TLF Talks: Colin Hunter from Kayfabe News talks The Art of Refereeing

It's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling Podcast with Jack and carn S e O and JP
Sorrows. A lapsed fan. In all my years wrestling, I've never seen
anything like rob Kick. It's the laps Fan Man Number one. The ring
begin about Sada, a real king of swing with the bell goes hang and
a kick like me throoming in the corner with its rash like stick. Even
Jerry King could say off the crown, nodding his head like Steve low Brown?
Would you get low down for me? Go even high up? Trip
you on your head? But you no cool drivel you speaking monology and dragon
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Beans. The best podcast from the start, The close File of Your Benefits
Fassick at polls Well, it's been an absolute deluge of funk, a consistent
die at, a steady diet of funk here on the feed, and we
figured why not give the Solar system boss. As we enter the holiday season,
something to unwrap a little special treat maybe maybe a stocking stuffer as it
goes here at TLF. Indeed, and so TLF talks a very rare occasional
series. I suppose you could say is is resurfacing because Colin Hunter over at
kfave News has got a lot going on, and it's a kindred spirit with
the lapsed fan and that it spares no punches when it comes to lampooning this
industry and trying to make comedic hay out of, you know, our unfortunate
fate of being, you know, lifelong wrestling fans and all of the destitution
and sadness and loneliness that comes with it. And so in Colin, we
have a we have a brother in arms, and he's got a documentary coming
out, or at least he's crowdfunding for one which sounds really cool called The
Ref. Didn't see it, but you can find on Kickstarter. We'll get
to all that, as well as the notion of k fab News, the
onion of pro wrestling, it's been called, and rightfully so, Colin.
It's great to have you on the show. Thanks for joining us, Thank
you for having me. It's so good to be here among kindred spirits and
I didn't realize quite how pressing you would phrase it, but yes, we're
all together in this sad existence we've we've built for ourselves. I'm glad to
see it that way. So let's waste no time in terms of talking about
the ref didn't see it, because I have. I have a lot of
questions in terms of what you coming at the business from a similar angle that
we do, a similar story. It's not a jaundice die, but it's
you know, it's it's with a great degree of amusement that that you look
upon. Yes, pro wrestling and the referees role is definitely one of the
undertold parts of pro wrestling. And I get what you're going for here with
making a documentary for more general consumption about you know, this curious phenomenon of
the of the third man in the ring. So first of all, tell
folks sort of where you stand on the project and what it is you might
need from folks listening. So we are mostly filmed the project. We've been
filming for the past year at independent shows around Canada and the US, mostly
including in Los Angeles around WrestleMania weekend. We were there and the ref didn't
see it. It started out. The idea was, I want to make
a documentary about these unsung heroes and zebra shirts, and I want to do
it by becoming one myself, and I will chronicle my journey to becoming a
referee. And that's how it started. But what I realized was that in
meeting other referees that I was interviewing and learning from their stories, all of
their stories are fascinating and each of them brings something unique to what they do,
and what they do is so misunderstood. You know, I'm now doing
it. I'm refereeing. Basically, I'm refereeing on the indie circuit practically every
weekend now. But it's still every time I do it, my eyes feel
like they're opening wider and wider to wrestling, which is something I thought I
knew my whole life. But once you actually step inside the ring and are
part of the show, there's a whole new mention that opens up. Well,
bus you've trained, you've trained for the ring. Yeah, so you
know, you've had just a little bit of a flavor of what it's like
to learn to, you know, actually do the matches. But I mean,
any any questions for Colin regards the refereeing part of it, because that's
that's more important part of learning than people realize that I would imagine it is.
I mean, you know, having had only you know, two matches
you know in the ring as a wrestler myself, I I can't even imagine
the like, what what does it take? Like what's your first what's your
first role being in there? Honestly, because you know, I never really
had too much interaction with the referees for the matches that I had, and
you know, I just kind of did my thing and just kind of ignored
them for the most time unless I was yelling at them for some for some
reason or another. You know, the first rule, number one rule is
knowing how to be invisible the Yeah, referee. First, you're not there
to get yourself over. If you are being a referee, because you want
to be the one whose I fans eyeballs are on, you've made a mistake.
Yeah, the referee has to blend into the background for most of the
show, which is easier said than done. I'm six foot three, kind
of clumsy and so and I'm conspicuous and I'm fairly big, and what you
really have to learn is anticipating where the wrestlers are going to be and how
not to be there, but also anticipating site lines, especially if there's cameras
in the room. The last thing you want to do as a referee is
block the viewpoint of the dramatic moment that the foreign object came out or the
pinfalls being made. So spatial awareness is huge. Staying out of the way
is huge, and in some matches I barely know anything going in. In
some matches, I know every single move that is envisioned, But ultimately you
have to be able to move on the change on a dime and pivot on
the fly because the wrestlers have to tell their story and my job is to
help them do that in a way that doesn't take away from it. You
know, a bad referee can really ruin a good match, and a good
referee can really make a match sing. So there's a lot more to it
than I ever expected, I imagine, did like, uh when you did
you know when when the and the matches that you've participated in, did you
know were you told who what the finish was going to be and how it
was going to be delivered? Or was it more. Did you not know
at all? It totally varies. I've discovered that it completely varies. Uh
do you know? Uh, Cody deaner Impact Wrestling, he's he's been a
veteran of the Ontario scene here in Canada forever, and he invited me.
This was a big honor actually because I had only had a handful of matches
refereed under my belt and he's heddelining an indie show and he invited me to
to referee his match. And you know, ultimately the compliment that he gave
me, they didn't tell me what they were doing going in. Really,
Cody told me, you know, I've had some injuries and some pain in
this shoulder, just you know, watch out for me, make sure I'm
all okay, Like check up on me, which is part of the referee's
job is dead serious. You have to make sure those guys are okay.
You have to protect them from themselves because they will keep going against better judgment.
So sometimes the referee has to be the voice of reason. But anyway,
Cody Diener and other wrestlers have some have just said, you know,
just call it as if it's real, Like you don't have to know what
we're going to do. Yeah, just call it as you see it.
You know the rules of wrestling, enforce them if we if your hand is
coming down for three and our shoulder doesn't come up, slam the mat,
hit three other wrestlers. Usually, I think the less experienced ones will plan
things out a bit more and we can go through sort of the beats of
you know, how they're going to work the crowd, but you know a
plan? What's the phrase of plan? Is just a list of things that
will go wrong. No match ever unfolds exactly as it's planned. And I
find the most fun ones are the ones where the wrestlers just say to me,
just be a ref just enforce the rules, just do it, and
there is I can play my role complete at least straight, and if the
wrestlers are good enough, they can do everything they need to do, including
the heels, without me sort of looking like a dupe. You know,
sometimes the referee looks like an idiot because they're always looking the wrong way.
But a good heel can work the ref in a way that's satisfying and doesn't
challenge the suspension of disbelief. See, I can't believe you'd never go in
there, callin not knowing at least the finish, because when you're slapping two
and you're about to slap three, that's got to be nerve wracking as hell.
