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Speaker 1: through your Apple account in the Apple Podcast app and
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Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: PW Torch and Speaker bring you the Wade Keller Pro
Speaker 3: Wrestling Podcast. It's time for this week's Interview Classic, where
Speaker 3: Wade Keller Interview is one of pro Wrestling's newsmakers.
Speaker 1: On today's Wadkeller Pro Wrestling Podcast Interview Classic episode, we
Speaker 1: jump back to two interviews from ten years ago. First up,
Speaker 1: Iron Chic and Bob Backland. P tow Torch columnist Bruce
Speaker 1: Mitchell and I were able to interview Bob Eckland at
Speaker 1: Iron Cheek in person in Waterloo, Iowa at the Pro
Speaker 1: Wrestling Hall of Fame Weekend banquet at a live studio
Speaker 1: audience at the Dan Gable Wrestling Museum, and it was
Speaker 1: a blast. And I mean, these two are such incredibly
Speaker 1: significant historical figures. During a big period of WWE, especially
Speaker 1: Bob Backland of course long term champion, but the transition
Speaker 1: from Backland to Chic to Hogan a real seminal moment
Speaker 1: in pro wrestling history, transitioning from the territory era to
Speaker 1: the national expansion and Vince McMahon and the larger than
Speaker 1: life muscular characters obviously the Superstarpully Grand before that and others,
Speaker 1: but Hulk Hogan is a centerpiece world champ. Iron Cheek
Speaker 1: was the transition heel for that era. We also talked
Speaker 1: about the transition from amateur to professional wrestling, the relationship
Speaker 1: with Vincent J. McMahon Vince Senior and Vincent K mcman
Speaker 1: Vince and much more. These are two characters and it
Speaker 1: comes across in the interview. And then our second interview
Speaker 1: was just a few days before that. Actually it took
Speaker 1: place a few days after, but it was posted a
Speaker 1: few days before, and that was Jim Valley's interview with
Speaker 1: maghum Ta. This originally dropped on or actually streamed live
Speaker 1: on July thirtieth, twenty sixteen. Then Jim Valley talked with
Speaker 1: maghum Ta about a variety of topics and also some
Speaker 1: live callers with some nostalgia topics and more. So let's
Speaker 1: get to it really fun back to back interview Classic
Speaker 1: episodes here on the Weight Color Podcast on Saturday, August eighth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six.
Speaker 4: That radio.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the p W Torch Live Cast. I am
Speaker 1: Way Keller, editor and publisher of the Pro Wrestling Torch
Speaker 1: weekly newsletter since nineteen eighty seven, and also pwtorch dot
Speaker 1: com the website and mmatorch dot com the website. We
Speaker 1: covered the world of pro wrestling and mixed martial arts
Speaker 1: with breaking news, exclusive features, live event coverage, and much
Speaker 1: more every single day. So if you're a pro wrestling
Speaker 1: fan or an MMA fan, be sure to check out
Speaker 1: both PW torch dot com and mmatorch dot com every
Speaker 1: single day. Right now at PW torch dot com, we've
Speaker 1: got James Caldwell's report on last night's Cruiserweight Classic Tournament
Speaker 1: results Week four, including Gargano versus Champa in the conclusion
Speaker 1: of the first round. Also, we have last night's new
Speaker 1: Japan G One results the g One Climax tournament.
Speaker 5: Can he used to.
Speaker 1: Produce some great matches. Sean Radikin doing a great job
Speaker 1: covering that for PW torch dot Com and NXT results
Speaker 1: last night with Adeowa, Tommy returning to action, Bobby Rood's
Speaker 1: NXT debut and a main event tag team match with
Speaker 1: the Revival, and also Metzger's r OHTV results with a
Speaker 1: big tag team main event with tons of champs involved.
Speaker 1: Moose wrestles twice and his analysis of the show. Thursday
Speaker 1: mornings are always big on PW torch dot com because
Speaker 1: we have so much going on on Wednesday nights now
Speaker 1: with NXT, the Cruiserwey Classic and r o H TV,
Speaker 1: and you add to that the g One Climax Tournament.
Speaker 1: It's it's turned into a hub of wrestling television viewing
Speaker 1: Wednesday nights have this is Interview Thursday, and normally on
Speaker 1: Interview Thursday we run live interviews. This week got something
Speaker 1: special and out of the ordinary that has not been
Speaker 1: heard before, and that is a podcast that Torch Senior
Speaker 1: columnist and Friday Peterlee Torch Live cast host Bruce Mitchell
Speaker 1: and I hosted together at the Dan Gable Wrestling Museum
Speaker 1: in Waterloo, Iowa. And this was at part of the
Speaker 1: George Tragos Luths Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame weekend a
Speaker 1: couple weekends ago. It's a second year in a row.
Speaker 1: Bruce and I have attended Travis Bryant from the Friday
Speaker 1: East from the Friday Live Cast and Wednesday East Coast Cast,
Speaker 1: which you can find at East coastcast dot com. Along
Speaker 1: with Torch Audio analyst Todd Martin joined me for those festivities.
Speaker 1: We watched Dave Meltzer the Wresting Observer and inducted into
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame. Bruce and Day very tight over
Speaker 1: the last twenty some years and a number of other wrestlers.
Speaker 1: Two wrestlers who were inducted were Iron Cheek and Bob Beckland.
Speaker 1: Those two were part of wrestling history, iron Cheek being
Speaker 1: the wrestler who defeated Bob Backland for the WWF Championship
Speaker 1: that then led to Hulk Cogan coming in and capturing
Speaker 1: the WWF World title in a very big transition for WWF.
Speaker 1: The move from Bob Backland, a white bread do no
Speaker 1: wrong role model babyface, to Hulk Hogan was a major
Speaker 1: pivotal moment in the history of professional wrestling, and Iron
Speaker 1: Cheek and Bob Backland have never done an interview together,
Speaker 1: never done any interview together until two weekends ago and
Speaker 1: Bruce and I had the privilege of interviewing Iron Checken
Speaker 1: Bob Backland. When I told some people about the interview,
Speaker 1: they were like, Oh, I bet that was like hurting
Speaker 1: cats and other such an agies because she could Backland
Speaker 1: our such characters and they are and boy does that
Speaker 1: come across in this interview.
Speaker 6: It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I think you'll learn a lot about Iron Cheek's background,
Speaker 1: his story of why and how he came to the
Speaker 1: United States, what he did when he got here, how
Speaker 1: he found a home in Minnesota, and what he went
Speaker 1: on to do with his professional life is amazing. And
Speaker 1: at the end of the interview, it's one of the
Speaker 1: great finishes to a podcast ever. And I have to
Speaker 1: create a visual for this because you'll hear it, but
Speaker 1: I think you need to understand the visual of what
Speaker 1: was happening because this podcast was conducted in front of
Speaker 1: a live studio audience. One hundred or so people were
Speaker 1: packed into the the five Sullivan Brothers Convention Center, which
Speaker 1: is across the street from the Hall of Fame. It's
Speaker 1: the major convention center hub in Waterlough, Iowa, and the
Speaker 1: room was packed with wrestling fans who were part of
Speaker 1: the All Access Past weekend for the Hall of Fame weekend.
Speaker 1: And so I'm I'm sitting I'm sitting in the middle
Speaker 1: of the table. To my left is Bruce Mitchell, to
Speaker 1: my right is the Iron Cheek, and then to Iron
Speaker 1: Cheeks right is Bob Backland. We're all sitting at a
Speaker 1: table and looking at an audience of fans watching the
Speaker 1: podcast and watching and listening. So we get to about
Speaker 1: the hour mark, close to it, and so we're getting
Speaker 1: near the end and I throw a question she can Backland.
Speaker 1: Sheek answers it, and then Backland begins to answer it,
Speaker 1: but he also stands up and he starts being very
Speaker 1: visual about what he's saying about how you One of
Speaker 1: his favorite parts about being a wrestlers started is taking
Speaker 1: starting the match low and slowly building it up higher
Speaker 1: to bringing the crowd to this peak moment, and he
Speaker 1: can describe it better than I am here. I don't
Speaker 1: want to steal his thunder, but he's being very visual
Speaker 1: about it. And then at the end you'll hear him say,
Speaker 1: and that is it. I have to go work out,
Speaker 1: and so he ends the podcast in a very visual way.
Speaker 1: Which is running around the building giving high fives to
Speaker 1: to the hosts. Bruce and he gave a high five
Speaker 1: to me and then a high five to Bruce, high
Speaker 1: five to Iron Cheek, and he ran through the crowd
Speaker 1: and started giving high fives. And these are not light
Speaker 1: high fives. You don't take them lightly. These are shoulder
Speaker 1: dislocating high five flaps from Backland, who is incredibly fit
Speaker 1: for somebody who's sixty six years old. I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: you know, his skin looks like an older person. That's
Speaker 1: not there's not much people can do about that. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can eat healthy and stay out of the sun
Speaker 1: and you know, use good soap and all that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Put me in general that that's a little
Speaker 1: bit more of a giveaway. That's somewhat unavoidable in terms
Speaker 1: of aging. However, But by the way, it's not bad skin.
Speaker 1: It's just okay, he doesn't look thirty, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean when you look at him. But his physique
Speaker 1: is incredible, his energy is incredible. But but I mean,
Speaker 1: he was wearing a tight shirt and it just I mean,
Speaker 1: he what he has done to maintain his physical fitness
Speaker 1: throughout his life is amazing. So I say that as
Speaker 1: a as a preface for this. He after giving high
Speaker 1: fives to everybody, he grabs a handle roller that he
Speaker 1: uses to do a certain exercise that he finds that
Speaker 1: he likes a lot and has done his whole life.
Speaker 1: He grabs that and he runs out of the room.
Speaker 1: Now I conclude the podcast. People are laughing and applotting,
Speaker 1: I think the chic and I'm kind of wrapping things
Speaker 1: up and taking, you know, sting the microphone down and
Speaker 1: all that.
Speaker 6: At this moment.
Speaker 1: I found out later Bob Beckland is jogging from the
Speaker 1: five Sullivan Brothers Convention Center across the street and down
Speaker 1: the block to the Dan Gable Wrestling Museum, and he
Speaker 1: runs all the way into the facility to a wrestling
Speaker 1: matt workout area at the museum, because I have this
Speaker 1: whole you can have a membership there. There's a shower facility,
Speaker 1: there's a wrestling mat, there's mini bleachers, or you can
Speaker 1: watch wrestling exhibitions. He runs into that room and he
Speaker 1: starts exercising just as he said he was going to
Speaker 1: do on schedule. He didn't want to miss his workout
Speaker 1: with the time that he had that afternoon, and he
Speaker 1: does a full workout, and he does I can't remember
Speaker 1: how many, how many steps, how many squats, It was
Speaker 1: an incredible number. I know that Dave Meltzer was talking
Speaker 1: to him trying to think when he was asking, oh,
Speaker 1: is that the autograph session the next day? Because the
Speaker 1: members of the Trago Stas Hall of Fame do those
Speaker 1: who attend the convention each year participate in an addograph session,
Speaker 1: And so Dave Meltzer and Ire sit next to each
Speaker 1: other and Bob Ackland is is next to us, and
Speaker 1: Dave starts asking him about his workout routine, and so
Speaker 1: Bob just talking about all the stuff he does, and
Speaker 1: it just it was, it was Dave was in awe
Speaker 1: of what Bob does and how he built up to
Speaker 1: it and how he stayed healthy doing it.
Speaker 6: He was just he's amazing.
Speaker 1: So he's a real character. I would say there's a
Speaker 1: fine line between Bob Backland the person and Bob Beckland
Speaker 1: the character. I think that the character version is a
Speaker 1: little bit of an amplified version of of who he
Speaker 1: really is. But I spent a good amount of time
Speaker 1: talking to him at the at the Indie Wrestling event,
Speaker 1: the Impact Pro Wrestling event on Friday night after, which
Speaker 1: was a few hours after this podcast took place, and
Speaker 1: and he was much more low key and conversational. But
Speaker 1: there's still something about him or you know, he's you
Speaker 1: just look at him and you think he's on the
Speaker 1: verge of snapping, you know, like not snapping in a
Speaker 1: bad way, but snapping into into Bob Backland yelling mode.
Speaker 1: You know what you see with him right now in
Speaker 1: WWB TV with Darren Young and so I spend a
Speaker 1: good amount of time talking to him at intermission at
Speaker 1: the Indie show and and and saw a different version
Speaker 1: of him. In fact, it was I think last fall,
Speaker 1: was it or last year Bruce Mitchell and I interviewed him,
Speaker 1: I think three weeks in a row about his his
Speaker 1: phenomenal wrestling book. He and the co author of that
Speaker 1: wrestling book just did such a trummendous job. I want
Speaker 1: to give a shout out to Rob Miller too, who
Speaker 1: was on the live cast last year. Backlan's book Books
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite wrestling books four hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty three pages, four hundred eighty four pages, and it
Speaker 1: covers a timeframe in WWE history that no other book
Speaker 1: covered in the way in a first hand, here's what
Speaker 1: happened behind the scenes way because he covers the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies and early eighties Vince McMahon senior era of the
Speaker 1: WWF from a wrestler's perspective thoroughly, and I highly recommend
Speaker 1: the book. It's Backland from All American Boy to Professional
Speaker 1: Wrestling's World Champion by Bob Ackland and Rob Miller definitely
Speaker 1: recommend that book. And Bob was on this show and
Speaker 1: did a great job with the interview. I mean, he
Speaker 1: was really engaging, told great stories. This is a slightly
Speaker 1: different version of that Backland because he's performing in front
Speaker 1: of a crowd a little bit and it changes his
Speaker 1: dynamic a little bit. But the stories and the attitude
Speaker 1: and the outlook are all there, and he's being truthful.
Speaker 1: And some of the insights he shares about vincick Mann
Speaker 1: Senior in the transition to vinsick Man Junior, I think
Speaker 1: are real poignant to understanding wrestling history and understanding Bob
Speaker 1: Ecklin for that matter. So there's some really cool stuff
Speaker 1: in this interview. And as I said, it was done
Speaker 1: live in front of a studio audience and that doesn't
Speaker 1: happen very often. Here at PW Torch Livecast. I was
Speaker 1: going to run the interview last week, but because of
Speaker 1: the draft, and because last week was the first episode
Speaker 1: of Ron SmackDown post draft, and because I had the
Speaker 1: opportunity to interview Jim Ross, I decided not to run
Speaker 1: the interview right away and save it for this week
Speaker 1: because it certainly is more of a historical oriented interview
Speaker 1: and isn't in that sense, it doesn't have an expiration
Speaker 1: date in terms of its freshness, So we present that
Speaker 1: to you this week here at PW torch Live Cast.
Speaker 1: Your time is valuable. Go VIP and listen to our
Speaker 1: show's commercial free a nice streamline listening experience. Pw toorch
Speaker 1: dot com slash go vip for full details on a
Speaker 1: commercial free listening experience, and with a full VIP membership,
Speaker 1: you can create custom feeds for individual shows or groups
Speaker 1: of shows by theme, and also unlock nearly four decades
Speaker 1: of archives and access our ad free website with VIP
Speaker 1: exclusive content. PW torch dot com slash go vip. Your
Speaker 1: time is valuable, and that's one of the reasons we
Speaker 1: offer VIP membership. PW torch dot com slash go vip.
Speaker 6: So they do want to know.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow, Bruce Mitchell and Travis Bryant to be by at
Speaker 1: seven Eastern for the Friday live cast and then Saturday
Speaker 1: Morning Wrestling with Jim Valley airs Saturday morning of course,
Speaker 1: so we encourage you to check those shows out live
Speaker 1: and participate. Yesterday on the live cast, Jim Valley filled
Speaker 1: in for Pat McNeil who was vacationing, and he was
Speaker 1: at Nwafanfest on location with Britt Wittmeier, a longtime radio
Speaker 1: veteran out of North Carolina, Jim Valley, a radio veteran
Speaker 1: out of Portland, Oregon, and they did a live on
Speaker 1: location at NWA FanFest show. It was just fun, real, casual.
Speaker 1: There were some sound issues, not so much with Jim Valley,
Speaker 1: but with Britt and his microphone and the one that
Speaker 1: was used for people asking questions for about the first
Speaker 1: twenty minutes of the show yesterday. I did a considerable
Speaker 1: amount of post production work yesterday late last night on
Speaker 1: the show, and I re uploaded it. So if you
Speaker 1: did download the show yesterday and kind of gave up
Speaker 1: on it because the sound level was kind of low
Speaker 1: because it was at a remote live show and it
Speaker 1: just wasn't a place that Jim had experience doing a
Speaker 1: remote show from, so we had some technical issues. I
Speaker 1: was able to amplify the sound, clean up some of
Speaker 1: the sound, even out the sound levels with the different people.
Speaker 1: It's still not great for the first twenty minutes or so,
Speaker 1: but I think if it's unbearable, just skip to the
Speaker 1: middle of the show. If you can get through it.
