The Complete Hulk Hogan | An Interview with 'Wrestling Gold' creators Kit Parker & Stu Ganz

<v Speaker 1>It's a Lapsed Fan wrestling podcast special report.
<v Speaker 2>The Lapse Fan presents the Complete Hull Kogan, a real
<v Speaker 2>American story, brought to you by Garage Pierre. Well, it's
<v Speaker 2>the holiday season, Basson. I think there's perhaps nothing that
<v Speaker 2>says Christmas to a vintage wrestling fan more than vhs
<v Speaker 2>under the Tree featuring some of our favorite Grattlers DVDs
<v Speaker 2>later on.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, it's well, no, no, forget DVDs. It's it's
<v Speaker 3>all about the vhs.
<v Speaker 2>That was.
<v Speaker 3>That was where it was warm and fuzzy.
<v Speaker 4>You know.
<v Speaker 3>I'd get a box, I'd get like a clothes I
<v Speaker 3>think it was clothes, you know. I think it was
<v Speaker 3>a clothes box. But then I'd open it up and
<v Speaker 3>there would be these these tapes, these rest tapes, and
<v Speaker 3>it would just it melt my heart as a kid.
<v Speaker 2>And not just WWF tapes. I mean, there were so
<v Speaker 2>much on the market as they expanded the cossing video
<v Speaker 2>in the eighties and so many other companies. What we're
<v Speaker 2>bringing forth and unearthing footage that we have never seen
<v Speaker 2>from people that we had just become acquainted with on
<v Speaker 2>National TV through Vince McMahon. But they had histories and
<v Speaker 2>all these territories, and we've long been indebted to the
<v Speaker 2>folks that have compiled that footage, that released it commercially
<v Speaker 2>and gave us a flavor of you know, Randy Savage
<v Speaker 2>in Memphis, Hulk Hogan and Alabama's we've been talking about
<v Speaker 2>on the Complete Hulk Hogan and you know, we got
<v Speaker 2>to the point as we charted Hulk's life and times
<v Speaker 2>upon his passing this year, that we just couldn't figure
<v Speaker 2>out why we can see this arm wrestling match that
<v Speaker 2>Hulk Hogan had with Honor the Giant right nineteen seventy
<v Speaker 2>nine in Alabama. How did this surface? Because it's well
<v Speaker 2>known that almost nothing from that territory survived, particularly masters.
<v Speaker 2>Yet here's this pristine version of this all over YouTube.
<v Speaker 2>And so we did some digging. It was a Kit
<v Speaker 2>Parker film. We all remember the Kit Parker name. I
<v Speaker 2>got the Wrestling Gold DVDs on Christmas and I didn't
<v Speaker 2>leave my room for a week until I watched all
<v Speaker 2>of Meltzer and Cornett's commentary over all those great matches
<v Speaker 2>from all those great territories. And in the spirit of holidays,
<v Speaker 2>we're bringing it back under the tree. We're unwrapping Kit
<v Speaker 2>Parker as well as his partner in arms in the
<v Speaker 2>Wrestling Ventures and former WWF associate former w F announcer
<v Speaker 2>Stu Gans, both joining us for the special little Christmas
<v Speaker 2>Tree for the fans. Kit, Stu, it's great to have
<v Speaker 2>you guys here. Can't wait to talk about this stuff.
<v Speaker 2>Great to be here, to be here, excellent.
<v Speaker 5>I give you give you a little bit of background
<v Speaker 5>on wrestling gold.
<v Speaker 4>I was a fan and I was.
<v Speaker 5>Aware that these that the people who were popular than
<v Speaker 5>Randy Savage at all, that they had earlier careers. And
<v Speaker 5>I was able to make a deal with PM Film
<v Speaker 5>and Video Tape Company, which was Pavedro mart Tina's company.
<v Speaker 5>He was a promoter out of Buffalo, and he had
<v Speaker 5>acquired all of these libraries.
<v Speaker 4>He had POFO.
<v Speaker 5>And the sheet and others, and it appeared that he
<v Speaker 5>just bought the footage outright. I had copies of the contracts.
<v Speaker 5>Everything seemed legit. So anyway, I made a deal with him.
<v Speaker 5>I put together those collections and thought I would try
<v Speaker 5>them on what they call then direct response television, and
<v Speaker 5>those were commercials.
<v Speaker 4>That were run late at night.
<v Speaker 5>And they would have at the end of tag you'd
<v Speaker 5>call an eight hundred number and so forth. And the
<v Speaker 5>deal was the station got a percentage of the income
<v Speaker 5>from the orders. And I used to watch those commercials
<v Speaker 5>and they were amusing. Some of them were so over
<v Speaker 5>the top. I thought, let's put this, put one of
<v Speaker 5>these together and just write something really crazy, almost like
<v Speaker 5>a lark, with all of this violent footage and anything
<v Speaker 5>we could get away with and anyway, So I tried
<v Speaker 5>that commercial in a Bay Area San Francisco Bay Area
<v Speaker 5>Cable Consortium Bay Area Interconnect and it was a big hit.
<v Speaker 5>And it turned out that the one of the reasons
<v Speaker 5>my Stu here was WWF re announcer and I was
<v Speaker 5>able to get all this footage and we went over it,
<v Speaker 5>thinking this would be good, that would be good. You know,
<v Speaker 5>who cares about this restaurant, but this one's right, and
<v Speaker 5>so forth. So Stu got this huge box of.
<v Speaker 2>Tapes, Oh the dream job.
<v Speaker 4>He went through it.
<v Speaker 2>Well, Stuy, go, yeah, please do.
<v Speaker 1>And that was in the old days. Putting in these
<v Speaker 1>VHS's and fast forwarding, searching, rewinding and getting time cues
<v Speaker 1>from there wasn't even I don't think kit not much
<v Speaker 1>of it had time code on it. Some did, And
<v Speaker 1>I just had to take a notepad and a pencil
<v Speaker 1>or pen and put the start time in and the
<v Speaker 1>out queue and just kept a whole list of each
<v Speaker 1>one of these matches in this massive binder.
<v Speaker 2>How many hours do you reckon, Stu did you have
<v Speaker 2>to go through?
<v Speaker 1>I get I have no idea.
<v Speaker 5>I think I touted it in the is like sixty hours.
<v Speaker 5>We went through sixty hours of rare wrestling footage. Someone yeah,
<v Speaker 5>stealing your one liner.
<v Speaker 1>And then we took that rough stuff and took him
<v Speaker 1>to Kit's production guy, John Harris, Harrison, Sam Harris, Sam
<v Speaker 1>Harris and UH put them together and outcomes and then
<v Speaker 1>from there we went over to Bay Area Interconnect and
<v Speaker 1>produced the spots with a toy ring. You wouldn't know.
<v Speaker 1>It looks pretty real. Well, you've seen.
<v Speaker 2>There's some on YouTube. I don't know if this one is.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, the wrestling Gold one. We're trying to find it.
<v Speaker 2>I mean we have it the advertisement. Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>So anyway, the commercials came out great, and then we
<v Speaker 1>ran with it on direct response. UH, and that's how
<v Speaker 1>it started.
<v Speaker 2>So, Kit, did you deal directly with Pedro Martinez himself
<v Speaker 2>or someone want an emissary or a lawyer of his. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>his son, His son ran the business.
<v Speaker 1>Ron and Bill and Kit and I flew back to Florida,
<v Speaker 1>Yeah to uh huh, wasn't it Florida? Yeah, I'm trying
<v Speaker 1>to It was what what city?
<v Speaker 2>Oh? Major city, Miami, Tampa.
