The Complete Hulk Hogan | An Interview with Bob Roop

<v Speaker 1>It's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast with Jack and Carna,
<v Speaker 1>c e O and JP sorrows He's a lapsed fan.
<v Speaker 1>In all my years and wrestling, I've never seen anything like.
<v Speaker 2>Rob Kick.
<v Speaker 3>It's the laps Fan man number one in the ring
<v Speaker 3>begin about Sosada with a real king of swing when
<v Speaker 3>the bell goes hang and a kick like me throoming
<v Speaker 3>in the corner with.
<v Speaker 2>Its rash like stick.
<v Speaker 3>Even Jerry King could say off the crown, nodding his
<v Speaker 3>head like Steve low Brown?
<v Speaker 4>Would you get low down for me?
<v Speaker 3>Go even high up?
<v Speaker 2>Trip you on your head?
<v Speaker 4>But you no cool drivel?
<v Speaker 3>You speaking monology and dragon slits fire if you more
<v Speaker 3>shot than the edge retires dropping more truth than the
<v Speaker 3>conn of sniper unless you would a coconut Roddy Piper out,
<v Speaker 3>Jack a JP, you a j wat d drop a
<v Speaker 3>cupcakes and got the brain Bob Beans the best podcast
<v Speaker 3>from start the close file of your benefit.
<v Speaker 4>It's a bassicket polls and we are privileged now to
<v Speaker 4>be joined here on the Lapsed Fan by a nineteen
<v Speaker 4>sixty eight Olympian for the United States and a big
<v Speaker 4>time pro wrestling star across the country, including most prominently
<v Speaker 4>in Florida, right around the same time that Terry Bolea
<v Speaker 4>was trying to break into the wrestling business. He's an
<v Speaker 4>inductee into the Thes Trego's Hall of Fame of Wrestling
<v Speaker 4>and Waterloo, Iowa, and he's co host of the podcast
<v Speaker 4>The Wrestling Stoop. He's eighty three years young. We're privileged
<v Speaker 4>to have mister Bob Rup on the show to help
<v Speaker 4>round out our understanding of this time period and much more. Bob,
<v Speaker 4>we want to thank you so much for making the
<v Speaker 4>time for us.
<v Speaker 2>Well, thank you very much. My head is so big
<v Speaker 2>from that nice although a nice ange about quite some
<v Speaker 2>time now. Well, thank you very much.
<v Speaker 4>Well, oh, it's our pleasure. That's great. You know, Bob,
<v Speaker 4>we have talked so much about not just Hulk, but
<v Speaker 4>talk so much about this time period, the late seventies
<v Speaker 4>and what the territorial scene was like, what was going on,
<v Speaker 4>who was calling the shots. So we're interested in talking
<v Speaker 4>to you not just about the limited interactions that you
<v Speaker 4>had with Terry Bolea, but just what the business was
<v Speaker 4>like back then in the territories that that you worked in.
<v Speaker 4>And I'd love to just start tell our listeners how
<v Speaker 4>you came to Florida, you know, and and what what
<v Speaker 4>led to you getting hooked up with Eddie Graham?
<v Speaker 2>Uh? I was in college. My shame you year in
<v Speaker 2>college I got I got hurt. And we had a
<v Speaker 2>trainer who kept telling me that I caught up a lot.
<v Speaker 2>I mean I would do a little sketch and things,
<v Speaker 2>and yeah, he said, he said, you ought to think
<v Speaker 2>about this is at in the Olympics. She said you
<v Speaker 2>ought to think about getting into for wrestling. And he said,
<v Speaker 2>I know Sam Muchnick. Now, I'm sure you guys know
<v Speaker 2>who I know you're You're not eighty three years old.
<v Speaker 2>But Sam was the president at the end of the AA.
<v Speaker 2>And I mean those are all kind of nebulous titles,
<v Speaker 2>you know, like okay, who repercoin, Who's going to be
<v Speaker 2>this week? But well, the trainer knew san and the
<v Speaker 2>school was Southern in Illinois. It was only about one
<v Speaker 2>hundred miles from Saint Louis for San Atta's office. Sam Muchnick,
<v Speaker 2>So the trainer arranged for an interview. I had about, oh,
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, two months left in uh and in school,
<v Speaker 2>but I had I had one more tournament. I had
<v Speaker 2>a national tournament. But I went to see I went
<v Speaker 2>to see Sham before this tournament and he arranged for
<v Speaker 2>He said, well, first thing he asked. The guy I
<v Speaker 2>walked in was a guy named Larry Christop. Larry is
<v Speaker 2>oh ten times the amateur I was. And he never
<v Speaker 2>got into pro although he actually wrestled pro match the
<v Speaker 2>first night he was ever added an arena at Tampa.
<v Speaker 2>They had him fill in for somebody. He wasn't bad,
<v Speaker 2>although he couldn't work alect. I mean, you know, he
<v Speaker 2>had a very good body. Anyway, he went on to
<v Speaker 2>become like a world record coach. He's taking a second
<v Speaker 2>in the world as a wrestler. Third, he's you know,
<v Speaker 2>as far as a amateur wrestler, he's well was put
<v Speaker 2>this way. He was inducted into the SYU Hall of
<v Speaker 2>Fame in nineteen eighty nine. I made it in two
<v Speaker 2>thousand and twenty three.
<v Speaker 4>Understood exactly right.
<v Speaker 2>So he was a little bit ahead of the in
<v Speaker 2>terms of stacker. But uh, anyway, you know, betterally than never, right,
<v Speaker 2>So uh, anyway, we went down to see Larry, and
<v Speaker 2>I went down to see San Mushick. And what was
<v Speaker 2>funny about Musha says, well, what are you guys doing now?
<v Speaker 2>And Larry said, well, I've graduated from college. I'm coaching
<v Speaker 2>at at at a small college. And I said, well,
<v Speaker 2>I'm just getting ready to graduate from from college. San said,
<v Speaker 2>were you kinda college grand so why the hell would
<v Speaker 2>you want to go into pro wrestling? I thought that
<v Speaker 2>was kind of a weird question coming from the president. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>so yeah, that was kind of a weird start. And
<v Speaker 2>uh but anyway, uh he said about Eddie Eddie can
<v Speaker 2>A Graham, Well, Sam Masters, he said, look, there's two
<v Speaker 2>guys that like amateurs. Uh, aren't gown you up in
<v Speaker 2>Minnesota and Eddie Graham in Florida. Now, I grew up
<v Speaker 2>in Michigan. In fact, that's where I am right now.
<v Speaker 2>I've got four blankets on me and and he is
<v Speaker 2>out guess where? I asked, Oh, I could he could
<v Speaker 2>have told me that stating himself in the four Horse
<v Speaker 2>of the Apocalypse where the promoters in Florida. I'm still
<v Speaker 2>want to have said, I'll take Florida, thank you.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, that's a that's true Michigan or heading to Florida
<v Speaker 4>as soon as you can.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, So any any Eddie came to the last tournament,
<v Speaker 2>Eddie Graham, and he brought Buddy Fullner with him, was
<v Speaker 2>a partner. Yeah, Ron Holk's dad and uh anyway, uh uh.
<v Speaker 2>Eddie invited me and this Larry Christa to come down
<v Speaker 2>to He would pay for us to fly down and
<v Speaker 2>to a master of Tampa. You know, we could buy
<v Speaker 2>right in Tampa, watch the matters that night at porta
<v Speaker 2>Omer yesterday Armory, and then get back on the plane
<v Speaker 2>the next day and go back go back home, which
<v Speaker 2>for both others were Southern Illinois. So we did. We
<v Speaker 2>went down there, and I liked it right away. I knew.
<v Speaker 2>I knew, and I'll tell you why. Because I wanted
<v Speaker 2>to travel. That's why. I one of my teammates and
<v Speaker 2>Larry Highne and me who became Lars Anderson. And I
<v Speaker 2>met Larry back a way back in nineteen sixty four
<v Speaker 2>at the Olympic trafs. And so four years later I
<v Speaker 2>hear that that Larry is turned pro. Now he's large. Anderson,
<v Speaker 2>he's driving a Cadillac, he's looking. Group was great, he's
<v Speaker 2>got diamond ringe and he made forty eight thousand dollars
<v Speaker 2>or something in two years, and back at ninety sixty eight,
<v Speaker 2>that was pretty serious money. So but both the city.
<v Speaker 2>Also that he had been to Japan in Australia TWCE, right,
<v Speaker 2>and when I and he'd only been in a business
<v Speaker 2>a couple of years. When I heard that, I said, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>that's what better way rather than decided to be a
<v Speaker 2>worker for the government and work my way up to
<v Speaker 2>bureaucracy to where maybe I could get an assignment overseas,
<v Speaker 2>you know, or travel someway or some foreign not as
<v Speaker 2>an agent, but some envoy or something. I can travel
<v Speaker 2>with an athlete, you know, like I'm a pseudo athlete,
<v Speaker 2>but you know, in an athletic mode I like to
<v Speaker 2>call a wrestling dramatic the medical Yeah, with a few
<v Speaker 2>a little taste of the twilight zone, next end of
<v Speaker 2>the next, once and wrong.
<v Speaker 4>Bob, I canna tell you we cherish that about your perspective.
<v Speaker 4>We can't wait to talk to you about that kind
<v Speaker 4>of appropriate characterization of the business because you've always been
<v Speaker 4>so clear about that. But so I guess, so you're
<v Speaker 4>taking with the travel options and you end up going
<v Speaker 4>to work for Eddie. When seventy was it two to three?
<v Speaker 2>I graduated in June and I was in Florida by
<v Speaker 2>late July and started training and within. I don't remember
<v Speaker 2>exactly when, I don't remember the date of my first
<v Speaker 2>night said I should have all that of stuff. But
<v Speaker 2>I'm not like Jim Cornett, who, and this is a compliment,
<v Speaker 2>Cornett has been a great history Yeah yeah, owing stuff
<v Speaker 2>and love of stuff that should endure, and a digital
<v Speaker 2>digital age it will, you know. But like years ago,
<v Speaker 2>I do sometimes flip flop around a little bit. The
<v Speaker 2>Lufez and Trego's museum, they had a flood and the
<v Speaker 2>basement it came up through the drain you know, the
<v Speaker 2>the drain pipes that are supposed to take water out
<v Speaker 2>the water the pips underground flooded and it forced water
<v Speaker 2>up through those pipes about three feet into the basement
<v Speaker 2>at the museum and ruin just a crapload, just a
<v Speaker 2>whole bunch of hay firs stuff, you know, a one
<v Speaker 2>hundred year old or fifty year old programs and all
<v Speaker 2>that kind of stuff. So when I say digital digital
<v Speaker 2>is forever, you know, as long as we destroyers t somehow.
<v Speaker 2>But uh, anyway, yeah, so I didn't right away that
<v Speaker 2>I wanted to do it. I wanted to travel. Lary
<v Speaker 2>went back to coaching and it was good for that
<v Speaker 2>he did. He became one of the greatest. You know,
<v Speaker 2>he coached the Rootine two or three times. But that
<v Speaker 2>was not my stick. That was his. You know, mine
<v Speaker 2>was I wanted to travel and I got to do it.
<v Speaker 2>You know, I got to go to the Japan my
<v Speaker 2>first year in Australia pretty early, and uh, while I
<v Speaker 2>was shown, I mean, I was a Neil fight. I
<v Speaker 2>didn't know how to worked very well. But I could
<v Speaker 2>get by, yes, but I couldn't. I wasn't good at
<v Speaker 2>leading the match until after it took. It took a
<v Speaker 2>stand out there, amroll. Uh well, especially when a couple
<v Speaker 2>of the babyfacers are trying to get me killed by
<v Speaker 2>doing things like having me chase them out into the
<v Speaker 2>audience and they had to be Hispanic, and ninety nine
<v Speaker 2>percent of the audience is Hispanic, and they have me
<v Speaker 2>because then I'm a heel. But I'm too green to
<v Speaker 2>realize I should go nowhere near that audience. They would
<v Speaker 2>have come on follow me. I'd think my way through
<v Speaker 2>the audience that I don't have ninety seven staggerings in
<v Speaker 2>me in my first week in Texas America.
