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Speaker 1: It's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast special report. The Lapse

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Fan presents the Complete Hull Cogan, a real American story,

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brought to you by Garage Pierre.

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Speaker 2: You know, JP. We talked so much on The Complete

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Hull Cogan about what it would have been like to

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just be a fan or someone kind of just inside

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the business as Hull Cogan came to the WWF for

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the first time in November nineteen seventy nine, staying there

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through nineteen eighty one. And it's hard, it's hard to

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get that full sense. But but what if I told

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you we could get the guy who started Hull Cogan's

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first fan club.

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Speaker 3: I would not be surprised at this point if you

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got someone like that.

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Speaker 2: He's out there in the wild. He produced several issues

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of Hulkster's First Fan Club News. Well again, these came

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out in seventy nine, eighty time period. These came out

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when he was still a.

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Speaker 3: Heeled That's that's kind of the amazing thing is that

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this is happening before that, before that, that that golden era,

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which is that's that's what's so thrilling.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we wouldn't be surprised to hear there

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was a whole Cogaan fan club and say eighty four

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or eighty seven, thirty six. But to hear that this

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Michael O'Hara who's joining us right now on the complete

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Hulk COVID here in the Lapsed fan started the fan

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club so long ago just was a subject of deep

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fascination to us. And we got our hands on a

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couple of these fan club newsletters, and what a great perspective.

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We're really looking forward to talking to you.

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Speaker 4: Mike.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us.

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Speaker 4: Hi, Jack, I JP. It's a pleasure to talk to

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both of you. This is unusual for me. I've just

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kind of come out from my hermit mountaintop and to

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talk about wrestling, particularly the time at about a person

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that really meant a lot to me.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is crazy because you became acquainted

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personally with him, and so we're going to get that

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view of what it was like to deal with Hult

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on a person on a level when he was just

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starting in New York. I should say right off the

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top early and often that Mike is sort of liquidating

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a lot of his great archival stuff, the stuff he's

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collected over the years, he's done wrestling magazines, He's worked

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in wrestling publications back in the era we're talking about.

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You can check out his store on eBay, which is

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a new wave Wonders. He's got all kinds of wonderful

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stuff up there from fifty years of not only wrestling

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but pop culture collecting, and Mike, I'd love to start.

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I think it makes the most sense to start with

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how you met Hulk Hogan.

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Speaker 4: Okay, And actually the beginning of this meeting Hell Cogan

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is also an untold story about how Hogan came into

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the WWF, So that's go. The only other person I

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ever told this story to God Rest his soul is

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Wally Yamaguchi over in Gong Magazine. Yes, and I don't

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know if he ever had it printed because it's in

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Japanese and I don't read Japanese. So at any rate,

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I was a wrestling fan. I had been doing a

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wrestling newsletter. I started watching wrestling probably in nineteen seventy four,

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and I love the territories. The time that I really

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liked the best was that, and I caught the tail

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end of it from seventy four. I'd tell you too

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about eighty four so I had a good ten years

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of really enjoying the wrestling and becoming more and more

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immersed in it. So there used to be an organization

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called the WFIA, the Wrestling Fans International Association, and once

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a year they would hold a convention of fans and

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the wrestlers would show up in different places, predominantly in

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the Southern States, and I only went to two of them.

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I think nineteen seventy nine was Memphis, and I think

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nineteen eighty was their very last one, which was Atlanta, Georgia.

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So at any rate I met Memphis, We're going and

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they they had it wonderfully set up. They had wrestling matches.

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Monday night was midtalk ment South Coliseum in Memphis, and

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locally you could date be in driving distance to wrestling

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on that circuit. So there was our Coola, Arkansas and

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this and that, all different places very nearby, and it

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was a wonderful circuit. Jerry Jarrett and I guess to

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a later a greater extent later, Jerry Lawler, and they

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had a TV taping on Saturday morning, and we attended.

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They had tickets for us as conventioneers, and at the

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TV taping was Terry the Hulk Boulder and his tag

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team partner Dizzy Boulder. Yes, why came up with Dizzey Boulder?

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I have no idea. They were feuding with the Southern

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Tag champs, which were Wayne Ferris and Larry Latham, and

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Wayne Ferris went on to become the Hosky talk Man

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and Larry Latham became a moondog spot one of the

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w w F Tag champs later and then I don't

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know what happened them after that. So that was the

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bit of the feud. And they were there and I'm

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watching video, didn't even wrestle. I think they only just

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did the interview segment with Lance Russell and Terry did

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all the talking because he basically stood there. But I

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was just so impressed with his size, and even then,

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you know, he's pretty much a neophyte in terms of wrestling.

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I think he had wrestled in Pensacola, Florida, not far

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from where he lived. I think for I forget who

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the Ron Fuller, and yeah, Ron Fuller. I was going

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to say Bob Armstrong, but yeah, you're right, the Fullers.

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So this was like his second big break and he

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was terrific on the mic. He had the southern drawl

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at the time, which he worked on later to get

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rid of. But I was just so impressed with him

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because he had the size and I was a huge

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fan of Superstar Billy Graham, and I thought, wow, this

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is like the second coming of Superstar. So, to make

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a long story short, the convention lets out. We'll get

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in our cars or whatever, and we're going to meet

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at one of these It must be all over the country,

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places where you can get a steak and to make

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potato and cornbread, you know, those kind of Sisler kind

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of restaurants. So we go in and we're sitting down

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and who comes in but Terry and Dizzy ed Leslie

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later Brutus Beefcake. They come down and they and Terry

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and Dizzy or Ed sit right next to me, right

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across from me. He said, oh, how you doing as

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we're at the convention. I'm from New York, blah blah blah.

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So he was all excited, Oh you're from New York,

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and you know, his eyes lit up, and I said yeah,

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And I do a newsletter and at the time I

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was just around the edges of wrestling, uh, doing small

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articles for wrestling news and ring Wrestling and a couple

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of other couple of other things. So I had Kay

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was kind of a connection to New York and in

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his mind anyway, and I was a little bit and truthfully,

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as you will see, I was a connection for him.

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So I said, well, you know, you got the right

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size and you're great on the mic and blah blah blah.

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Would you want to come to New York. Well, when

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I said that, he was just like non stop. We

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were just talking about you know, how he's in training

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and blah blah blah. And he says, oh, when I

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put at the time of you said, you saw the

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picture that I sent you of the two of us together,

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and I like to call that when we both had hair,

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So he was praising. He said, oh, you know when

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I pulled my hair back like this, you look just

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like the Superstar.

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Speaker 3: Wow.

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Speaker 4: So he was he was very enamored with. I mean,

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at the time, Superstar was kind of the template for

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anybody that was a bodybuilder slash wrestler. So anyway, I said, listen,

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if you want to come to New York, I know

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where their office is. I said, well, mean, and we're

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eating and you know I'm with all these other wrestling

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people and he said, Mike, your steak is getting cold

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and blah blah blah. So I'm talking to him and

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I pull out some papers. It give me your statistics.

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How tall are you? What's your weight in your dimension?

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I said, legit, don't give me the you know, say

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uh stop, how can you be Where have you worked?

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Who did you work for? And who trained you? And

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how can you be contacted? So I said great, I

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did so. I said I'll bring this over to It

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was at the time, Capital Wrestling Corporation. So he said, oh,

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that it'd be great, and I gave we swapped phone numbers,

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and then I said, is there anywhere that I can

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contact you? He says, well, I'm on the road. Now,

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this is the thing about this, and most people won't

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probably even grasp, is this is so pre technology that

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there was no way for us to really contact one another.

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He was on the road. There's no cell phone, there's

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no internet. And I relied on him to either really

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to contact me because I couldn't contact him wherever he was.

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So he said, oh, he was still living home with

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his folks in Tampa, Florida. So he says, Oh, I'm

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going to give you the address and phone number for

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my mother and father, Ruth and Peter. So my relationship

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with Terry really built up with the intermediary being his mom.

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For most of the years that we were dealing with

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one another, I had to contact her or she would

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contact him and let me know so, and then she

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would call me, I'd call her. So anyway, I took

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all of this information and I quote unquote typed up

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a resume form and the day that wrestling used to

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be every month at the WWF at Madison Square Garden

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once a month. Now I think it's maybe if they're

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lucky two three times a year. I don't even think

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they'd do that many. But anyway, to make a little

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story short, I typed up this resume and I waited

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for the day of wrestling to take place at Madison

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Square Garden on a Monday, making no arrangements, not making

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a phone call, not making an appointment or reservation to

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talk to someone. I had the address for Capital Wrestling Corporation,

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which I believed the name of the It was a

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really rundown flop house of a hotel like a Welfare

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Hampton hotel.

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Speaker 2: Or something like that.

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Speaker 4: I think it was the Holland Hotel. Anyway, it was

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like a mot away from Port Authority, right in the

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heart of the Vipers then of Times Square. And this

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was back of the days when it looked like Robert

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de Niro's taxi driver. It wasn't diusnified as it is now.

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It was a mess. And anyway, I went to the

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I had my little resume and photographs that they had

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taken to Terry in Memphis, and it was such a

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rundown place. I think they were on the second or

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third floor at the time. And I didn't even want

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to take their elevator because I didn't trust it. And secondly,

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I thought I might even get mugged getting into the elevator,

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so I took the stairs up. So I went up

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two three flights of stairs. I got to the door

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and they hit it. It was a big steel door

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as if, like I guess, the place had been broken

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into a few times. And they put this huge, just

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gray steel door, and it had a sticker lettering, you

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know when you would just put lettering on it on

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some one at a time. So it says Capital Wrestling Corporation.

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But it was like playing Wheel of Fortune. If you

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didn't know where you were going, you had to assume

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it said Capital Wrestling Corporate Liberation because half of the

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letters were missing. So that'll tell you the kind of

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operation they were running back in nineteen seventy nine. So

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this is either. I would say if the Memphis was July,

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I probably was pretty zealous about going up there and enthusiastic.

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So I probably went up there for the August wrestling show.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: I knock on the door, no reservation, as they say,

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no one at the front desk. There was no front

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desk to say where you're going. Knock on the door,

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and Arnold Skolan answers the door, and I says, you know,

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can I help you? I said, yeah, I'd like to

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drop off a resume for wrestler. I mean, it sounds bizarre,

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but it's true. And then he says come in. I

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came in and Angelo Savaldi was there, sure, And it

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was a tiny little room. It couldn't have been bigger

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than it was, like a nine x twelve room. Ben

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Natsen painted in a long time pictures on the wall.

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I don't know if you ever saw Woody Allen's movie

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Broadway Danny Rose where he had this little RinkyDink kind

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of that's what this place looked like. So I pull

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out the resume, I pull out the photos and I

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put them on the table and skuland really lit up.

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He says, Wow, this guy looks like Superstar, and no

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disrespect to Superstar. But I said to him, yeah, he's

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but he's even bigger. He's bigger than taller than and

239
00:12:27,279 --> 00:12:30,279
bigger than a superstar. And I said, and he's younger.

240
00:12:31,039 --> 00:12:33,519
So and they said, well wait, I said, wow, I

241
00:12:33,559 --> 00:12:35,519
really don't know him, but I said he's I had

242
00:12:35,559 --> 00:12:37,919
seen him wrestle then at the Mid South Coliseum. The

243
00:12:37,960 --> 00:12:39,799
time I saw him at the TV tapings, he did

244
00:12:39,840 --> 00:12:42,360
not wrestle, and so I explained to him he's very good.

245
00:12:42,399 --> 00:12:45,399
And you know, he was trained by Hero Matsuda, so

246
00:12:45,480 --> 00:12:47,720
they knew who Matsuda was. I said, so he has

247
00:12:47,720 --> 00:12:50,080
the fundamentals of wrestling. I said, he can move, he

248
00:12:50,159 --> 00:12:55,000
really put on a good match. Blah blah blah. That

249
00:12:55,200 --> 00:12:58,000
was it. I called his mom, I think that night,

250
00:12:58,639 --> 00:13:01,799
and said, listen, I dropped off all your stuff. You

251
00:13:01,919 --> 00:13:05,879
tell Terry that I dropped off his photos and the resume.

252
00:13:06,240 --> 00:13:08,320
And then I had mailed the resume to her so

253
00:13:08,559 --> 00:13:11,360
he could see it, and then he called me. Eventually

254
00:13:12,279 --> 00:13:15,159
he had left Memphis and he told me he was

255
00:13:15,200 --> 00:13:17,679
going to be well. I think he was already in correction.

256
00:13:17,799 --> 00:13:21,000
I think he was in Atlanta and he had changed

257
00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:23,360
his name to Sterling Golden. So I was able at

258
00:13:23,399 --> 00:13:25,919
that point in time. That was big technology. We're talking

259
00:13:25,919 --> 00:13:29,000
about the pre technology days. I was able to watch

260
00:13:29,039 --> 00:13:33,360
wrestling from Atlanta, Georgia on cable TV, so I'd watch

261
00:13:33,399 --> 00:13:35,320
it on the weekend and he showed up as Sterling

262
00:13:35,360 --> 00:13:39,600
Golden and we cut in touch a little bit, but

263
00:13:39,600 --> 00:13:41,120
there wasn't anything. What was he going to tell me?

264
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And I had nothing to relate to his mom. And

265
00:13:45,559 --> 00:13:48,320
November seventy nine rolls around and a friend of mine

266
00:13:49,559 --> 00:13:52,519
was at the TV tapings. He told me that he

267
00:13:52,919 --> 00:13:56,440
had heard from them, but he didn't have anything specific

268
00:13:56,440 --> 00:13:58,039
to say with they were going to take to bring

269
00:13:58,120 --> 00:14:00,279
him in. I don't know what the specifics of what

270
00:14:00,399 --> 00:14:02,559
he did, you know, because back in the day, I

271
00:14:02,600 --> 00:14:05,600
don't know if he was had access to videotape that

272
00:14:05,759 --> 00:14:09,240
he could tape send them his matches. But at least

273
00:14:09,279 --> 00:14:11,639
they could see him from Atlanta because he was with

274
00:14:11,720 --> 00:14:18,919
TBS with the superstations, so they probably saw him working Atlanta, Georgia.

275
00:14:19,440 --> 00:14:21,519
By anyway, make it looks very sure. Somebody went to

276
00:14:22,320 --> 00:14:24,440
a friend of mine where, you know, I had a newsletter,

277
00:14:24,480 --> 00:14:27,440
so people would give me results from all over the place.

278
00:14:27,600 --> 00:14:33,159
And the WWF used to do TV tapings every three weeks,

279
00:14:33,200 --> 00:14:37,200
one in Allentown, Pennsylvania and one in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and

280
00:14:37,240 --> 00:14:39,000
that would do for the next three weeks of TV,

281
00:14:39,720 --> 00:14:43,000
the one hour shows that they had. So friends said, oh,

282
00:14:43,039 --> 00:14:45,480
they got a new guy came in, Hoggs Hogan. I said,

283
00:14:45,480 --> 00:14:47,759
Hoggs Hogan. He says, yeah, he's a big blonde guy

284
00:14:47,879 --> 00:14:53,159
and he's a bodybuilder. He looks like superstars Hoggs. I said,

285
00:14:53,200 --> 00:14:55,679
Hoggs Hogan. Well, he got it wrong every way. And

286
00:14:55,759 --> 00:14:58,399
I said, Hoggs Hogan, I said that. I said that

287
00:14:58,440 --> 00:15:00,320
sounds like it would be guy, like a fun guy,

288
00:15:00,399 --> 00:15:03,159
a farm boy. Why would they call him Hogs? So

289
00:15:03,559 --> 00:15:07,240
lo and behold, I'm watching TV and I didn't even

290
00:15:07,279 --> 00:15:10,080
hear from his mom, And lo, behold, Hulk Hogan shows

291
00:15:10,159 --> 00:15:13,039
up on TV and says, oh, it's Hull Cogan. It's

292
00:15:13,080 --> 00:15:17,639
not Hogs. And so I contacted his mom. He let

293
00:15:17,759 --> 00:15:20,799
me know that he was in You know, he and

294
00:15:20,919 --> 00:15:22,679
I had seen that he was with Blassie and all,

295
00:15:22,720 --> 00:15:27,600
and he was excited. So I contact I said to

296
00:15:27,679 --> 00:15:31,720
his mom, do you have any dates for him that

297
00:15:31,840 --> 00:15:33,840
I can connect with him where he's going to be

298
00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:36,559
so that we can get together. So she's the only

299
00:15:36,600 --> 00:15:39,840
thing I have right now is to TV tapings Allentown

300
00:15:39,919 --> 00:15:42,879
and Philadelphia. Well, Philly was he I'd never been Talentown.

301
00:15:42,879 --> 00:15:45,240
I've been to Philly a few times. I said, tell him,

302
00:15:45,240 --> 00:15:49,120
I'll be at the next TV taping and I'll go over.

303
00:15:49,240 --> 00:15:51,279
There was like a curtain the wrestlers could look out.

304
00:15:51,559 --> 00:15:53,399
I said, I'll go over by the curtain. I'll wave

305
00:15:53,559 --> 00:15:57,120
so you'll see that it's me. So I went to

306
00:15:57,320 --> 00:16:00,840
the taping and it's the Actually the date of the

307
00:16:00,919 --> 00:16:04,039
official date of the Hulk Hogan Fan Club is the

308
00:16:04,120 --> 00:16:06,120
day that I had seen him at Philadelphia. So it

309
00:16:06,240 --> 00:16:10,440
was Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December fourth, nineteen seventy nine.

310
00:16:11,879 --> 00:16:15,240
Speaker 2: You're talking about or Hamburg, No, this is Philadelphia.

311
00:16:15,320 --> 00:16:16,879
Speaker 4: They used to do the Philadelphia Arena.

312
00:16:17,320 --> 00:16:19,840
Speaker 2: Now, they used to do Hamburg and Allentown at the time.

313
00:16:19,879 --> 00:16:21,600
It was one of those two films I think, Yeah, I.

314
00:16:21,639 --> 00:16:23,799
Speaker 4: Think Philly Club they closed it up. It was kind

315
00:16:23,799 --> 00:16:26,919
of in a rough, tough party. Anytime I did anything

316
00:16:26,960 --> 00:16:29,159
in wrestling, it was always in a rough party. Yeah.

317
00:16:30,679 --> 00:16:33,200
So anyway, I met him there. We started talking and

318
00:16:33,279 --> 00:16:35,360
I said, oh, so this is great. Yeah, I'm in.

319
00:16:35,519 --> 00:16:38,279
I'm gonna be bad guy. And they gave me blasts heed,

320
00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:41,200
which I had already seen, and I said, listen, while

321
00:16:41,200 --> 00:16:42,960
you're right here. I had it already. I had a

322
00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:45,919
piece of paper. Unfortunately I didn't have a pen I

323
00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:48,399
had a pencil. I said, listen, can I get your

324
00:16:48,440 --> 00:16:50,320
permission to start a fan club for you? So he

325
00:16:50,440 --> 00:16:52,679
signed this. So I still have this page I hear

326
00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:56,639
by Michael Harra permission, but it's in pencil. But anyway,

327
00:16:56,679 --> 00:17:01,279
that's when it all started. And so want you give

328
00:17:01,320 --> 00:17:02,559
me some questions out from there.

329
00:17:02,799 --> 00:17:05,039
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great, great start. So that was kind of

330
00:17:05,200 --> 00:17:07,440
when you did fan club newsletters for wrestlers. You had

331
00:17:07,480 --> 00:17:10,000
to have that signature page to what signals that you

332
00:17:10,039 --> 00:17:12,039
were like authorized to do this to people who subsisted.