<v Speaker 1>It could be a better anyway. And Matt actually Pedro,
<v Speaker 1>didn't Pedro pick us or did Ron pick us up?
<v Speaker 1>And then we went to somewhere along the line. I
<v Speaker 1>don't know if we Yeah, we went to Ron's house.
<v Speaker 4>Right.
<v Speaker 2>Did he have them on VHS guys or did he
<v Speaker 2>have them on different formats?
<v Speaker 4>Beta?
<v Speaker 5>They were they were on antiquated tape formats right, like
<v Speaker 5>one inch, two inch and three quarter and and other
<v Speaker 5>other ones lost to history.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, JP, No, I was just thinking, but I was curious,
<v Speaker 3>how many how many? How many different promotions did you
<v Speaker 3>guys have, Like did you have access to to have
<v Speaker 3>all this this footage? Like it's it's honestly, it's it's exciting.
<v Speaker 3>I wish we had access to this stuff right now.
<v Speaker 6>Honestly, I'm going to go through and find the box
<v Speaker 6>has all the contracts, Stew's notepads with his comments on
<v Speaker 6>the on the commercial.
<v Speaker 5>I'll get that to you. I remember Popo and the sheet,
<v Speaker 5>and there were some others in there. I do not
<v Speaker 5>recall the Hogan one, and it almost seems like a
<v Speaker 5>one off.
<v Speaker 4>The video is different.
<v Speaker 5>You got me. When I wrote the commercial, I put
<v Speaker 5>down Hulk Hogan as Terry the Bulk was Terry the
<v Speaker 5>Hawk Boulder. I wish I hadn't done that. I wish
<v Speaker 5>I just said, anybody know who this is, find out,
<v Speaker 5>you know, order because I got a letter from Hogan's attorney,
<v Speaker 5>this letter. But I afterwards I got to thinking, you know, really,
<v Speaker 5>why would he have any control over this? He didn't
<v Speaker 5>known the name, he didn't know footage. But anyway, that happened.
<v Speaker 5>So I went through that show and I'll get you that.
<v Speaker 5>I'll dig maybe during the Christmas time, I'll go through
<v Speaker 5>that big box.
<v Speaker 2>Oh Stew's notes.
<v Speaker 4>And all that.
<v Speaker 5>Get you an answer how where that came from.
<v Speaker 2>That would be wonderful, because here's the thing. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>it would be one thing if we had absolutely no
<v Speaker 2>footage from Hulk Hogan's days in Alabama. But we have
<v Speaker 2>just this arm wrestling match with Andrea the Giant, and
<v Speaker 2>we have a what we call a squash match, you know,
<v Speaker 2>where he puts a bear hug on a guy named
<v Speaker 2>the Outlaw under a mask, which took place a couple
<v Speaker 2>of months later. And not only do they survive, but
<v Speaker 2>they survive in such amazing quality that it raises the
<v Speaker 2>tantalizing possibility that someone out there has a lot of
<v Speaker 2>this absolute day one Hulk Hogan stuff. You know, before
<v Speaker 2>he was anybody in the business, but he became a
<v Speaker 2>sensation in just six months, and in territory that didn't
<v Speaker 2>get a lot of attention nationally. So it's like this
<v Speaker 2>sort of hidden history of the most famous wrestler ever.
<v Speaker 2>And so part of why we thought it would not
<v Speaker 2>just for the fun history, but just worth reaching out
<v Speaker 2>is to see if we can get heads or tails
<v Speaker 2>on why this particular piece of footage survived and was
<v Speaker 2>in video stores as wrestling gold.
<v Speaker 4>I promise I'll look it up before I forget.
<v Speaker 5>I have a We never got returns on those sold
<v Speaker 5>thousands and thousands, and nobody ever complained except one guy, uh,
<v Speaker 5>and he kept calling, and he kept saying a to
<v Speaker 5>date to date I didn't know what he was talking about.
<v Speaker 5>To day meant eight to date, meaning they're not contemporary, so.
<v Speaker 2>He thought it was modern, a modern wrestling table today.
<v Speaker 5>To find and figure out what he was saying anyway.
<v Speaker 2>I wouldn't forget that. Wows what what? When would you
<v Speaker 2>peg the the season desist? Was it the same year
<v Speaker 2>you released the tape we're talking about. I'm trying to
<v Speaker 2>place in my mind when Yeah, yeah, it.
<v Speaker 5>Was the it was the TV. There was another company,
<v Speaker 5>three G Video, who they licensed the some of those
<v Speaker 5>from me. I was able to sub license them, and
<v Speaker 5>he made the mistake of putting contemporary images of Hogan
<v Speaker 5>and Savage, just absolutely contemporary, so he got sued, but
<v Speaker 5>I told him not to do that so they couldn't
<v Speaker 5>come after me.
<v Speaker 1>Uh.
<v Speaker 5>I believe he sold a ton of those at in Kmart.
<v Speaker 4>Or one of those.
<v Speaker 5>I think it was Kmart in the you know cheap bind.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's sweet.
<v Speaker 1>Are We had a mutual friend who put Kit and
<v Speaker 1>I together because of Kit wanting to do this project
<v Speaker 1>back in nineteen eighty eight, and the mutual friend knew
<v Speaker 1>about my wrestling history as far as being a fan
<v Speaker 1>and then being the ring announcer, so he which I
<v Speaker 1>started doing in eighty three, which Jack knows.
<v Speaker 2>A little bit about that we'll talk about that for sure.
<v Speaker 1>So so what happened was we he set up a
<v Speaker 1>lunch for the three of us to meet, and that
<v Speaker 1>was an eighty eight. Actually it was, well, it was yeah,
<v Speaker 1>and that started the ball rolling for Kit and I
<v Speaker 1>to start working together on what became Wrestling Gold and
<v Speaker 1>then became Wrestling Gold too, and then the Best of
<v Speaker 1>and all the collections that we did down in Arizona
<v Speaker 1>with Corney and Dave Meltzer and it just yeah.
<v Speaker 5>So it was fortuitous. The man at the cable system
<v Speaker 5>whom we met, his business was those direct response TV ads,
<v Speaker 5>so it was perfect met him and then meat Stew.
<v Speaker 5>You know, it's just one of those where everything fit
<v Speaker 5>together perfectly and we had a great time, great time
<v Speaker 5>doing it. And Joe was the one who Joe he
<v Speaker 5>placed the commercials around the country and we also found
<v Speaker 5>that people ordered them very late at night. Yes, it
<v Speaker 5>was you know, one in the morning, and I was
<v Speaker 5>told that was the time then that people were more
<v Speaker 5>open to buying things. Well, it turned out to me
<v Speaker 5>true because we get the times when they'd order.
<v Speaker 3>Can you vouch for that, JP, TEB, Yeah, I'll say
<v Speaker 3>they're probably I would imagine, yes, you know what, I can.
<v Speaker 3>I can. I can definitely vouch for that, not for myself,
<v Speaker 3>but because of my mom. My mom was a notorious
<v Speaker 3>like late night QVC buyer, so she would see things
<v Speaker 3>like that, And honestly, you know, if she saw if
<v Speaker 3>she saw wrestling tapes being sold at in the middle
<v Speaker 3>of the night, because she was a night owl, she
<v Speaker 3>would have gotten them for me for sure. I don't
<v Speaker 3>think she ever did, so I'm kind of disappointed at that,
<v Speaker 3>but I know she would have if she ran across
<v Speaker 3>the tapes like that.
<v Speaker 1>And we had we figured it out, we went to
<v Speaker 1>I thought about Fort Lauderdale's where we flew to Mere
<v Speaker 1>Pedro and Ron Martinez.