Speaker 1: Either way, there's some really interesting stuff and fun conversations
Speaker 1: with callers. Bruce Mitchell calls in gives Jim and Britt
Speaker 1: a hard time about the sound issues because they're always
Speaker 1: giving him a hard time about his technical problems that
Speaker 1: he on occasion self inflicts on Fridays, and sometimes I'm
Speaker 1: part of that by not allowing him to wrap up
Speaker 1: the Bruce Mitchellatio Show recording before he does a live cast,
Speaker 1: and he's scrambling. But nevertheless, it's a fun show and
Speaker 1: I think it's worth checking out some fun stories that
Speaker 1: the ties are loosened up and everyone's just kind of
Speaker 1: being casual and having fun. And it's always cool when
Speaker 1: you're on site on location and you're just getting the
Speaker 1: host kind of observing what's going on and talking about
Speaker 1: different people walking by, so I encourage you to check
Speaker 1: that out. Also, I mentioned MMA Torch earlier. I encourage
Speaker 1: you to check out our website. We've got the latest news,
Speaker 1: results and more. In fact, we have some video up
Speaker 1: on the site right now of Nate Diaz confronting fans
Speaker 1: who were picking Connor McGregor to win at UFC two
Speaker 1: o two. That was from Jimmy Kimmel Live and DS
Speaker 1: thinks UFC wants him to lose at USC two o two.
Speaker 1: We've got a quote from Nate Dias saying that USC
Speaker 1: wants him to lose. What's that all about. Also, Cyborg
Speaker 1: is reportedly set to headline UFC Fight Night ninety five.
Speaker 1: Some details on that in the news. We also have
Speaker 1: notes on USC two to one, full results, star ratings
Speaker 1: in terms of entertainment value and historical significance of the fights,
Speaker 1: and of Ultimate Fighter twenty three finale, live results, live
Speaker 1: results of all recent shows, and the daily Top five.
Speaker 1: The latest is the Top five Quotes of the week
Speaker 1: that was posted earlier today. There's some good quotes in
Speaker 1: the world of MMA every week, and mmatorch dot com
Speaker 1: is your home, your weekly home to pick out the
Speaker 1: top five and man Mark hunt unleashed on Brock, Lesnar
Speaker 1: and UFC and how they're handling Brock's suspension. That quote
Speaker 1: is worth visiting MMA Torch four and clicking on the
Speaker 1: top five list alone. So some good stuff over at
Speaker 1: MMA Torch. Here is a word about our home based website,
Speaker 1: the PW Torch Live Cast, where you can find easily
Speaker 1: find back episodes past episodes from our archives and search
Speaker 1: by category and stream them right off our mobile friendly
Speaker 1: site or on our desktop site. And here's some details
Speaker 1: on that. And then when we come back, it'll be
Speaker 1: time to play Bob Backland and Iron Cheek. Thanks for
Speaker 1: your supportive the show, and thank you so much to
Speaker 1: all of you for continuing to make this show such
Speaker 1: a success. Here we go with some details on our
Speaker 1: home website where you can get further more episodes of
Speaker 1: this show. All right, so again, this interview was conducted
Speaker 1: and recorded live at the five Sullivan Brothers Convention Center
Speaker 1: in Waterloo, Iowa as part of the George Tragos Luthe's
Speaker 1: Progressing Hall of Fame Weekend at the Dan Gable Museum.
Speaker 1: And this interview was conducted on July twenty second, twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: It is Iron Chic and Bob Eckland. My co host
Speaker 1: is Bruce Mitchell on this program Playback. I'm gonna start
Speaker 1: with Bob, because what I would like to mister Backland
Speaker 1: to you young man, mister Backland, Thank you, sir, thank you, sir. Uh,
Speaker 1: mister Backland. The we got some water.
Speaker 6: Excellent.
Speaker 1: This This this Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame is special
Speaker 1: for a lot of reasons, but one of them is
Speaker 1: the connection that it makes between amateur wrestling and those
Speaker 1: who transition into professional wrestling. And I wanted both of you,
Speaker 1: and I'll start with you, mister Backland, to talk about, uh,
Speaker 1: your amateur background. People obviously know some people who know
Speaker 1: your amateur backgrounds, so people know much better your WWF
Speaker 1: and pro wrestling background. Talk about the roots of amateur
Speaker 1: wrestling and how did that transition and help you in
Speaker 1: professional wrestling in your earliest time, both training and getting
Speaker 1: accepted and acclimated to the pro ring.
Speaker 5: I started wrestling when I was eighth grade and I
Speaker 5: have a book out right now. It came out September sixteen.
Speaker 5: It's about my whole life. And in eighth grade, I
Speaker 5: went out for sports because I had a father that
Speaker 5: was a very poor drinker. I didn't know nothing about sports.
Speaker 5: I didn't care anything about sports. I was standing on
Speaker 5: the top of a fence and I was going to
Speaker 5: fall on my face and be disaster as far as
Speaker 5: my future is concerned. I didn't care about winning and losing.
Speaker 5: I just didn't want to go home and listen to
Speaker 5: all the garbage. That's how I got started in football, wrestling,
Speaker 5: and track. And I got beat up every day in practice,
Speaker 5: every single day. That's how I started. And I'm very
Speaker 5: happy that started, because at one time it started kicking in,
Speaker 5: started paying off a little bit, and I learned six
Speaker 5: principles from amateur wrestling, six of them. By the time
Speaker 5: I was a senior in high school, not left Princeton,
Speaker 5: Minnesota to come down here to Wallfield there and I
Speaker 5: transferred to North Dakota State University. Used those same principles
Speaker 5: that I learned from our sport, amateur wrestling, and I
Speaker 5: left a bigger market North Dakota State University. I won
Speaker 5: the NCAA tournament in wrestling and in football in about
Speaker 5: a two month time period. And when I left to
Speaker 5: go wrestle in the world of wrestling. I shouldn't say
Speaker 5: the WWF because I started out down in Batan News, Louisiana,
Speaker 5: I knew I was going to succeed.
Speaker 2: I didn't doubt it.
Speaker 5: And there was a lot of people in my hometown
Speaker 5: that's that don't even leave town. You're not mad Dog,
Speaker 5: you're not the butcher, You're just that oh American kid.
Speaker 5: Those people are never successful wrestling business. And because of
Speaker 5: those principles, I didn't let that get into my mind
Speaker 5: at all. I didn't listen to it at all. I
Speaker 5: stayed focused, and when I left Princeton, Minnesota, I had
Speaker 5: a nineteen sixty eight green Chevrolet and pallor. I had
Speaker 5: twenty dollars in my pocket. When I got down to
Speaker 5: Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I had twenty nine cents left. They
Speaker 5: paid me five dollars. Grizzly Smith gave me an envelope.
Speaker 6: I opened it up.
Speaker 5: When I got in the car, I had five dollars
Speaker 5: and now I got five dollars and twenty nine cents
Speaker 5: in my pocket.
Speaker 2: The closest person that I knew to me.
Speaker 5: Was fifteen hundred miles away. I canceled the reservation that
Speaker 5: I made it to Sheridan, and that cost me twenty
Speaker 5: nine cents. Now I've got f five dollars left. I
Speaker 5: went to a supermarket and bought all the tuna fish
Speaker 5: I could buy, and then I bought a can opener
Speaker 5: and sleeping in the trunk of the car that night.
Speaker 5: I'm broke, homeless and sleeping in the trunk of the car.
Speaker 5: But I believed that I was going to climb. I
Speaker 5: started out in the exact bottom, but I believed I
Speaker 5: was gonna go uphill every day, and I never let
Speaker 5: up in that and I succeeded. That's what amateur wrestling
Speaker 5: did for me. That's what amateur wrestling gave to me,
Speaker 5: and that's one of the reasons why I'm here. That's
Speaker 5: one of the reasons why I used to have kids tournaments.
Speaker 5: I wanted children to get into sports because of what
Speaker 5: it did to me, especially wrestling.
Speaker 1: You thank you, Bob, Thank you. Mister Backland iron Cheek
Speaker 1: a similar question to you.
Speaker 6: This is the Hall of.
Speaker 1: Fame where there is a great reverence to the history
Speaker 1: and connections of amateur wrestling and professional wrestling. Can you
Speaker 1: speak about your amateur background and as a foundation for
Speaker 1: your pro career.
Speaker 7: Well, mister Bob Baker said it purfor because wrestling is
Speaker 7: the toughest sport in the Olympic and America and Rendez world.
Speaker 5: And I was very young in Iran.
Speaker 8: Nationalist sports is a firstall and grecor Wan wrestling and
Speaker 8: I have a two Westerlins here, mister Megon and his son,
Speaker 8: and they used to come watch me. I was fourteen
Speaker 8: years old and in the run our practice and mister
Speaker 8: Megan was one of the great thing.
Speaker 5: Corporate were same club.
Speaker 9: I go every day, take a bus from home and
Speaker 9: one hundred and twenty five pm I was.
Speaker 8: I went to the practice practice. Like mister Backland said,
Speaker 8: wrestling is the toughest sport in the Olympic one and
Speaker 8: one and division.
Speaker 2: You want to be the best, you want to be champion.
Speaker 8: You have to pay for your due and every day
Speaker 8: go practice practice. Practice makes us to be perfunction without
Speaker 8: practice hard.
Speaker 7: To be champlain.
Speaker 2: So for me pleasure to outcome in the.
Speaker 8: Waterloo, Iowa then gave country and special Olympic champlain. I
Speaker 8: wresting with mister Gabel in Minnesota in the University of
Speaker 8: Minnesota and also my coach mister Alan Rice from Minnesota.
Speaker 8: I was very young, I'll come to America and then
Speaker 8: only person healthy was from Minnesota, neighbor of the Iowa.
Speaker 10: And I'm sorry, maybe my English not too good.
Speaker 2: I don't want to sweitch too fast or anything.
Speaker 8: But like mister Buckland said, and I paid for my
Speaker 8: mister Buckland, paper is due. And then from Tehran, Iran
Speaker 8: all this country in the world National Sports Crystal and
Speaker 8: Greco Roman.
Speaker 2: And then I made it to the New York.
Speaker 8: From New York, I went to the Minnesota and then
Speaker 8: Minnesota practice practice and my coach was mister Alan Rice.
Speaker 8: And Sir Alan Right is one of a great coach
Speaker 8: in Minnesota. And wipe me from New York to the
Speaker 8: Minnesota and come in the airport pick me up.
Speaker 2: And then I used to live in the in the
Speaker 2: dinky Town and dinky Town not too far from the.
Speaker 8: University of the Minnesota in Minnesota Golfer University. I used
Speaker 8: to live in the Dinkiton and then in the Fortunity.
Speaker 8: And mister Allen Rice come every day other day. Together
Speaker 8: we heard the Minnesota wrestling crop, and Minnesota wrestling crop
Speaker 8: was a very very.
Speaker 2: Good wrestling, a lot of good wrestler.
Speaker 8: My team was an excellent team nineteen sixty nine first place.
Speaker 2: And myself and nineteen seventy and also I'll after you
Speaker 2: read this one and tell me what they was there
Speaker 2: and what found I was and what poets.
Speaker 1: For you did read both of them Philae the PRAMI
Speaker 1: my reading classes by the National Athletics National Athletic Union
Speaker 1: of the United States.
Speaker 6: In the year Roman.
Speaker 5: Numerals you did the glasses of summer.
Speaker 6: He just had eye surgery. What's the Roman numerals?
Speaker 2: The glasses is long read?
Speaker 11: This is.
Speaker 12: For us.
Speaker 2: You up for my dude, so I can make it today?
Speaker 2: What's her iva? Thank ever country? And I want to
Speaker 2: say hello to all my wrestling firms to our year. Hey, no,
Speaker 2: I'm up for my dude. Can you please if.
Speaker 5: You can not read, I give it Greg.
Speaker 1: Greco Roman Wrestling one hundred and eighty three point five.
Speaker 6: And I know this year. It was the year I
Speaker 6: was born, nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 2: So what year was? What country?
Speaker 6: What yours?
Speaker 2: What year?
Speaker 6: What country for the United States? Yeah? Well what a
Speaker 6: sports Creco Roman wrestle.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I want to let you know you can buy
Speaker 2: everything with money except that gold medal.
Speaker 8: Mister, No, you have to pay for your due to
Speaker 8: you come from all this country terror I wrong to
Speaker 8: the Minnesota and you be our sister coach Master Allen
Speaker 8: Rise and make.
Speaker 2: My team to be three years a you champlin.
Speaker 8: From nineteen seventy one and I went to the Mooning
Speaker 8: Olympic Game nineteen seventy two Olympic Game and over there
Speaker 8: who was mister Dane Gabel, one of my greatest Wterloo
Speaker 8: I WA from America, one hundred and forty nine pombs
Speaker 8: and he was over there and we turned him into
Speaker 8: the Srallen Rise. I'm happy to be in the Midwest
Speaker 8: today and especially in the Waterloo, Iowa.
Speaker 2: I love all maners in fence.
Speaker 13: Longing for some nostalgia or maybe you want to learn
Speaker 13: some wrestling history, don't miss the nineties Past cast every
Speaker 13: Friday on the PW Towards Daly Cast Feed. Alex and
Speaker 13: Patrick will transport you thirty years into the past by
Speaker 13: taking you through the Torch issue from that very weak
Speaker 13: follow news from the WWF and WCW and all the
Speaker 13: happenings from across the wrestling industry in real time as
Speaker 13: The Torch reported it thirty years ago. That's the nineties
Speaker 13: Pass cast every Friday for the PW Torch Daily Cast Feed.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the transition to professional wrestling because times
Speaker 1: are different today and the amateur wrestling Olympic experience doesn't
Speaker 1: come around of that often. Obviously, Kurt Angle, who was
Speaker 1: here last year, is one of the exceptions to the rule.
Speaker 1: Mister Backland, talk about what your impression of professional wrestling
Speaker 1: was before you got into it, how it changed, if
Speaker 1: that if at all, and how you were accepted into
Speaker 1: the pro wrestling fraternity. It was more of a challenge
Speaker 1: back then to become accepted, probably than today, in terms
Speaker 1: of the toughness and the dues that you had to pay.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, the five dollars that I got paid
Speaker 5: that night. It wasn't that they were cheap. It was
Speaker 5: that they wanted to find out how bad I wanted it.
Speaker 5: They thought I would go home. They didn't want to
Speaker 5: take the time. They paid me five dollars to see
Speaker 5: if I would last. That's how it entered in there.
Speaker 5: But I'm a very stubborn person, And when I was
Speaker 5: sitting in the car, sleeping in the trunk of the car,
Speaker 5: I found out what it was like to be hungry
Speaker 5: and wonder how in the heck you're going to eat
Speaker 5: your next meal. I went through that, and I believe
Speaker 5: it was a very important lesson to learn, because when
Speaker 5: I started doing a little better, I never wanted those
Speaker 5: days to come back again. I was thinking of marrying
Speaker 5: a young lady from North Dakota State University, and I
Speaker 5: didn't want a family that could ever be introduced to
Speaker 5: that kind of life. I learned to save my money,
Speaker 5: and I did that. I had a friend that made
Speaker 5: it a thousand dollars on his first night. Mister Sheik
Speaker 5: knows him very well. He spent every dime he made
Speaker 5: and he can't write a check for twenty dollars today.
Speaker 5: They kind of did me a favor by testing me
Speaker 5: like that, and myself when I got to Florida, if
Speaker 5: somebody wanted to get into the wrestling business, they went
Speaker 5: through me or Harley Race or Jack Briscoe, and Harley
Speaker 5: Race would hurt him. I didn't have the heart to
Speaker 5: hurt people. I'd work out with him. I trained with
Speaker 5: him for hours and hours, and I would do it
Speaker 5: with him. I wouldn't yell at them and screen him.
Speaker 5: I made them do whatever I did, and then when
Speaker 5: we got done it, say come back tomorrow at six
Speaker 5: o'clock in the morning. We're gonna go do it over.
Speaker 5: And there was only two guys that made it, Paul
Speaker 5: Arndorf and Brian Blair. Those are the only two names
Speaker 5: that I can remember that came back the next day.
Speaker 5: They wanted to find out how tough you were. You
Speaker 5: had to be tougher than the fames. You couldn't if
Speaker 5: you were a wrestler and a fan beat you. That
Speaker 5: would be disgrace to the business. And they were very
Speaker 5: intense about that. Somebody that was tough enough to be
Speaker 5: able to handle people. And it's a road, but it's
Speaker 5: part of an education, the things they do to you,
Speaker 5: because hard work pays off, it really does. I learned
Speaker 5: that when I was a junior in high school. It's
Speaker 5: not a picnic get into the business, and it's not
Speaker 5: a very big promise that you're ever gonna have any success.
Speaker 5: You had to give a promoter two weeks notice and
Speaker 5: that's all he had to give you, and you were gone.
Speaker 5: But I my success came because of the six principles
Speaker 5: that I was living up to. I was in a
Speaker 5: car with three wrestlers.
Speaker 2: One night, three of them.
Speaker 5: We were driving around Atlanta, three of the top wrestlers,
Speaker 5: and you needed the top wrestlers to get a head
Speaker 5: back then, because they were the ones that had the
Speaker 5: contact with the promoters. When I was riding in the car,
Speaker 5: they started smoking marijuana. I rolled my window down, the
Speaker 5: driver rolled it back up. A few minutes later, I
Speaker 5: tried rolling it down again and the window was locked.
Speaker 5: A few minutes later, I asked him to stop the car.
Speaker 5: I didn't give a care whether to do in marijuana
Speaker 5: or not. I didn't care at all. I didn't care
Speaker 5: if they made a bad mistake in their life. But
Speaker 5: I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to
Speaker 5: be there because of a lesson I learned when I
Speaker 5: was in eighth grade about peer pressure, and I wasn't
Speaker 5: going to cut circumb to it again in my life.
