Ep. 442: The Complete Hulk Hogan | Georgia (Post Script, feat. Les Thatcher)

<v Speaker 1>It's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast special report.
<v Speaker 2>The Lapse Fan presents the Complete Hull Kogan, a real
<v Speaker 2>American story. We're brought to you by Garage Pierre.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know if i'su said a little strange that
<v Speaker 3>already in the Complete Hull Cogan Journey, I'm nostalgic for
<v Speaker 3>nineteen seventy nine and we haven't even finished it yet.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, hey, that that that sounds you know, it's
<v Speaker 2>It's no, I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised at all.
<v Speaker 2>Like it, it makes sense because because you never, really
<v Speaker 2>you think about all the shit that happened to him
<v Speaker 2>in nineteen seventy nine, and it's like that shit would
<v Speaker 2>happen over maybe ten years of somebody else, right, you know,
<v Speaker 2>like it's how can you not be nostalgic for one
<v Speaker 2>year when that much shit happens to somebody with a
<v Speaker 2>complete art kives available.
<v Speaker 3>Over the years, we've become completists and something like this
<v Speaker 3>where we just have you know, drips and drabs of
<v Speaker 3>things on what people happen to record off television and
<v Speaker 3>what happens to survive. It feels like a tease more
<v Speaker 3>than it does a full course meal.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, oh for sure, all the time.
<v Speaker 3>All the time, it raises just a few more questions
<v Speaker 3>than it answers. And make no mistake, your co chairs
<v Speaker 3>here on the Complete Hulkoke can have answered every question
<v Speaker 3>that is answerable about Terry Bullay's entire life, let alone
<v Speaker 3>nineteen seventy nine where he truly breaks through in the
<v Speaker 3>wrestling business. But there's just these little pockets where there
<v Speaker 3>isn't video, where there's sparse press coverage, The Observer and
<v Speaker 3>Insider newsletters don't exist yet on a weekly basis, and
<v Speaker 3>so we just can't get the beat that we're accustomed
<v Speaker 3>to over doing this podcast all these years. Right late
<v Speaker 3>nineteen seventy nine, the sterling Golden Era, perhaps we'll call it,
<v Speaker 3>which was, come to find out, very short lived in Georgia.
<v Speaker 3>Championship Wrestling is perhaps the era with the least to
<v Speaker 3>refer to even those early days in Dothan. We have
<v Speaker 3>that Andre arm wrestling angle, we have that handicap match,
<v Speaker 3>and we have folks like Charlie Platt and others who
<v Speaker 3>have survived at Ron Fuller of course to talk about
<v Speaker 3>what it was like late seventy nine, though he works
<v Speaker 3>for like five different territories in two months, so it's
<v Speaker 3>especially challenging, and we talked about it when we did
<v Speaker 3>the Alabama episodes earlier late seventy nine. He suddenly returns
<v Speaker 3>to Knoxville, Tennessee, which, as we talked about, was really
<v Speaker 3>part of Ron Fuller's Southeastern territory in early seventy nine
<v Speaker 3>when he first became Terry the Hope Boulder, and over time,
<v Speaker 3>due to the Plan b Tape and Bob Rupin Company
<v Speaker 3>splintering off and trying to take over Knoxville, Ron Fuller
<v Speaker 3>ends up focusing a lot of his attention on winning
<v Speaker 3>the Knoxville War instead of what's happening.
<v Speaker 1>I have yet to have a real wrestling match.
<v Speaker 3>Right, giving us gems like that, and Ron Fuller's not
<v Speaker 3>really paying a lot of attention to what this future
<v Speaker 3>Hulk Cogan is doing up in the other part of
<v Speaker 3>the territory, which is a little more secure than this one,
<v Speaker 3>And so we're left with Knoxville. We're left with why
<v Speaker 3>after leaving ron fully territory, as we've talked about, going
<v Speaker 3>to Memphis, taking another hiatus from the business on the Docks,
<v Speaker 3>even if it was just for a couple of weeks,
<v Speaker 3>coming back to Georgia Championship Wrestling is Sterling Golden and
<v Speaker 3>being known across the nation for those who were watching
<v Speaker 3>on WTBS, and then going on to go to the WWF,
<v Speaker 3>go to New York by November of nineteen seventy nine. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>so what was this little period here at the end
<v Speaker 3>of seventy nine where Knoxville had changed hands from Ron
<v Speaker 3>Fuller to Jim Barnett, who of course also lorded over
<v Speaker 3>Georgia Championship Wrestling out of Atlanta, with Oldie Anderson as
<v Speaker 3>his booker. As we talked about last time on our
<v Speaker 3>Georgia episode of The Complete Hulkogan, what of these these
<v Speaker 3>few weeks and pretty much Thanksgiving Christmas time of nineteen
<v Speaker 3>seventy nine, where all of a sudden, Hulk is back
<v Speaker 3>and what used to be part of Ron Fuller's territory.
<v Speaker 3>That's why we already explored it as part of the
<v Speaker 3>journey back when we did Alabama, but now really isn't
<v Speaker 3>Ron Fuller's territory, it's Jim Barnett's. Though Ron Fuller is
<v Speaker 3>still appearing and wrestling on these cards and very much
<v Speaker 3>kind of tangentially involved in this circuit, and so we
<v Speaker 3>need answers.
<v Speaker 2>What a what a fucking what a fucking clusterfuck? What
<v Speaker 2>an absolute clusterfuck to like we embarked on this, I
<v Speaker 2>really thought it was gonna be cleaner than this. As
<v Speaker 2>far as he was here, then he was there then right,
<v Speaker 2>this guy works four territories at once in one year.
<v Speaker 2>But just think about too, Like, you know, Ron Fuller
<v Speaker 2>gives it, gives it to give it terror this part
<v Speaker 2>of the territory to Jim Barnett. Jim Barnett's running it,
<v Speaker 2>but Ron Fuller's still there. Like there's so many there's
<v Speaker 2>nothing clean cut, Like there's nothing that's like, Okay, this
<v Speaker 2>part is done. Now you have the business. It's like, no,
<v Speaker 2>we're gonna kind of trickle in a little bit here
<v Speaker 2>and we're gonna it's not a completely smooth transition. There's
<v Speaker 2>gonna be other parts here, and it's like this whole
<v Speaker 2>it's you know, the territory system I always thought seemed
<v Speaker 2>a little bit cleaner, but it didn't work the way
<v Speaker 2>it's a fucking it's a fucking madhouse. It's just like
<v Speaker 2>I don't know about any other place. I mean, it
<v Speaker 2>seems like, you know, the New York de see New
<v Speaker 2>England area seem pretty solid and the way that it was,
<v Speaker 2>But then you go down south and it's like every
<v Speaker 2>i mean, sorry to the Steertup, is like everyone's marrying
<v Speaker 2>each other's cousin. The geographic regions are all inter you know,
<v Speaker 2>it's like they're all fucking you know, all these different
<v Speaker 2>little mini territories are all fucking each other, and they're
<v Speaker 2>pretending to be owned by different people under different names,
<v Speaker 2>which is basically the same controlling families just k faming
<v Speaker 2>the name of the local promoter, so it doesn't appear
<v Speaker 2>that the top stars are the promoters. It's just yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I mean, we've already become acquainted with it as much
<v Speaker 2>as I think we perhaps have the stomach for on
<v Speaker 2>the lapsed fan, just in the spirit of understanding the
<v Speaker 2>complete Hulkke. But even nineteen eighty man, we've already talked
<v Speaker 2>about it. You can't talk about Memphis seventy nine when
<v Speaker 2>he comes through and interacts with Jerry Lawler along with
<v Speaker 2>Ed Boulder without also talking about But wait, eighty eighty one,
<v Speaker 2>he comes back and wrestles Jerry Lawler, and that's the
<v Speaker 2>match at the Mid South Coliseum that everybody remembers this
<v Speaker 2>Hulk's signature Memphis match, and that wasn't even part of
<v Speaker 2>that first run. He was already hull coasting nuts. It's
<v Speaker 2>so nuts.
<v Speaker 3>So we're working, we're doing a we're doing our level best.
<v Speaker 3>We're doing as much in audio format than anybody will
<v Speaker 3>ever do to nail this down. And so in that spirit,
<v Speaker 3>we discovered, thanks to the homie Matt, that not only
<v Speaker 3>do we feel a bit disoriented in the timeline, so
<v Speaker 3>dud so did rather the Apter Mags because we spend
<v Speaker 3>a lot of time on a recent episode, the Memphis episode,
<v Speaker 3>talking about how the very first appearance of Terry Boulet
<v Speaker 3>in the pages of the Apter mag was just this
<v Speaker 3>small piece under a photo of him as this Terry
<v Speaker 3>the whole Boulder who's making an impact in Memphis. There
<v Speaker 3>is ant mentioned in any of the magazines about what
<v Speaker 3>he had done in for Ron Fuller and Dothan in
<v Speaker 3>Southeastern It's only when he gets to Memphis, which, of course,
<v Speaker 3>as we talked about, was very much in the mode
<v Speaker 3>of working with Bill Apter to promote their stars in
<v Speaker 3>the national magazines that you get this sort of blurb
<v Speaker 3>that there's this guy down here with the mushroom cloud
<v Speaker 3>shaved into his chest hair. But by the time it
<v Speaker 3>hits the press, he's already out of Memphis. So fucking
<v Speaker 3>it really threw us off because we're trying to do
<v Speaker 3>this thing chronologically. It's like, actually, there's this huge lag
<v Speaker 3>in the pages of the Wrestling Trade Press at the time.
<v Speaker 2>Trade Press is a weird.
<v Speaker 3>Way to put it, whatever you want to call these magazines,
<v Speaker 3>that that doesn't account for this, this this year time lag.
<v Speaker 3>We've talked all the time about how how weird it
<v Speaker 3>was as kids reading WWF magazine, right about how it
<v Speaker 3>would come out, and like the month on the cover
<v Speaker 3>it just didn't match, like the timetable you're about to
<v Speaker 3>read about.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, it's it's it's it's yeah, it's really indescribable. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>describable too.
<v Speaker 3>It's like it says February in the cover, but I'm
<v Speaker 3>reading about November, but that didn't hit the press till December, Like,
<v Speaker 3>what's happening here?
<v Speaker 2>So and my mom was born in May and it's like, well,
<v Speaker 2>what the fuck happened now?
