Ep. 430:The Complete Hulk Hogan | The Birth of Hulk Hogan (Part 2.5, Matsuda)

<v Speaker 1>So he's asked the question we heard from the daughter.
<v Speaker 1>How did Hero feel after this? Do you think he
<v Speaker 1>was unbothered about breaking his leg?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? I don't think he gave.
<v Speaker 1>A shit, that's correct, according to Jerry Briscoe told Brad Balucci.
<v Speaker 1>And how did Hero feel after that?
<v Speaker 2>He didn't. He was indifferent about it. How did he
<v Speaker 2>feel about it? He didn't feel about it. How about that?
<v Speaker 1>He didn't feel around for it either. He just went
<v Speaker 1>for it. It was just a job, Jerry said. You know,
<v Speaker 1>when another guy coming through and he's done a lot
<v Speaker 1>worse to guys, Terry actually got off lucky. It was
<v Speaker 1>just his ankle instead of breaking his face up and
<v Speaker 1>all that stuff and going to the band the next
<v Speaker 1>night with two big balloons for eyes. Is it fair
<v Speaker 1>to say he was asked that when guys who blue knots,
<v Speaker 1>you know, but it's uh, you know, he's a guy
<v Speaker 1>that you know. Matt Sudo was very secure in his position.
<v Speaker 1>He was not just some wrestler on the card. He
<v Speaker 1>at part of the office. He had business interests all
<v Speaker 1>over the place. He wasn't going anywhere, and it's important
<v Speaker 1>to remember that. One of the things we want to
<v Speaker 1>take a look at boss, you got that folder open.
<v Speaker 1>The aforementioned I do with a lot of the materials
<v Speaker 1>courtesy of the big homie Matt, who's been an indispensable
<v Speaker 1>resource as we really ramp up on the earliest years
<v Speaker 1>of Terry Bulea. You'll see a couple of clips in
<v Speaker 1>there that I'd love for you to convey to the
<v Speaker 1>Solar System because as we try to paint this picture
<v Speaker 1>of here in Matsuda, kind of important to go to
<v Speaker 1>the Tampa area newspaper clippings and how they wrote about
<v Speaker 1>his business ventures and him as more than just a
<v Speaker 1>professional wrestler in the community. So when I find those
<v Speaker 1>here in a moment and convey them to the folks,
<v Speaker 1>he as mentioned he had something of a I don't
<v Speaker 1>know what you'd call it, like an apparel store. I
<v Speaker 1>guess like a sporting goods store.
<v Speaker 2>But what had it like a hero's beach shop? You know?
<v Speaker 1>It's it is kind of funny that the one thing
<v Speaker 1>he didn't sell was sandwiches. Considering so there there are
<v Speaker 1>a couple. You'll see one there nineteen seventy four from
<v Speaker 1>the May tenth Tampa Times, Matt Suita's Busy Matt and
<v Speaker 1>that's a feature on Matt Suita's wrestling school, and we'll
<v Speaker 1>get another there as well. So he had a gym
<v Speaker 1>that was public facing. It wasn't like this guy was
<v Speaker 1>you know, behind some dungeon wall and was this like
<v Speaker 1>mystical guy in the community, like you could go and
<v Speaker 1>train with Hiro Matsuda just to stay in shave. So
<v Speaker 1>it doesn't get more pro wrestling than that. You build
<v Speaker 1>up all this mystique and then you go back in
<v Speaker 1>the actual date and time, and he had his hand
<v Speaker 1>out for a payoff, just like anybody else, you know,
<v Speaker 1>and he mark off the street could get access to
<v Speaker 1>this seemingly you know, impenetrable mystical force behind the walls
<v Speaker 1>of the sportatorium.
<v Speaker 2>There's no mystical force ever. It's it's all you know,
<v Speaker 2>it is. It's always you know, there is. There is
<v Speaker 2>no dollar amount too little that can break down the walls. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>we're about to fall down a little bit. Let's get
<v Speaker 2>on the mat with Matt Suita. Do you have Matt
<v Speaker 2>suits busy, Matt, I'm looking here, so roller roller, which
<v Speaker 2>which the fold? It's the Yeah, we'll get it here.
<v Speaker 2>Just stay right, I've got I've got it. I've got
<v Speaker 2>a bunch, but I don't know. Is the seventy five
<v Speaker 2>seventy eight one? Yeah, okay, you'll have the mat.
<v Speaker 1>Matt suit is Busy Matt. It starts with nineteen seventy
<v Speaker 1>four there in terms of the final name. And we'll
<v Speaker 1>get you over to the Tampa Times, ladies and gentlemen,
<v Speaker 1>the Tampa Time.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, the Tampa Times. Okay, you got it. This
<v Speaker 2>is the one. Okay, I see, Oh, I see that's
<v Speaker 2>the name of the thing.
<v Speaker 1>Look at all the guys on the mat. There's a
<v Speaker 1>big ass that much wrestling. Matt's all over the place.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, yes, of course. Listen, it's a it's to learn
<v Speaker 2>to learn how to work, you have to learn how
<v Speaker 2>to shoot.
<v Speaker 1>Only Terry would have stopped in here first, you would
<v Speaker 1>have been able to counter.
<v Speaker 2>That's right, actually, because he just used to sitting at
<v Speaker 2>the dining counter, right, and the diner and you know,
<v Speaker 2>getting some getting some hash, and it's this is waffle house,
<v Speaker 2>all right, I'm reading this one. Yeah, let's do it,
<v Speaker 2>all right, all right. Matt Suita is Busy Matt. By
<v Speaker 2>Richard White, Times staff writer. The only decoration on the
<v Speaker 2>Gymnasium wall is a hanging banner fighting spirit, it proclaims
<v Speaker 2>in Japanese characters. Underneath the banner, athletes tumble across the
<v Speaker 2>wall to wall wrestling matt embracing in the holds wrestlers
<v Speaker 2>use for handshakes, chatting between body slams. It is not
<v Speaker 2>a fighting spirit that fills Metsuita's Judo and wrestling school
<v Speaker 2>early on a hot spring evening, two months after the
<v Speaker 2>scholastic wrestling season has ended. It is a friendly spirit,
<v Speaker 2>like the relaxed dugout of a spring training baseball camp.
<v Speaker 2>In the center of the mat. Hakiro Oishi, a twenty
<v Speaker 2>four year old wrestling disciple from Japan, swepts through drills
<v Speaker 2>with with a group of high school age lightweights King
<v Speaker 2>Hi Wrestling coach King Hi Wrestling coach King Hi. That's
<v Speaker 2>where Anthony Barcello went, well, King Hi, I was gonna say,
<v Speaker 2>isn't that the nickname for David Boy Smith. I honestly
<v Speaker 2>thought that's good too.
<v Speaker 1>I honestly thought when you said King Hi that it
<v Speaker 1>was a Japanese name, not King High School, but King
<v Speaker 1>h Ai or something.
<v Speaker 2>I know, yeah, right right, you know, and it's like, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>We're in, We're in Tampa, and there's a wrestling disciple
<v Speaker 1>in there. I gotta think it's d Leslie.
<v Speaker 2>Going by the name Hakiroishi. A king Hi wrestling coach.
<v Speaker 2>Dan Kraft Macaroni and Cheese gives takedown pointers to Larry Bergman.
<v Speaker 1>Leave it to hear him at Suda to open this
<v Speaker 1>gym with like Japanese characters, fighting spirit, all these Japanese
<v Speaker 1>students and everything, and he hires the fucking coach named Dan.
<v Speaker 2>Kraft's seriously, Dan Kraft gives takedown pointers to Larry Bergman.
<v Speaker 2>An assistant State's attorney in as A Peneus County Panela's
<v Speaker 2>Panelos Yeah, Penellas County. Ross Wilson, a Brandon High sophomore,
<v Speaker 2>scorries around the matt offering friendly advice to wrestlers he
<v Speaker 2>will face in fighting competition next winter. Wrestling is becoming
<v Speaker 2>a year round sport in Tampa. Man and boys are
<v Speaker 2>paying twelve dollars a month to step inside met Sudah's
<v Speaker 2>Cheese Box Gym on North Lowes Street three nights a
<v Speaker 2>week and polish their wrestling styles that suit. A veteran
<v Speaker 2>professional wrestler in this area opened the tiny gym on
<v Speaker 2>January first nineteen seventy three. To give wrestlers a year
<v Speaker 2>round training ground to teach his judo and wrestling classes.
<v Speaker 2>He hired Masau Hatori, a former Japanese national wrestling champion.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, well known in the wrestling here. Yeah, say
<v Speaker 2>I know him. I know that.
<v Speaker 1>That's Tiger Hattori, the future you know, new japan referee
<v Speaker 1>and uh liaison okay to the English speaking offices because
<v Speaker 1>he had very good English.
<v Speaker 2>Hmm. Between them, Matsuda and Hattori laid their philosophy on
<v Speaker 2>the mat. Combined Japanese wrestling discipline and speed with American
<v Speaker 2>strength and new found enthusiasm for the sport. Combine fighting
<v Speaker 2>spirit with the intimate wrestling brotherhood to produce champions. Quote.
<v Speaker 2>Americans have long legs that are good for wrestling, explains Hatori.
<v Speaker 2>Japanese style is more speed, but little things from Japanese
<v Speaker 2>style and American together long legs good for breaking. Wrestling
<v Speaker 2>is a lot of experience, good point, Wrestling is a
<v Speaker 2>lot of experience. I don't know that what's wrong with
<v Speaker 2>translation there? Something is lost there. I'm trying to figure
<v Speaker 2>out what are you trying to say? Wrestling takes a
<v Speaker 2>lot of experience. I don't know. I'm very I don't
<v Speaker 2>know what that one means in high school sometimes only
<v Speaker 2>making muscle good wrestler need up here to.
<v Speaker 3>Head.
<v Speaker 2>They're really quoting him, like in the exact like that's
<v Speaker 2>what they're saying. I'm sure. I'm sure not I'm sure. Hey,
<v Speaker 2>you know what, you just got to have this fuck,
<v Speaker 2>you know, just just break it up a little bit.
<v Speaker 2>You know, he speaks, he speaks too well. You know,
<v Speaker 2>we can't have, we can't represent.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I forgot what I forgot? Who has the last
<v Speaker 1>pass on this piece before it hits the press.
<v Speaker 2>I'm not going to sit here, all right, I'm not
<v Speaker 2>going to sit here and act like a an intelligent
<v Speaker 2>Japanese American is fucking coaching these people, right, that's bullshit.
<v Speaker 2>Bus This is the actual reel. Like no, no, no, no, no,
<v Speaker 2>no no no no no no no, no, no no no,
<v Speaker 2>it's not what do you mean? Look at you see
<v Speaker 2>the same let these guys? Are you so this this
<v Speaker 2>is your fucking problem? You're so fucking blind? What am
<v Speaker 2>I line? You? Shit? You're so do you know who
<v Speaker 2>the fucking guy who owns this gym is? You know
<v Speaker 2>when you're a hero. Matsuda. He yeah, he's actual rest phone.
<v Speaker 2>I understand the fucking phony. He's a fucking phony. I
<v Speaker 2>don't care why he started. I don't care where he went.
<v Speaker 2>You know, it doesn't fucking matter. The bottom line is
<v Speaker 2>right now, he's a fucking phony, and that's all he is.
<v Speaker 2>Bottom line is right now, he gets paid to pull
<v Speaker 2>the wool over the public's eyes. He gets paid to
<v Speaker 2>light a You's right to me and everybody else in
<v Speaker 2>this fucking state, all right. I don't fucking care. He
<v Speaker 2>could have been fucking vautic toorn of his goddamn high
<v Speaker 2>school class. I don't give a fuck.
<v Speaker 1>I drive by that Hestely Armor on Tuesday nights and
<v Speaker 1>I see that pocking lot full, And do you know
<v Speaker 1>what goes through my fucking mind when I see mister
<v Speaker 1>Bonanza at that place every single week in my city.
<v Speaker 2>I'm looking at people. I'm looking at these fucking people,
<v Speaker 2>all right, who who are being made to just give
<v Speaker 2>their fucking hard warning money to He's fucking idiots. A crime.
<v Speaker 2>It's a crime.
<v Speaker 1>Can I just ask you why why is it a crime?
<v Speaker 1>They go there, they have a good time.
<v Speaker 2>No they don't, No, they don't They make you think
<v Speaker 2>you're having a good time, but they're not. All they
<v Speaker 2>want is your fucking money. They don't give a shit.
<v Speaker 2>They card they want to get. No, no, no, they
<v Speaker 2>go out there. You know what they could do. This
<v Speaker 2>is the thing. You know, you have a you have
<v Speaker 2>a boxing match, right, you see, you have a big
<v Speaker 2>boxing such now you know, you know for a fact,
<v Speaker 2>you know they get a number of rounds. Obviously, anything
<v Speaker 2>can happen in boxing, but you know what, You hype
<v Speaker 2>up a match, but you don't know what's gonna happen.
<v Speaker 2>You don't know what's gonna happen. Nobody knows what's gonna happen.
<v Speaker 2>These fucking clowns know every fucking move going on in there,
<v Speaker 2>and they're fucking with you. They're fucking with everybody.
<v Speaker 1>I heard this guy actually breaks people's bones at the
<v Speaker 1>sportatorium to get them initiated and arrest.
<v Speaker 2>I'm sorry, Oh oh he does. Oh well, let me
<v Speaker 2>just back off. Let me, let me let me just
<v Speaker 2>one question before I completely back off, and I'll fucking
<v Speaker 2>resign my uh my fucking position here. Have you seen
<v Speaker 2>it happen? No, have you been there in person? Break
<v Speaker 2>a leg?
<v Speaker 1>I've heard a lot about it though from people in wrestling.
<v Speaker 2>Oh oh, oh, oh oh. I see so the liars
<v Speaker 2>are telling this shit.
<v Speaker 3>You.
<v Speaker 2>The liars are coming to you and saying, Hey, this
<v Speaker 2>fucking clown over here who doesn't know his fucking ass
<v Speaker 2>from a hole in the ground is breaking people's legs. Then, no,
<v Speaker 2>fuck you, all right, they nobody's been there. Nobody he's
<v Speaker 2>in the fucking room when this ship goes down. Correction.
<v Speaker 1>I'll tell you what show of the sportatorium a picture
<v Speaker 1>and above it just it's a quote.
<v Speaker 2>Nobody's been there. I'm gonna tell you something, all right.
<v Speaker 2>You get them to let me in there every fucking
<v Speaker 2>time they're working with one of these ass clowns who
<v Speaker 2>think they're gonna fucking get a job as a fake athlete,
<v Speaker 2>all right, And I want to see them break a
<v Speaker 2>fucking leg. I want to see him break a fucking leg.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Charlie lay yeah? Can I get in here? What's
<v Speaker 1>I want to I want to observe proceedings? Who the
<v Speaker 1>fuck are you? I want to know who the fucking
<v Speaker 1>guy's breaking legs is?
<v Speaker 2>Excuse me? I want to him do it? Are you
<v Speaker 2>gonna buy a ticket? Are you here buy a ticket
<v Speaker 2>to the armory. No no, no, no, no, no no, I'm gonna
<v Speaker 2>see fucking legs. Get call the cops. What do you mean, hey,
<v Speaker 2>I listen to please please? All right. I've got more soces,
<v Speaker 2>more sources than the fucking PD over here than you,
<v Speaker 2>fucking he could even imagine. Who are you? I want
<v Speaker 2>to see a fucking leg broken. Prove it to me,
<v Speaker 2>Prove it to you. Prove to me that this ship's real.
<v Speaker 2>You know everyone, you know, people in my office are
<v Speaker 2>telling me that there's a fucking clown in here who
<v Speaker 2>goes around breaking people's legs when they're training to do
<v Speaker 2>this fucking fake ship. Fake. You're gonna come in here
<v Speaker 2>and say fake on my territory. Man, you gotta be
<v Speaker 2>out of your mind. I'm not gonna say it. I'm
<v Speaker 2>gonna bot about it. I'm gonna put in every goddamn
<v Speaker 2>newspaper in the fucking country your little pieces.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know what kind of I don't know what
<v Speaker 1>kind of fake news media you're from, but I hope
<v Speaker 1>you know that this this is Florida.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, I see, So you're fucking you're gonna put it
<v Speaker 2>back on me now, I'm fucking fake right, I'm fucking
<v Speaker 2>fink as I'm reporting about the murders on these fucking streets.
<v Speaker 1>Out here, Florida, Florida, my friend, as you well know,
<v Speaker 1>is a Staniel ground state, and this is my ground.
<v Speaker 1>And I encourage you to take another step forward, you
<v Speaker 1>to leave North.
<v Speaker 2>Invite you to suck my dick, you piece of shit.
<v Speaker 1>Charlie Lay versus the LAPS editor. You already know what
<v Speaker 1>it is, So let me ask you a question. You're
<v Speaker 1>here to doubt that behind those doors right there ain't
<v Speaker 1>a Japanese gentleman who will post his l low in
<v Speaker 1>your shin and pull up on your toe till it's
<v Speaker 1>snaps in half.