Speaker 5: They wouldn't stop the car, and I thought about putting
Speaker 5: the driver in the cross space chicken wing, But ladies
Speaker 5: and gentlemen, I thought maybe that wouldn't be a good
Speaker 5: idea either. I went to a nightclub and I walked home,
Speaker 5: walked home, got home and my wife was a static.
Speaker 5: She was expecting me to be home about one o'clock
Speaker 5: at night. I got home at eight thirty. I didn't
Speaker 5: know where it was when I started walking and I
Speaker 5: explained to what happened. She was very happy and very proud,
Speaker 5: and it was a great moment, but it could have
Speaker 5: been a negative moment for me because I needed them
Speaker 5: as my friends. Part of a long story, but years
Speaker 5: later that was one of the best decisions I ever
Speaker 5: made in my life.
Speaker 6: Thank you for that story, Iron Cheek.
Speaker 1: I'd like to ask you a similar question in terms
Speaker 1: of your acclamation to professional wrestling. It was a little
Speaker 1: different than than what you had been used to in
Speaker 1: the amateur and Olympic ranks. Talk about who helped you
Speaker 1: in those early months and years acclimate too, the changes
Speaker 1: in your career going from amateur to professional.
Speaker 8: Like I said, I was Minnesota, Minneapolis anytime, anytime, my
Speaker 8: team come first, plus Master Allan Rice and the team,
Speaker 8: we go to the NWA and pemother was over there.
Speaker 2: Mister Burgania.
Speaker 8: Mister Gania was a promoter and he was himself one
Speaker 8: of a great college wrestler.
Speaker 10: All American and one of the top in the America.
Speaker 8: And after the Olympic in nineteen seventy two moon in Germany,
Speaker 8: I tell my coach, mister Allen Rice, I'll lecture some
Speaker 8: day to go.
Speaker 10: See mister Wogania and I want to be a professhmen, So.
Speaker 2: Master Allan Rice take me in the office.
Speaker 8: And then after gold medal nineteen seventy one, and uh,
Speaker 8: mister God bless him, he was a good promother.
Speaker 2: And then he gave me the job to drive the
Speaker 2: ring truck and then put on the ring, pack up
Speaker 2: the ring referee.
Speaker 8: All over from Minneapolis to the Winnipeg and from Minnieapris,
Speaker 8: all over to Rochester and all over to the Chicago
Speaker 8: Court in the Midwest.
Speaker 2: So that was the toughest job I had.
Speaker 8: But I loved wrestling so much and I didn't complete
Speaker 8: and even I cannot read and write too good.
Speaker 2: But I was fully wrestling.
Speaker 8: And I'm in Minnesota and a promoter is mister Borgania.
Speaker 8: God releaged to me possibly and then be turning over there.
Speaker 8: Mister Bob Buckram also sometimes come over there, healthy young
Speaker 8: generation and started Minnesota and to the later on I
Speaker 8: traveled the coast to coast and all over the country
Speaker 8: for wrestling started in.
Speaker 2: The professional for me was not easy.
Speaker 8: I have to trace to drive their ring truck, put
Speaker 8: on the ring, and pick up the ring referee and
Speaker 8: drive all over from Chicago to Minneapolis, or from Warapeg
Speaker 8: Canada to Minnieapolis, from all over the mon Iowa.
Speaker 2: To Minneapolis, so anyway Midwest. I was so father wrestling
Speaker 2: from a start, and I said, I cannot cover it.
Speaker 2: I cannot give up the only thing I can do
Speaker 2: in this earth to be a wrestling and be a
Speaker 2: champion someday like.
Speaker 8: Back then, like some greatest we had in the Minnesota
Speaker 8: bread Dragens and myself and some and lot of excellent
Speaker 8: wrestler in Minnesota, and and then I met it to
Speaker 8: the Charlotte coast to coast or all over the country
Speaker 8: over the board.
Speaker 2: No I'm here the moan, I'm here.
Speaker 8: Watloiva the greatest free star wrestler one hundred and forty
Speaker 8: nine pound.
Speaker 2: Then gave it.
Speaker 14: To mister go on with what you were talking about.
Speaker 14: Can you tell us about the the other athletes that
Speaker 14: you broke into professional wrestling with with Virgania's camp. I
Speaker 14: know that you also even at that point where it
Speaker 14: was helping train some of the people in that class.
Speaker 2: Excellent question.
Speaker 8: And that time in the camp it was mister Campetero
Speaker 8: the strongest with lefter in the board and Olympic which
Speaker 8: is waltzed together in the morning Olympic game. Mister Campetero
Speaker 8: and Greg Gania and Jim Burunzeller another football player, passive
Speaker 8: Adrejim Young and Bob Bruger.
Speaker 2: Bob Broger and so via started in the that camp.
Speaker 8: And mesid Rick Flair and nineteen seventy three you started
Speaker 8: in there.
Speaker 6: He did well.
Speaker 5: Great Flair Oh.
Speaker 6: Out to be an ALTI.
Speaker 8: Excellent, it did great and a great former Griff talking
Speaker 8: and but he has started.
Speaker 2: That was a good luck Missabo back then and myself
Speaker 2: in Minnesota.
Speaker 14: Yeah, first, mister Backland, we interviewed you as part of
Speaker 14: a Pro Wrestling Torch podcast about your book, and I
Speaker 14: just want to say I really enjoyed and learned a
Speaker 14: lot from your book. I recommended all wrestling fans. You
Speaker 14: did a tremendous job.
Speaker 6: I just say, there's no one else.
Speaker 1: We did interviews with three weeks in a row, and
Speaker 1: we interviewed about three weeks in a row and he
Speaker 1: was great every.
Speaker 14: Time, every time. So and even the stories you're telling
Speaker 14: now there's more. You have more details, more depth in
Speaker 14: the book.
Speaker 5: So when you read the book, you know me better
Speaker 5: than my brother.
Speaker 14: Absolutely absolutely talk about your time with the Grant with
Speaker 14: Eddie Graham in Florida and how you knew that you
Speaker 14: were on your way to bigger and better things from
Speaker 14: the professional wrestling boss.
Speaker 5: Well Don Florida with Eddie Graham. He was the promoter
Speaker 5: of Florida Championship Wrestling and they had a really a
Speaker 5: great organization going there. Everybody was able to get out
Speaker 5: of the trunk of their car and.
Speaker 6: Live a better life.
Speaker 5: But he was real close to Vince McMahon. He was
Speaker 5: almost like a brother to him. He did a lot
Speaker 5: of business with him against he had they were He
Speaker 5: was a take team champion up there for a long
Speaker 5: long time, and he was one of the ones that
Speaker 5: were very instrumental in letting Vince know that I might
Speaker 5: be the guy. Vince McMahon sor was calling these promoters
Speaker 5: up and asking who would be the best All American boy.
Speaker 11: And.
Speaker 5: To every promoter that they he talked to the on
Speaker 5: they only mentioned one name. And when I got in
Speaker 5: the business, I wanted to outwork everybody. When I got
Speaker 5: in the business, I figured I was going to do
Speaker 5: a few things. I started going to hospitals to visit
Speaker 5: kids in the in the seventies and seventy four seventy five,
Speaker 5: I thought, you know, I'm going to do this, because
Speaker 5: that's called going the extra mile. And I started stopping
Speaker 5: at high schools to help out the amateur wrestling teams
Speaker 5: that were at the schools in the towns that we
Speaker 5: went to in Texas at the time. And I continued
Speaker 5: to do that, and I think it trickled back to
Speaker 5: the promoters in each town that I was doing it in,
Speaker 5: and I think it was worth it in the long
Speaker 5: run because the promoters knew me well enough to say
Speaker 5: to Vince McMahon, this is the guy inside the ring,
Speaker 5: and this is the guy outside of the ring. And
Speaker 5: that's how I actually got my opportunity was because of
Speaker 5: the promoters mentioned in my name.
Speaker 1: Did you know that you can enjoy commercial free versions
Speaker 1: of all of your favorite Weightkelor podcasts and pw torch
Speaker 1: daily casts on Spotify. Just go to patreon dot com
Speaker 1: search pw Torch and subscribe to a VIP membership tier.
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Speaker 14: To follow up on that and moving to the WWF
Speaker 14: and working for a physic Man Senior, A big theme
Speaker 14: in your book is the close relationship you had, close
Speaker 14: business relationship, a personal relationship you.
Speaker 3: Have with with.
Speaker 14: Jay McMahon and like for you to talk about that relationship.
Speaker 5: Because he Vince Senior became a dad to me about
Speaker 5: six months before I got the championship, which is on
Speaker 5: February twentieth of nineteen seventy eight, he promised me that
Speaker 5: he was going to put the belt on me, and
Speaker 5: I was coming up from Florida and wrestling on TV,
Speaker 5: and he was trying to give me exposure to the
Speaker 5: people fans of the WWWS. Back then, I heard that
Speaker 5: some people were trying to talk him out of that
Speaker 5: and that wasn't a good decision. And then when Billy
Speaker 5: Superstar Graham won the belt from Bruno San Martino, Billy
Speaker 5: Superstar Graham wanted to trust trying to talk Vince out
Speaker 5: of putting the belt on me. Also because Billy Superstar
Speaker 5: Graham was having big crowds every night, and Vince Menci
Speaker 5: Senior on the day of the Garden, he got me
Speaker 5: aside and he said they wanted me to not do this,
Speaker 5: but I told him I gave Bob Backland my word
Speaker 5: and we're going to make him a winner. And I
Speaker 5: never forgot that. I think about Vince McMahon every day
Speaker 5: of my life because of his intense read his honor.
Speaker 5: It was a pleasure to work under that man, because
Speaker 5: he wouldn't tell you you were going to do something.
Speaker 5: He'd ask you for an opinion. When you work for
Speaker 5: a Vince new Man. There's no stress. You knew everything.
Speaker 5: And I wouldn't trade my time that I spent with
Speaker 5: Vincewoodman Senior with anything else in the world. Think about
Speaker 5: mister Sheek. You know Vince Man as well as I do.
Speaker 5: Not as long, but I think as well as I do.
Speaker 8: Absolutely, mister Backland, because like I said myself, I was
Speaker 8: the Midwest and also close to course after that myself
Speaker 8: mcwam called me ovent today number one company in the world.
Speaker 2: W W that time was a WWF. I have a
Speaker 2: lot of respect as long as I live for.
Speaker 8: Mister mcwan and his family because he was the number
Speaker 8: one the mother in the world to give me great
Speaker 8: and I'll make a good living later on. Maybe something
Speaker 8: I did bad, I pay for my due. And also
Speaker 8: I want to let the all young generation in the
Speaker 8: America know and if.
Speaker 2: We want to be Champain, you want to be the best,
Speaker 2: and look at the Orange sheet where he comes from,
Speaker 2: where he does.
Speaker 8: But sometimes bad thing push me back and take me
Speaker 8: down and costs me a lot of things. But still
Speaker 8: I have a lot of respect for mister mcqwin senior
Speaker 8: and his son and his family.
Speaker 2: Number one company in the world, and I'm happy to
Speaker 2: do that today. Come here with the.
Speaker 8: Greatest six years, Champlain, mister Bob Backland, to act resting
Speaker 8: with him, plager for me and to see him again
Speaker 8: one of the greatest men. Good hard work. That's because
Speaker 8: mister Rickman noticed that young man deserveth to be champion
Speaker 8: for six years. So I just want to say, I
Speaker 8: mean God to help me to pay for my due
Speaker 8: to our compted New York and mister b mister Buckland
Speaker 8: said that man was whatever he said.
Speaker 2: He meaned, and he was the greatest promoter for.
Speaker 5: Me to our resting for his company.
Speaker 8: And I'm happy to there from mister Bob Buckland to
Speaker 8: the Orange Sheet and all of the songs that Ja.
Speaker 2: Bronnie Hogan and guitar player. Come to there, Yeah, come.
Speaker 8: To there and double with w E number one company
Speaker 8: without mister Bob Buckland, without mister Orangstreet and without w.
Speaker 2: W E legend and an owner and the president mister
Speaker 2: Rickman Hog Hogan was real Jevronie Big Tom j.
Speaker 15: Yeah.
Speaker 11: So now.
Speaker 8: Yeah, no, I'm happy, chorgerel Champlin Chorgen enjoyed my talking.
Speaker 2: Enjoy to come.
Speaker 8: Today the greatest wrestling country. What's in loyal Dan Gable Country?
Speaker 6: Iron cheek? You have changed my follow up question. I
Speaker 6: have a new follow up question.
Speaker 1: You did not get to practice the art of interviews
Speaker 1: or as they're called today, promos in amateur wrestling, probably
Speaker 1: all that often, or on Olympic TELEVI in the Olympics.
Speaker 1: But when you got to professional wrestling, there's cameras, there's
Speaker 1: selling tickets, there's getting the crowd engaged in the fight.
Speaker 6: Did that come naturally to you?
Speaker 1: Was that something that you had help with or that
Speaker 1: you felt comfortable with right out of the bat, because
Speaker 1: obviously with the crowd response here, you know how to
Speaker 1: owne a crowd.
Speaker 9: Well, to me, it was a natural because you know,
Speaker 9: I speak from mind and heart and I feel it.
Speaker 2: What I can say about that topics sport too, I
Speaker 2: grew up since fourteen years old to.
Speaker 8: Right now, and just for me was a natural because
Speaker 8: I mean, you know, I'm in a marcham, I'm a wrestler.
Speaker 8: University of Minnesota coach and assistant coach mister Allen Rights Macevonia.
Speaker 2: I mean, to me, it was really natural because the
Speaker 2: only game I had, only a sport I had all.
Speaker 8: My life and it was a three star girl Roman
Speaker 8: to a com w W holy fame, legend, whatever.
Speaker 9: And I mean to me, it was a natural because
Speaker 9: a lot of good people under me and they helped
Speaker 9: me and teach me.
Speaker 2: And if you want something, you make it.
Speaker 8: And I want to say to the new generation in
Speaker 8: w W, E number one company in the world, all
Speaker 8: of them, they're doing great and all of the battle stuff,
Speaker 8: and then I think a lot of sports is is
Speaker 8: still the best in the number one in the world.
Speaker 2: I first saw you.
Speaker 14: I'm a North Carolina boy and I first saw you
Speaker 14: working for the Crockets in Charlotte, and I remember it
Speaker 14: vividly because you were such a unique character. You were
Speaker 14: such a such a great attraction. Talk about changing from
Speaker 14: Kaser Vassiri in the a w A and then using
Speaker 14: more of your more of your heritage, and talk about
Speaker 14: the pressures of working there during the Iran hostage crisis,
Speaker 14: because I remember I remember as a fan thinking he's tremendous.
Speaker 14: But they know or said the word. You never said
Speaker 14: the word hostage. You never said Kamani. Then, I mean
Speaker 14: I was I was very impressed with that. But I
Speaker 14: and what a great wrestler in the ring when we
Speaker 14: were going to say tremendous stuff, thank.
Speaker 2: You, thank you.
Speaker 8: You know this because Laco said, that's a cheap hit,
Speaker 8: because the real chaplain going in the ring and do
Speaker 8: his best and shrotively gives the people good match, good show, whatever,
Speaker 8: And that to me it was a cheap I can't
Speaker 8: mention too much about politician or about Ayatollahomeny or about
Speaker 8: Iran that I wasn't not involved.
Speaker 2: With a palitician.
Speaker 10: But I was in the North Caroana.
Speaker 8: Mister for Master Jimmy Crockett, her mother and his son
Speaker 8: David and another one. So to me, it was a
Speaker 8: good in North Caroana, and I traveled over there lots,
Speaker 8: and I lock North.
Speaker 10: Carolina but not Krano.
Speaker 2: It was good for me, but not luck New York.
Speaker 10: New York was different than North Carolina. But I had
Speaker 10: a lot of good friend in.
Speaker 8: North Carolinas only Underson brother Jean under Zoon.
Speaker 10: I troubled with the gene and then uh, master Vic
Speaker 10: Prayer was over.
Speaker 2: There and then uh a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: a lot of.
Speaker 8: The big name good wrestler in also in North Carolino
Speaker 8: and I and I enjoyed and but it was different than.
Speaker 2: For me than than New York.
Speaker 14: Okay, just to tell a story, I went to see
Speaker 14: you wrestle Jim Brunzell Christians Hotel here last year at
Speaker 14: the at the w r L Television Studios for from
Speaker 14: for the for the TV and I went with some
Speaker 14: skeptical people, and by the time you and Jim Brunzell finished,
Speaker 14: they weren't skeptical anymore. They were very impressed, and they're
Speaker 14: you know, they were.
Speaker 2: New to it, and they're just like, Wow, I get it.
Speaker 5: And I still that match stays me to this day.
Speaker 2: Change served.
Speaker 8: Jim Bronzilla was a young All American from Minnesota come
Speaker 8: to the North Carolina.
Speaker 2: We had a great match, and I was also mid
Speaker 2: Autlantic chaplain.
Speaker 8: And then Jim burn Zella accident former good wrestler from Minnesota,
Speaker 8: and and we had a good lot of good matches
Speaker 8: in the Minnesota with Jim Braunzilla and another one running.
Speaker 7: Arven And then which is the red Flair was there?
Speaker 8: I mean North Carolina was a top three territory in
Speaker 8: America and New York, Minnesota and North Carolina I was
Speaker 8: we go and the promoter was a mister Georgia Scott.
Speaker 2: And then we traveled from uh Charlotte, come to the
Speaker 2: Georgia make our television tape over there, and was a
Speaker 2: good or for me.