<v Speaker 4>That's that's a quick education. Wow, So when you went
<v Speaker 4>to Florida. Did you did you get taught? I mean,
<v Speaker 4>because we've heard a lot and we'll talk about it.
<v Speaker 4>You know, Terry has his whole story about Matt Suda,
<v Speaker 4>and it sounds like you kind of played a similar
<v Speaker 4>role before Matt Suda getting people initiated in and testing
<v Speaker 4>them out. Who got you ready to wrestle in Florida?
<v Speaker 4>Because they're not testing Bob Roup the way they tested
<v Speaker 4>some of these guys who couldn't go amateur off the streets.
<v Speaker 2>That should tried me twice. Really, I didn't know when
<v Speaker 2>I met him. He was very very cold in terms
<v Speaker 2>of like just matter hell o, but I'm not you know,
<v Speaker 2>didn't shake hands for not He had points in the office,
<v Speaker 2>so you know he was managed that I was new
<v Speaker 2>as far as he knew. I, you know, not a
<v Speaker 2>lot of not a lot of some amateurs didn't have
<v Speaker 2>the right attitide when they came in. As soon as
<v Speaker 2>I finished and got my last award. In fact, after
<v Speaker 2>I had my last match, I wanted Tom across the
<v Speaker 2>street drag two pictures of beer. My amateur career was over.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I've been drinking beer. You know, I never
<v Speaker 2>had a beer during the season. But I mean I
<v Speaker 2>didn't go out and shoot Heroin while I was joined
<v Speaker 2>or anything. But it was appropriate because what I met
<v Speaker 2>any Grayman bluddy for I was drunk.
<v Speaker 4>So they knew what they were getting into. So Matt
<v Speaker 4>Suda tries you in what sense? He tries to hook
<v Speaker 4>you during a scrint like a grappling session.
<v Speaker 2>Or we said we go up? What I mean we
<v Speaker 2>would go on our feet. I mean, no, hello, just
<v Speaker 2>me and him, nobody else around. It's before nine o'clock.
<v Speaker 2>Charlie Lay had no office hut, and uh, it's just
<v Speaker 2>me and Ann. We said we we go up, so
<v Speaker 2>we're on our feet. He was about two twenty. Now,
<v Speaker 2>don't get me wrong, I really grew a lot of
<v Speaker 2>respect and affection for hero but he couldn't do it.
<v Speaker 2>I was two seventy and I just you know, Olympics
<v Speaker 2>had just my last term, had only benefited much before.
<v Speaker 2>There was no he couldn't touch me, he couldn't do
<v Speaker 2>a thing, and I could take him down it well,
<v Speaker 2>so we did that. We went forty five minutes, and
<v Speaker 2>you know I could stall because he couldn't muscle me
<v Speaker 2>because I was stronger. So if I had took him
<v Speaker 2>down a few times and I needed to take a
<v Speaker 2>you know, take a little short thirty seconds. I would
<v Speaker 2>just you know, hold him off. Greco Romans. I was
<v Speaker 2>Greco Roman in the Olympic. Yeah, I said, very defensive sport.
<v Speaker 2>You're very good at muscles. You defend. You got back
<v Speaker 2>muscles and bucks muscles and hamstrings to resist people trying
<v Speaker 2>to fish you. So Hero couldn't do much with me.
<v Speaker 2>He wasn't quick enough to get underneath to get a
<v Speaker 2>leg or anything. He couldn't body lock me. So after
<v Speaker 2>forty five minutes, he just said to have Charlie call you.
<v Speaker 2>So I met him again and next week another forty
<v Speaker 2>five minutes. Wow, And then he still couldn't do anything.
<v Speaker 2>Things He said, you go down. I got down the
<v Speaker 2>referee position. He put his hands on my back and
<v Speaker 2>as soon as he tat, he got the back of
<v Speaker 2>his knee on my achilles tendon. And that that story
<v Speaker 2>about getting hurt, if that happened, that's probably what happened, really,
<v Speaker 2>and it's probably what happened. And what Hero was doing. Now,
<v Speaker 2>what he did, he got the knee and he waited
<v Speaker 2>to see. And what I did is I went the
<v Speaker 2>way that his knee hit my ankle, my tendon. I
<v Speaker 2>went with the force out against it. I went with
<v Speaker 2>the force. So what he did is he pressed my
<v Speaker 2>ankle into the mat. But he didn't twist it. He
<v Speaker 2>was just he just had his knee on it. Meanwhile,
<v Speaker 2>I turned, I've gabbed him by the hair, and I've
<v Speaker 2>got one thumb in his eye. Now I've got on
<v Speaker 2>his eye, not in his eyes. And I'm letting him
<v Speaker 2>know if you don't change your head a serious, hear, are,
<v Speaker 2>you're going to be looking at things a little bit
<v Speaker 2>differently about while a second from and uh, he he's
<v Speaker 2>topped neatly. He got up. He said, now teach you.
<v Speaker 2>I'll teach you some holes. He starts showing me hooks.
<v Speaker 2>Once I saw it took. He needed to know I
<v Speaker 2>could defend myself, got it, and uh that he didn't
<v Speaker 2>have to worry about me having if I took on
<v Speaker 2>challenges or anything, I wouldn't. You know, if I can
<v Speaker 2>handle handies you enough, he can handle most people. Uh.
<v Speaker 2>Then he knew I was okay. And he taught me
<v Speaker 2>about fay shock and you know some of the standing
<v Speaker 2>holes and you know, stuff over toe hold and stuff
<v Speaker 2>like that. My name read for wanting to learn them.
<v Speaker 2>I wanted to be able to protect myself. I didn't
<v Speaker 2>want to not know. I had heard about guys. Uh.
<v Speaker 2>I mean Trego's the guy in the Hall of Fame
<v Speaker 2>with bez or the name of this. He heard a
<v Speaker 2>kid so bad but restlock arm. He tore everything in
<v Speaker 2>the arm the kid had had the army. Oh my goodness,
<v Speaker 2>because I guess what happened. I guess what happened is
<v Speaker 2>one of the upper bones went through the skin. Oh
<v Speaker 2>I see, and so I got infections.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, so I'd love on that. On the Hulk story.
<v Speaker 4>You mentioned the Hulk story, I'd love your opinion. Not
<v Speaker 4>that you were there the day this supposedly happened between
<v Speaker 4>Hulk and Metsuda, but you you knew mat Suda, you
<v Speaker 4>knew his methods, you knew kind of what the ringer
<v Speaker 4>they put people through. Hulk has always told the story
<v Speaker 4>that Matsuda, rather than putting a knee in his achilles,
<v Speaker 4>that he sort of isolated his leg, dug his elbow
<v Speaker 4>into terry shin, and then pulled up on his toe
<v Speaker 4>and straight broke his leg or his ankle. There's been
<v Speaker 4>a million different you know, variations on the story. I'd
<v Speaker 4>love your opinion. Does that sound truthful to you? Does
<v Speaker 4>that sound like something that he would have made up?
<v Speaker 4>Where do you Where would you come down on it?
<v Speaker 2>Well, I'm thinking it's the first son I've never heard it.
<v Speaker 2>I've never heard that version. Why would you know? Now?
<v Speaker 2>I understand, Uh, I understand him wanted to find out
<v Speaker 2>if Terry could protect himself. But why would he deliberately
<v Speaker 2>break his ankle or shin or whatever he broke? If?
<v Speaker 2>I mean, was he teaching him unless he wanted to
<v Speaker 2>run him off? It might have been. But if you man,
<v Speaker 2>if you break a bone the gunline, I'd be back
<v Speaker 2>for six months, right, yeah, right, So maybe it was
<v Speaker 2>a test to see if he did hurt him, if
<v Speaker 2>he if he come back, Yeah, I'll tell you what.
<v Speaker 2>That's who'd I hated by builders? Uh? Here?
<v Speaker 4>Oh, now it makes sense, yeah, because that that's always
<v Speaker 4>what Terry always talks about it as if like, just
<v Speaker 4>like you said, they actually wanted to run him off,
<v Speaker 4>you know, because they just didn't like the way he presented.
<v Speaker 4>He was a long haired rock and roll hippie guy,
<v Speaker 4>and while he was huge, he wasn't a wrestler.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you talk about Mike, right, Eddy Graham wanted he
<v Speaker 2>wanted me to break his leg.
<v Speaker 4>Let's get it. What did what did Eddie tell you
<v Speaker 4>to do?
<v Speaker 2>One day after TV? Are getting in my cars. We've
<v Speaker 2>got to go two hundred and fifty miles to get
<v Speaker 2>to Miami by eight o'clock. I think I was assistant
<v Speaker 2>booker at the time, but it didn't matter. I was working.
<v Speaker 2>I needed to be there. And and uh, Terry runs up,
<v Speaker 2>Lay runs up to the car, you know, looking just
<v Speaker 2>like he won't as big, you know, And and the europe.
<v Speaker 4>He was a lot sentner, but he was.
<v Speaker 2>He was a big impressive guy. Comes he He says,
<v Speaker 2>I there, I'm going to be working out with your Thursday,
<v Speaker 2>you know. And I said, who'd you talk to any Graham?
<v Speaker 2>I went to the office, asked Charlie. I said, ring Eddie
<v Speaker 2>and Charlie Lady. I said, Eddie, this street blond kid. Uh,
<v Speaker 2>and I'm supposed to be working with him on Tuesday. Well,
<v Speaker 2>do you want me or we're you're breaking the night?
<v Speaker 2>He said, no, I want you to break his leg.
<v Speaker 2>And I said, okay, I hung up. I went out
<v Speaker 2>and told the cat, I said, I told Jerry. I said, don't,
<v Speaker 2>I won't be here. I said, all he wants me
<v Speaker 2>to do is hurt you. Uh, And I took home.
<v Speaker 2>Now I got to know him a little bit, not much.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, he was kind of reserved, but he was
<v Speaker 2>a bass player in a band. And he told me
<v Speaker 2>about it, and I went one time by myself. We
<v Speaker 2>had a night off and I want to watch, you know,
<v Speaker 2>you know, I mean, I don't know why. I just tug,
<v Speaker 2>just something to do, I guess I took. I went
<v Speaker 2>by myself trying. It's kind of weird, but uh, anyway,
<v Speaker 2>I watched. He was a bass player and he wore
<v Speaker 2>these seven inches. They had those real high shoes in
<v Speaker 2>you know, the seven inch one.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, the platforms yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the platform yeah. And uh, you know he's very tall.
<v Speaker 2>So anyway, he was also I want to I want
<v Speaker 2>to see. They did a show in clear Water a
<v Speaker 2>couple of week or turs later. I went on to that.
<v Speaker 2>I took my girlfriend and we danced. We danced his music.
<v Speaker 2>So I knew him a little bit. I mean, he
<v Speaker 2>never got real close. Years later, I was booking a
<v Speaker 2>Knoxwell and meanwhile he gets broken in really by hero
<v Speaker 2>and he gets started and he becomes uh sterling golden
<v Speaker 2>or I'm not sure.
<v Speaker 4>I carry the hulk boulder and then he was sterling golden.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, whatever he was was gone yet. Well, anyway, I
<v Speaker 2>seen the Tampa you know, shere lives, and Ronnie Garvian
<v Speaker 2>and Bob Brton Jr. And Malanco myself went down to
<v Speaker 2>run our position against Graham because we had done we
<v Speaker 2>started an opposition in Knoxville and sending people in there.
<v Speaker 2>So we thought it was just symbolic. We might not
<v Speaker 2>have we might have three people come to the matches,
<v Speaker 2>but it was symbolic we were running opposition and we
<v Speaker 2>uh so uh uh. Anyway, I'm back back up in Knoxville.