<v Speaker 3>Well, we're about to find out, because it turns out
<v Speaker 3>that the what we considered the rather undercovered run of
<v Speaker 3>Sterling Golden in Georgia Championship Wrestling for really just the
<v Speaker 3>fall of seventy nine. I mean, he's really just there
<v Speaker 3>for three months, which is which is shorter than I
<v Speaker 3>think the pop imagination. What have you believe about Sterling
<v Speaker 3>Golden being a significant Yeah, I mean the way you
<v Speaker 3>hear about Sterling Golden, you think about he was Sterling
<v Speaker 3>Golden for at least a year, right, you know, like
<v Speaker 3>I never would have I never would have guessed that,
<v Speaker 3>you know, Tarry, the Hulk, Terry, the Hulk Boulder, and
<v Speaker 3>Sterling Golden all were within the same year.
<v Speaker 2>Six month period, really six months. I can't I cannot
<v Speaker 2>fathom that it does not compute.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, he was Hulk Hogan weeks after becoming Sterling Golden
<v Speaker 3>for the first time. But Hulk Coogan only down to
<v Speaker 3>New York and he comes back to this area southeastern
<v Speaker 3>part of the United States as Sterling Golden even after
<v Speaker 3>being renamed Hulkogan in New York. So that's what we
<v Speaker 3>have to really grapple with. The mission is clear, the
<v Speaker 3>question becomes, are there really any reliable witnesses from that
<v Speaker 3>time period that we could call upon beyond the materials
<v Speaker 3>we've already consulted all these public facing materials that can
<v Speaker 3>get us to the bottom of it. I think we
<v Speaker 3>have our man. But before we get there, and what
<v Speaker 3>I was just talking about, that lag effect. Come to
<v Speaker 3>find out that all the way in October of nineteen
<v Speaker 3>eighty okay, think about the time period we're talking about here,
<v Speaker 3>but not until October of nineteen eighty do the Aftermax
<v Speaker 3>pick up an article on this Sterling Golden, this blonde
<v Speaker 3>bomber being the newest rage a shining star, if you will,
<v Speaker 3>down in Georgia Championship, Like, well after he was gone,
<v Speaker 3>well after he was gone, well after he was no
<v Speaker 3>longer Sterling Golden. Anybody who was watching the biggest territory
<v Speaker 3>in the country, if not the world at that time,
<v Speaker 3>New York MSG, which was available to some degree nationally,
<v Speaker 3>would have already known this guy's Hulk Hogan. So they're
<v Speaker 3>reading this article about Sterling Golden, It's like, isn't that
<v Speaker 3>Hulk Hogan. It's like, well, it's a long.
<v Speaker 2>Story, no.
<v Speaker 3>So due to that, you know, and serendipity wins again
<v Speaker 3>because we were already steeped in our mission to find
<v Speaker 3>someone to speak to and testify to this time period
<v Speaker 3>we came upon this material, so we'll tuck it in
<v Speaker 3>perfectly just where it deserves to be in that transition
<v Speaker 3>from really his final days in the territory to being
<v Speaker 3>married to New York. This is from the October nineteen
<v Speaker 3>eighty issue of The Wrestler. The article about Michael O'Hara
<v Speaker 3>is entitled Blonde Bomber is the newest rage Sterling Golden
<v Speaker 3>Shining starts actually Wrestling Review when my apologies, I don't
<v Speaker 3>believe Wrestling Review was actually an Apter Mag, but it
<v Speaker 3>was in the spirit of the car.
<v Speaker 2>It looks like it looks like honestly, it looks like
<v Speaker 2>Wrestling Insider or whatever, or inside Wrestling. It looks like
<v Speaker 2>that logo.
<v Speaker 3>It could very well have been after the Apter Mag
<v Speaker 3>or the the London publishing family bought, perhaps bought the
<v Speaker 3>title and renamed it and kept the type face. That's
<v Speaker 3>possible as well. But here it is, and this is
<v Speaker 3>some great color on kind of how the wrestling world
<v Speaker 3>was regarding what they were doing with Terry Butley before
<v Speaker 3>he was Hulk Hogan. Even though the publishing timeline was
<v Speaker 3>almost a full year lapsed. Bus take it away.
<v Speaker 2>All right, here we go Sterling Golden Blonde Bomber is
<v Speaker 2>newest rage Sterling Golden Shining Star by Michael O'Hara. When
<v Speaker 2>you think of the top stars currently campaigning in the
<v Speaker 2>state of running for office, yeah that's happening. Term is
<v Speaker 2>sometimes used for prize fighters I know currently campaigning in
<v Speaker 2>the state of Georgia. Immediately such names as Tony Atlas,
<v Speaker 2>Bob Armstrong, and Oley Anderson come to mind. But one
<v Speaker 2>man has risen to the top of Georgia wrestling like
<v Speaker 2>no one else ever has. I'm making reference to the
<v Speaker 2>blonde behemoth known as Sterling Golden. In a short period
<v Speaker 2>of time, Sterling has chalked up a series of impressive
<v Speaker 2>wins which have skyrocketed him into the main events. He
<v Speaker 2>has been put up against the best, and he's proven
<v Speaker 2>that no one can compare with his awfuen, awesome strength,
<v Speaker 2>lightning like speed. Brother, I don't know about that, dude,
<v Speaker 2>right and uncanny ring knowledge.
<v Speaker 3>This is This is, by the way, the same guy
<v Speaker 3>that Oly Anderson said he saw within a week was
<v Speaker 3>nothing and got rid of.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, yeah, fucking sucks. I have the opportunity to talk
<v Speaker 2>with the Golden One at one of the major Southern Arenas,
<v Speaker 2>where he had just emerged victorious as usual. Outside of
<v Speaker 2>the ring, he is as boisterous as ever. Even with
<v Speaker 2>his arrogant ways, you can't help but admire his dedication
<v Speaker 2>to the sport and his electrifying charisma. Listen, Jack, I'm
<v Speaker 2>in this game for certain reasons. I'm in it for
<v Speaker 2>the money, the women, and the recognition that I rightfully deserve.
<v Speaker 2>I want all the belts, and I want to get
<v Speaker 2>them Mark my words, Daddy.
<v Speaker 3>Well, we've heard the promos on Georgia TV. It's more
<v Speaker 3>mark my words, Daddy. But here we are having to
<v Speaker 3>just deal with the fact that he didn't only sound
<v Speaker 3>like kul Kogan.
<v Speaker 2>No, and that's not gonna happen. It doesn't exist in
<v Speaker 2>my world. I'm selling out all the arenas and Georgia
<v Speaker 2>Junior with these fucking words Junior, Jack, Daddy. I thought
<v Speaker 2>he hadn't gone in New York yet already referring to
<v Speaker 2>Vince and Senior. And the women in these parks are
<v Speaker 2>runner away from their puny husbands and boyfriends. They're flocking
<v Speaker 2>to see in to see Sterling Golden Baby, because this
<v Speaker 2>is the first chance to see a real man up close.
<v Speaker 2>Check me out, baby, I got twenty two inch posteps
<v Speaker 2>of blue twisted steel. What is it? Orange twisted steel?
<v Speaker 2>Really orange rusty steel? Maybe, well it could be.
<v Speaker 3>So there it is. We're already doing the biceps thing.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, we knew that, but it's it's definitely not
<v Speaker 3>something that he came into New York having, not you know.
<v Speaker 2>They didn't, they didn't come up with it. It wasn't
<v Speaker 2>a big, brand new idea of the of the the
<v Speaker 2>you know, the the marketing department of the of New York, right, okay.
<v Speaker 2>And the article, for what it's worth if anyone looks
<v Speaker 2>it up, includes photos that appear to be mostly from Memphis,
<v Speaker 2>where he wasn't Sterling Golden, but Terry the whole boulder
<v Speaker 2>because he has to sing let on and I see
<v Speaker 2>Jerry Lawler, and I think Ron Bess and some of
<v Speaker 2>these pictures. Yeah, I'm here to take care of all
<v Speaker 2>the punks like big bad Tony Atlas and Skinny Little
<v Speaker 2>Flamingo Leg and Tommy Rich. I asked mister Golden about
<v Speaker 2>his favorite hold, which has caused a lot of problems
<v Speaker 2>for a lot of people. It's the most devastating a hold,
<v Speaker 2>and wrestling today said Sterling. It's called the suit, the
<v Speaker 2>super Golden Squeeze. Brother, and he says, brother, and anybody
<v Speaker 2>who wants to get into the ring with me can
<v Speaker 2>forget about trying to escape it. In fact, I'll give anyone,
<v Speaker 2>any man, a thousand dollars to break the squeeze. I
<v Speaker 2>also want to warn all those punks they better not
<v Speaker 2>get me hot. If you do, I'm gonna hang on
<v Speaker 2>to your Jackson. If you do, there might be a
<v Speaker 2>gawker scandal to follow, exactly, he says, Jackson, Jackson, all right, Jackson,
<v Speaker 2>and I don't and I won't let go until we
<v Speaker 2>get to the hospital. Sterling hails from the Sunshine state
<v Speaker 2>of Florida. He was born and raised in the city
<v Speaker 2>of Tampa No. It is there that his interest in
<v Speaker 2>wrestling began, as Florida has always been a hotbed for
<v Speaker 2>exciting matt action. While in college, she excelled in sports,
<v Speaker 2>especially wrestling and weightlifting, especially not wrestling, especially not right
<v Speaker 2>and that he never wrestled for the for collegiately or
<v Speaker 2>high school or anything like that, in which she won
<v Speaker 2>many regional amateur titles. After coming out of where do
<v Speaker 2>you go to? I remember, did you go to college.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, he said, the minor in music with the major
<v Speaker 3>in business.
<v Speaker 2>At a Jesus it was. We talked about it, Hillsborough
<v Speaker 2>College or something like that, Ruth State University, Ruth. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I think it was Ruth's Chris University. God, it's that's that.
<v Speaker 2>That just shows you how much we've already fucking I
<v Speaker 2>don't remember college at all.
<v Speaker 3>Oh, he hardly, Yeah, he hardly emphasizes it because he
<v Speaker 3>pretty much had one foot in, one foot out, still
<v Speaker 3>playing the music and stuff.
<v Speaker 2>Right after coming out of college. He was a well
<v Speaker 2>conditioned fighting machine and ready for matt action. He traveled
<v Speaker 2>down south and met met with down down South. He's
<v Speaker 2>already He's already south. He's going further south in Tampa,
<v Speaker 2>in the oceans, in Cuba. No, right was he going
<v Speaker 2>to fucking Miami, working in Miami Territory.
<v Speaker 3>That's why he was at the University of South Florida
<v Speaker 3>major inusiness, minor and music while playing gigs.
