2>remember Andre, of course a lot of the restaurants I
<v Speaker 2>saw him over Pete and Roos. I sit there at
<v Speaker 2>the table with him, a little small kitchen, and I
<v Speaker 2>remember Bobby Heenan being in there, mean Jean and all
<v Speaker 2>those different guys, and uh yeah, I remember Andre Pete
<v Speaker 2>came over. He was at Terry's house, and uh, Andre
<v Speaker 2>had this this wine and Pete drink some really strong sherry.
<v Speaker 2>And Andre gave Pete some of his wine and Pete
<v Speaker 2>couldn't even drink it. I mean it was that strong drinking.
<v Speaker 2>And he drink like a case of it, you know.
<v Speaker 2>And of course a lot of the guys didn't want
<v Speaker 2>to wrestle Andre because you know he'd get pretty well
<v Speaker 2>torn up and you know he'd fall on and hurt people.
<v Speaker 2>You know, that wasn't in the plan. And uh, in fact,
<v Speaker 2>if you watch that that masch with Terry when he
<v Speaker 2>when he body slams him earlier in the match, was
<v Speaker 2>planning on he was, Yeah, he falls on he was
<v Speaker 2>planning on on Penny and not penning, but he was
<v Speaker 2>slamming him earlier in the match. And Andre loses his
<v Speaker 2>balance and falls back on Terry.
<v Speaker 6>Wow.
<v Speaker 2>And so anyway, later on Terry gets in the position
<v Speaker 2>and then here he puts his hand on Terry Stye
<v Speaker 2>and then of course then he can push him on over.
<v Speaker 2>You know. Yeah, I couldn't do it without that, you know.
<v Speaker 6>Did Terry talk about that slam as like, did he
<v Speaker 6>suffer any injuries when he slammed.
<v Speaker 2>On he did? Yeah, he screwed up his back and
<v Speaker 2>he ripped his back muscle and I think it was
<v Speaker 2>probably a belta weight or something or his bice. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>he really messed himself up there. But I remember the
<v Speaker 2>first time he ever wrestled Andre was in a battle
<v Speaker 2>royal over in Saint Pete and Terry it's just getting
<v Speaker 2>into wrestling, and they got him in like a twelve
<v Speaker 2>man battle royal, and so he jumped up on Andrea's back.
<v Speaker 2>He said, I felt like to fly on the elephant's back.
<v Speaker 6>Wow.
<v Speaker 2>He shipped me off like a fly wow. And that
<v Speaker 2>was pretty wild.
<v Speaker 6>He had a very short lived introductory tenure in wrestling
<v Speaker 6>before he took the mask off. He was called Super
<v Speaker 6>Destroyer just for a couple of matches. Do you remember
<v Speaker 6>any of that? Did you see any of that? That's
<v Speaker 6>a very I appreciated part of his career.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I did not see it. I remember him telling
<v Speaker 2>me about it. I remember him getting in the ring.
<v Speaker 2>Of course, they pretty much had him as a job man,
<v Speaker 2>jumping the ring and gets your butt kick and get
<v Speaker 2>out of here, you know, that kind of thing. And
<v Speaker 2>so that's how he started. But I think Eddie and
<v Speaker 2>Mike Graham didn't really like Terry for whatever reason, and
<v Speaker 2>that's when he left and because he could see he
<v Speaker 2>wasn't going to go anywhere there, and yeah, all the
<v Speaker 2>things and all that. You know.
<v Speaker 6>Well, Terry's made comments in the past about like Mike
<v Speaker 6>not having an issue with him in high school, but
<v Speaker 6>they were far apart in grade. Do you remember was
<v Speaker 6>there of a confrontation with Mike and Terry in high school?
<v Speaker 2>No, not that I never Terry never, I never heard
<v Speaker 2>of any. Mike was a senior I think when Terry
<v Speaker 2>was a sophomore, and of course Mike was short, you know, right,
<v Speaker 2>And but of course Eddie was a you know, big
<v Speaker 2>time wrestler. We all saw him wrestle.
<v Speaker 6>So you mentioned being at the table with these huge
<v Speaker 6>wrestling stars, so that was a thing, huh. And when
<v Speaker 6>I heard that, I was like, why would the wrestlers
<v Speaker 6>go to his parents' house instead of Terry's house? But
<v Speaker 6>they would come over Ruth and Pete's.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, yeah, because Terry Jerry, uh, you know, they'd
<v Speaker 2>come over and see Pete and you know, they enjoyed
<v Speaker 2>talking with them. And Heenan was was a really good guy.
<v Speaker 2>All these guys that were the heels, you know, they
<v Speaker 2>were some of the nicest guys. You know. I remember
<v Speaker 2>the great Malenko. In fact, at Terry's funeral, I saw
<v Speaker 2>Dean Malinko there and I remember bowling with Dean and
<v Speaker 2>Jody Malinko. Their real name is Simon, Larry Simon and
<v Speaker 2>uh they're He's from South Carolina, Moscow, Russia, right, so anyway,
<v Speaker 2>and uh yeah, Larry was just this I worked out
<v Speaker 2>of American Fitness with just the nicest, most gentleman you've
<v Speaker 2>ever met, like people Ledge and uh Peter pa Tribula.
<v Speaker 2>But anyway, uh uh yeah he and it was just
<v Speaker 2>such a nice All those guys are really nice guys,
<v Speaker 2>the heels, you know. And uh, I remember when Terry
<v Speaker 2>introduced me to to Randy Tomaso and uh I said,
<v Speaker 2>Terry said, hey, Randy, I want you to meet and
<v Speaker 2>meet a long time friend of mine, Vic Pettitt. And
<v Speaker 2>I reached out of sugar his hand and hey, how
<v Speaker 2>you knowing, you know, with the voice. And I thought
<v Speaker 2>the voice was a gimmick, but it wasn't, you know.