333
00:17:12,079 --> 00:17:15,240
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean I don't think it was anything official. Anyway,

334
00:17:15,359 --> 00:17:17,000
I had done that. I had no intention. I had

335
00:17:17,039 --> 00:17:20,640
only done a club before that. For who I was really,

336
00:17:20,720 --> 00:17:23,680
I was a fan of uh was for years. Was

337
00:17:23,759 --> 00:17:26,599
picked the Bulldog Brower and I met him and we

338
00:17:26,799 --> 00:17:28,839
became very good friends. He was like really like an

339
00:17:29,440 --> 00:17:31,720
uncle to me. We us when he would travel, he

340
00:17:31,720 --> 00:17:34,480
would send post. I was much closer to Bulldog Power

341
00:17:35,519 --> 00:17:38,559
than I was with Terry. As time goes on, because

342
00:17:38,599 --> 00:17:41,559
of the way that the business had changed, and also

343
00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:45,559
my involvement in the business had changed, and so there's

344
00:17:45,599 --> 00:17:48,119
a strain that comes later down the line, which was

345
00:17:48,359 --> 00:17:50,720
was kind of we can deal with to.

346
00:17:51,119 --> 00:17:52,480
Speaker 2: Like, if we could get into your head at that

347
00:17:52,680 --> 00:17:54,799
restaurant in Memphis at DP wane to jump in, I

348
00:17:54,839 --> 00:17:56,000
just want question.

349
00:17:56,160 --> 00:17:59,920
Speaker 3: So I was like, you know, I.

350
00:18:02,440 --> 00:18:02,759
Speaker 4: Lost it.

351
00:18:02,839 --> 00:18:03,279
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.

352
00:18:03,440 --> 00:18:05,960
Speaker 2: Okay. So when you're sitting at the table with Ed

353
00:18:06,039 --> 00:18:11,119
and Hulk Mike in Memphis, what what in you says like,

354
00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:12,880
I want to get a relationship, start with this guy

355
00:18:12,960 --> 00:18:14,559
and actually try to book them. That to me, like

356
00:18:14,599 --> 00:18:16,480
if I went to a fan convention, particularly in the

357
00:18:16,559 --> 00:18:19,119
k Fabe era of the seventy nine, and I saw

358
00:18:19,160 --> 00:18:20,400
wrestlers sitting down next to me.

359
00:18:20,559 --> 00:18:22,279
Speaker 3: Sorry, yeah, that was my question. Sorry, I don't mean

360
00:18:22,279 --> 00:18:24,440
you're jacking in. But that was my question. I wanted

361
00:18:24,440 --> 00:18:27,880
to go back to that because I was I was wondering, So, like,

362
00:18:28,160 --> 00:18:31,839
that's what it is, these these fan conventions. It was

363
00:18:31,960 --> 00:18:34,559
they were all cafe like. They weren't. They weren't like

364
00:18:35,240 --> 00:18:37,480
talking about the business, were talking as if they were

365
00:18:37,880 --> 00:18:39,400
real people. They were talking in character.

366
00:18:39,559 --> 00:18:44,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, I for the most part, I would say most

367
00:18:45,039 --> 00:18:50,799
everybody knew how the business operated, but you didn't really

368
00:18:50,880 --> 00:18:53,519
talk about it. And most people that these things had

369
00:18:53,559 --> 00:18:56,759
a relationship in their territory with wrestlers, you know, or

370
00:18:56,799 --> 00:18:59,319
even when we were at this, So it was kind

371
00:18:59,319 --> 00:19:03,039
of an unwritten law rule that the wrestlers that did

372
00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:04,920
and the wrestlers would show up for all the days

373
00:19:04,920 --> 00:19:07,519
at the convention who were in Memphis and in Atlanta,

374
00:19:07,559 --> 00:19:09,359
they would show up and walk around and look at

375
00:19:09,400 --> 00:19:13,720
the displays that we did. And so it was kind

376
00:19:13,759 --> 00:19:15,599
of the wrestlers could let their hair down and be

377
00:19:15,759 --> 00:19:18,359
kind of normal. They weren't going to expose the business.

378
00:19:18,680 --> 00:19:21,920
But if somebody, for example, was a heel, he didn't

379
00:19:21,920 --> 00:19:26,880
stay in heel a persona. He was accessible and friendly

380
00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:30,400
and chatty, but there was no talking about you know,

381
00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:35,920
juicing or anything, you know, pre determining, so it was

382
00:19:36,000 --> 00:19:38,559
a really nice period of time, and also the wrestling fans,

383
00:19:38,599 --> 00:19:40,880
for the most part that showed up. We're all involved

384
00:19:40,960 --> 00:19:44,359
in some capacity with either a fan club or a newsletter,

385
00:19:44,559 --> 00:19:47,160
and then we all would swap with one another. There

386
00:19:47,240 --> 00:19:49,920
was another period that was kind of comparable to this,

387
00:19:50,400 --> 00:19:54,160
not with wrestling, but with science fiction. In the nineteen thirties.

388
00:19:54,240 --> 00:19:57,720
There was these science fiction conventions, and people who were

389
00:19:58,119 --> 00:20:01,279
writers of science fiction would order this convention and kind

390
00:20:01,279 --> 00:20:04,119
of cross pollinaate with one another, and it was in

391
00:20:04,200 --> 00:20:07,279
a very small way that's what was happening with wrestling.

392
00:20:07,559 --> 00:20:10,440
There was no Internet, We had no way of knowing

393
00:20:10,519 --> 00:20:13,720
what was going on anywhere. The wrestling magazines by and

394
00:20:13,799 --> 00:20:16,640
large were pretty lame. They really didn't do anything to

395
00:20:16,799 --> 00:20:20,680
help educate people or inform you as how the whole

396
00:20:20,759 --> 00:20:25,119
business worked, not in terms of how the matches are,

397
00:20:25,440 --> 00:20:28,119
but in terms of, you know, territories. No one really

398
00:20:28,160 --> 00:20:30,519
if you weren't living somewhere else, you really were in

399
00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:33,240
your own little sphere, and it was very hard to

400
00:20:33,359 --> 00:20:37,039
get that information. So we were all very grateful that, oh,

401
00:20:37,119 --> 00:20:39,880
you're in Kansas City, somebody would send me a program

402
00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:43,079
in exchange I'd send you my newsletter, so you had

403
00:20:43,160 --> 00:20:45,400
all of this this kind of thing. So it was,

404
00:20:45,720 --> 00:20:49,599
it was, it was. It was kind of an unwritten

405
00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:51,799
law that everybody had a kind of a nudge in

406
00:20:51,839 --> 00:20:55,240
it and a wink. But we loved wrestling. We thought

407
00:20:55,279 --> 00:20:59,319
everybody was a dynamic personality. Not everybody was a great wrestler,

408
00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:04,359
but the personalities I think superseded everything else at that

409
00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:08,440
period of time. And the wrestlers were grateful that people were,

410
00:21:08,640 --> 00:21:11,359
you know, respecting of them because back then there was

411
00:21:11,599 --> 00:21:15,759
there was again, pre technology, wrestling didn't exist. There was

412
00:21:15,839 --> 00:21:18,240
no wrestlers on talk shows. It was if you got

413
00:21:18,839 --> 00:21:22,240
a news result, you would it would be like one

414
00:21:22,519 --> 00:21:24,720
one inch, you know, a column inch of what the

415
00:21:24,839 --> 00:21:28,200
match results were. There was nothing to be had on wrestling.

416
00:21:28,559 --> 00:21:31,440
So when you came along and you were doing this, uh,

417
00:21:31,640 --> 00:21:35,839
it was it was mind boggling that this underground movement

418
00:21:36,279 --> 00:21:38,680
had existed. And it wasn't just some guy in New York,

419
00:21:38,920 --> 00:21:43,079
but somebody in California and Kansas and Texas. Every area

420
00:21:43,160 --> 00:21:46,759
had some pockets of people who were compiling this stuff.

421
00:21:47,039 --> 00:21:50,480
It was like the monks in Ireland keeping civilization alive.

422
00:21:50,559 --> 00:21:53,440
We were writing all of this down match results. You know,

423
00:21:53,960 --> 00:21:56,599
newspaper clips we would swap with one another, which were

424
00:21:56,960 --> 00:22:00,240
wonderful because they were unique to the territory. Now just

425
00:22:00,319 --> 00:22:02,880
generic ads if they run ads at all. But back

426
00:22:02,920 --> 00:22:05,440
in the day, everyone had their own unique looking heads.

427
00:22:05,759 --> 00:22:09,640
And you've seen the newsletter the fan club brother and

428
00:22:10,039 --> 00:22:12,920
and I Ransom in there. Everybody had a different little

429
00:22:13,079 --> 00:22:16,519
graphic and it was just was exciting. Everything that came

430
00:22:16,599 --> 00:22:19,440
in was different. It wasn't like the sameness of now.

431
00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:23,119
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is so true. Flipping through the fan club newsletter,

432
00:22:23,200 --> 00:22:24,599
a lot of it. And we've been spending time on

433
00:22:24,680 --> 00:22:27,000
our Hull Cogan project, you know, just going through the

434
00:22:27,319 --> 00:22:30,759
contemporaneous news articles in the Northeast and you know, Alabama

435
00:22:30,799 --> 00:22:32,319
and Georgia two to the extent that he was written

436
00:22:32,400 --> 00:22:35,000
up in those in those parts in Memphis, and it's just, yeah,

437
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:36,680
I can see how much of a hunger there would

438
00:22:36,720 --> 00:22:38,599
be to be able to see just a clipped out

439
00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:40,920
article from a part of the country that you really

440
00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:43,400
had no access to whatsoever. You couldn't you know, you

441
00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:44,839
could not look them up on the Internet, to say

442
00:22:44,880 --> 00:22:47,559
the least, And just to compile those was a great value.

443
00:22:47,599 --> 00:22:50,400
Add We definitely take for granted how easy the access

444
00:22:50,519 --> 00:22:54,000
is now with centralized archiving of all these these newspapers.

445
00:22:54,039 --> 00:22:56,200
But Mike, I wanted to get back to when you're

446
00:22:56,359 --> 00:22:59,799
sitting with Terry and ed Leslie in Memphis again, where's

447
00:22:59,799 --> 00:23:01,640
the mentality come from that I'm going to kick into

448
00:23:01,640 --> 00:23:03,079
a gear of trying to get this guy booked in

449
00:23:03,119 --> 00:23:05,119
New York. Yeah, it's very nice to meet you, while

450
00:23:05,160 --> 00:23:05,960
can I get a picture?

451
00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:06,279
Speaker 1: Like?

452
00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:08,839
Speaker 2: Where does that kind of entrepreneurial side come from? Is

453
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:10,799
that what the fans were like at WFIA.

454
00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:16,079
Speaker 4: I was always already entrepreneurial. This is seventy nine, so

455
00:23:16,119 --> 00:23:18,279
I'm twenty years old, so I'm a little bit up

456
00:23:18,440 --> 00:23:20,200
up the food chain in terms of being a fan.

457
00:23:20,880 --> 00:23:23,400
But I started working at the age of twelve. I

458
00:23:23,519 --> 00:23:26,839
used to do comic bood conventions in the city, and

459
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:29,559
even when I went to wrestling matches. When I first

460
00:23:29,559 --> 00:23:34,119
started going, I guessing around I was about fifteen or sixteen.

461
00:23:34,559 --> 00:23:37,240
I used to now try and do this today anywhere.

462
00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:41,400
I used to go to Brooklyn by use wrestling magazines

463
00:23:41,519 --> 00:23:44,759
or returns from the newsstand for thirty cents a piece,

464
00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:47,200
like a bundle of the same magazines. But that would

465
00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:49,319
be a year or two old. And I would take

466
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:52,319
a suitcase of these to the garden, and after the

467
00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:55,559
matches were over, I would lay them out on like

468
00:23:56,279 --> 00:23:59,240
a planter outside Madison Square Garden. There's people coming down

469
00:23:59,319 --> 00:24:03,319
the ramp. I would sell magazines from buck apiece. Wow.

470
00:24:03,440 --> 00:24:06,480
So literally I went to Catholic high school. Literally paid

471
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:09,319
in my high school. So I was always a business guy.

472
00:24:09,559 --> 00:24:12,440
And even when I did my newsletter, I started the newsletter,

473
00:24:13,599 --> 00:24:16,319
I would always draw from somewhere else. And there was

474
00:24:16,359 --> 00:24:19,960
a great publisher named Jim Warren who put out something

475
00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:24,240
called Famous Monsters of Film Land, and in that he

476
00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:27,559
would have page after page of after page of monster

477
00:24:27,720 --> 00:24:31,279
masks and model kits and T shirts and this and that.

478
00:24:31,799 --> 00:24:33,960
So even in my little neo fight way, when I

479
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:36,759
did the newsletter, I had a back page which was

480
00:24:36,839 --> 00:24:40,559
all back of issues of wrestling magazines or programs or

481
00:24:40,559 --> 00:24:43,400
whatever I had. So I was always buying and selling.

482
00:24:43,519 --> 00:24:45,279
I'm kind of the William Shatner of wrestling.

483
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:47,599
Speaker 3: I was.

484
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:51,119
Speaker 2: I'm the Huckster's the huckster. That totally adds up. That's great.

485
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:53,759
So what was your thought as to getting Hulk introduced

486
00:24:53,799 --> 00:24:56,400
in New York. Why did you think that that was

487
00:24:56,440 --> 00:24:57,440
a ball you could run with?

488
00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:00,480
Speaker 1: He just had you know, I.

489
00:25:00,599 --> 00:25:02,440
Speaker 4: Wasn't going to pursue him. He just kind of sat

490
00:25:02,559 --> 00:25:04,640
down and it was one of those things that I

491
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:06,759
don't know it was in Massachusetts in New York a

492
00:25:06,839 --> 00:25:08,960
big thing that people are looking for common ground when

493
00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:11,319
they're walking their dog and somebody will come and say, oh,

494
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:12,119
what kind of a dog is?

495
00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:12,200
Speaker 1: It?

496
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:15,519
Speaker 4: Kind of like an icebreaker. Well, he was a wrestler.

497
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:17,759
I was a wrestling fan. He sat down next to

498
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:21,240
me and then I just you know, made the visual assessment.

499
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:23,400
He had a great look, he had the great size,

500
00:25:24,039 --> 00:25:28,079
and he had he had the ability on the mic.

501
00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:30,160
So he was sitting next to me, What else can

502
00:25:30,240 --> 00:25:32,839
we talk about? And you know, I was just talking

503
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:34,720
about where I came from and what I was doing.

504
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:37,880
And then he was a bit excited. And Terry was

505
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:41,559
an entrepreneur. I mean prior to wrestling, as you know,

506
00:25:41,759 --> 00:25:43,240
he had the rock band, but he also had a

507
00:25:43,279 --> 00:25:46,119
gym that didn't last. I have a business card somewhere

508
00:25:46,319 --> 00:25:51,319
Terry and Whitey's gym, and so he was he was

509
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:54,599
always looking to do something entrepreneurial. Well, and then later

510
00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:56,880
when he had money, how many different things did he

511
00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:04,680
go into. So the whole conversation just kind of was

512
00:26:04,759 --> 00:26:07,519
serendipitous and just free flowing, and it was just it

513
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:09,559
was something that we both had something to talk about,

514
00:26:09,559 --> 00:26:10,920
which was the common ground of wrestling.

515
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:13,960
Speaker 2: That's amazing. One is that you brought the resume into

516
00:26:14,039 --> 00:26:16,720
our soul and personally, that's like because as you know,

517
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:20,319
in wrestling, Mike, I mean, you know, every origin story

518
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:22,839
has a million authors. You know, I can't tell you

519
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:25,440
how many people we've read trying to I don't want

520
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:27,519
to put this in like a negative way, it's not negative,

521
00:26:27,559 --> 00:26:30,160
but they have their story about how they got hulkbooked

522
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:30,680
in New York.

523
00:26:30,799 --> 00:26:34,759
Speaker 4: Well of course the lassie and just everybody. And it's like, well,

524
00:26:34,799 --> 00:26:36,680
there's nothing that I can really do with this. It's

525
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,519
not like, what, what's my claim to fame other than

526
00:26:39,599 --> 00:26:42,359
it's an anecdote as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, but

527
00:26:43,519 --> 00:26:44,640
it's an amazing.

528
00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:48,519
Speaker 3: No one's actually ever said, though, like you've got the

529
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:54,000
unique position by because you brought the resume. I don't

530
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:56,640
think anyone's ever said I brought the resume up to

531
00:26:56,880 --> 00:26:58,640
Usually it's I made a call, like you know, anyone

532
00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:00,920
can make a call. You brought you a physically brought

533
00:27:01,319 --> 00:27:03,680
the resume, which is it's just tremendous.

534
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I just assumed somebody would be in the

535
00:27:06,279 --> 00:27:09,039
office because it was the day of the garden. And

536
00:27:09,799 --> 00:27:11,880
and I also being the hoarder that I am, I

537
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:17,279
have all of his mother, Ruth Bolt's letters still inside,

538
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:19,720
so I know in one of them somewhere I have,

539
00:27:20,559 --> 00:27:23,200
you know, thanks for everything that you've done for In fact,

540
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:26,359
and even what I have up online, which I really

541
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:28,119
don't want to part with, is the only thing that

542
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:30,680
I have signed from Terry other than the permission slip,

543
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:34,279
which was a Japanese magazine. It's up on the stores,

544
00:27:34,319 --> 00:27:37,720
dot eBay, dot com, Forward Slash New Wave Wrestling. It's

545
00:27:37,759 --> 00:27:40,200
a wrestling Japanese wrestling magazine, and he just wrote it

546
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:43,160
to Mike, thanks for everything. So I don't really have

547
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:47,480
anything other than my own, and wherever the letters are

548
00:27:47,559 --> 00:27:49,319
that I do, I do have my all of her

549
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:51,400
letter I never threw any of it out, and she

550
00:27:51,559 --> 00:27:54,359
just to send me pictures. I have pictures of Terry

551
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:57,480
as a toddler and in grammar school and then when

552
00:27:57,519 --> 00:28:00,599
he was just really started training and ruckus the band

553
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:03,160
that he was in. So I have stuff. I just

554
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:06,319
have so much stuff. It's just it's just getting to it.

555
00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:09,079
It's fifty years of stuff just being put in a

556
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:12,440
box and put away. It's kind of Citizen Kane with Rosebud.

557
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:15,400
Not quite but I'm close. That's much stuff.

558
00:28:16,759 --> 00:28:18,799
Speaker 2: So yeah, So what's amazing to me, you know, in

559
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:22,400
thinking about that all these people that have talked about

560
00:28:22,799 --> 00:28:25,759
introducing Hulton New York Hulk. Hulk would credit Terry Funk

561
00:28:25,799 --> 00:28:27,720
when he was thinking about quitting the business because he

562
00:28:27,799 --> 00:28:30,000
was dissatisfied with his Memphis payoffs and kind of the

563
00:28:30,039 --> 00:28:33,119
trajectory there that Terry Funk put him back on to

564
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:35,960
get hooked up with Vince. Jerry Briscoe, of course, who

565
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:38,799
kind of helped break Hulkin in Florida in seventy seven,

566
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:41,240
has a story about how he had Hulkin head over

567
00:28:41,279 --> 00:28:43,519
to the house once and called Vince senior year and

568
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:45,799
put him on the line with them. It goes on

569
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:48,559
and on and on as far as who who claimed

570
00:28:48,559 --> 00:28:50,680
to make the introduction. But you were under the impression

571
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:53,440
when you went in there, Mike into the Capital office

572
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:55,119
that they had not heard of him before, that they

573
00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:56,359
had no clue who this guy was.