<v Speaker 2>Basically, all I want to know is what's real in
<v Speaker 2>this fucking building. What's reel in here? I'll tell you
<v Speaker 2>what you want to know. What's real? This is real
<v Speaker 2>that that's created quickly, This is fucking real. You want
<v Speaker 2>to see how fast a book goes through your fucking brain.
<v Speaker 2>That's fucking real. And I'll fucking write about that shit.
<v Speaker 2>This is the realist thing that a the editor of
<v Speaker 2>the paper in Tampa. This is gonna be meet killing
<v Speaker 2>you will be the realist thing that ever fucking happened
<v Speaker 2>in here.
<v Speaker 3>Man.
<v Speaker 1>You know, we really lost the plot in Tampa and
<v Speaker 1>all these New Yorkers started moving down here. You definitely
<v Speaker 1>can be in Miami. Man, what are you doing a.
<v Speaker 2>Plot of all your fucking stories that go on in
<v Speaker 2>here as you fucking try to make these people, these good, honest,
<v Speaker 2>hardworking people, believe that what you do is legitimate.
<v Speaker 1>Can't you come down here like every other New Yorker
<v Speaker 1>to get divorced at fifty five and go to a
<v Speaker 1>tiki bar with a sleeveless shirt on.
<v Speaker 2>Dude, I'm gonna tell you something. I've been divorced since
<v Speaker 2>I was thirty three, So go fuck yourself. Wow.
<v Speaker 1>Well, listen, there's a gentleman. He's out here right now.
<v Speaker 1>His name is Matt Suda. I'm sure he'd be glad.
<v Speaker 2>I want to know this fucking I want to know
<v Speaker 2>about this fucking clown who breaks who quote unquote breaks
<v Speaker 2>people's legs? Do you show it to me?
<v Speaker 1>Fast forward to out here, fast forward to my leg. Well,
<v Speaker 1>you said you wanted it, you came back. I'll give
<v Speaker 1>you credit for it. I want to introduce you to
<v Speaker 1>mister Mattsuda. All right, bitch, I'm not gonna do a
<v Speaker 1>mat Suda. I don't want to get veer into dangerous territory,
<v Speaker 1>but suffice to say, he shakes the lapse Editor's hand and.
<v Speaker 2>Break my fucking leg. Come on, how do you want
<v Speaker 2>him to do that?
<v Speaker 3>Sir?
<v Speaker 2>Uh, prove to me that you're not a fucking figment
<v Speaker 2>of my imagination. Huh. Prove to me right now that
<v Speaker 2>you have what it takes to break a fucking man's leg,
<v Speaker 2>because I don't think you fucking can do it. I
<v Speaker 2>think you're a bitch. I think you're a loser. There's
<v Speaker 2>nothing real about you. I'm the realist fucking thing you're
<v Speaker 2>ever gonna meet, and I'm gonna fucking wipe the floor
<v Speaker 2>with you. Wow.
<v Speaker 1>He steps up to Matt suit. All right, let's continue here.
<v Speaker 1>How that that little piece of history has been illuminated,
<v Speaker 1>because I really don't know where to.
<v Speaker 2>Go from there. All from the fucking broken English that reported.
<v Speaker 2>When Tory first began teaching wrestling classes at the University
<v Speaker 2>of South Florida in nineteen seventy two, one of the
<v Speaker 2>first pupils was a scrawny horace Man junior horace Man
<v Speaker 2>junior high student named Ross Wilson. Later, when the wrestling
<v Speaker 2>school opened on Lois, Wilson began driving forty miles round
<v Speaker 2>trip from his Brandon home to attend it three nights
<v Speaker 2>per week. In the past year, the Brandon High, the
<v Speaker 2>Brandon High sophomore has placed second in the World Schoolboy Brother,
<v Speaker 2>What this is really questionable, horace man? Dude, I mean, hello, brother,
<v Speaker 2>You're talking about a guy named Horse who's doing world
<v Speaker 2>schoolboy tournaments. Brother, what's up with that? Dude? People so base?
<v Speaker 2>What you tell me, brother, is that there are people
<v Speaker 2>competing to do the best school boy roll ups? Are
<v Speaker 2>you telling me, brother, what's going on will be a
<v Speaker 2>reason for that? What's the diz? Man? Just on. I'm
<v Speaker 2>just you know, I'm.
<v Speaker 1>Really trying to keep my my perspective wide open on
<v Speaker 1>this thing and really not jump to conclusions. But it's
<v Speaker 1>kind of tough when you look around and everyone's coming
<v Speaker 1>at you wide open.
<v Speaker 2>Brother. I'm looking around you, and I'm understanding that there
<v Speaker 2>are now hundreds of people working that school school biz gimmick. Brother,
<v Speaker 2>I'm looking.
<v Speaker 1>Around and I'm understanding. I mean, look, it's it's in there.
<v Speaker 1>We didn't we didn't put it in there at all.
<v Speaker 2>It's in there, second in the World's School World school
<v Speaker 2>Boy Tournament, and third in the Florida Stit State High
<v Speaker 2>School Tournament as a one hundred and one pounder. The
<v Speaker 2>Japanese use a lot quote Rather, the Japanese, you use
<v Speaker 2>a lot of judo flips for takedowns, but nobody else
<v Speaker 2>seems to use them. Nobody knows flips like the Japanese do,
<v Speaker 2>as Wilson. But I come here for more than learning
<v Speaker 2>new moves. By next year, I'll have twice the experience
<v Speaker 2>I have now, Like most people, when you do something
<v Speaker 2>for twice as long. Yeah, if you do something for
<v Speaker 2>a year and then you do it for another year, yes,
<v Speaker 2>you have twice the experience. It's amazing how that happens.
<v Speaker 2>Other guys will be starting the season all over and
<v Speaker 2>I'll be in top shape. Not all visitors to Matt
<v Speaker 2>Suit his gym are competition hungry school boys. Brother, there
<v Speaker 2>it is again, dude, I mean, what the fuck it's
<v Speaker 2>Matt Suita. Dude, you fucking kidding me?
<v Speaker 1>Brother, That Suit is training people in that building right there,
<v Speaker 1>and Drew Park.
<v Speaker 2>He's training schoolboy style. Brother, First he breaks my fucking leg,
<v Speaker 2>then he fucking has goddamn fucking Mike Graham fucking attacked
<v Speaker 2>me out of nowhere for fucking years. Dude, I know
<v Speaker 2>we put him in. I know for a fact, brother,
<v Speaker 2>that Matt Suita put him in that fucking high school. Brother,
<v Speaker 2>do you have heat with Mike Graham, Terry, with anybody? Dude,
<v Speaker 2>He's got heat with me. Brother. He's always fucking talking
<v Speaker 2>down to me. Man. He was always like, oh, you know, brother,
<v Speaker 2>you know Terry, you know, I'm you know, these guys
<v Speaker 2>are the jocks, you know, because I wasn't a jock, brother,
<v Speaker 2>because I kind of I want to focus on music,
<v Speaker 2>and they fucking come at me every fucking day.
<v Speaker 1>Brother, was I daydreaming about Mike Graham arms folded as
<v Speaker 1>a hardware store of sales net? Was I picturing various
<v Speaker 1>scenarios in which he casts a judgmental gaze.
<v Speaker 2>From standing just standing outside of Pete and Ruth's house,
<v Speaker 2>fucking arms folder, just looking at the doorway.
<v Speaker 1>I think you're gonna be a star hun Terry in
<v Speaker 1>my city, after all I've put in.
<v Speaker 2>My dad's done. I'm sorry, you're gonna play fucking music
<v Speaker 2>when you look like that? Fuck you, don't you fucking
<v Speaker 2>do that? Don't you do that to yourself. Don't you
<v Speaker 2>do that to me? All right? You can't play music
<v Speaker 2>when you look like that, It's not allowed. You fucking
<v Speaker 2>chuck it up.
<v Speaker 1>Terry, do you even have do you even have sauce
<v Speaker 1>that go up to the knee?
<v Speaker 2>I'm sorry, I don't know who you are, but Terry's
<v Speaker 2>not here right now. He lives in a hotel. Sorry, man,
<v Speaker 2>what is going on with this guy? What? What are
<v Speaker 2>the odds that when we actually dig in, Hulk was
<v Speaker 2>weirder before he was a wrestler. Seriously, was the cowardly
<v Speaker 2>giant Jesus Christ? Oh God, he's weirder.
<v Speaker 1>Than he's weird, Sticking rocks up his nose, living in
<v Speaker 1>a hotel, like, why are you living in a hotel?
<v Speaker 2>Buying fifteen cars his sophomore year in high school or whatever?
<v Speaker 1>Looking up other people's salaries at the bank.
<v Speaker 2>Throw it like wearing fucking platform shoes, Jesus Christ, his
<v Speaker 2>mother's jewelry.
<v Speaker 1>Eating a whopper coke and diet diet coke and fries
<v Speaker 1>every day.
<v Speaker 2>Then that's a healthy diet. God, I wonder what it
<v Speaker 2>was like unhealthy Jesus school boy school boys again, fucking
<v Speaker 2>hungry school boys, No Wonder, No Wonder Patterson came to
<v Speaker 2>the territory. Frank Fusik is a twenty nine year old
<v Speaker 2>engineer at Florida Power Company. Sounds like a fucking tag tap,
<v Speaker 2>sounds like, oh my god.
<v Speaker 1>It sounds like like a team with guys who were
<v Speaker 1>in WCW but you didn't know they worked Japan too.
<v Speaker 1>It's like Dan Spivey and like, uh, who else?
<v Speaker 2>Well, definitely gotta have fucking Fred Otman.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Fred Oman and Dan Spivey were called Florida Power
<v Speaker 1>Company in all Japan. So many backdrop drivers, guys taking
<v Speaker 1>high angle Sayido suplexus for Florida Power Company.
<v Speaker 2>Fucking fucking Optman going for the ride with a half Nelson.
<v Speaker 1>Because Japanese crowds expected to land on your head. It's
<v Speaker 1>not more complicated than that. It doesn't matter where you're from.
<v Speaker 1>You land on your head if you want to get
<v Speaker 1>a reaction. Oh my god, Hey, it's better Florida Power Company.
<v Speaker 1>It's better than the working title, which was a Florida
<v Speaker 1>Public Utility of Light.
<v Speaker 2>Florida Public Works aka Championships from Florida. Okay, every Tuesday
<v Speaker 2>with the Hesserly Public Works Florida Public Works at this
<v Speaker 2>point in this quarter had a combined way. It's a
<v Speaker 2>Japanese announcer flight up Public Works time, and they have like,
<v Speaker 2>you know, vests on Oh my god, and and and
<v Speaker 2>the Japanese crowd takes them so fucking seriously, just like streamers.
<v Speaker 2>Oh god, well that would be later on, it would
<v Speaker 2>be more like today. That's more like. That's more like
<v Speaker 2>every Royal rumble the past three years loaded with.
<v Speaker 1>The only streamers in wrestling used to be in work
<v Speaker 1>rate promotions. Now every big p l A there's one somewhere.
<v Speaker 2>No, no, no, you know what they're gonna have. They're
<v Speaker 2>gonna have like this, a streamers Battle Royal. At some
<v Speaker 2>point the streamers ball a Streamer's Battle Royal. Oh good,
<v Speaker 2>you know they're gonna do it someday. Oh shit, Florida
<v Speaker 2>Cock versus Netflix versus ESPN, Florida Public Works brands, it's
<v Speaker 2>just brands having a battle roy Streamers Paramount plus Apple
<v Speaker 2>TV plus.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, like Vince like makes like masks that have the
<v Speaker 1>loco of the streaming service, like the app logo.
<v Speaker 2>And it's like, but then the best thing is like
<v Speaker 2>they don't even hide who the wrestlers are like, they
<v Speaker 2>just put the mask on, like Randy Orton, right with
<v Speaker 2>a fucking Apple.
<v Speaker 1>Amazon Primes, the Prime check across the with a Prime
<v Speaker 1>mask on, It'll be even funnier as if they did
<v Speaker 1>this and they didn't wear masks at all. They dressed
<v Speaker 1>like they always did. Randy Orton is dressed like Randy Orton,
<v Speaker 1>but they keep calling him Amazon Prime. What episode was
<v Speaker 1>it where they pretended wrestlers were streaming services? Is that
<v Speaker 1>the complete hul Cogan The Birth of hul Cogan Episode two?
<v Speaker 1>Matsuda because streamers Because I said they threw streamers at
<v Speaker 1>Florida Power Light whatever their name.
<v Speaker 2>Is, and they're obviously throwing people a.
<v Speaker 1>Florida Nuclear Regulatory Commission, whatever their name is.
<v Speaker 2>That's the overall faction, right That's like the Legion of
<v Speaker 2>Doom in the NWA. Florida Power Company is the Road
<v Speaker 2>Warriors version of it. Ah Jesus Christ explains why he
<v Speaker 2>drives one hundred miles each week from Saint Petersburg to
<v Speaker 2>participate in the Monday through when Monday Wednesday Friday workouts.
<v Speaker 2>I was athletics ten years ago. I kind of missed it,
<v Speaker 2>but I was resigned to not do anything. They're not
<v Speaker 2>doing anything. Hey, sounds like me, right, I got so
<v Speaker 2>bad off physically. I got disgusted in joying a health club,
<v Speaker 2>but that didn't do it. I like the competition, something
<v Speaker 2>to keep working for, using the evening workouts as a
<v Speaker 2>launching pad. Several wrestling wrestler, several wrestling enthusiasts have begun
<v Speaker 2>the Tampa Wrestling Club coach by Hattori King King Coach.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my god, coach by Hattori King coach Craft. We
<v Speaker 2>call him King coach Craft. Okay, all right, I mean
<v Speaker 2>it sounds like I mean, it sounds like an instructional video.
<v Speaker 2>It really does. And Horace Mann coach okay. The fact
<v Speaker 2>that all these high schools are like, you know, names
<v Speaker 2>of people, it's just it's so fucking confusing, all right,
<v Speaker 2>it makes it so much harder. Horace Man coach.
<v Speaker 1>Coach Craft's brother Robert fabs off the Winkland. You are
<v Speaker 1>the greatest fads at all of New England.
<v Speaker 2>I want you to welcome my brother King coach Craft. Hey,
<v Speaker 2>I got this great massage parlor. I can show you
<v Speaker 2>around here. This is great. And Horaceman coach Phil Chase.
<v Speaker 2>The club already has made a name for itself in
<v Speaker 2>statewide amateur tournaments. It is still looking for new members. Quote,
<v Speaker 2>it's not hard to keep boys.
<v Speaker 1>Interested, said said Terry. Garvin says craft.
<v Speaker 2>Resting as a real close brotherhood, probably the closest of
<v Speaker 2>any sport. Matsuda has even more plans. You're bringing another
<v Speaker 2>coach named Velvida and in Lando Lakes. That is in Florida.
<v Speaker 2>He would like to sponsor some of his more promising students,
<v Speaker 2>like Wilson and Brandon High teammate Mark McNitt on a
<v Speaker 2>wrestling expedition through Japan. The one thing Masuda says he
<v Speaker 2>cannot afford to do is profiteer from the surge of
<v Speaker 2>wrestling interests in Tampa. Quote, I'm not making any money.
<v Speaker 2>I'm in the hole. He said that to the newspaper.
<v Speaker 2>What the fuck, what's going on here? Fucking? The dues
<v Speaker 2>will remain twelve dollars a month. The room will remain
<v Speaker 2>small enough for wrestling brotherhood to fill it. Okay, good stuff.
<v Speaker 2>The matt will be the only furnishing, and the decoration
<v Speaker 2>will be fighting spirit. Well.
<v Speaker 1>If he was in the hole in seventy four, it
<v Speaker 1>certainly didn't stop him from continuing in seventy five.
<v Speaker 2>Jesus, there's another piece.
<v Speaker 1>From the Tampa Times, Matsuda beginning another TBWC year with
<v Speaker 1>lofty goals. Tampa is a home of many champions, and
<v Speaker 1>it's hardly more evident than at four six on one
<v Speaker 1>North Lewis Avenue. That's the home of Hiro matsuit Is,
<v Speaker 1>Judo and wrestling School. Hero would say thanks for the plug,
<v Speaker 1>but right now he's more interested in reminding area of
<v Speaker 1>people that is Tampa Bay Wrestling Club, where the champs
<v Speaker 1>or near champs are is cranking up for a new
<v Speaker 1>fall winter season. Hero, the world Junior Heavyweight wrestling champion
<v Speaker 1>among the pros, has initiated a special program to focus
<v Speaker 1>on beginning wrestlers in the Tampa Bay area. So this
<v Speaker 1>is not a guy who who was this guy who's
<v Speaker 1>inviting the public to wrestle with him. You know, this
<v Speaker 1>is not some guy that they kept locked in the
<v Speaker 1>in the corner for when someone needed to be toit
<v Speaker 1>a lesson. Okay, this is a businessman, all right.
<v Speaker 2>So there is this a guy who's like, like, who's right,
<v Speaker 2>He's a public figure totally totally, you know, there's no
<v Speaker 2>nothing like in the closet about this guy at all.
