The Complete Hulk Hogan | An Interview with Michael St. John, Voice of 'The Hulk' Memphis Vignette

<v Speaker 1>It's The Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast special report. The Lapsed
<v Speaker 1>Fan presents the Complete Hull Cogan, a real American story
<v Speaker 1>brought to you by Garage Pierre.
<v Speaker 2>Well Boss before we leave Memphis on the Complete Hull Cogan.
<v Speaker 2>You know, it's always appropriate that that we do some outreach,
<v Speaker 2>isn't that Isn't that correct? Yes? I think that's Listen.
<v Speaker 3>If we're going to be the Complete Hull Cogan, this
<v Speaker 3>is the only way you can be complete.
<v Speaker 2>And we're trying to bring voices in who you know,
<v Speaker 2>aren't just the wrestlers that Hogan shared the ring with,
<v Speaker 2>but folks that kind of observed the phenomenon takes shape
<v Speaker 2>from a unique vantage point or two. If we can
<v Speaker 2>and man on the Memphis stop, do we have just
<v Speaker 2>the person Michael Saint John, an absolute Alabama broadcast legend
<v Speaker 2>who was, as we discussed on the episode, the gentleman
<v Speaker 2>who voiced over the famous Hulk vignette that Jerry Jarrett
<v Speaker 2>put together to unveil Well to reintroduce, let's say, Terry
<v Speaker 2>Boulder to Memphis wrestling fans in the summer of seventy
<v Speaker 2>nine as the brother of the besieged ed Boulder, The
<v Speaker 2>Hulk is coming and he's coming here, and Michael Saint
<v Speaker 2>John is here to take us back to putting that
<v Speaker 2>whole thing together. Michael, welcome to the Lapsed Fan and
<v Speaker 2>thank you so much for giving us the time.
<v Speaker 4>Well, first of all, it is my honor that you
<v Speaker 4>would to reach out to me and ask me. I'm
<v Speaker 4>thrilled to death to join you guys, and we've made
<v Speaker 4>some connection from a period of time right before all
<v Speaker 4>that came down with the Hulk Hogan video, when I
<v Speaker 4>was in Hartford by God, Connecticut for a year programming.
<v Speaker 1>And yes, up in New England in.
<v Speaker 4>A wonderful, beautiful area of the country. I'm a born
<v Speaker 4>and brad Southern boy and to have the opportunity to
<v Speaker 4>program in New England and get to know those wonderful
<v Speaker 4>people that are in New England. You know, you get
<v Speaker 4>a bad rap in the South, yes, but I've lived
<v Speaker 4>it and there's no bad rap to be you guys.
<v Speaker 4>You guys are wonderful people. And the weather, the cold
<v Speaker 4>weather makes you warm or hearted. So I love New
<v Speaker 4>England and just thank you very much for the opportunity.
<v Speaker 2>Oh it's a two way exchange, you know, Michael. We're
<v Speaker 2>learning so much about Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, by going intensely
<v Speaker 2>deep in our research on Terry Boli's upbringing from you know,
<v Speaker 2>really the late fifties in Tampa. He went to Alabama
<v Speaker 2>as his first sort of wrestling territory and then and
<v Speaker 2>then made his way over to Memphis. So the cultural exchange,
<v Speaker 2>if you can call it that here in the North
<v Speaker 2>and South is very much intact. But yes, what would
<v Speaker 2>love to I don't know. Just start with the video
<v Speaker 2>and I'm sure we'll work our way in. This is
<v Speaker 2>the famous hul cogn vignette that so many people have
<v Speaker 2>seen by now thanks to the wonders of YouTube. Is
<v Speaker 2>it survives from I guess someone taped it off television
<v Speaker 2>back in seventy nine, and there it is. But perhaps Michael,
<v Speaker 2>you could explain to our listeners how you even got
<v Speaker 2>involved with Jerry Jarrett so that the phone call came
<v Speaker 2>to you when it came time to voice this thing over.
<v Speaker 4>Well, it goes back a little bit before being involved
<v Speaker 4>with Jerry. I was the last commentator for Gooli's Welsh
<v Speaker 4>Wrestling in the Southeast. And I'm a radio I'm a
<v Speaker 4>lifer radio wise, I just celebrated my fifty eighth anniversary
<v Speaker 4>of my first broadcast in radio back in nineteen sixty
<v Speaker 4>in nineteen sixty nine, just two days ago, and well,
<v Speaker 4>thank you, thank you very much, guys. But anyway, I
<v Speaker 4>was always a big wrestling fan. I grew up in Huntsville, Alabama,
<v Speaker 4>which was the first city really in this part of
<v Speaker 4>the country to have what was known as cable television.
<v Speaker 4>But back then, all that meant was a cable came
<v Speaker 4>into your house and connected to your TV, and it
<v Speaker 4>was a community antenna, and they brought in twelve different
<v Speaker 4>signals from twelve different well from four different markets into Huntsville,
<v Speaker 4>and you were able and at a very young age,
<v Speaker 4>from like nineteen sixty four on, I could watch wrestling
<v Speaker 4>live studio wrestling out of Nashville, Chattanooga, Birmingham.
<v Speaker 1>There was a small show here in Huntsville, a half.
<v Speaker 4>Hour show at four thirty in the afternoon at channel
<v Speaker 4>channel nineteen, and occasionally about once a month get the
<v Speaker 4>Memphis show from Channel thirteen to Memphis. So I sort
<v Speaker 4>of got the feel of professional wrestling, even though I
<v Speaker 4>wasn't smart to the business. I guess I was technically
<v Speaker 4>smarted up to the business because of that, and I
<v Speaker 4>got an opportunity to work for Nicholas in his final years,
<v Speaker 4>starting in February of nineteen seventy seven in Nashville, and
<v Speaker 4>the show was syndicated or sent around on a bicycle
<v Speaker 4>tape as they called it, to nine other markets, uh,
<v Speaker 4>some small, some medium sized markets in the Southeast. And
<v Speaker 4>when Jerry bought Nick out, they started taping.
<v Speaker 1>We were taping.
<v Speaker 4>Nick was taping his show for the bicycle on Wednesday
<v Speaker 4>nights at the Fairgrounds Arena Nashville. And I was running
<v Speaker 4>radio station Kicks one oh four back then out of
<v Speaker 4>Nashville and actually out of Gallaton, Tennessee.
<v Speaker 1>And uh, I met up with George Goulis, of all people,
<v Speaker 1>and uh we got.
<v Speaker 4>To be friends, and he invited me down to h
<v Speaker 4>to the matches one night and asked me if I'd
<v Speaker 4>be the guest ring announcer for the evening and I did,
<v Speaker 4>and for whatever reason, they decided to put me on
<v Speaker 4>the mic to call to call a match, and mister
<v Speaker 4>Goulis liked what he heard. And Tom Ronesto was his
<v Speaker 4>former assassin, was his common at the time and his booker.
<v Speaker 1>And he wanted to get Tom involved in.
<v Speaker 4>The matches back as a wrestler, and I came along,
<v Speaker 4>I guess, at the right place, right time. When Jerry
<v Speaker 4>bought out Nick in late seventy eight early seventy nine,
<v Speaker 4>I was sort of the odd man out because they
<v Speaker 4>took the TV tapings to Memphis at that time Channel
<v Speaker 4>thirteen later Channel five and with Lance Russell and Dave Brown,
<v Speaker 4>who perhaps the greatest tag team wrestling commentators in.
<v Speaker 1>The history of the world.
<v Speaker 4>And I was the third guy, and I was the
<v Speaker 4>guy that when they would tape a match in an arena,
<v Speaker 4>or if they would every week, I would go to
<v Speaker 4>Randy West House, which was right on the same property
<v Speaker 4>where Jerry Jared had his house in Hendersonville. I lived
<v Speaker 4>literally less than five minutes away, and would go and
<v Speaker 4>record all the promos for the upcoming matches in the
<v Speaker 4>upcoming towns and the spot show towns, and then voiced
<v Speaker 4>over any of the video that had been shot in
<v Speaker 4>an arena that doing play by play. And I had
<v Speaker 4>already had a history of high school play by.
<v Speaker 1>Play football and baseball, and a.
<v Speaker 4>Little bit of a little bit of college but anyway,
<v Speaker 4>so one day Jerry calls me up. Jerry Jared called
<v Speaker 4>me up at the radio station. He said, is there
<v Speaker 4>a chance you could come by the house around two
<v Speaker 4>o'clock today? And I said, sure, I can come down.
<v Speaker 4>So drove down to Hendersonville from my office in Gallatin
<v Speaker 4>and I got there and he says, I've got a
<v Speaker 4>guy coming in I want.
<v Speaker 1>You to see. He says, we're going to shoot a video.
<v Speaker 1>And he said, I just want you to see him.
<v Speaker 1>Get an idea, because I'm going to tell you what
<v Speaker 1>I want and you write it up and you know,
<v Speaker 1>we'll I want.
<v Speaker 4>You to record it and we're gonna put it behind
<v Speaker 4>this video. So I'm standing at the kitchen window with
<v Speaker 4>his wife, Debra, and this pretty small car and I
<v Speaker 4>want to say it was like a Maverick. Maybe it
<v Speaker 4>wasn't a Pincho, but it was one of those kind
<v Speaker 4>of cars.
<v Speaker 1>And it drove up in front of his.
<v Speaker 4>House and out starts coming this very large person, and
<v Speaker 4>I can remember he kept coming out of the car
<v Speaker 4>and kept coming out of the car, and Deborah Jeric
<v Speaker 4>turned to me and went, Michael, I have never seen a.
<v Speaker 1>Human being that big in all my life.
<v Speaker 2>God.
<v Speaker 4>And he was quite an imposing figure, a very quiet person,
<v Speaker 4>very much yes, sir, no, sir. Spent maybe twenty minutes
<v Speaker 4>with him and Jerry. They were talking, I was making
<v Speaker 4>notes and at the end Jerry said, well, I'm going
<v Speaker 4>to get him with Randy and lets you and I
<v Speaker 4>go over your notes and what are you've written down?