574
00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 4: At least those two people didn't. At least heal skull

575
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:02,680
and a little SAVOLDI didn't now he might have. He

576
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:05,079
was personable, and he was very personable. I mean when

577
00:29:05,119 --> 00:29:07,559
I sat with him, I wasn't late. And Terry was

578
00:29:07,599 --> 00:29:09,640
a big guy. If you look at the picture of

579
00:29:09,759 --> 00:29:12,079
me with him, I'm like five eight, So he really

580
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:14,839
It wasn't like I was intimidated. He came across like

581
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:17,039
a person. You just were one on one with someone.

582
00:29:17,519 --> 00:29:20,799
So I could certainly see how people would say, hey, listen,

583
00:29:20,839 --> 00:29:23,000
you got the size, or you know, Jerry Briscoe or

584
00:29:23,119 --> 00:29:27,000
Eddie Graham, somebody would, although I can't see where at

585
00:29:27,039 --> 00:29:29,160
the time Jerry Briscoe was not part of He was

586
00:29:29,279 --> 00:29:34,839
in Georgia at the time. Were Bda Briscoes Atlanta? Yeah,

587
00:29:35,759 --> 00:29:38,480
I don't even so the whole business of them all

588
00:29:38,559 --> 00:29:41,000
wanting to push Terry to come to New York makes

589
00:29:41,039 --> 00:29:42,000
no sense whatsoever.

590
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:44,400
Speaker 2: Well, there was a pretty strong there was a strong

591
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:46,960
alliance between Vincentia and Eddie Graham. They swapped talent a

592
00:29:47,039 --> 00:29:52,839
ton in the seventies, came up a superstar. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,

593
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:56,440
you mentioned superstar. Did you think as a Superstar fan

594
00:29:56,559 --> 00:29:59,880
of that vintage that Hulk was really kind of trying

595
00:29:59,880 --> 00:30:02,319
to rip off Superstar. It's always hard for me to

596
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:04,200
tell if the fans are like rolling their eyes at

597
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:06,640
this guy's trying to imitate Graham, or if they're like

598
00:30:06,759 --> 00:30:07,079
loving it.

599
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 4: I think he was. At the time, he was somewhat

600
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:13,880
of a tribute performer to Superstar because some of the

601
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:17,160
pictures that I gave from Memphis, he had a Tide

602
00:30:17,279 --> 00:30:20,000
muscle a tea's leaveless T shirt, a muscle tea that

603
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:23,039
was tie die on, so he had no he had

604
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:25,519
no robes or anything at the time. And then he

605
00:30:25,599 --> 00:30:28,400
had the the I forget what it's called, like the ringlets.

606
00:30:28,799 --> 00:30:31,720
It wasn't just trunks, it was the I don't know

607
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:36,480
if they caloted an executioner wrestling trunks that were over

608
00:30:36,559 --> 00:30:41,519
the over the like suspenders you know with England, right

609
00:30:41,599 --> 00:30:44,039
like Lawla had the one strap, but he had the

610
00:30:44,079 --> 00:30:47,400
two strap, so in some respects, and then he had

611
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:51,160
the mushroom for the atomic mushroom cloud hairschetting, so in

612
00:30:51,359 --> 00:30:54,279
some respects he was trying to be his own man,

613
00:30:54,359 --> 00:30:56,480
but he couldn't deny the fact that people would look

614
00:30:56,480 --> 00:30:58,440
and say oh wow, that he looked. I mean, Skoland

615
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:00,279
said it to me before. I didn't even say it

616
00:31:00,279 --> 00:31:03,160
to him. He said at TAngelo SAVOLDI because hey, he

617
00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:07,000
looks like Superstar. So they immediately saw it. But I

618
00:31:07,119 --> 00:31:09,799
think he did. You know, there was a tribute even

619
00:31:09,839 --> 00:31:13,079
when we were sitting down where he clothes stroked his

620
00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:14,640
hair back and said, oh, look when I pull my

621
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:17,960
heat back, like, does that look like Superstar? So there's

622
00:31:18,039 --> 00:31:20,599
definitely there's no question that he was an influence, But

623
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:22,720
I think he was. He was still, in essence, trying

624
00:31:22,759 --> 00:31:25,000
to be his own man. He nearly didn't depend upon

625
00:31:25,079 --> 00:31:28,359
the test of strength stuff to that much. At least

626
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:31,400
Memphis had him like, you know, bouncing off of the ropes,

627
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:34,200
and he was pretty mobile, I would say, right from

628
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:37,519
the get go, and Superstar really depended a blonde bear

629
00:31:37,599 --> 00:31:40,079
hugs and the test of strength. As much as I

630
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:44,440
loved him, he wasn't really that much of a a

631
00:31:44,559 --> 00:31:45,480
visual performer.

632
00:31:46,119 --> 00:31:48,519
Speaker 2: Now you're talking about his background and kind of what

633
00:31:48,599 --> 00:31:50,559
he had done in building up a resume for him.

634
00:31:51,079 --> 00:31:53,960
Did he mention that by that point he had already

635
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:57,000
wrestled Andre in Alabama? He had already wrestled Harley Race

636
00:31:57,079 --> 00:31:58,680
for the nw A title in Alabama.

637
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, but enough for some reason, he didn't mention that.

638
00:32:01,759 --> 00:32:04,240
And then the only thing that he was praising, and

639
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:06,519
it was a little bit of tay fade. He was

640
00:32:06,559 --> 00:32:09,160
telling me how he beat ox Baker with a bear

641
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:11,480
hug in like X amount of seconds. I don't know how,

642
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:14,079
So I don't know why he was investing me with that,

643
00:32:14,759 --> 00:32:16,400
but that was that was a big one. But he

644
00:32:16,480 --> 00:32:19,519
had said he had wrestled Andre and wrestled Harley Rays,

645
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:24,079
but his big thing was bear hugging ox Baker into submission.

646
00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:27,640
I don't know that is that who we beat for

647
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:30,240
the Southeastern So he had the Southeastern title therefore, wik

648
00:32:30,279 --> 00:32:30,480
he did.

649
00:32:30,559 --> 00:32:32,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was involved with Austin Idol and Ox Baker.

650
00:32:33,119 --> 00:32:35,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, so that's it, because I have I have

651
00:32:35,559 --> 00:32:38,000
a photo somewhere inside that he had sent me wearing

652
00:32:38,079 --> 00:32:40,079
the belt. That was a nice belt. It was like

653
00:32:40,119 --> 00:32:43,720
a red, white and blue leather strap and I have

654
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:46,519
that inside somewhere, and I just remember that was a

655
00:32:46,559 --> 00:32:46,960
big thing.

656
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:50,440
Speaker 2: Do you remember thinking Knox Baker that he was maybe

657
00:32:50,519 --> 00:32:53,960
equal parts inspired by Austin Idol as much as Billy Graham.

658
00:32:55,640 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 4: Well, Superstar still came before Austin Idol. And then the

659
00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:03,839
thing that I really love about Austin was how he

660
00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:09,400
uh re envisioned himself. He remodeled himself from Mike McCord

661
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:14,519
to uh to Austin Idol. But so there's no question

662
00:33:14,559 --> 00:33:17,039
about it. I mean, Graham was there, he was the template.

663
00:33:17,559 --> 00:33:20,759
He did it. Austin did it in a different way

664
00:33:20,839 --> 00:33:24,960
than Superstar, but he went with the blonde, you know, bodybuilder.

665
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:26,960
He didn't have the size and he didn't really have

666
00:33:27,039 --> 00:33:29,839
the definition of Superstar, but he had he had a

667
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:32,039
great physique, and he had a he was great on

668
00:33:32,119 --> 00:33:33,799
the mic, and he was a very good He's a

669
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:36,400
very good wrestler. I talked with Austin a while back.

670
00:33:36,440 --> 00:33:41,200
I was trying to develop a one man play where

671
00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:43,480
he could go up because he always tells everyone about

672
00:33:44,039 --> 00:33:47,119
the plane crash, right and how you know. So I

673
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:50,240
was in contact with him maybe about four or five

674
00:33:50,319 --> 00:33:54,640
years ago about putting together a one man show for

675
00:33:54,759 --> 00:33:58,200
him to kind of tour or to be somewhere in

676
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:01,240
theater doing a one man talking about his life. And

677
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:05,920
it's as like as it is with many projects. They

678
00:34:06,039 --> 00:34:07,359
start off and then some of them.

679
00:34:07,319 --> 00:34:11,079
Speaker 2: Just so because you know idle Mania, he was on

680
00:34:11,159 --> 00:34:15,880
Georgia TV and cupping the some of the gestures.

681
00:34:16,559 --> 00:34:18,679
Speaker 4: Yeah, he definitely, there was no question. And then and

682
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:21,280
he was the name when when Terry came in to

683
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:26,039
be Sterling Golden, Austin Idel was positioned as as one

684
00:34:26,079 --> 00:34:28,679
of the main heels in Atlanta. So I'm sure he

685
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:33,159
looked at Austin Il the way Austin Idel looked at Superstar.

686
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:36,800
So there's this kind of little steppings to everyone's on

687
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:40,559
everybody else's shoulders to some extent. But Austin Il definitely

688
00:34:40,599 --> 00:34:44,599
took from Superstar and then uh, Terry took it from

689
00:34:45,039 --> 00:34:48,280
Superstar and also also Austin Idel. I mean no question

690
00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:51,880
about taking from Austin Il. With you know idle Mania

691
00:34:51,960 --> 00:34:54,480
and the cupping of the ear and all, there's no question.

692
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:56,559
Speaker 2: One of the things I really want to talk to

693
00:34:56,599 --> 00:34:59,719
you about, Mike is in going through the first three

694
00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:01,840
ISSU chose the fan club magazine. I think it's the

695
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:06,599
third one, or maybe the second one. It says, right there, Hulkamania,

696
00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:13,519
this is nineteen eighty and you're already Hulkamania is already

697
00:35:13,679 --> 00:35:16,360
enough of a thing that you're putting the term on

698
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:18,639
the cover of one of the issues of the newsletter,

699
00:35:18,719 --> 00:35:20,920
and this blew our mind because we're trained to believe

700
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:24,440
that Hulkamania was a babyface thing that he only started

701
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:27,239
talking about that in and around rocky three, and when

702
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:30,559
he went to verne Ganya. The idea that Hulkamania was

703
00:35:30,639 --> 00:35:33,400
something that he said as a heel and something that

704
00:35:33,519 --> 00:35:35,760
you know, a fan running his news club is a

705
00:35:35,800 --> 00:35:37,760
fan club would have picked up on and published. Is

706
00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:40,039
kind of like a movement in as early as nineteen eighty.

707
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:42,719
The winter issue number three really really blew my mind.

708
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:46,360
Can you tell us everything you remember about Hulkamania becoming

709
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:47,800
a thing that early.

710
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:50,639
Speaker 4: And what it meant from dard to time in the

711
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:54,679
Combat Sports newsletter that I did if somebody said something

712
00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:57,920
that was funny or something that didn't was off, I

713
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:00,000
would run a quote. I would throw a poll quote

714
00:36:00,199 --> 00:36:03,760
in the newsletter, And so my ear was always up

715
00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:08,119
for something that was different and unusual. So coming off

716
00:36:08,199 --> 00:36:12,239
of it off of Atlanta, where Austin Idol was using

717
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:20,400
idle Mania, Hogan obviously procured the slogan. He wasn't using

718
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:22,800
it to a great extent, but I heard it enough

719
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:25,280
times that he did use it that then I just

720
00:36:25,519 --> 00:36:27,599
I just put it down and then it wasn't really

721
00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:32,559
full blown and developed until later either. I don't. I'm

722
00:36:32,599 --> 00:36:34,480
not sure with Ganya. If you say it was with Ganya,

723
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:37,679
I say that, but certainly as a marketing tool when

724
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:43,119
he came in with the great WW expansion and trying

725
00:36:43,159 --> 00:36:46,920
to take over the business. So I mean, I know

726
00:36:47,039 --> 00:36:50,400
that it was around, but I think McMahon or maybe

727
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:52,440
Gania ran with it to use it as kind of

728
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:55,920
the running of slogan. But it was around, he had

729
00:36:56,039 --> 00:36:58,920
used it, and it was because of just coming fresh

730
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:01,039
out of Atlanta with the idle mania.

731
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:01,599
Speaker 3: Got it.

732
00:37:01,679 --> 00:37:03,639
Speaker 2: That makes a ton of sense. Yeah, just we're going

733
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:07,880
through sort of like chronologically the tape that's available of

734
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:10,760
his run, and we land on this what was it September.

735
00:37:10,519 --> 00:37:14,199
Speaker 3: September, Yeah, September nineteen eighty, and it was it was

736
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:17,880
kind of mind blowing to think that it was, says

737
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:20,960
Hulcomania in New York in nineteen eighty, well before any

738
00:37:21,039 --> 00:37:24,119
sort of babyface run, and it was it was it

739
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:24,760
was shocking.

740
00:37:27,199 --> 00:37:29,440
Speaker 4: Yeah. No, that's the amazing thing about you know, and

741
00:37:29,559 --> 00:37:33,119
back in the day, if you even used wrestling jargon,

742
00:37:33,239 --> 00:37:35,280
you know, baby face heel or any of that stuff.

743
00:37:35,559 --> 00:37:39,119
No one would no one would know what you're talking about.

744
00:37:39,159 --> 00:37:43,199
And then somehow, just through cross pollination and with fans

745
00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:46,880
and at places, it becomes the norm. So Hulchomenia was there,

746
00:37:47,119 --> 00:37:49,920
was out. It wasn't just being used in a very

747
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:50,679
prevalent way.

748
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:51,039
Speaker 1: You know.

749
00:37:51,119 --> 00:37:53,480
Speaker 4: It would he'd say it here or there in an interview,

750
00:37:54,159 --> 00:37:56,440
and I just picked up on it on one of

751
00:37:56,480 --> 00:37:59,239
the local because they had to then do all the

752
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:03,920
individuals for Boston Gardens, they had to do interview segments

753
00:38:04,199 --> 00:38:08,239
Madison Square Garden. Everyone had their own, So everybody probably

754
00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:11,599
heard Hulkamania just in passing. But I picked up on it.

755
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:15,000
I think also because of Austin Idol, but it just sounded,

756
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:18,639
you know, well, also Beatlemania was around, so Austin Idols

757
00:38:18,639 --> 00:38:22,440
stole it from the Beatles the beatle tribute shows. So

758
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:25,119
Beatlemania was around, and then we had idle Mania, and

759
00:38:25,159 --> 00:38:26,719
then we had Hulkamania.

760
00:38:27,079 --> 00:38:31,159
Speaker 2: You mentioned your history in comic books, and this is

761
00:38:31,199 --> 00:38:33,800
an opportunity to ask something that also blew our mind,

762
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:36,199
that came up to us and pointed out to us

763
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:38,199
because we were trying to trace back as far as

764
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:41,679
we possibly could, Mike, what was the name Hulk Hogan?

765
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:44,440
You know, like, was there there was a Spider Man

766
00:38:44,519 --> 00:38:46,840
Crusher Hogan, who was a wrestler in the comic. This

767
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:49,599
was decades before Terry came into the WWF, and it

768
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:52,280
it kind of strange credulity to suggest that, like, you know,

769
00:38:52,599 --> 00:38:54,880
the brain trust that WWF would have seen this comic

770
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:57,480
character and thought about it as a name. But you know,

771
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:00,559
Hogan was you know, he was already Hall. We know

772
00:39:00,679 --> 00:39:02,760
this Hogan was the one that the piece of it

773
00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:05,239
that was added. And then we're looking back and someone

774
00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:09,920
had pointed us to some vintage comics, what JP as

775
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:12,679
far back as it was ninth the issue was nineteen

776
00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:17,360
sixty one that were that that has this two Gun King.

777
00:39:17,519 --> 00:39:18,119
Two Gun Kid.

778
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:18,440
Speaker 1: Yeah.

779
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 2: Two Gun Kid was the series early Marvel.

780
00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:23,360
Speaker 3: Atlas comics at the time, before it was even Marvel Comicsyo.

781
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:23,840
Speaker 4: Yeah right.

782
00:39:24,039 --> 00:39:25,519
Speaker 2: It says the hands of the Hulk and there's a

783
00:39:25,599 --> 00:39:28,760
character who towers over everybody else who goes to war

784
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:30,960
with the baby Faces in this comic and his name

785
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:32,280
is Hulk Hogan.

786
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:33,800
Speaker 4: And I'm just not something.

787
00:39:34,079 --> 00:39:36,599
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just wondering if to you when they named

788
00:39:36,679 --> 00:39:38,920
Hi Hulk Hogan, if what that touched off for you

789
00:39:39,079 --> 00:39:39,920
knowing comic books.

790
00:39:41,119 --> 00:39:44,039
Speaker 4: No, the only other the big thing at that point

791
00:39:44,079 --> 00:39:47,159
in time why they took Hulgland was because on TV

792
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:49,760
they had the Hulk TV show, which was pretty weak

793
00:39:50,079 --> 00:39:53,840
with lou Figno. So the connection there was Vince mcmahn Sr.

794
00:39:54,159 --> 00:39:56,880
Wanted something with alliteration to it, and I think he

795
00:39:56,960 --> 00:40:01,480
wanted it for whatever reason he wanted Hogan. I mean,

796
00:40:01,599 --> 00:40:04,719
Hulk was already is Terry the Hulk Boulder. He dropped

797
00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:08,079
it to be Sterling Golden, which I think Terry the

798
00:40:08,159 --> 00:40:09,960
Hulk Boulder wasn't a bad name either. It was a

799
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:13,559
little bit maybe of a tongue twister. But Hulk Hogan works.

800
00:40:13,679 --> 00:40:15,679
I mean, I just think everyone says the story that

801
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:17,760
all he wanted to make of an irishman, which I think,

802
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:20,239
to myself, well he's reached blond. I don't really see

803
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:23,800
the connection, but so I think it was more along

804
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:26,480
the lines of a lufa Igno and the book on

805
00:40:26,719 --> 00:40:30,719
his size. You know, it connected from people because I

806
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:34,000
don't think the obscure things also with Marvel or Atlas

807
00:40:34,159 --> 00:40:36,039
or Timely whatever you want to call it. At the time,

808
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:39,119
they had him in Tales to Astonish or Tales of Suspense.

809
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:43,760
There was a big monster, one of these gigantic, you know,

810
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:46,960
one hundreds foot monsters called the Hulk, and there was

811
00:40:47,079 --> 00:40:49,519
that came around the same time as Two Gun Kid.

812
00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:51,719
I didn't know about the Two Gun Kid, which was

813
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:55,440
fully Hulk. Hogan stan Lee used the name Hulk again

814
00:40:55,559 --> 00:40:59,039
somewhere else as the Hulk before he did The Incredible Hulk.

815
00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:02,000
So but I think it was the TV show and

816
00:41:02,079 --> 00:41:05,159
for Igno and the popularity of the time of that

817
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:08,719
show that he just went with that wrestling's great at

818
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:09,480
stealing stuff.

819
00:41:09,599 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh for sure. And you know now that

820
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:14,360
years later Ron Fuller actually did a podcast and he

821
00:41:14,559 --> 00:41:17,159
was the one with Louis Tillette booking him in you know,

822
00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:20,239
Pensacola Slash the Gulf Coast area that gave him the

823
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:22,559
name Terry the Hulk Boulder, And we were looking at

824
00:41:22,559 --> 00:41:24,039
old news clippings and they would just call him the

825
00:41:24,079 --> 00:41:26,119
Hulk in the beginning. They were just kind of they're

826
00:41:26,119 --> 00:41:27,960
almost intimating that if you came to the arena, you

827
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:30,360
would see this big green comic book character killing people

828
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:33,119
who towered over everybody else. Do you remember Mike any

829
00:41:33,159 --> 00:41:36,360
sensitivity around like the copyright on that, because we know,

830
00:41:36,480 --> 00:41:38,079
come eighty five, they've got to cut a deal with

831
00:41:38,119 --> 00:41:40,519
Marvel to keep calling him Hulk and share with all

832
00:41:40,519 --> 00:41:40,880
of these.