<v Speaker 2>And I remember one time car Yeah yeah, he played
<v Speaker 2>for the Tampa Tarkins, played the outfield and third base.
<v Speaker 2>I think, uh, the Cincinnati organization. But uh yeah. I
<v Speaker 2>remember one time I went to get Terry's Lincoln town
<v Speaker 2>car and uh, the seat on the passer's side was
<v Speaker 2>all broken back. And looked at Terry. I want to
<v Speaker 2>get in the car, and I said, dude, what's what's
<v Speaker 2>up your seat? Here? He goes, damn giant man. So
<v Speaker 2>the seat he broke it? Yeah. God. And I remember
<v Speaker 2>one time when Terry was a heel. When you know,
<v Speaker 2>he first started me wrestling New York, he was a
<v Speaker 2>hell and uh, I don't know if you knew that,
<v Speaker 2>but he was, oh yeah, wrestling and Madison Square gardens.
<v Speaker 2>And he said, of course he'd you know, people come
<v Speaker 2>up with programs wanting an autography, spit in him and throw
<v Speaker 2>him at him, and you know, stuff like that, just
<v Speaker 2>anything in the world to piss them off. And he
<v Speaker 2>had some of these people. They were so pissed off
<v Speaker 2>at him. He said he had to tell the limo driver.
<v Speaker 2>When he came out of the locker room to leave,
<v Speaker 2>he told the limit limo driver, he said, hey, pick
<v Speaker 2>me up on the other side of the arena. They're
<v Speaker 2>probably fifty guys out there waiting for me. Man. So
<v Speaker 2>they picked him up on the other souther of east.
<v Speaker 2>Of course, he drove by him and slipped him off
<v Speaker 2>and going at levels amazing. Yeah, tell you one little
<v Speaker 2>funny story. Uh, when I was when I was bowling
<v Speaker 2>on tour in nineteen eighty seven, my last year, I
<v Speaker 2>roomed with three guys that were from the Westbound beach
<v Speaker 2>area and uh, we had bowled in Vegas a week before,
<v Speaker 2>and I called Ruth and I said, yeah, what's what's
<v Speaker 2>carry up to? Well, he's going to l A uh Saturday,
<v Speaker 2>And in fact, the Super Bowl was in LA that week,
<v Speaker 2>and so I said, okay, great, I said. She say
<v Speaker 2>he's wrestling the LA Sports Arena. I said, okay, cool.
<v Speaker 2>I said, we'll go there and get up a tell
<v Speaker 2>room early and hopefully we can walk up. And she said, okay,
<v Speaker 2>I'll call him and tell him and let him know.
<v Speaker 2>Of course, we didn't have cell phones this nineteen eighty seven, right,
<v Speaker 2>So anyway, I tell these guys. I said, yeah, I
<v Speaker 2>grew up with Terry. And they're like, yeah, you're full
<v Speaker 2>of shit. You know, you grew up with hult Coke.
<v Speaker 2>And I'm like, and you just that was eighty sevens
<v Speaker 2>when he just, you know, just slammed on d it.
<v Speaker 2>So he's at the top of the world, you know.
<v Speaker 2>And so they're like, he didn't grow up with him,
<v Speaker 2>you know this. And now I'm like, okay, I didn't expounded.
<v Speaker 2>I said, okay, yeah, I can believe me. That's fine.
<v Speaker 2>So and they were big wrestling fans. So anyway, about
<v Speaker 2>about an hour later, the phone rings and it's Terry.
<v Speaker 2>He and Brian Blair are downstairs in the Lumbo, and
<v Speaker 2>I told him, I said, well, I'll go with into
<v Speaker 2>the matches so you know, you know, and you can
<v Speaker 2>stay here if you want. So now now they believe it.
<v Speaker 2>Now they come down. Of course, then their eyes get
<v Speaker 2>about like saucers, you know, they can't believe it. So
<v Speaker 2>I told Terry we had an ugly duckling rental car,
<v Speaker 2>a piece of junk cougar because he you know, we
<v Speaker 2>couldn't get a rental car because the Super bowls there.
<v Speaker 2>So I said Terry, you think my boys can follow
<v Speaker 2>us to the matches, says sure, he said, I'll tell
<v Speaker 2>the limo driver. So I get in the car with
<v Speaker 2>Terry and Brian. We'll go to the mattress. And they're
<v Speaker 2>following us. And of course they let the limo in
<v Speaker 2>and limo driver tells them let the car and behind us.
<v Speaker 2>So we go back in the in the back of
<v Speaker 2>the arena, and I see Eddie Leslie brew us a
<v Speaker 2>barber beefcake back there. And I knew Eddie real well,
<v Speaker 2>and I yelled, I said, hey, Eddie, and of course
<v Speaker 2>he yells men stops and turns and looks like who
<v Speaker 2>knows my name? And he runs over and he hugs me.
<v Speaker 2>You know, my boys are they're starting to freak out now,
<v Speaker 2>they're like, man, this is for real. And uh so, anyway,
<v Speaker 2>Terry wrestles Kamala you gunding giants and uh you know,
<v Speaker 2>like four hundred pound guy, and he wrestles him. That night.