<v Speaker 2>I get a call from Terry Gibbs, who was working
<v Speaker 2>on the crew. I had that he had taken a
<v Speaker 2>week off or something, you know, and gone back home
<v Speaker 2>to Tampa. He called me. He said, Bob, I'm calling
<v Speaker 2>you about Terry And I said, what about him? He said, well,
<v Speaker 2>he took a year off, he said. I said, he's
<v Speaker 2>worked out here, said he looks fantastic. He's we came
<v Speaker 2>about forty pounds a muscle and I said, well that
<v Speaker 2>sounds great. I said Terry, but I don't have I
<v Speaker 2>don't have a I don't have a place for him.
<v Speaker 2>I said to put to put him on the on
<v Speaker 2>the crew. I have to fire somebody. So, uh, what
<v Speaker 2>I'll do is I'll call Louis to Lotte was booking
<v Speaker 2>and for his other territory, which was down in uh
<v Speaker 2>Lower Oh, I'm kind of think aware, not sious, but
<v Speaker 2>he had another territory down there somewhere in Tennessee, uh Alabama.
<v Speaker 2>Uh that that Ron actually Ryan actually left Ron for
<v Speaker 2>the owner.
<v Speaker 4>Of about Southeastern Gulf Coast.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, Southeastern left I was running it for you know,
<v Speaker 2>two three weeks their town, he'd be gone. He was
<v Speaker 2>down at the other territory working in the ring. And
<v Speaker 2>you know, I think Robert was they'd take him over
<v Speaker 2>down there. I think Robert went to Enophing, So I
<v Speaker 2>think that.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, Robert Robert was Memphis. So you're so you're saying,
<v Speaker 4>Terry Gibbs had said, I got this guy, Terry, he said,
<v Speaker 4>I don't have a spot on the card for him.
<v Speaker 4>It sounds great. And then what's the next thing, you know,
<v Speaker 4>as it regards.
<v Speaker 2>Hulk, Well, I call I call Louis Louis Tillett. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and I said, can you can you take this sky?
<v Speaker 2>Can you take his names? Terry Maway. I guess he's
<v Speaker 2>going to Sterling Gold or whatever I saw I could
<v Speaker 2>do for him, and and and I guess he went
<v Speaker 2>over there. I'm my understanding, did do you? And you're in.
<v Speaker 4>March seventy March seventy nine, he goes to work for
<v Speaker 4>Ron Fuller in Dothan and Mobile, Alabama. And within a week,
<v Speaker 4>within a month or two, he's wrestling Andre the Giant
<v Speaker 4>in Dothan and selling out. And he's wrestling Harley for
<v Speaker 4>the NBA World title in a high school football stadium
<v Speaker 4>that summer in Dothans. So yeah, Ron went all the
<v Speaker 4>way with him right away on Louis Tillette's uh, you know,
<v Speaker 4>recommendation and belief and that he could be an attraction
<v Speaker 4>because of how big he was.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I got in that booking, look at that, and
<v Speaker 2>now here's the deal. A couple of years here's where
<v Speaker 2>I was going with it. A couple of years later,
<v Speaker 2>when we did the tough Man contest Garvin and Orton
<v Speaker 2>and I Michael was too old. Garvin and Orton and
<v Speaker 2>I entered just tough. They were having a tough man
<v Speaker 2>contest at oh that place in camp I can't think of.
<v Speaker 2>It doesn't matter.
<v Speaker 4>It's like people off the street testing themselves and like yeah,
<v Speaker 4>like a big fight, yeah, like a tough man.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Well it was a tough man contest. It was
<v Speaker 2>very early in the days of it. I mean it
<v Speaker 2>was all man. They were brutal. We decided to enter
<v Speaker 2>the tough man contest, and the guys who were running
<v Speaker 2>the contest were a traveling thing. They didn't know that
<v Speaker 2>we were wrestlers for wrestlers, or they were never acceptance
<v Speaker 2>because we would you know, if one of us one uh,
<v Speaker 2>you know, people might say, well for wrestling, it's the
<v Speaker 2>whole thing was rigged, you know, uh, guilt by you know,
<v Speaker 2>like association in their own mind. So and and uh,
<v Speaker 2>what we were what we were trying to do was
<v Speaker 2>if we, as amateur or as pro wrestlers who entered
<v Speaker 2>a tough man contest, why isn't Mike Graham and you
<v Speaker 2>know Steve.
<v Speaker 4>Kurrent Championship Wrestling right champions Local.
<v Speaker 2>That was our way of showing some defiance, right, like
<v Speaker 2>we're uh so uh anyway, and then I didn't I didn't.
<v Speaker 2>I it was. It was while we were in Tampa
<v Speaker 2>that we were at a bar one night and I
<v Speaker 2>saw Cherry and he looked great, and he had become
<v Speaker 2>he'd gotten over now. And I walked up, telling me
<v Speaker 2>to talk to some girl. And I walked up and
<v Speaker 2>I might have said, high Terry. He just me, he
<v Speaker 2>didn't speak.
<v Speaker 4>He what again, Bob? Can you repeat that?
<v Speaker 2>He just snubbed me snubbed He didn't even he didn't
<v Speaker 2>he didn't know. It would be like an inviserable person
<v Speaker 2>walked up. Do you think now, do you think nervous?
<v Speaker 5>Made him nervous?
<v Speaker 2>No?
<v Speaker 4>No, okay, he wasn't.
<v Speaker 2>He wasn't Terry Bowley anymore. I walked up and said, Hi, Terry.
<v Speaker 2>H he wasn't Terry anymore. Think about it. That's my
<v Speaker 2>way of forgiving him for ignoring me. He couldn't the girl.
<v Speaker 2>He had introduced himself to the girl I'm sure the
<v Speaker 2>Stirling Golden or whatever I think, or maybe now if
<v Speaker 2>she knew he was let me ask you, have you
<v Speaker 2>said did you talk to uh? Did they talk to
<v Speaker 2>him when he was Terry? Or do all of them
<v Speaker 2>know him as Hulk?
<v Speaker 4>Now we talked to plenty of people who kne him
<v Speaker 4>as Terry. Yeah, I mean he wasn't. He wasn't Hulk
<v Speaker 4>until the end of seventy nine when he went to
<v Speaker 4>New York for the first time. We're talking earlier in
<v Speaker 4>seventy nine, So he was only Terry and or Sterling Golden.
<v Speaker 2>At the end when he admitted about you know, how
<v Speaker 2>what did it cost and all the operations? Was he
<v Speaker 2>doing it a talk or was he doing.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, that's a great question. That's a that's always a
<v Speaker 4>hard one. I mean, you know, if he gets if
<v Speaker 4>he puts his foot in his mouth, that was Hulk.
<v Speaker 4>If he was if he's praised for it, that was Terry.
<v Speaker 5>That's the same from from what I From what I've heard,
<v Speaker 5>you know, he was he was Terry inside his house,
<v Speaker 5>and then when he shut the door and he was
<v Speaker 5>outside the house, he was Hulk.
<v Speaker 4>That's what I've heard.
<v Speaker 2>Of course. Yeah. Well, and on the TV show he
<v Speaker 2>had to kind of the Hulk in the house too, Yes, exactly. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I often wondered about that because I mean there's a
<v Speaker 2>whole uh you talk about when I talk about the
<v Speaker 2>filight zone, you get guy who's who's a persona that's
<v Speaker 2>been invented and created through a series of years of
<v Speaker 2>lying about how tough they are, and there years of
<v Speaker 2>going out and doing athletic uh theater and making people
<v Speaker 2>think they're tough, and reality, their wives can kick the
<v Speaker 2>ship out of them. So especially when he goes they're
<v Speaker 2>stupid enough to get you know, slacker around and goes
<v Speaker 2>see and she she resumed to fight with a baseball
<v Speaker 2>match of the crew.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, that'll do it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, usually not usually one is a fight right away.
<v Speaker 4>But uh, that's great stuff. Can I ask you, Bob,
<v Speaker 4>before I forget and before we move too far away
<v Speaker 4>from it. You had said right away when we were
<v Speaker 4>asking you about Terry, you know, and Matt Suda, he
<v Speaker 4>said Eddie hated him. And while I got the story
<v Speaker 4>as to what he said to you, what I don't
<v Speaker 4>understand is why did Eddy hate him?
<v Speaker 2>Because you're hippie?
<v Speaker 4>Is that simple?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? Eddie was so he was Eddie was so conservative,
<v Speaker 2>he was almost a fascist. Oh I see, yeah he Uh, Well,
<v Speaker 2>they tell the boys, they tell the boys what to do,
<v Speaker 2>the tell grown men. You tell people are down to
<v Speaker 2>the giant. Chris Taylor, you know Chris, you know thurd
<v Speaker 2>In the Olympics, you're telling him what to do. You're
<v Speaker 2>telling then the giant you're gonna go out there and
<v Speaker 2>get slammed or whatever. Now you're not maybe telling him,
<v Speaker 2>you're working to figure how the way to ask him
<v Speaker 2>in a way to tell what he will do it
<v Speaker 2>and not kill you somewhere in the process. But uh,
<v Speaker 2>but but no, Eddie, power corrupts and that's absolute. I
<v Speaker 2>mean in eighty three and thank god I had no power,
<v Speaker 2>but not totally corrupted either.
<v Speaker 4>So so there you go. Did did Mike? Did Mike
<v Speaker 4>have problems with I was gonna ask that question.
<v Speaker 2>Mike Graham.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, Mike Graham had problems with who Terry bulla Hull Cogan.
<v Speaker 2>I have no idea of any contracts at all because
<v Speaker 2>because I ever being together Hogan Hogan.
<v Speaker 5>You know, in his books and other things, he's like
<v Speaker 5>petrified of of of Mike Graham.
<v Speaker 4>He paints the story as if Mike was sort of
<v Speaker 4>a bully. Bully. Yeah, he's three years ahead of him
<v Speaker 4>in school. They had like one of one of Terry's
<v Speaker 4>old friends talked about one time they had the kind
<v Speaker 4>of like a bump the shoulder confrontation at a high
<v Speaker 4>school football game. It sounds like, uh that perhaps Eddie's
<v Speaker 4>distaste for that hippie rock and roll guy may have
<v Speaker 4>been passed on to Mike, and Mike wasn't too happy
<v Speaker 4>to see Terry go as far as he did in
<v Speaker 4>the beginning.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I'm speaking, I hated all of the dad. But
<v Speaker 2>you know, Mike coach down Heath that had the he
<v Speaker 2>had the time of Sara sah he he he was
<v Speaker 2>a wrestling coach and he coached Mike. I think he
<v Speaker 2>coached Terry. Uh. Uh Urry, another guy, Snacks is killing
<v Speaker 2>around uh her he's I can't think of his name, straighter.
<v Speaker 2>Uh a few of the guys he trained them. Uh
<v Speaker 2>and amateur wrestling. But see, you can teach a guy
<v Speaker 2>for one year, and you can teach him Michael take
<v Speaker 2>down or set out or whatever. But you know, unless
<v Speaker 2>you do it for years. And I'm talking about practicing
<v Speaker 2>every day, uh. And I don't mean just during wrestling sision.
<v Speaker 2>I'm talking about every day of the year. I mean
<v Speaker 2>you take a day off, you know the rest of
<v Speaker 2>your body here and there, but you know your rush day,
<v Speaker 2>you swim them or you know, you do something that's
<v Speaker 2>you take a lot you walk ten miles or whatever.
<v Speaker 4>But uh said, Mike just trained for like a year.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know. I'll give you an experience. It was
<v Speaker 2>Ron Buller, it was slighter, uh, Mike Graham and Charity anyway,
<v Speaker 2>uh anyone, and they to teach them how to protect themselves.
<v Speaker 2>We were the sports or and the snake pit, absolutely
<v Speaker 2>perfect name for it. And so what I was doing
<v Speaker 2>was to show him how to, uh apply the front
<v Speaker 2>face lock because that but here you've got a guy
<v Speaker 2>who's trying to attack you. What's your facing, what's he
<v Speaker 2>going to do? He's probably going to make a die.