833
00:41:41,079 --> 00:41:44,639
Speaker 4: Definitely there was, it didn't show up until that point

834
00:41:44,639 --> 00:41:47,480
in time. That's around the time that I started having

835
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:51,440
trouble with Titan Sports, and in essence, that was pretty

836
00:41:51,519 --> 00:41:54,480
much kind of where Terry and I started parting ways

837
00:41:54,519 --> 00:41:57,119
because I was involved with wrestling magazines to a greater

838
00:41:57,199 --> 00:42:00,199
extent at that point, and then I was also being

839
00:42:00,440 --> 00:42:03,519
an editor in chief of a whole lot of new titles,

840
00:42:03,599 --> 00:42:07,119
and I became aware that they became aware of my

841
00:42:07,199 --> 00:42:09,960
existence because of the club, and then they became aware

842
00:42:09,960 --> 00:42:12,800
of my existence to the magazines and my stories, and

843
00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:16,719
my magazines were not the pedestrian there. I always like

844
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:20,440
to say, they were kind of rhetorical stories about you know,

845
00:42:21,079 --> 00:42:22,920
so and so, is this the end for some and

846
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:26,320
but not in a phony way, just saying did somebody

847
00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:30,360
run their course or is this character feasible? And I

848
00:42:30,519 --> 00:42:36,039
started having problems with WWF at the time, and Terry

849
00:42:36,199 --> 00:42:37,960
was between a rock and a hard place. He couldn't

850
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:41,360
do much for me because he was still you're an employee,

851
00:42:42,119 --> 00:42:44,760
you know. And then in Ruth and I would talk

852
00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:47,679
about email or call one not email, but write one

853
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:51,760
another or call one another about you know, what was happening.

854
00:42:52,480 --> 00:42:56,920
And you know, I ultimately had to let the club

855
00:42:57,039 --> 00:42:59,880
go because he couldn't he couldn't do anything they want.

856
00:43:00,039 --> 00:43:02,760
They owned the rights to the Hulk name, the whole

857
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:06,079
Hogan name, but I had him signed to this little

858
00:43:06,159 --> 00:43:09,159
flimsy contract to say, well I have this, and he

859
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:11,000
was just in the Plazer, so oh my, you know,

860
00:43:11,079 --> 00:43:14,039
I mean, I can't really get really involved with it

861
00:43:14,119 --> 00:43:16,559
if you can figure something out. And then I talked

862
00:43:16,599 --> 00:43:18,039
with his mom and saying, well, I don't know what

863
00:43:18,159 --> 00:43:20,280
I could. I guess I could have turned it into

864
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:23,679
the Terry Bowlet. What could they do about that? But

865
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:25,679
I was at the point I was already you know

866
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:28,599
that that was I was younger, and I was a fan,

867
00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:32,320
and then I was kind of moving into being an

868
00:43:32,360 --> 00:43:34,599
associate editor and then an editor in chief and then

869
00:43:34,679 --> 00:43:40,840
later publisher magazine, the Fan.

870
00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:43,480
Speaker 2: Club Newsletter out all the way through eighty four eighty five.

871
00:43:44,079 --> 00:43:48,199
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, like I think, uh, there's a cover with

872
00:43:48,840 --> 00:43:52,039
Hogan b An dericature of Hogan holding the belt and

873
00:43:52,119 --> 00:43:54,000
he's sitting on top of the iron cheek. I don't

874
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:57,679
know which issue of And I think the newsletter the

875
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:00,360
fan club thing became the hulk of many. I think

876
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:03,239
I Terry changed the name to all Comania, so it

877
00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:07,199
went on to like eighty. I know we I'm just

878
00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:09,840
trying to think because you know, I lived it, so

879
00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:11,800
it doesn't mean it. I can tell you more about

880
00:44:11,800 --> 00:44:13,480
a comic book cover and who did the art and

881
00:44:13,519 --> 00:44:16,320
who wrote what when it's because it's something that I

882
00:44:16,559 --> 00:44:19,239
was enamored with. But my own stuff I have a

883
00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:23,079
harder time. But I think when once Hogan had the belt,

884
00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:24,119
and I think.

885
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:26,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, that that answers the question.

886
00:44:26,519 --> 00:44:28,800
Speaker 4: I mean, if you have I think John Studd was

887
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:32,000
the top opponent. I think that was my run at

888
00:44:32,039 --> 00:44:34,519
the end where we kind of parted ways, and also

889
00:44:34,679 --> 00:44:37,639
a relationship he didn't like. He really didn't like where

890
00:44:37,679 --> 00:44:39,320
I was going. And I said, well, Terry, you don't

891
00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:42,960
pay my bills. You know I'm doing this. I'm I'm

892
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:45,239
in the business on a different end of it. So

893
00:44:46,039 --> 00:44:47,719
we you know what I mean, We don't leave on

894
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:50,400
on bad terms. Oh you know, you have to write

895
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:53,320
about this. You have to do that. And then I said, well,

896
00:44:53,599 --> 00:44:58,360
you know, I've tried really hard to differentiate myself from

897
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:00,360
other magazines. And I was also f I think my

898
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:04,000
voice writing, because doing a newsletter, you're basically putting so

899
00:45:04,079 --> 00:45:07,239
and so beat so and so. You know, by pinfall

900
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:10,559
twelve minutes and eight seconds, there's really no writing to it.

901
00:45:11,119 --> 00:45:13,320
So you know, all of a sudden, you're you're trying

902
00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:17,039
to develop provocative cover lines in this and that, and

903
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:19,360
and they became a problem for us.

904
00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:25,679
Speaker 1: He's Lapsed fan Wrestling podcast with Jack incrn SEO and

905
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:36,960
j Piso, a lap fan Wrestling podcast.

906
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:40,280
Speaker 3: You talked about you know, you talked a lot about

907
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:44,559
your relationship with with his mom, Ruth, Like how how

908
00:45:44,679 --> 00:45:45,760
close did you guys get?

909
00:45:48,159 --> 00:45:50,960
Speaker 4: We were on the phone a lot. I really relied

910
00:45:51,039 --> 00:45:53,159
upon her to let me know where he was. If

911
00:45:53,199 --> 00:45:55,320
I could go to a show that was local. I

912
00:45:55,440 --> 00:45:58,039
wasn't really traveling big time. I go like when he

913
00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:01,280
never got a title shot with that backland in New York.

914
00:46:01,599 --> 00:46:05,000
So I went to Philadelphia for the match and the rematch,

915
00:46:05,599 --> 00:46:09,199
and I'm I'm some of that I read. By that

916
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:10,920
point in time, I knew what was going on Beho.

917
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:13,519
I had enough contacts, but I would more or less

918
00:46:13,599 --> 00:46:16,679
contact her to say, can you tell Terry I'm going

919
00:46:16,760 --> 00:46:20,480
to be here or there? Because I really didn't I

920
00:46:20,519 --> 00:46:23,400
didn't have access to him. There was no cell phone. Yeah,

921
00:46:23,760 --> 00:46:28,239
so I saw him in Philly the picture I sent

922
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:30,920
you and some other stuff. It was never at the garden.

923
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:34,039
I really we never really met at the Garden. I'd

924
00:46:34,119 --> 00:46:37,280
need him around the time that he was here, but

925
00:46:37,440 --> 00:46:41,480
I would catch him at Embassy Hall in North Bergen,

926
00:46:41,559 --> 00:46:45,199
New Jersey, or Wagner College in Staten Island. So it

927
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:49,440
was always a white Chester Westchester civic center. I was.

928
00:46:49,639 --> 00:46:52,039
I could get access to him at the small arenas

929
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:55,000
somewhere like the garden. You just it was just too difficult.

930
00:46:55,119 --> 00:46:57,079
Speaker 3: I mean, did you ever did you ever go down

931
00:46:57,199 --> 00:46:59,519
and to Tampa and like visit in person or was

932
00:46:59,519 --> 00:47:00,119
it always.

933
00:46:59,840 --> 00:47:00,360
Speaker 2: Over the phone?

934
00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:03,320
Speaker 4: It was always over the phone. I was I was,

935
00:47:03,760 --> 00:47:06,400
I was still I was doing Guy was a college

936
00:47:06,400 --> 00:47:09,559
student and uh, and then just doing the magazine stuff.

937
00:47:10,519 --> 00:47:12,239
We really just took up so much of my time

938
00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:14,719
at the time because I was building, I was developing

939
00:47:14,760 --> 00:47:17,079
at that time. There was a lot of stuff change.

940
00:47:17,079 --> 00:47:23,360
Wrestling became more particularly the the later period, not so

941
00:47:23,480 --> 00:47:27,000
much with with the early days of Terry Uh as

942
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:31,679
a villain, but once the WrestleMania thing took off, you know,

943
00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:34,280
I was then at the helm of like six wrestling

944
00:47:34,320 --> 00:47:38,519
magazines nine times a year, a lot of stuff, you know,

945
00:47:38,639 --> 00:47:41,840
So I was I was just kind of directing traffic

946
00:47:41,920 --> 00:47:42,440
at that point.

947
00:47:42,679 --> 00:47:46,320
Speaker 3: I'm always fascinated with with people who kind of had

948
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:48,440
a relationship with his parents because I feel like these

949
00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:52,159
are kind of unsung heroes for uh Uh, you know,

950
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:55,440
for any wrestler really, but specifically with Ruth and Pete

951
00:47:55,559 --> 00:47:56,119
with Hogan.

952
00:47:56,519 --> 00:48:00,239
Speaker 4: So, yeah, his mom was so terrific and she was

953
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:03,280
just so proud, and so Pete was very quiet. I mean,

954
00:48:03,519 --> 00:48:06,400
any time they were there, I was dealing with them,

955
00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:09,280
or if I called and Pete picked up the phone,

956
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:11,280
he pretty much was ill hold on and that was

957
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:14,599
out of it. Ruth would just go. And then the

958
00:48:14,679 --> 00:48:17,920
thing is that they would come to New York. Ruth

959
00:48:18,000 --> 00:48:21,039
had a relative, and I assumed it was Terry's an

960
00:48:21,119 --> 00:48:23,960
elderly relative, and I guess I don't know how old

961
00:48:24,119 --> 00:48:27,000
Ruth would have been, maybe in her fifties, late forties,

962
00:48:27,079 --> 00:48:30,039
fifties at the time, but they had an elderly relative,

963
00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:33,679
an aunt that lived maybe about five or six blocks

964
00:48:33,760 --> 00:48:36,559
from my where I grew up in an apartment in Manhattan,

965
00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:41,400
and so when she would come to visit her aunt,

966
00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:44,639
I would meet them there. I would meet Pete and Ruth.

967
00:48:45,039 --> 00:48:47,760
So we would have dinner at the at the apartment.

968
00:48:47,880 --> 00:48:49,840
That was pretty much it. So you spend the night

969
00:48:49,920 --> 00:48:53,000
talking and blah blah blah, how was you know, what's

970
00:48:53,320 --> 00:48:56,679
how's Terry and what I was doing? And so that

971
00:48:56,880 --> 00:48:59,679
was nice for the most part. If it wasn't for Ruth,

972
00:49:00,519 --> 00:49:04,360
I'd have had a very hard time of communicating with him.

973
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:07,320
But he truthfully, he lived at home, so when he

974
00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:10,760
wasn't on the road, he came home. So that's when

975
00:49:10,840 --> 00:49:14,199
I think they would catch up about what they're going

976
00:49:14,239 --> 00:49:16,159
to do with me, and then she would relay to

977
00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:18,519
me what he said or whatever. So it's kind of

978
00:49:18,519 --> 00:49:20,320
amazing we did talk. I mean, Terry would call me,

979
00:49:20,760 --> 00:49:22,800
but I was living home. I was still a kid

980
00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:26,159
and not a kid, but I was, you know whatever,

981
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:31,079
merging into adulthood. So if he called me from being

982
00:49:31,119 --> 00:49:33,920
on the road, then betimes where I wasn't home. You know,

983
00:49:34,039 --> 00:49:35,920
I was twenty and I'm in New York City, I'm

984
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:39,599
not home a lot, so I missed a few calls

985
00:49:39,639 --> 00:49:41,880
and then you're waiting for him to call back and

986
00:49:42,800 --> 00:49:46,000
he's onto the next town or whatever. So if not

987
00:49:46,119 --> 00:49:48,280
for if not for Ruth, I don't know what I

988
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:50,840
would have done in regards to Terry. I had other

989
00:49:51,679 --> 00:49:55,079
connections in terms of match results and things of that

990
00:49:55,280 --> 00:49:58,480
nature all around the city, of country, and around the world,

991
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:02,280
but just to get really pinpoints specifically where he is,

992
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:04,519
what's going on, and to let him know I'd be

993
00:50:04,639 --> 00:50:06,320
in such and such an area, I couldn't have done

994
00:50:06,360 --> 00:50:07,199
it without her at all.

995
00:50:07,320 --> 00:50:09,920
Speaker 2: So this really corroborates kind of what we've heard studying

996
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:12,079
roots role in Help's early career that she was sort

997
00:50:12,079 --> 00:50:15,039
of like the show mom for him. She dove headlong

998
00:50:15,119 --> 00:50:18,199
into any opportunity to kind of, you know, talk about

999
00:50:18,280 --> 00:50:21,360
his background, where he came from, his upbringing, what kind

1000
00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:24,679
of person he was, and didn't shy away from the fact. Mike,

1001
00:50:24,679 --> 00:50:26,159
and I don't know if this ever crossed your mind,

1002
00:50:26,239 --> 00:50:28,239
that you know, on television, everyone is being told he

1003
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:30,840
was from Venice Beach, California, that he was this sort

1004
00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:33,679
of like you know, delivered from some other universe kind

1005
00:50:33,719 --> 00:50:37,239
of force. And here here's his mom telling anyone who

1006
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:39,400
called the house, like you know that he grew up

1007
00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:41,280
in Tampa and he used to play Little League baseball.

1008
00:50:41,400 --> 00:50:43,800
There was never a conflict there with her just telling

1009
00:50:43,840 --> 00:50:46,480
everyone about Terry Bolea when what they were selling was

1010
00:50:46,519 --> 00:50:47,039
Hulk Hogan.

1011
00:50:47,599 --> 00:50:49,800
Speaker 4: There's so much contradiction in terms. There was that We

1012
00:50:50,079 --> 00:50:53,960
magazine that with my boy the Hulk, where she did

1013
00:50:54,039 --> 00:50:56,280
an interview where there's an article I know if you've

1014
00:50:56,280 --> 00:50:59,280
ever seen it, yep, and there's Hulk and she's proud

1015
00:50:59,280 --> 00:51:02,159
of Terry and there he is avoiding with topless women,

1016
00:51:02,239 --> 00:51:03,239
one of which was Linda.

1017
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:04,880
Speaker 2: So you know.

1018
00:51:05,159 --> 00:51:08,559
Speaker 4: So there's these contradictions in terms everywhere, and I don't

1019
00:51:08,559 --> 00:51:11,840
know if people did, you know, for the uninitiated, they

1020
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:14,679
didn't connect the dots. For people who kind of were

1021
00:51:15,079 --> 00:51:18,440
following and and pursuing wrestling on a deeper level, if

1022
00:51:18,480 --> 00:51:21,280
such a thing exists, they would they would say, ah, huh,

1023
00:51:21,400 --> 00:51:24,880
here's information. It's not about eventage speech and you know

1024
00:51:25,039 --> 00:51:28,559
he's not just saying his prayers and he and taking

1025
00:51:28,639 --> 00:51:32,280
his vita. You know, so you'd have to look for it,

1026
00:51:32,320 --> 00:51:35,360
and it was always there, you know, in wrestling in general.

1027
00:51:36,039 --> 00:51:37,800
Speaker 2: Why do you think she was so willing to help

1028
00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:40,760
out somebody like you? What was she trying? What to

1029
00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:42,119
her was made it worse than time.

1030
00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:46,400
Speaker 4: I think initially she just wrote a nice letter that

1031
00:51:46,840 --> 00:51:48,880
because I, well, I first of all, I got him

1032
00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:52,599
booked here, so that was his dream come true. And

1033
00:51:53,639 --> 00:51:56,199
when I when I wrote to her, she wrote back,

1034
00:51:56,280 --> 00:51:58,239
and then she sent me pictures right out of the gate.

1035
00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:00,920
I just think, you know, he didn't know me from her.

1036
00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:02,719
I met him once. I met him once in Memphis.

1037
00:52:02,800 --> 00:52:05,239
That was it. It's not like throughout the convention we

1038
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:09,840
just constantly. That time at the steakhouse was it. And

1039
00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:11,960
I just then went home typed it up. I said,

1040
00:52:11,960 --> 00:52:14,639
I'm going to bring it over and I'm thinking, oh,

1041
00:52:14,920 --> 00:52:16,559
I don't know when they're going to be there. I'll

1042
00:52:16,559 --> 00:52:18,920
wait till the day of the next Garden show. And

1043
00:52:19,039 --> 00:52:21,400
that was it. So I think the very fact that

1044
00:52:21,480 --> 00:52:23,199
I did that and then she wrote back to me

1045
00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:26,159
and I'm I'm kind of like a New York City

1046
00:52:26,280 --> 00:52:28,519
version of Bob Becklan. I'm a prayer. I was pretty

1047
00:52:28,559 --> 00:52:30,719
much an all American boy. I was I wasn't a

1048
00:52:30,760 --> 00:52:33,639
bad guy. So I think she's it came through in

1049
00:52:33,679 --> 00:52:35,760
a while, and I'd said to the newsletters. She saw

1050
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:38,679
I was industrious, you know, I was selling photos through

1051
00:52:38,719 --> 00:52:42,920
the thing, and I was consistent. The newsletter was every month,

1052
00:52:43,559 --> 00:52:46,960
so she saw that there was really a legitimate It

1053
00:52:47,119 --> 00:52:50,719
wasn't somebody that's kind of I'm here today, gone tomorrow.

1054
00:52:50,800 --> 00:52:53,679
I was very consistent, and so it built over that

1055
00:52:53,800 --> 00:52:56,079
and she saw I had a genuine affection for him.

1056
00:52:56,079 --> 00:52:58,280
Even in those early newsletters. Is you know, there was

1057
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:02,079
nothing that help number of the first issue spanlight on

1058
00:53:02,119 --> 00:53:03,920
the Hulk. I mean, what am I grabbing on. I'm

1059
00:53:03,960 --> 00:53:07,039
not really doing much. I don't think there was anything

1060
00:53:07,119 --> 00:53:10,800
Terry Boulder. I'm just grabbing on whatever was Hulk Hogan.

1061
00:53:10,880 --> 00:53:13,360
And that's like right at the I gave you the

1062
00:53:13,400 --> 00:53:16,360
first TV taping result and then the TV taping that

1063
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:18,920
I went. So she saw that I'm compiling this. It

1064
00:53:19,039 --> 00:53:21,679
was something that she was amazed that somebody could even

1065
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:27,400
keep that kind of attention on him, and she wanted

1066
00:53:27,440 --> 00:53:29,320
to know what he was doing too, So I you know,

1067
00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:31,840
worked both ways, but she really was very loving, very

1068
00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:32,400
kind to me.

1069
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:35,440
Speaker 2: That's great. You feature photos on the very first issue

1070
00:53:35,480 --> 00:53:38,039
of him posing in Memphis, with the chest hair and

1071
00:53:38,079 --> 00:53:41,119
all of that and the bomber shades. And you credit

1072
00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:43,639
miss Kathy Dowd for those photos. Can you talk me

1073
00:53:43,679 --> 00:53:46,119
about Kathy? She was at it.