<v Speaker 2>He's got packed house, like ten thousand people there, and
<v Speaker 2>of course he slams him and he goes to his
<v Speaker 2>you know, he's getnick you know, with a flexing and
<v Speaker 2>all that, and he's coming from the ring back to
<v Speaker 2>the locker room, and they've got it roped off petition,
<v Speaker 2>you know, for him to come through there. And I'm
<v Speaker 2>standing back about about six feet from the end of
<v Speaker 2>the runway there where he's coming. And he spots me
<v Speaker 2>and he throws his hands up in the air and
<v Speaker 2>he runs at me, and he's acting like he wants
<v Speaker 2>to punch me, you know. And I'm leaving that He's like,
<v Speaker 2>come on, come on, man, you want some of me?
<v Speaker 2>And my boys are going nuts, and people are there.
<v Speaker 2>They don't know who I am. They're wondering where did
<v Speaker 2>this guy come from? How did he get in the act,
<v Speaker 2>you know. And so anyway, we get in the uh,
<v Speaker 2>we get in the limo. We're leaving, you know, we
<v Speaker 2>had to stop in the gas and this guy pulls
<v Speaker 2>up the gas station. He goes, hey, you're all cover
<v Speaker 2>and he goes, no, man, I'm an elephant jockey. I
<v Speaker 2>don't know who you're talking to.
<v Speaker 6>Wow, what a full circle moment. You're there in the
<v Speaker 6>audience as a as a and he and you got
<v Speaker 6>to be part of the part of the show.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, that was of first I went. I went
<v Speaker 2>back backstage here in Tampa. A lot of times. I
<v Speaker 2>went back in the locker roommitaria and I met Flair
<v Speaker 2>and Sergeant Slaughter and different guys that he wrestled. You know.
<v Speaker 2>He'd always introduced me to him, you know, and so
<v Speaker 2>that's a lot of fun.
<v Speaker 7>That's amazing. Do you remember, like, when was the first
<v Speaker 7>time you saw him wrestle?
<v Speaker 2>Ever? You know, I didn't, Uh, first time I ever
<v Speaker 2>saw him wrestles on TV? I never saw him in person.
<v Speaker 2>And I never saw him in person. Yeah, and uh,
<v Speaker 2>I remember he'd go into his acts and uh, you know,
<v Speaker 2>Terry was always a quiet, shy kind of guy, and
<v Speaker 2>of course, you know, got on TV and it was
<v Speaker 2>anything but that. And he told me, said, man, they
<v Speaker 2>tell me, he said, I've got it down to a science.
<v Speaker 2>He said, they tell me give me forty five seconds,
<v Speaker 2>So they give me a minute. He said, I know
<v Speaker 2>exactly in my head how long that's going to be,
<v Speaker 2>and I know how to cut it off, you know.
<v Speaker 2>So he would do his gimmick. And but yeah, he
<v Speaker 2>was very smart. He's the one that came up with
<v Speaker 2>the you know, walking to the Ring, which now baseball
<v Speaker 2>and everything, the music and all that. Even when I
<v Speaker 2>came up with that idea. He told Evince, he said,
<v Speaker 2>may go to play I the Tiger. I'm going to
<v Speaker 2>the ring because of the rocky maage.
<v Speaker 6>I'm glad you mentioned Eddie Leslie before quickly, because I
<v Speaker 6>didn't want to ask you. Because Eddie played baseball too
<v Speaker 6>in Tampa. I think even Wade Boggs was his teammate
<v Speaker 6>or something like that, or his coach.
<v Speaker 1>And.
<v Speaker 2>Wade could have been he could have played on the
<v Speaker 2>same team. Material I know Eddie and some of these
<v Speaker 2>things said he played on the same team Mitery, which
<v Speaker 2>was definitely not the case. Yeah, I mean he wasn't.
<v Speaker 2>He wasn't there. He was younger. So but uh. In fact,
<v Speaker 2>I remember introducing Terry to Eddie. I'm playing softball and
<v Speaker 2>Terry's in the dug out and Eddie was in the
<v Speaker 2>dugout and kind of introduced him to them, and before
<v Speaker 2>we know, they're hanging out and oh wow, Picnic Island
<v Speaker 2>they both down there, you know, because Eddie was a
<v Speaker 2>pretty big guy there, you know, hitting some dinaball I
<v Speaker 2>think back in the day.
<v Speaker 6>Oh absolutely, dina ball for sure. I mean Terry went
<v Speaker 6>through all that, all that stuff, and you know, I
<v Speaker 6>was I was curious because you know, he he clearly
<v Speaker 6>partook let's let's say he was. Oh yeah, he had
<v Speaker 6>the whole lifestyle. It wasn't just the guitar. He he
<v Speaker 6>marijuana and stuff like that coming up in the seventies
<v Speaker 6>and stuff with with those drugs around and the steroids
<v Speaker 6>and stuff. You know what, what was his what was
<v Speaker 6>his role in that scene. It's always been kind of
<v Speaker 6>intimated that he was, you know, some of the guys
<v Speaker 6>if they needed stuff, Terry could help him down there.
<v Speaker 2>Well then I didn't know. I know one thing. And
<v Speaker 2>the first time I remember Terry's playing in a band
<v Speaker 2>and he was he was he had been doing Donaball
<v Speaker 2>and he's up about two sixties short, a big, big guy,
<v Speaker 2>and he's got this red van with flowered curtains in
<v Speaker 2>the back. Of course, he's got the platform tennis shoes on,
<v Speaker 2>you know, about four inches high, which he really needed
<v Speaker 2>at at six seven. You know. So he tells, he says,
<v Speaker 2>come here, he says, I want to show you something.
<v Speaker 2>I said, okay, what's that. I'm standing in his front yard.