<v Speaker 2>That's your legs. So if he does, you know, his
<v Speaker 2>heads right there. If you you know, get your get
<v Speaker 2>a front face lock and lock it in, you can
<v Speaker 2>you can, uh depending, Well, that's again that's another thing, man,
<v Speaker 2>you better. You're going to have to You have to
<v Speaker 2>practice that stuff, and you have to practice it a lot,
<v Speaker 2>and you have to do it, and you have to
<v Speaker 2>shoot at it. You have to go out for somebody work.
<v Speaker 2>They're resistance. You're doing them with, not Carl Gosh, because
<v Speaker 2>unless you're absolutely suicidal, but somebody quite mass food, you
<v Speaker 2>do it as a shoot. Yes, okay, Well we're going
<v Speaker 2>for the fun facelock. That's the hole. Who could get
<v Speaker 2>the front face lock? That's nothing else, just the front
<v Speaker 2>facelin or the toe holds. You know, who can get
<v Speaker 2>the stuff? You know, who could get the balance stretch? Uh?
<v Speaker 2>Which is down on that It's called the guillotine, which
<v Speaker 2>is a great name for a move. Uh well actually
<v Speaker 2>the one standing up you know where the guys guys
<v Speaker 2>are wrapped around it.
<v Speaker 4>Oh yeah, well sure, ye absolutely, you.
<v Speaker 2>Could never you could never do He could never do that.
<v Speaker 2>You're an octopus. You could never do that standing out.
<v Speaker 2>But man, oh man, that that holds a bit. That's
<v Speaker 2>that's a that's a give up hold. But an amateur
<v Speaker 2>wrestling you couldn't give up. And if guys couldn't get
<v Speaker 2>some shoulders down, there'd be guys trying to pen themselves
<v Speaker 2>because the hole was killed them.
<v Speaker 4>So so Mike is going through these paces? Is that
<v Speaker 4>sort of.
<v Speaker 2>Mike was never tough? Yes, Mike was never I never
<v Speaker 2>saw him flight like a fistfight. I never saw him. Uh.
<v Speaker 2>One day you had Danny Hye, you had Kazo Visuri,
<v Speaker 2>you had Billy Robinson, you had me, Bob Morton Jr.
<v Speaker 4>Uh Else Mike was there. I take it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but you know, you have some top guys and
<v Speaker 2>some pork had been Ronnie Uh, Ronnie Hill had a
<v Speaker 2>school down there in Florida and he used to train guys.
<v Speaker 2>And you know, Ronnie was a retired wrestler and he
<v Speaker 2>was doing what so many guys do. He just started
<v Speaker 2>to school. And you know, Ollie Anderson and Jane did
<v Speaker 2>it while they were still wrestling, and Jenny Day did it.
<v Speaker 2>Had a great school up there in Virginia. And uh so.
<v Speaker 4>All these tough guys and Mike.
<v Speaker 2>Well, Eddie resented the fact these guys would come out
<v Speaker 2>of a school there in Florida. They be there here
<v Speaker 2>of course, and not everybody, but they go around and
<v Speaker 2>people would ask the ball are you what? Are you
<v Speaker 2>a wrestler? And they say yes. Well, Eddie was trying
<v Speaker 2>to project the Savings did his wrestling because he had
<v Speaker 2>people like Jack brisco National champion, Dale Lewis, uh two
<v Speaker 2>town Olympian, Bob Group and Olympian Danny High, National, three
<v Speaker 2>time national champion, undefeated, Jack Briscoe, Jerry Brushow. Because he
<v Speaker 2>had people like us. Now we weren't the draw we
<v Speaker 2>were doing and you needed dimmick people. You need to
<v Speaker 2>have doulah and you needed you know, uh, you needed
<v Speaker 2>people with the girls. You needed gimmicks, and you need
<v Speaker 2>a whole card to draw. You know, you didn't have.
<v Speaker 2>He didn't have a card up and down of all shooters.
<v Speaker 2>But just one day at Disportratory and they had all
<v Speaker 2>those guys there and this was this one kid who
<v Speaker 2>looked good. He might have wanted have been a great recruit.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, he looked like a young running garb and
<v Speaker 2>he was handsome, and but uh, they wanted and he
<v Speaker 2>wanted him a lesson made of him because of he
<v Speaker 2>got trained over there at Ronning Hill School. So they
<v Speaker 2>were uh, they started ganging up on him, and uh
<v Speaker 2>the first move, Billy Robinson wanted to start with him,
<v Speaker 2>and Billy pushed him in the ropes and went the
<v Speaker 2>head by him, and the kid was looking for it
<v Speaker 2>and you reared back where Billy head kind of hit
<v Speaker 2>him in the chest, and the kid shoved and Billy
<v Speaker 2>tholl right on his ask if I'd have been shooting
<v Speaker 2>Billy sitting there right in front of him, if I've
<v Speaker 2>been shooting with him, I have kicked him right in
<v Speaker 2>the face. And the fight would have went over either
<v Speaker 2>got him in the neck or the mouth and you know,
<v Speaker 2>the eyes or someplace, and I fa didn't work out
<v Speaker 2>him and stop. And while he's trying to give up
<v Speaker 2>down because his wife, A guy gives you an advantage. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>he's you know, saying, you're in a fight with a
<v Speaker 2>guy and he's got brass necks around. All of a sudden,
<v Speaker 2>he just sits down in front of you.
<v Speaker 4>You got to go for it, yes, exactly. So were
<v Speaker 4>you trying Are you trying to tell us, Bob that
<v Speaker 4>Eddie wanted Mike to come off as one of those shooters?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? I see, yeah, uh no, no, not not really.
<v Speaker 2>He wanted Mike, wanted Mike to be able to protect himself.
<v Speaker 2>He wanted he wanted Mike to be more than Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>now I'm getting a doctor psychobabble here. Yeah, he wanted
<v Speaker 2>Mike to be more than he was.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>And you know there's that old say, and you can't
<v Speaker 2>make chicken salad chicken ship, right, Not that Mike was
<v Speaker 2>a chicken ship. But he was small, you know. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>if he had look at Kevin Sullivan, Kevin wasn't much
<v Speaker 2>taller than Kevin was maybe an inch taller than Mike,
<v Speaker 2>but he was he had developed his body. You know,
<v Speaker 2>Kevin had that big thick back and his chest and
<v Speaker 2>his arms and his legs, and he looked like an athlete.
<v Speaker 2>I could go in a ring against him and and
<v Speaker 2>feel like I was having you know, just a inches shorter,
<v Speaker 2>but you know, and uh, he actually looked more fifth
<v Speaker 2>than I did when I was heavy. I mean, when
<v Speaker 2>I was carrying too much weight. Sure, but Michael, Mike
<v Speaker 2>wouldn't work out hard enough to get those kind of muscles.
<v Speaker 4>I see. Wow, So the so perhaps those who had
<v Speaker 4>who had big builds might have aggravated him. I also
<v Speaker 4>wanted to go back when you drove away from Terry
<v Speaker 4>there that that day when he said, I'll be working
<v Speaker 4>out with your Thursday brother, and then Eddie says, break
<v Speaker 4>his legs, and then you don't show up. Do you
<v Speaker 4>think that day where you told Terry I'm not going
<v Speaker 4>to be there is the day that Matt Suda hurt him.
<v Speaker 2>No, no, no, no, no, okay, no no, they didn't. That
<v Speaker 2>didn't happen. That didn't happen while I was there, got it.
<v Speaker 2>Terry didn't come around for a while because I was
<v Speaker 2>still there for a while. The thing, all that thing
<v Speaker 2>was that should it would have never happened if I'd
<v Speaker 2>have been there? What?
<v Speaker 4>Why is that, Bob? Why wouldn't it have happened if
<v Speaker 4>you were there?
<v Speaker 1>He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack and and Jpisaro.
<v Speaker 2>He's the laps Fan Wrestling podcast. The thing, all that
<v Speaker 2>thing was that should it would have never happened if
<v Speaker 2>I have been there?
<v Speaker 4>Why is that, Bob? Why wouldn't it have happened if
<v Speaker 4>you were there?
<v Speaker 2>Because I knew Cherry by that time, and I would
<v Speaker 2>have protected him. I see Wow, If I would have
<v Speaker 2>protected him, I would have I would have taken him
<v Speaker 2>privately and trained him, or or I would have told him,
<v Speaker 2>I would advise him. Then don't go there, you know,
<v Speaker 2>if you know, it's not like you know the Mathia
<v Speaker 2>deal where you have to cut off in Japan or
<v Speaker 2>you have to cut off your finger to show the
<v Speaker 2>boss at your loyal or whatever. You shouldn't have to
<v Speaker 2>do that. And pro wrestling, I agree you should.
<v Speaker 4>I had the impression that sometimes you had to do
<v Speaker 4>that because Eddie wanted you to. Did you have to
<v Speaker 4>break some bones of people he wanted to never come
<v Speaker 4>back or was is that something you always found a
<v Speaker 4>way around having to do?
<v Speaker 2>I was asked eight times. I never did it. I
<v Speaker 2>did crack a guy's wrists. So although he didn't need
<v Speaker 2>a cat saw. I had a son a couple of
<v Speaker 2>weeks later and by accident at the grocery store, and
<v Speaker 2>he had on embrace. But I had I had asked that.
<v Speaker 2>I told that guy. I had given him fifteen times.
<v Speaker 2>I told him this guy Graham was telling me to
<v Speaker 2>kill this guy. This is another one of Ronnie West
<v Speaker 2>Ronnie Hill's proteges. Eddie wants me to kill the guy.
<v Speaker 2>And what had happened? The guy came into office and
<v Speaker 2>he didn't look like us. She wasn't. He didn't. He
<v Speaker 2>had been trained. But Ronnie Ronnie Hill had smartening up.
<v Speaker 2>It's to the language, you know, like I saved you.
<v Speaker 2>And he came in. Well, the guy behind the desk,
<v Speaker 2>it wasn't Charlie Lay the old time pro for fifty years,
<v Speaker 2>there was a guy named It was a guy named colonel.
<v Speaker 2>His name was colonel, his rank was colonel. Chaffy was
<v Speaker 2>his last name. He was the guy that had commanded
<v Speaker 2>the armory for the twenty five years that every Graham
<v Speaker 2>ran there and when he retired, he asked and Pete
<v Speaker 2>to come to the office and hang out. What happened
<v Speaker 2>one day Charlie wanted to take a leak or to
<v Speaker 2>have lunch, left the colonel there and answer the phone.
<v Speaker 2>This kid walks in and he starts talking. Yeah, I know,
<v Speaker 2>you know he's start you know, I'm talking. He's trying
<v Speaker 2>to talk like he's smart of the business, and Eddie
<v Speaker 2>hadn't smartened the colonel up.
<v Speaker 4>The colonel has no idea what he's saying. Wow.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So the colonel calls upstairs. He's asked to get
<v Speaker 2>kid to step out. He wasn't a kid. That guy
<v Speaker 2>whos about thirty, asked you to stuff out that stuff
<v Speaker 2>that thinks I might still be on YouTube. I don't know.