Oh god, it's so stressful. Yeah, you don't know who's going
to go over, what if you fuck up, what if you come up
with a heavy hand, what if he's laid in the kickout? Yeah,
well it is super stressful. And so I think, I think, I
almost I think I've always known who the winner or loser is going to be,
but I don't always know when. So sometimes the wrestlers will change,
will call an audible depending on what the audience is doing or depending on how
they're feeling. So you know, they might say we're going to finish with
a powerbom unless the choke slam gets a huge pop then and with the choke
slam, I'm like, oh great, But I don't know what is good
enough for you guys, right, you know what? So you know,
it's super nerve wracking because I feel my hand coming down for three, and
I think there's only a certain threshold at which I can no longer stop my
hand and permitting the mat. But you know, the worst thing a referee
can do is pull up short when there when there's been no kickout. You
know, it's to break the illusion that they're actually pounding at a three count
and stop the count when there has been no a lift of the shoulder.
That's where the problems lie. So you know, even if the wrestlers may
get temporarily mad that they've got pinned before they expected, it's they they've all
told me, just count, count the pin. If I don't get my
shoulders up, that's my fault. Yeah, well one thing, and this
might just because some of them wait until a nano a second before that.
Three games, it's so it's so horrifying. Yeah, that's the whole the
dramatic thing of it is kicking out at two and three quarters. But I
can't imagine going in there and confidently doing that if the referee didn't know what
the finishing sequence was. So that's uh that that's a hairy situation. So
what about this? This might just be me but sort of be in my
bonnet, And for referees has always been if they hit the mat with too
much of a thud, it sounds like a one count one two sounds like
you hit three. Do you know what I'm talking about? Is that something
avoid talking about. I've heard it, I've I've been thrown off by it
when I've been watching live shows or televised shows. So I'm not saying I've
never done it. But one thing I try to do is hit the mat
with my hand as hard as I possibly can. So it's harder than any
other sound that's been made so far, aside. You know, a big
power slammer, a power bomb or whatever. It's going to make a huge
sound, but I don't want my body to be anywhere near that level of
volume going down. So I try to go down and sort of start the
count as i'm hitting, you know, as I'm going to all four,
as I try to make that motion the one if I've seen the shoulders down.
It's funny. There's all these techniques that you don't referees when you get
talking to them. They have different techniques about how you you know, when
it's a two and seven eighths count, do you do the lawnmower arm movement,
which is sort of a sweeping arm movement. I do so of a
belly flop where I'm using my whole body to stop my one hand permitting the
mat. It's very ungraceful and it's a beached whale, but I feel like
it adds some drama. You know, my belly like a like a whale,
and I'm holding out one hand but with two fingers up screaming too and
I don't know. I would like to say I'm doing it deliberately, but
it's about all I can do with physically. Oh that's spectacular. Yeah,
I sort of have a belly flop style that's working for me. I'd imagine
you don't have your pieces, and right these are indie shows. A lot
of refs on the indie shows here are using ear pieces now, but I
haven't yet. And you know, it's just like wrestling. When you're first
starting, you work the easiest type of match. You know, you're in
a battle oil, you know, and I've left about a royal, and
then you're in a sort of notice qualifications cluster fudge. You know, it's
all chaotic. And the first singles match I worked was a good housekeeping match
China versus Oh yeah, of course, yes, Sarrett. It was to
play on that between an actual couple, a real life couple, and they
bash each other, but there was no rules, so I had very little
to do except like look at them and say, hey, stop doing that.
So as a referee, you work your way up and you know,
singles matches are easier than tag matches, and tag matches are easier than you
know, six man tag matches, and when they get really complicated and you
have TV timing to work into it, that's when an earpiece comes in handy.
So a lot of the rests that I'm profiling in this movie, they're
indie refs, but they are using the earpiece because even some of these smaller
shows now are being broadcast live to IWTV Fight Network or some streaming service,
so they try to you know, actually love it because in the wrestling shows
I remember when I was younger, they would always start late and go slow
and have all these delays. And in the air of streaming, they've they're
getting more punctual, or or get completely canceled for no reason whatsoever. I've
had. I remember when I was a kid that there was a there was
a very very small indie show happening in in where I lived in New Hampshire,
and it got canceled because because the truck with the ring broke down,
so they couldn't fucking put it on at the Lions Club. Yeah. When
I was I don't know, the teenager, it was sort of a running
joke when we'd see posters for wrestling around town because one in four would actually
happen. Oh, that's hilarious because at the time Ontario where I live still
you still needed a wrestling license by the Ontario Sporting Commissioner or something to put
on a show, and you need to put up a huge amount of insurance.
And they finally overturned that. I think LuFisto was a played a big
hand and getting rid of this ridiculous administration for indie shows. But so I
saw. I used to collect posters of indie shows that never happened. I
had awesome posters saying King Kong Bundi and Greg Valentine coming to town. I'm
like, I don't think they are. I suppose it depends how you spell
Lions Club there. It's a good point. That's a very good point.
But so so have you ever had to pass a blade? Colin slice themselves
open for the business. I haven't passed a blade, but I've been backstage
as the participants in a death match that I refereed got all ready for their
match, and I I have to say that I don't know if you follow
death match wrestling at all. It's sort of a guilty pleasure of mine.
And I love some of the old school guys like mad Man Pondo and necro
Butcher, and I've sort of befriended mad Man Pond over the past couple of
years, and so I arranged for him to come up and do a death
match with at a promotion here, death Proof Fight Club. And so I
couldn't you know, I've only refereed a handful of matches, never done a
death match before. And then here's this death match legend. I see all
these blades getting ready and all this glow glass and thumbtags, and ultimately I
ended up getting skewered. Yeah, skews to the head. That was my
fault for being a bad referee. I deserved it. But no, so
although I haven't passed a blade, I've been in a blood bath, and
uh, I gotta say, like, it's not something I necessarily want to
do again. But uh, you could have you could have told me that
I had died, had gone to heaven, when I was lying on the
mat in blood. Wow, it was so fun wild, it was.
It was quite an experience. I loved it. So you were skewered what
does that mean? So? I don't know if you've ever seen Masada as
the deathmatch wrestler that's made it famous. But those long, pointy wooden barbecue
skewers. Oh yeah, I see Shishika Bob's on. Yeah. John Moxley
just did it. Yeah yeah, so I oh my god, Okay,
I need to know about this. How does that not puncture your foreheads?
You're a head skin forever? Oh it does? Oh cool? Yeah.
So the backstory was earlier in the show. As the referee, I stated,
you know, we are filming a documentary here about referees, and all
the fans I said, you know, please cheer and have fun. But
then I told the the head organizer of the show, Warhead the Matt,
a death Proof leader. I said, sorry, you can't use skewers on
this show. It's too disgusting and the producers of our movie won't allow it.
And so the crowd bowed me, and they hated me because I'm the
guy who's trying to say you can't use a weapon and a death match.
So by the end of the show, one thing led to another. I
got knocked out cold, I got I got ref bumped by Madman Ponda.