<v Speaker 2>On the weekends. Okay, there it is, and everywhere he wrestled,
<v Speaker 2>he was known as a human gold mine. Sterling has
<v Speaker 2>now come the Georgia, where he has his eyesight set
<v Speaker 2>on the state title in the TV Championship. He is
<v Speaker 2>well on his way to conquering all who face him,
<v Speaker 2>and he is sure he has a sure bet to
<v Speaker 2>win one of the major titles in the very near future.
<v Speaker 2>Many have tried to break his super Golden squeeze and
<v Speaker 2>collect the one thousand dollars, but none have succeeded. He
<v Speaker 2>is brash, loud, and arrogant, and because of these qualities
<v Speaker 2>he is making plenty of enemies. He won't be losing
<v Speaker 2>any sleepover his opponents, though, considering that he is six
<v Speaker 2>foot seven and three hundred and seventeen pounds. Without a doubt,
<v Speaker 2>he strikes fear into the hearts of all his foes,
<v Speaker 2>and he is a definite threat to all titles everywhere.
<v Speaker 2>Belter what it's all about, baby, said Sterling. That's where
<v Speaker 2>the big bread is, and being the best and being
<v Speaker 2>the best his words at Jack, being like anyone at
<v Speaker 2>being the best is where it's at, right, got it.
<v Speaker 2>I'll take on anyone, any place, at any time. I
<v Speaker 2>asked mister Golden for his opinion on the three world
<v Speaker 2>champions and he replied with the following statements. Well, this
<v Speaker 2>little boy, Bobby Backland is still wet behind the ears, baby,
<v Speaker 2>he's he's not in the same league as the Golden one.
<v Speaker 2>If the opportunity for presents himself, I'll be the one
<v Speaker 2>who takes that WW belt and puts Backlin out of
<v Speaker 2>his misery.
<v Speaker 3>So very clearly already plans to have him go to New.
<v Speaker 2>York, yep exactly. Harley Race is a great veteran of
<v Speaker 2>the ring, but there's no way that he could put
<v Speaker 2>up with the speed, the power, and the intelligence of
<v Speaker 2>Sterling Golden, the world's greatest wrestler. Nick Boquiggle isn't even
<v Speaker 2>even even worth talking about Jackson. He does it again, Jackson.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, this is this is him doing like Threnoli
<v Speaker 2>back then totally. You know, his fucking weird language that
<v Speaker 2>nobody else speaks.
<v Speaker 3>Just so all these years, like when we've heard Sean
<v Speaker 3>Michael say Jack at the end of every line and stuff.
<v Speaker 3>Jack Comma Jack, that's supposed to be short for Jackson.
<v Speaker 3>I just never I have no fucking idea. I've never
<v Speaker 3>heard that term. I'll beat him with. I'll break it
<v Speaker 3>a sweat.
<v Speaker 2>In fact, I'll fight all three of them in the
<v Speaker 2>same night, and it would and it would even amount
<v Speaker 2>to a good workout. You must admit that the confidence
<v Speaker 2>is there, and after seeing him in the ring, you
<v Speaker 2>know that he has the ability to back up his
<v Speaker 2>words with action. Whether you like him or hate him,
<v Speaker 2>you can't help but feel that he is a world
<v Speaker 2>champion in the making. Keep your eyes I'm Sterling Golden
<v Speaker 2>because he is a talented young man with a mission
<v Speaker 2>and a true star of the nineteen eighties. Can you
<v Speaker 2>please read that last sentence again? Just just yes, for
<v Speaker 2>you know, future reference. Keep your eyes on Sterling Golden
<v Speaker 2>because he is a talented young man with a mission
<v Speaker 2>and a true star of the nineteen eighties. I think
<v Speaker 2>our author Michael O'Hara could see around the corner. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>I think so. I think so.
<v Speaker 3>Never has a more prescient line been written in these
<v Speaker 3>cafes mags, and he probably didn't even know why it
<v Speaker 3>wouldn't be as Sterling Golden, But in fact, that's exactly
<v Speaker 3>what's about to happen. But again, can I just emphasize
<v Speaker 3>just how you do not spotlight somebody in these glowing
<v Speaker 3>terms in the pages of the national wrestling press if
<v Speaker 3>the local promoter that was overseeing him at the time.
<v Speaker 3>In this case, Oli Anderson doesn't believe that he's going
<v Speaker 3>to become a star. I know, right, there's no way
<v Speaker 3>that someone who looks at Terry Bully the way Ollly
<v Speaker 3>Anderson said he did and all these shoot interviews decades
<v Speaker 3>later gets this kind of publicity.
<v Speaker 2>I know. That's the thing about like, what a what
<v Speaker 2>a bitch get in there? He's a goddamnit, just like
<v Speaker 2>for not even that he gave up on none but
<v Speaker 2>the fact that he like he talks, but he talks
<v Speaker 2>the way he does. But clearly he had some idea
<v Speaker 2>that this guy was going to be worth a little something.
<v Speaker 2>I think so yeah.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, if you program a guy with Tony Atlas
<v Speaker 3>Stan Hansen, which is from the footage we watched, you
<v Speaker 3>don't even have to know any behind the scenes. You
<v Speaker 3>just watched the television at the time that that that
<v Speaker 3>survives and he's interacting with some of the top guys
<v Speaker 3>and the company right away Georgia Championship. You know that
<v Speaker 3>that's absolutely not true. Now, is there a chance that
<v Speaker 3>always saw him against these top guys and soured on him?
<v Speaker 2>Maybe?
<v Speaker 3>I think one thing we're going to be able to
<v Speaker 3>pick up on that's a loose end is well we
<v Speaker 3>did see that post promo confrontation between Sterling Golden and
<v Speaker 3>Tony Atlas on the WTBS set on one of the
<v Speaker 3>episodes we watched in our last episode we didn't follow
<v Speaker 3>on really with a Tony Atlas Sterling Golden match in Georgia.
<v Speaker 3>It seemed like they were setting that up. Those matches
<v Speaker 3>as far as I can tell, if there was more
<v Speaker 3>than one, happened first in Knoxville, the returning Sterling Golden
<v Speaker 3>so to speak, the returning Terry Boulder to the Knoxville area.
<v Speaker 3>You're at least Knoxville, such as it was part of
<v Speaker 3>Southeastern There he is, and that's when he wrestles Tony Atlas.
<v Speaker 3>So perhaps further evidence that even what you were watching
<v Speaker 3>on TBS at the time was maybe setting up matches
<v Speaker 3>that would happen in Jim Barnett's Knoxville area, not even
<v Speaker 3>necessarily in the arenas in and around Atlanta, Georgia. So
<v Speaker 3>that's something to keep in mind that what you're watching
<v Speaker 3>hyped in Georgia perhaps was delivered more in Knoxville than
<v Speaker 3>it was on the local circuit. And there's one little
<v Speaker 3>blurb picked up on that I think transitions very nicely
<v Speaker 3>into our guest and if you can pull that up, Boss.
<v Speaker 2>This is to.
<v Speaker 3>Refresh your memory, because as we're going through seventy nine,
<v Speaker 3>all of a sudden, despite already going to WWF and
<v Speaker 3>being rechristened Hulkogan, he's wrestling Bob Armstrong, of course, the mainstay, stalwart,
<v Speaker 3>sort of patriarchal superstar of that part of the country,
<v Speaker 3>the southeastern part of the country, who, as we talked
<v Speaker 3>about in our ALBM episode, had already come back in
<v Speaker 3>to the good graces so to speak, of Ron Fuller
<v Speaker 3>and was again cooperating with him after the plan be breakoff.
<v Speaker 3>All of a sudden, Bob Armstrong is defeating Sterling Golden,
<v Speaker 3>who has the Southeastern Championship belt around his waist, despite
<v Speaker 3>the narrative being that he left Alabama because Louis Tillett
<v Speaker 3>didn't want to put a title on him, at least
<v Speaker 3>the big belt on him. Suddenly he's Sterling Golden, He's
<v Speaker 3>the champion, and he's getting rolled up on Christmas Night.
<v Speaker 3>Brother through the one, two three, and Bob Armstrong is
<v Speaker 3>becoming champion. Here's a little blurb about that fateful night
<v Speaker 3>Worldwide matt action by Scott Stevens and Ron Grawl. Congratulations
<v Speaker 3>to the popular Bob Armstrong copped the Southeastern Heavyweight championship
<v Speaker 3>by pinning Rugged Okay, by pinning Rugged Hulk Golden. Yes,
<v Speaker 3>that's another point. If you look at the published press
<v Speaker 3>ads that promoted some of his matches down there, and
<v Speaker 3>we've already read through these on the Alabama episodes, not
<v Speaker 3>only are they now calling him Sterling Golden, they're sometimes
<v Speaker 3>adding the Hulk. They're calling him Sterling the Hulk Golden.
<v Speaker 3>So if you're not confused enough, but this doesn't even
<v Speaker 3>do that right, This calls him Hulk Golden, like that's
<v Speaker 3>his name. There was no Sterling. Hulk is not in quotes,
<v Speaker 3>it's not the Hulk. It's by pinning Rugged Hulk go Golden,
<v Speaker 3>Hulk Golden, who is now known to East Coast fans
<v Speaker 3>as Hulk Hogan.
<v Speaker 2>Oh so they even put it in there. Good, they
<v Speaker 2>even put it in there.
<v Speaker 3>Now, I don't think anybody pushes to the moon Hulk
<v Speaker 3>Golden all.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, you can't. You can't even say it's Hulk Hogan.
<v Speaker 2>Maybe maybe that's because I'm so familiar with it, but
<v Speaker 2>Hulk Golden, Hulk Hogan, maybe Hulholden, Hulk Hogan, Hulk Holden.
<v Speaker 3>Maybe this guy was taking dictation over the phone from
<v Speaker 3>a promoter and the line was static game. He thought
<v Speaker 3>he said Hulk Golden and he said hold Logan, or.
<v Speaker 2>Maybe he was talking abou Hulk Coagan himself. Right, Brother,
<v Speaker 2>I'm Hulholden, I'm Hulk Golden Brother, like Trump is John Darren.
<v Speaker 2>He puts another voice on, pretend to be he's own spokesman.
<v Speaker 2>I'm hul Hogen, Hulk Golden Brother. Hulk was in a
<v Speaker 2>bit of trouble and threw Bob into the ref, then
<v Speaker 2>then over the top rope. Hulk then was picking up
<v Speaker 2>the ref to have Armstrong counted out, but Armstrong whipped
<v Speaker 2>back into the ring Armstrong. Armstrong caught Hulk from behind
<v Speaker 2>by surprise, got him in a cradle, and the ref
<v Speaker 2>now revived counted three.