Speaker 8: And and also I had a lot of memory in
Speaker 8: the North Carolano on good for me, but but different
Speaker 8: than New York.
Speaker 1: Yes, mister backlind you talked about vincc mann senior and
Speaker 1: being very close to him. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people would be interested because vincucmann Junior, Vincent K. McMahon
Speaker 1: still in control of the wrestling industry for the most
Speaker 1: part today. When you first were around vincemcmann junior, Vince
Speaker 1: Senior's son, talk about your early impressions of him and
Speaker 1: maybe a funny story and observation and just your your
Speaker 1: your thoughts being around him and imagining that someday he
Speaker 1: would take over for his dad. Did you have confidence
Speaker 1: that he would have the type of success that he has.
Speaker 5: Had, well, Vince. I always thought Vince and Vince Junior
Speaker 5: were together on everything. I thought they were talking behind
Speaker 5: the scenes before Vince Senior came to me with something,
Speaker 5: maybe ending of a match or something, or whether I
Speaker 5: was going to wrestle with a mister chic. I thought
Speaker 5: they were discussing it with each other, and I thought
Speaker 5: they were making decisions on how they thought.
Speaker 6: But I found out but.
Speaker 5: That wasn't true at all. Vince and Vince Junior were
Speaker 5: one hundred and eighty degree different, one hundred and eighty
Speaker 5: degree different.
Speaker 2: If you were going to.
Speaker 5: Make a switch to them, it would.
Speaker 6: Be one hundred and eighty degrees.
Speaker 5: And at the time, it was hard to make decisions
Speaker 5: because it was like fire in the air in the
Speaker 5: wrestling business in nineteen eighty four. It was rocking, and
Speaker 5: there was war, and there was promises made that weren't kept,
Speaker 5: and Vince Senior never hid from the guys. When this
Speaker 5: got stirred up, it was hard to get to Vince Junior.
Speaker 5: It was hard to find him.
Speaker 16: And I.
Speaker 5: Didn't have a liking for Vince Junior for a long time,
Speaker 5: but I understand now about the hardships he had, and
Speaker 5: I'm not very bitter or anything like that. I think
Speaker 5: he's the hardest working man in the entertainment business. He's
Speaker 5: out there every night at Monday night, rod SmackDown with
Speaker 5: his headphones on, telling the referees, why did you miss that?
Speaker 5: Or the wrestler you should have had a better facial
Speaker 5: question he's very into detail and I don't and I
Speaker 5: didn't have any doubts that Vince McMahon r. Wasn't going
Speaker 5: to attain his goals. I didn't doubt that at all
Speaker 5: because he had such a strong found day. The foundation
Speaker 5: of the WWWF back then was built on guys like
Speaker 5: Bruno San Martino, Pedro Morales, guys like Don Morocco, Jimmy Snooker,
Speaker 5: the Iron Sheet, the Iron Chek played a very important
Speaker 5: role in vinced Junior's success. And I know the Iron
Speaker 5: Cheek maybe had some problems with that, but he made
Speaker 5: the right decisions and I know he checked on those
Speaker 5: decisions and thought about him for a long time. I'm
Speaker 5: saying you did the right thing, Iron Sheet, Thank you much.
Speaker 8: The Rockland, I have a lot of struck for you,
Speaker 8: to least you know where our country dot com, what
Speaker 8: I did in America and a special WWE.
Speaker 2: Number one company.
Speaker 8: What I want to say a sid I'm happy to
Speaker 8: v with you today in the Botcher Louai Wa then
Speaker 8: gave a country and I'm very happy.
Speaker 2: To see you again.
Speaker 8: And one of the biggest stay for me and a
Speaker 8: special my young agents and Meghan and his fathers are
Speaker 8: here and my family Here's got a lot of good
Speaker 8: friends in the Boer Loop. I'm very happy to be
Speaker 8: today to see you again since the Olympic nineteen seventy
Speaker 8: two Moonic Germany and now I'm in the batter lou
Speaker 8: Wah after forty years.
Speaker 2: God bless w W and then gave it.
Speaker 6: Admit it.
Speaker 1: You love Nick bar Batty when he co hosts with
Speaker 1: me on the Wade Keller Post Shows. Well, now you
Speaker 1: can listen to him every week on The Nikkis Club,
Speaker 1: a v i P xclusive podcast. Here's Nick to tell
Speaker 1: you more.
Speaker 17: Hey, wrestling fans, It's Nick Barbatty and I'm back with
Speaker 17: the Nickys Club, the place where the family of Nickys
Speaker 17: comes together for big laughs and Shark takes on WWE
Speaker 17: for WrestleMania rumors to surprise returns. I got you covered,
Speaker 17: the Nicky's Club, where the wrestling feels like the coolest
Speaker 17: club in town.
Speaker 1: Nick Barbatti wants to be part of your pro wrestling
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Speaker 1: Torch VIP.
Speaker 14: Mister Backlin will take you back just a little bit
Speaker 14: from what you were talking about. You had a six
Speaker 14: year reign as WWA champion, You sold out Madison Square Guard,
Speaker 14: and you were very successful in the big markets in
Speaker 14: the Northeast.
Speaker 5: Talk about the opponents.
Speaker 14: That you were the most sussel with. I think of
Speaker 14: Don Rocco, who you talked about, my myth from Morocco,
Speaker 14: and what a contrast he was to you. The all American,
Speaker 14: the all American, the Ray Band, Sun Glasses, I think
Speaker 14: I have mine on and Greg Valentine, and but you
Speaker 14: had just the who's who of wrestling villains too to
Speaker 14: do business with.
Speaker 5: Talk about that.
Speaker 14: Talk about your reign, your very successful reign in WF champion.
Speaker 5: Well, Vince mcmanon Senior said he was going to bring
Speaker 5: the best in and ladies and gentlemen. I was trained
Speaker 5: by Harley Race, Dorry Funk, Terry Funk, Jack Brisco, and
Speaker 5: they showed me how to do it, and they were
Speaker 5: training me to be the n w A champion, which
Speaker 5: I didn't know way back when. And in the nw
Speaker 5: A you had to wrestle Dusty Rhodes in Florida, and
Speaker 5: you had to be because you're the champion. But you
Speaker 5: had to make him stronger. You had to make him
Speaker 5: better because he was going to stay in Florida and
Speaker 5: keep making money for that territory. And the next night
Speaker 5: you'd wrestle in Texas and you'd wrestle with some big
Speaker 5: heel and you had to beat the babyface, and you
Speaker 5: had to travel. And I was prepared to go and
Speaker 5: wrestle with people in the WWF that Vince McMahon wanted
Speaker 5: me to, and I was prepared to make them look good.
Speaker 5: I was prepared to let him share in the drawing power.
Speaker 5: Don Morocco, I beat him? How good was his career
Speaker 5: after I beat him? Don Morocco? Sergeant Slaughter, I beat.
Speaker 2: Him, I got carried out of the ring.
Speaker 5: I won the match, but he won the war. I
Speaker 5: was a constant underdog. How good did Sergeant Slaughter do
Speaker 5: after I beat him?
Speaker 11: Became a phenomenon?
Speaker 5: Working with the Iron Shape, Yes, sir, they had matches
Speaker 5: that were above all levels and Jimmy Suka. How good
Speaker 5: did he do? After I got carried out in the stretcher.
Speaker 14: He became the biggest box office draw in the world.
Speaker 5: In a cage match in Madison Square Garden where he
Speaker 5: jumped off the top of the cage. I loved the
Speaker 5: people that he sent to me, and I changed the business.
Speaker 5: The undercard started meaning something. And I'm not saying anything
Speaker 5: negative about Bruno San Martino, but he was a monster,
Speaker 5: strongest guy in the world probably, and he went out
Speaker 5: there and he beat people. He wasn't really thinking about
Speaker 5: their career, but that was his job, and he was
Speaker 5: the draw in the WWF back in his day. We
Speaker 5: were complete opposite. It was one hundred degree difference, and
Speaker 5: I think that's what Vince was trying to make happen.
Speaker 5: It was a little more control for him, and I
Speaker 5: think that was purposely done to change the way the
Speaker 5: business was out.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the when you found out that you
Speaker 1: would be instrumental in that transition with Bob Ackland to
Speaker 1: Hakog and how was that presented to you, and how
Speaker 1: did you feel about the news being delivered that that
Speaker 1: was on its way and how much did you know
Speaker 1: when that was happening.
Speaker 10: Well, I didn't know too much about it to the.
Speaker 2: One month, and I mean just I feel at that
Speaker 2: time was too for the.
Speaker 8: Orange sheet after many years to the traveling and paper
Speaker 8: is due and hard working.
Speaker 2: And all the time was ready to.
Speaker 8: Arg and be the w W Champlain and I've never
Speaker 8: forgotten back then did the great job for me and
Speaker 8: put me over and I want to say, without mister
Speaker 8: McBrien and we got master back then, I cannot be
Speaker 8: here today.
Speaker 15: And it was.
Speaker 10: Great, great feelings for me, like I said, I mean,
Speaker 10: I mean, like I said, I grew.
Speaker 8: Up with wrestling and it was everything was hard for
Speaker 8: me to Geral America but myself not speak English and
Speaker 8: not too many friends and be a bad guy and
Speaker 8: with the Atollo flag and and uh you know speak
Speaker 8: for c and but but I loved my sports so
Speaker 8: much I said, someday we're gonna be my tour to.
Speaker 2: Aby Champlain changed to god, I made it now even.
Speaker 8: I'm handicapped a lot of damage into my knee an
Speaker 8: killed bar because that.
Speaker 2: Was part of my job.
Speaker 8: But but I'm happy is still and to the mister
Speaker 8: McMahan and teactured me and I'm just to meet it
Speaker 8: to be the Hall of Fame or champ whin. I
Speaker 8: cannot forget about my sport. I know I have up
Speaker 8: and down, a lot of damage sometimes in my body,
Speaker 8: and a lot of bad thing on the roads sometimes.
Speaker 10: But still I'm a good example for the.
Speaker 8: Young generation in America and all over the world. If
Speaker 8: you want to be champlain, if you want to be
Speaker 8: the best, you don't mix it. You have to ready
Speaker 8: go practice and paychich to your sport, and then you
Speaker 8: have to love it to be the best. But sometimes
Speaker 8: sometimes bad friend, and I don't want to put the
Speaker 8: hit to the bad friend, and a harder about my
Speaker 8: job a sport, I added something bad thing, and I
Speaker 8: pay for my dude costicity lose a million million dollars,
Speaker 8: but love still changes to God.
Speaker 2: I'm here.
Speaker 1: I want to ask both of you this question, and
Speaker 1: either of you can jump in first. I want to
Speaker 1: know what era of your career you had the most
Speaker 1: fun with what you talk about. You have to have
Speaker 1: a passion for what you do to be successful, and
Speaker 1: obviously your professionals you're doing it for the money, You're
Speaker 1: doing it because the promoter puts a lot of faith
Speaker 1: in you.
Speaker 6: But you have to have fun.
Speaker 1: What part of the business for you, what era of
Speaker 1: it and what aspect of it did you love the
Speaker 1: most that kept it, kept it rolling and kept your
Speaker 1: enthusiasm going.
Speaker 5: Go ahead, well, get to have.
Speaker 8: Every day and the head the gym were parts running
Speaker 8: and stay good shaped barbone and then love my business
Speaker 8: and pay attention to the old time in La Bruno
Speaker 8: Sammartinos and some another and.
Speaker 2: Greatest wrestler in the w W and w O or
Speaker 2: all over the country.
Speaker 8: And uh it was to me was different because I'm
Speaker 8: the first Middle Easter Iranian come to the greatest professional
Speaker 8: wrestling country.
Speaker 2: And it was very hard, very rough and not.
Speaker 8: You know, I mean travel every day and airport to
Speaker 8: the airport, and sometimes I had a cup of.
Speaker 10: Cold beer make me relaxed on some another thing. And
Speaker 10: you know, I mean I cannot say I didn't have it,
Speaker 10: but I had it.
Speaker 2: It's good to have it. But also moderation is number one.
Speaker 5: I want to talk about the art of a wrestling match,
Speaker 5: and this art isn't there anymore.
Speaker 18: You start out here and you want to end up here,
Speaker 18: and you build that slowly throughout the match. You're trying
Speaker 18: to draw the people in the crowd into it slowly
Speaker 18: as you go through these certain moves in motion, and
Speaker 18: you listen to the crowd and they tell you what
Speaker 18: what direction you're going to go by the way they react,
Speaker 18: and you build it. You build it, and you build it,
Speaker 18: and you want to blow the roofus at the end,
Speaker 18: not in the middle. There's a lot of matches.
Speaker 5: The middle is bigger than the end.
Speaker 15: Back in the day, the peak always had.
Speaker 5: To be at the end. You go home at the end.
Speaker 5: You want to get those people involved in liking it.
Speaker 5: I had people that I had me and the the
Speaker 5: the cold call the short arm scissor, and I try
Speaker 5: to pick him up once and I couldn't do it.
Speaker 5: The next time I tried to pick them up, people
Speaker 5: were more involved and they cheered louder. And then the
Speaker 5: next time, on the third time, I'd try to do
Speaker 5: it again and they the crowd would even start louder.
Speaker 5: Because you thought you were helping me get out of
Speaker 5: the hold. Well you were. You were making me stronger
Speaker 5: by they are adrenaline in my body. I picked up
Speaker 5: Paul Cogan with one arm. I could have never did
Speaker 5: that in practice. I gave the toomic knee drop to
Speaker 5: crush your Blackwell three four hundred and fifty pounds because
Speaker 5: of you, and because of you being involved the match.
Speaker 5: My whole life in the wrestling business was like a
Speaker 5: wrestling match.
Speaker 2: It started at the.
Speaker 5: Bottom, and it built, and it built and it built,
Speaker 5: and you got behind me stronger and stronger on a
Speaker 5: day to day base.
Speaker 15: When I walked into the ring, there's nothing that Vince
Speaker 15: McMahon asked me to do things.
Speaker 2: I never questioned it. There was no option like that.
Speaker 2: I had to do it.
Speaker 15: In the dressing him one time he said, called Ernie
Speaker 15: Ladd six ten, three.
Speaker 5: Hundred and fifty pounds, He's gonna do the Tomic knee
Speaker 5: drop to you. Ernie Ladd said after the match, I
Speaker 5: wouldn't have believed it unless I was there when Vincent
Speaker 5: Man said that, I couldn't question it.
Speaker 2: I had to do it.
Speaker 5: It was like a wrestling match my career. I loved
Speaker 5: every minute of it, even though it wasn't fun. Sometimes.
Speaker 2: I loved the climbing the ladder.
Speaker 5: I loved the excitement, and I love the story told.
Speaker 5: And I was trying to be a good role model,
Speaker 5: and I'm still trying to be a good role model.
Speaker 5: I go out there and I want to inspire every
Speaker 5: person in the building of all ages, because it's never
Speaker 5: too late to make your life better. Thank you very much,
Speaker 5: ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 2: I gotta get to the gym. I gotta work out
Speaker 2: right now. Thank you, good night, and we'll see you later.
Speaker 5: Thank you, thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Appreciate you.
Speaker 5: Good good, Thank you, do you much your back, thank you,
Speaker 5: thank you.
Speaker 16: You got that.
Speaker 19: Okay, that's right, Hold up, thank you quick.
Speaker 2: You're doing right up here.
Speaker 19: Okay, oh, thank you.
Speaker 11: Well.
Speaker 1: I don't know Bob knows a chic, but we we
Speaker 1: have three more hours to fill of podcast TODs.
Speaker 6: So no, no, I'm kidding.
Speaker 2: My STERI back then, my ster back then, steal you
Speaker 2: have it.
Speaker 5: You don't have No, he's not je Ronnie.
Speaker 8: He's a very good man.
Speaker 10: I have a lot of him, you know, mister Bob Bucke.
Speaker 20: Yeah, thank you, yeah, yeah, thank you, mister Blank Josolen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: She for your stories and your insights and sharing your
Speaker 1: time with the audience today. Thank you everybody for joining
Speaker 1: us here at the museum. It's it's great show and support,
Speaker 1: and we thank you for coming here from Iowa or
Speaker 1: across the country. And showing support for UH, something that
Speaker 1: I have been touting since last year when I made
Speaker 1: my first appearance here.
Speaker 6: This museum is special.
Speaker 1: It is run by good people and I think they
Speaker 1: are paying a tremendous tribute in some very classy ways
Speaker 1: that deserve the attention and the attendance that we're giving it.
Speaker 1: And to have Bob and Cheek here and to be
Speaker 1: able to share stories and insights with them is a
Speaker 1: big part of that. And you guys being here is
Speaker 1: why it can happen. So thank you for that too.
Speaker 2: Thanks, thank you.
Speaker 1: All right, well, thanks for joining me here. This is
Speaker 1: WAYD Keller back after listening in on the podcast recorded
Speaker 1: last month. I appreciate all of you for joining me
Speaker 1: today here at PW Torch. iPhone users, if you're listening
Speaker 1: to us on the native podcast app on your iPhone,
Speaker 1: you can unlock our commercial free versions of our free
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Speaker 1: Click on that. There's some free samples of VIP shows
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Speaker 21: Wake Up, Hey, Wake Up. You're not from Portland and
Speaker 21: didn't grow up in the sixties seventies radies. You have
Speaker 21: no idea what the hell I just did? The hell
Speaker 21: did I just say? I'll tell you what I said,
Speaker 21: as you probably heard a couple of week earlier. This week,
Speaker 21: about a week ago or so, that the legend very
Speaker 21: pitch man for Portland Wrestling, one of the great sponsors
Speaker 21: of Portland Wrestling, Tom Peterson, passed away. It was very sad,
Speaker 21: you know. He he had been he had been sick
Speaker 21: for for quite some time. So that's that's understandable. But
Speaker 21: you know, and he was eighty six years old. That's
Speaker 21: that's another thing. But Tom was a legend, you know.