<v Speaker 2>Out for a second commercial. Yeah, please go ahead, go ahead, now,
<v Speaker 2>please kid.
<v Speaker 5>The second commercial Wrestling Goal Too, which is I saw
<v Speaker 5>on YouTube when I wrote that it was so over
<v Speaker 5>the top and we hired Pepper Gomez and so Pepper
<v Speaker 5>and Stu interact in this commercial and Pepper is torturing Stu,
<v Speaker 5>Ron Rot Jackie. You've seen it, don't know about JP yet.
<v Speaker 3>I have not seen it.
<v Speaker 2>No, please feel free to describe it to our listener,
<v Speaker 2>Stu if you'd like. They'll they'll track it down.
<v Speaker 5>At the end of the commercial, Pepper gives Stu a
<v Speaker 5>pile driver right while he's saying at the end, call
<v Speaker 5>our twenty four hour hot nine.
<v Speaker 4>Now, yeah, it was.
<v Speaker 1>It was a rooty version, yeah, of the pile driver,
<v Speaker 1>but it served its purpose, and the airplane spin also
<v Speaker 1>served its purpose as I'm delivering a line. So it
<v Speaker 1>became quite a tongue in cheek type piece and Pepper
<v Speaker 1>rest in peace. Really, I think he really enjoyed doing it.
<v Speaker 1>And we did that down in sand at a studio
<v Speaker 1>in Sand City where Kit and his wife lived in Monterey,
<v Speaker 1>So we did that one locally versus I mean, we
<v Speaker 1>did it in Sand City, just down on the Monterey Peninsula.
<v Speaker 2>Great history there. You know. One thing click down. As
<v Speaker 2>Kit was talking about the three G company that was
<v Speaker 2>also doing them JP, we saw this is going through
<v Speaker 2>some of the materials. There's this tag team title wave
<v Speaker 2>video where it's got an animated sketched picture of Holt's face,
<v Speaker 2>Savage's face, night Heart, Rick Rude and it says Terry
<v Speaker 2>the Hope Boulder, Randy Savage, Macho man, the Anvil ravishing
<v Speaker 2>Rick Rude, And we were wondering, you know why there
<v Speaker 2>was if this could be on the shelves, get sensitivity
<v Speaker 2>around using Hulk when it looked like they went to
<v Speaker 2>market this way, but it sounds like they did. Hear
<v Speaker 2>from from Hogan's lawyers eventually, Yeah, I've got him in man.
<v Speaker 5>Actually the commercial with the Alabama where it said I
<v Speaker 5>mentioned Hulk Hogan.
<v Speaker 4>As Terry the Hulk Bowler or vice versa.
<v Speaker 5>That when I got the letter from from Hogan's attorney,
<v Speaker 5>Bob McMahon went after three g and uh yeah, so
<v Speaker 5>that was obviously problem.
<v Speaker 4>Just I have copies.
<v Speaker 1>I have those in my oh yeah video collection with
<v Speaker 1>the caricatures color the VHS boxes with the Yeah. I
<v Speaker 1>mean it was a key Mark product for sure.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. It didn't quite go ahead.
<v Speaker 5>I just thought of something funny. That second commercial with
<v Speaker 5>Pepper and stew that was so over the top. So
<v Speaker 5>that comes on TV. My wife had never seen it,
<v Speaker 5>and she looks at this thing incredulous, and she says,
<v Speaker 5>you put your.
<v Speaker 4>Name on that.
<v Speaker 5>I hope, I hope none of my friends ever see that.
<v Speaker 2>Tremendous We talk about that all the time on the
<v Speaker 2>show about you know, part of being a lifelong wrestling
<v Speaker 2>fan is navigating those moments where people are like, what
<v Speaker 2>is wrong with you? Well, I mean, look here we
<v Speaker 2>are celebrating all these great moments we had. Is this,
<v Speaker 2>you know, coming up in the world as kids and
<v Speaker 2>getting these videos, And I wouldn't trade it for anything,
<v Speaker 2>including the derision and mockery you have to take as
<v Speaker 2>the years ago go ahead.
<v Speaker 3>I want to say, while we were doing this, I
<v Speaker 3>had it on mute, but I did find I found
<v Speaker 3>it and I just watched that commercial. That is hilarious.
<v Speaker 3>That is absolutely hilarious. My god, you had some mystery.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, I want to get into it. This is
<v Speaker 3>probably a good time. I mean, all the way back
<v Speaker 3>to eighty three we were chatting and JP STU is
<v Speaker 3>a link to a fascinating point in time where Vince
<v Speaker 3>is starting to expand beyond New York but before Hogan. Okay,
<v Speaker 3>he doesn't have Hulk yet from Minnesota, but he's got
<v Speaker 3>Orndorf and he's starting to go into Oakland, and he's
<v Speaker 3>starting to go into cities that couldn't be further flung
<v Speaker 3>la that that area as well as Bay Area, were
<v Speaker 3>some of the first places where he started to buy
<v Speaker 3>television that was outside of New York and Stu take
<v Speaker 3>us back to that time period if you could, and
<v Speaker 3>what you remember.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, for the norical portion of it, that's when I
<v Speaker 1>was working at the independent UHF station KGSC, which stood
<v Speaker 1>for the Greater Santa Clair anyway, Actually it really didn't
<v Speaker 1>because the owner of the station with Sid Conley, so
<v Speaker 1>it was the great Sid Conley KGSC Channel thirty six.
<v Speaker 1>But it was more famous for being the Perfect thirty
<v Speaker 1>six because the editorial spokesperson was none other than Carol Doda,
<v Speaker 1>the topless Queen of Broadway in San Francisco. So she'd
<v Speaker 1>come in once every couple of weeks and record a
<v Speaker 1>bunch of tongue in cheek editorials and I'd go just
<v Speaker 1>watch and talk to her. She was very nice person.
<v Speaker 1>Rest in peace, Carol. And she would do the editorials,
<v Speaker 1>and you know, people would say, how come they call
<v Speaker 1>it the thirty perfect thirty six. I said, well, that's
<v Speaker 1>just half because of Carol Doda being much more endowed,
<v Speaker 1>well endowed than that. So so that's when So I
<v Speaker 1>was at thirty six and the sales manager calls me
<v Speaker 1>in one day and says, hey, there's a guy calling us.
<v Speaker 1>He wants do you know you're the wrestling guy, right,
<v Speaker 1>And I said, I guess, well, we heard you know
<v Speaker 1>a lot about the wrestling and you're a fan. We
<v Speaker 1>got this company calling us. Do you know anything about
<v Speaker 1>the WWF Vince McMahon I said, wow, yeah, Why well
<v Speaker 1>they're calling because they want to air their one hour
<v Speaker 1>program on our station and wrestling doesn't go over anymore.
<v Speaker 1>We you know, no more wrestling. I think the station
<v Speaker 1>even before I got there, years before I had wrestling.
<v Speaker 1>And he said, we're not really interested in that, are we?
<v Speaker 1>I said, you might want to be interested, depending on
<v Speaker 1>the deal. Well, you know, they're telling us unlike what
<v Speaker 1>we're used to. They'll pay us a couple grand a
<v Speaker 1>week to run the show and they retain ad time,
<v Speaker 1>but they'll let us retain some ad time to put
<v Speaker 1>local spots in. What do you think?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, bartering had been the rule, but no one before
<v Speaker 2>Vince was paying like that guaranteed to take the station, no.
<v Speaker 1>Way, and this was big. I mean, you knew it.