<v Speaker 2>But anyway, he called upstairs and said, Eddie, did this
<v Speaker 2>guy down here he's taying the business doll fake well
<v Speaker 2>and he's got a twenty five year relationship this colonel
<v Speaker 2>that he's been lying to him about being So he
<v Speaker 2>called emergency. I'm coming down here. I'm coming there to
<v Speaker 2>work because I work in the office a booker as
<v Speaker 2>sister booker one of them, and Edie immediately Bob, and
<v Speaker 2>he wanted me to hurt this guy Dad because and
<v Speaker 2>you know when you know, when it showed up on
<v Speaker 2>tape years later, I was absolutely stunned. I had no
<v Speaker 2>idea of what Eddy did. Was he called Dave Togy,
<v Speaker 2>which was his head of production, and one man he
<v Speaker 2>got it all done. Buntel. I mean he had solely,
<v Speaker 2>as you know, the voice, but he was running the
<v Speaker 2>cameras and all the mechanics and the hydro auction and
<v Speaker 2>all that. So anyway, he got Togy down there, and
<v Speaker 2>Togy what you saw on film of me abusing this
<v Speaker 2>guy was only about ten minutes. I had spent the
<v Speaker 2>fifteen to twenty before that of getting this guy and
<v Speaker 2>putting in these holes where he's and all that. And
<v Speaker 2>then I'm not screening, but he you know he'd be
<v Speaker 2>but hey, one's shrinking. But and then I, instead of
<v Speaker 2>breaking the one time I had him what I had
<v Speaker 2>to crawl, I had him more. I could have done
<v Speaker 2>what uh to his leg? What uh? Trago schedued the
<v Speaker 2>kids arm? I had I had his leg trapped, I
<v Speaker 2>had figured forward his leg above the knee. I had
<v Speaker 2>his ankle pulled up on the leg with his toe
<v Speaker 2>pointing uh in the wrong direction towards the side. All
<v Speaker 2>I had to do was both take a full pull
<v Speaker 2>on his ankle. I was dislocated his knee. And but
<v Speaker 2>depending on how I pulled and how tight I sensed
<v Speaker 2>up that figure four on his legs, I could have
<v Speaker 2>broken both his leg bones and tivvy and the tabula,
<v Speaker 2>dislocated his ankle uh and perhaps certainly dislocated his knee,
<v Speaker 2>and perhaps both steamer, I could have crippled the guy. Well,
<v Speaker 2>when I was pulling on the guy's leg, you know
<v Speaker 2>how your leg bones are bent kind of curved a
<v Speaker 2>little bit. They curved the other way boy, and I'm
<v Speaker 2>watching the curving and you know, like four or five
<v Speaker 2>degrees in the wrong direction. I almost got schecked to
<v Speaker 2>my stomach. I had to let oh the guy. I couldn't.
<v Speaker 2>I couldn't go through with it, you know, I mean
<v Speaker 2>got it? Now?
<v Speaker 4>Do you think is Eddie taping this for like leverage?
<v Speaker 4>Like if this guy ever goes goes out and says
<v Speaker 4>anything about the business, you got a tape of him
<v Speaker 4>getting Like why would he film it? I guess is
<v Speaker 4>my question?
<v Speaker 2>The show to the colonel.
<v Speaker 4>Oh right, that was the point got it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the show to the colonel. Couldn't have the colonel
<v Speaker 2>in there. Yeah, they couldn't have the curonel.
<v Speaker 4>In there watching, watching the session fascinating. Wow.
<v Speaker 2>No, no, no, he he set this up. The colonel
<v Speaker 2>was in the wrap. Yeah, he wanted that to show
<v Speaker 2>to the colonel because the colonel had heard. You don't
<v Speaker 2>think that colonel had heard from one three thousand people
<v Speaker 2>as the best most things. And uh and Andy been
<v Speaker 2>telling no, no, our version isn't. Look we got Jack Briscoe,
<v Speaker 2>National Champion, Day Lewis, and we got all these guys.
<v Speaker 2>Ours is real. Yeah. And some of those other people
<v Speaker 2>maybe their matters are shady, but on ours.
<v Speaker 4>Was Johnny Valentine in the office. I've heard people say
<v Speaker 4>Valentine was actually the booker when Terry Boulder Terry Hogan
<v Speaker 4>had his first matches in seventy seven on a couple
<v Speaker 4>of shots in the Florida Cercy wrestled Brian Blair a
<v Speaker 4>couple times under the mask as Super Destroyer, and that
<v Speaker 4>Johnny Valentine didn't really see anything in Terry Bolea and
<v Speaker 4>that that set him back a little bit too. Do
<v Speaker 4>you remember Johnny being involved or was that not coincident
<v Speaker 4>with when you were there.
<v Speaker 2>Now what this had been after the plane reck where
<v Speaker 2>Johnny was.
<v Speaker 4>Wheelchair yep, like seventy seven or so.
<v Speaker 2>I don't believe I've never heard of it. But let
<v Speaker 2>me let me also make clear that I was not
<v Speaker 2>in contact with anybody, you know when we went. Uh,
<v Speaker 2>when we're in opposition. You wouldn't believe the boys a
<v Speaker 2>big tough song, you know, guys wouldn't. We're afraid to
<v Speaker 2>even talk to.
<v Speaker 4>It, talk to you, associate with you, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 4>you were like.
<v Speaker 2>We stepped to the gas station one time and pulled
<v Speaker 2>around the side use of that room, and a bunch
<v Speaker 2>of guys that they pulled in to get gas, and
<v Speaker 2>a bunch of the guys were inside and we came.
<v Speaker 2>We came walking out of the store and they saw us,
<v Speaker 2>and uh, Carl Cox happened to be with them, and
<v Speaker 2>Carl was a buddy of mine from when I worked
<v Speaker 2>out in Texas. And uh, those guys are all scuttling
<v Speaker 2>to get in the car. The guy hadn't even paid
<v Speaker 2>fents paid for the gas. He pulled the mouse out
<v Speaker 2>and stuck it in. They were running out of there,
<v Speaker 2>like so they didn't have to admit they even sawr
<v Speaker 2>or so you wouldn't have to not talk to us, right,
<v Speaker 2>but not even so high, so they didn't have to
<v Speaker 2>appear to be a coward. And Carl Carl refused to
<v Speaker 2>let him leave. He stood, he was in the back seat.
<v Speaker 2>He shoud one foot out on the ground with a
<v Speaker 2>car open, and he said, Bobby, he said, these chicken
<v Speaker 2>ship motherfuckers are too scared to even talk to you.
<v Speaker 2>He said, I wish you well, my friend. He said,
<v Speaker 2>I hope you do. I hope you do good. And
<v Speaker 2>he got in the car with him.
<v Speaker 4>Incredible, What a different world?
<v Speaker 2>Now?
<v Speaker 4>Can I actually, I don't want to miss the chance
<v Speaker 4>to ask you this that, this question. And just as
<v Speaker 4>far as time check, we want to be respectful of
<v Speaker 4>your time. Are you coming up on a hard stop
<v Speaker 4>in ten minutes or can we go a little longer?
<v Speaker 2>Uh? You know, my it's you're it's my fault, not
<v Speaker 2>at all.
<v Speaker 4>No, I'm loving it. I just don't want I'll start
<v Speaker 4>rushing if we only have ten minutes. But if we
<v Speaker 4>can keep going, okay, great, thank you.
<v Speaker 2>I just want to be I've got I got I
<v Speaker 2>got great gimmick going. I've got I've got not it's
<v Speaker 2>not dementia, but right next to dementia, and then the
<v Speaker 2>long life right before, right before, and.
<v Speaker 4>Now we're getting it right before.
<v Speaker 2>Great. Yes, and I do have Parkinson's, but I you know,
<v Speaker 2>what it is is one finger's taken a little. So
<v Speaker 2>I'm not I'm not hurting. I feel great on eighty three.
<v Speaker 2>Nothing hurts, wonderful. My needs have been replaced nineteen times.
<v Speaker 2>When I read that Hulk has nineteen or seventeen or
<v Speaker 2>nineteen operations, I often wondered, you know, I did a
<v Speaker 2>thing about We're talking back on Hogan again about his
<v Speaker 2>whole life if at the end, if he thought about it,
<v Speaker 2>if he wondered, was it worth it? Yeah, you know,
<v Speaker 2>with what he ended up in terms of he had
<v Speaker 2>some personal problems in his marriage and his family, with
<v Speaker 2>his children, his that son, that wreck that killed somebody
<v Speaker 2>or hurt somebody or yeah, you know, and and you know,
<v Speaker 2>and being a public figure, it's like a sickness almost,
<v Speaker 2>you know. I mean, I'm not saying he had it,
<v Speaker 2>but we're seeing some of it now with some other
<v Speaker 2>NBA champions that are out.
<v Speaker 6>There acting really really really fucking championlike uh in Bars
<v Speaker 6>and things, and yeah, now this Doug alive, so I
<v Speaker 6>wouldn't be I wouldn't.
<v Speaker 4>Be, understand, But there's a price to be paid for
<v Speaker 4>that much spotlight for sure. Yeah, definitely. And in the
<v Speaker 4>final analysis, yeah, we fortunately Terry passed away. It's probably
<v Speaker 4>like a decade before he could be that reflective. You know,
<v Speaker 4>he was still out there, still pounding the pavement, still
<v Speaker 4>in front of the cameras whenever he could, almost until
<v Speaker 4>his dying days. You're looking for a pay day, yep.
<v Speaker 2>Well that's what I was curious about. I was curious
<v Speaker 2>about if if, the if the all the admissions of
<v Speaker 2>personal frailties and securities and all that with just another
<v Speaker 2>part of the show. That's why I asked you to
<v Speaker 2>do it as Hulk.
<v Speaker 4>It's a great question. I'm not sure anybody knows, but
<v Speaker 4>we definitely don't watch him from the sidelines. And you know,
<v Speaker 4>one of one of the people that came up with him,
<v Speaker 4>of course, was Ed Boulder, the future Brutus, Beefkke and WWF.
<v Speaker 4>He was friendly with Terry all the way back in
<v Speaker 4>Tampa when when they were teenagers, and as time went
<v Speaker 4>Ed's hanging out with Terry quite a bit in Tampa.
<v Speaker 4>Now Ed ed Leslie wrote a book, and you come
<v Speaker 4>up in the book as a key kind of figure
<v Speaker 4>when they're playing in the rock clubs and Ed is
<v Speaker 4>there while Terry's playing on stage. I want to read
<v Speaker 4>you an excerpt from Ed's book that involves involves you,
<v Speaker 4>and want to see if you have any recollection of
<v Speaker 4>this because you told the story, of course about going
<v Speaker 4>to see Terry playing music once, you know, going out
<v Speaker 4>dancing with with your girlfriend. But it seems like there
<v Speaker 4>may have been another time. He remembers being in this
<v Speaker 4>club and Joe Lado comes in, Dusty Rhodes comes in,
<v Speaker 4>and during the band's break, he rushed over to tell
<v Speaker 4>Hulk about all these wrestlers that are here, and Eddie's
<v Speaker 4>version as he he tells Hulk, now's your chance. You
<v Speaker 4>know you want to talk to these wrestlers. There's a
<v Speaker 4>bunch of them out there, and Ed writes, he rolled
<v Speaker 4>up his sleeves and walked over to Bob rup who
<v Speaker 4>was hanging out drinking with Bob Orton at a table. Hey, Bob,
<v Speaker 4>do you like the music? Bob nodded but didn't say much.
<v Speaker 4>I just want to let you know this is Terry talking.
<v Speaker 4>I'm also a big fan of you guys, and I
<v Speaker 4>would love to be a wrestler myself one day. And
<v Speaker 4>then the book says Rup and Norton looked him up
<v Speaker 4>and down and nodded. I saw them talk for a
<v Speaker 4>few minutes. The next thing you know, Terry's taking down
<v Speaker 4>a number. The band played another set, and then Terry
<v Speaker 4>went up to get a drink at the bar. There
<v Speaker 4>was Mike Graham. They both walked out of the bar
<v Speaker 4>for a bit. Terry came back in elated. I rushed
<v Speaker 4>over to see what happened. I asked him that, and
<v Speaker 4>he said, brother Bob rub hooked me up with Mike,
<v Speaker 4>and Mike's gonna set me up with Hira Matsuda. I'm
<v Speaker 4>going to go and train with him tomorrow. Do you
<v Speaker 4>remember that? Maybe that's the answer right there.
<v Speaker 2>You know what, I've got the perfect I said it earlier,
<v Speaker 2>so I'm not I'm not springing it on your house. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I said, I got that real close to the thing.
<v Speaker 2>You know what. I might not remember that, but that's
<v Speaker 2>a hell of a story. It's starting to come back
<v Speaker 2>to me now.
<v Speaker 4>Really.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I don't. I don't remember that.
<v Speaker 4>That's fine.