<v Speaker 4>And then he said, I want you to, you know,
<v Speaker 4>make it sound like this is the Incredible Hulk coming
<v Speaker 4>to wrestle.
<v Speaker 1>He said, that's, you know, the field we want out
<v Speaker 1>of it.
<v Speaker 4>So I drove back to Gallatin, which is about fifteen
<v Speaker 4>minutes away, and I went to the production room, got
<v Speaker 4>the track, wrote well, wrote the wrote the copy of pretty.
<v Speaker 1>Much had it in my head what we wanted to
<v Speaker 1>say and what Jerry wanted to say.
<v Speaker 4>So wrote it and got the production room in about
<v Speaker 4>a twenty minute period of time, cut the track and
<v Speaker 4>put it on a five inch reel to reel, and
<v Speaker 4>it's time to go home in the evening, so I
<v Speaker 4>just took the tape, dropped dropped it back off to
<v Speaker 4>Jerry's house, which was, like I said, only five minutes
<v Speaker 4>away from where I lived in Indian La Forest in Hendersonville.
<v Speaker 4>And I did not see the finished video or even
<v Speaker 4>the actual video without the audio track at that point
<v Speaker 4>in time. And it was actually the next day that
<v Speaker 4>I had to go down to Randy westshouse to voice
<v Speaker 4>over some some matches and to cut some promos, some
<v Speaker 4>you know, one minute cards and spot show commercial type
<v Speaker 4>thing m type things. Yeah, And I saw it then
<v Speaker 4>and it was you know, I don't think the key personally.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think the key.
<v Speaker 4>To the video is my voice necessarily, or my or
<v Speaker 4>the track. It's the outstanding, tremendous photography that Randy West provided,
<v Speaker 4>and he was one of the best videographers I ever
<v Speaker 4>come across in my life before and since. And I
<v Speaker 4>think that, you know, did.
<v Speaker 1>My voice lead credence to it? I might admit to.
<v Speaker 4>That, But as far as the track selling the video,
<v Speaker 4>I think it was the opposite way around.
<v Speaker 1>I think the video sold the track.
<v Speaker 2>I love that Randy West tell us a little bit
<v Speaker 2>more about him. He's like you like you sort of
<v Speaker 2>mentioned an under celebrated part of putting this thing together.
<v Speaker 2>What was his story.
<v Speaker 4>Randy West was actually the brother in law of Jerry
<v Speaker 4>Jarrett's Jerry's wife, Deborah and Randy's wife were sisters, and
<v Speaker 4>when Jerry built as they call it, the Big House,
<v Speaker 4>on the hill off Cumberland.
<v Speaker 1>Hills Drive in Hendersonville.
<v Speaker 4>There was another house at the base of the driveway
<v Speaker 4>that went up that had its own house. You are
<v Speaker 4>a very nice little place, and Randy had a studio
<v Speaker 4>in his upstairs there in his house, and that's where
<v Speaker 4>a lot of the post production or the videos and
<v Speaker 4>that kind of thing we're all put together. And Randy
<v Speaker 4>is a very one of the nicest people you'll ever
<v Speaker 4>be around and meet, very easy to work with, but
<v Speaker 4>really knows his game.
<v Speaker 1>So if you were voicing something over and he didn't.
<v Speaker 4>Like it, he'd bust it and say, Okay, do that
<v Speaker 4>over and I want more of this or I want
<v Speaker 4>less of this or whatever. And he was very he
<v Speaker 4>had a director's mind, he had a videographer's eyes that
<v Speaker 4>sort of made magic for what Jerry was doing back then.
<v Speaker 2>That's really terrific. Take us if you could Michael through
<v Speaker 2>the thing.
<v Speaker 3>I want to ask one thing quickly, because something so
<v Speaker 3>they they when they they specifically said, or Jerry specifically said,
<v Speaker 3>I want you to make it seem like the Incredible
<v Speaker 3>Hulk is coming to Memphis.
<v Speaker 1>You said that, Yeah, that was that was the instruction.
<v Speaker 1>That was one of the instructions that I have, and
<v Speaker 1>of course you.
<v Speaker 4>Wanted to you know, he wanted he wanted to asking
<v Speaker 4>to wait and he noticed there's a lot of uh,
<v Speaker 4>there's a lot of uh backs and figures, if you
<v Speaker 4>would the size of the of the you know, all that,
<v Speaker 4>the size of the fists they are, the size of
<v Speaker 4>the biceps and the waist and all that.
<v Speaker 1>He wanted that accentuated.
<v Speaker 4>He mentioned that and he said, make it sound like
<v Speaker 4>he said, I want it to sound like the the
<v Speaker 4>the video needs to sell. It's like the incredible Hulk
<v Speaker 4>of professional wrestling.
<v Speaker 1>Is coming to Memphis. And that's what we did.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's that's That's been something that we've spent a
<v Speaker 2>lot of time trying to get our arms around. It
<v Speaker 2>is one exactly was Terry Bolea first called the Hulk,
<v Speaker 2>And to what degree was like you're saying, Michael, it's
<v Speaker 2>sort of a message to the fans that, you know,
<v Speaker 2>a sort of live version, a wrestling version of the
<v Speaker 2>character lu Frigno was playing, was coming to a town
<v Speaker 2>near you. And it's fascinating to hear Jerry go for that.
<v Speaker 2>I'm not sure the degree to which you were familiar
<v Speaker 2>with Terry before he came to Memphis. Did you know
<v Speaker 2>that he was? He was the Hulk and Ron Fuller's
<v Speaker 2>Pensacola slash Mobile Dothan, Alabama Territory for about four months
<v Speaker 2>before coming to Memphis.
<v Speaker 4>At that point in time, I did not I know
<v Speaker 4>that Louis Toillette had given Jerry a call regarding him
<v Speaker 4>and said, we got this guy and he's green, but
<v Speaker 4>I think you could use him, and I think he
<v Speaker 4>could turn into something.
<v Speaker 1>And he came into Memphis.
<v Speaker 4>You know, his stay in Memphis was short lived because
<v Speaker 4>shortly thereafter, you know, he went to vern but his
<v Speaker 4>coming was it.
<v Speaker 1>Was you know, that was the magic I think of Jerry.
<v Speaker 4>Jarrett though always that he could take I've always said
<v Speaker 4>that he could take Plato and turn it into bread
<v Speaker 4>and meaning money.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it was really.
<v Speaker 4>Good at that, and I think that's that was one
<v Speaker 4>of his strongest suits.
<v Speaker 2>That's wonderful. So there's this apocryphal tale Hulk told it.
<v Speaker 2>It's probably it's almost definitely a tall tale. But how
<v Speaker 2>he was in a studio one time when Lou Forigno
<v Speaker 2>was also there for a TV show or radio show,
<v Speaker 2>and the host compared Lou to Terry and said you know,
<v Speaker 2>you look more, you look bigger than the Hulk. Does
<v Speaker 2>they call you the hulk or something like that, And
<v Speaker 2>that's where the name came from. The timeline does not
<v Speaker 2>line up at all. He said it happened in Memphis.
<v Speaker 2>He was already being called the Hulk before then. Do
<v Speaker 2>you remember hearing that story at all, that there was
<v Speaker 2>actually a moment where Lou Forrigno and Terry Bulea were
<v Speaker 2>in the same setting and that's where the name came from.
<v Speaker 4>I heard it on some and I think I saw
<v Speaker 4>it on some interview that uh that Hall did later
<v Speaker 4>long after. Yes, but I'm aware of the story, but
<v Speaker 4>not at that period of time.
<v Speaker 2>Sure, we always have to do our diligence right JP
<v Speaker 2>and make sure there's going to say there's not somebody
<v Speaker 2>who was in the room who can actually say it
<v Speaker 2>happened that way.
<v Speaker 3>Also, I mean it was there. I mean, as far
<v Speaker 3>as you knew, was there was there any was there
<v Speaker 3>any local, uh locally produced television program talk show that
<v Speaker 3>would that would have the clout to bring in a
<v Speaker 3>figure like Lou Ferrigno at the time, who was such
<v Speaker 3>a such a a pop culture icon at the time.
<v Speaker 3>I mean that that's That's always the best part of
<v Speaker 3>the story to me, is that there's this local local
<v Speaker 3>TV station that's got this guy. And I don't know
<v Speaker 3>is that is that was there any Was there any
<v Speaker 3>TV show that had that kind.
<v Speaker 4>Of cloud, Well, in Nashville, it would be He Hall,
<v Speaker 4>But I think that's the wrong type of character you'd
<v Speaker 4>bring for He at that time has had a Memphis
<v Speaker 4>had had a pull or a reputation or a draw.
<v Speaker 1>I actually programmed WNPS.
<v Speaker 4>In Memphis for a year and Memphis is the biggest
<v Speaker 4>city in Mississippi. First of all, don't confuse it with
<v Speaker 4>the Tennessee city. And the culture of Memphis is very
<v Speaker 4>blue collar and uh mixed raced community. It's not even
<v Speaker 4>when I go back to Memphis today, I don't get
<v Speaker 4>the field that I'm in a metropolitan area like I
<v Speaker 4>would when I would go to Nashville or you go
<v Speaker 4>to uh, of course Atlanta or or Jacksonville or up
<v Speaker 4>in your area.
<v Speaker 1>You know, Boston has a field, Properbs has a field.
<v Speaker 4>You know, Memphis gives you that you're you're you know,
<v Speaker 4>set your clocks back half a century. And I'm not
<v Speaker 4>knocking Memphis. I think I think Memphis is a wonderful city,
<v Speaker 4>and the people in Memphis are fabulous. But Memphis is
<v Speaker 4>sort of I won't say behind the times, but the
<v Speaker 4>clock rolls a little slower on the delta down and
<v Speaker 4>that's a Rivertown. And I programmed two Rivertown. I programmed
<v Speaker 4>in Saint Louis Radio on Saint Louis, and believe it
<v Speaker 4>or not, Saint Louis a little bit more upscale, but
<v Speaker 4>very much, like, very much has that same vibe to it. Louisville, Louisville,
<v Speaker 4>for God's sakes, very very akin to Memphis. I think
<v Speaker 4>that one of the reasons I think Memphis wrestling went
<v Speaker 4>over was over so good in Louisville was number one.