1074
00:53:46,199 --> 00:53:49,000
Speaker 4: There's somebody that I met at the w FIA convention

1075
00:53:49,639 --> 00:53:53,639
and you swapped, you know, business cards and you if

1076
00:53:53,679 --> 00:53:57,320
you whatever, I'd give a newsletter out and we kept

1077
00:53:57,360 --> 00:53:59,880
to touched. She was giving me results from the AWA.

1078
00:54:00,360 --> 00:54:02,599
I believe she was in Colorado, and.

1079
00:54:03,679 --> 00:54:05,159
Speaker 2: She would take pictures of Terry down.

1080
00:54:05,039 --> 00:54:07,320
Speaker 4: In Memphis as she would take she was down. That

1081
00:54:07,480 --> 00:54:09,840
was pictures taken where we were all in Memphis together

1082
00:54:11,199 --> 00:54:14,119
where he comes from. That was from the same time

1083
00:54:14,199 --> 00:54:14,840
that I was there.

1084
00:54:16,599 --> 00:54:18,920
Speaker 2: Apropos of nothing. Besides, we always like to grab these

1085
00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:21,360
little details if we can. Do you have any memory, Mike,

1086
00:54:21,480 --> 00:54:24,599
of what Terry and Ed ordered at that Memphis steakhouse?

1087
00:54:24,679 --> 00:54:26,559
Did they just house like six quarterhouses?

1088
00:54:27,119 --> 00:54:29,239
Speaker 4: I don't think we had any choice. Everyone had the

1089
00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:32,519
steak to bake potato and the corn bread that was

1090
00:54:32,559 --> 00:54:33,360
in a nice tea.

1091
00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:38,199
Speaker 3: I think I'll elaborate a little bit. How many steaks

1092
00:54:38,239 --> 00:54:39,599
do they have? Is the real question?

1093
00:54:39,840 --> 00:54:42,960
Speaker 4: Well, well, I was with other people and I wasn't driving,

1094
00:54:43,039 --> 00:54:45,039
so I had to leave when they were leaving side.

1095
00:54:45,280 --> 00:54:48,880
He was still there when I left, so he could

1096
00:54:49,039 --> 00:54:51,000
very well have gone on. It was one of those places,

1097
00:54:51,079 --> 00:54:53,199
you know, the steaks were good and it was darn cheap.

1098
00:54:53,360 --> 00:54:55,800
It was probably like under five bucks. This is nineteen

1099
00:54:55,880 --> 00:55:00,679
seventy nine. But ed Leslie didn't open his mouth once.

1100
00:55:00,760 --> 00:55:02,599
He didn't say how about me, right, It was just

1101
00:55:03,119 --> 00:55:04,679
you know, it's just me talking with Terry.

1102
00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:09,199
Speaker 2: That's so unbranded in a way. So he handed you

1103
00:55:09,719 --> 00:55:12,079
the business card for Whitey's gym? Was that at that meeting?

1104
00:55:12,360 --> 00:55:13,360
Was he still kind of no?

1105
00:55:13,480 --> 00:55:16,159
Speaker 4: His mom sent me that later to give me backstory

1106
00:55:16,239 --> 00:55:18,440
on what he had done. She sent me pictures of

1107
00:55:18,559 --> 00:55:20,440
Ruckus and he was in good shape, but he was

1108
00:55:20,559 --> 00:55:22,719
very thin, but he was you could tell he worked out,

1109
00:55:23,039 --> 00:55:27,480
but it wasn't like pro wrestler bodybuilder physique, and pictures

1110
00:55:27,519 --> 00:55:29,320
of him as a kid. Like I say, he'd be

1111
00:55:29,360 --> 00:55:31,119
in the backyard and he would dig a ditch and

1112
00:55:31,199 --> 00:55:34,320
you'd see him like just clapping the dust off his hands.

1113
00:55:34,519 --> 00:55:35,800
So I have a lot of stuff like that, the

1114
00:55:35,920 --> 00:55:38,079
more inside. So we got very close like that, and

1115
00:55:38,159 --> 00:55:41,320
I was always sending Ruth photos as well. If I

1116
00:55:41,400 --> 00:55:45,440
went to the South Mountain Arena and the Orange New Jersey,

1117
00:55:45,559 --> 00:55:48,199
and I took pictures of him. She would get pictures,

1118
00:55:48,280 --> 00:55:49,320
She would get photos from that.

1119
00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:54,320
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a very well but you're

1120
00:55:54,360 --> 00:55:55,719
on the road with him and she can't get out

1121
00:55:55,840 --> 00:55:58,639
on him because he's in New York. Yeah, just to

1122
00:55:58,679 --> 00:56:01,719
circle back to the idea of the copyright stuff in Marvel,

1123
00:56:01,880 --> 00:56:04,159
I understand that com eighty five in Junior takes over.

1124
00:56:04,239 --> 00:56:06,840
It gets a lot more kind of I don't know,

1125
00:56:06,960 --> 00:56:10,239
spress aggressive. Yes, yeah, but even back in nineteen eighty

1126
00:56:10,400 --> 00:56:13,679
seventy nine, we note when we watch the TV that

1127
00:56:13,800 --> 00:56:15,960
they keep changing if they refer to him as Incredible

1128
00:56:16,000 --> 00:56:18,679
Hulk Hogan or not. They say fabulous a lot of

1129
00:56:18,760 --> 00:56:22,079
the times. And we've heard from announcers like Charlie Platt,

1130
00:56:22,199 --> 00:56:25,199
who did the television for Fuller and Southeastern, talked about how, yes,

1131
00:56:25,280 --> 00:56:27,760
at a certain point in time, it was like, let's

1132
00:56:27,800 --> 00:56:30,480
not say Incredible Hulk anymore because that could be an issue.

1133
00:56:31,119 --> 00:56:33,119
Do you remember, because you know, you put Incredible Hull

1134
00:56:33,119 --> 00:56:35,159
coll of the newsletter and stuff, do you remember that

1135
00:56:35,280 --> 00:56:37,239
being kind of a sensitivity even way back then.

1136
00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:40,559
Speaker 4: Well, I think the thing that I don't really remember

1137
00:56:40,599 --> 00:56:42,519
the sensitivity to it. But I do remember that they

1138
00:56:42,559 --> 00:56:45,039
would call him the fabulous Hulk Hogan, the incredible Hulk Cogan.

1139
00:56:45,400 --> 00:56:48,280
But I think they also divved it up so that

1140
00:56:48,400 --> 00:56:52,119
it didn't seem as if they were just making him

1141
00:56:52,199 --> 00:56:57,840
incredible Hulk, so that if an arena announcer made the

1142
00:56:57,880 --> 00:57:00,719
announcement to say, well that was his you know, choice

1143
00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:07,840
of an adjective, it's not what we're necessarily doing. Yeah, well,

1144
00:57:07,880 --> 00:57:10,360
it's all get Joe mceue. He's the best that that

1145
00:57:10,480 --> 00:57:14,360
did that. So you know, I think in some respects

1146
00:57:14,559 --> 00:57:17,079
they just kind of, uh, they waited to see what

1147
00:57:17,239 --> 00:57:19,440
was going to happen. And I think then ultimately w's

1148
00:57:19,679 --> 00:57:22,119
even when with WWF that they had to let it go,

1149
00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:25,960
which kind of was a bit crazy, but that's the

1150
00:57:26,119 --> 00:57:29,039
leigiousness of the society we live in. But I mean,

1151
00:57:29,119 --> 00:57:31,679
even for me, I mean the whole Cogan fan club,

1152
00:57:31,880 --> 00:57:33,960
it was kind of ridiculous that they're coming after me

1153
00:57:34,039 --> 00:57:36,360
and they're battling me, and I'm well, I have the

1154
00:57:36,480 --> 00:57:38,760
rights to the club, I have a design signature, And

1155
00:57:38,880 --> 00:57:41,079
it really wasn't like this great I was. It was

1156
00:57:41,159 --> 00:57:44,480
five dollars membership. You got basically four dollars and ninety

1157
00:57:44,559 --> 00:57:47,039
nine cents worth of merchandise. It wasn't something that I

1158
00:57:47,159 --> 00:57:50,960
made money off of, but I did, honestly, can honestly

1159
00:57:51,039 --> 00:57:55,440
say it was selling other stuff photos. That's where I

1160
00:57:55,599 --> 00:57:57,920
made the money that it was. The loss leader was

1161
00:57:58,199 --> 00:58:00,719
the fan club. So for me, like with the club,

1162
00:58:00,800 --> 00:58:02,360
it's like, well, do you realize your heart that's one

1163
00:58:02,400 --> 00:58:04,760
hundred thousand dollars a year. It wasn't it was. There

1164
00:58:04,840 --> 00:58:06,760
was like no money to the club. It was really

1165
00:58:07,440 --> 00:58:11,119
a labor of love with benefits through hard work and

1166
00:58:11,239 --> 00:58:13,760
putting other things together. But it was still a thing

1167
00:58:13,800 --> 00:58:15,519
where you say, you gotta do after this guy with

1168
00:58:15,639 --> 00:58:19,800
this little funther coffee thing. I mean, come on. Jerry

1169
00:58:19,880 --> 00:58:22,920
mcdividd and Vince McMahon. Jerry mcdividd was his guy back

1170
00:58:22,960 --> 00:58:23,360
in the day.

1171
00:58:23,719 --> 00:58:25,039
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he sicked.

1172
00:58:26,159 --> 00:58:27,880
Speaker 4: I just remember the letters would go back and for

1173
00:58:28,039 --> 00:58:30,639
them and I used to and I'd send them something short,

1174
00:58:30,679 --> 00:58:32,880
you know. Jerry mcdivivian would send me this two three

1175
00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:35,679
page thing and w W Stay Sherry, which I just

1176
00:58:35,719 --> 00:58:37,760
thought was great. Oh I got w W Sta. I

1177
00:58:37,800 --> 00:58:40,519
didn't care what you know it was about. And I'm thinking,

1178
00:58:40,559 --> 00:58:42,440
why is this guy wasting his time, but I guess

1179
00:58:42,440 --> 00:58:45,440
he had nothing else to do. You had to earn

1180
00:58:45,519 --> 00:58:47,360
his key to show vinces. Look, I sent out this

1181
00:58:47,519 --> 00:58:49,679
leader to this kid. You know.

1182
00:58:49,880 --> 00:58:52,599
Speaker 2: So I don't know you mentioned when when Hulk kind

1183
00:58:52,599 --> 00:58:54,400
of got you know, involved with Vince Junior in that

1184
00:58:54,440 --> 00:58:56,599
sensitivity there. You know, he'd say a couple of times,

1185
00:58:56,679 --> 00:58:58,519
do you have to write about that? Can you remember

1186
00:58:58,599 --> 00:59:00,440
one thing that that Hulk didn't want you to write

1187
00:59:00,440 --> 00:59:01,920
about or ask why you wrote about it?

1188
00:59:02,679 --> 00:59:04,199
Speaker 4: Well? I think one thing that it was, and it

1189
00:59:04,280 --> 00:59:06,880
wasn't related to him, but it got it was I

1190
00:59:07,000 --> 00:59:09,599
was doing stuff for wrestling Eye. This is before I

1191
00:59:09,639 --> 00:59:12,559
even did my own magazine. And Mike Bluw, who was

1192
00:59:12,679 --> 00:59:15,599
like the brother I never had god rest him.

1193
00:59:16,119 --> 00:59:16,239
Speaker 2: Uh.

1194
00:59:16,519 --> 00:59:18,480
Speaker 4: We just hit it off like peanut Butter and Jelly.

1195
00:59:19,320 --> 00:59:22,000
We were sitting in a bar somewhere and Mike was

1196
00:59:22,079 --> 00:59:24,719
a boxing person. He really wasn't a wrestling person, but

1197
00:59:24,840 --> 00:59:26,760
we would we would just kind of get ready. No

1198
00:59:26,800 --> 00:59:30,239
one would, the publisher was not would let us go

1199
00:59:30,480 --> 00:59:32,559
where we wanted to go. As long as it wasn't

1200
00:59:32,599 --> 00:59:35,079
profanity or nudity. We could do whatever we want. I

1201
00:59:35,159 --> 00:59:38,400
remember sitting with Mike in a bar somewhere, and I

1202
00:59:38,559 --> 00:59:39,960
just said to him, why don't we do up an

1203
00:59:40,039 --> 00:59:45,760
article about the secret language of wrestling? And we put

1204
00:59:45,800 --> 00:59:47,800
every we did it like a two or three page,

1205
00:59:48,079 --> 00:59:52,159
four page article I don't even remember in Wrestling Eye magazine.

1206
00:59:52,880 --> 00:59:57,199
And that brought me to the really kind of the

1207
00:59:57,360 --> 01:00:00,719
attention of uh so that the didn't like me, let

1208
01:00:00,760 --> 01:00:05,000
me just put it that way. So that's the one

1209
01:00:05,239 --> 01:00:08,760
that really stands out. I did other stuff about you know, uh,

1210
01:00:09,280 --> 01:00:11,960
in fact, a couple of times with with with Terry,

1211
01:00:12,079 --> 01:00:15,159
because I just think he, you know, as much as

1212
01:00:15,239 --> 01:00:18,360
I loved him, you know, the way that the business

1213
01:00:18,559 --> 01:00:22,320
was marketed later and and and I really if you

1214
01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:24,480
read any of the magazines that I did, I was

1215
01:00:24,519 --> 01:00:26,679
already against a lot of the stuff that kind of

1216
01:00:26,840 --> 01:00:31,679
came after the expand the w W expansion and then

1217
01:00:31,760 --> 01:00:35,480
the consolidation of the territories and that it just became

1218
01:00:35,639 --> 01:00:39,840
very corporate. And so we were we were at different points.

1219
01:00:39,880 --> 01:00:42,199
He was making money and I was making some money,

1220
01:00:42,280 --> 01:00:44,760
but uh, you know, more or less being kind of

1221
01:00:44,840 --> 01:00:49,400
the the guy that's telling everybody that the sky is falling,

1222
01:00:49,440 --> 01:00:53,800
the sky is falling, and uh, wrestling inside people in

1223
01:00:53,880 --> 01:00:55,320
the business didn't want to hear that.

1224
01:00:55,880 --> 01:00:59,079
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a fascinating position to be in. So do

1225
01:00:59,159 --> 01:01:01,760
you remember this one? This is one that kind of

1226
01:01:01,800 --> 01:01:03,920
threw us for a loop. But Hogan talked about it

1227
01:01:04,039 --> 01:01:07,639
in his in one of his books January nineteen eighty.

1228
01:01:08,400 --> 01:01:10,519
He's in the territory for a couple of months. He's

1229
01:01:10,639 --> 01:01:13,840
driving on January the third on Highway in New Jersey

1230
01:01:13,920 --> 01:01:16,559
and gets arrested for possession of a firearm. The state

1231
01:01:16,599 --> 01:01:18,960
police pull him over and that Wild and Owens are

1232
01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:22,360
in the car. He gets indicted and it gets thrown

1233
01:01:22,360 --> 01:01:24,920
out eventually, and he's talked about it. Do you remember

1234
01:01:24,960 --> 01:01:26,360
that that that would have happened right when you were

1235
01:01:26,360 --> 01:01:27,199
publishing the newsletter.

1236
01:01:27,440 --> 01:01:29,400
Speaker 4: Yeah, I remember it. I don't even know. I may

1237
01:01:29,480 --> 01:01:32,039
have had a newspaper clipping in the in the newsletter,

1238
01:01:32,159 --> 01:01:34,239
not in the Hulk Hogan Fan Club. No, I mad

1239
01:01:34,480 --> 01:01:36,639
because I would always I would always put anything like

1240
01:01:37,280 --> 01:01:40,360
the Iron Chic and Jim Duggan getting busted in the

1241
01:01:40,480 --> 01:01:43,679
car traveling, or mister Saiito and Ken Peter throwing the

1242
01:01:43,719 --> 01:01:46,360
boulder through the window with McDonald's. So I covered it.

1243
01:01:46,559 --> 01:01:48,159
I don't think I wouldn't have covered it in the

1244
01:01:48,239 --> 01:01:51,039
Hulk fan club thing because of the fact that you know,

1245
01:01:51,079 --> 01:01:54,039
they're Hulk people. Hulk a maniac, So I don't think

1246
01:01:54,079 --> 01:01:55,920
they would want to hear about him running around with

1247
01:01:55,960 --> 01:01:59,000
a gun in his glove compartment. But I did cover

1248
01:01:59,119 --> 01:02:02,440
it just out of whatever the local newspaper and I

1249
01:02:03,360 --> 01:02:06,559
reprinted in Yeah, it kind of it sets.

1250
01:02:06,440 --> 01:02:08,800
Speaker 2: Us off on like a journey, you know, as far

1251
01:02:08,880 --> 01:02:10,480
as like why did he have a gun? What was

1252
01:02:10,519 --> 01:02:12,800
the deal? You know, he he lived pretty he partied

1253
01:02:12,840 --> 01:02:15,039
pretty hard in Coco Beach in seventy eight with Ed Leslie,

1254
01:02:15,239 --> 01:02:17,639
you know, that White Bar and everything that. You know,

1255
01:02:17,800 --> 01:02:19,920
it's not that hard to find news articles that indicate that,

1256
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:22,000
you know, the FBI was sniffing around down there. He

1257
01:02:23,159 --> 01:02:27,480
worked with Don the Dragon Wilson, future martial arts movie star, right, yeah, yeah,

1258
01:02:27,599 --> 01:02:29,159
and he was talking to us about how that that

1259
01:02:29,280 --> 01:02:31,400
place would kind of be, you know, one could call

1260
01:02:31,440 --> 01:02:33,480
it a Deneville repute. At certain points in time, did

1261
01:02:33,519 --> 01:02:35,480
you get a sense that Terry Ever kind of lived

1262
01:02:36,119 --> 01:02:38,119
lived on the edge in that way, particularly as he

1263
01:02:38,199 --> 01:02:40,280
was just transitioning into wrestling and before he really hit

1264
01:02:40,320 --> 01:02:40,559
it big.

1265
01:02:41,280 --> 01:02:43,360
Speaker 4: I think I think at that period of time where

1266
01:02:43,440 --> 01:02:46,719
like he wasn't taking he didn't have a goal of

1267
01:02:46,800 --> 01:02:49,480
professional wrestling. Yeah, he lived a pretty wildlife.

1268
01:02:49,519 --> 01:02:49,760
Speaker 2: He was.

1269
01:02:49,960 --> 01:02:52,000
Speaker 4: He was in the band, you know, so you're you're

1270
01:02:52,360 --> 01:02:54,840
you're in that entire lifestyle. You're a being, You're in

1271
01:02:54,920 --> 01:02:58,280
a beach lifestyle. So we we talked about it a

1272
01:02:58,320 --> 01:03:01,599
little bit. But by the time I hooked up with him,

1273
01:03:01,840 --> 01:03:04,639
he was, you know, big time bodybuilding and weightlifting, and

1274
01:03:04,719 --> 01:03:06,760
I think he put some of it to the to

1275
01:03:06,880 --> 01:03:09,800
the side, and I guess, you know, steroids and muscle

1276
01:03:09,920 --> 01:03:13,519
enhancement came to the forefront more than anything else. But

1277
01:03:13,679 --> 01:03:15,760
I mean I went out with him a few times

1278
01:03:15,800 --> 01:03:18,639
and he pretty much was doing beers. I mean, I

1279
01:03:18,679 --> 01:03:22,079
don't really remember hard liquor, but he was a beer drinker,

1280
01:03:22,280 --> 01:03:25,559
you know, so, and I don't remember him being to

1281
01:03:25,639 --> 01:03:28,719
really excess. I think he really at some point watched

1282
01:03:28,760 --> 01:03:31,920
his calories. He didn't watch his carbs in the early

1283
01:03:32,039 --> 01:03:34,719
days because he was big, but he really haven't men

1284
01:03:34,880 --> 01:03:38,559
much definition at all, as opposed to Billy Graham in

1285
01:03:38,800 --> 01:03:43,400
many instances, Billy would watch his carbohydrate intake and was

1286
01:03:43,440 --> 01:03:47,159
pretty cut, so he was he was a bit loose

1287
01:03:47,360 --> 01:03:50,760
with beer drinking, but I never saw him with anything else,

1288
01:03:50,800 --> 01:03:53,000
and I'm sure there was you know, weed was around

1289
01:03:53,079 --> 01:03:56,039
and stuff, But I think for the most part, I

1290
01:03:56,119 --> 01:03:58,079
think he was trying to be a good boy in

1291
01:03:58,159 --> 01:04:01,079
the early days where he was getting this in the WWF.