Speaker 21: And I don't know where wherever you grew up. And
Speaker 21: this is the thing, if you're too young to remember this,
Speaker 21: there were you know, there was a time when how
Speaker 21: do you how do you put this? There was a
Speaker 21: time when you had these crazy, these crazy local commercials
Speaker 21: with these crazy pitch man I guess carvel Cakes in
Speaker 21: in New York would qualify.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 21: You know, we talked about I think on the first
Speaker 21: episode we talked about Bob Luce and his wrestling, and
Speaker 21: we talked about Moose Cholac and UH and the commercials
Speaker 21: he did for his place. Also we've talked about Mad
Speaker 21: Dog Vashan when he did commercials in the Minneapolis area
Speaker 21: for god what beer was it. I don't even remember
Speaker 21: it off the top of my head. But Tom Peterson
Speaker 21: was in that vein and you know, and in the
Speaker 21: world we live in, and and don't get me wrong,
Speaker 21: I you know, the world we live in is a
Speaker 21: decent place. When we've got things are much slicker, things
Speaker 21: are faster, things communicate better. But one of the things
Speaker 21: we are missing are those crazy local characters like that.
Speaker 21: It's just it's just not the same. There was There
Speaker 21: was cal Worthington in California, the car dealer who would
Speaker 21: eat a bug to make you a deal, or stand
Speaker 21: on his head to make you a deal, and then
Speaker 21: he got kicked out of California for our ethical business practices.
Speaker 21: But by god, those commercials were funny, and that's that's
Speaker 21: really what matters, isn't it. So we had Tom Peterson
Speaker 21: in Portland all that stuff. In Seattle, there was Dick Balch.
Speaker 21: There were the the Rainier Beers, the stampeding herd of
Speaker 21: Rainier Beers, these giant bottles of beer that people put
Speaker 21: over their heads and they would run around. They were
Speaker 21: like like a stampeding herd of deer or bison or something,
Speaker 21: but they were these large beer bottles. So there was
Speaker 21: all kinds of crazy stuff. And Tom Peterson fit that mold.
Speaker 21: And I don't know where you grew up or if
Speaker 21: you even know what the hell I'm talking about, but
Speaker 21: that's why, you know Tom Peterson was such a big
Speaker 21: big deal.
Speaker 10: Was because.
Speaker 21: He uh, you know, he was just he was the
Speaker 21: guy in Portland. I mean, he was very amus in Portland.
Speaker 21: He you know, he's in a bunch of movies because
Speaker 21: of his affiliation with with Portland. And you know, he
Speaker 21: was he was eighty six years old, so I mean
Speaker 21: he was born in nineteen thirty and so obviously he
Speaker 21: had very different sensibilities and different things. He had that
Speaker 21: he had this flat top marine haircut, and that was
Speaker 21: part of his his persona. I mean, this thing was
Speaker 21: you know, you could you could take a level and
Speaker 21: put it on top of his head and I'm sure
Speaker 21: that bubble would not move on Tom Peterson's hair, that
Speaker 21: flat top marine haircut. But also part of his appeal
Speaker 21: was his crazy, his crazy, nutty wacky commercials. And that's
Speaker 21: what the fun of his of his whole deal was,
Speaker 21: is that he was Tom Peterson and that he uh,
Speaker 21: he was just fun.
Speaker 12: He was just.
Speaker 21: He was just fun. Wake up, wake up. And I
Speaker 21: mean everybody loved Everybody loved Tom Peterson. Everybody did. There
Speaker 21: wasn't there's not anybody alive who did not love Tom Peterson.
Speaker 21: And he'd been sick for quite some time. He's, uh,
Speaker 21: he'd suffered from Parkinson's and his wife Gloria take care
Speaker 21: of him, and you know, he'd been in this home
Speaker 21: for for quite a while.
Speaker 12: And uh.
Speaker 21: And and and of course you you know you've probably
Speaker 21: heard regardless of whether or not you you have listened
Speaker 21: to uh you know, you know Portland Wrestling or not.
Speaker 8: You know, you know that.
Speaker 21: But one of the sponsors went bankrupt and that sponsor,
Speaker 21: that sponsor was Tom Peterson. And he didn't go out
Speaker 21: of business, he just went bankrupt. He bought stereo superstores
Speaker 21: in the early nineties and that just kind of took
Speaker 21: care of a lot of his capital and so he
Speaker 21: was still in business up until like two thousand and nine,
Speaker 21: I think. But it was just the timing of you know,
Speaker 21: the problems with the Oregon Boxing Wrestling Commission, you know,
Speaker 21: the territories dying out anyway, don owen getting older, and
Speaker 21: then you know, Tom Peterson lost a lot of money.
Speaker 21: And also the TV station KPTV Channel twelve. You know,
Speaker 21: like a lot of TV stations discovered that it was
Speaker 21: that it was easier.
Speaker 2: To just have.
Speaker 21: Just have you know, recorded programming and not have to
Speaker 21: do live because they would go out to the Portland
Speaker 21: Ports Arena every Saturday night and set up these cameras
Speaker 21: and these I was there's got to be a picture
Speaker 21: somewhere online of these cameras. These cameras were like like
Speaker 21: refrigerators on their side, like refrigerators on a dolly. These
Speaker 21: cameras were ridiculously huge and ridiculously out of date. I mean,
Speaker 21: and this is another thing about wrestling is is in
Speaker 21: the uh in the the sixties, they're still making the
Speaker 21: move to color TV. And you may see like some
Speaker 21: older older shows that say, you know, the World of
Speaker 21: Disney in color, or someone make the phrase live and
Speaker 21: in color, Well that was because you know, they're much
Speaker 21: like the transition to HD, where everyone was talking about
Speaker 21: HD a few years ago and being an HD was
Speaker 21: a big deal that in that era, being in color
Speaker 21: was a big deal. I know that sounds crazy, but
Speaker 21: it's true. As a Christopher crosslong, wasn't it. But we're
Speaker 21: not caught in the world between New York City the
Speaker 21: Moon in New York City, but we are talking about
Speaker 21: you know, wrestling was kind of behind the times, and
Speaker 21: it took a while for Portland Wrestling to get into color.
Speaker 21: And that probably explains because the handles ridiculously huge TV
Speaker 21: cameras for Portland Wrestling, so anyway, Tom Peterson passed away.
Speaker 21: He was a legend as far as advertising goes in Portland,
Speaker 21: and you know, he's you know, you can't have a
Speaker 21: conversation in Portland and talk about Portland wrestling without talking
Speaker 21: about Tom Peterson. And you can't talk about Tom Peterson
Speaker 21: without talking about Portland wrestling. It's just they're just they
Speaker 21: just correspond. Later on, they did this great thing and
Speaker 21: I tried to text him. He hasn't gotten back to me.
Speaker 21: I don't if he got a new phone or he
Speaker 21: doesn't like me anymore.
Speaker 11: What.
Speaker 21: But I tried to get the grappler on because there
Speaker 21: was a probably like nineteen eighty eight, eighty nine, maybe
Speaker 21: maybe ninety, I don't know. Towards the end, Tom Peterson
Speaker 21: would have those cardboard stand ups of him, and he
Speaker 21: brought one into the studio, and the grappler was kind
Speaker 21: of a promo about who knows, you know, Billy Jack
Speaker 21: Haynes or whoever. He was talking about, Steve Doll whatever,
Speaker 21: just out of nowhere. Towards the end of the interview,
Speaker 21: he goes and I'm sick of these Tom Peters. I'm
Speaker 21: sick of Tom Peterson, and he rips the who roofs
Speaker 21: the head off of the Tom Peterson cardboard cutout. It
Speaker 21: was hilarious, but you know, and Tom was like, I
Speaker 21: gotta get revenge on the grappler somehow. I'm not strong,
Speaker 21: I can't fight him, but I'm gonna get revenge somehow
Speaker 21: on the grappler. And I don't know that he ever did,
Speaker 21: but it was still really funny. Tom Peters said he
Speaker 21: used to stack up TVs in the Crow's Nest or
Speaker 21: it did. The shows they would stack up TVs sort
Speaker 21: of looked like a game show, looked like twenty thousand
Speaker 21: dollars pyramid or something with all of the TVs and
Speaker 21: he would stack up in the uh in the Crow's Nest.
Speaker 21: But yeah, it's a time gone by. And I hope
Speaker 21: wherever you live that you had had somebody, some crazy,
Speaker 21: wacky zany guy who does commercials, and you know, there's
Speaker 21: it's some people still do them, but I don't know
Speaker 21: what it is that they don't seem to fit in
Speaker 21: this era. They don't seem to be as effective as
Speaker 21: they used to be. And I don't maybe it's just
Speaker 21: because it's a different era, different generation, different sensibilities, different
Speaker 21: senses of humor. But there's like this one guy who
Speaker 21: has like a mattress store and he's got it's like
Speaker 21: matt Barn or Mattress Ranch or something, and it's it's
Speaker 21: got like all of these cutout animals all over it,
Speaker 21: and it's, well, it's fugly. I'm not gonna lie, it's
Speaker 21: it's hideous. And he's got a wacky tie and he
Speaker 21: dances in his commercials and I find it annoying. I
Speaker 21: don't find it endearing anymore. And I don't know if
Speaker 21: it's just that I've gotten older or production is slicker now,
Speaker 21: but it's just I don't know, it's just different. Speaking
Speaker 21: of different, Oh, by the way, we do have magnum Ta.
Speaker 21: He's gonna come up here in a little bit on
Speaker 21: the show, and I'm very excited about that. He's gonna
Speaker 21: be at fan Fest in Charlotte, and I'm coming to
Speaker 21: fan Fest and Hell's coming with me. Sorry, some friends
Speaker 21: on Facebook we're talking about Tombstone. But anyway, fan Fest
Speaker 21: this Wednesday, I'm filling in for Pat McNeil. Pat's gonna
Speaker 21: go on a much deserved, much earned vacation and I'm
Speaker 21: in between vacers, so I'm gonna go to fan Fest
Speaker 21: and we're going to do the live cast on Wednesday.
Speaker 21: I think it was five thirty. I think it's five
Speaker 21: thirty Eastern, two thirty Pacific. I think that's when Pat
Speaker 21: does his. Anyway, we are gonna do it live from
Speaker 21: the from the hotel there, the Hilton or whatever it
Speaker 21: is there, and we're gonna do it live there and
Speaker 21: we're hopeful to get My goal is that there's going
Speaker 21: to be a whole bunch of wrestlers and stuff setting
Speaker 21: up that night for fan Fest, and they're gonna come
Speaker 21: by and we're gonna go, hey, so and so come here,
Speaker 21: and they're gonna talk story and tell some tall tales
Speaker 21: and they're gonna take off and set up their booth
Speaker 21: and get ready to sell their gimmicks. Then another guy's
Speaker 21: gonna come in and they're gonna talk, and maybe a woman,
Speaker 21: superstar wrestler, whomever will come in. I just picture this,
Speaker 21: this whole thing where just there's a whole bunch of
Speaker 21: walk ons. I want it to be like the old
Speaker 21: Johnny Carson show where there's just walk on after walk
Speaker 21: on after walk on. That's that's what I want. I
Speaker 21: make no promises because it's going to depend on who
Speaker 21: the hell's there, and I don't know. I can't control
Speaker 21: who's going to be there, but we're gonna try so
Speaker 21: Wednesday myself and then Britt Whitmeyer from The Brad and
Speaker 21: Britt Show is going to be co hosting and he's
Speaker 21: going to be there too, So we are going to
Speaker 21: be hopefully doing a fun, live, active, crazy show and
Speaker 21: maybe we'll talk about SmackDown if anyone cares. Still good, God,
Speaker 21: what a terrible show, but we don't talk about that here.
Speaker 21: Oh and by the way, this is funny. So I
Speaker 21: was talking with Greg Price, the guy who promotes the
Speaker 21: show and everything, and I was like, so, is anybody
Speaker 21: going to be there on Wednesday? Setting up ahead of time?
Speaker 21: And he goes, yeah, let me see if I can
Speaker 21: get Jim Cornette to come over and talk to you.
Speaker 12: Oh.
Speaker 21: I had a good laugh over that.
Speaker 12: I laughed and laughed.
Speaker 8: Laugh.
Speaker 21: Hang on a second, I'm still laughing, man, Is that funny?
Speaker 21: Let me see? Because Jim Cornett hates Wade Killer and
Speaker 21: Bruce Mitchell and Mark Madden too. I think, even though
Speaker 21: Madden's not with the Torch anymore of it, Jim and
Speaker 21: Jim Cornette, I don't know if you know this or not,
Speaker 21: but and I may be talking out of school here,
Speaker 21: I don't know, but Jim Cornett is known to harbor
Speaker 21: a grudge from time to time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so.
Speaker 21: I gently explained to Greg that, no, I don't think
Speaker 21: that's going to be happening. Don't think Jim Cornett's going
Speaker 21: to be on the show, even though I've never met
Speaker 21: the man, never had the pleasure harbor no ill will
Speaker 21: against him. Pretty sure Jim Cornett is not going to
Speaker 21: be on the show.
Speaker 22: Are you a fan of AW looking to sit back,
Speaker 22: relax and listen to some like minded podcasters who share
Speaker 22: your passion?
Speaker 16: Do you want to be topped off the ledge after
Speaker 16: a segment that has you wondering what the heck are
Speaker 16: they thinking?
Speaker 22: Do you want to join a discussion on what AW
Speaker 22: is doing right and what they could do to improve?
Speaker 22: Then join me Joel and me Greg for.
Speaker 16: The All Elee Conversation Club every Friday on the pw
Speaker 16: torch Live Cast. Fee search pw torch in your podcast
Speaker 16: app and subscribe to pw torch Daily Cast or stream
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Speaker 21: Enny moving on, I still think that hilario. Yeah, Jim, Yeah,
Speaker 21: no problem.
Speaker 2: Hey yea, Jim, We've got a podcast we need you
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 21: Oh yeah, no problem, Sure, what is it?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 12: What is it?
Speaker 11: The Torch.
Speaker 12: Then he'd just go off f bombs boom boom boom,
Speaker 12: promo boom boom, probably mixed Vince Russo in there.
Speaker 21: Hey, yeah, that would be That would be a beauty.
Speaker 21: So anyway, Wet Whitby and myself live from fan Fest
Speaker 21: and hopefully we'll get some people setting up speaking of
Speaker 21: fan fast. Magnum Ta is gonna be coming up in
Speaker 21: a few minutes talk to us about his career. And
Speaker 21: by the way, he started in Portland, Oregon. And we'll
Speaker 21: tell you why a guy from Virginia started in Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 21: And I'll give you a hint two words, buzz Sawyer
Speaker 21: so and if you know buzz Sawyer's reputation, I think
Speaker 21: you've probably put a couple of things together. But anyway,
Speaker 21: we'll talk to Magnum coming up here a little bit.
Speaker 21: There's another thing we'll talk about, speaking of old time
Speaker 21: studio wrastling. You know, you probably if you're younger, you
Speaker 21: know about Black Saturday when Vince McMahon got control of
Speaker 21: the Georgia office, when the Brisco sold him their stock.
Speaker 21: And there was that Black Saturday when Vince was the
Speaker 21: host of Georgia Championship Wrestling or World Championship Wrestling or
Speaker 21: whatever they called it. And it was a taped show
Speaker 21: and it was all taped matches which we'd already seen
Speaker 21: before on the USA Network a number of times. And
Speaker 21: that went on for quite a while. But what is
Speaker 21: not talked about a lot? And I've looked for this
Speaker 21: on YouTube and it's now up on YouTube, and this
Speaker 21: is exciting if you haven't seen this. And I just
Speaker 21: tweeted it out last night because I couldn't sleep because
Speaker 21: it was I have air conditioning, but it was too
Speaker 21: damn hot in my house. Hey, what that happens? Anyway,
Speaker 21: I slept like craplers. So I'm a little cantankerous this morning.
Speaker 21: You've been warned anyway. So I was serving YouTube, which
Speaker 21: I want to do, and they have like they did.
Speaker 21: I think they did only like two or three weeks
Speaker 21: two for sure, but right before WrestleMania because part of
Speaker 21: the agreement with that Ted Turner had with whomever had
Speaker 21: the contract for TBS Wrestling was you had to do
Speaker 21: a live show or you know, a show from the
Speaker 21: TBS studios. You know, you couldn't just tape and do
Speaker 21: those shows. And Vince McMahon and Ted Turner butted heads
Speaker 21: and butted heads and butted heads, and finally Vince relented
Speaker 21: and they did did the WWF did the show from
Speaker 21: the TBS studios right before WrestleMania. So we're reaching the
Speaker 21: crescendo of WrestleMania. It's a peak for wrestling. It's very exciting.