<v Speaker 4>Jerry Jarret's mother, Teeney, ran the.
<v Speaker 1>Town, yes, and number two. The two cities are very
<v Speaker 1>much akin to each other.
<v Speaker 2>That's fascinating to get. You're naming hotbeds of wrestling from
<v Speaker 2>Saint Louis across. Wrestling plays well where the clock moves
<v Speaker 2>a bit slower, perhaps down in that part of the country,
<v Speaker 2>and it's been fascinating to learn about. I did want
<v Speaker 2>to ask you on the incredible whole point. As you
<v Speaker 2>may know, Michael as Terry Bullay went on to become
<v Speaker 2>you know, the household name Hulkogan and the ww IF,
<v Speaker 2>they had to cut a deal with Marvel Comics where
<v Speaker 2>they sort of share royalties because they had the rights
<v Speaker 2>to the incredible whole trademark, and as he became a
<v Speaker 2>national sensation, that became a little bit of an issue.
<v Speaker 2>But in these earlier days, these earliest days, it was
<v Speaker 2>an uncommon right to just hear top forty songs being
<v Speaker 2>used on a wrestling show without any permission or licensing
<v Speaker 2>or anything like that. Do you remember that being part
<v Speaker 2>of the conversation, like if we call this guy the
<v Speaker 2>Hulk and frame them in this video the way they're
<v Speaker 2>doing it, that that might actually be like a like
<v Speaker 2>a lawsuit waiting to happen. Or was that not even
<v Speaker 2>on anybody's mind back then.
<v Speaker 4>You know? And to be honest with you, I've never
<v Speaker 4>heard that brought up prior to you know, not that
<v Speaker 4>you guys have brought it up first.
<v Speaker 1>Because I'm as a radio owner, I have to pay these.
<v Speaker 4>People that have this quote unquote licensing scam going, And
<v Speaker 4>that's how I look at it.
<v Speaker 2>If I touched a sore spot there, Michael.
<v Speaker 4>Well My point is just this, Why should I place
<v Speaker 4>it on somebody that's dead? Royalties and I run old
<v Speaker 4>these stations in seventy five percent of the artists I
<v Speaker 4>play are dead, So you know that's.
<v Speaker 1>Sort of it's a sticky wicket for me. But I
<v Speaker 1>don't want to go there, but that in the times
<v Speaker 1>I was.
<v Speaker 4>Around where anything was being conversed around Hogan or his
<v Speaker 4>character or anything like that, I could never I never heard.
<v Speaker 1>That come out. And to be honest with you, just
<v Speaker 1>knowing Jerry as.
<v Speaker 4>I did, and I knew him, you know, got to
<v Speaker 4>know him even better after this, but knowing him prior
<v Speaker 4>to this, I don't think that ever crossed his mind.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, that's.
<v Speaker 4>And I have a philosophy, and you'll probably hate me
<v Speaker 4>for saying this, but my philosophy is it's easier to
<v Speaker 4>get permission than it is to get it's easier to
<v Speaker 4>get forgiveness, and it is permission.
<v Speaker 1>And you know, you run, you run ninety miles.
<v Speaker 4>An hour with a radar detector, but if you get caught,
<v Speaker 4>you're sorry and you.
<v Speaker 1>Pay the fine. So you know, that's that's sort of
<v Speaker 1>my take on life. So we're getting away from the subject.
<v Speaker 2>It's tangentially related, but I appreciate you going there for us,
<v Speaker 2>if I've followed you correctly. So Terry shows up at
<v Speaker 2>Jerry's house that day, and it sounds like you sort
<v Speaker 2>of sat around in the kitchen with Terry and then
<v Speaker 2>they went to shoot the video. But you didn't see
<v Speaker 2>the video shoot. You had left by that point. Did
<v Speaker 2>I get that right?
<v Speaker 1>That is correct?
<v Speaker 2>Okay?
<v Speaker 4>I was only at Jerry's house maybe for twenty minutes,
<v Speaker 4>twenty five minutes.
<v Speaker 1>I was there about five minutes before you got there.
<v Speaker 4>And once that, you know, it was sort of laid
<v Speaker 4>out and Jerry was asking him about his size. And
<v Speaker 4>I know Jerry was was cautious. He wanted to embellish it,
<v Speaker 4>but he didn't want to make it sound stupid where
<v Speaker 4>when people sat I said, ah, that ain't true. So
<v Speaker 4>Jerry was always very cautious of that with all of
<v Speaker 4>his talent.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, he was cautious for sure. Now as Jerry's
<v Speaker 2>going through it, is he making notes like, you know,
<v Speaker 2>literally how wide are your biceps and chest? And is
<v Speaker 2>he getting real dimensions? Is that what the conversation's like.
<v Speaker 2>I'm trying to figure out how you ended up with
<v Speaker 2>what you said on the page there.
<v Speaker 4>I was making the notes, to be honest with Jerry
<v Speaker 4>was asking the questions and I was just taking notes, and.
<v Speaker 1>Which is not in common.
<v Speaker 4>I'd been in interview situations with other people before, where
<v Speaker 4>you know, there there's if I'm writing a story about him,
<v Speaker 4>or I'm writing a script about him, or I'm putting
<v Speaker 4>together a promo about him or whatever I'm doing, take
<v Speaker 4>notes and then try to piece it all together into something.
<v Speaker 1>And I was, and I'm I'm lucky.
<v Speaker 4>Like I said, my major, I'm a major in psychology
<v Speaker 4>and a minor in English in college.
<v Speaker 1>And I was able to put that to good use.
<v Speaker 2>That's wonderful. Okay, so we're on our way. There was
<v Speaker 2>a food order that we had a lot of fun
<v Speaker 2>talking about because when Jerry Jarrett remembers this, this occasion
<v Speaker 2>in his kitchen, I mean, that's a big guy and
<v Speaker 2>he was hungry and he had his wife go get
<v Speaker 2>some burger king and it sounded like quite an order.
<v Speaker 2>I guess you didn't partake, but it sounded like many whoppers.
<v Speaker 1>That was after I left.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you missed out. It's a huge meal. Do you do?
<v Speaker 2>You do you now? He was so big one of
<v Speaker 2>another thing Jerry remembered about Terry, And maybe this wasn't
<v Speaker 2>appearent just in twenty minutes. Maybe it was was that,
<v Speaker 2>you know, he when you're that big and you perspire
<v Speaker 2>very easily. You know. He used to always, of course,
<v Speaker 2>wear like sleeveless shirts and you know, wide open like
<v Speaker 2>pants that you maximize the airflow like a lot of
<v Speaker 2>these bodybuilders. Do you remember him just being like this
<v Speaker 2>glistening like mass into Jerry's kitchen or was that maybe
<v Speaker 2>later in the day as they got shooting.
<v Speaker 4>He was sweating when he got there was and I
<v Speaker 4>think and part of it I don't know how much
<v Speaker 4>of it was his size and how much of it
<v Speaker 4>was nervousness.
<v Speaker 2>Is that right? He sense to you said he was nervous.
<v Speaker 1>Huh, yeah, I got this. And like I said, he
<v Speaker 1>was very He was very quiet. And he wasn't one
<v Speaker 1>of somebody that knocked on the door and came.
<v Speaker 4>Home and hey, I'm you know, I'm knowing, yes, ma'am, yes, sir.
<v Speaker 1>Nice thing.
<v Speaker 4>Well, you you know it was you know, you could
<v Speaker 4>you could tell he was I won't say I don't
<v Speaker 4>think he was on his best behavior.
<v Speaker 1>I just think he was he was.
<v Speaker 4>You know, he was now in front of at that
<v Speaker 4>point in time, somebody that was very well known in
<v Speaker 4>the territory days uh from his wrestling booking and creating
<v Speaker 4>stars that you know, a lot of good talent came
<v Speaker 4>in and out of Memphis, and I think I think
<v Speaker 4>that Jerry realized that he had an opportunity to come
<v Speaker 4>to literally start class stepping and taking another step.
<v Speaker 1>Up the ladder.
<v Speaker 4>Absolutely, And that's not to and that's not to shun
<v Speaker 4>Ron Vuller, because Ron Vuller and his Continental in that
<v Speaker 4>whole group on the on the on the Pensacola Coast,
<v Speaker 4>the Mobile Coast, had a great They had a great
<v Speaker 4>run from Tallahassee, Dothan right on over into the Mississippi towns.
<v Speaker 2>So help me follow, Michael. What was your involvement with
<v Speaker 2>with the with the Memphis office beyond the voiceover work?
<v Speaker 2>Was this pretty much all you did for Jerry or
<v Speaker 2>were you in would you go to WMC studios? Did
<v Speaker 2>you watch any of Terry's matches in the Mid South Coliseum.
<v Speaker 4>No, Primarily, like I said, I was, I was the
<v Speaker 4>third man of the broadcast crew, but I was most
<v Speaker 4>of the time, I was right here and there.
<v Speaker 1>I saw some of Hulk's.
<v Speaker 4>Matches from the Mid South Colosseum that were tay, and
<v Speaker 4>I saw some of the TV of course in the
<v Speaker 4>weeks that followed. But as far as going on site
<v Speaker 4>during that period of time, there were a couple of
<v Speaker 4>times that I would, but not when when Jerry was
<v Speaker 4>on the card.
<v Speaker 1>In fact, I think he'd already left before I started
<v Speaker 1>doing that.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, yeah, fair enough. It's hard for us, you know,
<v Speaker 2>decades later to recollect what it was like to just be,
<v Speaker 2>you know, your average Memphis wrestling fan watching the television
<v Speaker 2>week to week, and suddenly this Ed Boulder shows up,
<v Speaker 2>and this then this Terry the Hulk Boulder shows up
<v Speaker 2>and there's wrestling shoulder to shoulder with Jerry Lawla right
<v Speaker 2>out of the gate. They pushed him pretty prominently. If
<v Speaker 2>you didn't see him live in person, did you at
<v Speaker 2>least get a flavor of how seriously Jerry, Jared and
<v Speaker 2>Jerry Lawler wanted to push him. Did they sort of
<v Speaker 2>sense that maybe he was too green to go all
<v Speaker 2>the way with? Did did you get a flavor for that?