<v Speaker 3>And somewhere some way Terry Boley reads from behind, looks
<v Speaker 3>up and never loses paranoia over the phrase again Armstrong, Dude,
<v Speaker 3>come to think of it, he did come up from behind.
<v Speaker 2>Brother, Still behind me, dude, sort's like you know when
<v Speaker 2>you know when when when a when a young kid
<v Speaker 2>is like trying to hide and he keeps running behind
<v Speaker 2>your back, right, you know, like that's Hogan. Hogan's just
<v Speaker 2>running in circles like that, like thinking there's somebody behind him,
<v Speaker 2>trying to find his own tail exactly exactly Hulk's trick
<v Speaker 2>backfired and cost him the belt. Fucking it's it's it's
<v Speaker 2>such a it's such a confusing, needless.
<v Speaker 3>To say, a nightmare scenario for Terry Bulllet seriously, as
<v Speaker 3>he's rolled up and loses the championship, but it's already
<v Speaker 3>pretty clear that he's going on a more extended run
<v Speaker 3>up in New York. So this is probably considered, you know,
<v Speaker 3>him tidying up business down in really the last vestiges
<v Speaker 3>of the first territory that he hit it big in
<v Speaker 3>after trying the business in seventy seven in Florida, giving
<v Speaker 3>it up and then coming back. So I think we've
<v Speaker 3>done our part to at least read off and unearth
<v Speaker 3>as help is out there about this late seventy nine period.
<v Speaker 3>So it regards Sterling Golden. But now we're particularly excited
<v Speaker 3>to bring you one of the real stalwarts, one of
<v Speaker 3>the sort of oldest surviving wrestlers, promoters, executives, trainers still
<v Speaker 3>with us here who can testify in his sharp minded
<v Speaker 3>enough to testify about what these time periods may have
<v Speaker 3>been like, and fortunately for us, he was involved in
<v Speaker 3>the Knoxville territory in nineteen seventy nine. He was closely
<v Speaker 3>associated with Ron Fuller, as well as Jim Barnett and
<v Speaker 3>pretty much anyone of influence in the professional wrestling industry
<v Speaker 3>on the East side of the United States, including the
<v Speaker 3>Midwest in the nineteen seventies. He is none other than
<v Speaker 3>Less Thatcher, and we're pleased now to bring you as
<v Speaker 3>part of the complete Hull Cogan Less Thatcher on what
<v Speaker 3>we can discern about Sterling, Golden, Knoxville and the end
<v Speaker 3>of nineteen seventy nine for Terry Buley a last fan
<v Speaker 3>Wrestling podcast.
<v Speaker 1>He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack and for
<v Speaker 1>an SEO m JP sorrow.
<v Speaker 3>All right, folks, so we are here with the one
<v Speaker 3>and only Less Thatcher, eighty five years young and really
<v Speaker 3>an incredible perspective on so many decades and eras in
<v Speaker 3>the business and on the complete Hulkgin journey that we're on.
<v Speaker 3>Very advantaged for us to know that Less Thatcher was
<v Speaker 3>deeply involved in Southeastern Georgia, Knoxville and wrestling that happened
<v Speaker 3>in that country, part of the country in nineteen seventy
<v Speaker 3>nine where Terry Bully really found himself first as Terry
<v Speaker 3>the Hulk Boulder and Leader is Sterling Golden, and then
<v Speaker 3>by the end of the year even as Hulk Hogan
<v Speaker 3>in New York. So let's that Cher. We want to
<v Speaker 3>say thank you so much. It's an honor to talk
<v Speaker 3>to you here on the lapsed fan.
<v Speaker 1>Jack, No problem. I love talking about the business of God.
<v Speaker 1>Has been my whole life in it, right, I don't
<v Speaker 1>know anything else, is why my wife tells me so
<v Speaker 1>great Carrie.
<v Speaker 3>Let's make some use of that fact. Let's first, we
<v Speaker 3>got to acquaint our listeners. If they don't know, tell
<v Speaker 3>us how far back you go in the business, because
<v Speaker 3>that's just amazing.
<v Speaker 1>Sure. Well, on July the fourth this year, we'll make
<v Speaker 1>the anniversary my sixty seventh anniversary of my first professional
<v Speaker 1>wrestling mass of the age of nineteen.
<v Speaker 2>Wow, what year would that have been? Least what year?
<v Speaker 1>Nineteen sixty?
<v Speaker 3>There it is nineteen sixty. So he's been wrestling, active
<v Speaker 3>in the business since nineteen sixty not not not just
<v Speaker 3>sort of aware of it, yes, active in it. Well,
<v Speaker 3>let's let's get right to this because, as you might appreciate,
<v Speaker 3>seventy nine is a time period where, you know, wrestling
<v Speaker 3>in the Southeastern Territory. Not a lot of it survives
<v Speaker 3>on videotape. Some of the stuff that Terry went on
<v Speaker 3>to do in Memphis does survive. Can you just start
<v Speaker 3>us off with where you remember first hearing about.
<v Speaker 1>Terry Bolea, Well, excuse me. You know, we were in
<v Speaker 1>a war here and so he That's how he ended
<v Speaker 1>up here because Ron had worked out a deal. When
<v Speaker 1>I say Ron, for those who are listening, Ron Fuller,
<v Speaker 1>the owner of the territory, was not here at the time.
<v Speaker 1>He was in down on the Golf Coast setting up.
<v Speaker 1>He had just purchased the Golf Coast Territory and was
<v Speaker 1>setting up, you know, a similar setup down there. Anyway,
<v Speaker 1>this whole thing was that the war between the two
<v Speaker 1>companies that brought him in here. Barnett had him in Atlanta,
<v Speaker 1>and he also had Austin Idle at the time. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>and his comment was, I don't need two bonds at
<v Speaker 1>the same time on the same roster.
<v Speaker 2>Wow, this is Barnett's comment.
<v Speaker 1>You're saying that, yeah, yeah, So that was why we
<v Speaker 1>ended up with Terry here fascinating.
<v Speaker 3>So when you say here, just to be clear, you
<v Speaker 3>mean Knoxville, not like the Dothan No, No, Knoxville, Yes, absolutely, Okay,
<v Speaker 3>because it gets confusing for us trying to put the
<v Speaker 3>timeline together because in the beginning of seventy nine March
<v Speaker 3>Terry comes to Ron for the first time and starts
<v Speaker 3>working in Dothan. He has that famous arm wrestling angle
<v Speaker 3>with Andre, who wrestles Andre and they sell out the
<v Speaker 3>the building in Dothan, the Houston County Farm Center. So
<v Speaker 3>buzz begins to start about this guy, right, do you
<v Speaker 3>do you remember first hearing that there's this guy in
<v Speaker 3>Dothan who's wrestling Andre and did a big house and
<v Speaker 3>he's brand new to the business.
<v Speaker 1>Well, you know, I'd heard a little bit about him,
<v Speaker 1>but actually there wasn't There wasn't that big thing about area,
<v Speaker 1>as with any name, you know, he was just another
<v Speaker 1>guy getting a start, right. He had the size, but
<v Speaker 1>like the personality that you saw with Hal Coogan and WWF,
<v Speaker 1>you know, I mean behind the scenes, the personality was
<v Speaker 1>obviously the you know, the Braggadosius and the whole thing,
<v Speaker 1>but it wasn't really he wasn't projecting it as such
<v Speaker 1>at the time. I mean he was projecting, and obviously
<v Speaker 1>with his size and his look, you know, he got over,
<v Speaker 1>but nothing to the magnitude of what happened after, you know,
<v Speaker 1>Rocky three and on and on right, So you know,
<v Speaker 1>he was just another one of the guys, to be
<v Speaker 1>quite honest with.
<v Speaker 3>You, Yeah, that's so fascinating for us to hear all
<v Speaker 3>these years later, as you know, Hulka maniacs of the eighties,
<v Speaker 3>less to appreciate that there was this guy in the
<v Speaker 3>late seventies that was really just another name, yet had
<v Speaker 3>these magnificent opportunities. I mean, we've talked about not only
<v Speaker 3>wrestling Andre just you know, a couple of weeks, really
<v Speaker 3>a couple of months into his run for Ron in
<v Speaker 3>the spring of seventy nine, he also wrestles Harley for
<v Speaker 3>the NWA World Championship at a high school football stadium
<v Speaker 3>in Alabama in July of seventy nine, before coming to Knoxville,
<v Speaker 3>before going to Georgia, before even going and i think
<v Speaker 3>shortly after starting in Memphis. So even though he wrestled
<v Speaker 3>Harley in the Ripuse Stadium and pretty much sold that out,
<v Speaker 3>still just another guy.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'm sorry, fair enough.
<v Speaker 2>It just blows our mind.
<v Speaker 1>That's our you know, like if you're a farmer that
<v Speaker 1>grows corn and you walk through a cornfield, are you
<v Speaker 1>excited by walking through the cornfield?
<v Speaker 2>Very good?
<v Speaker 3>So let's get to Sterling Golden. So he goes to Memphis.
<v Speaker 3>He wrestles with that boulder for a while. Jerry Lawler
<v Speaker 3>and Jerry Jarrett push him ptty hard, but pretty soon
<v Speaker 3>he pretty much takes another hiatus, and by the fall
<v Speaker 3>of seventy nine, September or so, he's making his debut
<v Speaker 3>on TBS, Ole Anderson booking Jimmy Barnett kind of running
<v Speaker 3>the territory. Help us understand where you were at that time, least,
<v Speaker 3>were you like full time Knoxville or were you helping
<v Speaker 3>Georgia Championship at all?
<v Speaker 1>I was down. I had gone down. Well, uh, Jim
<v Speaker 1>and I had agreed to disagree. So I called Ron
<v Speaker 1>and I said, hey, uh, you know, I'm a little
<v Speaker 1>bit at loose ends here and he said, well, come
<v Speaker 1>on down. So i'd gone to I was. I went
<v Speaker 1>down to the Gulf Coast, was helping him build the
<v Speaker 1>golf coast at the time, and uh, toward the end there,
<v Speaker 1>and Alan Williams, who actually just retired from one of
<v Speaker 1>being a news anchor here in Knoxville, was a young
<v Speaker 1>uh sports reporter on Channel ten at the time, uh
<v Speaker 1>here in Knoxville. And so anyway that you know, we
<v Speaker 1>go excuse me, so that that's the whole deal there.
<v Speaker 1>So I wasn't toward the end Allen took over. Alan
<v Speaker 1>had put him with me. But when I left, Alan
<v Speaker 1>had I think they brought Phil Rainy back for a
<v Speaker 1>short spill, but they had nobody really when I say
<v Speaker 1>as an anchor, they had nobody anchored in that position basically.