<v Speaker 1>It's a program to emphasized basic wrestling fundamentals to develop
<v Speaker 1>strong foundations on which the young wrestlers can build, says Hero,
<v Speaker 1>a Tampa resident since nineteen sixty three. The club meets
<v Speaker 1>each Monday from seven day thirty pm at Metsuita school
<v Speaker 1>and membership is open to anyone from five years of
<v Speaker 1>age and not. Membership fees are negligible. Negligible, okay, that
<v Speaker 1>is a negotiable. For tenth to twelfth grade schoolers, it's
<v Speaker 1>two dollars and one dollar for ninth graders and below.
<v Speaker 1>There's a four dollar charge for a US Wrestling Federation
<v Speaker 1>membership for those fifteen and older and two dollars for
<v Speaker 1>those fourteen and under. It's necessary for insurance coverage. More
<v Speaker 1>and more boys are having a fling at wrestling and
<v Speaker 1>finding they like.
<v Speaker 2>Says Hero.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, he really needs to be coached on how this sounds.
<v Speaker 1>Besides just getting an introduction.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, why do they have to like, I mean,
<v Speaker 2>I understand that that you know, if you're quoting somebody,
<v Speaker 2>you kind of have to be exactly what.
<v Speaker 1>You don't have to do that to the guy like
<v Speaker 1>they're you're making fun of him, and you know it.
<v Speaker 2>Right, It's just it's bad. It's very It's like it's
<v Speaker 2>very man.
<v Speaker 1>That's just awful, besides just getting an introduction to the
<v Speaker 1>fundamentals as good body building. But though the roster of
<v Speaker 1>Tampa Bay Wrestling Clubbers holding state or national championships is long,
<v Speaker 1>not ites not there's room for more, TBWC doesn't hold
<v Speaker 1>hold them all. Even if the following list of current
<v Speaker 1>champions gives that impression. How about Hachiro Oishi, a club instructor,
<v Speaker 1>first place, National Federation Open Tournament, one hundred and thirty
<v Speaker 1>six pounds. Howbout Dan Kraft second place National Federation Open
<v Speaker 1>Tournament Heavyweight, Larry Bergman, Florida State Heavyweight AAU Heavyweight Champion,
<v Speaker 1>Carl Hillman second place Florida AAU Championships at heavyweight, Glenn
<v Speaker 1>Goodman first place, Easter Junior National Championships at ninety nine pounds,
<v Speaker 1>Jimmy Clair second place, Florida AAU one hundred and forty
<v Speaker 1>nine pounds, Phil Chase third place one hundred and sixty
<v Speaker 1>nine pounds, Florida AAU, Dan Kraft first Charlotte Open, Glenn
<v Speaker 1>good We're repeating people, here. Wow, so we're already out
<v Speaker 1>of uh, out of people who see Terry Boley in here.
<v Speaker 1>We have members who are attorneys, teachers, engineers, and kids
<v Speaker 1>of all ages as hero yes, the fear hero Matsuda
<v Speaker 1>training fucking engineers and attorneys out of wrestle and not
<v Speaker 1>breaking their legs. If some I I don't even know
<v Speaker 1>how to fucking process this whole thing. It just it
<v Speaker 1>just it makes it. It brings him so much down to earth,
<v Speaker 1>doesn't it. This idea that you know, oh my god,
<v Speaker 1>the head did lock this shooter away in the corner.
<v Speaker 2>Right, I mean that's the thing. Like it this destroys
<v Speaker 2>that that mystique that they kind of have created over
<v Speaker 2>the last fifty years. It's a businessman, you know, right
<v Speaker 2>turn out. I mean, if if anything too, I mean,
<v Speaker 2>honest to god, this guy seems like one of the
<v Speaker 2>more open, honest like when it comes to actual to wrestling.
<v Speaker 2>You know, he just he's kind of I mean, he's
<v Speaker 2>not coming out and saying that everything's fake, but he's
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, he's he's a little more I don't know,
<v Speaker 2>he feels more not so scared about k.
<v Speaker 1>Fae, that's so scared about Kpe. Well, he's doing interviews
<v Speaker 1>to someone offering legitimate wrestling classes. He's not doing interviews
<v Speaker 1>as a pro wrestler.
<v Speaker 2>Too much help. No, I know, I know, but still
<v Speaker 2>like it. It It just kind of I don't know,
<v Speaker 2>it feels it just feels different, you know, it feels
<v Speaker 2>very different than any other clown who usually comes out here,
<v Speaker 2>like you know, trying to. I don't know, it just
<v Speaker 2>it feels I don't know how to. I don't know why,
<v Speaker 2>but it feels different. Someone tells me he didn't tell
<v Speaker 2>these kids to never come back after a work, right right.
<v Speaker 2>He even says, quote, if some of them never wrestle competitively,
<v Speaker 2>it's time well spent. Unless your name, apparently is Terry
<v Speaker 2>Bolea singled out, singled out for being whatever he is,
<v Speaker 2>for being I guess big with roll band, very rock
<v Speaker 2>and roll. You know he got a waha role band
<v Speaker 2>rock wack roll band broke basically kind of take me down.
<v Speaker 1>On the long hair, fretless bass. You know that's what
<v Speaker 1>hero had, a fretless bass. Why it was so hard
<v Speaker 1>to take down? He did not fret about basis he
<v Speaker 1>didn't know, he knew yet it was all about it.
<v Speaker 1>In fact, much like Megan Trainer, another person Megan Trainer,
<v Speaker 1>Tip of the Cap, who you know, became famous and
<v Speaker 1>who had a hit song because she didn't care that
<v Speaker 1>she was plus size, and then proceeded to lose all
<v Speaker 1>of the weight as soon as she got enough money
<v Speaker 1>to of course get rid of it. Hero now twenty
<v Speaker 1>eight or thirty eight, it says, has never it is.
<v Speaker 2>It is such a it's such a hard it's where
<v Speaker 2>we had such a hard thing. I know. It's such
<v Speaker 2>a hard thing though, like because you know you you
<v Speaker 2>you should want to I mean, you should be accepting
<v Speaker 2>of your appearances no matter what and and whatever. But
<v Speaker 2>also the same time, you know you want to be healthy,
<v Speaker 2>absolutely you knows and whatnot. It's a it's a weird
<v Speaker 2>it's such a weird dynamic. It's a very very weird dynamic.
<v Speaker 1>It's like anybody who was like inspired by her is
<v Speaker 1>now like, oh okay, well all of that until I
<v Speaker 1>get money.
<v Speaker 2>Although I never even thought she was that plus size.
<v Speaker 1>Just know what her whole song was about having curves? Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that was like she got big hips if she was
<v Speaker 1>you know, I don't know if she's talented or not.
<v Speaker 1>It seems like a talented musician to be.
<v Speaker 2>But if she.
<v Speaker 1>Didn't have that part of her appeal, would she even
<v Speaker 1>have had a hit song in the first place. You know,
<v Speaker 1>if she was't gonna fly that flag, it's it's it's
<v Speaker 1>quite a you know, everyone's gonna be out broker, you know, right,
<v Speaker 1>Nantucket's own that's correct as well. Yeah, that's probably something
<v Speaker 1>to do with it. He first won the World Junior
<v Speaker 1>heavyweight title from Danny Hodge several years ago, and six
<v Speaker 1>months ago regained the title from Ken Montero at Bayfront Center.
<v Speaker 1>He keeps a busy schedule but manages to get back
<v Speaker 1>to his school, especially for the Monday night TBWC sessions.
<v Speaker 1>So there's a quick acknowledgment that heroes still grappling professionally,
<v Speaker 1>but treated and talked about as if you know, it's
<v Speaker 1>just as legitimate as everything else he does. So I
<v Speaker 1>guess this is the point at which the Labs editor
<v Speaker 1>has clearly skipped down and moved on to the next paper.
<v Speaker 2>He's he's already been fired by this point.
<v Speaker 1>So yes, that is pretty much the hero Matt Suda's story.
<v Speaker 1>We've painted the picture. I think Terry looks back and says,
<v Speaker 1>you know, as much as I hated the experience, at
<v Speaker 1>least two guys got some enjoyment out of it. They
<v Speaker 1>were Jack and Jerry Briscoe, the tag champions of Florida
<v Speaker 1>Championship Wrestling. They own a body shop nearby, and they
<v Speaker 1>would stop in a sea met suit to work me over.
<v Speaker 1>I'd originally met Jack Briscoe at the Imperial Room. He
<v Speaker 1>was a real good looking guy in a Tom Jones
<v Speaker 1>type of way. It turned out he was in a
<v Speaker 1>rock and roll so we came to some of the
<v Speaker 1>clubs I played at, and I got to know him
<v Speaker 1>pretty well.
<v Speaker 2>I just remember everybody isn't everybody in rock and roll?
<v Speaker 2>You know, like it would appear that way. I mean, like,
<v Speaker 2>why is that a thing? Like it was? It's it
<v Speaker 2>was the popular music, you know, It's always been like,
<v Speaker 2>why is it a surprise that somebody's into rock and roll?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it wasn't like there was a lot of other
<v Speaker 1>choices back then, right before the onset of disco especially.
<v Speaker 1>I just remember being in excruciating pain Terry Writes and
<v Speaker 1>hearing the Briscoes laugh at me. Everyone laughed at Hultkogan.
<v Speaker 2>You notice that everyone laughed at all ye who's laughing now, correct,
<v Speaker 2>that's like.
<v Speaker 1>That's his whole life. Yeah, exactly from Bubba all the
<v Speaker 1>way back. I was their favorite form of entertainment. I'm
<v Speaker 1>glad I was able to brighten their day, because they
<v Speaker 1>sure weren't brightening mine.
<v Speaker 2>But hey, be nice. Jerry was impressed.
<v Speaker 1>Here he is on tails from the territories giving Terry
<v Speaker 1>Bully quite a bit of credit for coming back after
<v Speaker 1>the ill fated first session with Hiro Matsuda.
<v Speaker 4>So Terry comes back to the Sportatorium and actually wants
<v Speaker 4>some more, really, and everybody took a look at it. No,
<v Speaker 4>you know, come back, come back in a couple of
<v Speaker 4>days and give Terry credit. Terry called every day. I
<v Speaker 4>wanted to know when he could come back. The very
<v Speaker 4>next week, Terry went back in the gym. And when
<v Speaker 4>we saw Terry getting in there and giving it everything
<v Speaker 4>ahead in the back of our mind, Man, this kid
<v Speaker 4>not a quitter. We got jumped in here.
<v Speaker 2>Not a quitter, that's true. Give that to the man. Now,
<v Speaker 2>now hold on here, hold on, let's do it. Okay.
<v Speaker 2>So now, I mean, I don't know who's honest and
<v Speaker 2>who's not honestly.
<v Speaker 3>But.
<v Speaker 2>Hogan saying that he was gone. It took him six months, yes,
<v Speaker 2>to come back, and Briscoe just said that it was
<v Speaker 2>the next week, next week.
<v Speaker 1>I think what he means is he expressed a desire
<v Speaker 1>to continue on even if physically he couldn't, because elsewhere
<v Speaker 1>Briscoe has said that basically they had to wave them
<v Speaker 1>off and say no, you can't, you can't keep doing this.
<v Speaker 1>You need to heal basically. So I think it's more
<v Speaker 1>that he reached back out. He was calling Charlie Laigh,
<v Speaker 1>he was calling the Sportatorium, and he was letting it
<v Speaker 1>be known that he still wanted in. And don't you know,
<v Speaker 1>let me be an afterthought, brother. I mean, he had
<v Speaker 1>no trouble haunting these guys all around in Tampa before
<v Speaker 1>he even stepped foot in the Sportatorium. It's not hard
<v Speaker 1>to believe that he just continued the pattern of behavior
<v Speaker 1>of bending their ear any chance he could get.
<v Speaker 2>But yes, that is that is a little weird.
<v Speaker 1>But I think in totality, when you look back knowing
<v Speaker 1>that he did come back and get and did get
<v Speaker 1>through Matsuit's training regiment and earned Metsuit his respect, you know,
<v Speaker 1>when you look at the totality, you can say regardless
<v Speaker 1>of timeline that he that he you know, was impressive
<v Speaker 1>from wanting to come back. But we're gonna go here
<v Speaker 1>to to a passage from Hogan's second book, because there's no, uh,
<v Speaker 1>there's no better way to frame it up than when
<v Speaker 1>Terry puts pen to paper.
<v Speaker 5>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>But I hung in there, just like Charlie said, and
<v Speaker 2>a whole year went by. So now a whole year
<v Speaker 2>goes How much time was he healing? I mean, this
<v Speaker 2>should not be hard to get consistent. And I still
<v Speaker 2>wasn't any closer to becoming a professional wrestler than the
<v Speaker 2>day Matsuda posted my leg and broken. Finally, I think
<v Speaker 2>I could take it any longer. So it's out of money,
<v Speaker 2>and I think it out about quitting. When Eddie Graham
<v Speaker 2>called me up at home, Terry, he said, I'm gonna
<v Speaker 2>be there tomorrow and I'm going to work out with you.
<v Speaker 2>I want to show you a few things. Eddie Graham
<v Speaker 2>was a former Southern heavweight champion. I said to myself,
<v Speaker 2>oh God, and what are they going to do me now?
<v Speaker 2>So with all my misgivings, I went down there and
<v Speaker 2>tried and trained with Eddie Graham. But it wasn't at
<v Speaker 2>all what I expected here about Suda had taught me
<v Speaker 2>a bunch of submission holes, holes that make your opponent
<v Speaker 2>give up because he can't stand the pain. If I
<v Speaker 2>locked up with the guy, I was supposed to try
<v Speaker 2>to take his arm off. That's what I've been told
<v Speaker 2>to do for the last year. I was supposed to
<v Speaker 2>take my opponent's arm and post it behind him and
<v Speaker 2>try to wrench it out of his socket.
<v Speaker 1>Helps one move he hit. He did it on the
<v Speaker 1>coach in high school, and he's still trying to do
<v Speaker 1>it in the right.
<v Speaker 2>It's exactly it's his fucking post in the arm. If
<v Speaker 2>I got a guy on a headlock, I was supposed
<v Speaker 2>to rub my armbone against his ear to try to
<v Speaker 2>give him a cauliflower here. If I got a chance
<v Speaker 2>to hook a guy, I hooked a hook, being a
<v Speaker 2>hold that was meant to break bones. I was supposed
<v Speaker 2>to do that too. That's what I thought wrestling was about.
<v Speaker 2>I thought that you were supposed to be as brutal
<v Speaker 2>as possible, because that's what that's what it took to win.
<v Speaker 2>All of a sudden, Eddie Graham told me, I wasn't
<v Speaker 2>supposed to need I wasn't gonna need any of that
<v Speaker 2>stuff anymore, he said. When you grab a guy's arm,
<v Speaker 2>he said, don't twist it off instead of really hurting him,
<v Speaker 2>just slide your grip around his wrist like a little
<v Speaker 2>It's up to him to make faces and yell and
<v Speaker 2>scream when you're killing them, like you're killing him.
<v Speaker 1>Holkan's face like what, brother, I love how he acts
<v Speaker 1>like he's shocked by this. But he also said that
<v Speaker 1>sitting in the in the hester of the armor, he
<v Speaker 1>could see bob Orton. The reason he went there was
<v Speaker 1>because he knew it was fake and he felt comfortable.
<v Speaker 2>Right, And that's the whole thing. That's that's exactitely. It
<v Speaker 2>holded him like he was from Mars or something. And
<v Speaker 2>when you put somebody a headlock, any Graham said, don't
<v Speaker 2>try to give him a cauliflower ear. Grab him with
<v Speaker 2>the soft part of your arm against his ear so
<v Speaker 2>you don't hurt them.
<v Speaker 1>Hurt fucking with this guy's head. This is where the
<v Speaker 1>face first starts, the washed out like what this is
<v Speaker 1>the first time.
<v Speaker 2>While I try not to hurt him, I asked, that's
<v Speaker 2>when they told me the truth that you weren't fighting
<v Speaker 2>somebody in the ring. You're cooperating, working together to put
<v Speaker 2>on a show, and instead of the tougher guy winning,
<v Speaker 2>the outcome was determined in advance. In wrestling terms, it
<v Speaker 2>was a quote work and not a quote shoot. See
<v Speaker 2>A shoot means you're really trying to hurt somebody. A
<v Speaker 2>work means you're working with a guy dancing with him.
<v Speaker 2>Ay Graham told me wrestling was a work, and I
<v Speaker 2>was in shock, brother, total shock. I felt like I've
<v Speaker 2>been betrayed. For the last year. I've been getting the
<v Speaker 2>crap beat out of me, crap beat out of me,
<v Speaker 2>learn how to hurt people and keep from hurt getting
<v Speaker 2>hurt myself. But I didn't know was that any Graham
<v Speaker 2>and the others thought I was going to be someone
<v Speaker 2>special in the business. I had an attitude they had
<v Speaker 2>never seen before. I wouldn't quit, so they wanted to
<v Speaker 2>make sure I knew what I was doing. They wanted
<v Speaker 2>to be a want They wanted to be certain that
<v Speaker 2>nobody could pin my shoulders of the mats I wanted
<v Speaker 2>them to. They wanted to be certain, or you wanted
<v Speaker 2>to be certain, Dary Well, they what.