<v Speaker 1>Well?
<v Speaker 4>I know, you know, and Jerry had talked about this
<v Speaker 4>a couple of times after the fact that he was
<v Speaker 4>pretty green, and Jerry I think took him down to Tupelo.
<v Speaker 4>Jerry Jared I think took him down to Tupelo and
<v Speaker 4>they had the rings set up there at the Tupelo
<v Speaker 4>Uh Arena, the armory there and and and you know,
<v Speaker 4>they're trying to figure out what his finishing move would be.
<v Speaker 4>And Jerry said, are you comfortable with this? Very comfortable
<v Speaker 4>with that, And finally he said, well, we should be
<v Speaker 4>able to teach you to do a leg drop.
<v Speaker 1>And and I think they.
<v Speaker 4>Took as I as the story goes, and I wasn't
<v Speaker 4>there to witness it, but that Jerry took a folding
<v Speaker 4>chair and made him do leg drops on a folding
<v Speaker 4>chair until he hurt. And and then when he started hurting,
<v Speaker 4>he started learning how to do the leg drop. And
<v Speaker 4>then Jerry said he took the chair away, and he
<v Speaker 4>said he put his The first time he hit him,
<v Speaker 4>he knocked the air out of him.
<v Speaker 1>The first time that Holgan dropped the leg on Jerry
<v Speaker 1>Jaredy did.
<v Speaker 4>Not the wind out of him, and said after that
<v Speaker 4>he sort of learned how to how to do it
<v Speaker 4>without punishing the person taking it.
<v Speaker 1>If you would, yeah, and so that's how the leg
<v Speaker 1>drop came to be. And and I can.
<v Speaker 4>Like I said, I wasn't there in person, but I
<v Speaker 4>know that's that's the legit story on that.
<v Speaker 2>That's great to know. Yeah, I always wondered about that
<v Speaker 2>because he does. There really is so little tape of
<v Speaker 2>what he did in Alabama. There's just an angle he
<v Speaker 2>did with Andre on television and a squash match that
<v Speaker 2>he had and he uses the bear hug as his finish.
<v Speaker 2>It's really hard to be able to piece together when
<v Speaker 2>he started doing a leg drop. It feels like it
<v Speaker 2>was in Memphis. Certainly there's some footage of it, and
<v Speaker 2>there's a fair amount of still photography of him doing
<v Speaker 2>in Memphis. So that would make a lot of sense
<v Speaker 2>if he'd really didn't come to Memphis with that move
<v Speaker 2>and started started to do it there. That's fascinating to
<v Speaker 2>hear that he learned it that way potentially, Now when
<v Speaker 2>it came to putting putting the video together, so you
<v Speaker 2>laid down the track and you know, how long did
<v Speaker 2>it take to make television? Was it like two days
<v Speaker 2>before the show aired or a week out or a
<v Speaker 2>month out?
<v Speaker 4>I want to say this was Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday kind
<v Speaker 4>of thing. And I want to say they debuted the
<v Speaker 4>Memphis the Now again. Okay, if they taped at TV
<v Speaker 4>on Memphis and Memphis like they taped this coming Saturday,
<v Speaker 4>it would not be seen in the rest of the
<v Speaker 4>towns on the bicycle if you was sending the tape
<v Speaker 4>around until the following Saturday.
<v Speaker 2>I see.
<v Speaker 4>So if the Hogan video, if we were to create
<v Speaker 4>it today or tomorrow Wednesday in time for Memphis TV,
<v Speaker 4>and they do debuted on Memphis TV Saturday, Memphis would
<v Speaker 4>be hip to it Saturday, but Nashville, Louisville, Evansville, two
<v Speaker 4>plow Florence, those city wouldn't have it until a week
<v Speaker 4>after that.
<v Speaker 1>So if you're shooting an angle with him.
<v Speaker 4>On TV Saturday, they would then show the results of
<v Speaker 4>the angle on Monday at the Mid South Coliseum, but
<v Speaker 4>TV for the rest of the markets wouldn't even get
<v Speaker 4>the angle until the following Saturday, and then in the
<v Speaker 4>arena shows the week after then the culmination or the
<v Speaker 4>angle or the angle would be worked on at that
<v Speaker 4>point in time.
<v Speaker 1>So you're really working seven to.
<v Speaker 4>Eight days behind in all of your territory except your
<v Speaker 4>host market.
<v Speaker 1>Which was Memphis.
<v Speaker 2>That's great, very clear. So as you're putting the verbiage
<v Speaker 2>together for the vignette, how much inspiration did you draw
<v Speaker 2>it sounds like at the direction of Jerry Jarrett a
<v Speaker 2>fair amount, but from what Lou Frigno was doing. We
<v Speaker 2>spent some time watching the Incredible Halt pilot episode. Right,
<v Speaker 2>would you just come out shortly around the time Terry
<v Speaker 2>got back into the business, and was it sort of
<v Speaker 2>like because when you watch that vignette, Michael, it seems
<v Speaker 2>the sounds, first of all, I'd like to ask you
<v Speaker 2>about where the sounds came from. Those really create that
<v Speaker 2>sci fi feel. It's like, that's the most like clear
<v Speaker 2>cut sort of indication. And tell to me that you
<v Speaker 2>guys really were going for the Incredible Hult because it
<v Speaker 2>almost feels with the lighting and the sounds and the
<v Speaker 2>nature of the voice that it could have been a
<v Speaker 2>commercial for the Louf Rigno show in some way.
<v Speaker 1>Right, Yeah, I mean I was aware of the show.
<v Speaker 4>Of course, pop culture is a big part of broadcast
<v Speaker 4>Top forty broadcasting, in which that was part of mine.
<v Speaker 4>That was what I was doing back then, and so yes,
<v Speaker 4>you know, I yes, that was by intent that, you know,
<v Speaker 4>we didn't want to steal from that pilot of that show,
<v Speaker 4>but we wanted to make it sound close. And we
<v Speaker 4>had back then, I mean, in the in the radio
<v Speaker 4>business creating commercials, you had what they called sound libraries
<v Speaker 4>of just tracks that were not licensed by ASKAP or
<v Speaker 4>BMI or whatever.
<v Speaker 1>But they were just generic tracks.
<v Speaker 4>If you would, of all genres and natures and sounds
<v Speaker 4>and you know, everything from the Hauntist and something that
<v Speaker 4>you would you know, hear played in an elevator, I mean,
<v Speaker 4>and everything in between. And we had several of those
<v Speaker 4>libraries bought and paid for it Kicks one O four.
<v Speaker 4>And I was pretty familiar with what Jerry's instruction were
<v Speaker 4>and what he was describing the video to be like,
<v Speaker 4>and that he wanted to, you know, to make it
<v Speaker 4>sound like that the Incredible Hulk of Wrestling was coming
<v Speaker 4>to Memphis.
<v Speaker 1>That I knew that that's the kind of sound we wanted.
<v Speaker 1>And it didn't take me. I pulled out the.
<v Speaker 4>Disc that was of that genre and started dropping the needle,
<v Speaker 4>and on about the third track, I went, that's it, love,
<v Speaker 4>then that's what we used.
<v Speaker 2>Great, that's great, excellent, that's fantastic. Yeah, because it's like
<v Speaker 2>this sort of like I don't know, JP, how would
<v Speaker 2>you describe it. It's almost like intergalactic sounding.
<v Speaker 3>It's like, you know, yeah, I mean it feels very
<v Speaker 3>I Fi comic Bookie, the whole thing. I mean, you're
<v Speaker 3>it's it's obvious where you guys are are are trying
<v Speaker 3>to like show where he's coming from.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I'm gonna give you, guys.
<v Speaker 4>I must tell you, guys a little secret, a little
<v Speaker 4>inside secret. And the next time you watched the video,
<v Speaker 4>I want you to play close attention to the music
<v Speaker 4>because about fourteen thirteen seconds in that tape goes for
<v Speaker 4>a second as if somebody took an old piece of
<v Speaker 4>bilar tape and stretched it. And what happened was that again,
<v Speaker 4>I produced it at the studio.
<v Speaker 1>That was brand new.
<v Speaker 4>APEX tape, right off of a fresh reel. Nothing had
<v Speaker 4>ever been put on it, It had never been erased.
<v Speaker 4>It was actually how it came out of the factory.
<v Speaker 4>And I put it together and had the leader tape
<v Speaker 4>on the front end of the back end and took
<v Speaker 4>it to Jerry Jared's house to what you gave it
<v Speaker 4>to Randy West at some point when it was being
<v Speaker 4>up on a real to reel machine at Randy's house.
<v Speaker 4>There was a stretching of the tape, whether it was
<v Speaker 4>in the rewind process or he was looking for a point,
<v Speaker 4>and it wasn't enough to take away from the actual
<v Speaker 4>but actually added to the verbs, the vibe of the
<v Speaker 4>of the of the background, like you say, a sort
<v Speaker 4>of eerie kind of thing. And at one point that
<v Speaker 4>tape you hear, it stretched just a little bit.
<v Speaker 1>And I think most people would never would never.
<v Speaker 4>Pay attention to it because they thought, well, it's just
<v Speaker 4>part of the track. But indeed what it was was
<v Speaker 4>the tape got stretched at one point in time and
<v Speaker 4>I offered to I said, I can recreate this. I
<v Speaker 4>mean I could recreate this in a heartbeat, and he said, no,
<v Speaker 4>it's fine.