<v Speaker 3>For for TV the announcer you mean, yeah, right, right right,
<v Speaker 3>because last if we haven't made that clear to our listeners,
<v Speaker 3>was was a television announcer as well. So were you
<v Speaker 3>before the war before Bob Rupin company tried to break
<v Speaker 3>off in Knoxville. Who were you aligned with in that
<v Speaker 3>whole thing?
<v Speaker 2>Were you? Were you with Ron? Were you with Bob?
<v Speaker 2>Pardon my ignorance there?
<v Speaker 1>Well, Uh, when Ron bought the territory, the territory started
<v Speaker 1>with it out with an office staff of three people,
<v Speaker 1>Ron Fuller, Robin McMurray, and Mac McMurray and myself. So no,
<v Speaker 1>I was loyal to my friend Ron. Well, and the
<v Speaker 1>fact was I was godfather to Ronald Jonas's son. You know,
<v Speaker 1>it was more than just a working relationship with us, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, I was in Ron's corner.
<v Speaker 3>Right, And so can you take our listeners through how
<v Speaker 3>Jim Barnett came to own Knoxville as a consequence of
<v Speaker 3>that war?
<v Speaker 2>Wow?
<v Speaker 1>Well? No, yeah, Well, Ronald, See, the whole idea was
<v Speaker 1>he had ron had purchased that was in the process
<v Speaker 1>of purchasing anyway, the Gulf Coast territory from the Fields brothers,
<v Speaker 1>and the whole idea was to we were close enough
<v Speaker 1>driving range, uh you know, highway wise, that you could
<v Speaker 1>run a crew and knocks out of Knoxville office, crew
<v Speaker 1>out of the mobile office. And then when the guys
<v Speaker 1>in Mobile sort of started to wear out their welcome there,
<v Speaker 1>you know, they're being over, was starting to slip, you
<v Speaker 1>could bring them up to Knoxville. They're still on the
<v Speaker 1>pay roll. I mean, and I'm saying this about people
<v Speaker 1>you trusted or people used to work hot angles with, right,
<v Speaker 1>so you bring him into Knoxville and do the same
<v Speaker 1>thing with him here, vice versa. The guys who are Knoxville.
<v Speaker 1>When their popularity starts to dwine a little bit here,
<v Speaker 1>you move them down, you know, so you can that way,
<v Speaker 1>you can weed out guys who aren't drawing for you
<v Speaker 1>can weed out guys who are a business problem. And
<v Speaker 1>you've got a crew of guys who you know you
<v Speaker 1>can count on. And that was the whole idea of
<v Speaker 1>doing it in the first place. And it would I
<v Speaker 1>think it really would have worked well, but we'll never know.
<v Speaker 3>Right right, because the war started so all right, Knoxville
<v Speaker 3>was sort of a place that if guys got stale
<v Speaker 3>and mobile or Dothan or the sort of core cities
<v Speaker 3>for Southeastern they could go out to Knoxville, get a
<v Speaker 3>newly some life, get fresh, and then come back. That
<v Speaker 3>didn't last very long because by the summer it was
<v Speaker 3>absolutely all out war out there. And so I've heard
<v Speaker 3>Ron say that essentially after the war had consummated and
<v Speaker 3>had gone on for some time, what eventually Bob Rootside
<v Speaker 3>stops running shows and then Barnett just takes the territory
<v Speaker 3>off Fuller's hands. Is that pretty much what happened?
<v Speaker 1>No, no, no, no, no. When when Roofe and those
<v Speaker 1>guys jumped ship right Ron's Finally Ron decided to go
<v Speaker 1>because Mobile was just getting fired up and there wasn't
<v Speaker 1>a war to fight at Mobile. For one of the reasons,
<v Speaker 1>and to be honest about my dear friend Ron, he
<v Speaker 1>loved the sun much more than he loved the snow.
<v Speaker 1>So had the chance to move to pens Call of
<v Speaker 1>Florida for God's sakes, No seriously, so he decided to
<v Speaker 1>go down the place you know down there basically Pioneer
<v Speaker 1>that you know, the build that territory, and so he's
<v Speaker 1>and of course it made sense because we're just like
<v Speaker 1>two hundred and fifty miles from Atlanta basically, right, So
<v Speaker 1>that drive in the territory days is no big deal.
<v Speaker 1>So anyway, he sold out to Barnett. Barnett ran it,
<v Speaker 1>but didn't you know, now he set myself up and
<v Speaker 1>a gentleman named Bob poke up in an off us
<v Speaker 1>here and then I say, Jim and I had a disagreement,
<v Speaker 1>so I left and went to Mobile with Lawn And
<v Speaker 1>from that point on I wasn't in on the mix,
<v Speaker 1>got it until I got a phone call not quite
<v Speaker 1>It wasn't even quite a year later from Flair saying, Hey,
<v Speaker 1>Mulligan and Crockett and I just bought an Oxville territory.
<v Speaker 1>Len Rossi or len ROSSI my god. Lenn Lepper, at
<v Speaker 1>the sales manager at Channel ten, said, one of the
<v Speaker 1>deals to keep them on us on the air there
<v Speaker 1>was to bring you back as a lead announcer.
<v Speaker 2>Wow.
<v Speaker 1>So we worked out a financial thing for me to
<v Speaker 1>come back to Knoxville. And that's how that went down.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, that's very clear. Okay.
<v Speaker 3>So I was I assume when you first mentioned seeing,
<v Speaker 3>you know, being at odds with Barnett, that was before
<v Speaker 3>all of this. You're saying that was in seventy nine,
<v Speaker 3>and then there was that Okay, yes, all right, because
<v Speaker 3>we see a lot of wrestlers last night, we watched
<v Speaker 3>the TV that survives from late seventy nine on YouTube
<v Speaker 3>and stuff from Georgia. We see Sterling on there being
<v Speaker 3>presented very strongly with the Golden Squeeze killing jobbers, and
<v Speaker 3>then he comes off the ring in near Gordon Soley's position.
<v Speaker 3>He's having confrontations with Tony Atlas, He's having matches at
<v Speaker 3>the Omni with Stan Hansen. He is interacting right away
<v Speaker 3>with some of the top guys in Georgia, which to
<v Speaker 3>us is a bit confusing because decades later early interson
<v Speaker 3>Maducchiont interviews talking about you know how Terry wasn't worth
<v Speaker 3>a shit from day one and he could care less
<v Speaker 3>about him after a week. Do you remember Sterling kind
<v Speaker 3>of getting involved with with Atlas Hansen and some of
<v Speaker 3>the biggest guys from really the earliest stages in Georgia.
<v Speaker 1>You know what I do not, you know, to be
<v Speaker 1>true to the logistically as close as we were to
<v Speaker 1>the epicenter of the Atlanta territory, obviously I was busy
<v Speaker 1>with my own job, right right, sure, because it was
<v Speaker 1>a mobile I was helping. I was not only doing
<v Speaker 1>television with Charlie out of Dothan, but I was helping
<v Speaker 1>with the box office on some of the clubs and
<v Speaker 1>this that doing public relations. So I was a busy
<v Speaker 1>beaver there too, So you know I had But you hear,
<v Speaker 1>you know through the wrestling, you know the old saying
<v Speaker 1>it was tell them the phone, tell them mark or
<v Speaker 1>telegraph and tell a wrestler, right wrestler. So anyway, you know,
<v Speaker 1>you hear this is doing well, they're doing, but just
<v Speaker 1>bits and pieces. So to try to give you an
<v Speaker 1>honest evaluation of that period time of my opinion on
<v Speaker 1>what was going on, there would be just speculation at best.
<v Speaker 3>Sure fair enough. Christmas Night of seventy nine in Knoxville,
<v Speaker 3>Bob Armstrong beats Sterling Golden for the Southeastern heavyweight title.
<v Speaker 3>Can you talk about Bob and how his position sort
<v Speaker 3>of changed after the war. It sounds like he was
<v Speaker 3>sort of not involved and then was back involved after
<v Speaker 3>all the war stuff happened. Bob beat Sterling Golden obviously
<v Speaker 3>is a big mile marker in Terry's journey. So if
<v Speaker 3>you can help talk to our listeners about where Bob
<v Speaker 3>stood at the time, if if you have a sense, well.
<v Speaker 1>I'm guessing when that was when the peniel on the
<v Speaker 1>starting to swing toward Barnett selling to Crockett, Yeah, and
<v Speaker 1>Mulligan and Flair yeah yeah, So anyway that you know
<v Speaker 1>to so they're going to take the bell off of
<v Speaker 1>whoever the top guy is here at the time, because
<v Speaker 1>if it was you know, if it was ster I
<v Speaker 1>keep wanting to say, Terry or you can sure yeah,
<v Speaker 1>if it were Hogan, Hogan, well then if they're moving,
<v Speaker 1>you know, if he's going to stay with Barnett, then
<v Speaker 1>he's going to leave, so you take the bell off
<v Speaker 1>of him here. That's the main reason for that.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, Yeah, we didn't even really talk about much the
<v Speaker 3>fact that, yes, Rick Flair and Mulligan actually bought Knoxville
<v Speaker 3>after after Barnett kind of stops owning it. Yeah, so
<v Speaker 3>that was a turning point as well. You had mentioned
<v Speaker 3>less that Jim Barnett had come down on the idea
<v Speaker 3>that we don't need two blondes. I'd love to get
<v Speaker 3>more into that. Did he mean on Georgia TV. What
<v Speaker 3>was he talking about there?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Georgia TV. Yes, Well, you know, he had the
<v Speaker 1>two talents, and obviously it was the case who was bigger,
<v Speaker 1>who had the most muscle. It was the case of
<v Speaker 1>which one was the most experience and you know, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>spit it out lest it wasn't Ogen because he was
<v Speaker 1>just getting his feet wet, right, And so you know,
<v Speaker 1>you flip the coin and you go with the more
<v Speaker 1>experienced guy, the veteran because of the bigger territory, the
<v Speaker 1>main main story. Plus if you're working up here, it's
<v Speaker 1>a smaller area and you contend to experiment a little bit. Sure,
<v Speaker 1>and so I'm obviously speculating for Jim Barnett, but that
<v Speaker 1>would be my call.
<v Speaker 3>So with Jim, can you talk about how the relationship
<v Speaker 3>was like this is before he had the real blow
<v Speaker 3>up with Oli and we know all that leading to
<v Speaker 3>Black Saturday and all that stuff. We know that, But
<v Speaker 3>in like seventy nine or so, were they on the
<v Speaker 3>same page as far as who would get pushed and
<v Speaker 3>who wouldn't, who to bring in and who wouldn't. Would
<v Speaker 3>Jim sometimes bring in talent that only didn't want to push,
<v Speaker 3>vice versa.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I would say my relationship with Jim Barnett is
<v Speaker 1>that the name less Thatcher came from Jim Barnett because
<v Speaker 1>my real last name is Malady is. You probably already
<v Speaker 1>know m ala Dy, which is mispronounced in butchered. If
<v Speaker 1>you happen to be a MALAYI you'll know that, right.