<v Speaker 6>You, brother?
<v Speaker 2>I mean? Everybody involved was just concerned. You know I didn't.
<v Speaker 2>I didn't say anything, right, I'm not what and see
<v Speaker 2>I said right, I didn't stay anything. Jeez, you're jumping
<v Speaker 2>at me like I said something on the sly. What
<v Speaker 2>you're jumping at me? Dude? Are you saying now? Whoa
<v Speaker 2>whoa whoa whoa speak?
<v Speaker 1>I heard your shooting Paradise alley right now?
<v Speaker 2>There you go? Uh you know uh. They wanted to
<v Speaker 2>be sort of that no one could be in my
<v Speaker 2>shoulders to the mateles I want them to, or if
<v Speaker 2>I got into a confrontation a bar, I could take
<v Speaker 2>care of myself. Or if I was in Japan wrestling somebody,
<v Speaker 2>I could survive whatever I would encounter over there. I
<v Speaker 2>see now that they were doing the right thing for me,
<v Speaker 2>but at the time I was devastated. Any Graham showed
<v Speaker 2>me how to hit the ropes, how and run, how
<v Speaker 2>to take a backdrop, stuff like that was not taking
<v Speaker 2>a fucking backdrop. I don't know about that.
<v Speaker 1>We're about to watch some clips actually, all right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, another time I might have welcomed it, but my
<v Speaker 2>mind was on how badly I've been deceived? Were we
<v Speaker 2>who's been talking? Dude?
<v Speaker 1>We're talking about how my back brother, what's work? Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's really gonna fuck with him because you think about it.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah.
<v Speaker 1>He went from thinking it's a work to then being
<v Speaker 1>convinced it was a shoot, to then finding out it
<v Speaker 1>was actually a work all along. And that right there
<v Speaker 1>explains Hulkogin's psychology.
<v Speaker 2>For the rest of his life. Ye, yep, exactly.
<v Speaker 1>He can't trust his initial instinct even though it was right.
<v Speaker 2>Then. Any Graham told me something I did want to hear.
<v Speaker 2>Finally I had paid my dues. I was gonna start
<v Speaker 2>wrestling for real, for fake.
<v Speaker 1>I was gonna say, yeah, that's a strange choice of words.
<v Speaker 1>After that roller coaster he just took us on. And yeah,
<v Speaker 1>he puts a little more color on that feeling of
<v Speaker 1>absolute betrayal in his interview with Chris Jericho.
<v Speaker 3>So Eddie Graham taught me how to lock up and
<v Speaker 3>hit the ropes and take ahead, lock and take the over.
<v Speaker 3>And I started crying, and it freaked me out that
<v Speaker 3>they'd you know, you know, worked me or deceive me.
<v Speaker 3>You know, it just freaked me out. He asked me,
<v Speaker 3>what's wrong with you? Patterson was there. Patterson was all
<v Speaker 3>upset because I was like, yeah, Patterson was there watching
<v Speaker 3>the stuff.
<v Speaker 2>Was pat working down here?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, Patterson was working there. And then Pat was I'm
<v Speaker 3>gonna show you something, kid, hit the roll out. You
<v Speaker 3>showed me how to take a bump of the MP
<v Speaker 3>was probably about the only one ever he was getting out.
<v Speaker 2>Of the right.
<v Speaker 3>But it freaked me out so much because I didn't
<v Speaker 3>know what to expect that when they showed me that.
<v Speaker 3>You know, you don't grab a headlock with a ball
<v Speaker 3>and across gouty ground at the other way, and I'm
<v Speaker 3>just totally opposite of what Matt Suita top had to work. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>and it freaked me out. You know, it just upset
<v Speaker 3>me so much that I get click, these guys have
<v Speaker 3>been screwing me for a year and a half and
<v Speaker 3>they broke my eggs for another reason. Like wow, it
<v Speaker 3>just hit me up, you know, on the spot. So
<v Speaker 3>now I'm balling like a baby in front of Eddie Graham,
<v Speaker 3>you know, because I realized what had happened to me.
<v Speaker 3>But I knew better than say anything, because I figured
<v Speaker 3>Eddie Graham was probably ten times worse than Matt Suita.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, which you.
<v Speaker 3>Know he wasn't.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, dude, like if you were that felt up
<v Speaker 1>of tray. Just don't wrestle anymore, like I know, he
<v Speaker 1>would be a great relief. You don't have to cry
<v Speaker 1>anymore because you're not gonna get hurt.
<v Speaker 2>Again, right exactly? I know, Like so they deceived you?
<v Speaker 2>Grow up?
<v Speaker 1>I mean, what a choice of words. I was freaked
<v Speaker 1>out like that is? Ah, isn't that as as quintessential
<v Speaker 1>Hulk as it gets freaked out?
<v Speaker 2>Like he's looking around.
<v Speaker 1>This is where it all starts. Yep, trust issues, brother, yep, yep,
<v Speaker 1>you know, get it again.
<v Speaker 2>It's glorious about when he.
<v Speaker 1>Goes on the Steve Austin Show talks about it as well,
<v Speaker 1>talks about uh, Eddie Graham, Dude.
<v Speaker 2>If you started in Florida right working for Freddy Graham?
<v Speaker 3>Right?
<v Speaker 2>Okay?
<v Speaker 3>I always heard he was a genius and they passed
<v Speaker 3>before my time and I didn't get a chance to
<v Speaker 3>get down there. But how much of a genius was
<v Speaker 3>Eddie Graham? Well, now though I look back on it,
<v Speaker 3>I mean, you know, as far as finishes and stuff,
<v Speaker 3>you know, I mean, I have my own agenda when
<v Speaker 3>when you're wrestling me, I've got Plan A, Plan B,
<v Speaker 3>Plan C. You know, the three standard finishes, you know,
<v Speaker 3>and then there's sometimes DNE if we need to go there,
<v Speaker 3>but usually Plan A, B and C. We can draw
<v Speaker 3>two three times with those finishes. But I watched Eddie
<v Speaker 3>Graham for years, even though I really didn't know what
<v Speaker 3>I was watching. I saw the angles, I saw all
<v Speaker 3>this stuff. I saw all this these crazy finishes that
<v Speaker 3>Eddie Graham had, you know. Plus he was a tough
<v Speaker 3>son of a bitch, you know. He he was like
<v Speaker 3>the stone cold Steve Astwood and blond hairry. Eddie Graham
<v Speaker 3>was the tough guy. I don't know if you ever
<v Speaker 3>saw him Wreussell, but that was his whole thing. And
<v Speaker 3>the whole time Matt Suda was breaking me in. You
<v Speaker 3>got to realize they never smarten me up. I'm real
<v Speaker 3>slow about shit, you know. I love this business, and
<v Speaker 3>I back then you could say whatever you want about wrestling,
<v Speaker 3>meaning fake. But I thought the ship was real and
<v Speaker 3>I believed it because we had Bob rup and and
<v Speaker 3>the big old Randy's grandfather, you know, Bob Orton's dad.
<v Speaker 3>I had all these guys that are Bob rup. I
<v Speaker 3>had all these guys that were just worked really really snug,
<v Speaker 3>and Steve Kern was very convinsing, you know when he
<v Speaker 3>first started, and.
<v Speaker 2>He was having all these programs.
<v Speaker 3>So I watched all these guys. So when I was
<v Speaker 3>breaking in with Matt Suda and I was getting stretched
<v Speaker 3>every day, and then twice a week we take Marks
<v Speaker 3>down and beat him up, and I was in charge
<v Speaker 3>of getting them to where they were exhausted and ready
<v Speaker 3>to pass out. Then I'd feed them with Gordon Elson
<v Speaker 3>or Matt Suit and I was in charge of putting
<v Speaker 3>the wood on the door so they couldn't run, you know,
<v Speaker 3>for him on the back side of the door.
<v Speaker 2>What the fuck.
<v Speaker 3>And it was just it was just one of those
<v Speaker 3>things that you know, it was just ingrained in me
<v Speaker 3>from day one, you know, being around those guys. But
<v Speaker 3>Eddie Graham and his finishes, watching him, he was just
<v Speaker 3>like a genius, you know. And after I worked out
<v Speaker 3>in that suita and they stretched me and beat me up,
<v Speaker 3>all of a sudden, I got a call one day
<v Speaker 3>that Eddie Graham wants to work out with you.
<v Speaker 2>Shoot.
<v Speaker 3>I started crying and said, oh my god, I can't
<v Speaker 3>take it anymore. I don't know what I'm in for now.
<v Speaker 3>I can't I'm not gonna be able to. You know,
<v Speaker 3>Eddie Graham was different than Matt Suda. Matt Suita was
<v Speaker 3>killing me, but Eddie Graham was like the legend. I
<v Speaker 3>was gonna quit. I was so afraid of him, but
<v Speaker 3>I went down to the sports for him. I got
<v Speaker 3>in the ring and he taught me how to lock up,
<v Speaker 3>taught me how to go out a headlock, taught me
<v Speaker 3>how to take a backdrop, and I started crying because
<v Speaker 3>I thought it was a huge shoot. And when when
<v Speaker 3>they told me that this is what we do, we're work,
<v Speaker 3>I still didn't get it. I went and had my
<v Speaker 3>first match with Don Serrano, several matches with Brian Butlair,
<v Speaker 3>and I never heard the word k fabe. I didn't
<v Speaker 3>even know what k fab meant. And I was in
<v Speaker 3>the ring in the first match, and all the heels
<v Speaker 3>and all the baby faces would come out and watch
<v Speaker 3>my matches. I couldn't figure out why they were a
<v Speaker 3>Heeman and han and laughing because I was trying to
<v Speaker 3>beat Brian Blair and I was trying to beat Gordon Nelson.
<v Speaker 3>I couldn't beat either one of them because I didn't
<v Speaker 3>know how to wrestle as good as them, you know,
<v Speaker 3>So it took me a while to catch on. But
<v Speaker 3>Eddie Graham and his finishes and stuff, he was the
<v Speaker 3>genius man from day one.
<v Speaker 6>Fan Wrestling Podcast, the wrestling podcast that knows the boys
<v Speaker 6>need their candy. It's the lapsed Fan, Sick of the ads.
<v Speaker 6>Sign up for ad free shows and even more content
<v Speaker 6>at patreon dot com Slash the Lapsed Fan. He's the
<v Speaker 6>Lapsed Fan Wrestling Podcast with Jack and carn Seo m
<v Speaker 6>JP Sorrow.
<v Speaker 1>So even after Eddie Graham tells him it's a work,
<v Speaker 1>he still has to hold on to this whole. I
<v Speaker 1>wander to the ring the first time, not knowing if
<v Speaker 1>it was a shoot. Did you hear him thread that
<v Speaker 1>needle there?
<v Speaker 2>Basically?
<v Speaker 1>You know, I started to go in there and try
<v Speaker 1>to beat Don Serrano and Brian Blair for real.
<v Speaker 2>I just don't understand. It's like, it's so fucking ridiculous.
<v Speaker 1>It's like he doesn't want to He wants to tell
<v Speaker 1>this story, this origin story, but it doesn't want to
<v Speaker 1>let go of that thing that every wrestler of that era,
<v Speaker 1>for some reason, clings to that.
<v Speaker 2>I went into the ring for my first match not
<v Speaker 2>knowing if it was real or not. It's just what
<v Speaker 2>of mine?
<v Speaker 1>This guy's fucking he can't you just fucking grow up?
<v Speaker 1>And he's fucking himself his head up more than anybody else's.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, so we've done our.
<v Speaker 2>Best, folks.
<v Speaker 1>I hope, uh, I hope you feel exhausted as I
<v Speaker 1>do by trying to get to the bottom of the
<v Speaker 1>met Suda thing, just to to kiss it goodbye, so
<v Speaker 1>to speak. We're going to go to Terry's book one
<v Speaker 1>last time. This is the second book, his second chance
<v Speaker 1>to put pen to paper on this whole mats Suita thing.
<v Speaker 5>Uh.
<v Speaker 1>And before we kick it over to the boss man
<v Speaker 1>for the dramatic reading again, just to review METSUITA. I
<v Speaker 1>was so out of it by then a practice they
<v Speaker 1>practically rolled me in the ring.
<v Speaker 3>Brother.
<v Speaker 1>This is after you know, getting ragged on for his
<v Speaker 1>long hair, being called a hippie, pressing so hard he
<v Speaker 1>was ready to puke, having a run around the stadium.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, it's just funny to me too. What I
<v Speaker 2>find to be hilarious is that what what I mean,
<v Speaker 2>I understand the whole thing is that he didn't quit.
<v Speaker 2>But what rational person would actually let themselves go through
<v Speaker 2>this kind of thing for that long a time? If there,
<v Speaker 2>if he didn't know something a little more about it, right,
<v Speaker 2>you know what I mean?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, if he thought that all he was doing was
<v Speaker 1>torturing himself so that he could go in there and
<v Speaker 1>still fight for his life.
<v Speaker 2>Right Like, it just doesn't it doesn't compute.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know why it's so important for him to
<v Speaker 1>act like he didn't know it was a work until
<v Speaker 1>Eddie Graham showed him to showed him a headlock.
<v Speaker 2>But they all are they're all like that, these old
<v Speaker 2>school guys. They all talk about how it was the
<v Speaker 2>last second, and it's like, I just can you imagine
<v Speaker 2>being thrown into it? Like it would be completely unsafe.
<v Speaker 2>It wouldn't go out there right o things. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>I know, I mean, it's just it's just all It's like,
<v Speaker 2>I don't know. Maybe maybe I'm just a whimp, or
<v Speaker 2>maybe I'm a little bit smarter. I don't know. But
<v Speaker 2>like if I was going to some place like that
<v Speaker 2>for six months and all I was doing was getting
<v Speaker 2>beaten up and ragged on, I wouldn't go anymore, especially
<v Speaker 2>you know, in all this the working shooting thing, especially
<v Speaker 2>if you yourself say the reason you got comfortable going
<v Speaker 2>out to be a wrestler was because you realized it
<v Speaker 2>was fake. So why are you going through such a
<v Speaker 2>psychological torture when you when you figured it out before
<v Speaker 2>you ever walked into that gym.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know right, Maybe he just flipped the script
<v Speaker 1>on him. Maybe these all these circumstances. Maybe being so
<v Speaker 1>out of it, they practically rolled him in the ring,
<v Speaker 1>and suddenly Matsuda comes out of nowhere and jumps on
<v Speaker 1>top of me. I hit the canvas, jumps out of it,
<v Speaker 1>comes out of nowhere. I don't know about that. The
<v Speaker 1>way Jerry describes it, it was just a straight up engagement,
<v Speaker 1>and matt Suit had just had to keep dialing up
<v Speaker 1>the intensity because you were offering distance. I don't know
<v Speaker 1>about jumping on you from behind. I don't know why
<v Speaker 1>what you would insist on? What superimposing that circumstance onto
<v Speaker 1>Who's going from behind? Brother behind, that's who. It comes
<v Speaker 1>out of nowhere and jumps on top of me. That's
<v Speaker 1>what he wrote in this bood I hit the canvas.
<v Speaker 1>He drops down, puts an elbow down in the middle
<v Speaker 1>of my left leg, grabs my foot and wrenches it
<v Speaker 1>as hard as he can. In the opposite direction, that
<v Speaker 1>your leg is built to go crack. He broke my
<v Speaker 1>leg in half right in the middle of my shin.
<v Speaker 1>There's your bone, the shin boss, the shin right broke
<v Speaker 1>his shin in half.
<v Speaker 2>And again I sit here, I sit here, one, I
<v Speaker 2>sit here, and I ask you sid Udy had the
<v Speaker 2>same fucking thing happened to him where his shin was
<v Speaker 2>broken in half and he couldn't wrestle again. Yet this
<v Speaker 2>clown can well. Yeah, I was a lot younger, dude,
<v Speaker 2>and I lived in a hotel. I live in a hotel.
<v Speaker 2>That's the difference, I brot. I was making more money
<v Speaker 2>than all the kids in high school. Dude, I have
<v Speaker 2>two cars, so big differences. A man too. I was done.
<v Speaker 1>I couldn't move. Matt Tuda didn't even say anything to me.
<v Speaker 1>He just left me rolling around. He didn't say anything
<v Speaker 1>to you. I thought he said, Noe, never come back here.
<v Speaker 1>That's what you said one hundred times and one hundred
<v Speaker 1>interviews that we just played. He just left me rolling
<v Speaker 1>and nagon in the canvas. And by the way, I
<v Speaker 1>didn't hear a pop. And then on the Tales from
<v Speaker 1>the Territory set, Brisco said, everyone hurt a pop when
<v Speaker 1>I had say to put the hold on.
<v Speaker 2>This is difficult.
<v Speaker 1>I'm sure they all thought that was the last I'd
<v Speaker 1>see if Tory bolea what fool would come back for
<v Speaker 1>more of that? To your point, their boss, So why
<v Speaker 1>don't do fast forward as we do one last retelling
<v Speaker 1>of this hugely important canonical story in the history of
<v Speaker 1>hulkogin every single day, brother.
<v Speaker 2>Oh here we are? There we are? Yeah, every single day.