<v Speaker 2>So that's a great it. That's awesome. Yeah, that would
<v Speaker 2>I wouldn't have noticed that either. That's great. There's little
<v Speaker 2>little nuggets that we live for. So thank you for this. Indeed,
<v Speaker 2>get a lap Fan Wrestling podcast, you know, Michael, I'd
<v Speaker 2>love to get your opinion on something. As a true
<v Speaker 2>veteran of the broadcasting game who saw this era take
<v Speaker 2>shape as it did, working in both television and radio,
<v Speaker 2>we sit here in twenty twenty six and decry the
<v Speaker 2>fact that so little of you know, Terry Bullay's earliest
<v Speaker 2>days in the wrestling business survived on videotape. Like I said,
<v Speaker 2>I think we only see what we see from Memphis
<v Speaker 2>because folks in the market had some of the earliest VCRs,
<v Speaker 2>and those tapes survived as far as masters I know,
<v Speaker 2>Jerry did a lot of different business ventures over the years,
<v Speaker 2>making a lot of his archives available and stuff. I'm
<v Speaker 2>not sure that we have everything that that Terry Boulder
<v Speaker 2>would have done on Memphis television somewhere on video. And
<v Speaker 2>we've talked to folks who said, you know, the tapes
<v Speaker 2>used to be so expensive and you would tape over
<v Speaker 2>them instead of ordering new ones. And certainly no one
<v Speaker 2>conceived of the value of the archives one day. But
<v Speaker 2>then I hear you talk about, you know, having quite
<v Speaker 2>quite a deep archive in the radio studios for production purposes.
<v Speaker 2>Maybe that's just sort of b roll stuff. But what's
<v Speaker 2>your opinion on that? I mean, do you think that
<v Speaker 2>so it wasn't it wasn't it? Was it truly a
<v Speaker 2>rule that no one thought that it was worth saving
<v Speaker 2>this stuff? Or should we really wring our hands here
<v Speaker 2>and decry the fact that no one saved this stuff.
<v Speaker 4>Well, hide sight's twenty twenty, guys, and uh, you know,
<v Speaker 4>and I've worked for Nick Goolus prior to that for
<v Speaker 4>two and a half years.
<v Speaker 1>And none of his were saved.
<v Speaker 2>To sign it.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, yeah, there's one tape of a match where Harley
<v Speaker 4>came to town and Russell George's son that they kept
<v Speaker 4>because George wanted it. But the takes that Nick had
<v Speaker 4>and there were some mild standing stars, you know, with
<v Speaker 4>Roy Welch. And we've started getting more insight on Roy Welch.
<v Speaker 1>Which is long overdue.
<v Speaker 4>I know, Tony Richards and Jerry Prisco and Layfield. They've
<v Speaker 4>just done a tremendous series, including Ron Fuller in it
<v Speaker 4>regarding his granddaddy Roy Welch. And I think it's awesome
<v Speaker 4>that that we're saying, or you know, before Ron gets
<v Speaker 4>toold that we're getting at least some of that story back.
<v Speaker 1>But those the videos from those era.
<v Speaker 4>Of that era, and it was done purely and simply
<v Speaker 4>not saved for economic reasons. The territories weren't making a
<v Speaker 4>lot of money. You know, Memphis was making good money,
<v Speaker 4>Lobell was doing. Okay, Nashville never made the money that
<v Speaker 4>Nashville should have made. I mean there was a lot
<v Speaker 4>that went into that, and everything was low budget.
<v Speaker 1>Hell, I was a low budget announcer. I don't mind
<v Speaker 1>telling you that.
<v Speaker 4>You know, me making twenty five dollars for that video,
<v Speaker 4>that was tenth of the salary that I made when
<v Speaker 4>I did a play by did the play by play
<v Speaker 4>for a whole show, you know, sure, and so you know,
<v Speaker 4>and then a different era, different day in time. Had
<v Speaker 4>we had the foresight to realize, had I had the
<v Speaker 4>foresight to realize, heck, I could take these on my
<v Speaker 4>VCR at home and just archive them from now on
<v Speaker 4>and I'd have them forever until somebody wants them or
<v Speaker 4>somebody actually finds them.
<v Speaker 1>I would have done.
<v Speaker 4>It, but never thought about it, never never gave us
<v Speaker 4>a second thought.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that makes that makes that makes sense. Unfortunately, it
<v Speaker 2>does make sense.
<v Speaker 1>You know.
<v Speaker 2>I'm grateful that you brought up Nicholas because I wanted
<v Speaker 2>to get your opinion on something. Do you think if
<v Speaker 2>Terry Bulea happened to come along, what five six years
<v Speaker 2>earlier than he did, do you think Nicholas would have
<v Speaker 2>pushed him, or do you think that he really benefited
<v Speaker 2>from the fact that Jerry Jarrett was kind of a
<v Speaker 2>young guy trying to make a difference, you know, trying
<v Speaker 2>to be more creative maybe in the business.
<v Speaker 4>Well, first of all, I think Jerry Jarrett was an
<v Speaker 4>extremely creative uh person when it came to creating talent
<v Speaker 4>and telling stories. Jerry Jarrett was very well read, and
<v Speaker 4>so much of Jerry's he was deep in knowledge when
<v Speaker 4>it came to He'd read book after book after book.
<v Speaker 1>And I'm not just saying about wrestling.
<v Speaker 4>I'm talking about He'd read about the generals in the
<v Speaker 4>in the Civil War, he'd read about presidents, he'd read
<v Speaker 4>about biographies on you know, the Mayo Brothers or whatever.
<v Speaker 1>He well read, well read, and.
<v Speaker 4>I think that really bed his passion and his his
<v Speaker 4>ability to create stories.
<v Speaker 1>And yeah, you know, human human uh situations create great stories.
<v Speaker 4>Because you tell him on wrestling joke and he was
<v Speaker 4>he was a master line of that. Nick was more
<v Speaker 4>of a and I have so much respect a lot
<v Speaker 4>of people knock Nick. You will never hear me knock
<v Speaker 4>Nick because I got to know him very very well,
<v Speaker 4>and he was solid. He was a solid He was
<v Speaker 4>again a very smart man, but in a different sense.
<v Speaker 1>He was a P. T. Barnum.
<v Speaker 4>He was a guy that would would push something and
<v Speaker 4>make something work that a lot of other promoters would
<v Speaker 4>probably pass by on. So that being said, I think
<v Speaker 4>if Hogan and I've seen this happen with Nick, with
<v Speaker 4>people like Bobby Eaton, with the Fabulous free Birds, you know.
<v Speaker 1>Terry Gordy.
<v Speaker 4>I called Terry Gordy and Michael Hayes's first tag team
<v Speaker 4>match for Nick lewis when Terry Gordy was fifteen years
<v Speaker 4>old and lied about his age to get a license.
<v Speaker 4>Said look, yeah, I mean, unfortunately it doesn't exist.
<v Speaker 1>But you know Nick had.
<v Speaker 4>A way of making stars and they would move on.
<v Speaker 4>And the ones that stayed with Nick, that Jackie Farcos,
<v Speaker 4>the Tojo Yamamotos, the Lynn Rossis, even the Jerry Jerts,
<v Speaker 4>to the point where you know, until Jerry took the territory,
<v Speaker 4>knew that they were stars.
<v Speaker 1>It's the old It's the old.
<v Speaker 4>Antage that I learned from Johnny Randolph at Wacky and Radio,
<v Speaker 4>Wacky Radio and VOIS when I was at college at
<v Speaker 4>Vanderbilt and would drive up on Fridays just to sit
<v Speaker 4>with with Johnny and watch him do programming and talk
<v Speaker 4>to record guys and how he added records and how
<v Speaker 4>he formatted his station. Johnny Randolf used to say, here's
<v Speaker 4>the deal. You're either a big fish in a small
<v Speaker 4>pond or a small fish in a big pond. And
<v Speaker 4>I think that's that's what a lot of the wrestlers
<v Speaker 4>in the territory and in the Mid South and in
<v Speaker 4>the National Territory. They became big fish in a small pond.
<v Speaker 4>Some went on to become big fish in big ponds,
<v Speaker 4>like Randy Savage for instance.
<v Speaker 1>And and that's good and more power to him.
<v Speaker 4>But I think my personal opinion, and this is just
<v Speaker 4>me talking, if Terry would have come to Nick in
<v Speaker 4>seventy five, he would have got as big of a
<v Speaker 4>push and as big of a I guess push is
<v Speaker 4>the right word, as big as of a program to
<v Speaker 4>work within as he did with Jerry Jerrett. But I
<v Speaker 4>think his timing was impeccable that coming when he did yes,
<v Speaker 4>and like when he left, it was timing was impeccable.
<v Speaker 1>That he went on to burn Yeah and then ultimately
<v Speaker 1>to Nick. I mean to Vince, do you.
<v Speaker 2>Remember it kind of being Buzzworthy that Terry had left Memphis.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, he did make an impact, obviously, but he
<v Speaker 2>wasn't there all that long. Was it a big deal
<v Speaker 2>when he left or kind of just someone noticed he
<v Speaker 2>wasn't there one week?
<v Speaker 4>You know, I think that they had not worked their
<v Speaker 4>magic to the program to the point where people were
<v Speaker 4>going to absolutely ring their hands and cry about the
<v Speaker 4>fact that he was leaving or had left. I think
<v Speaker 4>it was getting to that point, but was not there yet.
<v Speaker 4>And I think people said, oh, look, my god, he left,
<v Speaker 4>but he went, you know, he went to a bigger whatever.
<v Speaker 4>And I forget what they or how they covered it with.
<v Speaker 1>Lance and Dave on TV. But I'm sure we could
<v Speaker 1>go watch that at some point.