I was out cold. I missed a pin and the and warhead was so
mad that he he jammed a bunch of wooden skewers into my head. And
the crowd went wild because the jerk Rath got what was coming to him.
That's amazing. So that's not Shakespearean's storytellers high art exactly. Emphasis on high
say, well that was, yeah, it was immediately after that. Yeah,
Well, at least it's a better reason than Abdullah the Butcher used to
get mad when people banned skewers from the building the a Golden Corral. So
so what if the guys outside the ring and your slow roll in the count
because you know it's not a count out finished, and what if the whole
front row starts counting ten in your face? What do you do? Well,
boy, every time I have ref and especially the last time, I
I was hearing the fans, I was really hearing their tons, and you
know I would do a count either a count out from the ring or a
pinfall count and I'd either hear like come on, RAF, that's a slow
count. Come on, RAF, that's a fast count, or like open
your eyes. And I have to say I think I have a I need
to get a thicker skin, because part of me was genuinely like hurt.
I was like I'm doing I'm trying my best. But but then I realized
every time, hundreds of times in my life, I've been the guy yelling
at the referee like that's a slow cow and open your eyes, like that's
part of the show. So yeah, they yell at me all the time
like they're gonna yell at somebody. And if the two wrestlers are down and
the only person doing anything is the referee counting, they're gonna yell at the
referee and there is no pleasing. You know that the beauty of indie wrestling
is you every taunt back and forth between the crowd and the and the wrestlers
is audible to everybody. And and so you know, the fans are trying
to one up each other and they're trying to get a rise out of the
referee, and you know, you can play with it a bit, but
my job. You know, if if you think of it like a comedy
duo or a comedy trio. You know, I'm the straight man with these
two performers, the heel and the baby face. So no matter what the
crowd says, part of me is trying to laugh along. Sometimes I even
want to cheer when I see a move like reflexively. I'll be in the
ring and some will do an amazing move and I want to like cheer,
but I have to remember who I am and where I am. So one
of the hardest things about being a ref is pretending that none of that is
getting to me, none of the highs or the low it's like the joy
of doing it. I try to hide it, and the u and the
bruises to my ego that I come from, the fans yelling at me,
I try to hide that too. You talk about how important it is that
a referee be inconspicuous, though I can in my mind imagine referees reacting to
a big bump, you know, like like let's say a big superplex and
the referee jumps up with his hands on his head on impact. That that
to me is additive. It's not the ref trying to take the spotlight,
but are you sort of conscious of I can't react to any of the moves,
or do you feel you should react to certain ones? So yeah,
there's a lot of there's a lot of discussion among the zebras on this topic.
So I yeah, I I believe that for very big moves that look
very painful, that the referee should react. Uh. I don't think the
referee needs to be too reactive because in KFE, like in the storyline,
in that universe, this is a professional referee. This is what he does
for a living. He's seen this stuff before. So you know, a
normal body slam shouldn't freaking out a referee that's a that's just power for the
course, right, So I think referees responses have to be sort of proportional
to what they're seeing and in character. So I one wrestler told me,
you know, if I'm not if I'm not hurting, if I'm not screaming,
then don't check on me, Like, don't ask me if I if
I would need to tap unless I'm absolutely screaming, because why why would I
tap to an arm baren. I'm a wrestler. I've been in one of
these before. So yeah, I just refereed a strap match where the two
wrestlers have a leather strap between them and they're whipping each other with a strap
and there's no disqualifications. They match on the ends when one wrestler touches for
consecutive turnbuckles. Meaning there's not a whole lot for me to do except act
shocked. But I was shocked. I know these guys and they were whipping
the crap right right, So it would almost be almost it would almost be
even more of an expose in the business if you didn't react. You know
what I mean exactly, Yeah, So you know, I'm reacting in a
pretty genuine way. Like everything is heightened at a wrest everyone's emotions, including
in the audience. Everything's just a little heightened. But you know, when
I am in the ring and I'm seeing this and my job is to be
attentive it, it doesn't take much for me to sell that I'm shocked and
amazed by these moves, Like when you're right there with him, the look
on my face is pretty genuine. Austiny pet peeves for referee in that you
want to take out on Collin Well, I was actually curious about one thing
because you know he talked about doing a strap match, and we know your
frustration with the strap match and the rules of it, and so I was
actually curious about, you know, the rules of course of of of touching
all four turnbuckles in succession. So so now when does that when you referee
a match, when does that start over? Officially? I am, yeah,
come on, this is a question I should have thought of before the
match, not just now. I think it's that's a good question, uh,
because take that one back to the committee. To be honest, We're
backstage and it's about ten minutes before the match and I said to one of
the wrestlers in the match, I was like, wait, what are the
rules for this? Yeah, because I got confused because with a dog collar
match, which I don't think is a touch the corners thing, that's just
beat the crap out of a breath. That's as you can't run away exactly.
Yeah. Right, So so the question is, you know, if
a guy hits three corners but he fails to touch the fourth, does he
have the rest of the night to reach the fourth or or doesn't he come
back? Or does it happen? Because because sometimes you see it like sometimes
you see it where the guy will go, you know, get three and
then he'll be uh stopped, but then he starts over again. So yeah,
what do you come on? What do we do? I feel a
lot of this, thankfully. A lot of times I'm told before a match
like refreez discretion, like tell me, you know, you know the rules,
but also this is an adult's only show where you know, also punk
bands playing, so don't disqualify an it like, you know, you have
to know what kind of audience there is. And I think that would make
sense. You know, a little league referee wouldn't allow kids to sort of
get in each other's face and trash talk, but the same referee working at
the you know, the league game. Yeah, yeah, the men's rectlygue
would allow it. So I think a lot of it is context dependent,
and you know, a lot of times something I learned from watching some good
refs like Jimmy Corderis and Earl Hebner. At times you can see when they're
trying to enforce the rules and they're trying to maintain order, and then they
just sort of do a little thing where they shrug and put up their shoulders
and say, you know what, I'm just gonna let them go. Yeah,
as long as you telegraph that to the crowd, it's okay. As
long as the referee is like, you know what, I'm frustrated. Let
these guys. You know, you see hockey referees do it. We're gonna
let these guys fight it for a few minutes before we maintain orders. So
I love that move when you know, I mean, I may be powerless
to to stop something because of the no disqualification rules or something, but I
can. I can express my frustration, uh and my desire that they behave
in a sportsmanlike manner even if I can't disqualify. You know, I can
admonish a heel even if I can't disqualify them. And you know that's part
of the fun, because then the heel gets up in the referees face and
I've got to be an authority figure but cowed by the big scary wrestler.
There's a lot of room for improv in every moment, not every moment,
so I should say in a lot of moments. Yeah, the job is
to be out of the way, inconspicuous, invisible, like the magician's assistant.
You don't notice them until you do, and then they're suddenly part of
the illusion. Part of the illusion. You're tout evoking the passions of people.