<v Speaker 2>I don't want you to. I don't want you to
<v Speaker 2>put anything in your book that. I mean, I don't
<v Speaker 2>know why I would say that. Uh, now you know
<v Speaker 2>what he does. What might have happened this story. He
<v Speaker 2>might have been telling a story twenty years later of
<v Speaker 2>stuff that Terry told him earlier.
<v Speaker 4>Totally. Yeah, it could be what that party.
<v Speaker 2>What he said about I'm working out with Bob Roup
<v Speaker 2>was exactly what he said when when he uh, after
<v Speaker 2>you talked to.
<v Speaker 4>Me, Yeah, when he came up to your car, right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so maybe you know, like you know, the deal
<v Speaker 2>co A Graham Jell Joe wrestler.
<v Speaker 4>By the time it comes out the other end, Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>there's four stories put together. Yeah, absolutely, Okay, Wells And
<v Speaker 4>later in the book he talks a little bit more
<v Speaker 4>about you come up again because after Terry had trained
<v Speaker 4>at the Snake Pit and had you know, about a
<v Speaker 4>dozen matches in seventy seven, then he takes a year off.
<v Speaker 4>Him and ed Leslie go out to Cocoa Beach and
<v Speaker 4>they work in a gym together, they work at a
<v Speaker 4>bar together, and then by seventy nine that's when they're
<v Speaker 4>ready to kind of get back in to the wrestling business.
<v Speaker 4>And Ed writes that Terry had shown him pretty much
<v Speaker 4>everything he'd learned. He was working a little here and there,
<v Speaker 4>and they wanted a debut attack team gimmick where him
<v Speaker 4>and Ed were brothers, and he said the ball started
<v Speaker 4>rolling very fast. After that, Terry talked to Bob Rup,
<v Speaker 4>who he had seen in the early days of the school.
<v Speaker 4>He got us a meeting with Jim Barnett, who was
<v Speaker 4>a well known n TOB affiliate promoter in Georgia, and
<v Speaker 4>we showed up to Atlanta in gear as the Boulder brothers,
<v Speaker 4>Terry and Eddie Boulder. Do you remember connecting Terry with Barnett?
<v Speaker 4>Would that make any sense? No? No, no, I don't
<v Speaker 4>think so. I don't think he might be thinking about
<v Speaker 4>Louis Tillette there. I'm not sure, but or maybe Terry Gibbs.
<v Speaker 4>But but it didn't sound But you didn't make the introduction.
<v Speaker 4>You told Terry told you about Hulk Hogan, Right, Terry
<v Speaker 4>Gibbs told you about Hulk Cogan. It's not that Hulk
<v Speaker 4>Cogan came to you.
<v Speaker 2>Hey, No, I asked you to snub in the bar.
<v Speaker 2>I never went there. I Hoganim could have showed up
<v Speaker 2>on my front I should unless you're a collector. Put
<v Speaker 2>a newspaper.
<v Speaker 4>That's the money quote there it is. I love it.
<v Speaker 2>Well, no it's not. You know, the shooting doesn't have
<v Speaker 2>anything to do with it. But the guy that he
<v Speaker 2>was snubbing was a college graduate, a veteran, and an
<v Speaker 2>olympian and a national champion and all of Americana State
<v Speaker 2>camp in, absolutely an educated man, and he's telling he's
<v Speaker 2>just like, fuck off, I'm not even gonna run. You
<v Speaker 2>don't get in front of me. It's not having you
<v Speaker 2>brush on my part of false pride. But I mean
<v Speaker 2>that I would not be offended. Holy shit. Uh yeah,
<v Speaker 2>there was something a mine of a good wonder. Oh
<v Speaker 2>the price Mike Extrand, Yeah, Party twenty seven, forty three,
<v Speaker 2>Joe flor Ninus sixty, Hawk seventy, all of them money
<v Speaker 2>by the go to male clinic can buy a wing
<v Speaker 2>to live then and be treated by all the doctors there,
<v Speaker 2>couldn't save them. So the price they paid for the
<v Speaker 2>the way they got in there was their bodies, with
<v Speaker 2>their muscles, absolutely, and the price they paid to get
<v Speaker 2>those muscles was their life.
<v Speaker 4>Absolutely glad you said that, because it's you can't talk
<v Speaker 4>around that. I mean, it's it's too obvious that it
<v Speaker 4>shaved off decade or two or even more. I mean,
<v Speaker 4>of course, Mike Hedgcrant had a ton of other issues
<v Speaker 4>as far as drug abuse and things, but they're all,
<v Speaker 4>you know, it all commingles in some ways. So I
<v Speaker 4>want to I want to fast forward a little bit,
<v Speaker 4>if we could, Bob, because we'd be remiss if we
<v Speaker 4>didn't talk about how seventy nine doesn't continue to evolve
<v Speaker 4>because while you know, you remember the Terry Gibbs piece
<v Speaker 4>about hooking up Hulk, and Hulk goes off to work
<v Speaker 4>for Ron Fuller in early seventy nine and becomes quite
<v Speaker 4>a sensation. He works for Jerry jar and Jerry Lawler
<v Speaker 4>in Memphis as well in the summer of seventy nine,
<v Speaker 4>along with his friend Ed Boulder. While that's all happening,
<v Speaker 4>and while Hulk is even wrestling Hardley in the Southeastern Territory,
<v Speaker 4>the Knoxville War is underway, and we've talked a lot
<v Speaker 4>about this. There's a ton of material out there about it,
<v Speaker 4>so we have a pretty good grasp on the story.
<v Speaker 4>But I would like, since we have the opportunity to
<v Speaker 4>speak to you, to get it in your words as
<v Speaker 4>far as why why you felt first of all that
<v Speaker 4>it was time to split away from from Ron Fuller
<v Speaker 4>and try to run opposition or take the territory. I
<v Speaker 4>know it has something to do with, you know, keeping
<v Speaker 4>track appropriate track of who's selling what kind of tickets.
<v Speaker 4>So if you could just give our listeners your perspective
<v Speaker 4>on why the war really started, that'd be awesome.
<v Speaker 2>Well, you know, I'd already I've already had a try
<v Speaker 2>to take over in California with Shire right when his
<v Speaker 2>local promoters, I mean the people that they him working
<v Speaker 2>with him for twenty years, all came to me because
<v Speaker 2>I had control of the talent. I took him. I
<v Speaker 2>took Roy. Roy ran everything until I'm not trying to
<v Speaker 2>brag here, but if I was going to be the
<v Speaker 2>booker and be responsible for drawing, then I had to
<v Speaker 2>be able to want to come up with the idea,
<v Speaker 2>and I wanted to have the talent. I wanted to
<v Speaker 2>get the talent. Roy just kept bringing back the same
<v Speaker 2>old people, cold so uh and business was terrible. The
<v Speaker 2>night I got the booking out there, I gave I
<v Speaker 2>was getting ready to give my notice. Anyway, I tried
<v Speaker 2>it once before, when when I want with Now we're
<v Speaker 2>back in Maxville. Ron's stealing money, or let's put the
<v Speaker 2>way money is. I'm not saying. I'm not. I did
<v Speaker 2>not say Ron is stealing money. Money is being misappropriated.
<v Speaker 2>I brought it to his attention, he said, without ever
<v Speaker 2>looking me in the eye, he said, oh, I can't be.
<v Speaker 2>It was his mother daughter team. Uh no, no, no
<v Speaker 2>officials of any kind there to check them out. No
<v Speaker 2>tax people, no athletics, athletic Association officials, nobody there check
<v Speaker 2>them out. And uh and they paid in cash in
<v Speaker 2>those towns. And yeah, so Ron ron Wright had worked
<v Speaker 2>for four or five different promoters. They had been working
<v Speaker 2>there for forty years. He's the one who showed it
<v Speaker 2>to me. He showed me it happening, and I watched
<v Speaker 2>it twice more of my shell saw it happening, and
<v Speaker 2>I want to Ryan put it with it. He kept
<v Speaker 2>denying it. But I had a five percent. I was
<v Speaker 2>supposed to get five percent of growth. You know what
<v Speaker 2>we drew every week. And I said, well, Royn, you
<v Speaker 2>realize if you unreport, say, you know, even five thousand dollars,
<v Speaker 2>you know you're talking about you know, two hundred and
<v Speaker 2>fifty bucks from me, and uh so, uh, you know
<v Speaker 2>it's going on. I'm telling you, I see it going on.
<v Speaker 2>He said no, no, no, no, he just kept denying it.
<v Speaker 2>And I finally said, so I didn't give my notice.
<v Speaker 2>Ronnie Garvin and Malincoln I had kind of a brain
<v Speaker 2>trust going. I went back and we all lived in
<v Speaker 2>the same apartment complex, and we could get together. Even
<v Speaker 2>though Ronnie was baby facing, Larry and I were heels
<v Speaker 2>of the Lincoln I were heels. He could. We had
<v Speaker 2>a way we could get together in the same apartment
<v Speaker 2>without anybody seeing us. So I walked through him. I said,
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to give my notice. Uh so you'ren be
<v Speaker 2>stole from Uh you know, people can only steal from
<v Speaker 2>you if you out. I can work anywhere in the world,
<v Speaker 2>I said, I'm just going to give my notice. Ronnie
<v Speaker 2>Garvin says, Ronnie, who's been there, you know, a year
<v Speaker 2>and a half years, biggest start. I don't know if
<v Speaker 2>they had any bigger ones, but uh they might have.
<v Speaker 2>But uh he was big at that time. And uh
<v Speaker 2>Ronnie said, uh, let's take it. That's what he said,
<v Speaker 2>Let's take it.
<v Speaker 4>Let's take it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I stood your territory. He said yeah. I looked
<v Speaker 2>at my ank car. He said, what do you think, Clarry?
<v Speaker 2>He said, yeah, I said, these two veterans my Michael
<v Speaker 2>had been in the business thirty years. Ronnie's been in
<v Speaker 2>the business ten years before I had. So here are
<v Speaker 2>these two veterans are saying, let's take it. But what
<v Speaker 2>we were stupid. We didn't have a team be wrapped
<v Speaker 2>up before we get it because we were worried about going.
<v Speaker 2>If we went to our TV, the words would get out,
<v Speaker 2>and so I don't know, we shrew up, but it
<v Speaker 2>didn't work. Now that being said, I'm here talking to
<v Speaker 2>you guys right now. I'm very happy doing that. And
<v Speaker 2>life is good.
<v Speaker 4>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>I had two sons in the house about love. That
<v Speaker 2>we're going home together and life is good. Uh. That
<v Speaker 2>that that mental thing for some reasons. You know what
<v Speaker 2>my memory, my memory is saying, listen, Bob, I've been
<v Speaker 2>a year beck and call for eighty three years from No,
<v Speaker 2>just fucking forget it.
<v Speaker 4>Just forget it. Yeah, wouldn't that be a luxury?
<v Speaker 2>Be a joke?
<v Speaker 4>I remember I saw Runs talked a little bit in
<v Speaker 4>interviews over the years about the whole thing, and he
<v Speaker 4>he said that you know, in addition to what you're
<v Speaker 4>saying that he completely denied that anyone could be stealing
<v Speaker 4>the money. You know, he says that actually he didn't
<v Speaker 4>have control over who actually counted tickets and collected tickets
<v Speaker 4>at the at the Knuxville Coliseum, so he kind of
<v Speaker 4>felt like, no, no, yeah, no, it.
<v Speaker 2>Wasn't the coliseum. It wasn't it wasn't. Uh uh the
<v Speaker 2>DWKE Kentucky.
<v Speaker 4>Town, oh I see, okay understood.
<v Speaker 2>Said there were Saturday nights yep, any town where the
<v Speaker 2>mother daughter, and there were spots shows. Yes, they wouldn't
<v Speaker 2>have like a high school gym is not going to
<v Speaker 2>have their own box office for wrestling that right. You know.
<v Speaker 2>All Ron needed was the mother and the daughter. And
<v Speaker 2>he had a guy I can't remember his name. He
<v Speaker 2>had a guy that was kind of security, you know,
<v Speaker 2>a man there that kind of watch the money and
<v Speaker 2>make sure everything. And Mike McMurray, the referee, had ten percent.