<v Speaker 4>Sure, but I think that I don't think it had
<v Speaker 4>gotten to the point of, oh my god, we just
<v Speaker 4>lost Hulk Hogan got it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, certainly with Eddie there as well. There's been interesting
<v Speaker 2>commentary over the years, like Jimmy Hart talked about in
<v Speaker 2>his book, Jerry Lawler talks about it in his book
<v Speaker 2>and interviews and things like that. You know, there seems
<v Speaker 2>to be a bit of disagreement about the agree to
<v Speaker 2>which Jerry Lawler really saw something in Hulk, or if
<v Speaker 2>he just if Eddie had to come along for everything
<v Speaker 2>and they soured on it because of Eddie, or if
<v Speaker 2>you know, Hulk had threatened to be too big of
<v Speaker 2>a potential babyface over there, and that something that Jerry
<v Speaker 2>wasn't interested in. Jimmy Hart swears at one point Lawler
<v Speaker 2>said that you know, Terry just won't be a star
<v Speaker 2>in this business, or some kind of thing that you know,
<v Speaker 2>in retrospect you definitely don't want to admit to ever
<v Speaker 2>having said. But to your point, I mean a lot
<v Speaker 2>of people called him green in the very beginning, he
<v Speaker 2>certainly was. Did you remember picking up any kind of win, Michael,
<v Speaker 2>about you know, if Jerry Lawler saw a lot in Hulk,
<v Speaker 2>or if he saw just sort of like a ceiling
<v Speaker 2>for him and Edie and Eddie for that for that matter.
<v Speaker 4>I think to answer that question we sort of have
<v Speaker 4>to put it in a timeline perspective, and that was
<v Speaker 4>a timeline that in seventy nine they were Jerry was
<v Speaker 4>really starting to feel his power, if.
<v Speaker 1>You would, in the nWay.
<v Speaker 4>You know, he had Eddie Graham as a very close
<v Speaker 4>confident on in friend, and Eddie was very powerful and
<v Speaker 4>in Sam munchticks a year, and I think that in
<v Speaker 4>the in retrospect, I think Jerry Lawler probably saw Hal
<v Speaker 4>Coogan as another stepping stone to go through a program
<v Speaker 4>to win. You know, now he's beaten one of the
<v Speaker 4>biggest strongest men in professional wrestling, and now he's even
<v Speaker 4>more deservant of a shot at the NWA World Heavyweight Championship.
<v Speaker 4>But the backstory on that is that Jerry Lawler would
<v Speaker 4>have Jerry Lawler.
<v Speaker 1>How can I say this? I think Jerry Jerry.
<v Speaker 4>Wanted Jerry Lawler to be the World Heavyweight Champion in
<v Speaker 4>the NWA more than Jerry Lawler wanted to be the
<v Speaker 4>NWA World Heavyweight Championship for one reason only, and that is,
<v Speaker 4>at that point in time.
<v Speaker 1>Jerry didn't want to leave Memphis.
<v Speaker 4>He didn't want to leave a place where literally, once
<v Speaker 4>Elvis Presley died, he was the king and probably still
<v Speaker 4>is to this day. But I think I think the
<v Speaker 4>travel requirements of a world heavyweight.
<v Speaker 1>Champion at that point with.
<v Speaker 4>The NWA was a little little bit more than Jerry
<v Speaker 4>Lawler wanted to partake in.
<v Speaker 2>That's great answer, Very interesting you mentioned Elvis. We have
<v Speaker 2>to bring it up right JP because we had a
<v Speaker 2>lot of fun with this. Oh yes, God, God bless
<v Speaker 2>Hull Kogan. But man, when he said that Elvis used
<v Speaker 2>to come watch him wrestle, and Elvis had already been
<v Speaker 2>dead for like a few years, two years, two years
<v Speaker 2>he'd been dead. Do you remember any word about the
<v Speaker 2>original King of Memphis coming to the matches? Ever?
<v Speaker 4>He did, and I will tell you that he used
<v Speaker 4>to go to the Ellis Auditorium.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, that's right.
<v Speaker 1>I programmed.
<v Speaker 4>I programmed WNPS and Memphis from Oh Lord in seventy six.
<v Speaker 4>And back then, of course Rusting was on Channel thirteen
<v Speaker 4>and it was And I'm not saying that in nineteen
<v Speaker 4>seventy six he went to matches, but prior to that,
<v Speaker 4>and there were fans and there were people around there
<v Speaker 4>that said, yes, Elvis had come to wrestling matches.
<v Speaker 1>Elvis, I understand.
<v Speaker 4>And again that I wasn't around to who witnesses, but
<v Speaker 4>I understand he was a huge fan of sput mcmnroe
<v Speaker 4>and spot Nick was a huge, huge figure in Memphis wrestling.
<v Speaker 4>And so you know, put two and two together, and
<v Speaker 4>I would I would say definitely ironically, you know, guys,
<v Speaker 4>I was telling you I programmed in Hartford, Connecticut at
<v Speaker 4>WTICFM back in nineteen seventy. I was hired in August
<v Speaker 4>from nineteen seventy seven. I was hired the day Elvis
<v Speaker 4>Presley died, Oh my goodness, and was actually I was
<v Speaker 4>in the general manager's office Perry Uri, with their consultant
<v Speaker 4>Mike Joseph, when the news director Walt Gibble, who was
<v Speaker 4>Rob Bibble of the Cincinnati Reds pitching fame Daddy, ran
<v Speaker 4>into the office and said, hey, guys, Elvis Presley just died.
<v Speaker 4>And right away all of us, all three of us
<v Speaker 4>in the office swung into action that I had just
<v Speaker 4>been hired, I mean minutes before had accepted the job,
<v Speaker 4>and we went to My duty was to go to
<v Speaker 4>the record library and pull all the Elvis records out
<v Speaker 4>and bring him the studio I got and we went
<v Speaker 4>all Elvis immediately for like two and a half days.
<v Speaker 2>Wow, that's quite a first day on the job. So
<v Speaker 2>great exactly stuff there. So to bring it back here
<v Speaker 2>as we wrap up, Michael, to the vignette to the video.
<v Speaker 2>You did such a good job painting the picture, even
<v Speaker 2>just in twenty minutes. So many things I think impressed
<v Speaker 2>upon you. Because how massive this guy was, but still
<v Speaker 2>shy and you know, sort of still coming out of
<v Speaker 2>his shell. Was he can you kind of describe more
<v Speaker 2>as far as like, was he dressed casually? Did he
<v Speaker 2>come in a suit? I don't think he did, but
<v Speaker 2>you know what I mean, Yeah, what did he look like?
<v Speaker 4>As I remember he was in in a shirt. I
<v Speaker 4>don't think it was a tank top. It could have
<v Speaker 4>been a tank top, but it was a shirt like
<v Speaker 4>you said, with the cut off sleeves kind of thing.
<v Speaker 4>Had a pair of shorts, looked like Jim shortz or
<v Speaker 4>maybe dressed Jim shorts, if there is such a thing.
<v Speaker 4>Had sandals on sandals yep, yep. And so I mean
<v Speaker 4>he was he was who he was. And I never
<v Speaker 4>thought when he got out of the car anything about
<v Speaker 4>his tire other than the thing. The thing, just like
<v Speaker 4>Deborah Jarrett said, oh my god, I've never seen a
<v Speaker 4>man that big in all my life.
<v Speaker 1>And that was pretty much where had. I had the
<v Speaker 1>same type.
<v Speaker 4>Of impression, although I had actually done and called play
<v Speaker 4>by play of a couple of matches that Andre the
<v Speaker 4>Giant were in in Nashville for Nick Gulison in early
<v Speaker 4>seventy seven and in March, I want to say seventy seven.
<v Speaker 4>And I know and I remember that vividly because Andre
<v Speaker 4>had flown in from New York. Evince Senior had leased
<v Speaker 4>him out to Nick for a week and he arrived
<v Speaker 4>at the Nashville airport and he had.
<v Speaker 1>Somehow or another, had missed his flight in New York.
<v Speaker 4>And at five point thirty in the afternoon on a
<v Speaker 4>Wednesday night, we had matches starting at seven thirty at
<v Speaker 4>the Nashville Fairgrounds arena. I was asked, Hey, have you
<v Speaker 4>got a car big enough to pick up.
<v Speaker 1>Andre the Giant?
<v Speaker 4>And I'm like, I'm in a Ford nineteen seventy six
<v Speaker 4>Crown Victoria, which is half the size of my house.
<v Speaker 4>And I drove out to the airport and sure enough,
<v Speaker 4>picked him up, went inside and he's sitting on a
<v Speaker 4>bench by himself. Nobody was bothering him, and I said, Andrea,
<v Speaker 4>I'm Michael, come on see and took him to the fairgrounds.
<v Speaker 1>He didn't say a whole lot in the car.
<v Speaker 4>Andre didn't talk a lot, but he thanked me, thank you,
<v Speaker 4>appreciate you. And then I was the commentator for the
<v Speaker 4>night and.
<v Speaker 1>He was big.
<v Speaker 4>Don't get me wrong, he was big, but Hulk there
<v Speaker 4>was just something I guess to describe it. Andre was massive,
<v Speaker 4>Hulk was big. If you guys get the context there.
<v Speaker 2>Well, it's great that you had that appreciation for Andre having,
<v Speaker 2>you know, work for Nick, because one of the things
<v Speaker 2>that really jumped off the page to us going chronologically
<v Speaker 2>through Hulk's earliest years is I mean, he has a
<v Speaker 2>few matches in seventy seven in Florida, and then he
<v Speaker 2>quits the business for a year, goes to Cocoa Beach
<v Speaker 2>with ed Leslie, works in a bar and in a gym,
<v Speaker 2>and then he comes back to the business in seventy
<v Speaker 2>nine in March I think it was, and he goes
<v Speaker 2>to work for Ron Fuller and Michael. Within three weeks
<v Speaker 2>he's in the ring with Andre the Giant. Andre happened
<v Speaker 2>to be coming through. Louis Toilette said, you know, it
<v Speaker 2>makes sense for you guys to work together, and he's
<v Speaker 2>like packing this Houston County Farm Center in Dothan against
<v Speaker 2>Andre with essentially no experience as Terry Boulder in the
<v Speaker 2>wrestling business at all, and having been on the shelf
<v Speaker 2>for so long. I mean, can can you help our
<v Speaker 2>listeners understand as someone who appreciated what Andre meant in
<v Speaker 2>seventy nine. How big that is that that Hulk got
<v Speaker 2>the chance to work with Andre right away pack a building,
<v Speaker 2>And perhaps that the role that may have played in
<v Speaker 2>getting Jerry Jarrett to say, yeah, let's let's get this guy.