<v Speaker 2>He goes into this vand he comes back out. He's
<v Speaker 2>got two little vials, yes, and he goes see these
<v Speaker 2>He goes Terra bowling, that could drop and he goes
<v Speaker 2>three hundred pounds world championship in my hand right here,
<v Speaker 2>and I'm like, go for it, man, I said, I know,
<v Speaker 2>you get up there and talk to the crowd and
<v Speaker 2>everything in the band. I said, you're a smart guy,
<v Speaker 2>and you're they're huge. You're a big guy. You know,
<v Speaker 2>I said, I know you'll you'll get there.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah. So his thing was these will get me to
<v Speaker 6>three hundred and then I can be a world champ.
<v Speaker 6>Is that what he meant?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he felt it. Yeah, he believed it in his heart.
<v Speaker 2>And I had I had no doubt that one thing
<v Speaker 2>about Terry Ik. A lot of people probably didn't know
<v Speaker 2>he had a birthmark. And it was like it looked
<v Speaker 2>just like a little square really between like his finger,
<v Speaker 2>his little finger and his ring finger, or it could
<v Speaker 2>have been the ring finger and the bird finger, but
<v Speaker 2>there was a square, brown birthmark there. And I remember
<v Speaker 2>Pete saying, yeah, it's like a diamond, and it was
<v Speaker 2>just perfectly square, and it was real small, and it
<v Speaker 2>was just a birthmark. And I always thought that was
<v Speaker 2>really unique, you know, kind of weird.
<v Speaker 6>Wow, that's that's an interesting detail. Yeah, That's probably something
<v Speaker 6>that only his close as you know friends even new
<v Speaker 6>with the muscle guitart stuff and becoming so big. He
<v Speaker 6>talked about meeting Superstar Billy Graham, who of course was
<v Speaker 6>a pioneer and being that big and I think you
<v Speaker 6>guys even used to see him at the Hesterlely.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, well he he wrestled, I mean, but he
<v Speaker 2>would Terry would meet a lot of the wrestlers at
<v Speaker 2>a place called the Imperial Room, yes, because after the
<v Speaker 2>matches that's where they would all go. And that's where
<v Speaker 2>Terry first met Billy Superstar Graham. And if you look
<v Speaker 2>at Terry's career, he got to wrap like but Dusty
<v Speaker 2>Rhodes and he got the roids and every getting real
<v Speaker 2>big yep, like Superstar Billy Graham. So he was kind
<v Speaker 2>of a combination to the two. And of course that
<v Speaker 2>took him a long way.
<v Speaker 6>You know, was was Billy Graham someone you remember when
<v Speaker 6>you went to the matches that he would be really
<v Speaker 6>interested in, like what what wrestlers did Terry get the
<v Speaker 6>most excited for when you guys went.
<v Speaker 2>Uh, you know, we just I don't remember anybody in
<v Speaker 2>particular at the matches. You know, when we went to
<v Speaker 2>the matches. We first we were pretty young then, you know,
<v Speaker 2>we were like twelve thirteen years old. And then he
<v Speaker 2>went again later on, you know, and got more involved.
<v Speaker 2>I remember him. I think the first time he got
<v Speaker 2>in the ring he told me this. I wasn't there,
<v Speaker 2>but he had like a Hawaiian shirt and he was
<v Speaker 2>already juiced up, and I think he'd already worked out
<v Speaker 2>in Massuda and he jumped in the ring from the
<v Speaker 2>crowd and I got them with a guy Buddy Wolf,
<v Speaker 2>and uh oh yeah, so that's kind of how it
<v Speaker 2>all startling for you know. Then he's the superstory. They
<v Speaker 2>put the sock on them and you know, that was
<v Speaker 2>that he said to me when we were working out.
<v Speaker 2>He said, I'll tell you what he said. Work out
<v Speaker 2>on me for about another month and he said, uh,
<v Speaker 2>you know, I'll get you some little Blue Soldiers, which
<v Speaker 2>was down the ball, sure and h you know, because
<v Speaker 2>he was he was just getting into wrestling, and he said,
<v Speaker 2>I can maybe get you in with me, you know.
<v Speaker 2>And about two weeks later, I broke a city record bowling,
<v Speaker 2>and uh I said, no, I'm I quit working out
<v Speaker 2>and that was that was that.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah. Yeah, So so that must have been something for you. You
<v Speaker 6>mentioned the Johnny Carson Show. That must have been something
<v Speaker 6>for you, knowing Hulk's history with with the steroids and stuff.
<v Speaker 6>To see him go in our Sineo in ninety one
<v Speaker 6>and be on the hot seat. What do you remember
<v Speaker 6>about that?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I remember sitting there watching all that stuff. You know,
<v Speaker 2>say say your prayers, take your vitamins and all that, right,
<v Speaker 2>And I'm thinking, yeah, okay, you know, I never say
<v Speaker 2>that about it, but I knew about the vitamins, right, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>you know, And eventually it all came out. I remember
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty nine going to Trump Plaza when he wrestled
<v Speaker 2>Mytt and Randy, and I was sitting in a motel
<v Speaker 2>room with Randy and Terry before they got in the
<v Speaker 2>ring and met WrestleMania five, and my mother and Pete
<v Speaker 2>and Ruth. My mother went up there with them because
<v Speaker 2>they were getting up in yours, you know, and and
<v Speaker 2>uh so I sat in the room with the two
<v Speaker 2>of them. Of course, you know, Terry's telling him, hey, look,
<v Speaker 2>you know, do you en in the ring? You know
<v Speaker 2>when you come off and give me the boot and
<v Speaker 2>all that. You know, I knew it was going to happen.