1292
01:04:01,320 --> 01:04:03,559
Speaker 3: Did the ladies line up whenever he'd walk into a room?

1293
01:04:05,639 --> 01:04:06,360
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, what was that?

1294
01:04:06,679 --> 01:04:09,280
Speaker 3: Did the ladies line up whenever he'd walk in a room?

1295
01:04:09,320 --> 01:04:12,280
Because we've been hearing some quite a few cheers from

1296
01:04:12,440 --> 01:04:14,440
from women, and even when he's a heel in some

1297
01:04:14,559 --> 01:04:19,119
of these these clips we've seen, believe it or not.

1298
01:04:20,280 --> 01:04:22,519
Speaker 4: In terms of me seeing him at the arenas, it

1299
01:04:22,679 --> 01:04:24,599
was just me kind of coming over by the curtain

1300
01:04:24,679 --> 01:04:28,119
or whatever, or getting behind the curtain at the places

1301
01:04:28,159 --> 01:04:33,559
that I would be out with him early days. For

1302
01:04:33,679 --> 01:04:35,320
the most part, in the like when he was just

1303
01:04:35,400 --> 01:04:37,559
here as a villain, I think there was a certain

1304
01:04:37,599 --> 01:04:39,960
amount of freak appeal if you weren't a wrestling fan.

1305
01:04:41,199 --> 01:04:43,079
I think people just looked at him like wow, you know,

1306
01:04:43,199 --> 01:04:45,239
they would be off in a distance. Now when he

1307
01:04:45,360 --> 01:04:49,239
became Hulk in eighty four and got the title and all,

1308
01:04:49,519 --> 01:04:52,920
I really wasn't out that much with him to have

1309
01:04:53,000 --> 01:04:55,840
seen it, but I'm sure he was mobbed, but I

1310
01:04:56,039 --> 01:04:57,519
was I was pre good guy.

1311
01:04:58,360 --> 01:05:00,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's fascinating too, because I want to talked

1312
01:05:00,199 --> 01:05:02,400
about this that the fan club letters kind of take

1313
01:05:02,480 --> 01:05:04,440
up arms for the fact that Hogan's not getting the

1314
01:05:04,559 --> 01:05:07,880
opportunities at Bob Backland that he deserves, you know. And

1315
01:05:08,000 --> 01:05:10,039
he came in and he worked back them quite early,

1316
01:05:10,119 --> 01:05:12,320
but to your point, never had a Madison Square Garden

1317
01:05:12,360 --> 01:05:14,960
main event against Bob Backland. They talked a lot on

1318
01:05:15,079 --> 01:05:17,199
television about how Fred Blassie wanted to lead him to

1319
01:05:17,239 --> 01:05:18,559
the title and all of that, and how he saw

1320
01:05:18,599 --> 01:05:21,199
the next world champion at Hogan, and then they started

1321
01:05:21,400 --> 01:05:24,280
almost just as quickly talking about dissension between him and Blassi,

1322
01:05:24,320 --> 01:05:27,079
although they never had a formal on screen split. Then

1323
01:05:27,119 --> 01:05:29,360
the Andrea Program happens, and after that he's off to

1324
01:05:29,400 --> 01:05:31,599
do Rocky and they kind of just like cycle him out.

1325
01:05:31,599 --> 01:05:33,639
He FEUs with Tony Atlass towards the end, and Blassi

1326
01:05:34,000 --> 01:05:36,360
isn't really anywhere to be found towards the end of

1327
01:05:36,400 --> 01:05:39,239
Hogan's run. Was there a sense in that early time

1328
01:05:39,400 --> 01:05:41,320
of his run, Michael, from the people that you were

1329
01:05:41,320 --> 01:05:44,119
publishing this fan club newsletter for that Hulk just wasn't

1330
01:05:44,159 --> 01:05:48,400
getting the opportunity that he would justify that that would

1331
01:05:48,400 --> 01:05:49,800
be justified just looking at the guy.

1332
01:05:51,519 --> 01:05:54,719
Speaker 4: I think everybody more or less had the of the

1333
01:05:54,800 --> 01:05:57,800
same sense that you know, the bigger arenas. I mean, Philip,

1334
01:05:57,920 --> 01:06:01,199
the Spectrum was a big arena, but yet to kind

1335
01:06:01,199 --> 01:06:04,280
of bypass the Garden was a bit of a surprise.

1336
01:06:04,360 --> 01:06:07,199
And then to really just immediately push him into the

1337
01:06:07,280 --> 01:06:10,880
program with Andre for the most part as the big

1338
01:06:11,320 --> 01:06:17,280
confrontation in New York at Chase Stadium and whatnot, was

1339
01:06:17,320 --> 01:06:19,119
a bit of a surprise. But I also think that

1340
01:06:19,280 --> 01:06:21,199
was the old school of wrestling. He was not in

1341
01:06:21,280 --> 01:06:23,599
the business long enough. They're not going to bring him

1342
01:06:23,599 --> 01:06:26,880
in and let him without earning his keep. You know, Yeah,

1343
01:06:26,880 --> 01:06:28,400
he had a great look. I mean, now you'll have

1344
01:06:28,519 --> 01:06:30,800
guys that they'll put a belt on somebody because they think,

1345
01:06:31,039 --> 01:06:34,039
you know, I'm then is nan Housen destined for the

1346
01:06:34,119 --> 01:06:37,039
world title? I mean, they don't really care. It's not

1347
01:06:37,280 --> 01:06:39,480
like the way it was back then. They will just

1348
01:06:39,840 --> 01:06:41,440
not to say I don't like that, And I really

1349
01:06:41,639 --> 01:06:43,639
think he's one of the best things going right now.

1350
01:06:44,119 --> 01:06:48,760
But I think that their attitude as he's a young kid,

1351
01:06:48,880 --> 01:06:51,320
he's grain, he doesn't know anything. We'll give him andre,

1352
01:06:51,480 --> 01:06:54,039
we'll season him, we'll give him some matches with backline

1353
01:06:54,039 --> 01:06:56,360
around them around the horn, but not at the Garden.

1354
01:06:56,719 --> 01:07:02,239
And then he kind of error and unceremoniously the the area.

1355
01:07:02,360 --> 01:07:05,320
He got beat by Tony Atlas at the Garden. I

1356
01:07:05,360 --> 01:07:07,639
think his last match, Tony Adams lifted him up over

1357
01:07:07,719 --> 01:07:10,480
his head and slammed him. Sure did, so I was thinking,

1358
01:07:10,559 --> 01:07:12,360
what's up with that? I mean, they were to me,

1359
01:07:12,440 --> 01:07:15,440
it just seemed like they were really kind of closing

1360
01:07:15,519 --> 01:07:20,719
the coffin on him. And but but from what I understand,

1361
01:07:20,800 --> 01:07:22,400
and you know, I again, you get a lot of

1362
01:07:22,440 --> 01:07:25,800
different stories. The thing with Rocky was with the blessing

1363
01:07:25,880 --> 01:07:27,920
of the WWF and not with the blessing of the

1364
01:07:28,079 --> 01:07:33,360
WWF and not, you know what I mean. So it

1365
01:07:33,519 --> 01:07:35,800
just seemed like they used them up kind of quick

1366
01:07:35,840 --> 01:07:37,920
and then they wanted to dump them out.

1367
01:07:38,480 --> 01:07:41,599
Speaker 2: Yeah. The second issue of the newsletter, the Fan Club Newsletter,

1368
01:07:41,800 --> 01:07:43,719
has a picture of him that you stenciled of him

1369
01:07:43,760 --> 01:07:47,119
flexing the double bicepstance as a heavyweight champ. The continuing threat.

1370
01:07:47,760 --> 01:07:50,320
You know, so you're like, you're you're fully plugged into

1371
01:07:50,360 --> 01:07:54,440
this idea that like him winning the title is a possibility.

1372
01:07:54,760 --> 01:07:57,159
But really knowing that the territory as you did, did

1373
01:07:57,239 --> 01:07:58,880
you really just see him as like the next big

1374
01:07:58,920 --> 01:08:01,320
heel that Backlan would turn away or did you did

1375
01:08:01,360 --> 01:08:03,400
it ever actually enter your mind that they would put

1376
01:08:03,440 --> 01:08:04,719
the strap on him in nineteen.

1377
01:08:04,440 --> 01:08:08,679
Speaker 4: Eighty, you know, in eighty I just think to some

1378
01:08:08,840 --> 01:08:11,159
extent we had Backland then for about two years, right,

1379
01:08:11,280 --> 01:08:13,480
and he pretty much went to a lot of the

1380
01:08:13,559 --> 01:08:17,399
big players of the time period. You didn't see on

1381
01:08:17,439 --> 01:08:21,039
the horizon really in eighty four. Even Backland saw it

1382
01:08:21,079 --> 01:08:24,279
and he thought how well he would have done against

1383
01:08:24,319 --> 01:08:27,199
people like Roddy Piper and Paul Arndorff and that type.

1384
01:08:27,479 --> 01:08:30,199
But he wasn't. They weren't there for him when he

1385
01:08:30,319 --> 01:08:32,640
had lost the belt by that point. But looking at

1386
01:08:32,680 --> 01:08:34,760
it for a snapshot of seventy nine, you just said,

1387
01:08:35,079 --> 01:08:37,199
I don't know who's left for Backland to really take

1388
01:08:37,279 --> 01:08:40,039
on that's going to draw. You know, they were bringing

1389
01:08:40,199 --> 01:08:43,479
I mean, I like I say, I love Bulldog Brower.

1390
01:08:43,560 --> 01:08:45,399
He was like an uncle to me. That they gave

1391
01:08:45,720 --> 01:08:49,560
Backland Brower to Backland in nineteen eighty terrible match and

1392
01:08:49,640 --> 01:08:51,880
they broke I was in like Swede Hansen. You know,

1393
01:08:52,000 --> 01:08:55,279
you saw guys around the around the ed just later

1394
01:08:55,399 --> 01:08:57,880
kill a Cohn or whatever, and it's like, to a

1395
01:08:57,960 --> 01:09:01,000
great extent, Hogan looked like would have been obvious to

1396
01:09:01,039 --> 01:09:02,720
give him the belt for a while. And then even

1397
01:09:03,319 --> 01:09:05,359
he was young enough, you could certainly have turned him

1398
01:09:05,640 --> 01:09:08,439
a babyface somewhere down the line, but start him off

1399
01:09:08,439 --> 01:09:10,199
as a heel, let him beat back then and then.

1400
01:09:12,319 --> 01:09:15,000
But you never knew what they were going to do.

1401
01:09:15,079 --> 01:09:18,920
I wasn't really privy too in hindsight hindsight twenty twenty.

1402
01:09:19,239 --> 01:09:21,159
You know, I think that they just looked and said,

1403
01:09:21,159 --> 01:09:23,279
he didn't he hasn't earned his spot yet here.

1404
01:09:23,840 --> 01:09:24,359
Speaker 2: Kind of interesting.

1405
01:09:24,439 --> 01:09:26,680
Speaker 4: Gave him enough, They gave him enough of a push,

1406
01:09:26,800 --> 01:09:28,920
but not too much of a push.

1407
01:09:29,359 --> 01:09:31,199
Speaker 2: It's kind of interesting to me, Mike, that anyone would

1408
01:09:31,239 --> 01:09:34,119
even subscribe to a fan club newsletter for a heel

1409
01:09:34,159 --> 01:09:36,680
in nineteen eighty Yeah right, you know what I mean, Like,

1410
01:09:36,880 --> 01:09:39,319
what's the mentality of the fan that wants that fan

1411
01:09:39,399 --> 01:09:41,239
club newsletter if he's not a good guy.

1412
01:09:41,840 --> 01:09:46,039
Speaker 4: A lot of them came over from my newsletter Combat Sports,

1413
01:09:46,800 --> 01:09:49,479
but also anyone that was doing that and reading the

1414
01:09:49,560 --> 01:09:53,640
match results, like I'd have match results from Massachusetts, I

1415
01:09:53,720 --> 01:09:56,680
have results from the Garden. I'd have something from maybe

1416
01:09:56,760 --> 01:10:03,199
the New Jersey or Philadelphia. Somehow, I'm amazingly these results

1417
01:10:03,279 --> 01:10:05,960
were all almost the same, you know, night after night,

1418
01:10:06,319 --> 01:10:09,800
so people could you know. I didn't labor the fact,

1419
01:10:09,880 --> 01:10:12,800
but the people who were buying the newsletters were pretty

1420
01:10:12,920 --> 01:10:17,520
much keyed into how the business was, and they liked Hogan.

1421
01:10:17,520 --> 01:10:20,159
They n liked the dynamic personality and just the way

1422
01:10:20,199 --> 01:10:24,720
that he was. Just backstory a bit. When I became

1423
01:10:24,760 --> 01:10:28,319
a wrestling fan everywhere, even at these small little arenas,

1424
01:10:28,680 --> 01:10:30,359
I would go to the matches with two or three

1425
01:10:30,399 --> 01:10:32,560
friends and we would always root for the bad guys.

1426
01:10:33,000 --> 01:10:36,359
So we were making no friends with anybody. So there's

1427
01:10:36,439 --> 01:10:39,800
that mentality out there of people that I don't want

1428
01:10:39,840 --> 01:10:43,119
to call me a spoiler, but we would be you know,

1429
01:10:43,159 --> 01:10:45,000
it would be Hans Schroeder, which would be like a

1430
01:10:45,079 --> 01:10:49,239
really low level enhancementalion, and we would be chanting, go, go,

1431
01:10:49,680 --> 01:10:53,560
go go. So it's like, you know, there's that personality

1432
01:10:53,600 --> 01:10:55,840
across the country and around the world. So those were

1433
01:10:56,000 --> 01:10:59,039
my newsletter people, and those were my fan club members.

1434
01:10:59,600 --> 01:11:02,159
Speaker 2: Did you that swelling for Superstar? You know, He always

1435
01:11:02,199 --> 01:11:05,880
talked about how kind of disenchanted he was that Vin

1436
01:11:06,000 --> 01:11:08,319
Senior insisted on him losing the belt to Backman in

1437
01:11:08,359 --> 01:11:10,600
February seventy eight when he was failing the garden, even

1438
01:11:10,600 --> 01:11:12,279
though he was a heeled champ, and that wasn't exactly

1439
01:11:12,279 --> 01:11:14,520
how they ran the territory. But it also seems like

1440
01:11:14,640 --> 01:11:17,399
Superstar kind of had the spark that Hulk would get

1441
01:11:17,439 --> 01:11:19,640
in eighty four as a guy that the fans eventually

1442
01:11:19,680 --> 01:11:22,239
just thought was so cool and so dynamic and so

1443
01:11:22,399 --> 01:11:24,600
wild that they kind of started cheering him. Do you

1444
01:11:24,600 --> 01:11:25,000
remember that?

1445
01:11:25,920 --> 01:11:27,920
Speaker 4: I do remember that, And I think the only thing

1446
01:11:28,000 --> 01:11:33,000
that SuperStar's health was already bad, and you could see

1447
01:11:33,079 --> 01:11:36,079
that Hid in essence was not able to do what

1448
01:11:36,239 --> 01:11:39,399
he did, and his physique, well, he had bulked up

1449
01:11:39,399 --> 01:11:41,840
a bit. You could see it was an older body.

1450
01:11:42,439 --> 01:11:45,000
So I think, in some respects I would have loved

1451
01:11:45,039 --> 01:11:47,239
to see I mean, it never happened. I would have

1452
01:11:47,319 --> 01:11:50,760
loved to see Superstar versus Hulk few somewhere down the line,

1453
01:11:50,800 --> 01:11:52,640
you know, that would have been through even if they

1454
01:11:52,680 --> 01:11:55,479
weren't good matches, which I suspect they probably wouldn't have been.

1455
01:11:56,000 --> 01:11:59,520
But I think they were going to do something like that,

1456
01:11:59,720 --> 01:12:03,239
but Billy's body just gave out on him. You know,

1457
01:12:03,399 --> 01:12:07,319
I met Billy later. I had pictures with Superstar and

1458
01:12:07,600 --> 01:12:10,800
Superstar one time was like six foot four the picture

1459
01:12:10,840 --> 01:12:13,880
of Superstar and me together and I'm five eight. We're

1460
01:12:13,880 --> 01:12:16,479
about just about the same height. So he lost a

1461
01:12:16,840 --> 01:12:22,199
he had a lot of disintegrating spinal activities. So that'll

1462
01:12:22,279 --> 01:12:24,720
just tell you to lose that kind of height because

1463
01:12:24,760 --> 01:12:27,319
he was a big Superstar was tall. He was a

1464
01:12:27,399 --> 01:12:30,760
bit leaner, lankier than Terry, but he was tall. And

1465
01:12:30,840 --> 01:12:33,560
then when we finally met and we had a few

1466
01:12:33,600 --> 01:12:36,279
pictures taken together, I was just kind of amazed that

1467
01:12:36,359 --> 01:12:39,399
we were just almost, you know, shoulder to shoulder.

1468
01:12:39,840 --> 01:12:41,560
Speaker 2: One of the things it's great to say a club newsletters,

1469
01:12:41,600 --> 01:12:44,319
you're on hand December seventeenth, nineteen seventy nine at Madison

1470
01:12:44,359 --> 01:12:47,720
Square Garden where Hulk Hogan wrestled his very first MSG match.

1471
01:12:47,760 --> 01:12:50,159
It was against Teddy Biassi, and you've got great first

1472
01:12:50,159 --> 01:12:53,279
hand photographs of this whole thing that turned out to

1473
01:12:53,319 --> 01:12:54,560
be quite a bit of history. What do you remember

1474
01:12:54,560 --> 01:12:59,079
about Hulk wrestling in the garden for the first time, Well, actually, I.

1475
01:12:59,119 --> 01:13:02,239
Speaker 4: Went to the gym with Terry that day he was

1476
01:13:02,319 --> 01:13:05,119
at he was at the mid City Gym, I think

1477
01:13:05,159 --> 01:13:08,239
it was called in forty ninth Street in Midtown, and

1478
01:13:08,920 --> 01:13:10,520
I went with a couple of times when he was

1479
01:13:10,560 --> 01:13:12,560
in New York. I would go with him to the

1480
01:13:13,199 --> 01:13:15,319
gym when he when he because it was the easiest

1481
01:13:15,359 --> 01:13:19,720
thing and he was working on I think I'm going

1482
01:13:19,760 --> 01:13:21,439
to work out too, And all I really wound up

1483
01:13:21,520 --> 01:13:24,680
doing was spotting him. And then when he would take

1484
01:13:24,720 --> 01:13:26,159
a break and I was going to do something and

1485
01:13:26,319 --> 01:13:28,359
he would be talking, he would just go on about, oh,

1486
01:13:28,399 --> 01:13:30,199
I got to the bass tonight and I'm going to

1487
01:13:30,239 --> 01:13:34,359
do this, so that he was very enthused. So the

1488
01:13:34,479 --> 01:13:36,920
thing that I really remember more than anything was that

1489
01:13:37,079 --> 01:13:41,600
afternoon working out with him, that he'd do his set

1490
01:13:41,680 --> 01:13:43,800
and then he'd put his waist down or if he

1491
01:13:43,920 --> 01:13:47,560
was on Nautilus equipment, he would then just go on about,

1492
01:13:48,000 --> 01:13:50,199
you know, this match and how really important it is,

1493
01:13:50,279 --> 01:13:52,439
and it's you know, he's they really give him a

1494
01:13:52,479 --> 01:13:57,600
great break, and he really was very respectful of Vince McMahon.