<v Speaker 1>And so when I broke into business in Boston, it
<v Speaker 1>wasn't a big deal because it's of Irish heritage and
<v Speaker 1>so of course a big Irish you know, population in
<v Speaker 1>that part of the country, so the promotion are never
<v Speaker 1>considered to change it. And of course having it being
<v Speaker 1>my name, I am accustomed to people mispronouncing it. So
<v Speaker 1>when I finally went to work for Barnett and out
<v Speaker 1>of the Indianapolis office, it never crossed my mind to
<v Speaker 1>change my name. And I didn't pay that much attention
<v Speaker 1>to you know, how my name was pronounced, and if
<v Speaker 1>it were mispronounced, I did a big deal. So anyway,
<v Speaker 1>Less rough And came to me, I don't know, maybe
<v Speaker 1>six eight weeks into my run there and said, the
<v Speaker 1>old man meeting Barnett is tired of hearing the ring
<v Speaker 1>announcer's mispronounce your name. He wants to change it to
<v Speaker 1>less Thatcher. Is that okay? Hell, this first big territory
<v Speaker 1>I've ever been in. I'm into my starting like two
<v Speaker 1>and a half years in the business. I just want
<v Speaker 1>to wrestle. Call me Jones. I don't do it. So
<v Speaker 1>that's the deal, you know. So that's how that came about.
<v Speaker 1>And I just instead of changing it back someplace else,
<v Speaker 1>I just went with Thatcher.
<v Speaker 2>Sure.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, and then of course I worked I worked
<v Speaker 1>for Jim here in Knoxville for a while, work for
<v Speaker 1>him in Atlanta, and we had Honestly, it wasn't bad. Really.
<v Speaker 1>What happened here was I won't even go into that
<v Speaker 1>whole story. But it was a political thing, saying through
<v Speaker 1>an office stooge who took one thing I said and
<v Speaker 1>turned it into something else.
<v Speaker 2>And uh, that doesn't happen in the wrestler business. Last,
<v Speaker 2>I don't believe you that that never happens in wrestling.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, come on now, yeah, no, no, no, no, no.
<v Speaker 2>Not ever ever, ever Atlanta has a yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And so Jim and I worked together again, you know,
<v Speaker 1>because I ran the tours in Ohio, Michigan, and West
<v Speaker 1>Virginia for w CWEP. You know when he well that's
<v Speaker 1>when he and Olier actually started feuding at that at
<v Speaker 1>that point in time. But Jim and I had all
<v Speaker 1>you know, and and of course when when I was
<v Speaker 1>doing the TV with Gordon in seventy three seventy four
<v Speaker 1>in Atlanta, Jim bought in and came into the office there. Yes, right,
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, so Jim and I were, you know, worked
<v Speaker 1>together off and on throughout my career.
<v Speaker 3>Now did Jim and only butt heads on who to
<v Speaker 3>use on Georgia TV.
<v Speaker 1>You know what, I'm not so much. I don't think
<v Speaker 1>I think Jim was smartough he Jim I think was smart.
<v Speaker 1>I'm hiring you for a particular thing for a reason.
<v Speaker 1>I think you understand it. So I'm going to give
<v Speaker 1>you lead way. If you screw it up, I'll understand
<v Speaker 1>that too, right right, Yeah, you know so yeah, no,
<v Speaker 1>not that I'm not that I'm aware of. But of
<v Speaker 1>course I didn't sit in all all their you know,
<v Speaker 1>booking meetings and stuff, so I can't say for sure.
<v Speaker 1>But you know, in that situation, Barnett, when you work
<v Speaker 1>for Jim Barnett, he is the boss. If you're not
<v Speaker 1>sure that, go ask him this might be and he
<v Speaker 1>will let you know and know in certain terms. And
<v Speaker 1>of course the booker is the boss, you know, in
<v Speaker 1>wrestling terms. So you know, And let's face it, you've
<v Speaker 1>got all these Testoster and Leyden egos bouncing around in
<v Speaker 1>a small area. You're gonna have conflict. It happens. It's
<v Speaker 1>just the way the business is.
<v Speaker 2>No question.
<v Speaker 3>Well, one thing that kind of throws us for a
<v Speaker 3>loop in trumors of understanding the territorial system in the
<v Speaker 3>seventies and late seventies in particular, less is that Terry
<v Speaker 3>goes from starting on Georgia TV to going down to
<v Speaker 3>New York and there's all kinds of stories of people
<v Speaker 3>saying I was the one that told him to go
<v Speaker 3>to New York, from Brisco to Oley, to any number
<v Speaker 3>of people basically saying that they told him to connect
<v Speaker 3>with Vince Senior and connected him with Vince Senior when
<v Speaker 3>he was sort of shaky about continuing in the business.
<v Speaker 3>But he goes from Georgia to New York and then
<v Speaker 3>he comes back to Knoxville at the end of seventy nine,
<v Speaker 3>And in our heads, we think, if you go to
<v Speaker 3>New York, that's where you stay, because we know he
<v Speaker 3>goes there in eighty and wrestles Andre at Shay Stadium
<v Speaker 3>and everything. Can you help us understand, like, does that
<v Speaker 3>make sense to you that he would go to New
<v Speaker 3>York do well in November of seventy nine, but then
<v Speaker 3>still come back to Knoxville for the last month of
<v Speaker 3>seventy nine. Why wouldn't he just stay in New York?
<v Speaker 3>Is that how it worked? Was there were a lot
<v Speaker 3>of talent exchange back then like that?
<v Speaker 1>No, not necessarily. I would say it was more some
<v Speaker 1>sort of business conflict between management and terry, you know,
<v Speaker 1>either about money or logevity or bookings or I won't
<v Speaker 1>do a job, or I won't you know this or that.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know for sure, but we'll realized Back then too,
<v Speaker 1>this is before the nine eighty one page contract signed
<v Speaker 1>forty six times by each first Back then, you know
<v Speaker 1>you and I made an agreement, Jack, I'd like to
<v Speaker 1>come in. Well, yeah, we need to maybe face in
<v Speaker 1>the middle of the car. Well, what can you guarantee
<v Speaker 1>me bottom line a week or per match and will
<v Speaker 1>work something out and then you'll guarantee me that I
<v Speaker 1>won't make less than that. But if I am making
<v Speaker 1>less than that, then I'm going to pick up the phonus.
<v Speaker 1>There's twenty five other territories I'm going to call, And so,
<v Speaker 1>you know, business is a lot looser at that point
<v Speaker 1>in time, you and I, if you're a promoter and
<v Speaker 1>I'm a wrestler, we're doing business on a handshaker, just
<v Speaker 1>word of mouth, no paperwork at all. So it's a
<v Speaker 1>whole different ball game, my friend, then than it is currently.
<v Speaker 3>Absolutely so, when you assess like Hogan going back and
<v Speaker 3>forth in seventy nine from New York back to Knoxville
<v Speaker 3>and not staying in New York, to you knowing the
<v Speaker 3>business as well as you do, that says that Hulk
<v Speaker 3>had some kind of disagreement with New York in seventy
<v Speaker 3>nine to come back.
<v Speaker 1>I'm guessing that, Yeah, I don't know that for sure.
<v Speaker 1>I wasn't privy to the wrestling hotline at that point.
<v Speaker 2>We sure sure.
<v Speaker 1>Didn't have me. There's no Facebook back then.
<v Speaker 3>Oh I got to check those off my list. Then
<v Speaker 3>I thought there was, oh well, so much for that one.
<v Speaker 3>Good stuff. So okay, this is this is a fascinating
<v Speaker 3>time period in the business because it's transitioning a little
<v Speaker 3>bit from that you know, handshake deal you're talking about
<v Speaker 3>less to a bit more in the way of contractual terms.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, we know that Terry famously had kind of
<v Speaker 3>a blow up with Vince Senior over doing Rocky three,
<v Speaker 3>or at least that's what Terry always said. Were you
<v Speaker 3>surprised to see him sort of hit big around the
<v Speaker 3>time of that movie based on, like you've already told us,
<v Speaker 3>the fact that he was kind of regarded as someone
<v Speaker 3>with really a lot of limitations and just another guy.
<v Speaker 1>Well, you know what, let's say, let's let's be frank here.
<v Speaker 1>God rest is so I hate to pick on the dead.
<v Speaker 1>Hal Cogan was not one of the top one thousand
<v Speaker 1>best technical wrestlers I ever saw in my life, right
<v Speaker 1>right totally. You know, he was a size, he was
<v Speaker 1>a look, he was a promo. And you throw that
<v Speaker 1>in with the charisma that the promo got him with
<v Speaker 1>guys who actually had the mechanical talent to lead him
<v Speaker 1>and make him look good, you had a winner, you know.
<v Speaker 1>So there's one of the things too at that you're
<v Speaker 1>going to realize. Back in the territory days, one of
<v Speaker 1>the reasons he probably started jopping around because let's say
<v Speaker 1>you saw him, see you and I basically talked about
<v Speaker 1>three or four territories that Terry Bullye or Hal Cogman,
<v Speaker 1>call him whatever you like, was in each one of
<v Speaker 1>those territories had a booker. Each one of those bookers
<v Speaker 1>had a vision. Each one of these bookers had a
<v Speaker 1>different set of eyes. And that's one of the things
<v Speaker 1>about our business pro football, baseball, basketball, gea can throw
<v Speaker 1>the ball, put it through a hoop, catch a pass, etcetera, etcetera.
<v Speaker 1>And you made big money here. You'd be the greatest
<v Speaker 1>wrestler in God's Green Earth, like Harley claimed to be,
<v Speaker 1>and not make a dime. Yeah, if the booker doesn't
<v Speaker 1>see it in you see. So those are all things
<v Speaker 1>that happened that you really can't call because that's something
<v Speaker 1>that's just not out there for public consumption usually.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, totally, yeah, unless someone wrote a book or something
<v Speaker 3>years later. So that's where we're trying to piece that
<v Speaker 3>together based on your recollection. Less right, before Rick and
<v Speaker 3>Blackjack took over Knoxville, who would have been booking Knoxville
<v Speaker 3>at the end of seventy nine, who would have been
<v Speaker 3>played Sterling on these these cards. It didn't seem like
<v Speaker 3>it would have been Ron was.