<v Speaker 2>My dad laid into me for being a quitter. I'm
<v Speaker 2>thinking I could do something as stupid as wrestling to
<v Speaker 2>make a living. I don't know what. Now, why is
<v Speaker 2>he mad? Wait a minute, his dad at being angry
<v Speaker 2>about this whole fucking thing is makes no sense, no
<v Speaker 2>sense at all. Why the guy who fucking a guy
<v Speaker 2>who fucking ate cockroach ice cream? All right?
<v Speaker 1>Why if you don't think he should be a wrestler,
<v Speaker 1>are you mad at him for quitting trying to become
<v Speaker 1>a wrestler? Like, I don't want you to be a wrestler,
<v Speaker 1>that's so ridiculous. But why did you quit trying to
<v Speaker 1>become a wrestler?
<v Speaker 2>Why? Why? Dad? I don't want I never wanted to
<v Speaker 2>be a wrestler. I never wanted to do that to yourself.
<v Speaker 2>But what I my biggest problem is that you fucking
<v Speaker 2>quit being a wrestler. Why do you, bitch? It's one
<v Speaker 2>thing to never consider being a wrestler. It's an entirely
<v Speaker 2>different thing to consider being a wrestler than quitting. You
<v Speaker 2>realize that now the only way you can please me
<v Speaker 2>is if you wrestle until you pass away. Even though
<v Speaker 2>I don't want you to wrestle, you know I never
<v Speaker 2>wanted to wrestle. I never want you to wrestle. I
<v Speaker 2>prefer that you never wrestle again. But the only way
<v Speaker 2>you can make me proud of you is if you
<v Speaker 2>wrestle every day.
<v Speaker 1>It's starting to make sense that as soon as Terry
<v Speaker 1>Bolea actually dips his toe one of the water of
<v Speaker 1>becoming a wrestler, it'll become his whole life becomes a
<v Speaker 1>hall of mirrors and nothing makes sense and everything is
<v Speaker 1>upside down. Left is right, it is yang, the ball
<v Speaker 1>is being hidden right, this is it. This is Terry
<v Speaker 1>is just not wired for the contradiction. Yes, mister math,
<v Speaker 1>mister patterns, I like it. You know I could play
<v Speaker 1>music because it was like math, I can always fin
<v Speaker 1>And now he's going headlong into something that has no
<v Speaker 1>logic to it.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my god, it's it's fucking chaos. It's like it's
<v Speaker 2>like that. It's it's that you remember that there was
<v Speaker 2>like an old, old meme of of overhead shots of
<v Speaker 2>New York City and the grid, and then it was
<v Speaker 2>an overhead look of the streets of Boston and it
<v Speaker 2>was chaos, you know, like right exactly, there's no easy
<v Speaker 2>way to navigate. H I don't. I don't want to
<v Speaker 2>make it seem like like he was a bad guy.
<v Speaker 2>But all years later, my dad was about as proud
<v Speaker 2>of me as any dad could be. Ye wrestled every
<v Speaker 2>day in my life until I died.
<v Speaker 1>He was as proud as he could because you were
<v Speaker 1>making millions of dollars.
<v Speaker 3>Right.
<v Speaker 1>It's like George Carlin once said, when your dad tells
<v Speaker 1>you he wants you to amount to something, he means
<v Speaker 1>make a lot of money. How do you think the
<v Speaker 1>word amount got in there?
<v Speaker 2>Uh? Uh, make a make a lot of money so
<v Speaker 2>I don't have to work as as long as I
<v Speaker 2>as I'm supposed to further, so I don't have to
<v Speaker 2>face people in my life, right, you know, And the
<v Speaker 2>shame that comes with pursuing better than frivolous.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah for the list outcome, because you heard Ruth, you know,
<v Speaker 1>stepping over Peter in some of those interviews, like you
<v Speaker 1>know we had we had a Lincoln like, don't don't think, well,
<v Speaker 1>you know we weren't. I used to teach music and
<v Speaker 1>dance too, you know, she she's very much she wants
<v Speaker 1>I was a wrestling trainer. I know what you think
<v Speaker 1>music and dance. I know what you think about wrestling.
<v Speaker 1>But I have a condo on the beach.
<v Speaker 2>So that's right.
<v Speaker 1>Let's let's let's keep some perspective here.
<v Speaker 2>Let's just understand that that that the fake sport has
<v Speaker 2>brought the realist things in our own.
<v Speaker 1>Ah, thank you, boss for land in the plane. Land
<v Speaker 1>in the fucking plane at Tampa General or whatever they
<v Speaker 1>call the airport up on this thing.
<v Speaker 2>Brother. Yeah, well they constantly let me know it, and
<v Speaker 2>I'll never forget that. Honestly, at the moment, he at
<v Speaker 2>the moment, he had every ride to be pissed. Hm,
<v Speaker 2>he just had no idea how resolved that was to
<v Speaker 2>make this wrestling thing work. This thing, Oh, that's.
<v Speaker 1>That's all the way back to to h.
<v Speaker 2>This thing, this wrestling thing work.
<v Speaker 1>What he means is a thing. By a thing, he
<v Speaker 1>means something that results in a direct deposit into.
<v Speaker 2>His bank account. Yes, exactly's what this thing is and
<v Speaker 2>the next thing. At the end of those ten ten weeks,
<v Speaker 2>when the when the legs was finally feeling good, I
<v Speaker 2>headed back over to the Sportatorium and walked up up
<v Speaker 2>to my friend Charlie Lay. My friend Charlie lay, mister lay,
<v Speaker 2>I'm here to see mister matt suit and so is
<v Speaker 2>that I call most of my friends mister whoever?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you should have met Charlie's brother, Fredo.
<v Speaker 2>The god all faded, damn kid that they told me
<v Speaker 2>that you know they were getting rid of you and
<v Speaker 2>you would never be back here. He goes, Are you
<v Speaker 2>sure you want to see that suit again? Yeah? I
<v Speaker 2>want to see that suit again. The thing was over
<v Speaker 2>those ten weeks. My whole mindset had moved away from
<v Speaker 2>their crazy naive. I want to be a blonde hairb
<v Speaker 2>super sharp Billy isn't. Isn't Billy Graham? A blonde haired
<v Speaker 2>super Billy Graham isn't.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Well, he's saying that he's moved away from one
<v Speaker 1>to be like Billy Graham.
<v Speaker 2>Well no, I know that, But but why does hul
<v Speaker 2>Cogan want to be a blonde haired Why is he
<v Speaker 2>specifying a blonde haired super star Billy Graham when Billy
<v Speaker 2>Graham is this blonde haired super star Billy Graham.
<v Speaker 1>Well, yeah, I don't think he's saying blonde haired to
<v Speaker 1>provide something that's contradictory to what Graham looked like.
<v Speaker 2>It just that sence didn't make any sentence at all.
<v Speaker 2>The thing, now, my whole mindset, my mindset was never
<v Speaker 2>give up. And John Cena, I right, you seemed to
<v Speaker 2>take the careful notes. I knew I wanted to be
<v Speaker 2>a wrestler, and there was no way they were ever
<v Speaker 2>going to take advantage of me again. Before I showed up,
<v Speaker 2>I cut my long hair completely off. No more hippie taunts.
<v Speaker 2>They'd have to work harder to find a way to
<v Speaker 2>break me down. As far as I was concerned, they
<v Speaker 2>couldn't get rid of me. I wound up in the
<v Speaker 2>ring with that suit again and again that day, only
<v Speaker 2>this time when he tried to take my leg, I
<v Speaker 2>blocked him.
<v Speaker 3>Wow.
<v Speaker 2>So okay, So stories from the ring. He went into
<v Speaker 2>the ring one day, got his leg broken by Matsuda.
<v Speaker 2>He's gone ten weeks and now he knows how to block. Well.
<v Speaker 1>He's trying to make you think that he knew how
<v Speaker 1>to block the first time, but he was so unsure
<v Speaker 1>of the protocol that he just you.
<v Speaker 2>Know, I don't know. I didn't know anything about wrestling
<v Speaker 2>other than what I watched on TV and it's seen
<v Speaker 2>in the ring. But I was physical enough, and I've
<v Speaker 2>been working out long enough to have a real good grip.
<v Speaker 2>I'll served me well. When he got my arm, instead
<v Speaker 2>of let him break it, I knew. I knew enough
<v Speaker 2>to get it away from him. Whenever he tried to
<v Speaker 2>hurt my neck, I knew enough to get my head away.
<v Speaker 2>I wouldn't let him take anything. Brother, this is where
<v Speaker 2>it starts. Yep. My suitor was more pissed than ever.
<v Speaker 2>It was his mission to try to break me, but
<v Speaker 2>he couldn't. I walked out of there alive and unbroken,
<v Speaker 2>and vowed to come back the next day. Word going
<v Speaker 2>around that I was back, and all of a sudden,
<v Speaker 2>the other wrestler started coming down during the day just
<v Speaker 2>to wash me get tortured, and the other guys were
<v Speaker 2>just beat on me and beating on me and I
<v Speaker 2>wouldn't give in until one day it finally turned a corner.
<v Speaker 2>My suitors started smiling when I fought back. It got
<v Speaker 2>to the point where he started liking me because I
<v Speaker 2>wouldn't give up. I mean, he'd choke me out, put
<v Speaker 2>me in a submission hold like you see in the UFC,
<v Speaker 2>the Open Fighting Championship, in case you don't know what
<v Speaker 2>the fuck that means, where where they do mixed martial arts.
<v Speaker 2>If you don't even know what the I mean, Jesus Christ,
<v Speaker 2>as if as if like this was twenty eleven or
<v Speaker 2>something like that, becausand nine this book came out. Yep,
<v Speaker 2>that's right. I mean, if you don't know what UFC is,
<v Speaker 2>If you don't know what UFC is, like you're you
<v Speaker 2>shouldn't be reading when shoot fighting became a thing? You know?
<v Speaker 1>Oh you know, how can I like retro fit my
<v Speaker 1>whole life to pretend that I could?
<v Speaker 2>Brother? Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa?
<v Speaker 3>Dude?
<v Speaker 2>Hold on, who's shooting there? They're shooting? Brother?
<v Speaker 6>Like?
<v Speaker 2>What do you mean?
<v Speaker 5>Brother?
<v Speaker 7>You?
<v Speaker 1>I was in Pride in the seventies, was Pride guys?
<v Speaker 2>Did I want you? I mean? Are people coming from me?
<v Speaker 5>Brother.
<v Speaker 2>Right, well is where it starts.
<v Speaker 1>He's he's you know, this is him being afraid of
<v Speaker 1>being taken advantage of in the ring.
<v Speaker 2>Uh And I would not tap. Of course, no one
<v Speaker 2>would tap back then no one knew what tapping was.
<v Speaker 1>He just said in one of the other interviews with Jericho,
<v Speaker 1>I think it was, you know, I tap or I
<v Speaker 1>learned my lesson. I wouldn't you let him take me
<v Speaker 1>to the limit to break anything again. But now he
<v Speaker 1>wouldn't tap.
<v Speaker 2>Right, he made me pass out. I still wouldn't quit.
<v Speaker 2>I was crazy. Finally, Matt Suda invited me to come
<v Speaker 2>down to his gym on a daily basis. Okay, now
<v Speaker 2>you're really now we're really going to get serious. He said,
<v Speaker 2>what work could he do? I was thinking, oh my god,
<v Speaker 2>what he did. What he did was set out to
<v Speaker 2>make me as fit as possible, as fit as I
<v Speaker 2>possibly could be. Every day he'd set me into a
<v Speaker 2>routine of jumping squats, jumping squats, jumping squats for an
<v Speaker 2>entire hour. He had a Japanese kid there named Lance.
<v Speaker 2>I used to watch and count so I couldn't cheat.
<v Speaker 2>And that after that he made me run. I'd go
<v Speaker 2>out the front door, and he'd get in his station
<v Speaker 2>wagon and follow around ten feet behind me. He made
<v Speaker 2>me just run forever, all the way down and around
<v Speaker 2>Tampa Stadium. Once i'd circle the stadium, I'd get to
<v Speaker 2>run back. Remember back in middle school, in high school,
<v Speaker 2>how I was the guy who could barely run between
<v Speaker 2>two goalposts. Nothing has changed, Nothing had changed for all
<v Speaker 2>the weightlift and I did. I never ran a day
<v Speaker 2>in my life. But but he'd get in the car,
<v Speaker 2>and I swear to God, I thought he would run
<v Speaker 2>me right over if I stopped. He had me so
<v Speaker 2>psyched out that I just kept going and going all
<v Speaker 2>Tod told those about two and a half three miles
<v Speaker 2>a day. This went on for nearly a year. The
<v Speaker 2>whole time I noticed other wrestlers coming in and joining
<v Speaker 2>the ranks. Paul mister Warden Florendorff, who played football for
<v Speaker 2>the University of Tampa and been drafted in in the
<v Speaker 2>New Orleans Saints, decided he wanted to be a wrestler.
<v Speaker 2>Came in, got some training and was gonna and I
<v Speaker 2>was i'p getting matched it in some In something like
<v Speaker 2>eight weeks, I thought, is something wrong with me? And
<v Speaker 2>why has he got that I don't know. Brian Blair
<v Speaker 2>came in worked out for a while and the same
<v Speaker 2>thing happened. I thought, damn, and why am I still here.
<v Speaker 2>What I didn't realize was that Mansuda light having me
<v Speaker 2>as his boy. Whenever a new mark would show up
<v Speaker 2>wanting to get into the wrestling business, I was the
<v Speaker 2>one who'd go down and work them and work them
<v Speaker 2>and exercise them until they went away. I was in
<v Speaker 2>such good shape that I could usually work them until
<v Speaker 2>they puked or faded and left. If I couldn't run,
<v Speaker 2>or if I couldn't run them off, mat Suda would
<v Speaker 2>come in and take care of them the same way
<v Speaker 2>he tried to take care of me the first day.
<v Speaker 2>I never hurt anybody or anything like that, but he
<v Speaker 2>was really happy to have me there, and he didn't
<v Speaker 2>want me to if you want to, want to let
<v Speaker 2>me go. Finally, over a year into this, Jack and
<v Speaker 2>Jerry Briscoe came in to see me. They always liked
<v Speaker 2>me from back when they had come to see Raucus
<v Speaker 2>at the clubs, and for some reason they finally decided
<v Speaker 2>to break ranks with the guys who still thought me
<v Speaker 2>as a mark. They decided to bring me in the
<v Speaker 2>into the fold. I have a present for you, Jack said,
<v Speaker 2>as he handed me a brand new pair of wrestling boots. Darry,
<v Speaker 2>you're having your first match next week. I've been so
<v Speaker 2>focused on getting strong and just hoping and praying that
<v Speaker 2>this day would come. I almost couldn't believe it when
<v Speaker 2>I was finally here. All of a sudden, I was
<v Speaker 2>scared of death. The thing was for all the hard
<v Speaker 2>work I'd put in, the training, the exercise, getting in
<v Speaker 2>this unbelievable shape I was in. Don't want to give
<v Speaker 2>me any of the inside scoop on wrestling, yet I
<v Speaker 2>heard in terms like work, which meant you know you
<v Speaker 2>were faking it, and yeah, you'd make it look like
<v Speaker 2>you were twisting somebody's arm when you weren't, when you
<v Speaker 2>really weren't hurting them at all. Then there was a shoot,
<v Speaker 2>which means you're really doing the deed and hurting them
<v Speaker 2>like a real fight. That's a shoot. But I didn't
<v Speaker 2>know when to work or when to shoot. Brother, you
<v Speaker 2>never shoot, because right I still don't even know for sure.
<v Speaker 3>The the.
<v Speaker 2>You added that the people have to know we have
<v Speaker 2>to be transparent.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, yes, that was that was pretty good.
<v Speaker 2>I'm like scrambling, try to.
<v Speaker 1>Look up the thing the text like no way, And
<v Speaker 1>I didn't highlight that and make it like seventy two
<v Speaker 1>point font in my notes.
<v Speaker 2>No, he's I still didn't even know for sure that
<v Speaker 2>the outcome of the matches were predetermined. No one taught me
<v Speaker 2>any of that. There we go again. I'll go to
<v Speaker 2>the ring. You don't need to know the finish. Just
<v Speaker 2>go to the ring. Okay. I saw get in there
<v Speaker 2>and something in between of work and a shoot would happen. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>that's the rest of his life, isn't it.
<v Speaker 1>No matter how much he made and how much control
<v Speaker 1>he got over everything that happened, the guy still was
<v Speaker 1>horrified that it could become a shoot in any moment.
<v Speaker 2>Unreal. This is where it's all initial traumas right here. Yep,
<v Speaker 2>what happened, and we'd improvise in the ring from start
<v Speaker 2>to finish. I still have the outcome of the match
<v Speaker 2>was something real, you know. I knew I didn't involve
<v Speaker 2>trying to kill each other, but I thought that somehow
<v Speaker 2>the better wrestler would win. I would have to figure
<v Speaker 2>it out on my own, and it would all have
<v Speaker 2>to get clear real fast. The thing I didn't realize
<v Speaker 2>was that some of the other wrestlers were still planning
<v Speaker 2>on having a few laughs and Mockspence, were they ever?