Speaker 21: And there's this live show in a studio format, which
Speaker 21: is crazy because the WWF always did arenas for the
Speaker 21: most part. I mean sure back in the Worldwide Wrestling
Speaker 21: Federation days, and you know, when Hulkogan first won the title,
Speaker 21: they did, you know, shoot an Allen Town where they
Speaker 21: had before, but not long after that they moved to
Speaker 21: arenas in larger venues. And so the WWF is always
Speaker 21: about this big spectacle, the big arenas and the banners
Speaker 21: and all that stuff. And there are two shows which
Speaker 21: are now up on YouTube, during the whole Black Saturday
Speaker 21: debacle where the WWF is in the Georgia Championship Wrestling,
Speaker 21: the TBS studios, there's the background that World Championship Wrestling had,
Speaker 21: and there's Guerrilla Monsoon and there's Freddie Miller and they
Speaker 21: bring in everybody and the crowd is going nuts and
Speaker 21: deservedly so because it's it's the WWF and it's in
Speaker 21: this tiny studio and it's it's fascinating. So I tweeted
Speaker 21: it out last night this morning, whatever it is, you
Speaker 21: can go to my Twitter at gim Valley and you
Speaker 21: can see it for yourself, or look up on YouTube
Speaker 21: wellu WF Georgia Championship Wrestling and there's about two hours
Speaker 21: worth of stuff. And I knew it existed because I
Speaker 21: watched it as a kid and it blew my mind
Speaker 21: as a kid, and is seeing it as an adult,
Speaker 21: it still blows my mind because there's a certain energy
Speaker 21: and excitement about it because it's right before the big WrestleMania,
Speaker 21: so the media frenzy. And then also to see you know,
Speaker 21: hul Cogan is in the studio cutting promos, and to
Speaker 21: see so many of these guys, it's like, oh my god,
Speaker 21: they were you know, there's Roddy Piper, he was in Georgia.
Speaker 21: Oh my god, there was Orange Orf he was in Georgia.
Speaker 21: Jimmy Snooker Georgia. All of these guys had been in
Speaker 21: that studio before under different auspices, but still and so
Speaker 21: it'll just it blew my mind. So you'll see the
Speaker 21: Junkyard Dog who made appearances in the TBS studios. You'll
Speaker 21: see I said, Snooker wrestles Junkyard Dog. Andre the Giant
Speaker 21: comes in.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 21: In the first hour, Gorilla Monsoon doesn't even know who
Speaker 21: Freddy Miller is. He just calls him his colleague. And
Speaker 21: then by the next week he knows who Freddy Miller is.
Speaker 21: But it's just it's mind blowing. It's like an episode
Speaker 21: of the Twilight Zone. To watch the WWF in the
Speaker 21: Georgia studio and the TBS studio with the World Championship
Speaker 21: Wrestling NWA background, the Crockett background doing the show, and
Speaker 21: like I said, the crowd is going nuts. I don't
Speaker 21: recall a Georgia crowd an NWA crowd being quite as loud.
Speaker 21: And probably the reason is is because you know, those
Speaker 21: are their guys and they can see their guys. But
Speaker 21: now you've got you know, these people are not the
Speaker 21: hometown people, and they're the people you see on MTV
Speaker 21: and all that stuff. By the way, if you think
Speaker 21: Piper was was never got crazy later on, Oh yeah,
Speaker 21: he's he's, he gives he gives a completely nonsensical rambling interview.
Speaker 21: It's it's crazy. So yeah, so you should look it up.
Speaker 21: It's WWF Georgia Championship Wrestling. Or look at my Twitter
Speaker 21: as I tweeted out a link yesterday, So go to
Speaker 21: at Jim Valley and you can you can look it up.
Speaker 21: So there you go. So, uh, we're here, we're live.
Speaker 21: You can tweet me at Jim Valley. You can email
Speaker 21: at PW Torchlive Cast at gmail dot com, or you
Speaker 21: can call in it. What is the number six four
Speaker 21: six seven one six four six seven two one nine
Speaker 21: eight two eight. It's Jim Valley. It's the PW Torch
Speaker 21: Live Cast and Magnetier is gonna be coming up in
Speaker 21: just a little bit.
Speaker 2: Wake up, hey, you wake up.
Speaker 11: It's our stuff, a pucking Lop.
Speaker 21: Sail where free is a very good crime, free mini brunch,
Speaker 21: free Tom Peterson haircut.
Speaker 4: Free gift with every purchase.
Speaker 21: That's our famous seventiece living room group brow only four
Speaker 21: ninety eight, but a free six by nine area runs.
Speaker 18: Join us this weekend, have a chip, take a sip,
Speaker 18: sit right down and have a clip.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 4: That's Tom Peterson and Glorious Too.
Speaker 21: That was after they restructured after bankruptcy. It went from
Speaker 21: Tom Peterson's to the new name of the company was
Speaker 21: Tom Peterson's and Glorious Too. And throughout the sixties, seventies
Speaker 21: and eighties. Gloria wasn't part of it up until the nineties,
Speaker 21: but that's when they restructured after the bankruptcy. And again
Speaker 21: Tom Peterson had this flat top. So the gimmick was
Speaker 21: is you could go get a free Tom Peterson haircut,
Speaker 21: and you know he gave it. What you know, he
Speaker 21: had the wake Up wake Up that was his gimmick
Speaker 21: and he would he would show or give away depending
Speaker 21: on the promotion, alarm clocks Tom Peterson alarm clocks that
Speaker 21: would talk and say wake up with his face on it.
Speaker 21: There were t shirts and wristwatches and all of this stuff.
Speaker 21: And I mean, he was such a great character and
Speaker 21: such a such a great community member, and you know,
Speaker 21: he lived a great life and before Portland was weird
Speaker 21: and Hipsterville. You know it was you know, in the
Speaker 21: Pacific Northwest. We were you know, we got by on
Speaker 21: the timber industry, on logging and natural resources. So you had,
Speaker 21: you know, all of these loggers and Tom Tom fit
Speaker 21: in with bull as far as you know, he had
Speaker 21: the the ironic thing going on for the hipsters now
Speaker 21: and then also you know, fit in in a more
Speaker 21: realistic way with with with the people who were who
Speaker 21: were her logging men and women, who are mountain men
Speaker 21: and women. But I mean that's you know, he had
Speaker 21: Grammar furniture, and he also had you know, if you
Speaker 21: lived in the Double Wide. So there you go. But
Speaker 21: Tom Peterson, a great supporter of professional wrestling, passed away
Speaker 21: at the age of eighty six, and everybody in the
Speaker 21: Portland area is gonna miss him. It's big news. It
Speaker 21: was big, big news. And like I said, so no
Speaker 21: matter where you lived, I'm sure you can relate as
Speaker 21: far as if you're old enough to remember some crazy
Speaker 21: local business that advertised and there's really like I said,
Speaker 21: I think that has kind of gone by the by
Speaker 21: the wayside, but who knows, maybe maybe it'll come back
Speaker 21: in some shape or form or another. But yeah, so
Speaker 21: So Tom Peterson a big deal when it came to
Speaker 21: Portland wrestling and a big supporter of Portland wrestling. I
Speaker 21: mean seriously, I mean how many how many people do
Speaker 21: you know that are associated with just you know one thing,
Speaker 21: you know, Tom Peterson. No one talks about any the
Speaker 21: other shows that he that he sponsored, just Portland Wrastling
Speaker 21: live for the Portland Sports Arena. So it's Jim Valley,
Speaker 21: It's Saturday Morning Wrestling coming up here, magnet who is
Speaker 21: going to talk about?
Speaker 4: Uh, the the n W a fan.
Speaker 21: Fast, the Charlotte FanFest every year, and he of course
Speaker 21: is a staple of the fan fast. You can go
Speaker 21: to NWA Legends dot com and take a look at
Speaker 21: that and see more inform me. Yeah, they do a
Speaker 21: Hall of Fame, but I don't think they can call
Speaker 21: it a Hall of fame, so they call it the
Speaker 21: Hall of Heroes. In one year, I think when I
Speaker 21: was there, they inducted Jim Cornett in the Midnight Express
Speaker 21: and they've they've inducted everybody, and now they're going to
Speaker 21: uh induct Dusty Rhodes and Magnum of course, who was
Speaker 21: a man who was a protege of Dusty Rhodes is
Speaker 21: going to induct Dusty and we'll talk to Magnum about
Speaker 21: his relationship with Dusty, and we'll talk to him about
Speaker 21: his career. Of course, Magnum, you know, one of the
Speaker 21: things fans love to play booking what if or you know,
Speaker 21: you know, fan booking. I'm trying to think of the word.
Speaker 21: I can't think of it, but one of it would
Speaker 21: have happened if and one of one of the big
Speaker 21: ones is always what if Magnum Ta hadn't been injured
Speaker 21: in that crash? And I want to talk to him
Speaker 21: about it, just to get his thoughts on where he
Speaker 21: thinks he would fit in, because not long after his crash,
Speaker 21: wrestling got really silly, you know, Crockett went out of business,
Speaker 21: and Jim Hurd and then you had, you know, for
Speaker 21: w CW, you had all this goofy crap, You had
Speaker 21: the ding dongs, and you had all of this stupid
Speaker 21: garb and I just wonder, I mean, the guy like
Speaker 21: Magnum Tier, where the hell would he fit into all
Speaker 21: the news because he was just a plane speaking, boots
Speaker 21: hit you with the belly to belly, straightforward, kick ass
Speaker 21: kind of guy. And it's just I wonder sometimes where
Speaker 21: he would fit in this goofy circus. The WCW became
Speaker 21: not terribly long after his accident because when Crockett's sold
Speaker 21: I don't know, but we can talk to him about that.
Speaker 21: We're gonna talk to him about a lot of things.
Speaker 21: But we're very excited to have on the show a
Speaker 21: guy whose career was relatively short. But I think it
Speaker 21: speaks to the quality of his work and the character
Speaker 21: of his persona and his person that he is well
Speaker 21: remembered and well thought of to this day joining us now,
Speaker 21: I'm joining me. Jim Valley here on the PW Torch
Speaker 21: Live cast is the one and only Magnum Tia Magnum.
Speaker 21: Thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Well, it's pleasures. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 21: Hey man, So you've got the fan Fest. It's coming
Speaker 21: up this weekend. You're you're a staple of the fans Fest.
Speaker 21: What do you what do you enjoy about the about
Speaker 21: the fan Fest?
Speaker 4: Well, I enjoy the reunion, the reunion with so many
Speaker 4: of my counterparts that I don't have the opportunity to
Speaker 4: see uh without an event like this, and and then
Speaker 4: relive in memories with the fans and then bringing their
Speaker 4: kids and you know they told their kids all about
Speaker 4: you know, the history and uh things they grew up watching.
Speaker 4: And you know, now YouTube and the WWE network, you know,
Speaker 4: all have brought those things back full circle where uh
Speaker 4: you know, they made the things we did thirty years
Speaker 4: ago current in today's time.
Speaker 1: Before pushing play on the weight Teller, Pro Wrestling post shows,
Speaker 1: check out pw torch dot com and our TV review
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Speaker 1: show if you didn't see it. That's your way to
Speaker 1: get an overview of what happened before you dive into
Speaker 1: our in depth analysis of the key happenings on the show.
Speaker 1: That's pw torch dot com. You're home for live TV
Speaker 1: coverage every Monday, Wednesday and Friday with my TV Reports,
Speaker 1: and also check out our NXT and Impact coverage on
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays, our Collision reports on Saturday nights, and
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Speaker 1: on weekends, all waiting for you at pw torch dot com.
Speaker 21: And you know, I mean all the fans, they love you,
Speaker 21: they remember you. One of the things I made it
Speaker 21: a couple of years ago to FanFest and you and
Speaker 21: I we talked briefly, and I'm totally sure you completely
Speaker 21: remember it. I'm kidding, But anyway, I grew up in
Speaker 21: Portland watching Don Owens Portland Wrestling and I remember you
Speaker 21: briefly here around what was it like nineteen eighty one?
Speaker 4: It was actually nineteen eighty and that was my very
Speaker 4: first match in wrestling, was working for Donna Owens there
Speaker 4: that Portland Bowl and out he had converted into a
Speaker 4: wrestling arena.
Speaker 21: You know, we talked to let's let's let's let's talk
Speaker 21: about that before we get into exactly the roundabout way
Speaker 21: you made it to Portland. But one of the things
Speaker 21: I talk about on the show is like, I, you know, I,
Speaker 21: you know, I used to talk with with Buddy Rose
Speaker 21: and Kurt Hennig and such and and they would always
Speaker 21: talk about the uniqueness of the what was dubbed the
Speaker 21: Portland Sports Arena. And you mentioned that it was an
Speaker 21: old bulling alley. What was your reaction the first time
Speaker 21: you saw that place?
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I had so many things going through
Speaker 4: my head because again this was my first actual n
Speaker 4: ring appearance. YEA ever, and I had like little or
Speaker 4: no training, and my very first match was all over
Speaker 4: there television show. Russell was no Sawyers, So it was,
Speaker 4: uh the surroundings, uh kind of paled in comparison of
Speaker 4: just the anxiety of doing what I did for the
Speaker 4: very first time in my life.
Speaker 21: So go ahead and tell this story, So about how
Speaker 21: how how a Virginia guy ends up going to to Portland.
Speaker 4: Well, I met I met Bruna Sawyer when he was
Speaker 4: in the mid Atlantic. Uh, I was I was trying to,
Speaker 4: you know, figure my way into the wrestling business. And
Speaker 4: you know, back then it was so guarded, it was
Speaker 4: so protected. It was a really tough thing to do.
Speaker 4: And through just the backstage, uh backstage introductions that I
Speaker 4: had to people because of friends I knew in a
Speaker 4: law enforcement that had introduced me to some people, guys
Speaker 4: who worked security there. Buzz and I struck up a
Speaker 4: relationship and he was going to be the one to
Speaker 4: train me and get me into wrestling. But before all
Speaker 4: that was to be able to take place in the
Speaker 4: Carolina's uh, he went to work for Don Owens went
Speaker 4: out to Portland. So he had me go pick up
Speaker 4: his little brother Brett down in Tampa, Florida, and I
Speaker 4: brought him all the way back up to mid South,
Speaker 4: uh to to uh bill watch Territory. While I hung
Speaker 4: out with him, and guys like Jimmy Garvin and and
Speaker 4: uh oh gosh, Junkyard Dog and Jason Saint Roberts and
Speaker 4: all those guys met. You know, just a lot of
Speaker 4: people kind of watched watched the rest and watching what
Speaker 4: was going on all the time, waiting for Buzz to
Speaker 4: call me up and and you know, bring me, bring
Speaker 4: me up there. And I never got the call. So
Speaker 4: I got in my car, drove cross country. I drove
Speaker 4: all the way across California, then all the way up
Speaker 4: the coast of Portland and showed up on his doorstep
Speaker 4: and opened the door and had to a little sock
Speaker 4: and make a long story short. I had one workout
Speaker 4: in a ring prior to getting into business where it
Speaker 4: was me, it was Buz, this little brother Brett, and
Speaker 4: uh Princess Victoria, and we all worked out in the
Speaker 4: rink for about two hours.
Speaker 3: Me.
Speaker 4: He had our surfle hit the ropes up to do
Speaker 4: a few basic things and uh then Russ got of
Speaker 4: history my first match with Buzz on TV. Uh he
Speaker 4: had un tony to me, told Don that I'd been
Speaker 4: working get him to south from Bill and nobody ever
Speaker 4: checked it out, obviously, And they put me right to
Speaker 4: work seven days a week, and I learned everything I did.
Speaker 4: Uh im prompt too the hard way in the ring.
Speaker 21: Now, had you given buzz Sawyer money prior to him leaving?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I had, But you know, in respect of those passed
Speaker 4: on and and things, uh kind of water under the
Speaker 4: bridge or really don't want to belavor it.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 4: He sure he did some unscrupulous things to me, and
Speaker 4: I think the Undertaker as well. Uh, but you know it.
Speaker 4: Uh you know, why go gooky? You talking about that?
Speaker 4: When had it not been for that, Uh yeah, my
Speaker 4: story would be what it is today.
Speaker 21: Well, I just want to say that you're obviously a
Speaker 21: very determined You were a very determined young man at
Speaker 21: that point. I think a lot of people probably just
Speaker 21: would have written off the losses and and moved on.
Speaker 21: So I think that says something about your character and
Speaker 21: determination and desire to make it in your chosen field.
Speaker 4: Well, I was young, I was strong, uh that I
Speaker 4: didn't think that there was anything in the world I
Speaker 4: couldn't do.
Speaker 21: Uh.
Speaker 12: And you know.
Speaker 4: So the sky was the limit. Once somebody cracked the
Speaker 4: door and let the end, I wasn't going away.
Speaker 21: So do you do you have any memories of wrestling
Speaker 21: in Portland other than other than your first match or
Speaker 21: were you so focused on your craft that you sort
Speaker 21: of had blinders on?
Speaker 4: Well, the Savage was the booker, and uh, you know,
Speaker 4: like I said, it was just a real learning experience.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 4: And I was so green, and the people there didn't
Speaker 4: know how green I really was. But like less than
Speaker 4: a month of the business, they put me in there
Speaker 4: with Gene Kaninski who was a former world champion, and
Speaker 4: we were we were working in uh oh gosh, where
Speaker 4: were we at? Anyway, we were working somewhere in port
Speaker 4: up there in the Washington state, No Seattle where it was.
Speaker 4: I remember he did the spot and he picked me
Speaker 4: up and dropped me behind him, and he told me
Speaker 4: to push him in the roads to do a row up.
Speaker 4: Well I didn't know what a row up was. I mean,
Speaker 4: I didn't know all the lingo, all the terminology in
Speaker 4: the spots. He dropped me behind him because I didn't
Speaker 4: know what to do. I'm bullied him back, superlex him
Speaker 4: on his head and I remember he after the match.