<v Speaker 2>It was a gym.
<v Speaker 1>No, Ron, Ron was well No, once Barnett owned it.
<v Speaker 1>Barnett owned it. No, Ron was. Ron was intense cola period,
<v Speaker 1>end of story. That's right, Okay, he had nothing to
<v Speaker 1>do with with his end at all at that point.
<v Speaker 1>I'm not sure who helped only here, but only was
<v Speaker 1>in and out as booker for Atlanta. But I'm trying
<v Speaker 1>to remember what you know before I left and went
<v Speaker 1>to Pensacola.
<v Speaker 2>If you call.
<v Speaker 3>It's fine, I mean these are guys like Slater was there,
<v Speaker 3>Schultz and Condrey were there. This is after working for
<v Speaker 3>Ron in the late seventy Bob.
<v Speaker 1>Orton, Oh, sure, No, No, I know Schultz Cott, No,
<v Speaker 1>none of those guys were bookers here. I'm going to
<v Speaker 1>guess Onlie was sending his uh if he was calling
<v Speaker 1>the shots, he was sending a written list in with somebody.
<v Speaker 2>I see Ralph.
<v Speaker 1>Fried who was like in the help out with managed
<v Speaker 1>Ralph Fried.
<v Speaker 3>Yep at that point in time, because we see we
<v Speaker 3>see even Savage come around, Randy Poffo, He's wrestling Bob
<v Speaker 3>Roup for the Southeastern title in November of seventy nine.
<v Speaker 3>Also on that card is Hulk Cogan Sterling Golden versus
<v Speaker 3>Bob Rup but a five thousand dollars Hulk Challenge. So
<v Speaker 3>it fascinated us to think of the Pafos being in
<v Speaker 3>the same orbit as Hogan even in seventy nine. Were
<v Speaker 3>the Pafos involved in Knoxville and in late in late seventies,
<v Speaker 3>what what was the history of their involvement?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, they were involved, all right, They were involved in
<v Speaker 1>killing the territory.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, let's hear it.
<v Speaker 1>Very much involved in anything else. That's that's you know,
<v Speaker 1>you know, just sum it up in capsule form. That's
<v Speaker 1>all that happened here with that stupid war. Is he
<v Speaker 1>killed the territory. Yeah, yeah, and a lot of it
<v Speaker 1>is the reason that what you and I are talking
<v Speaker 1>about right now. Ron Fuller and I had this conversation
<v Speaker 1>just a few years ago. But this is looking back.
<v Speaker 1>Stop and think about we would build a base here.
<v Speaker 1>Starting in November seventy four, Southeastern Wrestling, we were hot,
<v Speaker 1>our TV show running against the Tennessee Valls versus Niltre
<v Speaker 1>Dame in South ben. The best that Sniltre Dame in
<v Speaker 1>South ben could do Notre Dame and the Valls could
<v Speaker 1>do was tie us in the ratings. That's how hot
<v Speaker 1>we were here at that point in time. So it
<v Speaker 1>wasn't that we weren't over. Okay, So the fans get
<v Speaker 1>their favorites, right, be a fan for me here. Okay.
<v Speaker 1>So now this whole thing starts and six of the
<v Speaker 1>guys who take fans with them leave and go with
<v Speaker 1>the opposition. So now you have two promotions which splits.
<v Speaker 1>This is not Atlanta, where both offices could sell out
<v Speaker 1>in the same damn week. This is Knoxville, Tennessee, which
<v Speaker 1>is you could drop in one corner of Atlanta, for
<v Speaker 1>God's sake. So anyway, but okay, So now Barnett buys in,
<v Speaker 1>so a whole new group of babyfaces and heels come in.
<v Speaker 1>So now the fans start to get new favorites, new
<v Speaker 1>hate guys, they hate that sort of thing, and then
<v Speaker 1>all of a sudden they all disappear and yet another
<v Speaker 1>new group of guys come in. There's part of the deal,
<v Speaker 1>right there, I think. And I told Ron that just
<v Speaker 1>a few years ago, we were sitting down talking about this,
<v Speaker 1>the fans. You know, it's it's like, hey, I'm dating
<v Speaker 1>this girl and I fell in love with her. Then
<v Speaker 1>she disappeared. Yeah, so I started dating this other girl
<v Speaker 1>and felt, well, does she disappeared too? Right Like, after
<v Speaker 1>a while, scrit I'm not trying anymore. And I think
<v Speaker 1>that's part of the deal. They got tired of the
<v Speaker 1>merry go round of talent, the fans in this area.
<v Speaker 2>You know.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's disorienting for us, right Jpe to go back
<v Speaker 3>and reconstruct because it's like, where is he?
<v Speaker 2>Who's he?
<v Speaker 3>Who are his colleagues at any point in time. It's
<v Speaker 3>hard to say, it's pretty wild just to see how
<v Speaker 3>he just that there were so that he did so
<v Speaker 3>many he worked so many territories in one single year.
<v Speaker 3>That part has always just been flabbergasting to me to
<v Speaker 3>find out, Well.
<v Speaker 1>That's not necessarily I'm sitting here thinking what you know,
<v Speaker 1>as you mentioned that, excuse me. I came back into
<v Speaker 1>the National territory out of I was up in eastern Canada,
<v Speaker 1>in the Maritimes, which is where I first started doing
<v Speaker 1>play by play in nineteen seventy, and I came back
<v Speaker 1>into the National territory. Things weren't going exactly the way
<v Speaker 1>I thought they should for me here, and I saw
<v Speaker 1>that Leo Garibaldi was one of the bookers in Florida,
<v Speaker 1>and Leo and I always had a great working relationship.
<v Speaker 1>So I picked up the phone and said, Leo, you
<v Speaker 1>know and yeah, come on in. So I went to
<v Speaker 1>Tampa and just doing find in Tampa in seventy one,
<v Speaker 1>and then the croc are looking for a number two
<v Speaker 1>babyface team to back up Becker and Weaver in the Carolinas,
<v Speaker 1>and Louis Toillette, one of the bookers in Tampa, said well, hey,
<v Speaker 1>how about these two buck eyes. Let's that you're Danny Miller.
<v Speaker 1>So we ended up going to the Carolinas. So this
<v Speaker 1>is all in the course of from the fall of
<v Speaker 1>nineteen seventy to the spring of nineteen seventy one.
<v Speaker 3>Plenty moving around. So you mentioned Louis Tillette. I'm glad
<v Speaker 3>you did less because Louis Toillette comes up a lot
<v Speaker 3>in Hulk's story, of course, because Ron says that Louis Toilette,
<v Speaker 3>being his booker at Southeastern when Terry first came in
<v Speaker 3>in March of seventy nine, saw something in him right
<v Speaker 3>away and wanted to push him strongly. Can you talk
<v Speaker 3>about Louis Tillett and what your best guests would have been.
<v Speaker 3>Of course he's passed on, so we can't consult with him,
<v Speaker 3>but what your best guest would have been as to
<v Speaker 3>what Louis saw in Hulk and maybe even you know
<v Speaker 3>the fact that he was French Canadian leading to him
<v Speaker 3>being interested in matching Hulk with Andre before anyone really
<v Speaker 3>even knew who Harry was.
<v Speaker 1>I think the size and something about Terry's personality that
<v Speaker 1>maybe Louis is in his mind projecting that personality to grow.
<v Speaker 1>You know, we always talk about how the great promo
<v Speaker 1>guys are doing their real personality ten times over, so
<v Speaker 1>that sort of thing. Again, it's hard to say, you know,
<v Speaker 1>in this like I say, I'm almost sixty seven years in
<v Speaker 1>his stupid business and people say so and so had it,
<v Speaker 1>and somebody will say what is it. I'll say he
<v Speaker 1>had it? Well, what is it? I don't know. You
<v Speaker 1>don't understand me.
<v Speaker 2>If less Thatcher doesn't know, nobody knows.
<v Speaker 1>But I know when I see it, does that big sense?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, totally totally.
<v Speaker 1>I thought Shrick Williams was going to win. Oh yeah, sure,
<v Speaker 1>yeah the deal last night. I was so amazed how
<v Speaker 1>we got over. And on our podcast Friday, I told
<v Speaker 1>Vic said, I'm going to take trick. Why are you crazy?
<v Speaker 1>I said, you know what, I was a booker and
<v Speaker 1>I saw how hot he was instantly without a push.
<v Speaker 1>It's going to give a couple other guys arrest, push
<v Speaker 1>him till he falls, you know, and let's see love it.
<v Speaker 3>That's not anyway, that was the prevailing mentality. Yeah, back then,
<v Speaker 3>you ride the.
<v Speaker 1>Horse is worker in professional wrestling? Today?
<v Speaker 3>One last night, how about hulk on uh with Louis
<v Speaker 3>till that is? It regards like where Louis fit in
<v Speaker 3>the whole Knoxville thing, because we know Louis was booking
<v Speaker 3>for Roun in the beginning of seventy nine. Where did
<v Speaker 3>Louis fall in that whole war?
<v Speaker 1>Well, Louis Louis. Louis booked there some too. Louis Louis
<v Speaker 1>was had a great mind. Plus he was a hell
<v Speaker 1>of a cook, by the way, he really was.
<v Speaker 2>All right, all right, now, hold on, hold on, are
<v Speaker 2>you no favorite thing he ever cooked?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? He was a bad booker, He was still a
<v Speaker 1>hell of a cook.
<v Speaker 2>What was what was your favorite thing? Was favorite thing though?
<v Speaker 2>That he cooked? I want to know what your favorite
<v Speaker 2>meal that Louis to let cook? What did he What
<v Speaker 2>was your favorite thing that he ever cooked?
<v Speaker 1>Christ? Anything he cooked was my favorite thing? No, seriously,
<v Speaker 1>I don't remember anything. It's been too many years ago.
<v Speaker 1>But well, you know, he and his wife opened a
<v Speaker 1>restaurant up in the North Carolina Mountains know that.
<v Speaker 2>Wow?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, yeah, they ran They ran a restaurant up
<v Speaker 1>there for years, absolutely after his retirement from wrestling.
<v Speaker 3>Sure, so he he booked for Ron through the war
<v Speaker 3>or he ended up on another side? Did he leave Ron?
<v Speaker 3>What happened towards the end of seventy nine?