<v Speaker 1>I said, what do we do? What do you need
<v Speaker 1>me to do? Well, you know, we don't usually let
<v Speaker 1>account executives be involved in program sales, but in this case,
<v Speaker 1>could you handle the deal for us and we'll pay
<v Speaker 1>you commission. So I said, let's go. So we put
<v Speaker 1>that together and shortly after that they started bicycling the
<v Speaker 1>tapes around. As we have all heard how it worked
<v Speaker 1>from the beginning, two inch tapes going station to station,
<v Speaker 1>along with every week a four track cartridge that would
<v Speaker 1>come under separate cover, and that was for the air
<v Speaker 1>operator to run Vince's show promos or previews of what's coming.
<v Speaker 1>So there'd be breaks in the two inch in the
<v Speaker 1>one hour show where they have retained the time, and
<v Speaker 1>the air operator had in Q to push the four
<v Speaker 1>track cartridge and let the promo run as there as
<v Speaker 1>a break. And eventually those promos became live event promos
<v Speaker 1>and they could customize them all. So they sent different
<v Speaker 1>cartridges all all over the country once they got the
<v Speaker 1>expansion going.
<v Speaker 2>Are these audio cartridges to yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, audio over? Over? What let's see over? Probably like
<v Speaker 1>good question. I think it must have been a still
<v Speaker 1>frame or generic.
<v Speaker 2>There are some video components. Usually what used to happen
<v Speaker 2>is some of these videos survived from different territories, and
<v Speaker 2>what happens is you know you're watching a version of
<v Speaker 2>the show that every market got that Vince bought and
<v Speaker 2>then suddenly the announcers disappear and you hear Howard Finkel
<v Speaker 2>and he'll come, He'll take over the the sound as
<v Speaker 2>the video continues rolling Sunday, Oakland Coliseum, right, just local, right,
<v Speaker 2>right right.
<v Speaker 1>So that took off and we wow, I mean it
<v Speaker 1>was fantastic. And then once it started rolling on the air,
<v Speaker 1>that's when Vince and and and some of his associates.
<v Speaker 1>But basically Vince said, asked me if I'd be interested
<v Speaker 1>in being the local ring announcer when they started coming
<v Speaker 1>into the market. Really, of course, and I had been
<v Speaker 1>doing some part time. As I told Jack, I had
<v Speaker 1>been doing some fill in vacation fill in for the
<v Speaker 1>movies till Dawn. His name is Gary Ferry. He was
<v Speaker 1>doing some ring announcing for Vern up at the cow
<v Speaker 1>Palace in Oakland, and he was going on vacation, and
<v Speaker 1>I guess when he told Vern Vern said, hey, do
<v Speaker 1>you have anybody you could recommend? And that's how I
<v Speaker 1>got started in the AWA as phill In. And from there,
<v Speaker 1>knowing that Vince and his group said we'd like you
<v Speaker 1>to be the ring announcer for us. However, the only
<v Speaker 1>thing we ask is that you probably part ways with
<v Speaker 1>vern in the AWA. Looking back on it, now, that's
<v Speaker 1>exactly how he.
<v Speaker 2>That's the playbook, Yeah for Hulk, Hogan, Jesse, Ventura, Gene Okerland,
<v Speaker 2>Bobby the Brain Hen and everybody brought in from Verna term.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah, I said fine because it was just fill
<v Speaker 1>in anyway, and I knew this was going to be
<v Speaker 1>monthly every month we were at so so jumping ahead.
<v Speaker 1>I was jumping ahead. So as I told Jacky, they announced,
<v Speaker 1>They told me they were gonna they wanted to come
<v Speaker 1>into San Jose, but they wanted to do an outdoor
<v Speaker 1>card in September. And so they asked me, how's the
<v Speaker 1>weather in your area in September? Oh, Indian so beautiful?
<v Speaker 1>Oh no rain or anything? No, no, no, no, September
<v Speaker 1>is beautiful. They were going to do it. They wanted
<v Speaker 1>to do it at outdoor outdoors at the San Jose
<v Speaker 1>Giants sorry Samose Bees, who became the Samose Giants affiliate.
<v Speaker 1>They wanted to do it outdoors on a September evening.
<v Speaker 1>I said that's great. So that's what they decided to
<v Speaker 1>do and that was my debut. However, the debut was
<v Speaker 1>really something because the South the Bay area had a
<v Speaker 1>huge storm.
<v Speaker 2>Yes it did, of course, it did.
<v Speaker 1>Right rain all over the place. I thought maybe it
<v Speaker 1>would be canceled, but the local promoter, local insurance guy,
<v Speaker 1>I guess, had taken out what do you call it,
<v Speaker 1>a policy or something kind of insurance policy, and so
<v Speaker 1>they went with it. And you had probably about three
<v Speaker 1>thousand fans umbrellas in tow. They set chairs up on
<v Speaker 1>the infield because the ring was at second base, and
<v Speaker 1>you had fans, you know, slopping around in the mud,
<v Speaker 1>dropping beer, falling over, knocking chairs over. But you had
<v Speaker 1>the guys. The boys were working it, including Snooka for example,
<v Speaker 1>trying to do his thing off of bloody soap set
<v Speaker 1>of ring ropes.
<v Speaker 4>They were.
<v Speaker 1>It was. It was an incredible night. I told Jack,
<v Speaker 1>I was a little bit scared because I thought, what
<v Speaker 1>about the microphone and shocking rain and I, you know.
<v Speaker 2>So especially start. But Stu, what did you when, if ever,
<v Speaker 2>did you run into Hulk Cogan because you worked there
<v Speaker 2>coincident with his arrival too.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so let's see, I'm I'm trying to forget. I'm
<v Speaker 1>trying to remember when he actually arrived. I think it
<v Speaker 1>wasn't He never he wasn't in San Jose. It was
<v Speaker 1>when we expanded to Cow Palace and Oakland. And I
<v Speaker 1>do know not that this was the first time, but
<v Speaker 1>you guys are probably familiar with this, But at the
<v Speaker 1>Oakland Coliseum October twenty fifth, nineteen ninety one, obviously it
<v Speaker 1>wouldn't be the first time is sort of considered the
<v Speaker 1>official first bout match between Flare and Hogan, So I
<v Speaker 1>got to announce that.
<v Speaker 2>Wow.
<v Speaker 1>But the first, the first time was obviously before long
<v Speaker 1>before that he was there. He was almost every month
<v Speaker 1>either at Oakland or the Cow Palace, starting when we
<v Speaker 1>shifted up to We did the one card at the
<v Speaker 1>Santees Civic after the Rainstorm card, and then shortly after
<v Speaker 1>that we moved to Oakland and the Cow Palace and
<v Speaker 1>the show was still on thirty six, and then pretty
<v Speaker 1>soon after that we moved the show because I went
<v Speaker 1>to an ad agency and we moved the show to
<v Speaker 1>Channel twenty, Jim Gabbert's TV twenty up in San Francisco,
<v Speaker 1>and that's where it sort of stayed for a long
<v Speaker 1>long time.
<v Speaker 2>So all this is happening, and Kit we talk about
<v Speaker 2>this all the time on the show. It's happening at
<v Speaker 2>the same time that the home video market is exploding
<v Speaker 2>in this country. I mean, when you go back and
<v Speaker 2>read articles in the eighties about the kind of business
<v Speaker 2>that this created and what the premium that people would
<v Speaker 2>pay for something on home video, Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>It's a crazy up to up to more expensive than
<v Speaker 3>one hundred dollars eighty. It's it was unbelievable.
<v Speaker 2>It was a bona fide Christmas gift. It was an investment.