<v Speaker 2>So we're sitting up above, I'm sitting next to Jesse
<v Speaker 2>the body, and I looked down the road and there's
<v Speaker 2>Trump of his two sons there about eight seats down
<v Speaker 2>the road. And I didn't think a whole lot of time. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>he owns the place. He's a billionaire, you know, young guy.
<v Speaker 2>And but yeah, I remember Terry sand to Randy because
<v Speaker 2>he knew he was gonna you know, Randy was going
<v Speaker 2>to take the strap. And he told Randy he said, look,
<v Speaker 2>now you know you got your stash. I'd like to
<v Speaker 2>smoke weed said, don't don't be h don't go in
<v Speaker 2>the airport with it. He said, have somebody else carry
<v Speaker 2>a stash, you know, because you only get popped. So
<v Speaker 2>he was the first.
<v Speaker 6>Guy to do that for Terry. Was Tony Altamar, and
<v Speaker 6>then it was uh, I think even Ed Leslie and
<v Speaker 6>Jimmy Hart probably had a run with the Fandy pack
<v Speaker 6>with the goodies in there.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, yeah, yep, that's true.
<v Speaker 6>That was his that was his his thing. Do you
<v Speaker 6>remember Tony at all? Tony Alami, No, I didn't know him,
<v Speaker 6>couldn't know him.
<v Speaker 2>He was Ba. I met Bubba Todd Clym. I met him, okay,
<v Speaker 2>And I remember when we first met him here in
<v Speaker 2>Tampa and all these people saying, you know, they've been
<v Speaker 2>best friends for years and this, and I'm like, he
<v Speaker 2>just moved to Tampa.
<v Speaker 6>Man, you know what you can't tell about?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, don't tell me. I remember one time I'm playing
<v Speaker 2>a softball tournament in Tallahassee and uh, I remember this
<v Speaker 2>guy was sitting there watching it on TV. I'm sitting
<v Speaker 2>at a bar and because, oh yeah, man, he grew
<v Speaker 2>up in Venice Beach, California. I looked at him. I
<v Speaker 2>pulled out a picture of Terry and Ill. We were
<v Speaker 2>like twelve. I said, no, dude, he never went north
<v Speaker 2>of Jami Boulevards. Oh you know.
<v Speaker 6>We talked about those early days. And one of the
<v Speaker 6>things that that caught my eye going through, you know,
<v Speaker 6>him being mentioned before, he was he was already in
<v Speaker 6>New York. He was already Hulk Hogan, but he wasn't
<v Speaker 6>you know, the national pop culture sensation yet. And he
<v Speaker 6>had a thing in nineteen eighty in New Jersey where
<v Speaker 6>he was in the car with the Samoans and there
<v Speaker 6>was a traffic stop and he had h Terry had
<v Speaker 6>a gun on him. I think it was right right,
<v Speaker 6>personal protection rest. Yeah, that was a little thing there
<v Speaker 6>for him. And what was what was that would he carry?
<v Speaker 6>Was he like worried about anything? Like what was that about?
<v Speaker 2>Well, you know a lot of times back in those days,
<v Speaker 2>he was a heel, and you know, like I say,
<v Speaker 2>some of those people, you know, he had to protect himself,
<v Speaker 2>you know, And I'm sure that's probably why I remember
<v Speaker 2>him telling me he should drive the Lincoln town Car
<v Speaker 2>when he was wrestling up in Minneapolis, and he said
<v Speaker 2>he would carry wood in the trunk because he said
<v Speaker 2>he would go drive all night long. Of course sometimes
<v Speaker 2>here in Minneapolis it's twenty blow zero. He said, Man,
<v Speaker 2>if my car was stalled, I had to have some
<v Speaker 2>wood in the trunk and I could light a fire.
<v Speaker 6>Wow.
<v Speaker 2>And I remember him telling me about that, and uh, yeah.
<v Speaker 6>He told a story about driving in the snow one
<v Speaker 6>time when he was up there, I think with the
<v Speaker 6>with with ed Leslie, and they found like this woman
<v Speaker 6>who had been left on the side of the road
<v Speaker 6>naked by another wrestler and essentially a blizzard, and they
<v Speaker 6>took her in the car and saved her. And that
<v Speaker 6>that was kind of an example of what the treachery
<v Speaker 6>of the road there when he worked that area. Well,
<v Speaker 6>i'll wrap it up here with with the great Vic
<v Speaker 6>Pettit JP. You want to get one more.
<v Speaker 7>In for Vic or Well, I mean I was thinking
<v Speaker 7>about the just when earlier, when you're talking about Ruth
<v Speaker 7>and and and you know, uh with the did she
<v Speaker 7>did as far as you know, did she have a
<v Speaker 7>favorite wrestler who came to the house that she always
<v Speaker 7>loved the most?
<v Speaker 2>No, not that I remember. I mean I know she was.