1495
01:13:57,720 --> 01:14:00,399
Senior never really mentioned Vince Junior to me back in

1496
01:14:00,439 --> 01:14:03,600
the day, but Senior was the guy calling the shots,

1497
01:14:04,039 --> 01:14:07,039
but he was just so worked up. He was just

1498
01:14:07,159 --> 01:14:11,199
so excited that night. And I didn't see him after

1499
01:14:11,239 --> 01:14:12,840
the matches that way, I didn't see him. I guess

1500
01:14:12,880 --> 01:14:14,720
he was on the next down. I didn't think to

1501
01:14:15,039 --> 01:14:18,079
meet him, you know, because I'd spent the afternoon with him.

1502
01:14:18,119 --> 01:14:19,840
It wasn't like I said, oh, when we go, we're

1503
01:14:19,840 --> 01:14:22,000
going to do something afterwards, you know. I figured let

1504
01:14:22,079 --> 01:14:26,039
him have his privacy. But the match itself, I mean

1505
01:14:26,119 --> 01:14:27,920
it was. It was a good match. He was he

1506
01:14:28,119 --> 01:14:32,640
was fast and was a great opponent. TBS was one

1507
01:14:32,680 --> 01:14:35,800
of those real prototype NWA guys should have been like

1508
01:14:36,279 --> 01:14:39,239
if it had still continued on the NWA World Champion.

1509
01:14:39,319 --> 01:14:43,119
He had that style and Terry was familiar with it

1510
01:14:43,279 --> 01:14:47,880
from working you know, terror NWA territories, and he held

1511
01:14:47,920 --> 01:14:51,279
his own. I mean, I think Terry ted Debac was

1512
01:14:51,439 --> 01:14:57,279
very uh decent. The way that he let Terry get

1513
01:14:57,600 --> 01:14:58,760
you know, a nice push.

1514
01:14:59,239 --> 01:15:02,520
Speaker 2: Absolutely a key match for him and DEBIASI remembers it well.

1515
01:15:02,760 --> 01:15:04,039
One of the other things that kind of blew my

1516
01:15:04,079 --> 01:15:05,800
mind was all the way in nineteen eighty, considering the

1517
01:15:05,840 --> 01:15:07,920
limited communication in the time you were able to get

1518
01:15:08,000 --> 01:15:10,479
results into the Hult Coke and fan Club newsletter of

1519
01:15:10,600 --> 01:15:13,000
his matches in Japan his very first tour in May

1520
01:15:13,039 --> 01:15:15,319
of nineteen eighty. I'd love to get the detail as

1521
01:15:15,359 --> 01:15:17,239
to how you know a guy in New York ends

1522
01:15:17,319 --> 01:15:19,399
up with the results from what he's doing in Japan.

1523
01:15:20,239 --> 01:15:22,640
Speaker 4: Again, the funny thing about wrestling at the time, your

1524
01:15:22,760 --> 01:15:27,039
name would get handed to somebody else, and I was

1525
01:15:27,119 --> 01:15:30,159
doing the newsletter, and then somebody probably sent my newsletter

1526
01:15:30,840 --> 01:15:34,399
to a correspondent he had in Japan, and somehow, some

1527
01:15:34,520 --> 01:15:38,520
way I wound up with pretty much the preeminent photographer

1528
01:15:39,479 --> 01:15:41,720
I guess journalists I don't know, because I couldn't read

1529
01:15:41,800 --> 01:15:47,159
Japanese in Japan. His name was Koichi Ashizawa, and Koichi

1530
01:15:48,279 --> 01:15:52,760
supplied me with photos and match results for years and

1531
01:15:52,840 --> 01:15:55,760
years and years, even in when I did the wrestling

1532
01:15:56,119 --> 01:15:59,800
the newstand magazines, Koechi's material leagues. Many of the people

1533
01:15:59,800 --> 01:16:02,000
who were with me as a newsletter and when it

1534
01:16:02,079 --> 01:16:04,680
started out as a photocopy and then offset and then

1535
01:16:04,880 --> 01:16:08,680
making the transition into being a magazine editor and then publisher,

1536
01:16:09,039 --> 01:16:11,359
many of those people came with me. Many of them

1537
01:16:11,399 --> 01:16:15,960
from the early days wound up writing something or more so.

1538
01:16:16,720 --> 01:16:20,239
The photographers so and in the many instances. If you

1539
01:16:20,319 --> 01:16:24,399
see somebody photo in the newsley, in the newsletter or

1540
01:16:24,520 --> 01:16:27,079
in the wrestling fan club, you'll see them later. They

1541
01:16:27,159 --> 01:16:28,920
were with me all the way through. They were part

1542
01:16:28,960 --> 01:16:31,159
of my group.

1543
01:16:31,760 --> 01:16:33,439
Speaker 2: And one of the things that you would print his

1544
01:16:33,520 --> 01:16:37,239
poems from the Fans and Catherine el Burke April twenty first,

1545
01:16:37,319 --> 01:16:39,920
nineteen eighty. Let me tell you about the greatest wrestler

1546
01:16:40,000 --> 01:16:41,920
that I have ever met. This guy weighs in at

1547
01:16:41,960 --> 01:16:44,920
three hundred twenty pounds and stands write at six feet eight,

1548
01:16:45,000 --> 01:16:47,199
and if you ever see him wrestle, you'll understand why

1549
01:16:47,239 --> 01:16:49,560
he is so great. A lot of people dooo this

1550
01:16:49,720 --> 01:16:51,640
man and call him names while he is in the ring,

1551
01:16:51,760 --> 01:16:53,920
but these people have something to learn. This man was

1552
01:16:53,960 --> 01:16:56,479
taught to wrestle and not to sing. I don't believe

1553
01:16:56,520 --> 01:16:58,680
that this man could be considered bad just because he

1554
01:16:58,760 --> 01:17:01,399
comes out that door. I think that everyone will admit

1555
01:17:01,600 --> 01:17:04,079
that none of his matches are a bore. Some people

1556
01:17:04,119 --> 01:17:06,159
will say he's not so great, but don't just take

1557
01:17:06,359 --> 01:17:08,159
that he is. Don't take that he is from me.

1558
01:17:08,479 --> 01:17:10,560
Go to any wrestling match around where you know that

1559
01:17:10,640 --> 01:17:13,239
hul Cogan will be just love it.

1560
01:17:14,680 --> 01:17:16,319
Speaker 4: I just want to say to both of you. I

1561
01:17:16,399 --> 01:17:18,239
expect you both to memorize.

1562
01:17:17,840 --> 01:17:18,800
Speaker 3: That I'm done.

1563
01:17:19,920 --> 01:17:22,920
Speaker 2: Okay, there will be a test, Yes, it will be.

1564
01:17:23,000 --> 01:17:25,119
Speaker 4: I'm going to I may come. I may just call

1565
01:17:25,159 --> 01:17:28,279
one day and give you guys a quiz on that cheating.

1566
01:17:28,800 --> 01:17:31,319
Speaker 2: I am just I love the idea that there's a

1567
01:17:31,439 --> 01:17:33,560
Catherine el Burke somewhere out there who took the time

1568
01:17:33,600 --> 01:17:35,800
to write that, to put it in your rise letter.

1569
01:17:35,920 --> 01:17:38,800
That just that's so gone from wrestling.

1570
01:17:38,479 --> 01:17:42,039
Speaker 4: Now we will in general, we were right at the

1571
01:17:42,399 --> 01:17:44,439
end of the whole period of that kind of stuff,

1572
01:17:44,479 --> 01:17:49,319
even in terms of music and actors, you know, Bobby Sherman,

1573
01:17:49,479 --> 01:17:53,359
David Cassidy, hul Cogan. I mean, we were basically right

1574
01:17:53,439 --> 01:17:56,199
at that point where people you know, I mean even

1575
01:17:56,279 --> 01:17:58,840
at the time when I was doing those two fan clubs,

1576
01:17:58,840 --> 01:18:02,159
I mean, two guys so dramatically opposite of one another,

1577
01:18:02,239 --> 01:18:05,800
Bulldog Brower and Hulk Coogan. There was a boy, there

1578
01:18:05,840 --> 01:18:08,560
was a Bob Backland fan club, and I don't know

1579
01:18:08,640 --> 01:18:12,560
who else there was at the time. Wow, it was

1580
01:18:12,640 --> 01:18:16,000
mostly newsletters or people covering the area of Florida, or

1581
01:18:16,640 --> 01:18:20,479
they focused in on Jim Cornette was involved with a

1582
01:18:20,640 --> 01:18:23,079
guy named Norman Dooley, God rest him, and they did

1583
01:18:23,760 --> 01:18:28,239
the Weasels Weasel's Wrestling Report, and they did all the

1584
01:18:28,279 --> 01:18:33,439
breakdown of the Memphis shows, the us w A or CWA,

1585
01:18:33,560 --> 01:18:37,039
whatever they would call themselves at that time. So for

1586
01:18:37,119 --> 01:18:40,920
the most part, people did their territorial newsletters. I was

1587
01:18:41,000 --> 01:18:44,119
like a mini McMahon. I did everywhere I was, you know,

1588
01:18:44,720 --> 01:18:47,079
I did a little bit of everything, and New York

1589
01:18:47,199 --> 01:18:49,399
was lousy because we really all we had was we

1590
01:18:49,479 --> 01:18:53,279
had Atlanta on the weekend. Tuesday night, we had an

1591
01:18:53,319 --> 01:18:56,600
hour of wrestling from Florida on a Spanish language channel.

1592
01:18:57,479 --> 01:19:00,279
We had two hours of WWF during the week which

1593
01:19:00,319 --> 01:19:04,439
were all lopsided matches. And we had on Wednesday night

1594
01:19:04,520 --> 01:19:08,199
on Channel forty one, also Spanish language, in Spanish wrestling

1595
01:19:08,199 --> 01:19:10,920
from the Olympic Auditorium. That's it. We didn't have. I

1596
01:19:10,960 --> 01:19:15,319
don't cook anything else was I was dependent upon all

1597
01:19:15,560 --> 01:19:16,079
my peeps.

1598
01:19:17,520 --> 01:19:19,680
Speaker 2: I love that. That's such a great that's such a

1599
01:19:19,720 --> 01:19:23,159
great thing, such a great like affirmation. There's like, you know,

1600
01:19:23,279 --> 01:19:25,720
fellow passionate fans. I mean, now you look at social

1601
01:19:25,760 --> 01:19:27,760
and it's media and it's hard to tell, Like I mean,

1602
01:19:27,800 --> 01:19:29,680
obviously people are into it, but they're into it like

1603
01:19:29,760 --> 01:19:32,840
for their own aggrandizement. They're not into it to associate

1604
01:19:32,920 --> 01:19:35,520
with other fans as much. And I saw one of

1605
01:19:35,560 --> 01:19:38,199
the issues you talk about Dizzy Hogan, right, uh, and

1606
01:19:38,319 --> 01:19:41,439
you portray him to the to the fan club subscribers.

1607
01:19:41,600 --> 01:19:43,199
Who is he? Where is he going? What does he

1608
01:19:43,279 --> 01:19:46,479
want meet? The Halt's younger brother? Next issue? Did you

1609
01:19:46,560 --> 01:19:49,199
believe in the beginning that ed Leslie was actually Hult's brother?

1610
01:19:49,239 --> 01:19:49,800
Tell me about that.

1611
01:19:50,319 --> 01:19:53,640
Speaker 4: He told me already that when we were there in

1612
01:19:53,720 --> 01:19:58,039
the restaurant. That's because I think Terry was doing all

1613
01:19:58,079 --> 01:20:00,760
the talking. Did make no ense, would comment, but he

1614
01:20:00,960 --> 01:20:03,359
just would say, oh, my friend, my friend did and

1615
01:20:03,600 --> 01:20:05,600
so he was very Oh. He wasn't saying my friend

1616
01:20:05,680 --> 01:20:08,880
Dizzy or my brother Dizzy. So I knew from that

1617
01:20:09,800 --> 01:20:11,560
that that it wasn't his brother.

1618
01:20:11,880 --> 01:20:14,199
Speaker 2: But you wouldn't in a fan club newsletter Mike that

1619
01:20:14,279 --> 01:20:15,279
they're not actually brothers.

1620
01:20:16,720 --> 01:20:18,279
Speaker 4: No, I would I would have. I would have done

1621
01:20:18,279 --> 01:20:18,840
it elsewhere.

1622
01:20:19,000 --> 01:20:19,159
Speaker 2: You know.

1623
01:20:19,279 --> 01:20:21,279
Speaker 4: I think I just in passing. If I was giving

1624
01:20:21,319 --> 01:20:25,720
a match result from Memphis and it said Dizzy Hogan

1625
01:20:26,119 --> 01:20:30,359
in parentheses, ed Leslie. Leslie defeated Wayne Ferris on account

1626
01:20:30,359 --> 01:20:32,399
out but I wouldn't make a big stink out of it.

1627
01:20:32,520 --> 01:20:35,800
That's how I was even with the magazines. I even

1628
01:20:35,840 --> 01:20:39,680
with the magazines later, and I was somewhat disenchanted with

1629
01:20:39,840 --> 01:20:43,239
the direction of wrestling. As I said, I never went

1630
01:20:43,319 --> 01:20:47,640
out of my way to like hurt anybody's enthusiasm. Ford I.

1631
01:20:47,880 --> 01:20:50,520
You know, we did interviews with people where they they

1632
01:20:50,640 --> 01:20:54,399
broke a k fabe in the interviews, or Chris Jericho.

1633
01:20:54,760 --> 01:20:58,479
The issue that I sank to you was pretty open,

1634
01:20:58,560 --> 01:21:01,760
but not about how the mechanics of the business work.

1635
01:21:02,399 --> 01:21:04,399
I left things there. There was a lot of space

1636
01:21:04,520 --> 01:21:07,039
between the lines, so to speak, that people could fill

1637
01:21:07,079 --> 01:21:09,760
in their own gaps and figure out what was what

1638
01:21:10,000 --> 01:21:12,399
if they wanted to. But I wasn't there to be

1639
01:21:12,560 --> 01:21:14,920
a curmudgeon. I don't like it working with the comic

1640
01:21:15,000 --> 01:21:18,000
book business, like they'll take a comic book character and

1641
01:21:18,079 --> 01:21:20,800
they'll because you've been around the business so long. I'm

1642
01:21:20,840 --> 01:21:23,319
sixty seven, so I should be so jaded that I

1643
01:21:23,399 --> 01:21:25,319
everything that I have to write has to ruin it

1644
01:21:25,439 --> 01:21:28,159
for somebody that's fifteen or twenty years old coming in

1645
01:21:28,279 --> 01:21:31,159
and being an enthusiastic No, I've been added the game

1646
01:21:31,279 --> 01:21:33,159
too long that if I'm going to do that. So

1647
01:21:33,239 --> 01:21:35,359
if I have to take the Incredible Hulk or Iron

1648
01:21:35,439 --> 01:21:37,640
Man and make them an alcoholic and give them all

1649
01:21:37,680 --> 01:21:39,640
these other you know what I mean, don't do that.

1650
01:21:40,039 --> 01:21:42,920
Create another new character with all of that stuff and

1651
01:21:42,960 --> 01:21:45,079
see if it sells, But don't take a character that

1652
01:21:45,359 --> 01:21:47,840
people have grown up with. And I think wrestling is

1653
01:21:47,920 --> 01:21:50,720
that way. You know, there's things about wrestling right now.

1654
01:21:50,760 --> 01:21:54,159
I don't like that. It's not a business that doesn't

1655
01:21:54,159 --> 01:21:57,199
appeal to little old ladies and teenagers. You know, there

1656
01:21:57,319 --> 01:21:59,800
used to be populated little front row. We used to

1657
01:21:59,840 --> 01:22:02,079
be little old ladies aid these matches with their handbags

1658
01:22:02,159 --> 01:22:04,800
hitting the wrestlers. Why not. I mean, that's part of

1659
01:22:04,840 --> 01:22:08,840
the world's demographic. Let everybody be in there. Don't make

1660
01:22:08,920 --> 01:22:16,079
it just so demographic specific. And it became more and

1661
01:22:16,199 --> 01:22:18,119
more that way. And I don't watch it that much now.

1662
01:22:18,119 --> 01:22:19,640
I'll turn it on here and there just to get

1663
01:22:19,680 --> 01:22:23,239
a sense of what's going on. But I think I

1664
01:22:23,359 --> 01:22:25,000
took you off whatever we were talking.

1665
01:22:25,079 --> 01:22:27,279
Speaker 2: Oh that's great, now, that's what I wanted. A Disney

1666
01:22:27,319 --> 01:22:29,720
Hogan and you know, telling people was with his brother

1667
01:22:29,920 --> 01:22:30,199
you did?

1668
01:22:30,279 --> 01:22:32,239
Speaker 4: Yeah, no he didn't. And the truth be told I

1669
01:22:32,279 --> 01:22:34,479
think in the later issues. I don't think I didn't.

1670
01:22:34,560 --> 01:22:36,600
I don't think I did much on Dizzy. He was

1671
01:22:36,840 --> 01:22:40,039
well it. Dizzey was gone by that point, yeah, because

1672
01:22:40,079 --> 01:22:43,000
he disappeared and then ultimately came in his brutus beefcake,

1673
01:22:43,039 --> 01:22:45,600
and I didn't want to do anything there to say, oh,

1674
01:22:45,680 --> 01:22:49,279
did you know that was originally Dizzy Hogan Dizzey Boulder

1675
01:22:49,439 --> 01:22:51,520
rather so well, I just left it. It may have

1676
01:22:51,600 --> 01:22:54,319
been in the newsletter, the Combat Sports newsletter and the.

1677
01:22:54,319 --> 01:22:56,399
Speaker 2: Third issue of the Fan Club newsletter. You did print

1678
01:22:56,439 --> 01:22:59,000
a picture I believe supplied by Ruth of a Hulk's

1679
01:22:59,079 --> 01:23:01,880
nephew Mike. If you your Horace Hogan, son of his

1680
01:23:01,960 --> 01:23:05,239
brother Allan, holding a number one sign in the backyard.

1681
01:23:05,399 --> 01:23:09,159
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just remembered. I never met him, but I

1682
01:23:09,159 --> 01:23:11,239
didn't when he became Horace Hogan. I was like, I

1683
01:23:11,439 --> 01:23:13,079
just remember that photo of him and he had that

1684
01:23:13,279 --> 01:23:15,960
like muscle tea on that was swimming on him, and

1685
01:23:16,039 --> 01:23:18,720
I'm like, wow, he really uh came a long way

1686
01:23:18,920 --> 01:23:21,600
and didn't didn't, I guess didn't stay with the business

1687
01:23:21,680 --> 01:23:23,239
that long. He did. He had a Japan tour.

1688
01:23:23,319 --> 01:23:24,960
Speaker 2: I know that he did a lot more Japan. Yeah,

1689
01:23:24,960 --> 01:23:26,600
I mean he he got you got a push when

1690
01:23:26,800 --> 01:23:29,199
Hulk was in w W in like two thousand for

1691
01:23:29,279 --> 01:23:29,800
a little while.