<v Speaker 2>It was forty five dollars for ninety minutes of you know,
<v Speaker 2>wrestling highlights and here we are today, kit and it's
<v Speaker 2>I mean not to get all good old days on everybody,
<v Speaker 2>but I mean you must miss those days. That was
<v Speaker 2>such a great way for people to be able to
<v Speaker 2>surface footage like these old wrestling matches and actually turn
<v Speaker 2>a buck, you know, not just upload them to YouTube
<v Speaker 2>and no one makes any money and there's no excitement
<v Speaker 2>and hype around it.
<v Speaker 5>Existence to put movies and different things out on vhs,
<v Speaker 5>you know, at first, eventually it started rolling along, you
<v Speaker 5>know now, I mean for years now you can get everything.
<v Speaker 5>But those days the producers were not quite so sure,
<v Speaker 5>and then they were concerned about people copying them.
<v Speaker 4>And that's sort of thing.
<v Speaker 5>So remember when they came out with the first made
<v Speaker 5>for video movies and those are just terrible, but there
<v Speaker 5>were blockbusters because the studios hadn't released their movies.
<v Speaker 2>Yet, right, So it was such a novelty to have
<v Speaker 2>a movie of any type that you could own, even
<v Speaker 2>if it wasn't something that had been theatrically released, you know,
<v Speaker 2>any of those JP I mean, I think of Toxic
<v Speaker 2>Avenger and stuff like that, but that was a little later.
<v Speaker 3>How Comes to frog Town is a great example of
<v Speaker 3>that with Roddy Piper. That one was such a huge
<v Speaker 3>success on like you know, that's where that's where it
<v Speaker 3>made its money. On VHS and MTV and stuff. They
<v Speaker 3>live with Piper yep, yep, yep a lot so many,
<v Speaker 3>you know. That's one thing I've always been amazed. And
<v Speaker 3>when Jack and I talked about too, is when we
<v Speaker 3>talk about movies, about how many movies really you don't
<v Speaker 3>appreciate that they might not have been successful in the
<v Speaker 3>movie theater, but when they came out on home video,
<v Speaker 3>A lot of these movies just kind of because of
<v Speaker 3>that boom in the eighties, you don't really see it
<v Speaker 3>that much anymore. It's like, you know, no one, no
<v Speaker 3>one makes a big deal out of a movie that's
<v Speaker 3>that becomes a bigger deal on home video or streaming
<v Speaker 3>now or whatever. But man, when somebody came out on
<v Speaker 3>VHS and it became a hit there, it was like
<v Speaker 3>it was it was a huge thing. It was a
<v Speaker 3>huge thing, and you could you could actually make you know,
<v Speaker 3>you could make sequels because of that, you know that
<v Speaker 3>would be more successful in the theater. Because I was
<v Speaker 3>always amazed by that, just how great. It's a sad
<v Speaker 3>thing because like it's such a short lived period of
<v Speaker 3>time where you know where home video was this really?
<v Speaker 3>I mean, like anything really it was a novelty, but
<v Speaker 3>it also was an attribute for all these for all
<v Speaker 3>things wrestling, movies, all sorts of stuff.
<v Speaker 4>It was. It was great.
<v Speaker 5>Give me a lap.
<v Speaker 2>Band wrestling podcast.
<v Speaker 3>He's an lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack and Carneo
<v Speaker 3>and Jpro.
<v Speaker 5>The Gana won the wrestler I don't recall came out.
<v Speaker 5>He wanted that in theaters, so it played in theaters
<v Speaker 5>and was a colossal flopped but did well on on VHS.
<v Speaker 5>So yeah, I remember I knew the distributor and he
<v Speaker 5>said that there after all of that theatrical expense, there
<v Speaker 5>peanuts left and that disappointed Vern.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>And then speaking of vern, uh, he did a story
<v Speaker 1>about Burn and.
<v Speaker 2>Me, sure, we're in the market for stories.
<v Speaker 3>I was gonna I was gonna ask about I was
<v Speaker 3>going to ask about Vern in a moment. So I'm glad,
<v Speaker 3>go go for it please.
<v Speaker 1>So other than doing the fill and announcing.
<v Speaker 4>VERN.
<v Speaker 1>I can't remember how he knew that I shot video,
<v Speaker 1>but he asked me if I could shoot video of
<v Speaker 1>a card at Oakland. I think it was Oakland, could
<v Speaker 1>have been the cow Palace where he was going to
<v Speaker 1>set up the platform and I was going to set
<v Speaker 1>up my tripod with my at that point, my video
<v Speaker 1>camera that had the uh VHS player separate wasn't wasn't
<v Speaker 1>built in. It was the camera and the player and
<v Speaker 1>the recorder. So anyway, and he's gonna pay me a
<v Speaker 1>hundred bucks.
<v Speaker 4>Sure.
<v Speaker 1>So I go up there and I said, oh, I
<v Speaker 1>had told him. I said, okay, I'll do it, but
<v Speaker 1>this isn't going to be broadcast quality. Oh I no, no, no,
<v Speaker 1>it's just for me. I want you to shoot this
<v Speaker 1>one match. I can't remember what match it was. I
<v Speaker 1>just need to see this one match, you know, in
<v Speaker 1>the comfort of my office or whatever. So just the
<v Speaker 1>one match. Oh yeah, I understand it's not going to
<v Speaker 1>be broadcast quality, but we're not. We're not going to
<v Speaker 1>use it for that. I just need to see this
<v Speaker 1>one match, Okay. So I go up, I set everything up,
<v Speaker 1>I shoot the match. Of course Verne wasn't there, so
<v Speaker 1>I give it to probably could be out, but it
<v Speaker 1>could have been uh.
<v Speaker 4>Leo.
<v Speaker 1>So so the next Saturday, I'm watching TV twenty.
<v Speaker 2>There it is.
<v Speaker 1>M and you know how al Or or Jeane or
<v Speaker 1>at that point Jeane or any you know. Uh. Our
<v Speaker 1>cameras were at the Oakland Coliseum last week and we've
<v Speaker 1>got footage of the match between and I can't remember
<v Speaker 1>who it was. It wasn't a HLT match, I don't remember.
<v Speaker 1>And let's go to the video and there's my footage
<v Speaker 1>airing on broadcast television. Just like I said, because I
<v Speaker 1>you know, I figured, well, I'll do it for him,
<v Speaker 1>but I would charge him more of you.
<v Speaker 2>Sorry, buddy, No, this is just for my personal use. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>that's pro wrestling for you there.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so there it is. I go nuts, and I.
<v Speaker 2>Heart calling uh vern.
<v Speaker 1>And I don't know if it was on the first call,
<v Speaker 1>but I got a hold of Vern. Is it a Vern?
<v Speaker 1>You aired the footage. We talked about how this was
<v Speaker 1>in broadcast quality, which it really wasn't, but you weren't
<v Speaker 1>going to use it for broadcast, so you owe me
<v Speaker 1>a hundred bucks?
<v Speaker 2>And did he send it?
<v Speaker 1>And I'll send you a check.
<v Speaker 2>And guess what, don't you tell me it bounced? He
<v Speaker 2>said it okay, okay, and it it didn't bounce? Okay,
<v Speaker 2>all right. Yes, in wrestling, they always intended to pay you.
<v Speaker 2>It was always just a mix up.
<v Speaker 3>I was going to say, I was I was expecting
<v Speaker 3>you to get a ten dollar a check and him saying, well,
<v Speaker 3>you owe me this and this is this this, but
<v Speaker 3>I'll give you your ten your cut.