And you know, when you're an indie show, it's by definition there's
like some irony there, Like people are screaming at you because it's a fun
thing to do when you go to the matches to bust your balls. It's
it's not because they actually, you know, have a rooting interest in who
wins. But I don't know. I mean, I look at those crowds
in the sixties and seventies, you know, in the fifties, these people
are not there just to give the referee a hard time for a good night
out. They want the referee to be fucking stabbed in the face if he
doesn't do the right thing by the babyface. Have you ever detected all these
years later as dead as cafebiz that Wait a minute, there's someone in the
crowd. They might have something wrong with them, but they really want to
hurt me because I just messed that up. Well I did get stabbed in
the faith by a bunch of skewers and the crowd loved it. Well,
yeah, that's true. There's that. Yeah, you know, I you
see there there's varying degrees of people that seem to believe even it, and
I think there's varying degrees of how people comfortable people are with going along with
it. So some people will never admit that they even watch wrestling, and
certainly they don't believe any of it's real. But I like, you know,
at an indie show, when somebody still talks in k fabe, you
know they still talk in the storylines, is that these wrestlers are real.
They know they're not because they see the wrestlers over at the merch table selling
this stuff. But yeah, it's I think nowadays just about everybody is in
on the joke, is in on k fabe, and those who aren't I
kind of envy them because what a fun way to experience wrestling. It's sort
of that childlike way of the way we first all started watching it, as
long as they realize that there's not actual violence being played out. But you
know, when you watch a show with a lot of kids, a sort
of kid friendly show, even they know essentially what's going on. They know
that they can go up to the evil bad guy afterwards, and he's not
going to beat them up. If it's done right, everyone's in on the
joke, and that's what makes it fun to communal experience. Absolutely, do
you ever have to go over and squeeze the wrist to get the squeeze back
to make sure the guy's okay? I do, And that's interesting that you
said that, because that's a part of it. I don't think I even
knew about before. And it's very important because I've seen instances. Thankfully,
I haven't been in the ring when this has happened, but referee friends of
mine have where our real injury has happened, but the opponent, the other
wrestler, doesn't know, so they continue performing, you know, going trying
to ground and pull the other wrestler up and do a roll up or whatever
the next sequence of moves is. And the referee is the first to know
and has to communicate that quickly to the other wrestler and then essentially go into
first aid mode, you know, when when a real injury happens, fans
understand that the show has to stop and that this is a suspension of disbelief
is paused. But yes, I do check up on wrestlers, and the
funny my very first match, I was so adamant that I want to do
everything right. I want to be with my positioning right. You know,
I'd done training matches at a wrestling school and I've been critiqued and I watch
video, and so first match in front of a crowd, I really wanted
to do well and I really wanted to make sure I didn't forget anything.
So on numerous occasions, probably four or five, this is the good Housekeeping
match, and Sabrina Kyle, one of the wrestlers. She's getting thrown around
and hit with garbage cans and all sorts of chairs and stuff, and so
I kept checking on her and giving little squeeze in the hand until probably the
fourth, fifth or sixth time, and I just leaned down and when she
was down, I squeezed her hand. I said okay, and she goes,
yes, I'm fine. Stop asking. It turns out that she was
doing just fine, and that that was a case of yeah, me being
over cautious, like this is someone who's my friend, she was my one
of my trainers, and I'm seeing her get you know, sure, it's
I knew it's a work, but you can only work at trash Can so
many ways it's still a trash can. That's what I'm sort of worried about
my friend, and she tells me to leave her alone. So that was
a good lesson. Be be aware, but also don't be a pest.
Like the wrestlers have enough to think about their right when they're in the middle
of one sequence, they're thinking about the next one, and they're probably kicking
themselves because the previous one didn't go very well. And you know, they're
all theater kids at heart, so they're full of insecurities and their their own
worst critics. So the last thing you want is a referee is to like
add to their things to worry about in the ring. Along kind of alongside
that, I was curious about what what about ref bumps because oftentimes we see
a ref bump on TV, and it's a little at least in my in
my older age as I've gotten older in my middle age. Rather, I
feel like it looks so phony when a ref gets simply squashed in between two
wrestlers, or gets squashed, you know, in a turnbuckle, when these
guys have been tossing each other into into you know, the barricades and you
know, doing super plexes. And all that kind of shit. Yet a
simple squash in the turnbuckles knocks a ref out completely for like fifteen minutes.
Yeah, yeah, I you know. I once wrote a k Fave news
story that said the headline was bumped referee inexplicably Fine, that's really funny.
They're so susceptible to bump. So in theory, I get the logic.
I get the KFA logic that, you know, wrestlers are these larger than
life powerhouses and there they live on a different level than us normal mortal humans.
So what they can endure us normal humans like the referees could not possibly
endure. So I kind of get that, but I also it has its
limits. So I've only taken one ref bump and it was just like that.
It was from Madman Pondo and I got squished in a corner and down
I went. But I wasn't down for a long time. Like I think,
the onus is on the wrestlers and the agents, if there are agents
everybody putting the match together to not create these situations that really defy logic.
You know, a seven minute ref bump, it does seem a bit crazy
when all it happened was he got switched between two bodies, which ideally that's
something that happens to you in the bedroom on a regular occasion. Like,
you know, referee shouldn't be that breakable. But yeah, I think I
like the logic of it as long as as long as it's not absurd.
One of my favorite things before before a wrestling show, before the door is
open, there's always a meeting of the talent and the crew and they go
over the card, and my favorite promoters always make a noticeing like don't make
the referees look stupid, ye don't make them look at nothing for no reason,
and don't make them lie there squished, you know, dead for seven
minutes after you've just been nudge corners. So it can be kind of a
lazy way of allowing a huge amount of cheating to happen to have an interminable
ref pump. But I do like the idea that a ref is is not
even of the same species as these super you know, these superior wrestlers who
they can beat each other up and throw each other around, But a lowly
referee is just like the humans and the audience, and it crumples easily,
definitely with you on that call and the disconnect is like, we know what
kind of a blow knocks somebody out versus hurts them. So I don't see
why ref cell being unconscious when someone compresses their chest as opposed to clutch their
chest, you know, roll to the floor and act dazed and confused,
or just sit, you know, just sit on your can and look at
the fans like like you're glazed over. I mean, I guess if the
spot calls for you to be out for five consecutive minutes, then you need
to work a spot in where a right hand lands on the jaw. You
know, you can't be doing this shit where like you get tapped on the
you know, on the right pectoral muscle and you're you're six feet under.
Yeah. Interesting, So yesterday was there was an anniversary of a match I
think it was Austin versus The Rock in two thousand and one, and Earl
Hebner gets bumped. This is at one of the pay per views, and
it was just yeah, yesterday, the day before was the anniversary of it.
That's why it's on my mind. But Earl Hebner is down through like
five or six different interferences, like people come running to the ring and then
they're gone, and poor Earl who you get squished in the corner, but
he's just there, his head sort of dangling off the edge of the ring,
aprin and you know at that point someone to check for a pulse,
like if anyone that long, they might be dead. Yeah, to me,
that's actually, you know, that's really sound psychology to send a doctor
or trainer down there, Yeah, to deal with the ref. So the
ref doesn't have to act unconscious the whole time, but he can also act
like he's completely incapacitated as it regards paying attention to the match, and like
there's activity there because I feel for a ref that is supposed to bump and
lay out for a long time and for whatever reason, the guys get crossed
up and it doesn't look that devastating, but you still have to sell you're
not about to rerun a ref bump. You know that would be death.