<v Speaker 2>She She and Pete both like h They liked Heena
<v Speaker 2>and they like her. Uh uh me and Gene open
<v Speaker 2>you know they were they always liked them. In fact,
<v Speaker 2>at Terry's funeral, Linda came in and I hadn't seen
<v Speaker 2>Linda in twenty years. She was Terry was going to
<v Speaker 2>set me up with her sister when he met California. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>she was. She was a knockout. And I told him
<v Speaker 2>to say, now, brother, I'm I'm engaged to get married
<v Speaker 2>my first wife. And uh, yeah, she's a little out
<v Speaker 2>of my league. Man hang with her. But when I
<v Speaker 2>saw Linda, she comes in, I'm there with my wife
<v Speaker 2>and uh, I get in front of her, and I said, hey, Linda,
<v Speaker 2>I don't if you're remember mayor now and she goes,
<v Speaker 2>she looks, and she says, I know I should, She said,
<v Speaker 2>I look so from there, I said, vic Petty. She says,
<v Speaker 2>oh my god. She grasps me, she hugs me. She said, oh,
<v Speaker 2>I remember you and you and your mother Lucky that
<v Speaker 2>was my mother's real name, believe it or not, and
<v Speaker 2>Ruthy and you know, sitting there and uh, you know,
<v Speaker 2>talking and stuff. She said, I loved her mother, and
<v Speaker 2>I loved her more than my own mother, you know
<v Speaker 2>this and that. So, yeah, it was good to see London,
<v Speaker 2>you know, I know, they they had their situations. Terry did. Yeah. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>In fact, Terry and I before, about two years ago.
<v Speaker 2>I went over to see him one day and it
<v Speaker 2>was just he and I in the house before he
<v Speaker 2>met Sky, and we sat there and talked for five hours.
<v Speaker 2>And he had told me had seen fourteen rustlers in
<v Speaker 2>the locker room dead and a lot of things, so
<v Speaker 2>he knew, you know, he wasn't going to live to
<v Speaker 2>be old. But I don't think you saw this coming back.
<v Speaker 7>Yeah, anyway, did did you ever make it up to
<v Speaker 7>Minnesota when he was up when he was working up there.
<v Speaker 2>I did make it up there. I saw the Bucks
<v Speaker 2>play play the Vikings up there. I went to a
<v Speaker 2>game up there because a friend of mine was letting
<v Speaker 2>it living in Burnsville, Minnesota. But he didn't get a
<v Speaker 2>chance to seem wrestle up there. But a few of
<v Speaker 2>the guys that hung out with my buddy Mark, they
<v Speaker 2>were big wrestling fans, and man, they loved Haulcogan. Now
<v Speaker 2>they idolized them. You know, that was nineteen eighty I think, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>the Bucks, Tommy Kramer's and the Vikings and yeah, just lay.
<v Speaker 6>Down there with the books. Yeah, wow, so many, so
<v Speaker 6>many to be Terry Bully's friend. It took you all
<v Speaker 6>over the place.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, yeah.
<v Speaker 6>I'd like to envic with that. That that that service.
<v Speaker 6>You know, we've heard things about how it went and
<v Speaker 6>what was said and the farewell to to Terry that
<v Speaker 6>maybe there was even some some cross words said. I
<v Speaker 6>don't know if there was a big scene. Just if
<v Speaker 6>you could just give our listeners what you remembered about
<v Speaker 6>that final goodbye to Terry.
<v Speaker 2>I didn't hear any crosswords. I know. Bess McMahon was
<v Speaker 2>was great. He spoke very highly and triple ah. She
<v Speaker 2>got up and spoke a lot. Of course, Jimmy Hart,
<v Speaker 2>you know, obviously he spoke, and Nick gave a tremendous speech.
<v Speaker 2>I told Nick, I said, man, I don't know how
<v Speaker 2>you did it. Man. You know, I couldn't even speak
<v Speaker 2>at my deads. You know, my mother just died in February.
<v Speaker 2>And I tried to speak there and I fell apart.
<v Speaker 2>It was too sensitive, you know. And but Nick, he said, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>but he said, you should have seen me when I
<v Speaker 2>was writing that speech. He said there was a terrorist
<v Speaker 2>flying everywhere. But I said, well, you hung it together, brother,
<v Speaker 2>And and uh yeah, Dennis Robin was there. He was
<v Speaker 2>I was standing next to him at the casket. He's screaming,
<v Speaker 2>I love your brother. You know, that's pretty crazy. But
<v Speaker 2>I didn't hear any anything cross that I heard. Now
<v Speaker 2>there there could have been that. I didn't hear it.
<v Speaker 2>You know, I was, I was there, but I didn't
<v Speaker 2>hear anything.
<v Speaker 6>That's that's fine. It was Dennis saying brother like with
<v Speaker 6>that with a smile on his face. Or was he
<v Speaker 6>like crying?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he was like I think he was like crying,
<v Speaker 2>you know, sunglasses. But and then when they were pulling
<v Speaker 2>Terry's cast, taking the cask it out down the middle
<v Speaker 2>of the aisle. There I could hear him. I wasn't
<v Speaker 2>I was towards the front. He was towards the back,
<v Speaker 2>and I could hear him screaming there too, you know,
<v Speaker 2>you know he took it hard. Yeah, Dennis is you know,
<v Speaker 2>he's he's a he's a pretty good guy, you know,
<v Speaker 2>and uh had different different cat but uh, definitely a
<v Speaker 2>good guy.
<v Speaker 6>Do you remember any anything Vince said in particular?
<v Speaker 2>No, I remember he just going ho again, oh again,
<v Speaker 2>get the wholew doing that, you know, and uh, you
<v Speaker 2>know he just Vince Vincent Terry was were very close,
<v Speaker 2>and uh, Terry made him a lot of money. Of course,
<v Speaker 2>he made Terry a lot of money, you know. I know, Uh,
<v Speaker 2>I guess Jesse had a big falling out with Terry
<v Speaker 2>during the steroids thing, you know, worried about that anyway. Yeah, No,
<v Speaker 2>Vince was very very appreciative of Terry, and so it
<v Speaker 2>was shocked too.