<v Speaker 2>I didn't know that until about a week ago. Really.
<v Speaker 2>Uh so he was yeah and Mac was Mac on
<v Speaker 2>the almost pay days. Uh uh? Both both towns that
<v Speaker 2>the same same letter.
<v Speaker 4>Same letter.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, uh, they do that the talents would draw uh,
<v Speaker 2>maybe twelve thirteen, fourteen, grand right, and they were always
<v Speaker 2>They're always good. Because then I went there. I think
<v Speaker 2>I think they went there one sort well maybe once
<v Speaker 2>a month, might have been one story two weeks, because
<v Speaker 2>I don't think. I don't remember running the Kentucky Town
<v Speaker 2>every every show.
<v Speaker 4>Every Yeah did you how was it? His booker in
<v Speaker 4>Knoxville for you, Bob did what was did you have
<v Speaker 4>trouble drawing runs? Kind of makes it seem like Knoxville
<v Speaker 4>was struggling at the time the war happens, and that
<v Speaker 4>you know, the card the cards weren't drawing, and he's like,
<v Speaker 4>you know, you were sabotaging the cards trying to get
<v Speaker 4>attendance down. Yeah, this is you've probably heard them.
<v Speaker 2>I listened to you know, I tried to listen to
<v Speaker 2>his his stuff, and I heard the one I picked. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>because call it name calling. This I was a playground
<v Speaker 2>supervisor when I was mister Mount for my kids after
<v Speaker 2>I retired, and just you know, the first or second
<v Speaker 2>graders to college other names, Oh here, nanny, Nanny booboo
<v Speaker 2>and all that. Yeah, so Ron Fuller was calling me names.
<v Speaker 2>But the first tape I turned, he had to deal
<v Speaker 2>where you know, write the right the fans, but his
<v Speaker 2>very interested fans for his show of the Tennessee Show,
<v Speaker 2>they had to write end. So the very first start
<v Speaker 2>of the show was he's going to read or write it.
<v Speaker 2>So he had his co hosts. I don't know what
<v Speaker 2>to call the guy who opened the show for him,
<v Speaker 2>I had him a letter or read the letter to him,
<v Speaker 2>and the letter is, why is Bob broops? That's a dick?
<v Speaker 2>Why why is Bob such a dick? That's the opening
<v Speaker 2>question on the fucking tip.
<v Speaker 4>Straight down the fairway.
<v Speaker 2>Right, there's supposed to be eight or ten hours of
<v Speaker 2>this shift. I'm going to listen to this kind of
<v Speaker 2>ship for eight I don't think so I've heard enough
<v Speaker 2>got it, So I decided I just forget it now
<v Speaker 2>to be fair, and you guys have good if you
<v Speaker 2>listen to them my podcast at all.
<v Speaker 4>Yes I did.
<v Speaker 2>I did react a couple of times, and I told her,
<v Speaker 2>I told the story Knoxville, and I told I said
<v Speaker 2>some of the things I said to you guys tonight.
<v Speaker 2>But that was that was my first time to speak
<v Speaker 2>out because frankly, it had bothered me. I'm sure you
<v Speaker 2>know a long as a lonely voice. I had a
<v Speaker 2>very small voice on social media because I hadn't worked
<v Speaker 2>to have a big one, right and uh so to
<v Speaker 2>refute it, what you're doing is you're giving validity that
<v Speaker 2>these charges could be true. I see, I just ignoring them,
<v Speaker 2>you know, I'm just saying. But but once we got
<v Speaker 2>on it. Once Ray and I got on a subject
<v Speaker 2>and he asked me about it, well, I had to
<v Speaker 2>tell him. You know, I can't say I don't want
<v Speaker 2>to talk about it. I had to tell him some
<v Speaker 2>of the stuff I was telling you about about what
<v Speaker 2>happened Ryan about around had brought around his own destruction.
<v Speaker 2>He could have been if he'd have been smart. You know,
<v Speaker 2>it's a compliment. I'm complimenting myself here. He'd have been smart.
<v Speaker 2>He just said, look, Bob, what about we do this
<v Speaker 2>until I find out what's going on. Why didn't I
<v Speaker 2>start paying you five hundred bucks more a week and
<v Speaker 2>give me a month or two to start this out?
<v Speaker 2>Would you do that for me, Bob? Now, if he
<v Speaker 2>done something like that, I would have accepted. In no
<v Speaker 2>one it was fucking black, you know, payoff, But I
<v Speaker 2>would have accepted because I could have gotten away, you know,
<v Speaker 2>I could have gotten along with that if the rest
<v Speaker 2>of the boys ran right, and all those guys they
<v Speaker 2>knew they were getting screwed. They weren't quitting, they weren't
<v Speaker 2>coming to me and giving their notice. So if he could,
<v Speaker 2>if Royan's wanting to take care of me. You know,
<v Speaker 2>my fault was one of my faults was when you're
<v Speaker 2>a wrestler and you become a booker, you have to
<v Speaker 2>forget all about being one of the boys. You are
<v Speaker 2>now management. You are not labor anymore. And if you
<v Speaker 2>put your heart you leave any part of your heart
<v Speaker 2>and labor, you're making a big mistake because they'll fucking
<v Speaker 2>break it. And so I made that mistake and trusted, uh,
<v Speaker 2>you know, I could touch Ronnie, but we trusted Dick
<v Speaker 2>Schlater and not to speak all those dad, but you know,
<v Speaker 2>he he demonstrated his qualities. Uh he was, Yeah, he was.
<v Speaker 4>He took the book. You know, ron has said that
<v Speaker 4>Dick was the one who told him about what you
<v Speaker 4>guys were doing, and Dick got the book after that
<v Speaker 4>for ron for the period of time he controlled it. Okay, well,
<v Speaker 4>that's that's good. I just wanted to, We just wanted
<v Speaker 4>to and again You can refer to Bob's podcast for
<v Speaker 4>for a lot more in depth commentary, and we talked
<v Speaker 4>about it as we went through it, but it definitely
<v Speaker 4>wanted to set the stage there. Not to harp on
<v Speaker 4>it though. But one reason it is important for us, Bob,
<v Speaker 4>is because you know, as you know, the Plan B
<v Speaker 4>tape got on YouTube and it's just it is just fascinating.
<v Speaker 4>It is just like this time capsule of an era
<v Speaker 4>that and I know, JP, you know you're really interested
<v Speaker 4>in that, you want to be you wanted to ask
<v Speaker 4>about the tape. I mean, I I am.
<v Speaker 5>As as a wrestling fan, you know, I just never
<v Speaker 5>seen when we listened to we watched it and I'd
<v Speaker 5>never seen anything like it.
<v Speaker 4>And no, I I I I was curious.
<v Speaker 5>I mean number one, I mean.
<v Speaker 2>In the rustling business, it's like Moses bringing down the
<v Speaker 2>tablets and you took him in an under the job.
<v Speaker 4>Precisely.
<v Speaker 1>Well.
<v Speaker 4>One thing that that.
<v Speaker 2>That's about exposing the rusty business flaws. That's that was
<v Speaker 2>the kind of spun exposure in the rustling busness flaws
<v Speaker 2>as a threat.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, because what I found interesting though, too, is that
<v Speaker 5>you know, over the years and we've we've noticed as
<v Speaker 5>we've looked at at all sorts of of of newspapers
<v Speaker 5>dating back even to the late eighteen hundreds, and there's
<v Speaker 5>always been this like like a skepticism that pro wrestling
<v Speaker 5>is is not on the level. And I just I
<v Speaker 5>was fascinated that you guys were just gonna come out
<v Speaker 5>and just say it, and you're gonna you're gonna expose
<v Speaker 5>it all right.
<v Speaker 2>There imagine Malanco effect of him. Yeah, you know, he
<v Speaker 2>hadn't been around. Larry's been around thirty Larry goes all
<v Speaker 2>over the country. So yeah, that it was man as
<v Speaker 2>a threat. We were we were getting our ass kicked
<v Speaker 2>and we're running out of money to keep running, and
<v Speaker 2>they were Crockett was sending in people. Uh, Jarrett was
<v Speaker 2>sending in people, and Graham was sending in people, and
<v Speaker 2>Barnett was sending in people. So, uh, what we got
<v Speaker 2>told you about going down and doing the little just
<v Speaker 2>kind of a fuck you type part of my language.
<v Speaker 2>Uh with Toddy Grayer, you can edit that out.
<v Speaker 4>You can say as much as you want.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and then uh uh so we were fighting back
<v Speaker 2>any way we could. And we thought what we made
<v Speaker 2>a veiled references. If we had made another one. I
<v Speaker 2>was going to talk about Jim Bynet's personal night.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, you may make reference to that as the subject
<v Speaker 4>of a future tape that I suppose was never made.
<v Speaker 2>Well, no, we didn't. I don't know what happened. Ron
<v Speaker 2>Wright set that up. He said we can do this,
<v Speaker 2>and we talked about it, and it wasn't my idea
<v Speaker 2>I had. I got a lot of the heat because
<v Speaker 2>I was a booker. Ronnie was the one that said,
<v Speaker 2>let's take it. In fact, Ronnie was the one Ron
<v Speaker 2>Buller shoot in court because Ronnie stole a fifteen thousand
<v Speaker 2>dollars a motor boat from him. All right, you know
<v Speaker 2>you know that's the story. Yeah, yep, yeah, the dirty Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>the money in the paper bag story. So there were
<v Speaker 2>no contract, there was money in paper bag, and me
<v Speaker 2>as a judge, you want me to make a decision
<v Speaker 2>about whose money that was money? That was right? Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>Well did the paper bag have oh I belonged to
<v Speaker 2>Kroger in a Kroger bag to give it to the
<v Speaker 2>Cribber store.
<v Speaker 4>The judge also wasn't interested in, uh deciding who has
<v Speaker 4>the rightful claim to a phony wrestling belt, which also
<v Speaker 4>was part of that battle.
<v Speaker 2>Between those two oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, some of
<v Speaker 2>So that's that's just this is a twilight zone stuff
<v Speaker 2>I'm talking about.
<v Speaker 4>Right, Well, you were saying that it was runs I
<v Speaker 4>did to do the tape runs I did to do
<v Speaker 4>the tapes, and you only got one of them done.
<v Speaker 2>It sounds like, yeah, well listen, uh I'm going to
<v Speaker 2>be around for a while. Uh please uh And you
<v Speaker 2>know maybe that the D word, even if it progresses,
<v Speaker 2>there's gonna be some of me. Well, I don't think
<v Speaker 2>the long term memory is going to be affected. So
<v Speaker 2>please keep me in mind for future shows or you know,
<v Speaker 2>if you if you want somebody or just a kind
<v Speaker 2>of you know, I mean a couple of minutes here
<v Speaker 2>or there. I enjoyed. I enjoyed, you know what, being
<v Speaker 2>on your your the show, aving you guys. Thank Having
<v Speaker 2>you guys, with your reputation and your credibility authenticate me
<v Speaker 2>makes me relevant and it gives me respect and I
<v Speaker 2>appreciate that.
<v Speaker 4>It's a pleasure.
<v Speaker 2>Bob.
<v Speaker 4>I'm absolutely You've been more than kind with your time.
<v Speaker 4>And to wrap it up, can I ask you just
<v Speaker 4>the other side of the Knoxville thing is seventy nine
<v Speaker 4>because one of the things that I'm fascinated by is
<v Speaker 4>there's a there's a clipping from a newspaper in Knoxville
<v Speaker 4>November twenty ninth, nineteen seventy nine, all Star Championship Wrestling,
<v Speaker 4>which is the name you gave to the promotion, that
<v Speaker 4>after you split off and started running opposition, you've got
<v Speaker 4>Bob Orton in Malenko versus Garvin and Man Mountain Dean.