So it's uh, what I've realized is that when referees do their job really
well, you don't remember their performance at all. So all of the times
that a ref bump was done well by a good wrestlers but a good match,
we don't remember those because they were seamless, and yeah, it can
be worked. You know, it's such a classic trope of the referee as
incapacitated so the hea can cheat. It's it's part of the archetype of the
whole thing. And yeah, I think if it's if it's pulled off well,
it can be really effective. I think something you said earlier got my
gears turning in terms of like the wrestler who told you you know, yes,
I've been in an armbar before, like stop checking on me, like
I can survive some of it. And to me, you know, we're
now, geez, like twenty years post the UFC becoming almost twenty years the
UFC becoming you know, something that everybody has seen and we actually know that
the opposite is true that if you're in a submission by someone who knows what
they're doing, it should be over in seconds. Now, I'm not turning
to you to try to reinvent the vocabulary of the wrestling business, the umbring
vocabulary. I am yeah, right, has that ever come up though?
What it's like actually, if you really cared about making it look real,
and it wasn't just you trying to replicate matches you saw when you were a
little kid, you would actually be panicking like crazy in an arm bar and
it wouldn't be on you for more than three seconds. Otherwise the other person
looks like they don't know what they're doing. The person applying the move.
Yeah, I go back and forth with like the realism thing and comparing to
when you see UFC. You know, a UFC came around and people realize
like, oh, that's what actual fighting right looks like, and wrestling doesn't
look like that. But when wrestling has tried to look like that, you
know, I think the most egregious example was the brawl for all, it
doesn't work because wrestling. I just wrestling has this sort of surface resemblance to
fighting, but because it is so much more than that and so much different
than that, I think when it tries to emulate real fighting, it sort
of flops. You know. Wrestling has all of these internal consistencies and rules
that only make sense with its own, within its own universe, and I
I don't think it needs to apologize for them or change, you know.
We we all just accept that when someone is thrown towards three tight ropes,
they will turn their body at the last second. And bounce off those ropes
and return with equal or greater speed. It doesn't. It defies all the
laws of feet. More importantly, that they actually are thrown into the ropes,
like why can't they just stop their feet, yeah, exactly, or
hold onto the rope? Yeah yeah, And why do you have to turn
around to hit the ropes with your back? Like yeah, So I like
that. We just accept all of these things that are the way they are
in wrestling, and not even if they seem like if you look at the
people's elbow, you know they might as it might as well have a big
knee on sign over it saying wrestling it's fake, but nobody cares. Everyone
still cheers. Uh, well, it's an elbow to the heart. It's
an elbow to the heart. So it's very very impactful. Yeah, if
a referee, can you know, pass away when someone flicks his forehead the
people's elbow, want to kill somebody? I mean heart punch styles. You
only jumped over the person once, that's one thing, but he goes over
them slights. That's practically slog Last one for me on the art of refereeing
that you've said I saw you didn't ask me anything on Reddit. Thanks for
linking that up. That was interesting. So one of the things you said
is that you know, once you start paying attention to the referee and that
you start to learn to do it yourself, you almost kind of get in
a headspace where you can't you can't look at anything but the referee, and
you notice all of these things they're doing that you would never think to look
for if you didn't train to do it yourself. What are some of the
things that you notice referees do now that you didn't before you try doing it
yourself. I think a lot of it is body language and body positioning.
So you know, in wrestling, especially when it's not televised, when you
only have the live audience, you have to telegraph to the back row.
You have to communicate these ideas. And I always like to think, you
know, when you're a wrestling fan and you're talking to wrestling fans the way
we are, you sort of assume that everybody's a wrestling fan. But I
love seeing first timers at wrestling shows. Oh yeah, you really don't even
know what it is. They're like, oh, wrestling, you mean like
at the Olympics or like the hotel and stuff like, and then you see
them they need the referee to help understand how the universe works. You know,
if you don't know what if the sheriff doesn't tell you what's it's illegal
in town, then you won't understand the drama of the re of the heel
sneaking around and the baby face getting screwed and so so the referee is sort
of the envoy of the of the audience and represents basically the rules of society
and has to embody them. So I like knowing that when I'm reffing it
at a show that there's probably some first timers who have never seen wrestling before,
and I'm helping them understand what the story is. And of course there's
people who they've been to a few wrestling shows, you know, they all
when you only have ten minutes or fifteen minutes per match, you need to
use every sec second of it to tell the story of who's who, what
their motivations are, what their per personalities are. Not the referee doesn't have
a personality unless unless it's been written in. But the referee you can use
his or her reactions and timing and facial expressions and everything else. To enhance
the characters that they're with, you know, to really get mad at the
heel in escalating fury as they continue to break the rules despite your warnings,
you know, and the you know, the poor baby face pleading, like
are you kidding? I thought that was a three count and I'm sorry.
There's nothing that a two. You can all you're always an envoy to the
audience to help them understand the story, and it's it's really fun to be
part of that. So it's just something I never really thought about until I
started doing it, that, you know, and to me now, if
you don't mind me rambling for a minute, I sort of fell out of
love with wrestling during the lockdowns and the pandemic. I couldn't stand watching wrestling
with no audience, with no crowd. It seemed like a pointless like like
soccer without the ball. You know. That was really I was just thinking
about that twenty you say that, Colin, I was just thinking about that
today. Like that's when you really knew you had a problem, is when
you kept watching wrestling habitually with no fans, Like really, that's when you
realize, like you're like Vlad, Like if there's no wrestling, you might
kill yourself. But that's the thing. I couldn't do it. I couldn't.
I just didn't watch it anymore. And I really struggled with, you
know, the idea that wrestling is entirely a spectator sport or phenomenon and the
live audience means so much to it. And so of course, as the
world opened up and and I've been working on this document entry and spending a
lot of time at indie wrestling shows and performing on them, it's completely pulled
me back into love with wrestling, and in a totally different way, Like
now I see the whole thing as performance are like not just the match,
not just the the wrestling, but the whole event, to the venue and
the ring announcer and the crowd and the smell of the hot dogs and body
odor, Like the whole thing, to me is a three hour work of
performance art. That's like, you don't get a second shot, you don't
get a do over. The work of art is what that audience experience is
for two or three hours. And that's I've realized. The audience is it's
the whole thing. Wrestling exists to entertain people. There's no other reason for
these people to fight their their feuds are so stupid that it would never sustain
if there wasn't an audience to perform. More So, yeah, this getting
in front of audiences and being in them has actually fully pulled me back into
love bit of wrestling. He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack and JP
Soo. He's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast. So the documentary is called The
ref Didn't See It And at kickstarter dot com there is an ongoing fundraising project.