1692
01:23:30,359 --> 01:23:33,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I remember I think that more than anything

1693
01:23:34,039 --> 01:23:35,680
was he he got a little bit more action. Like

1694
01:23:35,760 --> 01:23:39,000
you say, Japan was his his uh, his spot, and

1695
01:23:39,079 --> 01:23:41,199
then I don't know what what happened after. It's hard,

1696
01:23:41,239 --> 01:23:45,439
I mean, especially if you're doing the Japanese tours. That

1697
01:23:45,640 --> 01:23:48,199
was the funny thing when I was just off off

1698
01:23:48,279 --> 01:23:48,840
on a tangent.

1699
01:23:49,319 --> 01:23:49,439
Speaker 2: Uh.

1700
01:23:49,640 --> 01:23:53,439
Speaker 4: The first issue of the news of the fan club, Uh,

1701
01:23:54,039 --> 01:23:56,880
Terry was all worried about going to Japan because they

1702
01:23:56,920 --> 01:23:58,399
were scaring him. He says, Oh, I want to go

1703
01:23:58,479 --> 01:24:00,600
over there. I have to there's no toilets, I have

1704
01:24:00,680 --> 01:24:02,439
to shit in a hole on the floor and blah

1705
01:24:02,479 --> 01:24:04,600
blah blah. So he says, oh, I don't know if

1706
01:24:04,600 --> 01:24:06,640
I'm gonna be able to do that. It's impossible, you know.

1707
01:24:07,399 --> 01:24:09,159
So we was going on. So the first time when

1708
01:24:09,199 --> 01:24:11,680
I saw him, when he came back, I say, carry,

1709
01:24:11,720 --> 01:24:13,560
how was your fan Did you go to the bathroom?

1710
01:24:13,920 --> 01:24:16,079
So that was the big and he rolled his eyes.

1711
01:24:17,159 --> 01:24:19,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, he certainly didn't mind going back. After that first

1712
01:24:19,800 --> 01:24:20,760
tour he went.

1713
01:24:21,079 --> 01:24:23,640
Speaker 4: They scared him. They really scared him that, well, you

1714
01:24:23,680 --> 01:24:25,439
know it's going to be like this and that. So

1715
01:24:25,640 --> 01:24:27,439
he really was and I said, I don't think it's

1716
01:24:27,600 --> 01:24:29,920
really that bad, because all these guys said, I know,

1717
01:24:30,000 --> 01:24:32,600
the money must be good because everybody goes back. Oh

1718
01:24:32,720 --> 01:24:34,760
they told me there's no toilets over there.

1719
01:24:35,520 --> 01:24:38,840
Speaker 2: So he was terry easily kind of messed with. Do

1720
01:24:38,840 --> 01:24:40,119
you know what I mean? Was it easy to get

1721
01:24:40,119 --> 01:24:40,560
in his head?

1722
01:24:41,600 --> 01:24:47,600
Speaker 4: I didn't try. He stood like, you know, a footballer

1723
01:24:47,720 --> 01:24:49,920
of me. He was about one hundred pounds heavier than me.

1724
01:24:50,439 --> 01:24:54,079
And I never saw anybody give him, you know, flip

1725
01:24:54,159 --> 01:24:58,479
him anything, you know, in the gym or or if

1726
01:24:58,560 --> 01:25:01,399
I was out a little bit with him. I think

1727
01:25:01,479 --> 01:25:03,960
he was liked, I mean overall. I think in the beginning.

1728
01:25:04,279 --> 01:25:06,840
I remember even when he came in to work for McMahon,

1729
01:25:07,000 --> 01:25:09,319
he was at a TV taping. I wasn't there, but

1730
01:25:09,439 --> 01:25:12,279
I heard from Ruth that he had like a one

1731
01:25:12,359 --> 01:25:14,520
hundred and two degree temperature or something that he was

1732
01:25:14,600 --> 01:25:17,279
really sick. And he did the TV tapings and he

1733
01:25:17,399 --> 01:25:21,359
did all three hours. He did matches what they were short, nonetheless,

1734
01:25:21,399 --> 01:25:23,199
but he still was there and he did all the

1735
01:25:23,279 --> 01:25:27,399
interview segments for all the different towns, you know, So

1736
01:25:27,760 --> 01:25:30,640
I think he earned this, you know, I think they

1737
01:25:31,319 --> 01:25:35,439
saw that he was a worker and a trooper. He

1738
01:25:35,560 --> 01:25:38,079
did the job. But I just don't know what happened

1739
01:25:38,119 --> 01:25:40,600
at the end, Like when we were saying of that

1740
01:25:40,800 --> 01:25:43,520
of his first run as a heel, that they just

1741
01:25:43,600 --> 01:25:47,039
seemed to pack him up and then push him out.

1742
01:25:47,399 --> 01:25:50,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, comes rather suddenly and Blassie disappears. Did you

1743
01:25:50,479 --> 01:25:53,239
ever get in color from Terry about Blassi? Because Blassie

1744
01:25:53,319 --> 01:25:55,279
he only says like one line about Hulk in the book.

1745
01:25:55,640 --> 01:25:58,119
Hulk doesn't say a lot about Blassie. It doesn't seem

1746
01:25:58,159 --> 01:26:01,479
to me like they really close at all or anything.

1747
01:26:01,720 --> 01:26:02,119
Speaker 1: Not at all.

1748
01:26:02,159 --> 01:26:04,760
Speaker 4: They weren't close. There was nothing. Blassi was an office

1749
01:26:04,800 --> 01:26:06,880
guy at that point in time, so his was his

1750
01:26:07,079 --> 01:26:11,119
thing more than anything was you know, whatever they told

1751
01:26:11,159 --> 01:26:13,079
him that he needed to do. I mean, he wasn't

1752
01:26:13,119 --> 01:26:15,199
on the road. Put it this way. I mean Blassi

1753
01:26:15,319 --> 01:26:17,600
only showed up at the garden and at the tapings. Yeah,

1754
01:26:17,680 --> 01:26:20,720
and there was there was two tapings, you know, one taping, uh,

1755
01:26:21,239 --> 01:26:24,039
two tapings once a month before it really picked up later.

1756
01:26:24,520 --> 01:26:26,800
But he had they only brought him in for Allentown

1757
01:26:26,920 --> 01:26:31,880
and Hamburg and then Philadelphia. Uh, and then he showed

1758
01:26:31,960 --> 01:26:33,960
up at the Garden. He didn't show up at any

1759
01:26:34,039 --> 01:26:36,479
of the other arenas. I don't think if he went

1760
01:26:36,520 --> 01:26:39,000
to anything like a Boston garden or somewhere, there was

1761
01:26:39,079 --> 01:26:39,720
no Blassie.

1762
01:26:40,560 --> 01:26:42,399
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's all very very true.

1763
01:26:42,439 --> 01:26:45,079
Speaker 4: Well, so the truth be told, he probably dealt with

1764
01:26:45,840 --> 01:26:47,560
Blassi three times a month.

1765
01:26:48,600 --> 01:26:51,880
Speaker 2: It is just amazing, Mike, all these all these memories,

1766
01:26:52,000 --> 01:26:54,439
and you were at the vanguard of this whole Campania

1767
01:26:54,479 --> 01:26:57,600
phenomenon before before it was anywhere close to like a

1768
01:26:57,680 --> 01:27:00,760
household thing. And I guess we can close by asking

1769
01:27:00,840 --> 01:27:02,439
you what it was like. I mean to come to

1770
01:27:02,479 --> 01:27:03,880
find out. I didn't know this till we talked that

1771
01:27:04,319 --> 01:27:06,840
you were still publishing the newsletter all through you know,

1772
01:27:06,960 --> 01:27:09,399
him rising in the AWA and coming to Vincent when

1773
01:27:09,479 --> 01:27:11,319
the title for the first time Vince Junior. That is

1774
01:27:11,680 --> 01:27:13,479
what was it like? Kind of watching this guy who

1775
01:27:13,520 --> 01:27:15,760
you met in Memphis at a restaurant and you know,

1776
01:27:16,159 --> 01:27:19,520
started a fan club newsletter for him become the biggest

1777
01:27:19,600 --> 01:27:21,199
name ever in the business. It must have been so

1778
01:27:21,479 --> 01:27:23,319
weird to think of that as the same terry that

1779
01:27:23,439 --> 01:27:25,119
used to give you time, you know, at the gym

1780
01:27:25,199 --> 01:27:25,760
before a match.

1781
01:27:26,600 --> 01:27:30,640
Speaker 4: Yeah. You know. The thing that was funny is, you know,

1782
01:27:30,960 --> 01:27:33,359
it's all hindsight to see it and to look at

1783
01:27:33,399 --> 01:27:35,720
it the way it was, the way that it turned out.

1784
01:27:36,199 --> 01:27:41,479
But to a great extent, no one saw it really coming.

1785
01:27:41,800 --> 01:27:44,880
You know, to a degree, what he became was a

1786
01:27:45,079 --> 01:27:48,840
terror recres and the result of Vince McMahon junior. You know,

1787
01:27:48,960 --> 01:27:51,399
even when he was with Gania as the as the

1788
01:27:51,520 --> 01:27:55,119
baby face, I didn't really feel it worked that great.

1789
01:27:55,399 --> 01:27:57,119
I still thought, wow, you know, they would have been

1790
01:27:57,199 --> 01:28:01,399
much better having him in the territory as as a heel.

1791
01:28:01,479 --> 01:28:06,119
Even though they had Petera and Ventura and I had

1792
01:28:06,159 --> 01:28:08,840
seen some of their matches. There was something there that

1793
01:28:09,000 --> 01:28:11,680
he I mean, he was still polishing up the whole

1794
01:28:12,039 --> 01:28:17,359
good guy thing. And when McMahon just consolidated and started

1795
01:28:17,640 --> 01:28:21,560
bringing people in, he was just at the right place

1796
01:28:21,640 --> 01:28:23,640
at the right time. I don't know who would have

1797
01:28:23,800 --> 01:28:27,399
worked better, you know, I always think to myself, Paul Londorff,

1798
01:28:27,479 --> 01:28:29,920
but I don't know. And then when Orndorff, you know,

1799
01:28:30,199 --> 01:28:32,760
got his shot as being an ab face, he didn't

1800
01:28:32,760 --> 01:28:35,680
have it. I mean, there was something about Terry. You'll

1801
01:28:35,720 --> 01:28:38,600
see that even with movies and music, So it may

1802
01:28:38,680 --> 01:28:41,479
not even have a great voice, or you're watching a

1803
01:28:41,560 --> 01:28:43,600
movie and they may not even be the lead, but

1804
01:28:43,720 --> 01:28:48,319
you'll watch that person. And he had that. So no

1805
01:28:48,439 --> 01:28:51,279
one saw it. No one knew that every territory would go.

1806
01:28:51,359 --> 01:28:55,279
It would just be w CW and WWF or WWE

1807
01:28:55,800 --> 01:29:01,800
over time. I think that as that happened, it just

1808
01:29:01,960 --> 01:29:05,760
became more of a surprise how corporate to me, how

1809
01:29:05,880 --> 01:29:09,039
really more and more how corporate the business became. So

1810
01:29:09,399 --> 01:29:13,520
I just the marketing was more surprising to me than

1811
01:29:13,600 --> 01:29:16,039
actually the rise of Terry, because I thought he had talent,

1812
01:29:17,000 --> 01:29:19,119
he had the look, he was very good on the mic.

1813
01:29:19,560 --> 01:29:21,760
Even he worked on himself in terms of that. He

1814
01:29:21,920 --> 01:29:24,239
went to have voice lessons. I think he went to

1815
01:29:24,279 --> 01:29:27,199
the same guy that went to that Dolph Lungren went

1816
01:29:27,279 --> 01:29:31,119
to get rid of Yeah. So he if you would

1817
01:29:31,119 --> 01:29:36,479
hear those early Southern DROL wrestling interviews in comparison to later,

1818
01:29:37,079 --> 01:29:39,960
he kept his voice. I mean, he had any other old,

1819
01:29:40,079 --> 01:29:43,800
very distinctive sound. Brother. So it's like that's wonderful about him.

1820
01:29:44,039 --> 01:29:47,840
Tell me somebody right now that has a distinct voice

1821
01:29:47,880 --> 01:29:52,159
in wrestling. You know, you had Macho Man, you had Hogan,

1822
01:29:52,279 --> 01:29:55,039
you had even Nick Bokerkle. People had a certain flare,

1823
01:29:55,520 --> 01:29:58,159
you know, I don't find today anyone has that. And

1824
01:29:58,600 --> 01:30:00,640
he was at the right place at the right time

1825
01:30:00,720 --> 01:30:03,680
he had to look. They could package this corporate promotion

1826
01:30:03,840 --> 01:30:07,640
around him and it worked. But I don't think anyone

1827
01:30:07,720 --> 01:30:09,720
saw it happening except Vince McMahon junior.

1828
01:30:09,800 --> 01:30:12,840
Speaker 2: Really really, really interesting stuff. So we ask this of

1829
01:30:13,359 --> 01:30:15,880
all of our guests inclosing here on the complete Hull

1830
01:30:15,920 --> 01:30:19,279
Cokein series. Your reaction, Mike, when you found out that

1831
01:30:19,359 --> 01:30:21,359
Hull passed away last summer, it was a shock to

1832
01:30:21,439 --> 01:30:24,840
many in terms of how suddenly the decline seemed to come.

1833
01:30:26,119 --> 01:30:28,199
What went through your mind considering how long you knew

1834
01:30:28,239 --> 01:30:28,439
the guy.

1835
01:30:29,319 --> 01:30:34,159
Speaker 4: I was surprised that he had died, and at the

1836
01:30:34,199 --> 01:30:37,920
same time I wasn't. I knew I hadn't been in

1837
01:30:38,000 --> 01:30:40,439
touch with him. His mom and dad had passed, so

1838
01:30:40,680 --> 01:30:44,319
my connection in terms of getting first hand information wasn't there.

1839
01:30:44,760 --> 01:30:48,119
But I know, just of all the surgeries and just

1840
01:30:48,199 --> 01:30:53,000
his own personal life stories that have taken their toll

1841
01:30:53,119 --> 01:30:56,239
with the son Nick and the divorce and you know,

1842
01:30:56,720 --> 01:30:58,920
and all of the surgeries and then when I saw

1843
01:30:59,000 --> 01:31:05,199
his last appearance in the WWE, he looked bad. You know,

1844
01:31:05,640 --> 01:31:07,720
there's one thing we getting old. We all get older

1845
01:31:07,800 --> 01:31:10,720
and we don't look like we did from nineteen seventy nine.

1846
01:31:10,800 --> 01:31:12,960
I can at testify to it, and I walk out

1847
01:31:13,000 --> 01:31:14,960
and I do everything that I can do, and I'm

1848
01:31:15,000 --> 01:31:18,640
a relatively good boy and healthy. But I knew something

1849
01:31:18,800 --> 01:31:23,600
was wrong, so I didn't note to that extent how

1850
01:31:23,840 --> 01:31:26,199
far down the road he was. Flair would comment and

1851
01:31:26,279 --> 01:31:27,880
on it from time to time. He's, oh my god,

1852
01:31:28,079 --> 01:31:29,960
all the surgeries that he's had, you know how he

1853
01:31:30,000 --> 01:31:32,239
can keep going. So you had it in the back

1854
01:31:32,319 --> 01:31:36,079
of your head that he wasn't doing well. I thought

1855
01:31:36,079 --> 01:31:39,520
he would have lived longer. But even people say, well,

1856
01:31:39,560 --> 01:31:42,000
I didn't really wrestle that hard, get picked up and

1857
01:31:42,119 --> 01:31:44,760
slammed the night after night after night the thirtieth Even

1858
01:31:44,760 --> 01:31:48,640
if you're not doing tremendous tiger mass dynamite kid moves,

1859
01:31:49,239 --> 01:31:51,359
it takes its tall on you. I mean the best

1860
01:31:51,399 --> 01:31:55,079
of wrestlers, I mean Brunos San Martino was a pretty clean,

1861
01:31:55,119 --> 01:31:57,359
loving guy and he lived to the right old age

1862
01:31:57,359 --> 01:31:59,960
of eighty one, I guess, and all these other guys

1863
01:32:00,119 --> 01:32:03,880
is you know who were enhanced their physiques, you know,

1864
01:32:04,119 --> 01:32:08,199
the Ultimate Warrior and Crispin Juan, you know Piper even

1865
01:32:08,359 --> 01:32:10,520
or you know they were uh they burned the candle

1866
01:32:10,560 --> 01:32:13,359
at both ends, so he wasn't a choir boy. And

1867
01:32:14,279 --> 01:32:18,000
but I also just think the sis didn't help. I mean,

1868
01:32:18,079 --> 01:32:20,880
it rotch your bones, there's no question about that. And

1869
01:32:21,039 --> 01:32:24,520
he's a he's an example of that, so a superstar,

1870
01:32:24,600 --> 01:32:28,199
Billy Graham. So it was a sad moment. You know,

1871
01:32:28,359 --> 01:32:31,439
I can't fat him even to this day that he's

1872
01:32:31,479 --> 01:32:34,319
really dead. I we didn't, I didn't deal with him,

1873
01:32:34,359 --> 01:32:35,960
but I knew he was out there and I still

1874
01:32:36,039 --> 01:32:38,479
kind of feel that way. But my my, for all

1875
01:32:38,520 --> 01:32:43,079
intensive purposes, I guess my I finished. We felt well,

1876
01:32:43,159 --> 01:32:45,840
we find our last dealings with one another was probably

1877
01:32:45,880 --> 01:32:49,399
around eighty seven. Yeah, so that's a long time, you know.

1878
01:32:49,640 --> 01:32:51,720
So he was a part of my life. And then

1879
01:32:52,439 --> 01:32:54,720
Ruth and I drifted because I had nothing to tell her,

1880
01:32:54,920 --> 01:32:58,600
you know, we were kind of done. And uh so

1881
01:32:58,840 --> 01:33:02,279
for for the moment, party just listen, It's like leaving

1882
01:33:02,319 --> 01:33:05,720
a flashlight on and the battery batteries are going and

1883
01:33:05,800 --> 01:33:08,279
the light's going out. The light's going out. The light

1884
01:33:08,399 --> 01:33:11,520
went out, and that was basically my relationship with the

1885
01:33:11,600 --> 01:33:12,359
Bolet family.

1886
01:33:13,319 --> 01:33:16,840
Speaker 2: Unreal Minelohera, the creator and founder of Hulk Hogan's very

1887
01:33:16,920 --> 01:33:19,199
first fan club, taking it into what it was like

1888
01:33:19,319 --> 01:33:21,359
to watch him break through in the wrestling business. A

1889
01:33:21,439 --> 01:33:23,000
real pleasure to have you on the show man, Thank

1890
01:33:23,000 --> 01:33:23,600
you so much for that.

1891
01:33:23,680 --> 01:33:26,479
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. And one more last time doing

1892
01:33:26,520 --> 01:33:29,800
my William Shinner. I'm stores dot eBay, dot com, forward

1893
01:33:29,880 --> 01:33:32,560
slash new wave wonders buy stuff from me.

1894
01:33:33,000 --> 01:33:36,319
Speaker 2: Thank you absolutely. I'm sure you saw a couple of

1895
01:33:36,439 --> 01:33:37,560
items here with your.

1896
01:33:37,720 --> 01:33:40,039
Speaker 4: With your reflection, you did, and thank you for your purchases.

1897
01:33:40,079 --> 01:33:43,359
I appreciate it. Thank you guys, all the luck in

1898
01:33:43,399 --> 01:33:45,720
the world. Thank you, thank you to you, Bye bye.

1899
01:33:47,239 --> 01:33:50,800
Speaker 2: Cras Eails is a production of the Labs Entertainment Group.

1900
01:33:50,960 --> 01:33:53,159
Speaker 4: It's content is intended for private use.

1901
01:33:53,199 --> 01:33:53,479
Speaker 1: Holy