<v Speaker 1>I think it did probably play a role.
<v Speaker 4>But also I look at it from this perspective. Guys,
<v Speaker 4>Andre was so big it was very difficult as he
<v Speaker 4>traveled around the country to find opponents that didn't look
<v Speaker 4>like midget's.
<v Speaker 1>Wrestling his.
<v Speaker 4>And so when you have a big guy like a
<v Speaker 4>John Studd come along, or a Crusher Blackwell or somebody
<v Speaker 4>big that could get in the ring, and you know,
<v Speaker 4>even though they weren't as big as Andre, look a
<v Speaker 4>lot bigger than whoever their number one baby face or
<v Speaker 4>their number one heel was in that territory who was
<v Speaker 4>probably you know, Andre could make two two and a
<v Speaker 4>half of him. It gave more credibility to actually challenging
<v Speaker 4>the size of a man that massive. And I think
<v Speaker 4>when you got to New York with Hulk, the Hulk
<v Speaker 4>Andre thing was automatic. I think Vince had that in
<v Speaker 4>mind from day one. But also he brought in people
<v Speaker 4>that were kind of on the not as big as
<v Speaker 4>but close to as big as. Whether it be John
<v Speaker 4>stud whether it the uh the guy.
<v Speaker 1>That went into the computer. I'm having a senior moment here.
<v Speaker 1>Guys helped me out.
<v Speaker 2>Here that went into the computer.
<v Speaker 1>You said, you get into the computer business.
<v Speaker 4>After he got out of Rust, he sold computers on
<v Speaker 4>TV as a commercials.
<v Speaker 1>God, I can't think of his name.
<v Speaker 4>I can see him have a bald head round a
<v Speaker 4>big guy, bald bald headed guy, huge, massive guy.
<v Speaker 1>Uh before before Big Show.
<v Speaker 4>Uh No, No, he wasn't that big.
<v Speaker 1>Bundy. That's him, Thank you, Bundy. But you you had
<v Speaker 1>guys that were.
<v Speaker 2>He was in ads.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, he did ask for like Gateway computers. But but
<v Speaker 4>those kind of guys and and you know, I think
<v Speaker 4>I think that I think I think that Vince went
<v Speaker 4>after those kind of guys partially because they were big,
<v Speaker 4>but partially to you know, when they would work a
<v Speaker 4>program with and they wouldn't look like a midget.
<v Speaker 2>And bringing this home, Michael, I think one of the
<v Speaker 2>things JP and I were kind of delighted and in
<v Speaker 2>one case, kind of horrified to find out is that
<v Speaker 2>there were other vignettes in Memphis that you provided the
<v Speaker 2>voiceover for we say horrified because I don't tell us
<v Speaker 2>the story about the apocalypse vignette, because I think JP
<v Speaker 2>is still having nightmares about that one.
<v Speaker 3>Listen, the indivisuals of that one are still you know,
<v Speaker 3>I wake up in the middle of the night and
<v Speaker 3>all of a sudden, I see that face.
<v Speaker 4>Blame Blame Randy West on that one, guys. Okay, the
<v Speaker 4>video on that, my my audio on that was. I
<v Speaker 4>saw the video and he said, we gotta make this
<v Speaker 4>scary as well. This is Randy West Dog and he said,
<v Speaker 4>you want to make this scary as well, And so
<v Speaker 4>I just sort of let's just let's.
<v Speaker 1>Put some things together.
<v Speaker 4>Randy by the Beast, Randy And and that actually the
<v Speaker 4>audio portion of that was cut right there in Randy's studio.
<v Speaker 1>Uh. People, people come back at me with that one.
<v Speaker 4>Was you know that that And I appreciate you guys
<v Speaker 4>saying it was scary, because that's.
<v Speaker 1>What it was meant to be.
<v Speaker 4>But uh, the one that the other one that people
<v Speaker 4>really think that I did a good job on and
<v Speaker 4>I'm flattered by it, it was the Kamala Yeah, and
<v Speaker 4>and uh and to me, this is just me and
<v Speaker 4>I'm a critic of myself, and you won't find I
<v Speaker 4>have an ego, but I don't let it show. But
<v Speaker 4>uh in my humble opinion, and in some other folks
<v Speaker 4>humble opinion like my wife, who I've credit. She knows
<v Speaker 4>me better than anybody. My cat just turned on the
<v Speaker 4>board here in the studio.
<v Speaker 1>Uh.
<v Speaker 4>But but I thought that my best work of all
<v Speaker 4>of them was the Kamala video.
<v Speaker 1>And uh, the drums, the drums, the drums.
<v Speaker 2>You had to go and find those drum sounds, I
<v Speaker 2>take it.
<v Speaker 4>Oh yeah, yeah, And that's a and that track was
<v Speaker 4>literally put together. That was like three different needle drops
<v Speaker 4>on three different dists that was put together for that
<v Speaker 4>and and and I did that, and I can remember
<v Speaker 4>working on the audio on that particular uh piece.
<v Speaker 1>Uh.
<v Speaker 4>And that took me a few hours, to be honest
<v Speaker 4>with you, because I wanted it to be right. And
<v Speaker 4>and and they shot I mean when I when I
<v Speaker 4>see that video, and I closed my eyes and I
<v Speaker 4>could see Jerry Jared's backyard and I know exactly where
<v Speaker 4>it was shot. And they threw uh, they threw uh
<v Speaker 4>uh ice into the pond and to make it smoke,
<v Speaker 4>you know, they they they they did packing ice and
<v Speaker 4>they threw it in the pond to make that that
<v Speaker 4>smoking effect. And then Kamala with the with the paint
<v Speaker 4>that Jerry Jerry Jerry Lawler had painted on his stomach
<v Speaker 4>and the move that that moon and then that mask.
<v Speaker 4>That hell that that mask was in Jerry Jarrett's office
<v Speaker 4>behind his house hanging on a wall. Somebody like gave
<v Speaker 4>it to him and the young and up there because
<v Speaker 4>it was a neat looking mask and the next thing
<v Speaker 4>you know, it's Kamala's mask.
<v Speaker 1>So so you saw.
<v Speaker 4>I really I see that as my if you had
<v Speaker 4>to ask me to grade my videos, my audios for
<v Speaker 4>the videos, I would make that my number one.
<v Speaker 2>Well what was it like to see basically, you know,
<v Speaker 2>the sound, the look, the feel make it to WWF.
<v Speaker 2>I mean a couple of years later, you're literally watching
<v Speaker 2>the soundtrack of the drums and everything and pretty much
<v Speaker 2>what the aesthetic that you observed there in Jerry's backyard
<v Speaker 2>on national television for Vince.
<v Speaker 1>I'm flattered. I'm flattered to this day.
<v Speaker 2>It's great. JP. Did you have something there? I did? Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I was curious.
<v Speaker 3>You know when we were watching the one for Apocalypse,
<v Speaker 3>there was I I got the vibe there was to
<v Speaker 3>be a lot of at least to me, inspiration from Apocalypse.
<v Speaker 2>Now the movie. Is that accurate in saying that?
<v Speaker 4>Or oh my god, yes, yeah, you hit the nail
<v Speaker 4>on the head. Absolutely, and that was And I'll be
<v Speaker 4>honest with you, you know that's not a horror movie. But
<v Speaker 4>to me, that was one of the curiest things I
<v Speaker 4>think ever watched.
<v Speaker 1>In a theater.
<v Speaker 2>Oh for sure. Oh my god.
<v Speaker 1>I was of the Vietnam era war. You know, I
<v Speaker 1>stayed in college.
<v Speaker 4>I made good grades at Vanderbilt so I could wouldn't
<v Speaker 4>be drafted, And not that that was the reason I
<v Speaker 4>went to college, but it was a by product at
<v Speaker 4>that point in time.
<v Speaker 2>I can assure you, well, were you on site for
<v Speaker 2>the Apocalypse shoot like you were the Kamala one, No, sir, okay,
<v Speaker 2>got it? Yeah, because that came together frighteningly. So we'll
<v Speaker 2>we'll leave leave folks with this, if you could, Michael
<v Speaker 2>Saint John, and we're extremely grateful that you took the
<v Speaker 2>time to reflect on this. It was I'm sure, in
<v Speaker 2>the grand spectrum of things you've done throughout some decades
<v Speaker 2>in broadcasting. This this twenty minute sit down with Terry
<v Speaker 2>Bullay turned into something that echoes to this day. What
<v Speaker 2>was your what was your reaction when you heard about
<v Speaker 2>his passing relatively young, you know, and having made such
<v Speaker 2>an impact. Where did your mind go when when you
<v Speaker 2>heard about the loss of Hulk Hogan this past summer?
<v Speaker 4>Well had I had had heard word not through the
<v Speaker 4>social media sources, but through a wrestling source out of
<v Speaker 4>Memphis from Randy Hales a few weeks before that he.
<v Speaker 1>Had been more.
<v Speaker 4>He had been more ill if you would than was
<v Speaker 4>led to believe. Bubba the Love Sponge is a friend
<v Speaker 4>of mine, in fact, tried twice to come to work
<v Speaker 4>for me.
<v Speaker 1>And I love Bubba. I think it's a tremendous talent.
<v Speaker 4>But if I brought him to Alabama, one or two
<v Speaker 4>of us would end up from a tree, and I
<v Speaker 4>I'm not sure it wouldn't have been me. So despite
<v Speaker 4>the fact of my respect and love what he and
<v Speaker 4>he's one of the greatest shotga you know, Howard Stern
<v Speaker 4>could learn a lot of.
<v Speaker 1>Shock jock stuff from Bubba the Love.
<v Speaker 4>Sponge and I think one he's one of the true,
<v Speaker 4>the best, one of the best talents to ever come
<v Speaker 4>across the radio. Now I'm here talking to the man
<v Speaker 4>that hired Glenn back at a Dayton, Ohio and put
<v Speaker 4>him on the air at WHY ninety five and Phoenix
<v Speaker 4>at KOY with Tim Patrick at a Top forty morning show,
<v Speaker 4>and so.