<v Speaker 4>You've got Macho Man Randy Savage versus yourself listed here
<v Speaker 4>on the clipping, and it also says on that night,
<v Speaker 4>in addition to Terry Gibbs wrestling, that there's going to
<v Speaker 4>be a Hulk challenge for five thousand dollars and it's
<v Speaker 4>going to be Bob Roup versus the Hulk Sterling Golden. Now,
<v Speaker 4>I'm quite sure you never actually wrestled Hulk, but there's
<v Speaker 4>this indication in this newspaper ad that that it was planned.
<v Speaker 4>Do you have any memory of that.
<v Speaker 2>Let's back up to the stake what you said. There's
<v Speaker 2>two sentences ago. You're quite sure it never happened. Is that?
<v Speaker 2>Because of why when we talked.
<v Speaker 4>Earlier, because of that, but also since then, there's a
<v Speaker 4>wrestling website called Wrestling Data dot Com. And it's a
<v Speaker 4>very comprehensive list of you know, you can look up
<v Speaker 4>by wrestler every match that they've had, and I see
<v Speaker 4>on that night your list is actually wrestling Randy Savage
<v Speaker 4>November twenty nine, seventy nine at the Knoxville at the
<v Speaker 4>Wnox Auditorium. So that also tells me.
<v Speaker 2>No mention of me sterling exactly right. Well, I use
<v Speaker 2>that same I use that same data. Oh. Sure, that's
<v Speaker 2>a good that's a good website. Yeah, I mean it's
<v Speaker 2>got it's pretty accurate. I look, I looked at a lot.
<v Speaker 4>Of give me the name again, sure, wrestling data dot com. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 4>so you don't wrestling.
<v Speaker 2>Terry, I don't, you know, it seems like I don't know,
<v Speaker 2>I could forget it right exactly. Uh, but you know
<v Speaker 2>I told you a story about you know, if somebody
<v Speaker 2>had asked me, Okay, I'm we're gonna we're gonna cut
<v Speaker 2>one of your toes off if you get the answer
<v Speaker 2>on but have you ever wrestled past I pushing Michelle anyway,
<v Speaker 2>I've never wrestled him. They might have come out both
<v Speaker 2>codes because some guys sent me, hey, twenty minute match
<v Speaker 2>in the cow Palace. Oh, ship, that's right. I mean
<v Speaker 2>years ago when I you know, I still had a mind.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my god, it's wild.
<v Speaker 4>Because Terry comes, he goes away, he does Memphis, then
<v Speaker 4>he goes and he goes to Georgia and he becomes
<v Speaker 4>Stirling Golden on Jim Barnett's TV. And then Barnett buys
<v Speaker 4>Knoxville from Ron Fuller, and then all of a sudden,
<v Speaker 4>Hulk is coming back around Knoxville, even though that it
<v Speaker 4>was sort of part of the Southeastern territory. So I
<v Speaker 4>always wondered, you know, when Barnett took over Knoxville, if
<v Speaker 4>you if you had a view on whether Barnett used
<v Speaker 4>a lot of the Georgia guys in Knoxville after that,
<v Speaker 4>and if Hulk was part of that. Maybe I noticed
<v Speaker 4>he wrestled Dick Slater in late seventy nine after Barnett
<v Speaker 4>took over. Just essentially, you know, what was Knoxville like
<v Speaker 4>and what was the constitution of the roster after Barnett
<v Speaker 4>took over. If you even concerned yourself with that, I
<v Speaker 4>don't even know.
<v Speaker 2>You know what happened as soon as we we went
<v Speaker 2>to work with theos and you talk about a nightmare, really, oh,
<v Speaker 2>my god, oh old man papa, Oh my god. It's
<v Speaker 2>a horrible, horrible person. And I'm sorry, I mean, I'm
<v Speaker 2>sorry to speak ill of the dead. But uh, he
<v Speaker 2>was he was something else. So anyway, working with them,
<v Speaker 2>I felt like a failure. You know, this is my
<v Speaker 2>second time at trying to do they do in business
<v Speaker 2>all the time. It's coup of hospital takeovers. You know,
<v Speaker 2>you just ships back around. That's how only got Barnett
<v Speaker 2>out of Atlanta and hired me. Uh. But once I left, Uh,
<v Speaker 2>once I managed to Uh, I was working for the papos,
<v Speaker 2>and I had heard it was a nightmare. I hated
<v Speaker 2>it and I heard it. Uh. We always believed that stuff.
<v Speaker 2>If you ever went out position, no promoter ever hire
<v Speaker 2>you in all that bullshit. So I had not even
<v Speaker 2>bothered to call around. And one day I called. I
<v Speaker 2>talked to buddy uh uh Mandel and uh I met
<v Speaker 2>him in before he got started. I met him in Knoxville,
<v Speaker 2>and and I like to I like to care and
<v Speaker 2>on around with us. And I don't know if I
<v Speaker 2>helped get him started or not. But anyway, he was
<v Speaker 2>out there working. I called him. He said, Bob, there
<v Speaker 2>they need to heal out here. You got a call,
<v Speaker 2>and so I called Watts, but I said, yeah, uh yeah,
<v Speaker 2>here's a starting date. So I was living real low
<v Speaker 2>on the hog. I had a girlfriend with an apartment
<v Speaker 2>in Knoxville that I was paying for, and I was living.
<v Speaker 2>I was sleeping on couches and things and and uh
<v Speaker 2>up up in uh Lexington, Kentucky where the uh where
<v Speaker 2>the where the office was so uh when I went
<v Speaker 2>out to uh, when I went out to uh Bill's territory,
<v Speaker 2>I just slept. I slept on Bob Orton's couch for
<v Speaker 2>a while. I didn't cash my first uh oh ten checks.
<v Speaker 2>I don't think I cashed one. And then when if
<v Speaker 2>I made a positive bank, I think it was like
<v Speaker 2>nineteen grand or something like that. Because it was good.
<v Speaker 2>Business was good, and Bill got me over right away.
<v Speaker 4>Right, so stop. So you wouldn't have You wouldn't have
<v Speaker 4>worked anywhere near You wouldn't have worked anywhere near Knoxville
<v Speaker 4>after Barnett took it over, right, This.
<v Speaker 2>Is what I wanted. The reason I told you the
<v Speaker 2>story is between those two I forgot all about Maxwell.
<v Speaker 2>I didn't give a shit about Maxville. Knoxville to me
<v Speaker 2>wasented like to me. It was like a like a
<v Speaker 2>new clear a plant that blows up. You know, it's
<v Speaker 2>like a black hole back everything everything. I'd lost about
<v Speaker 2>two hundred thousand dollars and not money that I had
<v Speaker 2>about twenty five of that, but in money I could
<v Speaker 2>have made. Uh, And you know, left there with terrible
<v Speaker 2>memories of you know, like I say, going opposition and
<v Speaker 2>finding out most of the boys wanting to talk to you.
<v Speaker 2>That's that's kind of hard to take and keep respect
<v Speaker 2>to the guys once you start working again. So you know,
<v Speaker 2>my attitude had changed. I had gotten I'd gotten a
<v Speaker 2>big boy pants on and realized that the business is
<v Speaker 2>something to make money at and you know, try to
<v Speaker 2>save some money. And that's what I did. So and
<v Speaker 2>then I forget. I forgot all about Knoxville.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, that's really helpful, because there's the there's that, there's
<v Speaker 4>the newspaper. And I said, there's also this idea that
<v Speaker 4>once Hulk is Sterling Golden beat you for the nw
<v Speaker 4>A Southeastern title, that that's out there and repeated in reports.
<v Speaker 4>But the match, I don't know when that happened. It
<v Speaker 4>didn't happen as far as I can tell. Right, he
<v Speaker 4>had that belt, but he didn't beat you for it
<v Speaker 4>because that was after Barnett had taken over, and like
<v Speaker 4>you said, you were long gone from Knoxville, right right, yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 4>So he goes and he ends up losing on Christmas
<v Speaker 4>Night seventy nine to Bob Armstrong. Does Hulk, He loses
<v Speaker 4>the belt, some different belt, did a different bomb, and
<v Speaker 4>that's it, and he's he doesn't come back to Knoxville again.
<v Speaker 4>And it didn't seem like he just final question for you, Barbroup.
<v Speaker 4>I mean, it didn't seem like Hulk was it took
<v Speaker 4>a position in the war, right, It didn't seem like
<v Speaker 4>Hulk picked Fuller over you or anything like that, because no, okay,
<v Speaker 4>you didn't try to recruit him or anything like that.
<v Speaker 2>No. I remember, I remember one of our last nights
<v Speaker 2>in Maxville. I went there's a bar all the boys
<v Speaker 2>went to. I went down there by myself because since
<v Speaker 2>we had gone opposition, we had stopped going there because
<v Speaker 2>we were like the opposition group, and Slater had become
<v Speaker 2>the booker and he was like ruling the bar like
<v Speaker 2>he owned it. And I decided I got I wasn't mad.
<v Speaker 2>I just decided I had some cowboy boots, and I
<v Speaker 2>had a blackjack. One of those ones was about sixteen
<v Speaker 2>inches long. Our security was a head of a copt
<v Speaker 2>in Fort Laller. Bill and I got to be buddies
<v Speaker 2>after working there down there for a year or two,
<v Speaker 2>and he told it to me. Here, gave me one.
<v Speaker 2>He said, take this, you might need it sometime. Well
<v Speaker 2>I put that years later, I put that in my
<v Speaker 2>boot and I went to the bar by myself. You know,
<v Speaker 2>if I went in there with Ronnie and Bobby, you know,
<v Speaker 2>Bobby Orton Jr. And ron and Milenko, maybe with a chain.
<v Speaker 2>Uh uh. You know we're going in there to have
<v Speaker 2>a fight. No, that's not the way to go. By
<v Speaker 2>going in there by myself. I was trying to show
<v Speaker 2>him that. You know, I wasn't scared of what I did.
<v Speaker 2>Is I four straighters hand. We've been running ads in
<v Speaker 2>the paper lights out match after our matches, Uh loser
<v Speaker 2>or loser or a person who doesn't show up as
<v Speaker 2>a chicken. We were running in the paper every weekend.
<v Speaker 2>I was challenging Slater to slice out match. So when
<v Speaker 2>I went to the bar, I knew he would be
<v Speaker 2>in there. He had to challenge me and I I
<v Speaker 2>didn't get all the satisfaction I wanted, but I did
<v Speaker 2>get to whack him and bust Molten with that black jack.
<v Speaker 4>Wow wow.
<v Speaker 2>And he never he never put he never put a
<v Speaker 2>fender on me. H. And the next time I saw
<v Speaker 2>him through three years later, I was booking in Florida,
<v Speaker 2>walked in the dressing room. I was lookome to say, well,
<v Speaker 2>I wonder if she's holding the grudge or anything, but
<v Speaker 2>he actually liked nothing that happened. So, uh, that's another's
<v Speaker 2>twilight zone stuff, right.
<v Speaker 4>Well, we want to thank you for getting us acquainted
<v Speaker 4>through your eyes at this twilight zone because we've long
<v Speaker 4>talked about wrestling that way, and it's fascinating to hear
<v Speaker 4>someone with such respect and time in the business. Uh,
<v Speaker 4>just to think of it the same way looking back
<v Speaker 4>after all these years. Well, Bob Roup, it was a
<v Speaker 4>real pleasure to have you on the show. We want
<v Speaker 4>to thank you so much for your extended time and
<v Speaker 4>and testing that memory as best you can. There was
<v Speaker 4>some great stuff in there, and we're glad you allowed
<v Speaker 4>us to sort of put it on the record. Thank
<v Speaker 4>you very much.
<v Speaker 2>H Well, thank you guys, appreciate it. Uh, call me again.
<v Speaker 2>I'll probably, I might not be I might not be
<v Speaker 2>all here, but all neat will be here.
<v Speaker 4>That sounds like a deal.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you, Bob, all right, appreciate it.
<v Speaker 4>PA is a production of the Labs Entertainment Group.
<v Speaker 2>Its content is intended for reven use only
<v Speaker 4>What we want.