<v Speaker 1>He paid, all right? Rest in peace, Verne, I guess
<v Speaker 1>as he had his problems, obviously, but as far as
<v Speaker 1>all he was always so nice to me and my
<v Speaker 1>family because the kids wanted to go see dad work.
<v Speaker 1>My wife was never a wrestling fan. She's from Alabama,
<v Speaker 1>by the way, but that that's where the correlation ends
<v Speaker 1>for the Alabama territory. We actually have a home back
<v Speaker 1>there where she's from. In Athens, and all her family
<v Speaker 1>or four brothers and sisters and cousins still live in Athens,
<v Speaker 1>just below Huntsville. So, uh, the kids loved to go,
<v Speaker 1>particularly my daughters, our son who just celebrated his thirty
<v Speaker 1>eighth birthday yesterday Wednesday. He's the baby. He got in
<v Speaker 1>on the tail end of it. But my two girls
<v Speaker 1>loved going, And of course they were young, too young
<v Speaker 1>to go without mom. So Barbara went with him and
<v Speaker 1>security had to walk them to the seats and then
<v Speaker 1>walk them backstage to the back area after the match,
<v Speaker 1>after any for a break and at the end, and
<v Speaker 1>Hulk was always very nice to all of them. Barbara
<v Speaker 1>used to hang out with Linda backstage and they used
<v Speaker 1>to compare. I told Jack, I think Barbara was pregnant,
<v Speaker 1>pregnant with Brian, because Jack and I were trying to
<v Speaker 1>think Linda was pregnant. I got a feeling she was
<v Speaker 1>pregnant with Nick. And so they compared, yeah.
<v Speaker 2>On on where they stood. Oh that's that. That's a
<v Speaker 2>that's quite a time in the business where like, you know,
<v Speaker 2>if you could get in with Hulky, you had your
<v Speaker 2>run of the of the place.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And he used to a number of times he'd
<v Speaker 1>get whipped into the turnbuckle, right, and I'm there at
<v Speaker 1>the table right, and I've never remember I never forget
<v Speaker 1>him saying looking up about a one eye and saying,
<v Speaker 1>I'm getting too old for this stuff.
<v Speaker 2>Super Snow, super Stu.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah he called me super Su.
<v Speaker 2>Oh oh god, yeah, kid. Uh. I wanted to ask
<v Speaker 2>you what got you into the wrestling side of it.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, obviously there's just a litany. I encourage folks
<v Speaker 2>to check out Kit's website. Uh, Kitparker dot com. It's
<v Speaker 2>all there, the whole agency index is there. Why why
<v Speaker 2>did you lean into doing these wrestling releases?
<v Speaker 4>I was a fan. I watched them on TV.
<v Speaker 1>Uh.
<v Speaker 5>I also saw the humor in it. I thought in
<v Speaker 5>those days, even McMahon and some of the more straight people,
<v Speaker 5>there was an underlying humor. And I had produced a
<v Speaker 5>commercial before this, called World War Two Report that was
<v Speaker 5>the first of the TV direct response commercials, and it
<v Speaker 5>was another one that was not over the top, but
<v Speaker 5>it was based on the time life books that they
<v Speaker 5>were selling it at the same time about World War Two.
<v Speaker 5>So I put together these this World War two footage,
<v Speaker 5>and the way I wrote it, it was a little
<v Speaker 5>tongue in cheap too. It would always lead up to
<v Speaker 5>some violence, but not actually showing it. So it would
<v Speaker 5>show a brief shot of a scaffold and it would
<v Speaker 5>just be enough to, you know, implant into the mind
<v Speaker 5>of the consumer. But anyway, it reminds me of one
<v Speaker 5>of Ste's I can't imagine anybody but Stu doing these commercials.
<v Speaker 5>It's just perfect, perfect, But there was one thinking of
<v Speaker 5>the violence. It goes something like plus the infamous Tennessee
<v Speaker 5>street fight, and then he says, we can't show scenes
<v Speaker 5>of that on television.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, I'm buying that taste. I'll buy that one exactly that.
<v Speaker 1>And of course we had the very very rare shark
<v Speaker 1>cage match. Oh yeah, vicious shark cage match. And we
<v Speaker 1>also had the infamous wrestling bear, So I guess that
<v Speaker 1>was uh.
<v Speaker 4>Ted, that was Buffalo Buffalo.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but all all the Savage stuff and.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think I remember from one of the Wrestling
<v Speaker 2>Gold commercials, Randy Savage pile driving Ricky Morton through one
<v Speaker 2>of those blue tables they used to have at the
<v Speaker 2>Mid South Colosseum in Memphis, and it was the first time,
<v Speaker 2>well it wasn't the first time. But when I saw
<v Speaker 2>the commercial, they were breaking tables and wrestling already, and
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, they were breaking tables and wrestling, and that
<v Speaker 2>was an eighty four before Randy even came to WWF,
<v Speaker 2>So that was that was a huge part of I
<v Speaker 2>think what attracted people too was seeing Randy and and
<v Speaker 2>those a glimpse of Randy doing stuff like that before
<v Speaker 2>he was ever in WWF.
<v Speaker 1>And you also saw some minor violence against women because
<v Speaker 1>one of our matches has, uh who is a kid?
<v Speaker 1>Somebody somebody punches one of the valets. It's not I
<v Speaker 1>don't think it was liz.
<v Speaker 2>Is Lawler, the one with the punch, throwing the punch,
<v Speaker 2>trying to figure out who it might be. Sherry Uh no, no,
<v Speaker 2>Missy Hyatt Dark Journey Sunshine.
<v Speaker 1>Could have been Sunshine, and we show it. We thought, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>well yeah, let it go.
<v Speaker 3>That's heat better, you know, better to ask for forgiveness permissions, right.
<v Speaker 2>Did you before you went to market with these kids,
<v Speaker 2>what was your kind of assessment of using the the
<v Speaker 2>the names like Hulkogan. Were you surprised that you were
<v Speaker 2>hearing from lawyers or did you think that was a
<v Speaker 2>risk going in or did you think the business was
<v Speaker 2>so sort of you know, maybe decentralized, that no one
<v Speaker 2>would ever bother try to assert I P and stuff
<v Speaker 2>like that.
<v Speaker 5>I knew that Martinez had the rights to those tapes. Yeah,
<v Speaker 5>so I figured with it came the names, but it
<v Speaker 5>wasn't whole Coke. Was Terry the Hulk Boulder in that wine?
<v Speaker 5>Is he in one with Jerry Lawler too?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, there's a ton of Memphis stuff where he's also
<v Speaker 2>called yeah, Terry the Hulp Boulder.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, yeah, Yeah, So I didn't anticipate a problem with that.
<v Speaker 5>When I saw the three g VHS box with the
<v Speaker 5>contemporary Hogan on it, I knew that would be trouble.
<v Speaker 2>Got it. That's it. That's very clear. Can you guys
<v Speaker 2>talk to me about the Wrestling Gold releases? What was
<v Speaker 2>the idea? Maybe, Stu? I mean, I know you're a
<v Speaker 2>part of that too, having voice voiceovers for from wrestling
<v Speaker 2>experts like Meltzer and Cornette and adding that sort of
<v Speaker 2>you know, alternative track component that DVD's made possible.
<v Speaker 1>Well, uh, get you may want to start and then
<v Speaker 1>we'll have to tell him I haven't sent Jack the Bump,
<v Speaker 1>but we'll have to get into that. A minute. It
<v Speaker 1>has something to do with Cornett, but go ahead. That
<v Speaker 1>was after, Uh, that was after we had Cornette and Meltzer.
<v Speaker 1>Of course we had them both. We had Cornette in Monterey,
<v Speaker 1>but we had Jim and Stacey and Meltzer in Cave Creek.