<v Speaker 1>Terry concludes that series of thoughts with the following from
<v Speaker 1>the day MATSUITA broke my leg until now, he writes,
<v Speaker 1>not a day's gone by when I haven't been in
<v Speaker 1>some kind of pain. So it's Brother's exactly.
<v Speaker 2>That's too rich.
<v Speaker 1>Well, we've gotten Hogan's perspective on what these torture sessions
<v Speaker 1>were like. And don't just take his word for it.
<v Speaker 1>Steve Kern was actually pretty illustrative and his excellent book
<v Speaker 1>with Ian Douglas, Volume one of the Kern Chronicles, and
<v Speaker 1>this will take us a little bit further into what
<v Speaker 1>was happening back then at one o six North Albany.
<v Speaker 1>He writes, the Tampa's Sbortatorium one of six North Albany
<v Speaker 1>serve as the home building with a championship wrestling from
<v Speaker 1>Florida Territory taped it's weekly television. It's like a furnace
<v Speaker 1>in there due to lack of air conditioning.
<v Speaker 2>There is no ac in here, no acaine building. Just
<v Speaker 2>imagine the smell.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, this is Tampa Florida, folks. You get off
<v Speaker 1>the plane in February and you feel like you can't
<v Speaker 1>breathe right right, It's like a furnace in there. There
<v Speaker 1>was one ring in the center of the building, and
<v Speaker 1>it was set up for a one camera shoot. Gordon
<v Speaker 1>Soli served as the legendary announcer of the television program,
<v Speaker 1>coloring the action with his unmistakable gravelly voice. I was
<v Speaker 1>already intimately familiar with the Sportatorium by that time. In fact,
<v Speaker 1>I was uncomfortably familiar with it. I'd sadden the building's
<v Speaker 1>bleachers with Mike a few times to watch what happened
<v Speaker 1>when guys attempted to break into the wrestling business after
<v Speaker 1>Eddie had already decided that they had no future in it.
<v Speaker 1>I'd sit and cringe while the would be wrestlers were
<v Speaker 1>brutally stretched and pummeled and then physically discarded back into
<v Speaker 1>the parking lot. The majority of the unwitting victims were
<v Speaker 1>guys like bodybuilders and football players who were interested in
<v Speaker 1>becoming wrestlers. Once inside of the Sportatorium, they would be
<v Speaker 1>ushered inside of the ring with shooters, guys like Bob Rupe,
<v Speaker 1>Jack Briscoe here of Metsuda and a few other wrestlers
<v Speaker 1>who really knew how to fight well. The interactions would
<v Speaker 1>commence with the would be wrestlers getting stretched, and a
<v Speaker 1>level of violands would drastically ramp up and culminate with
<v Speaker 1>the applicants getting beaten relentlessly. There was also no escape.
<v Speaker 1>The sportatorium doors would be chained shut. I thought it
<v Speaker 1>was a piece of wood terry. I thought you were
<v Speaker 1>in charge of to prevent them from retreating to safety.
<v Speaker 1>I had well founded fears that some of the poor
<v Speaker 1>suckers might actually die. Let me ask you question. If
<v Speaker 1>the point is to run these guys off so that
<v Speaker 1>they don't want to be wrestlers, why are you stopping
<v Speaker 1>them from running.
<v Speaker 2>Out of the building. I know, why are you fucking
<v Speaker 2>locking the door? Isn't that what you want? That's that's
<v Speaker 2>the irony of fucking wrestling. It's like they're they're so
<v Speaker 2>fucking they like they actually just want to beat them up, right,
<v Speaker 2>they're actually you can run away after the session's over,
<v Speaker 2>but we're gonna beat the shit out of you while
<v Speaker 2>you're here, right, Yeah, then we're not gonna let you
<v Speaker 2>leave until we're done.
<v Speaker 1>There's no virtue in being a sadist. You know, Eddie,
<v Speaker 1>no offense. I want to try this, but I don't
<v Speaker 1>want to get the crap beat out of me. I admitted,
<v Speaker 1>that's what I've seen. Eddie shook his head. Those are
<v Speaker 1>guys we need to make examples of explaining no, it's fake.
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna break you into business the right, well, the
<v Speaker 1>real way, he says. The real way began when Eddie
<v Speaker 1>sent me down to this sportatorium to meet with wrestler
<v Speaker 1>and trainer here in Matsuda, who had already known for
<v Speaker 1>several years. Workouts were initiated when Matsuda would break out
<v Speaker 1>a deck of cards, shuffle it, and then flip over
<v Speaker 1>the top of the card. Over the top card. Whatever
<v Speaker 1>card came up corresponded to a number of free squats.
<v Speaker 1>After several exhausting rounds of squats, we'd graduate to sets
<v Speaker 1>of other basic exercises like backbridges and push ups. Finally,
<v Speaker 1>after I was already half dead from the calisenic training,
<v Speaker 1>we'd get in the ring and Matt Suda would want
<v Speaker 1>to wrestle. I didn't have any amateur wrestling background that
<v Speaker 1>I'll draw from, so whenever I tried to grab hero
<v Speaker 1>he would slip away and stretch me ruthlessly. There was
<v Speaker 1>no such thing as tapping out in those days. I
<v Speaker 1>was forced to scream, yell, or holler I quit. Adding
<v Speaker 1>to the discomfort of the training was the fact that
<v Speaker 1>we were meeting in the sport Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>See, exactly, no tapping out. There was no tapping out. Terry,
<v Speaker 2>I tap, I tap.
<v Speaker 1>No fucking according to the discomfort of the training was
<v Speaker 1>adding to the discomfort. Rather, it was the fact that
<v Speaker 1>we were meeting in the sportatorium in the middle of July.
<v Speaker 1>That's when the heat would climb to about one hundred
<v Speaker 1>degrees in the center of the ring when you factored
<v Speaker 1>in the additional warmth radiating from the light that was
<v Speaker 1>beaming down on top of you. So I was sweating
<v Speaker 1>like crazy in there. But I was doing the best
<v Speaker 1>I could because I wanted to make a favorable impression
<v Speaker 1>and I didn't want to let Eddie down after he'd
<v Speaker 1>chown so much faith in me. Whenever I came home
<v Speaker 1>training with Matt Suda, I had matt burns all over
<v Speaker 1>my entire body, from my forehead and my nose down
<v Speaker 1>to my elbows and knees. I was also exhausted, horribly sore,
<v Speaker 1>and savagely beaten. I was stretched so hard during each
<v Speaker 1>session that I felt like I was getting taller by
<v Speaker 1>the day. When my mom caught me dragging myself back
<v Speaker 1>into the house each day looking like I'd been mugged,
<v Speaker 1>she asked me, what was going on? They're teaching me
<v Speaker 1>to be a pro wrestler, I groaned, a pro wrestler,
<v Speaker 1>Mom asked, but I thought pro wrestling was fake tremendous. Ah, hey,
<v Speaker 1>so did I, I remarked, Are you sure you want
<v Speaker 1>to do this? She asked, I wasn't sure I wanted
<v Speaker 1>to do it, and all honesty I did.
<v Speaker 2>Are you sure? Are you sure you want to lose
<v Speaker 2>my favor?
<v Speaker 3>Oh?
<v Speaker 2>My goodness, Steve, could you keep doing this? I'm gonna
<v Speaker 2>let you know right now.
<v Speaker 1>Your father wasn't a pow in Vietnam, so you could
<v Speaker 1>go be some phony balogney pretending.
<v Speaker 2>So you could be a fucking bitch right all right now, Look,
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna give you one last chance.
<v Speaker 1>I just talked to Pete Bully and he told me
<v Speaker 1>this is how to deal with someone who I don't
<v Speaker 1>want to be a pro wrestler. You get your ass
<v Speaker 1>down there and you don't stop until you're a wrestler.
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna tell you one thing right now. Okay, you
<v Speaker 2>keep going if you if you decide you want to
<v Speaker 2>do this, I'm I wanted to disown you, But if
<v Speaker 2>you decide to quit, I'm going to disown you. I'm
<v Speaker 2>going to kill you.
<v Speaker 1>I wasn't sure I wanted to do it. In all honesty,
<v Speaker 1>I did want to quit at the time, but I
<v Speaker 1>would have been too embarrassed to do so. Eddie had
<v Speaker 1>become directly involved with the entire training process as well,
<v Speaker 1>including getting in the ring and wrestling with me. I
<v Speaker 1>didn't want to disappoint him, after all, he was like
<v Speaker 1>a father to me. Yeah, it's important to note that
<v Speaker 1>him and Mike were very close friends growing up, and
<v Speaker 1>he knew Eddie even divorced from wrestling. My training continued
<v Speaker 1>with its savage consistency for somewhere between four to six months.
<v Speaker 1>At times, I considered leaving the state of Florida simply
<v Speaker 1>to hide from Eddie so that I wouldn't have to
<v Speaker 1>continue training. Imagine that I'm going to leave so I
<v Speaker 1>don't have to continue to train to be a wrestler.
<v Speaker 1>A buying seriously, and also to avoid graduating to an
<v Speaker 1>actual wrestling career where I might get placed in the
<v Speaker 1>ring in front of a live audience and beaten up
<v Speaker 1>even worse. Fortunately, after months of training, Eddie pulled me
<v Speaker 1>aside here it is and clude me into the reality
<v Speaker 1>of what had been happen to me. So here's some
<v Speaker 1>secondhand confirmation of the dynamic Terry experienced. Ye yep, you've
<v Speaker 1>proved to us that you respect our business, said Eddie proudly.
<v Speaker 1>You stuck with it, You gave it your all. You
<v Speaker 1>never questioned anything, You never asked about the realism. You
<v Speaker 1>just did what you were told. Now I'm going to
<v Speaker 1>teach you how to work.
<v Speaker 2>Work.
<v Speaker 1>I asked, what are you talking about? I don't know
<v Speaker 1>what he meant, but it didn't sound good. One of
<v Speaker 1>the reasons I wanted to wrestle was because I hadn't
<v Speaker 1>wanted to become a construction worker or perform any of
<v Speaker 1>the tasks I associated with the actual work. Yeah, you
<v Speaker 1>got that in common with Terry, that's for sure.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, exactly. He does not want to work.
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to be Bacon in the Tampa Sun, Dude,
<v Speaker 1>you know.
<v Speaker 2>I want to bank. Listen, I want to If I
<v Speaker 2>want a tan brother, I want to do it on
<v Speaker 2>my own. I don't want to get tan in the sun.
<v Speaker 2>I want to get tanned in a tanning bed and
<v Speaker 2>get skin cancer. Roller.
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to teach you how to wrestle another guy,
<v Speaker 1>said Eddie. When you're refereed. I told the guys to
<v Speaker 1>k fabe because you weren't smart to the business. You
<v Speaker 1>never really saw what we were doing in that ring.
<v Speaker 1>All you knew was to count to three when you
<v Speaker 1>had to, because he had been a referee already. What
<v Speaker 1>was that word you used, I asked, k fabe. It
<v Speaker 1>means that we need to give the impression everything is
<v Speaker 1>real because someone is around that doesn't know that we're working,
<v Speaker 1>said Eddie.
<v Speaker 2>Come on, I'll show you.
<v Speaker 1>I followed Eddie's lead and we both climbed into the
<v Speaker 1>sport of to I'm going to show you a collar
<v Speaker 1>and elbow lock up, said Eddie. We applied the familiar
<v Speaker 1>face to face tie up with our arms. Then Eddie
<v Speaker 1>backed me into the corner. Then he pulled my arms
<v Speaker 1>down to my sides. Let's see what this feels like
<v Speaker 1>to you, said Eddie. Out of the blue, Eddie whacked
<v Speaker 1>me so hard red in the neck with his fist
<v Speaker 1>that I felt the goosebump shoot straight down to my butthole.
<v Speaker 1>It was like a bolt of lightning had blasted its
<v Speaker 1>way right through me. As I was staggering along the
<v Speaker 1>ropes trying to recover from that sudden right hand to
<v Speaker 1>the neck, Eddie said, Now that's how you punch. I
<v Speaker 1>punched the side of the neck with my whole fist. Now,
<v Speaker 1>if I was to grab your throat in a flash,
<v Speaker 1>Eddie lurched forward, grabbed my throat and started squeezing it
<v Speaker 1>to the point where he was nearly crushing my Adam's apple.
<v Speaker 1>How do you react to this, continued Eddie. I began
<v Speaker 1>flailing with my arms and waving them around in a panic,
<v Speaker 1>like I've been seeing plenty of guys do during prior
<v Speaker 1>wrestling matches that I had viewed. In response to this
<v Speaker 1>improper reaction, Eddie clamped down on my neck even harder,
<v Speaker 1>so that I instinctively reached up and tried to pry
<v Speaker 1>his hands from my throat. That's the way you've got
<v Speaker 1>to do it, said Eddie. You've got to react the
<v Speaker 1>way that you would react if it was real To
<v Speaker 1>communicate to the audience that it is real. That's how
<v Speaker 1>you sell. Imagine that, boss, imagine that, I'd swear. That's
<v Speaker 1>the exact moment my voice changed. It went from a
<v Speaker 1>quality singing voice to being a lot more coarse and
<v Speaker 1>gravelly in response to Eddie clamping down on my throat
<v Speaker 1>to give my first lesson and selling a chokehold. From
<v Speaker 1>that moment on, I was no longer getting stretched and
<v Speaker 1>then forced through an endless battery of Calisenic exercises. Instead,
<v Speaker 1>I was stepping into the ring and working out by
<v Speaker 1>learning how to work during wrestling matches, along with learning
<v Speaker 1>up to ten very basic moves. Because during this period
<v Speaker 1>of my training that I was also working out with
<v Speaker 1>Jack Briscoe, an NCAA champion wrestler and one of the
<v Speaker 1>most exciting pro wrestlers in the world that I most
<v Speaker 1>looked up to a great deal. Eddie informed me that
<v Speaker 1>my first match would be coming up shortly, and I
<v Speaker 1>was feeling nervous about how I would look to the
<v Speaker 1>crowd during my first showing. I don't know how I'm
<v Speaker 1>supposed to wrestle, I revealed to Jack. I only know
<v Speaker 1>a few moves. Steve, there's something you need to know
<v Speaker 1>it ain't all about moves, advised Jack. You don't need
<v Speaker 1>to do a bunch of moves to be successful in
<v Speaker 1>this business. It's about how you get along with the
<v Speaker 1>rest of the boys.
<v Speaker 2>In this business. It's too intense.
<v Speaker 1>That will be the main thing that determines how how
<v Speaker 1>good you get to look to an audience.
<v Speaker 2>It's not about the moves. It's not about how many
<v Speaker 2>moves you have. It's about it's about other things that
<v Speaker 2>I'm just not talking about. Well, thanks for that news,
<v Speaker 2>I can use What do you mean? I'm just not
<v Speaker 2>I'm just not interested in sharing this information right now.
<v Speaker 2>Great title for his book, what do you mean? I asked?
<v Speaker 1>A lot of it has to do how you're accepted
<v Speaker 1>in that dressing room at a jack. Always be humble,
<v Speaker 1>walk over to each individual, shake their hand, and introduce
<v Speaker 1>yourself to them. When you talk to your opponent and
<v Speaker 1>ask them, is there anything you want me to do?
<v Speaker 1>Is there anything you want me to do? Also tell
<v Speaker 1>them if you're hurt, please tell me, so I don't
<v Speaker 1>go over to that area. So I'm just supposed to
<v Speaker 1>do what other guys want me to do. I followed
<v Speaker 1>up Steve, right now you are a giver. You have
<v Speaker 1>nothing to offer to nobody, explain Jack. When you're in
<v Speaker 1>the beginning, all you do is give, give, give, give.
<v Speaker 1>You don't want nothing, you don't take nothing. You listen
<v Speaker 1>and you pay attention. Pay attention to what I asked.
<v Speaker 1>This is Terry could have used a talk to me
<v Speaker 1>too like this.
<v Speaker 2>H Uh, Well, you gotta pay attention to nonsense.
<v Speaker 1>You go out and watch every match, order Jack. If
<v Speaker 1>you're in the first match on the card, don't shower,
<v Speaker 1>put your towel around your neck, and then go stand
<v Speaker 1>out there and watch every match. See what the guys
<v Speaker 1>are doing, see what moves they're making, see what the
<v Speaker 1>people want and what they're excited about. For sure, you
<v Speaker 1>want to watch the main event and add figure out
<v Speaker 1>why those guys are in the main event and what
<v Speaker 1>they're doing different from everybody else. You have to be
<v Speaker 1>like a sponge because you're a minnow and a sea
<v Speaker 1>of sharks. And if you don't like somebody, never let
<v Speaker 1>them know it. Be kind and humble.
<v Speaker 2>So there you go. On his way as well.
<v Speaker 1>Steve Kern learning under the same system with a little
<v Speaker 1>bit more of a white glove treatment. No Hero Matsuda
<v Speaker 1>snapping his leg in half. But well, that's the thing,
<v Speaker 1>that's the way it goes.
<v Speaker 2>Well, it's if he had a blonde hair and was
<v Speaker 2>aw and roll guy, he probably would have gone through it.