<v Speaker 1>But with Louis, No, he never well he Wasis Louis
<v Speaker 1>wasn't booking here at that time at that point in Ville. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>there was a hell a hell a bunch of different
<v Speaker 1>people helped out here. To start with. When it first started,
<v Speaker 1>Nelson Raw and I were helping Ron with the booking,
<v Speaker 1>and then Joe Hamilton came in and he Ron always
<v Speaker 1>had the final say, So like Joe was, you might
<v Speaker 1>as well say Joe was the booker and then so
<v Speaker 1>you know, and different guys. Robert his brother, was a
<v Speaker 1>booker at one point. I've always put my finger to
<v Speaker 1>two cents worth in here and there because I was
<v Speaker 1>that close with Ron. So yeah, it's it's hard to
<v Speaker 1>say at what point Louis Louis was, but Louis was
<v Speaker 1>held had a hell of a fertile mind how to
<v Speaker 1>put together good angles. I'm calling them angles if you're
<v Speaker 1>not old enough to know what an angle is in
<v Speaker 1>the wrestling business and storyline for your young people, yes, yes,
<v Speaker 1>that children.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, all right, Well, wrapping up with you, Less, it's
<v Speaker 3>been wonderful reflecting and getting kind of oriented on what
<v Speaker 3>what what things were like back then as we look
<v Speaker 3>back on this, this this quick revisit to what would
<v Speaker 3>be considered part of Southeastern in the end of seventy nine,
<v Speaker 3>for Terry, he's sharing the cards with guys like we
<v Speaker 3>talked about David Schalts, Dennis Condrey Orndorf, Tony Atlas, Dick Slater,
<v Speaker 3>Ox Baker, as well as others. Just a couple of
<v Speaker 3>recollections if you could on those names. I mean, Tony
<v Speaker 3>Atlas was someone that I think Jim Barnett believed in
<v Speaker 3>that only believed in quite a bit, but would be
<v Speaker 3>with Vince quite soon after this along with Terry.
<v Speaker 1>Do you think, well, Tony, I'm not knowing Tony since well,
<v Speaker 1>he was a state champion high school wrestler in Virginia
<v Speaker 1>and he started into Carolinas when I was there, So
<v Speaker 1>I've known Tony since he took his first bump. For
<v Speaker 1>guy's sake, Yeah, Tony hell of a kid.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, because when I look at when I look at
<v Speaker 2>him being matched.
<v Speaker 1>Up with what I was going to say, Ray is
<v Speaker 1>you just rattle off a whole bunch of names, and
<v Speaker 1>every one of them is somebody that if Hogan shut
<v Speaker 1>his mouth and opened his ears, he learned something from him.
<v Speaker 1>That's the other thing too, that the Indies don't have.
<v Speaker 1>When you put two kids that are at the same level,
<v Speaker 1>then it's basically the buying leading the blind. And I
<v Speaker 1>don't mean that in an obnoxious way, but you know,
<v Speaker 1>it's like if you and I, you and I are
<v Speaker 1>going into the stock market and we both have had
<v Speaker 1>two months training, it's the blind leading the damn blind.
<v Speaker 1>I don't care what you say. But anyway, so everybody
<v Speaker 1>that you're talking about there, especially the babyfaces, and Slater
<v Speaker 1>was a babyface here when you had guys like that
<v Speaker 1>to work with, I'm just picking Dicky out because I
<v Speaker 1>remember the name of that, one of the names you mentioned.
<v Speaker 1>Then you got to learn that that's that was. That
<v Speaker 1>was another thing about changing territories as a young man,
<v Speaker 1>you know. I started in Boston and went to Indianapolis,
<v Speaker 1>went to Calgary, Kansas City, et cetera, et cetera. Worked
<v Speaker 1>with Harley he was nineteen and I was twenty two
<v Speaker 1>the first time we ever locked up. But the point
<v Speaker 1>is you're working with different veterans in different territories, and
<v Speaker 1>different territories had not always marked different styles, but little
<v Speaker 1>things that are different. So you're picking up all these
<v Speaker 1>little idiosyncrasies on how to do things as you travel
<v Speaker 1>around to the different territories. You don't have excuse me,
<v Speaker 1>you don't have that today, you don't.
<v Speaker 3>So what was the relationship like between WWF and Georgia
<v Speaker 3>and Knoxville at the time if you went to New
<v Speaker 3>York from there, was it? Could it be friendly or
<v Speaker 3>did that necessarily indicate like tension friction, you know, territorial problems,
<v Speaker 3>because it looks like a lot of guys went.
<v Speaker 2>Back and for you.
<v Speaker 1>You know again you weren't under contract to anyone. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>Vince offered me. They flew me to Stanford, well actually
<v Speaker 1>with Loguardia and a limo to Stanford in nineteen eighty five.
<v Speaker 1>I'm sorry eighty four, Vince Junior, Right, Yeah, he wanted
<v Speaker 1>to hire me to come in. George Scott was the one.
<v Speaker 1>George Scott was a booker. I'm not sure the exact
<v Speaker 1>timelineant the book and George and I had worked together
<v Speaker 1>in the Carolinas and we used to do over one hundred,
<v Speaker 1>close to one hundred and twenty five promos every Wednesday
<v Speaker 1>between noon and five pm with all the top talent
<v Speaker 1>in the Carolinas every Wednesday and Raleigh. George was the
<v Speaker 1>booker there and I handled all the coordinator all the
<v Speaker 1>promos and this and that and the other thing. So
<v Speaker 1>when he got up there and they started, you know,
<v Speaker 1>when they first start on the road up there and
<v Speaker 1>started the expansion, they were doing promos every night in
<v Speaker 1>a different building inside soundproof tents down in the bowels
<v Speaker 1>of the coliseums, and so that was what they were
<v Speaker 1>George was familiar working with me, and so that's what
<v Speaker 1>they flew me and offered me a spot to coordinate
<v Speaker 1>all the promos. And then at some point there was
<v Speaker 1>even talk possibly taken over the USA to day programming
<v Speaker 1>as as the lead announcer. But anyway, it didn't come
<v Speaker 1>to fruitation for no bad reason. It's just for me
<v Speaker 1>to locate Limbs Stanford. At the time, it wasn't going
<v Speaker 1>to work one way or the other no matter what
<v Speaker 1>they offered me, because my dad had just passed in
<v Speaker 1>eighty three, and so as long as I was in Knoxville,
<v Speaker 1>my mom was just four hours away from me in
<v Speaker 1>Cincinnati at that time. But then I was transitioning. When
<v Speaker 1>they flew me to New York to talk to me
<v Speaker 1>about hiring me, I was transitioning to move to Cincinnati
<v Speaker 1>to be with my mother anyway, and of course events said, well,
<v Speaker 1>bring her on to Connecticut, and it wasn't going to
<v Speaker 1>take the time to say, Vince, she's lived in that
<v Speaker 1>house there for pushing on thirty years. And the neighbors,
<v Speaker 1>I mean, she knows all the neighbors. They know her,
<v Speaker 1>they help her out. She's the oldest person in the circle.
<v Speaker 1>I'll bring her to Connecticut, put her in a place
<v Speaker 1>she knows nobody. And then back then too, the talent
<v Speaker 1>were on the road sometimes seven to nine days without
<v Speaker 1>coming in, right, and so I'm going to have to
<v Speaker 1>be out there the same way they are, you know.
<v Speaker 1>So just that was the reason I didn't take it.
<v Speaker 1>I say, the money was good, the offer was good
<v Speaker 1>in health insurance, you know, and all the four one
<v Speaker 1>k's and all that stuff. But yeah, it just you know,
<v Speaker 1>it wouldn't work because of family thing. So anyway, that
<v Speaker 1>that was the deal there, and.
<v Speaker 3>You mentioned that, And I'd be remiss when we wrap
<v Speaker 3>up here less to not at least ask you about
<v Speaker 3>this if I'm not mistaken, correct me, if I am
<v Speaker 3>the very first what we consider WWF magazine in the
<v Speaker 3>late seventies before they brought Victory into existence in eighty three,
<v Speaker 3>and or Hawd Finkel, I believe you had something to
<v Speaker 3>do with that. Am I mistaken?
<v Speaker 2>There?
<v Speaker 1>I know you're not. I did five issues with what
<v Speaker 1>we called wwwf Action Wrestling, and it was basically the
<v Speaker 1>same format, same printers, same artists, same everything. I was
<v Speaker 1>living in Charlotte's time. Actually it was just before. It
<v Speaker 1>was in early seventies. I moved here to Knoxville in
<v Speaker 1>November of seventy sorry November seventy seven. I started flying
<v Speaker 1>in here in November of seventy four, But anyway, I
<v Speaker 1>started doing it. I still living in the Carolinas, and
<v Speaker 1>George Knopo Latana, one of the great photographers and magazine
<v Speaker 1>guys of the sixties and seventies and eighties and nineties
<v Speaker 1>and on, you know, was a friend of mine, and
<v Speaker 1>of course they had copies of the Crocket magazine. And
<v Speaker 1>I had done a one time only NWA magazine in
<v Speaker 1>seventy five as well, or seventy six. I'm sorry, and
<v Speaker 1>so anyway, I'm sorry my science they called me, you know,
<v Speaker 1>to do a magazine for them along the line. So
<v Speaker 1>I used, I say, I used all the people that
<v Speaker 1>I'd used in Charlotte for the Crockett magazine. I did
<v Speaker 1>five issues of the magazine for Vincent and for whatever reason,
<v Speaker 1>they decide not to do anymore.
<v Speaker 2>And how is Vince back then? Vince Senior?
<v Speaker 1>H oh, it was Vince Junior.
<v Speaker 3>Oh okay, I think in late seventies. Okay, so Vince
<v Speaker 3>Junior was involved then.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, yeah, well this is when Vince Junior was living
<v Speaker 1>up in New England and had a didn't he have
<v Speaker 1>a coliseum and Cape Cod which, yeah, yeah, I've been
<v Speaker 1>Cape Cod right, This is when he was up there,
<v Speaker 1>got it.
<v Speaker 3>So I didn't know he was part of that. I
<v Speaker 3>always assumed that there was perhaps a period where Vince
<v Speaker 3>Senior was interested in doing the magazine, not Vince Junior,
<v Speaker 3>but yeah, of course he was.
<v Speaker 2>He was involved there as well.
<v Speaker 1>Well.
<v Speaker 3>Quite a history lesson as we were expecting. Less that chere.
<v Speaker 3>We want to thank you so much for taking some
<v Speaker 3>time to reflect on what it was like back then.
<v Speaker 3>Like I say, there's so little material that survives pritcuarly
<v Speaker 3>videotape that your memories of that time period are vital
<v Speaker 3>to coloring all of this in. So we want to
<v Speaker 3>thank you so much for giving us some time.
<v Speaker 2>As a tea to Santus production. Its content is intended
<v Speaker 2>for private youth only. Banda Bagdada Dandam Banda