Speaker 4: He got a big kick out of that because he
Speaker 4: was a bigger, rough, tough guy and he thought I
Speaker 4: was pretty salty to Uh, you know, I've done that
Speaker 4: to him. So, you know, all the guys were really helpful.
Speaker 4: They're really good natured. I mean they saw my desire,
Speaker 4: and uh, I got to put in a lot of
Speaker 4: rig time. I was only there for six months, but
Speaker 4: I was brought some seven days a week, and uh,
Speaker 4: you know, if you're gonna I had more rig time
Speaker 4: in the first my first six months of the business
Speaker 4: than these four kids breaking into the indies will in
Speaker 4: you know, probably six years.
Speaker 21: Talking with a magnum Ta who's going to be at
Speaker 21: the nw A fan fest this weekend in Charlotte. You
Speaker 21: can go to n w A Legends dot com. He's
Speaker 21: going to be interviewing, inducting his mentor, Dusty Rhodes. Will
Speaker 21: talk about that coming up here just a couple of minutes.
Speaker 21: But first let's let's go to the phones. Let's go
Speaker 21: to Brian from Phoenix. Brian, you got some questions VIP member,
Speaker 21: you got some questions for magnum t A.
Speaker 4: Good morning, m Good morning.
Speaker 23: Morn A Magnimum fan of yours. However, I grew up
Speaker 23: in Detroit, uh, and I didn't Detroit didn't the cable
Speaker 23: until really nineteen eighty, late summer for eight light for
Speaker 23: me eighty, so I didn't see your career real time unfortunately,
Speaker 23: you know, like DVD's two things, But that makes sense.
Speaker 21: Hey, Brian, you're bleaking up a little bit of my end.
Speaker 23: Okay, I'll try to move around.
Speaker 4: A little bit.
Speaker 23: And I'm looking right now, Okay, thank you. I'm looking
Speaker 23: at the Legends of Missouf Wrestling DVD set that I
Speaker 23: got from w w E, and I really enjoyed, uh
Speaker 23: your mattresson here. But the question I want to ask about,
Speaker 23: Magnum is about the the build up for your match
Speaker 23: with Mister Wrestling too. Can you talk a little bit
Speaker 23: about the segment where you were out at the farm
Speaker 23: and you and Jim Ross and mister Wrestling who were
Speaker 23: working out were actually as Jim wasn't working out, you
Speaker 23: and Mister Wrestling were working out and Jim they're filming
Speaker 23: and interviewing everything. He talked about filming that and building
Speaker 23: all that part up of the of that few clicks.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, it was, uh, it was to be To
Speaker 4: be fair, I was really the only one working out
Speaker 4: two was like, that's what was kind of touching me.
Speaker 4: And they were having me do all these things that
Speaker 4: I was doing, take after take after take, and and
Speaker 4: it was, uh, it was it was really interesting, uh
Speaker 4: because the one thing I remember the whole thing was
Speaker 4: they got me what did they wanted to fill me
Speaker 4: running and running up to where they were at, uh,
Speaker 4: and then conclude with a little little interview or something afterwards.
Speaker 4: And if you don't think that's a hard thing to
Speaker 4: do to do, m keen wind sprints to to get
Speaker 4: you know, get up to a place where they want
Speaker 4: to do a take talking about being blown up. That
Speaker 4: was that was really an interesting thing. But it was
Speaker 4: it was a great program that we worked And uh,
Speaker 4: you know, my heat's off Jolly Walker because he he
Speaker 4: ends up turning heel and he's been a baby basit
Speaker 4: in entire career and you know when he finally got it,
Speaker 4: he really ended up being a good heel.
Speaker 21: And those those That's a great question, Brian, because in
Speaker 21: those vignettes, Magnum, you are a long ways away in
Speaker 21: the background and we watch you run the whole way.
Speaker 21: It's not like you're off camera and then suddenly come,
Speaker 21: you know, strutting up from off camera. You are a
Speaker 21: long ways back. Mary, it is. It did look tiring.
Speaker 21: I mean you looked legitimately tired. And I don't think
Speaker 21: I blame you.
Speaker 4: Uh you know, I was a really good shape. But
Speaker 4: the things that they were we were doing and doing
Speaker 4: multiple takes, uh yeah, I mean it was something that
Speaker 4: uh yeah, I wasn't mentally prepared for exactly what we
Speaker 4: were out there to do. But again, back then, if
Speaker 4: they said go do it, you know, I just said
Speaker 4: where and win and and you know, go get it done.
Speaker 4: And that's that's what we did.
Speaker 23: Anything else, Briand Yeah, the last question I have for you, macdum,
Speaker 23: I'm not sure how much you follow uh today's wrestling.
Speaker 23: I know you at least watched Testa Blanchers matches. But
Speaker 23: so the million Dollars kneelest that mister wrestling who is
Speaker 23: trying to teach you again? I love that name, million
Speaker 23: Dollar Dalist. Can you you think that's something that could
Speaker 23: be brought back to the current wrestling or is that
Speaker 23: just a little too eighties? Is early eighties wrestling?
Speaker 4: Well, you know, anything can be brought back. It be
Speaker 4: how it'd be depending on how people sold it. You know,
Speaker 4: if somebody, uh, if somebody did it and everybody was
Speaker 4: you know, selling like they'd been hit by a freight train,
Speaker 4: then yeah, you know, I mean the coal stole, the
Speaker 4: stone cold cutter and uh, you know the records and
Speaker 4: things that you know guys did, none of it would
Speaker 4: amounted to an LB's that the people didn't sell belly
Speaker 4: suit plants that I used. You know, there's there's so
Speaker 4: many people used for a high spot. They could all
Speaker 4: use it for a high spot. But if I do
Speaker 4: it and the people didn't get up and they got ten,
Speaker 4: then it made a difference. So you know, it's all
Speaker 4: about you know, perception and and how the guys around
Speaker 4: you put over what you're doing. You could, you know,
Speaker 4: I mean, you can make anything exciting. It's just been
Speaker 4: on how you're working.
Speaker 23: Great again, gentlemen on Magnama. Hope people have a real
Speaker 23: good weekend. Thanks a lot, Jeff for put me on
Speaker 23: and macnam was great talking to you, and have a
Speaker 23: real good day.
Speaker 21: Gelements, there's Brian v Ip you member from Phoenix dialing
Speaker 21: up at six four six eight. You know that's interesting
Speaker 21: you bring up the belly to belly because I guess
Speaker 21: Shane Douglass used it a few years ago, but it
Speaker 21: was like a standing belly to belly. I never understood
Speaker 21: why no one did the whipping the ropes and then
Speaker 21: the belly to belly like you did. That seemed like
Speaker 21: a like a move that you could do out of
Speaker 21: it seemed to have I guess, all of the criteria
Speaker 21: you want for an exciting finish. It can come out
Speaker 21: of nowhere, it can be decisive. Is that move particularly
Speaker 21: difficult when it's whipped off the ropes because it doesn't
Speaker 21: seem like a lot of people picked it up? Uh
Speaker 21: after your career?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 4: I mean to me, it was a very natural thing
Speaker 4: uh to do.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 4: And I actually did it to somebody in the ring
Speaker 4: when I was a rooky and I was breaking in
Speaker 4: and I had a guy that was greener than I
Speaker 4: was and didn't really know what he was doing in
Speaker 4: the ring, and I got so frustrated with him. I
Speaker 4: couldn't you get him to do anything that I just
Speaker 4: grabbed him and ended up suit budging him like right
Speaker 4: out of his boots. And I realized that I had
Speaker 4: That's where my strength center was my lower back and
Speaker 4: my pulling ability and my wrestling. That ground just gave me,
Speaker 4: gave me the ability to do that move to anybody,
Speaker 4: whether they wanted to go, didn't want to go, didn't matter.
Speaker 4: I could do it. So I kind of put that
Speaker 4: in my mind, and you know, for the future, I
Speaker 4: used that for a finish because basically, you're finished. You've
Speaker 4: got to be an execute on anybody at any time, anywhere.
Speaker 4: And I knew that that was something I could do. Anybody,
Speaker 4: whether they were you know, two hundred pounds or three
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty pounds, I could still do it. So,
Speaker 4: you know, for me, it just came natural. I don't
Speaker 4: I don't know whether I remember one time Dustie and
Speaker 4: I when we were wrestling America, see we I think
Speaker 4: it was with the Multi Brothers or something. We threw
Speaker 4: them both in the ropes and we gave him a
Speaker 4: double Donny de Belly off the ropes and Dustie never
Speaker 4: done it before his life, and you know, it wasn't
Speaker 4: any big deal. He just you know, he did it.
Speaker 4: So you know, I don't think it's not hard. I
Speaker 4: think it's just a matter of you know, in God's minds,
Speaker 4: it's not, you know, exciting enough. They're trying to always
Speaker 4: come up with something you know they don't think somebody
Speaker 4: has seen before, or something with that next level of excitement.
Speaker 4: So maybe for that reason it's kind of god overlooked.
Speaker 24: Need an extra dose of positivity in your wrestling podcasts,
Speaker 24: will come join me Alan farrel Over in the Progress
Speaker 24: Paradise at penoge Torch VP as we mask on the
Speaker 24: bright side of wrestling and focus on some of the
Speaker 24: great matches and shows from around the world, be it
Speaker 24: the US, Japan, Europe or Mexico. There's always a place
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Speaker 24: celebrating the glorious career of Jusian thunder Lighter and Our
Speaker 24: Eye Was There when shows where our guests will join
Speaker 24: me to talk about a classic bout that they were
Speaker 24: in attendance for. We love variety and you can expect
Speaker 24: lots of it at the Progress Paradise. Detailed PW Torch
Speaker 24: VIP subscription information and a list of all the VIP
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Speaker 24: And yes, all VIP podcasts are compatible with popular podcast
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Speaker 24: them directly from our ad free VIP mobile site. See
Speaker 24: you in the Paradise.
Speaker 21: Now speaking, I want to touch on the knee lift
Speaker 21: of Mister Wrestling number two. I think I just got
Speaker 21: done rereading Jim Duggan's book where he talks about the
Speaker 21: worst thing about was it the knee with mister Wrestling too?
Speaker 21: It was that slap on the back that's stung?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, because I was just sound effect, you know,
Speaker 4: he make it. He hit you at the back too
Speaker 4: with with the you know, big smack to make it
Speaker 4: sound like that Need was hitting he that hard in
Speaker 4: the chest. And that's where the you know, the panel
Speaker 4: was coming from. So yeah, absolutely, uh godn't remember.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously I took it to Need for everyone
Speaker 4: I worked with him as we turned heel, But you know, frankly,
Speaker 4: compared to some of the other things we did in
Speaker 4: the rank, that was kind of my.
Speaker 21: Huge So after after Portland, did you go to Florida?
Speaker 21: Is that where you went?
Speaker 4: I went from Portland to San Antonio for Jim Blanchard
Speaker 4: and I worked there for six months and still as
Speaker 4: a rookie.
Speaker 12: Uh.
Speaker 4: Ray Fernandez uh came in about the same time I did,
Speaker 4: and he and I trained together for for two three months.
Speaker 4: Uh in the gym, I was there and uh he
Speaker 4: he was, of course, you know, one of the young
Speaker 4: young uppers coming slight myself and uh and while I
Speaker 4: was there, Mike Graham came to saying, come to Russell something.
Speaker 4: The jug bols everyway handing chip or something, and him
Speaker 4: and I struck him a friendship just in this natural camaraderie,
Speaker 4: and he went on and told his dad about me.
Speaker 4: The next thing I knew, he called me up asked
Speaker 4: if I wanted to come to Florida. And so after
Speaker 4: my first year of the business, I made my way
Speaker 4: to Tampa and uh then I spent a year and
Speaker 4: a half in Florida.
Speaker 21: And is that where you met Dusty?
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 4: When I first came there, Dorry Funk Junior was the booker,
Speaker 4: and so I think for about that first six months
Speaker 4: Dorry was booking and then uh, he he left and
Speaker 4: Dusty came in and he and I met, and within
Speaker 4: amount a week or two I got and spent some
Speaker 4: quality time together. Found out we had a lot of
Speaker 4: common interests and just talking a lot of things in life.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, struck up a friendship, the loss of the lifetime.
Speaker 21: We're talking with Magnum t A and he's going to
Speaker 21: be inducting his mentor and friend, Dusty Rhodes into the
Speaker 21: nw A Legends Hall of Heroes this weekend at the
Speaker 21: Charlotte FanFest. You can go to n w A Legends
Speaker 21: dot com and get get some more information. Let's take
Speaker 21: another phone call from Magnum t A. Let's go to
Speaker 21: A seven seven three, seven seven three. You're on the
Speaker 21: live cast with Jim Vallely. Who's this and where you
Speaker 21: calling from?
Speaker 2: Bors from Chicago Orris?
Speaker 21: What do you got for Magnum Magnum?
Speaker 2: Hey?
Speaker 11: Ji?
Speaker 25: My first question because I think you're gonna hit on
Speaker 25: what if Magnum didn't have this accident and how how
Speaker 25: his impact was you know, being in the industry at
Speaker 25: any time would have changed. I think you're gonna cover that, right, Yeah,
Speaker 25: we can talk about Well I had the same thought,
Speaker 25: but since you go, I can go to something else
Speaker 25: and y'ah, you know, talk about that. My thing says
Speaker 25: he's inducting Dusty Rose.
Speaker 2: What do you think?
Speaker 25: My first question is what do you think about Cody
Speaker 25: Roles having to lead the biggest company, wrestling company to actually,
Speaker 25: so to speak, be himself, actually be a wrestler.
Speaker 5: That's my first quo.
Speaker 4: You know, everything in the business is a journey.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 4: I think you know, Cody, you know, wants to find
Speaker 4: himself back into the you know, the Cody Rhoades character
Speaker 4: and be himself. And you know, there's a you know,
Speaker 4: there's a writing staff and a group there the w W.
Speaker 4: You know, he's creating so many things and so much stuff.
Speaker 4: But I don't know exactly. You know, I haven't talked
Speaker 4: with him about it. I thought with this Bob and Michelle,
Speaker 4: but yeah, I know he wanted to go experiment and
Speaker 4: do some other things that you know, I wouldn't rule
Speaker 4: out the fact that Cody might not be back one day.
Speaker 4: I think if he goes out and uh, you know,
Speaker 4: proves what he can do, uh, you know, working his
Speaker 4: Cody Rose and get big enough uh following and people
Speaker 4: out there supporting, uh supporting that that he could uh
Speaker 4: you know, bring that character back to the w W
Speaker 4: at some point in time. He's still a very young man.
Speaker 4: He got the whole world in front of him, but uh,
Speaker 4: you know, timing is everything, so they just weren't ready
Speaker 4: for that day right now. And uh I respect his
Speaker 4: decision to uh, you know, go do what he wants
Speaker 4: to do, go be his own man. And uh so,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm watching that situation closely because I mean,
Speaker 4: he's he's a special guy in my life. He's my
Speaker 4: he's my godson. And uh though we you know, we
Speaker 4: weren't close as he was growing up because you know,
Speaker 4: obviously life the things I've had dealt to me changed
Speaker 4: my path and being geographically at different places, you know,
Speaker 4: I very much have a you know, a tie to
Speaker 4: him because of his dad.
Speaker 2: Excellent.
Speaker 25: The other second question is sure, uh hey, he nailed
Speaker 25: it for me.
Speaker 5: And my second question is the women's wrestling.
Speaker 25: What do you think about what do you think about
Speaker 25: Charlotte Charlotte the Sasha Banks is actually how they're coming
Speaker 25: into the business and and actually we're getting back to
Speaker 25: the women's professional wrestling and finally getting out the divas
Speaker 25: era and getting back into you know, and it's taken
Speaker 25: and it took him to It took us the time
Speaker 25: of a Charlotte rich player's daughter and a few others,
Speaker 25: which is surprising to you know, come up through n
Speaker 25: XT and and get us back to women's wrestling.
Speaker 4: Well, I applauded the movement because there's tremendous female athletes
Speaker 4: out there in the world that can represent women's rights
Speaker 4: like the way it deserves to be represented. And certainly, uh,
Speaker 4: you know, you know Ashley Charlotte Rick's daughter, Uh, she
Speaker 4: is a world class athlete in and of itself. She's
Speaker 4: paint her dues and on the roads, and you know
Speaker 4: she she worked at at NXT for so long that
Speaker 4: Dusty was a big part of coaching her, developing her
Speaker 4: her persona and her ability to speak all the mic.
Speaker 4: And she's got the uh, you know, she's gotten all
Speaker 4: the right stuff in the ring. Johnson Banks does too.
Speaker 4: Sasha Banks, you know, honestly, Uh is one of is
Speaker 4: just an absolutely incredible worker. And uh she doesn't have
Speaker 4: the size of the stature that it actually has, but
Speaker 4: she's got all the right stuff to be the champion.
Speaker 4: And uh, you got to mix it up. There's got
Speaker 4: you know, one person can't just dominate all the time.