<v Speaker 6>It was a nice service then, I mean, you look,
<v Speaker 6>you look back on that warmly.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, absolutely. In fact, a couple of days later, Terry's
<v Speaker 2>birthday was August eleventh, which was like you know, a
<v Speaker 2>little over a week later, two weeks, I guess it was.
<v Speaker 2>And Terry would always have karaoke at Hogan's hangout for
<v Speaker 2>Monday nights. And Nick called me and said, hey, man,
<v Speaker 2>I need you to come over. It's my dad's birthday.
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to have a spend. I want to introduce
<v Speaker 2>you and this and that. I said, okay, cool. So
<v Speaker 2>I went there and I'm kind of sitting back in
<v Speaker 2>the crowd, you know, and he says, I have a
<v Speaker 2>special person I want to introduce and this and that,
<v Speaker 2>and he says, bick, Betty has me stand up, and
<v Speaker 2>he says, how long do you go back with my father?
<v Speaker 2>And I just held up seven fingers, you know, and
<v Speaker 2>go seven years old. Man. Yeah, And I've got the
<v Speaker 2>first hul Cogan autograph has signed Terry Bully on the
<v Speaker 2>newspaper article when we were eleven years old. I showed
<v Speaker 2>that in the Netflix documentary. He just signed it in pencil.
<v Speaker 2>It's very light, but you can definitely see it. And
<v Speaker 2>so yeah, I never, you know, never want to ask
<v Speaker 2>Terry for anything, you know, he was I said, people
<v Speaker 2>all the time asking me, you know, can you get
<v Speaker 2>me this? Can you get me that. I did get
<v Speaker 2>a few autographs for a couple of friends of mine
<v Speaker 2>towards you know, years later. But I was even reluctant
<v Speaker 2>to do that. You know, I just here was my
<v Speaker 2>close friend, because I had all kinds of people saying, man,
<v Speaker 2>I want to meet him this and that, and I said, well,
<v Speaker 2>go to hold his hangout. That's all I can tell you. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>you know. And when my wife and I went in there,
<v Speaker 2>the guy it's like twenty dollars cover charge, and I'm like, no, no, man,
<v Speaker 2>you got to look up there, the big man. I'm
<v Speaker 2>not paying twenty bucks. I'm ge up with Terry. So
<v Speaker 2>he looked up there, and of course Terry saw me
<v Speaker 2>and he waves the security guy like bring him up here.
<v Speaker 2>So the guy brings me up to like the front whoa,
<v Speaker 2>and Terry said, no, no, no, not there. Put him
<v Speaker 2>and his wife up here on the stage with me.
<v Speaker 2>Wow in sky. So we sat there and that's the
<v Speaker 2>last time I saw Terry alive. I talked to him
<v Speaker 2>when he was in the hospital. He said, give me
<v Speaker 2>a get me a big man chair. Brother, you know,
<v Speaker 2>I'll pay you for us. I'm like, Terry, worried about
<v Speaker 2>you paying me? Brother, what do you want? What do
<v Speaker 2>you mean, I'll get it because I'm in the medical
<v Speaker 2>business and I helped people with disabilities, motorized mobility. In fact,
<v Speaker 2>Richard Slater got a motorized wheelchair from the company I
<v Speaker 2>worked for. But I've had people with a LS.
<v Speaker 6>And so he wanted you to hook him up with
<v Speaker 6>something to comfortable.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, a lift chair. In fact, I got Pete one
<v Speaker 2>because Pete couldn't stand up from a Chairry that strokes
<v Speaker 2>and Ruth was having to pull him up. And I
<v Speaker 2>remember when I got him that lift chair and uh,
<v Speaker 2>it was standing him up and Ruth Pete thought that
<v Speaker 2>was the greatest thing he's ever ever made, you know,
<v Speaker 2>getting up out of the chair to his walker did.
<v Speaker 2>And I remember I remember one other thing Pete. When
<v Speaker 2>Pete was dying, because I'd seen in the hospital many times,
<v Speaker 2>see to the home own hospice, and Terry called me
<v Speaker 2>and he said, he said Pete's not going to be
<v Speaker 2>around long. He said he's stayed and quit. So I
<v Speaker 2>went over. I saw Pete. He was in the back
<v Speaker 2>room there at the house, and I kissed him on
<v Speaker 2>the forehead and told him I love him, you know.
<v Speaker 2>About two hours later.
<v Speaker 6>Go, oh yeah, and to talk to you vic. I
<v Speaker 6>realized that you guys actually got pretty close with his folks.
<v Speaker 2>It sounded like, oh yeah, no doubt about it. Like
<v Speaker 2>I said, they were like, you know, parents to me
<v Speaker 2>and vice person. You know, my dad paid one hundred
<v Speaker 2>dollars for us to join the Boy's Club, for me
<v Speaker 2>and for him. I remember the first time when I
<v Speaker 2>first met Terry. I'm sorry, I'm just rambling on. No. Uh,
<v Speaker 2>when I first met Terry, we were going to go
<v Speaker 2>my parents were going to take me to the Florida
<v Speaker 2>State Fair, which was a big deal. And my dad,
<v Speaker 2>Terry's standing there with me, and my dad asked, Terry said, hey,
<v Speaker 2>ask your dad if you can go to the fair
<v Speaker 2>with us. And Terry said, and my dad, he said, well,
<v Speaker 2>my dad's a construction worker. He doesn't make much money.
<v Speaker 2>And my dad looked at him and said, I didn't
<v Speaker 2>ask how much money your father made. He said, I
<v Speaker 2>just asked you to go home and ask your dad
<v Speaker 2>didn't go with us, And of course he did, and
<v Speaker 2>he went with us. And if you know, if they
<v Speaker 2>handed me a dollar, they had a Terry a dollar.