Of course, as Colin has talked about, he shot a fair amount
of not all the footage he's gonna need for this thing, but it's a
labor of love, and we support labors of love here at TLF, so
it's right what you consider supporting Over on Kickstarter. His efforts to edit the
film together and get the story of the pro wrestling referee out into general circulation
a lot of work done. So let's see it through and let's help him
get to the finish line. The Kickstarter campaign's open until November twenty second,
so do consider supporting it. If you're listening to this and Colin, you
know, we first began talking because of Kfabe News which, of course,
as I mentioned at the top, is is onion like and that you write
these, you know, straightforward satirical articles about wrestling that in many cases you
might do a double take and think we're true. I know, I've seen
kfabe news posts on Twitter that I thought for just a brief second, because
you could totally see some like smart site called k fab News totally like doesn't
have to yeah you know what I mean, it's k fabe everything, every
podcast, right, yeah, exactly. So, so you write these sort
of satirical things that touch at truths in the industry or just you know,
present outright absurdities, and and I guess maybe the best way to to to
work into that is do you have a situation where you wrote something and it
got like the highest profile reaction, like like it really struck a chord someone
in the business. Maybe you can't name them, maybe you can't, I
don't know. Said, you know, that's that's closer to the truth than
you ever can appreciate, because we hear that all the time at laps Fan
when we do imitations and you know, get into Vince's head and all that.
I wonder if you have experiences like that there have been times when stories
have gone pretty viral because they've been so close to believable that they've fooled a
lot of people. One that really stands out was remember when Hull Cogan sued
Gawker into oblivion and got five million? Yes we did, Oh yes we
did. We just finished like six months of podcasting about it. In my
god, is it hard to separate what actually happened from what didn't on that
one? Oh? God, Yeah, it's a tangled web. But anyway,
like I think, almost immediately after that decision was made in the multi
one hundred and whatever million dollar case for Hogan, I published a k Fave
News story which is with the Headlinine Hogan buys WWE nearly a multi millionaire.
And I think there was rumors of possibly a WW sale. I mean,
you know, it's been rumors forever. So that hit first. Somebody put
it on Reddit, on the wrestling subreddit, uh, and it took off
there, and then it morphed over to the main page of Reddit, and
then it took up and went all the way. I don't know if it
went all the way the number one there would it climbed and climbed and climbed,
And there's tens of thousands of people around the world now seeing a headline
that's not on a wrestling page. All they know is that hal Cogan just
got crazy rich by suing Gawker, and so they're like, oh, well
that makes sense. Hal Cogan bought w W E And yeah, that that
one went around the world a few times. Wow, the word got back
to Terry. Is this what am I hearing? There's one I just remembered
a story where Chris Hero told this story on Cold Combana's podcast, and it
was that right after Alberto del Rio came back to w W after a hiatus.
This is right in the lead up to the American Presidents and there's all
this talk of building the Wall of Mexico. So Alberto Rio comes, Alberta
del Rio comes back, and I wrote a headline that just said del Rio
deported, and I have a picture of him being you know, photoshop picture
and being dragged off by border patrol. But at the time, Chris Hero
is on a bus in Japan with a bunch of wrestlers and Super Crazy is
on the bus and super Crazy I guess I saw this on his phone and
came running back to Chris Hero, and you know, the most native English
speaker on the bus sort of panicked seeing that del Rio has been deported,
and Chris Hero had to explain to him, No, it's okay, that's
ky fave news. That's not true. And so when I heard this,
I posted a headline that said super crazy deported. That's awesome. I'm sure
Chris Hero loved it. But wrestlers must get especially in anoyed when they get
worked, you know, because they think they're too good to be worked,
right, and then this fake headline send them in to a I'm not really
I'm not trying to fool people necessarily like that. The joke isn't really the
like, oh, of course not. It's yeah, it's not just like
this. It's like the headline travels, the body of the story doesn't exactly.
Yeah, so it's you know, I do love it when it happens,
you know, I think I think I'm getting this right. I did
a story. It's maybe a slightly poorly taste, uh make a wish visit
from Bad News Bear it goes poorly yes, yes, And and Jim Ross,
good old j R. I guess bought it and and tweeted about it,
and then people had to tell them what they aim. Yeah, they
slipped through it. And sometimes the wrestlers play along, you know, I
I did. One of my recurring jokes is that seth Rawlins middle name isn't
freaking it's Todd. So seth Rawlins after I first published that, and he
just tweeted the words Seth Todd Rawlins. Oh that's got to never die.
Amazing. You find you get ideas for these articles Colin watching wrestling or reading
about wrestling. It's mostly reading about it, partly because I I really don't
watch much of it. I don't even really have a well, I have
a TV. I just don't put wrestling on it very much. But so
I follow the that sounds like a lapstand maybe exactly. I know, I
know that's that's right. I w TV, the Independent wrestling streaming service,
and so you know, when I'm not at a dumpy little legion hall or
a high school gym, I'm watching shows from them on TV. But the
ideas come from, you know, they don't always come from wrestling. They
come from real life, and wrestling is just the the lens that I use
to make a comment on it, and often the joke is at the expense
of us wrestling fans, you know, if you can't make fun of yourself,
especially wrestling fandom itself is so unique and bizarre and fraught with you know,
we all know what it's like to be a wrestling fan when it's not
the cool thing to be when it's not, Yeah, which is always so
a lot of a lot of the humor comes at the expense of the fans.
So yeah, the ide he is tend to come from anywhere, and
thankfully, wrestling just never, ever, ever stops. There's no there's no
off season. Every week they're just churning out new potential material fail to be
mined. So I uh, you know, I started more than ten years
ago, and I thought, for a year, I'll try to write an
article every day. I'll see if anybody is reading them. And now ten
years later, it's not not quite every day because I've been working on this
movie lately, but still quite frequently. If the ideas come to me,
I write them, and people still seem to like them. So I'm still
of this mindset, Well, if people keep reading them, I'll keep writing
them. And that's three thousand and three hundreds articles now Boston not unlike the
space. Nothing funnier than just making up something in the cadence and the voice
of a real news article. Yep, yes, oh my god. Yeah,
we used to do these these fake news articles, you know. And
I used to just see something and I'd you know, back in the MySpace
days, and I'd write it down, and then all of a sudden,
I just keep writing these weird things, which would usually end up in some
kind of you know, extremely violent, out of nowhere, you know,
finale. And Jack would always say, well, wait a minute, isn't
that the headline at the bottom, Like what the hell's going on here?
Yeah? The gimmick Collin was like, you'd run like a headline, like,
you know, the planning board approved a new two unit building for downtown
today, and then like set you're you're a journalism guys, You'll get so
like ten paragraphs down, you'll say that like the developer was hounded by questions
as he left the city Hall on Saturday. He was then you know,
shot in the head by an assailant who fled without police, you know,
turning an eye to it. And it's just like it's buried in there somewhere,
you know, or you do like a quote like it was it was.
It was a tough game, but I'm glad we made it through,
said Anderson, who then proceeded to jump into a well. And you know
what I mean, but it's buried way down. Yeah, I mean just
so fun. Yeah, you put the lead at the very bottom. Yep.
Do you feel like I mean, we're going on ten years too,
and we've done so much, you know, sort of psychoanalysis of Vince McMahon.