<v Speaker 2>And if he had an issue with my Graham, hey,
<v Speaker 2>well you've got.
<v Speaker 1>The Dan Spivey came through and famously, you know, quit
<v Speaker 1>and Jack went to shake Jack Briscoe's hand, and Jack
<v Speaker 1>Briscoe told Dan Spivey, I don't shake hands with quitters.
<v Speaker 2>I'm I don't. I don't.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I don't shake hands with anybody. I also don't
<v Speaker 1>shake hands with people who don't quit. But that's neither
<v Speaker 1>here nor there. I don't shake hands with quitters. I
<v Speaker 1>don't shake hands with people who who don't quit. I
<v Speaker 1>just don't shake hands. But I do shake hands when
<v Speaker 1>I'm a little nervous. My hand shakes. So there's the
<v Speaker 1>irony in it.
<v Speaker 2>All good stuff bal.
<v Speaker 1>But a decade later here met Suit is still down there,
<v Speaker 1>the guy you have, you know, the second to last
<v Speaker 1>boss you have to go through to get to the ring.
<v Speaker 1>And Scott Hall, who was you know, a bouncer and
<v Speaker 1>at the Dollhouse and all that shit, was looking to
<v Speaker 1>break into the business. And let's say then the bloom
<v Speaker 1>was summed off the roads? Is it regards being broken
<v Speaker 1>in in this way? Scott Hall once told Wade Keller,
<v Speaker 1>I was trading with Hiro Matsuda.
<v Speaker 2>You know what he used to be.
<v Speaker 3>Bro.
<v Speaker 1>I moved to Tampa. I've never had a real job.
<v Speaker 3>Bro.
<v Speaker 1>I used to have tend bar in a strip club.
<v Speaker 1>It was the hottest bar in Orlando. A couple of
<v Speaker 1>my buddies give a hundred backs. I moved to Tampa.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know a soul. I get an apartment. I
<v Speaker 1>joined every gym in town, finally got Athletes Fitness Center.
<v Speaker 1>I ran into Kevin Sullivan. I did squats with him.
<v Speaker 1>I'm hanging around trying to get in, but see I'm
<v Speaker 1>not going. A guy's going, hey man, how are you
<v Speaker 1>going to wrestling? How do I go into wrestling? Because
<v Speaker 1>I know they want to hear that. So one day
<v Speaker 1>in the end, me and Barry Windham are in publics
<v Speaker 1>and we're both looking at stakes, no doubt we're picking
<v Speaker 1>out steaks. We're standing looking at stakes and I say,
<v Speaker 1>excuse me, you're Burry Windom right. He says, yeah, how
<v Speaker 1>you doing? It's Berry's cool as fuck. I said, hey,
<v Speaker 1>I'm Scott All. How you doing, man? He says, hey,
<v Speaker 1>I said, I know. The last thing you want to
<v Speaker 1>be is bothered when you're out on your own time.
<v Speaker 1>But I'm really trying to break into your business. He said,
<v Speaker 1>what are you doing? I said, I'm working out with
<v Speaker 1>Hero mat Suda. He said, fuck Hero Matt Suda. He's
<v Speaker 1>gonna have you. Yes he did, Yes, he's gonna have
<v Speaker 1>you doing Hindu squats around the building. Me me the
<v Speaker 1>sportatorium tomorrow one o'clock. I showed up at noon because
<v Speaker 1>I know Berry Wyndham aint gonna show up.
<v Speaker 2>That's Barry Wyndham.
<v Speaker 1>So they the tried and trude methods of Hero Matsuda
<v Speaker 1>Guys's cage. Scott Hall found a way around that sound
<v Speaker 1>of a bit real quick to making millions. So so
<v Speaker 1>much for that being a necessary precursor to becoming a
<v Speaker 1>pro wrestler in the state of Florida. It only took
<v Speaker 1>about ten years for the bloom to come off that rose.
<v Speaker 1>So we've heard it described and terrifying and flowery terms
<v Speaker 1>by the likes of Terry Boleya and Brian Blair.
<v Speaker 2>And Steve Kern.
<v Speaker 1>Let's get a look at what some of these workout
<v Speaker 1>sessions may very well have.
<v Speaker 2>Looked like in this sportatorium.
<v Speaker 1>Because one of the great revelations over the years is
<v Speaker 1>WW acquired territorial wrestling footage from around the world, was
<v Speaker 1>that they had tape, they had film reels of Terry
<v Speaker 1>boleya training in the sportatorium in this year long period
<v Speaker 1>we just talked about when he came back after the
<v Speaker 1>initial injury, his rail fin and had yet to really
<v Speaker 1>discover the wonders of steroids and had really yet to
<v Speaker 1>dial this thing in. So first, what we're going to
<v Speaker 1>look at, and I just sent it to you is
<v Speaker 1>something that aired in nineteen seventy four on Championship Wrestling
<v Speaker 1>from Florida. It's basically a film reel demonstrating a series
<v Speaker 1>of wrestling techniques being almost exhibited. It's not a match
<v Speaker 1>as much as it is footage of workouts, with Gordon
<v Speaker 1>Soley of course voicing over what it is we're seeing.
<v Speaker 1>We had to see the likes of Kuser, of Viziri,
<v Speaker 1>the future Iron Chic who was working the territory at
<v Speaker 1>the time in their delivering moves, to see Wilhelm Ruski,
<v Speaker 1>I believe as well, who was a gold medalist in
<v Speaker 1>judo who had a brief wrestling career and was working
<v Speaker 1>the territory at the time. And eventually we're going to
<v Speaker 1>switch around to the footage of Terry Bolea that surfaced
<v Speaker 1>later and what he looked like in some of these
<v Speaker 1>early training sessions. So if you want to follow along
<v Speaker 1>at home, it's again courtesy of the one O six
<v Speaker 1>North Alb on the YouTube page, it's called c WF
<v Speaker 1>Workout Video at the Sport of Tourning of nineteen and
<v Speaker 1>seventy four. You ready to drink in? Yes, these sessions
<v Speaker 1>looked and felt like perhaps.
<v Speaker 2>I am so fucking ready.
<v Speaker 8>Here we go three two one play.
<v Speaker 9>Here we're getting into some actual moves and we have
<v Speaker 9>a combination here of two Europeans, Less Artin from England
<v Speaker 9>and Ali Vasari from Irania.
<v Speaker 5>Well, this, of course is what we could call it
<v Speaker 5>the belly soupe play. That's pretty American that move. But
<v Speaker 5>and here again another sup play type of takedown.
<v Speaker 10>Anything where the man goes over backwards onto his own
<v Speaker 10>head and feeds the man to his back is a
<v Speaker 10>soup play and is very Europeans.
<v Speaker 5>Of course.
<v Speaker 9>Basari was the Iranian champion. He also coached the US
<v Speaker 9>team in the Olympics, and he was a greg Roman
<v Speaker 9>amateur chandler, a tremendous example of this right and of.
<v Speaker 10>Course that was what you call belly the backs play
<v Speaker 10>and took a man right into a penning position.
<v Speaker 2>Danny Hodge.
<v Speaker 9>And there's Danny Hodge twice in the Olympics.
<v Speaker 7>Yes, well, I know it's a long stout that we
<v Speaker 7>don't see too much of anymore down but of course
<v Speaker 7>that's because of the superhuman strength and Hodges possesses and
<v Speaker 7>stays them out out of trouble. There was a beautiful
<v Speaker 7>side chance be by Roup, tremendous impact on the ring
<v Speaker 7>of course, an impact on the nervous system. By the way,
<v Speaker 7>with all these impact type.
<v Speaker 10>Of fallsidentally is a guy is a style that brings
<v Speaker 10>together the best of both the European and American styles,
<v Speaker 10>and it's it's kind of typical of the young men
<v Speaker 10>of today. Look at this lake sweep for the takedown,
<v Speaker 10>also sort of typical of the Japanese type of takedown
<v Speaker 10>and also European.
<v Speaker 1>But the kind of man was using all like a workout.
<v Speaker 9>And Charles two Englishman, and watched the tremendous power.
<v Speaker 7>They talked about the agility of a gazelle and this
<v Speaker 7>man for super seeds and.
<v Speaker 9>Charles, of course was on the World Championship rugby team
<v Speaker 9>which was also an amateur champion in wrestling and beginning
<v Speaker 9>to show at tremendous shot in the British Isles.
<v Speaker 2>Chances of what he's trying to educate his audience to see.
<v Speaker 5>Literally everything that Tharnton does involves sweeps.
<v Speaker 10>Notice that he sweeps for the legs. That earlier move
<v Speaker 10>there was a regular wrist lock, but then he swept
<v Speaker 10>the lake. This is that foundation for the wristlock and
<v Speaker 10>the sweep of the leg very effective shot their television
<v Speaker 10>in his one hundred.
<v Speaker 5>Degrees No, so he favors over Wizard the moment.
<v Speaker 2>At basically they're again.
<v Speaker 10>Using the the soup play takedown, but getting in underneath
<v Speaker 10>good and tied, hooking the arms and so forth.
<v Speaker 2>He's got Charles overlooked.
<v Speaker 10>And there's something that young fellows in wrestling must observe.
<v Speaker 10>You can get into a bad position and there again.
<v Speaker 1>Count was making the move is countered by Tony.
<v Speaker 5>And got himself jumped on his back for his I.
<v Speaker 2>Can almost believe that this is what arresting fireman carry. There.
<v Speaker 7>See how teep there and got in there, and then
<v Speaker 7>he came right into reverse to Nelson and Croutch.
<v Speaker 10>And there again American using the fireman carry, which is
<v Speaker 10>a sort of a typical American takedown, and he was
<v Speaker 10>good at it.
<v Speaker 5>Jack Briscoe is another very fine environment carry.
<v Speaker 1>Take that Tenny Hodge versus the iron sheet.
<v Speaker 7>You've got awful deep in here. Here comes the counter
<v Speaker 7>it with him over balance. But notice how he sort
<v Speaker 7>of a wizard backge there and took him over with.
<v Speaker 5>It the right which he had set up with the
<v Speaker 5>with the leg dive.
<v Speaker 10>And there again America is a great leg divers and
<v Speaker 10>that and they're looking walking into the little fashioned American.
<v Speaker 9>Drop flying rap kicked by Charles that rocked Danny Odge.
<v Speaker 9>And now I'm going to see Les an expert with
<v Speaker 9>his flying drop kick. Wow, mind you Now this is
<v Speaker 9>just a workout, and yet workout bomber was shattered by
<v Speaker 9>that flying drop kick.
<v Speaker 10>Gat You know, Gordon, the only way you can get
<v Speaker 10>in shape and when you're working out is to give
<v Speaker 10>it everything you've got, one hundred percent.
<v Speaker 9>Now it's Harley Race going up against the cart Rodriguez
<v Speaker 9>in another and this one attacks that nervous system too,
<v Speaker 9>doesn't it generally in the same way.
<v Speaker 7>You're hitting it from different directions, So and it's just
<v Speaker 7>not felt in that localized area where you see the
<v Speaker 7>impact there in the custos area the attack. I'm sure
<v Speaker 7>the man's got a numbing and his hands and feet
<v Speaker 7>and so har I'd be thinking.
<v Speaker 9>And here's this highly controversial situation with Harley Race that
<v Speaker 9>has been declared legal by the nw A and using
<v Speaker 9>his head as a battering ram coming down against the
<v Speaker 9>side of the head of the celende and its generally
<v Speaker 9>disaster for any competitor.
<v Speaker 7>Well it took so anyone it's not in superhuman conditions
<v Speaker 7>certainly would be the off.
<v Speaker 2>The top of Hartley Tony.
<v Speaker 10>This is a very effective takedown Tony Charles, as you
<v Speaker 10>said earlier, demonstrating how he works out with this thing,
<v Speaker 10>and drop kick here very effective. All of these are
<v Speaker 10>moves that they have been praying at and working at.
<v Speaker 7>See people in the tremendous strain here on vice Marius
<v Speaker 7>causes a numbing right into the knee section and you
<v Speaker 7>can't get any feeling up through the hip air.
<v Speaker 2>And slapping the mat.
<v Speaker 9>Let's say, yeah, here you see Chavo Guerrero going up
<v Speaker 9>against these Samoan and the Guerrero catching him coming off
<v Speaker 9>of the ropes, and you can tell he's taking a
<v Speaker 9>tremendous impact to the smaller.
<v Speaker 2>The bag certainly is.
<v Speaker 7>Again, it's the same attack right into the central nervous
<v Speaker 7>system area which so many of our thought impulses and
<v Speaker 7>reflexes and reactions have to come from.
<v Speaker 9>Almost seeing here the transition from the workout of the
<v Speaker 9>professional into the professional matches and the tremendous abuse and
<v Speaker 9>punishment these men have to take until next week, then
<v Speaker 9>this would be gorgous saying so long.
<v Speaker 2>So there you go.
<v Speaker 1>That's how they would portray it to the audience.
<v Speaker 2>That's amazing. What strikes you watching a presentation. I mean
<v Speaker 2>what they're doing is they're they're they're conditioning the audience. Uh,
<v Speaker 2>not only like educating them in the in the moves,
<v Speaker 2>in what they are, but also you know, just making
<v Speaker 2>it seem like these guys do this to be competitive, right,
<v Speaker 2>you know, not they don't do it just to be
<v Speaker 2>you know, show up. It makes it feel right, It
<v Speaker 2>makes it seem like, you know, we have to practice
<v Speaker 2>because I got to be the best, right.
<v Speaker 1>And this is this is a path to victory. Every
<v Speaker 1>move is a step towards victory. It's not it's not
<v Speaker 1>an entertainment in and of itself. So if we now
<v Speaker 1>can load the aforementioned seventy five to seventy eight folder,
<v Speaker 1>because we're about to take a look at that faithful footage.
<v Speaker 1>This emerged not too long ago on the WW vault
<v Speaker 1>because there was there were clips of this out there
<v Speaker 1>before they did like a Hulk Hogan master list kind
<v Speaker 1>of a four hour you know how they do that
<v Speaker 1>on the vault now, so we saw, we saw little
<v Speaker 1>hints of it, but we never saw as as unadulterated
<v Speaker 1>aversion as we're about to see. And if you want
<v Speaker 1>to find it, I believe it's on YouTube and it's
<v Speaker 1>again buried in a much longer file called like Hulkogan
<v Speaker 1>raw footage on the WWW vault and Pat Patterson down
<v Speaker 1>there he was assistant booker to Johnny Valentine. To hear
<v Speaker 1>Jerry Briscoe tell at the time, and obviously working the
<v Speaker 1>territory as well in in around nineteen I want to say,
<v Speaker 1>seventy eight probably, and just look at him. This is
<v Speaker 1>where we first get this idea. This footage is where
<v Speaker 1>we first get I think, visual confirmation that Terry Boulea
<v Speaker 1>broke into the wrestling business before really discovering steroids before.
<v Speaker 1>You know, his height was there, of course, and he
<v Speaker 1>was massive, like he always was his whole life. But
<v Speaker 1>he's kind of goofy looking.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, this is kind of the you know, it's more
<v Speaker 2>reminiscent of WCW. Hulcoganes, you know, and he was tall
<v Speaker 2>and lanky and weird looking. And the hairline is making
<v Speaker 2>a rapid retreat, but he still has enough to do
<v Speaker 2>a full part like in the high school yearbook photos
<v Speaker 2>and stuff. But he's cut it right out the jaw line.
<v Speaker 2>So that's not the shoulder length hair he'd have in Ruckus.
<v Speaker 2>It's not the gender bender hair that he had up there.
<v Speaker 2>And so that's that's the haircut he's talking about when
<v Speaker 2>he says, I'm gonna show hero Matsuda that I'm not
<v Speaker 2>gonna be made fun of some hippie, which he still
<v Speaker 2>looks like some hippie to me, but I understand he
<v Speaker 2>still does.
<v Speaker 1>I understand the point. So we're just gonna watch this now.
<v Speaker 1>It's only twenty eight seconds, but it is a clutch
<v Speaker 1>twenty eight seconds just to see a Terry Bolea that's
<v Speaker 1>now come back after the the the foot injury and
<v Speaker 1>it is earning some respect and is actually now being
<v Speaker 1>seasoned to do this for real down in Florida. So
<v Speaker 1>here we go three two one play, looking.
<v Speaker 2>At looking up, fucking with as fucking sound, empty arena,
<v Speaker 2>huge drop kick.
<v Speaker 1>He's got red tights, white armed man's push off tackle.
<v Speaker 1>He looks like such a doing fun. He goes look
<v Speaker 1>at that, he looks takes the rolling reverse cradle. Wow,
<v Speaker 1>I'm pretty sure that's Wilhelm Rusk. He's in there with
<v Speaker 1>look drop but Patterson sucks. He sucks the Brendan's head.
<v Speaker 1>Did Patterson in his Converse All Stars? And then uh
<v Speaker 1>Terry Bullay took a a judo throw and over the
<v Speaker 1>overhead judo throw apon ciinage there from Willem Ruska, who
<v Speaker 1>is in the territory as well. So it's just it's
<v Speaker 1>just amazing, what's this?