<v Speaker 1>Uh you know.
<v Speaker 4>But uh, but to that regard, I I just uh,
<v Speaker 4>I was.
<v Speaker 1>I was hurt. I mean not hurt. I was. I
<v Speaker 1>took it hard. I took it hard when Randy Savage
<v Speaker 1>uh was killed.
<v Speaker 4>I had had the opportunity back in the seventies early
<v Speaker 4>eighties to uh work one of his independent adventures with
<v Speaker 4>his dad and with the lannie that we ran.
<v Speaker 1>They ran Harland and.
<v Speaker 4>Princeton and Hazard, Kentucky and up in the Upper Upper East,
<v Speaker 4>in the Sea in southern Kentucky up through Appalachian and
<v Speaker 4>we taped at Channel seventeen in Nashville. And I always
<v Speaker 4>had an utmost respect for Angelo Poffo.
<v Speaker 1>He was a brilliant man.
<v Speaker 4>And Randy I thought, I'm a big baseball guy. I
<v Speaker 4>do play by play for football. Around here, people think
<v Speaker 4>I'm a football guy, and I love football. I'm sitting
<v Speaker 4>here wearing an Alabama sweatshirt right now, But I'm a
<v Speaker 4>baseball guy from day one, and Randy and I would
<v Speaker 4>talk wrestling and we would talk baseball. When I was
<v Speaker 4>in Phoenix, the WWE came to our WWF came to
<v Speaker 4>Phoenix to play the Madhouse on mcdell where the Phoenix
<v Speaker 4>Suns played the arena there in the Fairgrounds and the
<v Speaker 4>Veterans Memorial Coliseum. And Randy had called me and he said,
<v Speaker 4>I'm coming to the Phoenix. Do you need me to
<v Speaker 4>do anything? And I said, you want to play some radio?
<v Speaker 1>Oh? Man, yeah, you know.
<v Speaker 4>So he came and he was with Glenn and Tim
<v Speaker 4>for the morning show.
<v Speaker 1>And stayed with me.
<v Speaker 4>We took him to school for an appearance. We had
<v Speaker 4>lunch together and then he I said, well, you.
<v Speaker 1>Need to get to the ring. What time you have
<v Speaker 1>to be Oh, I'll be there.
<v Speaker 4>If I'm there about six o'clock, I'm good. Can I
<v Speaker 4>be on the afternoon show? So he and Bobby Knight
<v Speaker 4>did half the afternoon together. So it was sort of
<v Speaker 4>an all day Randy Randy fest, which was awesome and
<v Speaker 4>Randy Stown. I mean, we grade him and we judge
<v Speaker 4>him on his talent in the ring, but kid you not.
<v Speaker 4>Randy Savage was a very deep, warm individual that absolutely
<v Speaker 4>loved children.
<v Speaker 1>Would just stop in his tracks for a.
<v Speaker 4>Kid and would sign an autograph for a little kid
<v Speaker 4>before he'd sign an autograph for me or you, and
<v Speaker 4>UH and I had. I had the same feeling when
<v Speaker 4>when I heard the news on a haulk. In fact,
<v Speaker 4>I got a call from Randy Hales. He called me
<v Speaker 4>up and said, I don't know if you know this.
<v Speaker 4>It's not out yet in the media, but hul Cogan died.
<v Speaker 4>He had just talked to Jimmy Hart and I was
<v Speaker 4>listening to the radio. In fact, I was on my
<v Speaker 4>way between my stations in Alabama to my station's in
<v Speaker 4>Middletonnessee when I found out.
<v Speaker 1>And then it broke new you know, there was.
<v Speaker 4>Breaking news on Fox News about it, and then about
<v Speaker 4>a half hour later, my phone started blowing up and
<v Speaker 4>I was.
<v Speaker 1>On I was on the.
<v Speaker 4>The Serious XM Wrestling Channel one fifty four UH with
<v Speaker 4>their guy.
<v Speaker 1>I was on uh UH.
<v Speaker 4>I got a call from Dek director del Greco's people,
<v Speaker 4>but I never got to connect with him. I had
<v Speaker 4>an audio shot at Channel five and in Nashville and
<v Speaker 4>one with Channel five in Memphis.
<v Speaker 1>I had to do a stand.
<v Speaker 4>Up with the the ABC affiliate here in Huntsville, at
<v Speaker 4>Channel thirty one when I got back to town.
<v Speaker 1>So I had I fell.
<v Speaker 4>On fielded probably half a dozen of these kind of
<v Speaker 4>calls and and I was sorry. I think we lost
<v Speaker 4>him way too young. Uh but you know, and this
<v Speaker 4>is no knock on Hulk or anybody else. And bodybuilders,
<v Speaker 4>I think are pension to use enhancements to get that bodybuild.
<v Speaker 1>Look yep.
<v Speaker 4>And I think that in the long run that damaged
<v Speaker 4>the heart in a lot of the internal organs that
<v Speaker 4>may come back to bite you.
<v Speaker 1>And I'm afraid that may have been what happened with
<v Speaker 1>Hulk Cogan.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's part of the legacy for sure. It must
<v Speaker 2>be said final one Jerry Jarrett. I mean, we are
<v Speaker 2>going to march along here as we go through Hulk's career,
<v Speaker 2>just to stop at Memphis. We've talked about a lot
<v Speaker 2>of territories over the years on the show, but this
<v Speaker 2>was really the most in depth we got in understanding
<v Speaker 2>what Jerry Jarrett did, how we took the territory, what
<v Speaker 2>the state of the territory was before and after he
<v Speaker 2>took over, and offering up opportunities to people that were
<v Speaker 2>on their way to superstardom, like the aforementioned savage, but
<v Speaker 2>even more so in some ways to Hulk Hogan. Jerry
<v Speaker 2>Jarrett passed away in twenty twenty three at the age
<v Speaker 2>of eighty, and he was always there. He was always
<v Speaker 2>that link to the past, you know. He was always
<v Speaker 2>sitting for interviews, he wrote a book, and now you
<v Speaker 2>can't tap that resource anymore. I remember seeing him on
<v Speaker 2>Vice for Tales from the Territories. One last word here,
<v Speaker 2>if you could for our listeners anything you want to
<v Speaker 2>say about the loss of Jerry Jarrett, who, as we've
<v Speaker 2>learned today you worked with very closely.
<v Speaker 4>Brilliant man, his son and if Jeff and I are
<v Speaker 4>still very good friends to this day. Of course, you
<v Speaker 4>guys know Conrad to or no off Conrad Thompson. Conrad
<v Speaker 4>and I are very close. In fact, Conrad lives fifteen
<v Speaker 4>minutes from where I do down at Gunners'll Lake now
<v Speaker 4>and listens to my radio station religiously, and he will
<v Speaker 4>call me and tell me.
<v Speaker 1>A we're healthier in fact in times.
<v Speaker 4>And Conrad has made a tremendous impact on our business
<v Speaker 4>and has made it has made a pathway for a
<v Speaker 4>lot of great great audio and video in our business.
<v Speaker 4>And I'm thankful to people like yourself and people like
<v Speaker 4>him that continue this.
<v Speaker 1>But it was when I found out Jerry died.
<v Speaker 4>It was again. It was not because I knew it
<v Speaker 4>had been battling cancer.
<v Speaker 1>Is but it was a moss without Adella loss.
<v Speaker 4>And I was at his funeral and Dave Brown of
<v Speaker 4>course spoke at his funeral, and Dave and I were
<v Speaker 4>sitting together.
<v Speaker 1>And at the end of the funeral, Dave and I
<v Speaker 1>were standing there talking.
<v Speaker 4>And a man in a very beautiful full link coat
<v Speaker 4>walks up to us, a sort of a sharp guy,
<v Speaker 4>dark curly hair, and here came up to me, and
<v Speaker 4>Dave acknowledged him, and he looked at me and he said,
<v Speaker 4>you're Michael st.
<v Speaker 1>John. I went, yes, sir. He says, I'm Tony Kahan.
<v Speaker 1>It's an honor to meet you.
<v Speaker 4>And I just stopped in my tracks because I was
<v Speaker 4>I may not agree with everything that that he w does,
<v Speaker 4>but I think Tony Kahn has been a I'm not
<v Speaker 4>going to say a life saver, but somebody that has
<v Speaker 4>brightened the beacon of professional wrestling worldwide. And I want
<v Speaker 4>him to succeed well, whether the style is different or
<v Speaker 4>unique or whatever. I want Tony con to succeed in
<v Speaker 4>business and then the wrestling business as big as he
<v Speaker 4>wants to and to have that that moment and for
<v Speaker 4>him to literally offer his hand to shake mind was
<v Speaker 4>a very rewarding and very gratifying point in my life.
<v Speaker 4>So you know, with that in mind, getting back to
<v Speaker 4>Jerry Jarrett, there will never be anybody before him or
<v Speaker 4>like him, because he was so brilliant and thought one
<v Speaker 4>step beyond what we think about when watching or talking
<v Speaker 4>about wrestling. And I think that was his creativity and
<v Speaker 4>that foresight that he had and possessed will forever be
<v Speaker 4>his legacy.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, to help us see the marketing potential of this
<v Speaker 2>massive bodybuilder Terry Boley in a lot of ways, and
<v Speaker 2>you provided the soundtrack, So thanks for doing it and
<v Speaker 2>thanks for deeming us worthy of the time. Michael Saint John,
<v Speaker 2>A pleasure to get to know you here on the show,
<v Speaker 2>and all the best to you.
<v Speaker 1>God bless you. It's an honor to be with you. Guys.
<v Speaker 4>I know you have quite a following and have been
<v Speaker 4>doing this for quite a long time.
<v Speaker 1>Please continue to do it.
<v Speaker 4>Do a fabulous job, and our business is better for
<v Speaker 4>what you guys do. And I appreciate the opportunity and
<v Speaker 4>anytime you want to talk to you have my number.