And I know a lot of your stuff is played around with, right,
the peccadillos of Vince McMahon as they make their way through, you know,
as they've poked their head up through interviews. He's done. He's the
weirdest guy to ever live in Piccadilly Circus. Piccadilly Circus. Yes, I've
been to Piccadilly Circus. That's exactly correct, Vince. That's what I meant.
So, I mean, what do you think about Vince? Do you
feel like Vince like when you're writing like stuff off the top of your head,
that like it's more plausible that Vince actually has thought and said the things
than anybody else you could write about because that's how we feel. Yeah,
I don't think there's anything I could come up with that would be crazier than
something that goes through Vince mcmaon's head before breakfast Eyes. But you know,
he's obviously some sort of super human business tycoon genius, like there's only one
of a kind. I'm told by a reliable source, as someone who used
to be head writer for w w E, that Vince mcman occasionally would be
they'd show him a k fave news story that they like on the phone and
then even say, I, I hope that's true. I believe that.
Are you supposed to be reading the dirt? Shees? Are you doing reading
me this stuff? Wait a minute? Is this is this true? Happen?
And super? Were they both? Well, we're gonna get on this.
Why Why were they deported? Damn it, God, damn it.
Get the working visa? Emphasis on working? Can we work a visa if
anyone can't? So, Yeah, I'm glad you feel the same way.
It's kind of weird, like sometimes like it's almost out of body taking on
Vince's voice and imagining things he'd say. It's like it's like I don't know,
he occupies a very strange place in the wrestling fans. Psyche. I
think I don't want to take too much credit for it. Maybe I didn't
invent it, but I feel like that I was one of the people who
really started to point out years ago his pension for the term quite frankly.
Oh sure. I use it in every single usually twice in a sentence.
If if I have a Evince quote in a story, it will start and
finished quite frankly. And I've started and things of that nature. It's another
one and be that as it may, and then from there, Yeah,
exactly. Yeah, So I remember years ago starting with the quite frankly thing,
and then it seemed to have caught on. So I think that might
be Vince's epitaph on his team quite frankly. I'm fired, probably, Yeah.
Does anyone else have you read the biography of him by the Ringmaster?
Yeah, by Josie Resent. It's a fantastic biography, and there's a there's
a six part series on Behind the Bastards podcast. Are you aware of that?
Yes? I am, Yeah, the most you know, a podcast
that chronicles history's most despicable villains, did a longer series on Vince McMahon than
they did on like Genghis Khan sure did, and if he ever does an
autobiography, it should be called quite frankly yeah to me, but yes,
I'm no editor. Yes, well, we're going to close this one out
by reminding folks not only about the Kickstarter again, the title of the project
is the ref didn't see it, the real story of how Zebras are in
their stripes in the unreal world of professional wrestling. And there is some sweepstakes
you're running, correct, Colin for folks that pledge. Among the things they
might find themselves in receipt of in exchange for their support, is this new
concept here called Matt Libs m at libs. Of course, after the mad
Libs, we all grew up filling out by kfabe news. So this is
some famous wrestling promos but insert your own well, you know, check the
adjective as Kevin Nashwoodston. Yeah, so yes, the Book of Matt Libs
is one of the rewards for Kickstarter support. So yeah, if anybody's ever
played mad libs, I took a bunch of famous wrestling promos and speeches and
things and turn them into Matt Libs. So what do you say, boss,
gonna have some fun. Yes, let's do it to ride this thing
out. So among the folks that uh that Colin has put into Matt Lib's
form, our Hull Cogan and Dusty Rhodes, and yes, we're we're in
a pretty good position to channel the essence of said wrestlers here on left.
So how we're going to do it is, Colin, why don't you read
to us, uh, you know, in just a straight voice, the
Hogan one first, and we'll we'll pick a you know, we'll throw it
in. I what I think we should do is is so it gives like
the the do you have the thing in front of you Jack like it gives
I do? Yeah, Yeah, I get read. We should just yeah,
don't look at the Yeah, I'm not gonna look at the I'm not
going to look at it until until you send me a photograph of it.
So let's just let's just pick the surname number, all that kind of ship
and then I'm gonna be puing to it. I'll ask you guys for downs
and herbs and stuff. Oh what am I saying? That? S that's
of course how it works. Yes, I'm sort of thinking of it as
just me and him, but of course you could hear everything. That would
be fucking stupid. All right, so let's do it your way, Colin,
go ahead. Okay, guys, I need a noun. Okay,
bubba buba buba. You could actually write blabblah love splige. No, I
need uh. Types of people? Oh boss m uh uh lapsed fans you
go, okay, laps? What's more politic than was? I was about
to say? All right, another noun nown h god uh, dookie good,
very very growing up? And yes, yes, a family relation,
a family relation, A bastard son, all right, nown walk them only
walk perfect number. I think the number three and three three three and another
number. Any number three or three is a good numbers to do what?
I don't know? Is there another funny wrestling number? Three sixteen? Okay,
three sixteen? Sure? Okay? Uh? And a noun uh,
I would say pecker? How about Dory Funk's b sting infested pepper peck Pecker.
Sorry, I'm afraid I don't have rooms. All right, if you
have room for dories pecker. Yeah, but I did need another noun.
Chocolate, okay, chocolate, Yeah, okay, this is actually gonna be
great number. Oh god. Another number that's say zero zero at tends to
produce funny things in mad libs. Okay, another nown free way, there
you go, okay, freeway to help right. Another noun oma plata,
that is, of course, shoulder lock in Portuguese. Got it? Uh
location mm hmm uh I think the bob. I was gonna say mini any,
okay, mini many many, as in what Kevin Nash would call Minnesota
to let you know he's been there many times. Yeah, okay many uh?
Now a thing any thing? Oh boy, uh, I don't want
to go for just crotch humor. I went ring ring rat ring, rat
ring rat. I'm at the first the top of my head. I gotta
go with my with my fucking instincts first. Whatever goes first thing in your
head. Oh yeah, adjective play yeah, And how long you've been sitting
on that one? God Jesus Christ's gone fifty five minutes? Oh that's good.
The adjective oh god over I guess yeah, an over wrestler, I
guess yeah, I need a body part. Hold on Anderson classical, clasical,
got it, clav cool, got it. Another adjective stupid all right,
two more family relations brother yeah, okay, well there and an adjective
burley than oh I like that. Okay, So now what Colin's gonna do.
He's going to screenshot it, send it to JP, and he's going
to read it in Hogan's voice. Right, this one's dusty. I think
this is Dusty. Okay, got it. So just give me a moment
here. Remember this can be yours in exchange for your pledge over Jesus Christ.