<v Speaker 5>Yes, those those it was amazing. You put the footage on, well,
<v Speaker 5>originally Jim and then later on Jimmy Meltzer.
<v Speaker 4>They would just go on and on and on.
<v Speaker 5>And my wife is not a fan, but we taped
<v Speaker 5>it at my house and and she was messmerized with
<v Speaker 5>it for hours. She said, I'm not even a fan.
<v Speaker 5>These guys just make it so interesting.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I felt the same way. Ye, So that was that
<v Speaker 2>was a song. Then yeah, they got a little well
<v Speaker 2>that was Yeah. I didn't necessarily need to get into that,
<v Speaker 2>but how funny is it that we have these two
<v Speaker 2>in the same room for seven hours and not a
<v Speaker 2>crossword said back and forth. But it's it's so enriched there.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and so there was another one, Go Go Kid.
<v Speaker 5>Well, the we went to Louisville to meet with Jim
<v Speaker 5>and uh Stu wanted to do an angle at the event.
<v Speaker 5>There there was the I Forget Undertaker and Anyway, we
<v Speaker 5>we were uh in the ring and Stu wanted to
<v Speaker 5>do some sort of what was it not obviously Donald powder?
<v Speaker 4>What was it? Well?
<v Speaker 1>I wanted to I wanted to take a bump, and
<v Speaker 1>I told Cornette, I want to take a bump. This
<v Speaker 1>was a card. This was a card that had It
<v Speaker 1>was supposed to be the last event at Louisville Gardens
<v Speaker 1>because they were going to tear it down and put
<v Speaker 1>in condos. I don't think that ever happened. At least
<v Speaker 1>it didn't as quickly as they thought. So Jim invited
<v Speaker 1>us to come back there because it was going to
<v Speaker 1>have a lot of the WWF guys helping to put
<v Speaker 1>some of the ah OVW guys over.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Right, So I thought it would be interesting to try
<v Speaker 1>to take a bump. So so that afternoon we decided
<v Speaker 1>I was going to take a bump from as I
<v Speaker 1>was promoting as Kit and Ile. You'll you'll see it.
<v Speaker 1>We'll send it. Uh, it's on Oh, it's on my
<v Speaker 1>YouTube channel if you want to. It's called the Bump
<v Speaker 1>and it's it's unbelievable. So what happened was Kit and
<v Speaker 1>I are in the ring, were introduced to promote Wrestling
<v Speaker 1>Gold Special Edition. What we pushed, We pushed all the volumes.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, it was one of Jim's because later on we
<v Speaker 5>did we used Gym's footage for some uh before they
<v Speaker 5>were famous, and some other ones our license from.
<v Speaker 1>So we got in the ring and uh pretty much
<v Speaker 1>finished up the promo and outcomes Rico.
<v Speaker 2>Remember we go sure, yeah, sure, And.
<v Speaker 1>Soon after this I claim that I put him over.
<v Speaker 1>But anyway, Rico made it to w w F. But
<v Speaker 1>before they did all the other stuff with him as
<v Speaker 1>the other character and with.
<v Speaker 2>Billy and so you got you had dropped or body
<v Speaker 2>slammed or what was the bum I got? I got
<v Speaker 2>body slammed body.
<v Speaker 3>And I just watched it. It It looks like a
<v Speaker 3>simo and drop something like that. It's pretty intense. I'm
<v Speaker 3>just that's it's insane, honestly, that's I just watched it.
<v Speaker 3>I just watched it. But that's insane. Honestly. That looks
<v Speaker 3>like you felt that one for sure.
<v Speaker 1>And a very thin new and upcoming star made the
<v Speaker 1>save at the end, Randy Orton. You almost don't even
<v Speaker 1>know who it is, but you do because you'll see it.
<v Speaker 1>He makes the save. But of course at that point
<v Speaker 1>I am out. Oh, and then Kit gets pie faced
<v Speaker 1>as I'm laying there in pain, and there's even a
<v Speaker 1>shot of me it looks like I'm taking my fingers
<v Speaker 1>and check. I thought I thought at least I had
<v Speaker 1>a bloody nose.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, did you? Did you ever imagine Kit, when you
<v Speaker 2>went to meet Pedro's son, that you'd be the ringside
<v Speaker 2>getting pie faced?
<v Speaker 5>I didn't, But I have to tell you, I enjoyed
<v Speaker 5>this whole experience so much when I met Stu h
<v Speaker 5>the things we created and going there, it just was
<v Speaker 5>so damn much fun and it's fun and reliving it now,
<v Speaker 5>I'll never forget it.
<v Speaker 1>And you watch you watch Kit shake and shiver as
<v Speaker 1>he's getting pie faced. And he told me afterwards the
<v Speaker 1>reason he did that and overdid it was because he
<v Speaker 1>remembers seeing that happen all the time in the ring
<v Speaker 1>from the boys just in pain. Just can't stand the pain.
<v Speaker 3>How how I'm how was it? I mean, I can
<v Speaker 3>tell I've been in I've I've been in the ring
<v Speaker 3>twice before and I've been I've been body slammed, and
<v Speaker 3>it's it's a very it's a fascinating experience. So I'm
<v Speaker 3>just curious to like, what, how what was your experience
<v Speaker 3>with it?
<v Speaker 2>I was good.
<v Speaker 1>I think what happened was I wasn't quite in position
<v Speaker 1>as I will as I guess he wanted me to be,
<v Speaker 1>and so his his rico's hip came down across I
<v Speaker 1>think came across the bridge of my nose, oh going down,
<v Speaker 1>And that's why I thought, uh oh yeah. But when
<v Speaker 1>I went back at the break after I was almost
<v Speaker 1>not carried out but helped out by Orton and Kit.
<v Speaker 1>When I got back, Big Show, who was there as
<v Speaker 1>one of the guys to help put OVW guys over,
<v Speaker 1>he comes already. He looks at me and he he goes, O,
<v Speaker 1>well you can't you can see it. But anyway he
<v Speaker 1>sort of wiggled. He goes, oh, I don't think it's broken,
<v Speaker 1>but I think it's going to be bruised. And it
<v Speaker 1>was bruised a little bit, but I'd have to say
<v Speaker 1>it was worth it.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>When you see the whole thing, I mean, it's it's
<v Speaker 1>it's our crowds folklore. I mean the bump comes up
<v Speaker 1>all the time. I mean I send it to people
<v Speaker 1>who just can't even believe it.
<v Speaker 2>I believe that you did something like that.
<v Speaker 4>Kit.
<v Speaker 2>Do you remember who put you in touch with Peter Martinez?
<v Speaker 2>How did you find out he was the guy?
<v Speaker 4>That one?
<v Speaker 5>I don't recall. I may have seen ads in public.
<v Speaker 5>Probably that was it. Probably that was it. Oh, I
<v Speaker 5>thought of a good one for you here. This is
<v Speaker 5>where we got to spend the day with the wrestlers
<v Speaker 5>and driving around in a limo going and they had
<v Speaker 5>various promos and so forth. So anyway, they went on
<v Speaker 5>to do after a few hours some something on their own.
<v Speaker 1>Well, we went with them to We went with them
<v Speaker 1>to Cracker Barrel, which is maybe what you're want to say,
<v Speaker 1>but we also wanted to create U six Flags. They
<v Speaker 1>were doing an appearance at six Flags. Go ahead, Well.
<v Speaker 5>We didn't go to that, right, we didn't do the
<v Speaker 5>six were okay, okay, But we took a break after.
<v Speaker 4>That, And then later on when the.