<v Speaker 2>What's this? Okay, So the the the very last frame
<v Speaker 2>is not of this thing. It's definitely a more current
<v Speaker 2>video clip, but like it's very weird. It's almost disturbing. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it's like image of someone outside or I think.
<v Speaker 1>It's him doing the one of the tours of Saudi
<v Speaker 1>Arabia right around.
<v Speaker 2>The golf floor or something.
<v Speaker 1>It's just okay, all right, yeah, continuous file of stuff.
<v Speaker 1>But that's that's that's the glimpse.
<v Speaker 3>There.
<v Speaker 1>You see Patterson who jumps for a drop kick and
<v Speaker 1>sneakers and he just Patterson just lands right in his
<v Speaker 1>fucking head. I don't know what he was going for,
<v Speaker 1>ye but I don't know if Terry didn't base firm
<v Speaker 1>well enough or what. But just to see Hogan hit
<v Speaker 1>the ropes being so wiry, yeah, and just like also
<v Speaker 1>seeing him like not know what to.
<v Speaker 8>Do, yeah, he does.
<v Speaker 1>He looks like such a klutz out there, he does.
<v Speaker 1>And those are the black wrestling boots that Jack brisco
<v Speaker 1>Bottom almost assuredly yep. And he's just truly truly learning
<v Speaker 1>the ropes and it's it's remarkable to see. And what
<v Speaker 1>this tells me is that there's more of this footage
<v Speaker 1>that they have, and the fact that it's not available
<v Speaker 1>in its entirety is an absolute grying shame. Where is
<v Speaker 1>the Florida Champiship Wrestling Complete archive? WWE charge me one
<v Speaker 1>hundred dollars a month for it. See what happens, get it,
<v Speaker 1>Get it up there, get it up there. It's Hull
<v Speaker 1>Cogan's formative years. What are you doing? I you know,
<v Speaker 1>I just don't, you know.
<v Speaker 2>As great as the Vault is, there's also I just
<v Speaker 2>don't like the way it's curated, because it's like, for
<v Speaker 2>a while, there was some there was some uh uh,
<v Speaker 2>like a schedule. It seemed like because on on every
<v Speaker 2>like Tuesday, they would, for like maybe a couple months,
<v Speaker 2>they were dropping a new a new Colossum video, right,
<v Speaker 2>but really, what they need to do, and.
<v Speaker 1>Then as soon as we stopped doing the Colsseum collection,
<v Speaker 1>they stopped doing that.
<v Speaker 2>I mean they come up very very rarely now. But
<v Speaker 2>what they really should do, and there's no reason not
<v Speaker 2>to do this, is they need to set up they
<v Speaker 2>need to set up channels dedicated to specific shows that
<v Speaker 2>they put on, just like they had Network put a
<v Speaker 2>couple episodes every fucking day.
<v Speaker 1>It's great to get a little buzz when you drop
<v Speaker 1>something that no one knew is and it surprises people.
<v Speaker 1>I appreciate the Hidden Gems' mentality, but the Hidden Gems
<v Speaker 1>was off to the side. It was it was a
<v Speaker 1>sweetener to the real meal, which was the predictability of knowing,
<v Speaker 1>oh my god, I know where we're going. We are
<v Speaker 1>going to get to all of these eras because they're
<v Speaker 1>marching through it systematically and they're uploading cadence. And that's
<v Speaker 1>what's exciting. That's what keeps take it from us ten
<v Speaker 1>years running, eleven years running. That's what keeps people hooked
<v Speaker 1>is not just what the mystery of what might come next,
<v Speaker 1>but knowing with some degree of predictability, where we're heading
<v Speaker 1>and if we stick with it, we're going to get
<v Speaker 1>to so to.
<v Speaker 2>Complete hul Cogan.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, here we are mired in the Sportatorium in nineteen
<v Speaker 1>seventy seven under the hot lamp, but we also know
<v Speaker 1>that we're headed to the first Survivor series. We're headed
<v Speaker 1>to the first Summer Slam, We're headed to any number
<v Speaker 1>of Saturday Night's main events that we haven't talked about before.
<v Speaker 1>We're headed to Hulk Cogan and Zeus.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, there really should be there really should be
<v Speaker 2>a hidden gems, like you know, a separate channel where
<v Speaker 2>you put up just matches or things and stuff like that,
<v Speaker 2>or these you know, like like they just put up
<v Speaker 2>stuff from the indies and and whatever like that, that
<v Speaker 2>that's fine, But then you have these other areas where
<v Speaker 2>you're just.
<v Speaker 1>Committed to the promotion, right, And they had in the
<v Speaker 1>very beginning a WW channel that got people excited because
<v Speaker 1>it was they do.
<v Speaker 2>They still have it, but it's it's it's and it's
<v Speaker 2>fine because you put up something, but it's not that's
<v Speaker 2>the thing. It's not chronological, although they are. I do believe.
<v Speaker 2>I do believe that they are doing full episode like
<v Speaker 2>when they do when they put up a new episode
<v Speaker 2>of of World Championship Wrestling, which they kind of do
<v Speaker 2>every they do every week. They put up a new
<v Speaker 2>episode every week. I did not know that they and
<v Speaker 2>they do it in order. At least it seems like
<v Speaker 2>it's been in order good, So like I do appreciate that,
<v Speaker 2>but but like it's it's the other stuff. It's like I, I,
<v Speaker 2>you know, exactly, put up all that fucking Florida Championship
<v Speaker 2>Wrestling shit or Championship running before or whatever fuck it is,
<v Speaker 2>create a channel, put it up there. Yes, it's not
<v Speaker 2>going to be as oh my god, I'm a you
<v Speaker 2>know not and you're not gonna have three hundred and
<v Speaker 2>seventy five thousand subscribers to that like you do on
<v Speaker 2>the WW channel or or or or three million subscribers
<v Speaker 2>to the WWW vault. But you'll have enough people like
<v Speaker 2>it doesn't matter after that. Just put it up there,
<v Speaker 2>get your fucking ad money.
<v Speaker 1>That's not making anything sitting there exactly right, Yep, It's
<v Speaker 1>absolutely true. So fascinating that we would see a young
<v Speaker 1>Terry boleea mixing it up in the sportatorium ring with
<v Speaker 1>Pat Patterson of all people. Because it's time to turn
<v Speaker 1>back to Hulcogan's second book and get a little bit
<v Speaker 1>of a little bit of classic hull coganism in. And
<v Speaker 1>you tell me if this is another instance of Hogan
<v Speaker 1>hearing about something that happened to another wrestler and pretended
<v Speaker 1>it was his experience as well, or something that I
<v Speaker 1>happened to the man. There was this one wrestler named
<v Speaker 1>Pat Patterson who was wrestling in Florida who was openly gay,
<v Speaker 1>which was kind of shocking to me then, just because
<v Speaker 1>I had never really encountered that before. I love the
<v Speaker 1>got a death to death or he loves everything to death,
<v Speaker 1>Scared to death, scared to death? Right, I was scared
<v Speaker 1>to death. I love the guy Toth and he's a
<v Speaker 1>great guy, but he's one of those guys will ribby
<v Speaker 1>about stuff. He's always joking. And I didn't know this
<v Speaker 1>at the time. His pal Buddy Colt was the Florida
<v Speaker 1>heavyweight champion, and I don't know if he's gay or not.
<v Speaker 1>That's a shot at a Brian Blair whose uncle was
<v Speaker 1>Buddy Cold. As it turned out, the way things went
<v Speaker 1>down before that first match of mine don't really make
<v Speaker 1>any difference. It was August of nineteen seventy seven. I'm
<v Speaker 1>gearing up from my very first match with no idea
<v Speaker 1>how the whole thing's going down. I truly didn't know
<v Speaker 1>if I was gonna get killed in that ring or what.
<v Speaker 1>God for what didn't any Graham tell you how it's
<v Speaker 1>working already? H For all, I knew someone else would
<v Speaker 1>break my leg the way Matt Suita did in the beginning.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my god, dude, how many like like you get
<v Speaker 2>to make up your mind? Okay, you either get like
<v Speaker 2>you need to have a point where it's not real anymore.
<v Speaker 1>And he never got there. He never got there. He
<v Speaker 1>never got there. I had no idea what would happen,
<v Speaker 1>and nobody told me a thing. The day before the
<v Speaker 1>big match, Pat Patterson stops by Matt's suit as Jim, Hey, Terry.
<v Speaker 1>He says, I check up down at the Spaudatorium tomorrow.
<v Speaker 1>We're riding down to Fort Myers together. I didn't care
<v Speaker 1>one way or the other about the fact that he
<v Speaker 1>was gay. I was just psyched that he, a big
<v Speaker 1>wrestler like that, would reach out to me. So I
<v Speaker 1>get to a call with Pat and Buddy the next
<v Speaker 1>day and Pat says, hey, you know this is a
<v Speaker 1>big night's for you. Yes, sir, it is, mister Patterson. Well,
<v Speaker 1>this is your initiation night. Oh man, It's gonna be great.
<v Speaker 1>I can't wait. I liked it all pumped, but like
<v Speaker 1>I said, I was really scared. I was so worried
<v Speaker 1>about getting beat up, or what I'd have to do
<v Speaker 1>to win, or if I'd wind up losing my first
<v Speaker 1>time out. Well, you know what, Pat says, We got
<v Speaker 1>to in a car because we've been chosen to initiate
<v Speaker 1>you tonight. Oh boy, I said, what do you mean.
<v Speaker 2>Well?
<v Speaker 1>Pat says, we got about one hundred and fifty miles
<v Speaker 1>to go, and before you get to the arena, you
<v Speaker 1>have to give one of us a blowjob.
<v Speaker 2>I it was gonna go there. What I said, brother,
<v Speaker 2>what what do you mean blowjob? Dude?
<v Speaker 1>What you have to give one of us a blow
<v Speaker 1>job before you get to the building, because that's your
<v Speaker 1>initiation before you wrestle.
<v Speaker 2>He says.
<v Speaker 1>I was completely taken aback. Well I can't do that. Oh, brother,
<v Speaker 1>Well I can't do that.
<v Speaker 2>You know.
<v Speaker 1>I'm I've never done anything like that. I'm not gay.
<v Speaker 1>I can't do that. They both thought, real serious, Well,
<v Speaker 1>you have to do it. I'm not gonna do it.
<v Speaker 1>I was horrified. I was so upset.
<v Speaker 2>Brother.
<v Speaker 1>All this time, I've done nothing but prepare for this night,
<v Speaker 1>and they're telling me I have to do this thing
<v Speaker 1>that I can't possibly do or they won't let me wrestle.
<v Speaker 2>My first match.
<v Speaker 1>I was seriously fucked It was seriously fucked up. I
<v Speaker 1>didn't have the slightest clue that they were ribbing. You know, hey, Terry,
<v Speaker 1>that's because if you said yes, they weren't ribbing.
<v Speaker 2>Unless you're gone and do it. I can't.
<v Speaker 1>I can't do this. This is fucked up, I said.
<v Speaker 1>I then turned to Pat and said, brother, there is
<v Speaker 1>no way in the world, dude, that I'm gonna do that,
<v Speaker 1>but you know, if you want to salt my cock,
<v Speaker 1>then maybe I said, I just want to wrestle, and
<v Speaker 1>they took advantage of how serious and focused I was.
<v Speaker 1>They tortured me. It was the longest car ride in
<v Speaker 1>my life. On top of warrying about the match, how
<v Speaker 1>I do if I'd looked like a fool in front
<v Speaker 1>of a stadium full of people, they put this fear
<v Speaker 1>into me that they wouldn't let me wrestle at all
<v Speaker 1>if I didn't do this horrible thing. As we got
<v Speaker 1>closer and closer to the stadium, I just refused.
<v Speaker 2>Over and over.
<v Speaker 1>Finally we were pulling into the parking lot and they
<v Speaker 1>still wouldn't let up. Okay, they said, since you didn't
<v Speaker 1>give one of us a blow job before your match,
<v Speaker 1>we're gonna have to tell all the other guys that
<v Speaker 1>you failed your initiation. So after your match in the
<v Speaker 1>shower under locker room, everybody's gonna grab you and fuck
<v Speaker 1>you in the ass. Fuck normal, Oh god again. There
<v Speaker 1>wasn't even a hint that they were kidding. This whole
<v Speaker 1>wrestling experience had been so barbaric, you know, with the
<v Speaker 1>leg breaking and the brings that back up and the
<v Speaker 1>pushing me till I fighted in and the watching of
<v Speaker 1>the marks get beat to shit and run out of
<v Speaker 1>the business. I was so fucking scared, and now I
<v Speaker 1>have to get in the ring and wrestle, thinking I'm
<v Speaker 1>gonna be fighting for my life in the locker room
<v Speaker 1>after the match, really fighting the thing I fear the most,
<v Speaker 1>really fighting the thing, really fighting the thing I fear.
<v Speaker 1>There is nothing he feels more than real fighting. So
<v Speaker 1>I get in the locker room. It's total silence. No
<v Speaker 1>one says a word to me. I get suited up
<v Speaker 1>and tie up my new boots, and I go out
<v Speaker 1>to wrestle Brian Blair. Now we'll get more into what
<v Speaker 1>happens in the match here in just a moment from
<v Speaker 1>you know, other sources than this particular one. But we
<v Speaker 1>need to do this because this is where he tells
<v Speaker 1>the full Patterson story. Instead of basking in the moment
<v Speaker 1>of finishing my first match, I'm only thinking about one thing. Now,
<v Speaker 1>I gotta go back to wrestling room and fight for
<v Speaker 1>my fucking life. On the way back from the ring,
<v Speaker 1>I was so worried and so upset. There were tears
<v Speaker 1>in my eyes. Once again, he's crying.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my god.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think any of the guy saw it, but
<v Speaker 1>I was a wreck. I had thrown everything in my
<v Speaker 1>life away for the stream of wrestling. I don't think
<v Speaker 1>anything guy saw it, terry, because I'm not sure it
<v Speaker 1>even happened.
<v Speaker 2>But it's fine.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'd thrown everything in my life away for the
<v Speaker 1>stream of wrestling. My music career was gone.
<v Speaker 3>Now.
<v Speaker 1>I was so fixated. I'm making this thing work, and
<v Speaker 1>this was what I'd gotten myself into. I was shaking,
<v Speaker 1>practically bawling, thinking I don't want to be a wrestler anymore.
<v Speaker 1>I felt like a loser, an outsider, the twelve year
<v Speaker 1>old fat kid. There it is again, Ah, that what
<v Speaker 1>you're looking for.
<v Speaker 2>Yep.
<v Speaker 1>I was weak, yep, I felt sick. I just wanted
<v Speaker 1>to get out of there. So scared and so messed up.
<v Speaker 1>That's all I could do to gird myself and get
<v Speaker 1>ready to face my fate. As I pushed through the
<v Speaker 1>doors and stepped into the locker room where all the
<v Speaker 1>wrestlers were waiting with beers in their hands. Congratulations, you
<v Speaker 1>made it.
<v Speaker 2>The cocks out.
<v Speaker 1>What the hell they were cheering for me? The rib
<v Speaker 1>was over. The whole thing had been a big goof
<v Speaker 1>at my expense.
<v Speaker 2>Oh.
<v Speaker 1>They patted me on the back and shook my hand.
<v Speaker 1>Someone handed me a beer. They were all so happy
<v Speaker 1>that I made it through the match, and everybody was
<v Speaker 1>talking about what a good fight I'd given Brian. Hazing
<v Speaker 1>is pretty common in fraternities, I guess it's pretty common
<v Speaker 1>in the military too. I had no idea it was
<v Speaker 1>a right passage in the wrestling world. In fact, maybe
<v Speaker 1>it wasn't all that common. Maybe I was just an
<v Speaker 1>unlucky stiff. Yeah, yeah, it's always that's always the case.
<v Speaker 1>It was too naive for the other wrestlers to pass up.
<v Speaker 1>I was completely dazed. I didn't understand it. I didn't
<v Speaker 1>understand why they would do something like that. It's still
<v Speaker 1>so weird to think about even now. It still upsets me.
<v Speaker 1>But they're in the locker room on that August night.
<v Speaker 1>For the first time in this whole crazy endeavor that
<v Speaker 1>I had devoted my life to for more than a year. Now,
<v Speaker 1>the other wrestlers stopped treating me like some dumb ass
<v Speaker 1>kid for a moment. At least, they treated me like
<v Speaker 1>one of their own. I then tied my hair up
<v Speaker 1>in a ponytail dropped to my knees.
<v Speaker 2>Them off, brother, like you do, dude.
<v Speaker 1>So what was the story of that first match? What
<v Speaker 1>was yes, Terry bay Is first entreat the wrestling business.
<v Speaker 1>It was not Brian Blair. It was this other guy,
<v Speaker 1>Don Serrano. We've heard so much about him. Why was
<v Speaker 1>he under a hood? Who did he wrestle? Who was
<v Speaker 1>he filling in for on that fateful night? That and
<v Speaker 1>so much more detail. As the next stop on The
<v Speaker 1>Complete Hulkgan focuses entirely on Terry blays very first wrestling matches.
<v Speaker 2>We'll see you next time.
<v Speaker 6>As a Santa's production, its contents is intended for private
<v Speaker 6>use only.