<v Speaker 2>It was just you know, he was like this a brother,
<v Speaker 2>I mean like another son, And I said, we joined
<v Speaker 2>the boys club at nine years old. It was one
<v Speaker 2>hundred dollars and my dad paid for both of us.
<v Speaker 2>And you know, anyway, I could go on for three
<v Speaker 2>days with all stories.
<v Speaker 7>You know, I was just curious, though, you know, you
<v Speaker 7>mentioned Jesse even earlier. Did you ever you know the
<v Speaker 7>falling out? Did you ever hear about the the unionization
<v Speaker 7>of wrestlers that kind of was a big you know,
<v Speaker 7>it's supposedly a big issue between the two of them.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I saw it on the Vince mcman's you know,
<v Speaker 2>that's all I know. I didn't know about it before.
<v Speaker 2>Ye when I saw him in eighty nine at wrestling
<v Speaker 2>at five, he was sitting right next to me, and
<v Speaker 2>I remember, I mean, girls were just you know, crazy stuff.
<v Speaker 2>You know, We're in the limbo and these girls are
<v Speaker 2>pulling full their tops up and sticking them in you know, windows,
<v Speaker 2>and Kerry looking at he goes, hey, man, I see
<v Speaker 2>this stuff all the time. It's crazy, you know. Well,
<v Speaker 2>of course there's a lot of stories I can't tell, but.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, I can hear. You go up to the line.
<v Speaker 6>I didn't want to pretymaturely interrupt you there, but I
<v Speaker 6>just respect that. I mean, some things have to I'm
<v Speaker 6>sure you'll learn the term k fabe at one point.
<v Speaker 2>Right, Vic, Oh yeah, yeah.
<v Speaker 6>With Terry asked you to k fabe sometimes when someone
<v Speaker 6>entered the room.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, all right, we'll leave that there.
<v Speaker 6>Last one for you, Vic, And again we and our
<v Speaker 6>listeners cannot thank you enough for taking the time to
<v Speaker 6>really set down this perspective, this one of a kind perspective.
<v Speaker 6>I think now that we've learned so much about how
<v Speaker 6>close you too really were that you had on him,
<v Speaker 6>could you take us to when you found out that
<v Speaker 6>we lost Terry and and the emotions we're looking back
<v Speaker 6>on it. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. That morning i'd been texting Nick and Nick was
<v Speaker 2>telling me, oh, yeah, he's doing better. It's a slow process,
<v Speaker 2>but he's doing better. Well. That Wednesday night, I text
<v Speaker 2>Nick at eight thirty and I said, how's he doing well?
<v Speaker 2>He text me back, but I didn't see it until
<v Speaker 2>the next morning when I woke up about eight thirty,
<v Speaker 2>and he had text me back and he said, you know,
<v Speaker 2>it's a slow process, but he's getting there and he's
<v Speaker 2>coming along and hopefully you'll be able to see him soon. Well,
<v Speaker 2>I text him back at nine thirty. Okay, brother, I
<v Speaker 2>hope to see him soon, glad to hear he's doing better.
<v Speaker 2>And then all of a sudden, I get a text
<v Speaker 2>from a friend of mine that I used to bowl
<v Speaker 2>with on the tour from Detroit. He sends me a
<v Speaker 2>text message, say, is it true about Terry? I'm like what.
<v Speaker 2>I turned on Fox TV and they're announcing it, and
<v Speaker 2>I tell my wife. She screams, oh my god, no,
<v Speaker 2>you know, And of course I I just fell apart,
<v Speaker 2>you know, yeah, I mean it blew me away, no
<v Speaker 2>doubt about it. It's I'm still kind of, you know,
<v Speaker 2>shocked by it, you know, of course, you know.
<v Speaker 6>We we all are as fans, as people became addicted
<v Speaker 6>to wrestling because of his charisma, you know, and those
<v Speaker 6>it was it was a sort of like there was
<v Speaker 6>life before and after this day.
<v Speaker 4>You know.
<v Speaker 6>It's kind of feels that way in some ways. So
<v Speaker 6>what what What do you hope people know about Terry
<v Speaker 6>that they might not have been able to appreciate just
<v Speaker 6>watching him on TV all those years.
<v Speaker 2>Well, like I said, he was, he was a good guy.
<v Speaker 2>Sometimes they painted stories about him which more accurate, you know, uh,
<v Speaker 2>And uh, you know, he did his job. He did
<v Speaker 2>it obviously very well. Now, he wanted to become the
<v Speaker 2>greatest wrestler ever, you know, like Tad Williams wanted to
<v Speaker 2>be the greatest hitter ever. Well, Terry wanted to be
<v Speaker 2>the greatest wrestler. And he did. You know. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>everybody it's been around wrestling for years knows it. You know.
<v Speaker 2>He he took wrestling to a totally different platform. The
<v Speaker 2>investment manned together and uh, yeah he was. He was
<v Speaker 2>a good guy and a very good friend. And I don't
<v Speaker 2>want to get too emotional here, but.
<v Speaker 6>Yep, well you paid a wonderful tribute to the man
<v Speaker 6>and helped the sea sides of him we never would
<v Speaker 6>have seen otherwise. So we thank you so very much
<v Speaker 6>for the time, Vic and all the best to you.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you. I appreciate it, and uh hope hope your
<v Speaker 2>lesslers enjoyed. It is a production of the LAPS Entertainment Group.
<v Speaker 2>Its content is intended for private use only. Really, so
<v Speaker 2>we want