<v Speaker 5>Cards started, or right before that, we saw the wrestlers
<v Speaker 5>and they were all some.
<v Speaker 4>They're sad.
<v Speaker 5>They had just gone to a hospital to see dying children.
<v Speaker 2>Oh boy, yeah, wow, yeah too. That that's that's something
<v Speaker 2>that whenever the wrestlers talk about that stuff, it's like
<v Speaker 2>it gets very real all of a sudden, because Yeahul.
<v Speaker 1>Was a big sulp was big and make a wish,
<v Speaker 1>I mean everything else aside, you know, he a lot
<v Speaker 1>of the boys did it. He was really into it.
<v Speaker 1>Another thing that happened at Louisville was my oldest daughter
<v Speaker 1>was a huge Jericho fan, and she and and we
<v Speaker 1>were seasoned ticket holders for the sanse Sharks, so we
<v Speaker 1>were both real big hockey fans. And of course she
<v Speaker 1>knew that we knew that Jericho's dad had been in
<v Speaker 1>the NHL. Jericho is a hockey fan, and he was
<v Speaker 1>there as one of the boys to help get the
<v Speaker 1>ov W boys over, and so I asked him if
<v Speaker 1>if I could call my daughter and just hand him
<v Speaker 1>the phone. So I did. I called Pam, Hi, it's dad. Oh,
<v Speaker 1>how you doing good? We're in Louisville. I'm I'm with Kit.
<v Speaker 1>I have someone that wants to't say Allodia. And I
<v Speaker 1>just handed Jericho the phone and he said, Hi, Pam,
<v Speaker 1>it's Chris, And I guess she said, Chris who Jericho?
<v Speaker 1>Well you can imagine beautiful?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, yeah stuff. Hey, where are those those sixty
<v Speaker 2>hours worth of tapes that you look through stew Where
<v Speaker 2>are those?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah? I was looking for them the other day.
<v Speaker 5>I think they're at the company I work with videos.
<v Speaker 5>I think I just stored it there. In fact, coincidentally,
<v Speaker 5>just a few days ago, I was asking if he'd
<v Speaker 5>look and see if he could find them. This would
<v Speaker 5>be all the little individual tapes that you meticulously went
<v Speaker 5>through with those.
<v Speaker 2>Pads, beautiful paths I still have. Would they exist on
<v Speaker 2>VHS or other formats?
<v Speaker 5>I wouldcall odd formats like just eight millimeters, we'd a
<v Speaker 5>lot of three quarter.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, of course I couldn't go through those. The only
<v Speaker 1>thing I had to go through were VHS. Is so
<v Speaker 1>I'm trying to think.
<v Speaker 5>Well, we made via, we made VHS for you so
<v Speaker 5>you could see them.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So so the sixty hours exist on VHS somewhere. This
<v Speaker 2>is what I ge, This is what I'm getting.
<v Speaker 4>Sixty tapes easily.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I don't think I have sixty tapes, but I
<v Speaker 1>get I don't know. That's a good question.
<v Speaker 2>It's such it's such a gold mine. I mean, so
<v Speaker 2>much of it is on YouTube. But god, Jimi, no, no,
<v Speaker 2>I'm just I'm just saying.
<v Speaker 3>I was thinking, that's that's like our dream, right there
<v Speaker 3>is the sixty VHS tapes of rare wrestling footage.
<v Speaker 2>I mean that's well now because it's it's now the
<v Speaker 2>game is. It's not overwhelming because so much of it
<v Speaker 2>is on YouTube. The question now increasingly becomes what five
<v Speaker 2>minutes never saw the light of day? What eight, ten
<v Speaker 2>minutes or hour never saw the light of day?
<v Speaker 3>So it's what what person's like? What person's uh, you know,
<v Speaker 3>they've got the VHS tape of they recorded a bunch
<v Speaker 3>of things off TV, and then like in the middle
<v Speaker 3>of it is like five minutes of some rare wrestling
<v Speaker 3>footage that no one's ever seen, but like you would
<v Speaker 3>never know because it's labeled like TV from October twenty first,
<v Speaker 3>nineteen eighty two.
<v Speaker 2>Right, yeah, yeah, that these the mind races with possibilities. Well,
<v Speaker 2>I want to close with this, do you think that
<v Speaker 2>there is room for a renaissance in the kind of
<v Speaker 2>VHS business that you remember and that somebody folks thrived in,
<v Speaker 2>because you know, as streaming becomes more and more of
<v Speaker 2>a rights package that gets bounced around from owner to owner,
<v Speaker 2>we can't rely anymore on Like if I've got Netflix,
<v Speaker 2>I've got an archive forever and I can watch it,
<v Speaker 2>you know, eventually, even the WWE's old stuff is being
<v Speaker 2>bounced around from ownership to ownership different streaming services. It
<v Speaker 2>seems like physical media might might be the answer to
<v Speaker 2>folks who want to have some permanence and actually, I
<v Speaker 2>own this movie, I own this wrestling show, I own
<v Speaker 2>this Well, what do you think about that? Is that
<v Speaker 2>just like a is that pollyannish? Or do you think
<v Speaker 2>that might happen?
<v Speaker 5>The key these days with DVD and Blu Ray are collections?
<v Speaker 2>Yes?
<v Speaker 5>So a single a single unit no, But my experiences
<v Speaker 5>with classic feature films and it's you have collectors. They
<v Speaker 5>want them on the shelf, something that you takee or
<v Speaker 5>you've recorded or watched on streaming. It's not the same.
<v Speaker 5>So collections are in they talk about DVDs or could
<v Speaker 5>put No, they're they're doing well.
<v Speaker 4>Well, Blu rays especially, and.
<v Speaker 5>Then four K they're doing they're doing well. Oh if
<v Speaker 5>you have time, I thought, please, Sorry. I never put
<v Speaker 5>this into the commercial. Afterwards, after we did those commercials,
<v Speaker 5>there are seeds where they're wrestlers are busted open. Well
<v Speaker 5>I couldn't run that on in a commercial, but I
<v Speaker 5>was going to put these big black sensor bars over it,
<v Speaker 5>and not only I would make them huge, bigger. So
<v Speaker 5>the person watching the commercial, but they go, oh, this.
<v Speaker 2>Is really your whole body is covered And.
<v Speaker 4>I never did that.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, well missed opportunity. Yeah, that I can I can
<v Speaker 2>say I would. I would have been much more interested
<v Speaker 2>in seeing what was behind the black box. That was
<v Speaker 2>the magic of it. You didn't know. You couldn't pull
<v Speaker 2>it up at your fingertips. You had to do the
<v Speaker 2>work to get the video, beg your parents, get the gift,
<v Speaker 2>whatever the case may be. Well, it sounds like we've
<v Speaker 2>all got some homework to do because there's a there's
<v Speaker 2>a box of documents. I think wrestling fans, especially ones
<v Speaker 2>with a historic nostalgia bent like we have, just would
<v Speaker 2>love to understand how all this came together. And guys,
<v Speaker 2>thanks for doing the Wrestling Gold stuff. Thank you for
<v Speaker 2>doing the Wrestling Gold stuff, because it's just it's it's
<v Speaker 2>it's so wonderful that we got that one we did,
<v Speaker 2>and and even today to be able to do these
<v Speaker 2>career retrospectives on these guys not possible without you, guys
<v Speaker 2>doing that kind of work. So it was a pleasure
<v Speaker 2>to have you on the show. And I wish you
<v Speaker 2>guys the best we will stay in touching announcement.
<v Speaker 3>As a t J DeSantis production, its content is intended
<v Speaker 3>for private use only.