There's a bunch of these. There's a Jericho one, and a Flair
one and a Hogan one. Okay, I'm sending this by electronic mail,
and thank god for that, the Western Union electronic telegram. Yeah, there
we go. It should be arriving. I got another. I thought there
was blood on the mad lid, but there's blood on my phone. Not
the what are you doing? Who's Western? That? The International Brotherhood of
Cowboys? Yes, okay, oh my god, I got it? Oh
ship, All right, here we go? Here is there is there a
ring announcer for this one? This is just Dusty all the way. Uh,
this is Dusty all the way. All right, it's supposed to be
the hard times, right, there we go. I don't have enough to
I love to say, I don't have to fay a whole lot more about
the way I feel about the nature Bubba the taddy. No respect, no
honor. There is no honor among lapp fans in the first place. Yep,
he put hard times on me, and he put a hard time on
me and my duchie. Yeah, but enough about lunch, Dusty. You
don't know what hard times our bastard son hord time. I am the textile
worker the Romans country. All right, it's great because I already forgot what
you said. I have no idea hord times. I went the textile work
of the country, had a quack of money. You can tell it again.
They got three hundred and three or three hundred and sixteen kids and can't
pay their wages. They can't buy their pecker. Hard times. I went
autoworkers hard time. I went on a look of an out of chocolate one
track mind here on the big dream. I'll tell you, I'm gonna tell
them. I'm gonna tell him to go home and a hard time. I
want a man and hard time. I want a man. I'm working a
job for zero years, zero years. I may listen boss, I cannot
tell you the amount of jobs in my life that I've worked for zero years,
and then give him a freeway, cook him on the button, say
hey, kill a freeway. What is this a ribbon cutting? After the
forty year mayor steps down? Vero, yeah, maya daddy, kick him
on the button and say hey, and I'm a plot take your place.
What is this the Josh Barnett promotion? That's hard times and makes you and
makes you bubba? You put hot times on this mini by taking me out.
That's hard times. And we all had hot times together. And I'm
I don't look like the ring might of the day supposed to look, not
exactly. My belly is a little over. My belly is just a little
over your belt. My clamical is a little stupid. You can say that
again, dust brother, I am buy daddy. Yes, Oh, I
was excited enough for that. Tears, Oh my god, you didn't have
a stupid though. That's a shirt bush right now. Stupid my clomicals stupid
of all the things that sucking clavicle could be, it's a little stupid.
Stupid. Oh god, god, damn it. All right, let's get
the Hogan one. Oh all right ready, Okay, I need a surname,
any surname funked, Okay, I need a number. They're tough uhh
three okay, got it? An adjective ornery good ordnary uh a family relation
Brook teeny as in Brook Hogan, brook teeny, Brock Martini, but Brook
at the beginning. Mm hmm, look you do nasty Nick. If it's
easier to spell spelling count, I wasn't no, no, not at all.
Uh. Any wrestling event colossal tussle loss? Is that real? Well?
That's like the The myth was that Vince wanted to call WrestleMania colossal tussle
before four hundred different people took credit for calling it WrestleMania. George Scott,
Howard Finkel, Ross Perot probably took credit for it. Mike Right, Mike
Tyson took credit to credit. Kok definitely has claimed Steve Austin as well,
exactly. Kevin Owens once claimed Cogan actually performed as Liberaci. Well they both
did the big boot ye okay, oh ship uh, I mean the number?
Ah remember so tough man in seven? Alright? Seven? A color?
Mhm h orange? All right? Orange? All right? A noun
torch torch yep o good and another down roll up? But well you know
what? Can you can I cheat a little? Colin? Is there a
verb ahead? Uh? Uh? Actually no, there's no more verbs all
right, so let's choose roll up then? Uh another nown ah foo man
chew could be literally anything fu manchu okay, man chew the band or the
style of facial hair or above the band? What what of the t n
A stable? I need a plural noun like cats but not cats haulka maniacs?
There you go? No, no do n w a whites okay okay?
Uh noun paranoia mm hmm is that it now? I guess it?
Things are now brother brother trying to work with no? Uh okay a body
part? Oh leg boss yeah, big leg, yeah leg. I feel
like you should know anything, you know what? Like? I bet that
is actually part of the promo. Uh he what did he? What did
he lie about ripping in his back when he slammed Andre? His lat his
lack? What about it? What about his tenage? Penis? Yeah?
Yeah, why don't you just write chorus Colin penis, thank you? Yeah,
Cogan in that direction. I just didn't know when we would get Well,
it's Hogan brother doesn't have a ten penis, dude, exactly. If
this is Terry Blea Matt lives, that would have been the first one.
Uh. I need a number, oh uh two thousand and four, all
right, two and four, sorry, two thousand and four, okay,
two thousand and four, a family relation ex wife, yeah, baby.
And lastly, I need an animal, but plural tabloid terrorists. All right,
that's an animal of sorts, I suppose, yes, Actually, John
Lurry Edison kidding, Joe Laurie notices. Okay, give me another moment to
use the electronic mail here, all right, I have it on a computer.
Oh you stroking that food into you? You getting well? I'm telling
you my my my stomach is like is burning from the last one. Oh,
chocolate. The fact that it's Dusty talking about Okay, So this one
needs uh, it needs a mean gene and it needs a Hogan all right.
Okay, So is the mean gene thing filled in at all? Or
do I just read it? It's yeah, it's it's okay. All right.
Let me see if I may expostulate momentarily, I'm gonna take a look
here. See the dusty one came through waiting for the other one. All
right, all right up backstage with Hulk Funk. It was just moments away
from the most anticipated match in three years. Hyper specific he does exactly what
the most anticipated match was before this one. Good on him. That was
three years and two days ago. He's counting. How do you do it?
How are you going to defeat such an ornary ornery opponent? Holdt me
tell you something, Brooke teeny. This is the main event of Colossal Tussle,
and more than and more than seven fans are packed into the Orange Dumb
dude, fans did you get that from Basils of Vito? That number?
Tonight, the Unstoppable Torch meets the Irresistible You miss? I said you didn't
miss it? Oops? I mean the superdome brother. Tonight, the Unstoppable
Torch meets the Irresistible. Roll up, dude, I'll never face a challenge
as big as as big as Andre the Fu Manchu. But I've been training,
saying my prayers and eating my nWo whites. Dude, what is it
a cereal at w O Whites now with marshmallows? Oh God, what I'm
feeling the power of my little paranoia mania it's almost redundant. Paranorimal, that's
what he calls him. Now, I'm feeling the power, my little paranoid
maniacs. When I've dropped a big penis, I'm up or my best friend's
wife. I'm the refereebal count. I should have done something else. I
know I should should have done. I know I should have done Anolian here
one two, two thousand and four. So what you're gonna do? Ex
wife one least twenty four inch tabloid terriss run wild on you. That's twenty
four column inches. Thank you very much. Oh, holy shit, holy
shit, And I should put in there. Well, God is so good.
It's got just the phlegm and like the in the in the back of
the mouth. I'm so glad you noticed. Yes, I've been working on
that for a long time. Yeah. Well, like I said, we
can't go out on a higher note. Colin Hunter, creator and writer of
kfabe News. Check him out. What is the kfabews dot com? I
take it that is correct. And then the refmovie dot com. There we
go, that's the big one. You have. Check it out on Kickstarter
the refmovie dot Com. The ref didn't see it as the documentary. Help
uh, help make it worth his while. He's put a lot of work
in and he's now a friend of the show. Colin Hunter. Great to
have you man, good luck, Thank you so much for the proceedings the
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