Speaker 4: It's gotten to be knocking forth in a challenge and
Speaker 4: a picture painted that there's a contest going on with
Speaker 4: somebody trying to take the tunnel, because if you don't
Speaker 4: think there's a possibility of that happening at some point
Speaker 4: in time, you're gonna lose you some fans. So you know,
Speaker 4: they're both young in their careers, and I think we're
Speaker 4: gonna see incredible matches and I think Nashville could continue
Speaker 4: to grow as a competitor. I can imagine you know,
Speaker 4: Page getting back in there. Uh, you know how good
Speaker 4: a worker she is. I mean, there's this there's some
Speaker 4: real depth of that women's division and fact that it's
Speaker 4: really competitive because there's not as many opportunities and spots
Speaker 4: for women all the wister as there are the best.
Speaker 5: Excellent.
Speaker 25: I really enjoyed your answers. My last, my last, My
Speaker 25: last thing is the moves, which you guys are pretty
Speaker 25: much hit on it. How you know your belly belly
Speaker 25: was effective as it was and actually see I think Bailey,
Speaker 25: which is another popular woman wrestler, I think she was
Speaker 25: using the bell of the back for a finisher, which
Speaker 25: is awesome, you know to see. Uh, And that's the
Speaker 25: first thing I thought about was you, because I know
Speaker 25: you're the only person that I watched, you know, in
Speaker 25: my history to watch the wrestler that took that movement
Speaker 25: and not it wasn't a spot move, you know, for
Speaker 25: the next move, for the next move, but actually was
Speaker 25: a finisher.
Speaker 5: And to see her which is a woman's wrestler with.
Speaker 25: You know, like I said, we haven't we hadn't got
Speaker 25: that many women at the time, to see her executed too.
Speaker 25: The first flashback I had was you and I think
Speaker 25: that was awesome and I want My question was to
Speaker 25: that is, what do you think of how like you said,
Speaker 25: simple moves is not working anymore because they use you know,
Speaker 25: you had to take the DDT used to be a finisher,
Speaker 25: it's not now, and you think it's wrong that they
Speaker 25: don't turn into it takes ten moves ten finishers to
Speaker 25: take out somebody or this is where it had to
Speaker 25: evolve to or can we go back to, you know,
Speaker 25: where you had to actually use brass nuskles to cheat
Speaker 25: or something like that.
Speaker 5: You know, the simple form, the basics, that's what you know.
Speaker 4: Honestly, doctor, wiggle my nerves and you know, be twenty
Speaker 4: seven in the shape I was in, uh you know
Speaker 4: back in nineteen eighty six, and I had the opportunity
Speaker 4: today it would be it would be like stealing candy
Speaker 4: from a baby because they've done so much that somebody
Speaker 4: that came in today that did something that is completely
Speaker 4: was sold and put over like a you know, instead
Speaker 4: of the like you said, fifteen tennis booths that they
Speaker 4: kick out just to get a pot. But if somebody
Speaker 4: came out today that was you know, still did exciting
Speaker 4: things that had one you know, one thing in their
Speaker 4: arsenal that it was over game set point that you
Speaker 4: could get over like a million bucks. And you know,
Speaker 4: to me, it's wide open for a you know, for
Speaker 4: a character for somebody who's that serious. They can't you know,
Speaker 4: just you bring it all. Uh, you know, you could,
Speaker 4: you know, the Scott could be the limit for what
Speaker 4: you could accomplish.
Speaker 21: Thanks, Boris, I appreciate the calling it magnum that that
Speaker 21: you bring up an interesting point and one of the
Speaker 21: things I want to talk to you about because after
Speaker 21: your crash, I mean, you were still there so you
Speaker 21: know better than I, but wrestling sort of pivoted and
Speaker 21: with the with the Crockett sale and everything, and and
Speaker 21: people came in who you know and you worked with,
Speaker 21: who didn't seem to really know what you were what
Speaker 21: they were doing, wrestling got really silly as far as
Speaker 21: w c W, I guess in an effort to to
Speaker 21: to to get the kids like w w F did
Speaker 21: at the time. I mean, you know, we we saw
Speaker 21: a lot of a lot of a lot of stupid crap,
Speaker 21: which you what you lived through because you were you
Speaker 21: were backstage through through a lot of this. But where
Speaker 21: do you think that you as a wrestler and a performer,
Speaker 21: had it not been for the crash, where would have
Speaker 21: magnum t a the wrestler have fit in to all
Speaker 21: of that ridiculous crap? Would you have just gone to
Speaker 21: w w F, what how would you fit in with
Speaker 21: all of that, all of just the just the ridiculous.
Speaker 4: Well, I wouldn't have ever fit into the ridiculous as first,
Speaker 4: because you know that just wasn't me.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 4: The tact of the matter, the tact of the matter is,
Speaker 4: you know, you know, everybody knows, you know, they were
Speaker 4: pushing me like nobody had ever been pushed and the
Speaker 4: World Championship was was a foregone conclusion. But the fact
Speaker 4: of the matter was that I had no I had
Speaker 4: no desire to wrestle thirty years old. Uh, most people
Speaker 4: don't know that I had this huge passion for racing
Speaker 4: and I had the opportunity to drive many parses race
Speaker 4: car at a sharp motor speedway because of Rustling, I
Speaker 4: got to to, uh uh, you know, go out there
Speaker 4: and drive the US to back the car, and I
Speaker 4: really wanted to have a couple of year run with
Speaker 4: with the world title, and I wanted to be seingling
Speaker 4: off into racing, so you know that, you know, all
Speaker 4: the stings and all the things that work to come
Speaker 4: could have still come because I didn't really I didn't
Speaker 4: want to be one of those guys that couldn't couldn't
Speaker 4: find the graceful way out and didn't know when it
Speaker 4: was time to hang it up. I wanted to be
Speaker 4: remembered in my prom at the top of my game,
Speaker 4: being the best I could be. And you know, if
Speaker 4: the money had been just absolutely insane, you know, obviously
Speaker 4: that would have kept me in a little bit longer.
Speaker 4: But uh yeah, driving that race car around Charlotte Hunter
Speaker 4: Speedway at one hundred and ninety miles in Iron was
Speaker 4: the biggest rush I've ever had in my life. You know,
Speaker 4: that was before Jeff Gordon and all that kind of
Speaker 4: good stuff, and there was a big tie in with
Speaker 4: wrestling and racing, and that was somewhere that you know,
Speaker 4: I really wanted to go.
Speaker 21: Rick Flair said a pretty high bar as far as
Speaker 21: championship matches, and we saw a lot of people that
Speaker 21: that that took the title, that couldn't that couldn't maintain
Speaker 21: the fans interest and keep their imagination. How do you
Speaker 21: think you would have pivoted from from magnum Ta US
Speaker 21: champion and world title challenger to magnum Ta defending NWA
Speaker 21: and or WCW World Heavyweight Champion.
Speaker 4: But I think the only glimpse that we can see
Speaker 4: into it, besides just sheer speculation, is to look at
Speaker 4: the program with Nikita and I. Nikita was green as
Speaker 4: the grass on the ground, as strong as anybody you
Speaker 4: ever laid your hants on, and stiff, and Nikita and
Speaker 4: I on many many occasions went out and went thirty
Speaker 4: and forty five minutes and tore the house down. So
Speaker 4: I have to think that if Kenneth had opportunity and
Speaker 4: being able to general the match as a world champion
Speaker 4: does that I probably could have gotten the job done.
Speaker 4: I feel like I was kind of a precursor to
Speaker 4: the Steve Austin type character. And that I wasn't a babyface.
Speaker 4: Babyface wasn't a cutsy little babyface. It was a kind
Speaker 4: that would smack, you know, mob goggle of the mouth
Speaker 4: for saying the wrong thing. And I was kind of
Speaker 4: anti authority, even though I tried to represent values and
Speaker 4: principles and things that were good. So with that said,
Speaker 4: you know, I can't ever see myself, you know, being
Speaker 4: the cowardly heeled type character like Flair could portray and
Speaker 4: do so well. But I think I could have. I
Speaker 4: could have entertained the people.
Speaker 21: And if you well, I guess, I guess by that
Speaker 21: time pretty much he wasn't traveling much, so you wouldn't
Speaker 21: have had to been like a like a subtle heel
Speaker 21: too often, sort of like a maybe like a Jack
Speaker 21: Brisco did at times.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and there I mean, and there were heels out
Speaker 4: there that didn't work like Flair. I mean, look at
Speaker 4: Johnny Valentine. You know, Tony Valentale is about himself. The
Speaker 4: son of a gun. Is you never you don't want
Speaker 4: to see work? And I watched him and Whilie McDaniels
Speaker 4: just beat each other's depths, you know growing up here
Speaker 4: at the Atlantic, so you know you could be a rough,
Speaker 4: rugged heel and not have to be a Cora at WIMP,
Speaker 4: you know heel like you know some people were comfortable
Speaker 4: portraying and still get the job done.
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Speaker 21: Every week we're talking with magnum Ta. He's going to
Speaker 21: be at the NWA Legends Fan fest this weekend. Go
Speaker 21: to NWA Legends dot com for more information. A couple
Speaker 21: of years ago when I went you did a great
Speaker 21: Q and A for the fans with the Tully Blanchard
Speaker 21: talking about your your famous Starcade match, and got an
Speaker 21: email here from from a fan wanting to know it
Speaker 21: was Was that your favorite Starkad match by far? Or
Speaker 21: were there others?
Speaker 9: What did you like?
Speaker 4: Blackway matches is for you know, you gotta be the
Speaker 4: pinnacle as far as performance, because I mean anything that
Speaker 4: can be you know, talked about thirty years after the
Speaker 4: fact in the fashion in which you did, uh. I
Speaker 4: mean I spoke with always with Dave Beltzer last weekend
Speaker 4: at at at Waterloo io on him for the first
Speaker 4: time and he said, you know, you know what kind
Speaker 4: of match did people still talk about, you know today
Speaker 4: thirty years after the fact. They had the kind of
Speaker 4: impact that one still match at And so you know,
Speaker 4: even though demanding times of things that I might have did,
Speaker 4: the ad the one more enjoyable, There's certainly nothing I've
Speaker 4: done is left that kind of long lasting impact. The
Speaker 4: best of seventh series was was uh, you know, was unbelievable,
Speaker 4: but won't for one single match to stand out like
Speaker 4: it did.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's certainly got to be the highlight reel for me.
Speaker 21: And sure it seems like every few years people do
Speaker 21: dust off a best of seven or a best of
Speaker 21: something series, So yeah, that is quite a quite a legacy.
Speaker 21: We got another question here from Matt from Washington State.
Speaker 21: He wants to know did you ever wrestle outside of
Speaker 21: the US?
Speaker 4: Got outside? No, I really didn't.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 4: I worked with Joe Blanchard, we went over into Mexico
Speaker 4: I think one time, and Russell at Hawaii, which, of
Speaker 4: course that's still in the United States, even's off the continent.
Speaker 4: But I was scheduled to have dogs at Japan in
Speaker 4: February of eighty eight, seven before you, before the crash affened,
Speaker 4: so that would have been my first opportunity to go out,
Speaker 4: But no, I did not.
Speaker 21: One of the things I learned when I was at
Speaker 21: n W A fan fest, which which is a great story,
Speaker 21: I think, tell everyone the magnum Ta name, tell him
Speaker 21: whose idea was that name? And it's it's a pretty
Speaker 21: great it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 4: I think, well, you know it is I and I
Speaker 4: still I had to laugh about that to this day.
Speaker 4: I had struck up my friendship with Andrea John back
Speaker 4: in my Portland days because I had a great, big
Speaker 4: old ninety eight for to a car. And when he
Speaker 4: came in, as he did back then, to you spent
Speaker 4: a couple of weeks in the territory whoever had the
Speaker 4: biggest car called the Giant around. So we met and
Speaker 4: talked and got to be actually, you know, good friends.
Speaker 4: And then when I was down in Florida, we were traveling.
Speaker 4: We'd been out to some night club something late at night,
Speaker 4: and we're eating breakfast at a place called fat Man's
Speaker 4: Barbecue and down there in Tampa, and he looked across
Speaker 4: the table at me, and and I progressed quite a
Speaker 4: bit since he had first met me when I first
Speaker 4: broke in, and he said, you know, he said, eating
Speaker 4: a handle eating He said, he looked kind of like
Speaker 4: that guy on TV. He said, you should be magnum Ta.
Speaker 4: And he came right out of his mouth, and he
Speaker 4: was going to go back to New York. And then
Speaker 4: Senior was still living and talked to Vince about bringing
Speaker 4: me to New York. Then, and you started starting off
Speaker 4: a career as magnum Ta well before he could get
Speaker 4: that done Ernie Land, who was working with Bill Watts.
Speaker 4: He was in for a TV taping. He saw me,
Speaker 4: and this is when Warren Dorf left Bill it went
Speaker 4: to New York. So it opened up to a spot
Speaker 4: in their roster. So Ernie gave me the call, told
Speaker 4: me the spot was there, asked me if I wanted
Speaker 4: to come. I went there and that's where I lonched
Speaker 4: off the magnum Ta character.
Speaker 21: How do you think magnum Ta would have fit into
Speaker 21: the WWF.
Speaker 4: Frankly, I think it would have been amazing. Vince was
Speaker 4: so creative, especially during that area, Kara. It's so hungry,
Speaker 4: you know, looking for the next big thing that I
Speaker 4: think potentially that combination of he and I could have
Speaker 4: just been dust It would have never happened unless Dusty
Speaker 4: had left too, because my loyalty was to Dusty. It
Speaker 4: wasn't even the m w A. It was Dusty. And uh,
Speaker 4: I mean I left Bill to come to Dusty when
Speaker 4: when the VIDs, you know, Atlantic was on his rear
Speaker 4: end and Mid South was on fire. So you know,
Speaker 4: if Dusty had said, you know, I think it'd be
Speaker 4: you know, if Dusty said, I think it would be
Speaker 4: best for you out of gone, but I would have
Speaker 4: really loved to see what I could have done with
Speaker 4: that kind of machine behind me.
Speaker 21: I was Florida when you were there, was it was
Speaker 21: it starting to taper off.
Speaker 4: It was you know, we were doing decent houses. I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, I was work in the middle of the
Speaker 4: card and making decent money and uh you know it
Speaker 4: was it was a great place to work in. You know,
Speaker 4: the experience, uh get experience with all kinds of season Metrians.
Speaker 4: But as far as you know, as far as business wise,
Speaker 4: I mean, it was nothing compared to what we turned.
Speaker 4: He had been south into where we where we'd got
Speaker 4: that place called all as Far.
Speaker 21: And this was the era where they were they were
Speaker 21: had they had the Global Tag Team Championships. They didn't
Speaker 21: have the US titles of the Florida titles. They were
Speaker 21: kind of transitioning to to the global identity.
Speaker 4: Right and that was a Brad Armstrong and myself myself
Speaker 4: were the Global Tag Team Champions, as were Scott McGee
Speaker 4: and myself, So we both tell those titles and we
Speaker 4: weren't with the U with the Royal Kangaroos.
Speaker 21: That was Was there any heat from the n w
Speaker 21: A for for I mean, essentially you're calling it a
Speaker 21: world title.
Speaker 4: You know, if there was nobody talked about it, Uh,
Speaker 4: you know, it wasn't being talked about at a bi level.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 4: If you know, Eddie Graham would have been handled all that,
Speaker 4: and he kept things pretty close to the cuff, so uh,
Speaker 4: you know there could have been heat, but whatever expressed us.
Speaker 21: All right, let's go to a six two eight six two.
Speaker 21: You're on the Life cast.
Speaker 10: Who's line?
Speaker 21: Where are you coming from?
Speaker 11: It's Kyler Jim?
Speaker 5: How are you funny?
Speaker 10: Good man?
Speaker 2: What do you got for making ta okay?
Speaker 11: First off, magnimum, it's an honor to talk to you, sir.
Speaker 11: My first question for you is did you ever think
Speaker 11: of going to w w WE at some point before
Speaker 11: your accident happened to you?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 4: I never had to play to go on there before
Speaker 4: the accident. I mean, my goal was firmly set on
Speaker 4: I'm coming to the WA world anyway can And of
Speaker 4: course you know that had not happened. U. You know
Speaker 4: idea it was probably about sites if you take place,
Speaker 4: So yeah, the WWE wasn't even an achely gonna find
Speaker 4: in my head back then.
Speaker 12: Hmm.
Speaker 11: Interesting. And my second question is even though you just
Speaker 11: expressed a desire to enter the the stock car racing profession,
Speaker 11: did you ever have any inklings of becoming a producer
Speaker 11: flash wrestling agent, Because in this last hour or so
Speaker 11: of conversation that I've had the privilege of listening to you,
Speaker 11: seem like you would have made an excellent boy. That
Speaker 11: transition in through and all of the career post accidents.
Speaker 4: Well to you know, today, at fifty seven years old,
Speaker 4: I've got a great deal different outlook on it than
Speaker 4: I would have than I did at twenty seven, twenty
Speaker 4: eight years old. It was very difficult coming back after
Speaker 4: the accident and interjecting myself back into the industry when
Speaker 4: I was still so young that you know, by all rights,
Speaker 4: I should have been out there performing, even though I
Speaker 4: had this vast head knowledge because I studied under Dusty
Speaker 4: and Eddie Graham and Bill Wattson. I was such a
Speaker 4: student of the game. It wasn't I wasn't comfortable in
Speaker 4: my own skin working with my contemporaries that I should
Speaker 4: have been out there in the ring performing with trying
Speaker 4: to be you know, directing in and giving guidance and
Speaker 4: doing all those kind of things. So everything because of
Speaker 4: my youth and the time at which you know, this
Speaker 4: untimely accident happened made it made that kind of transition,
Speaker 4: you know, difficult. Uh, you know, if I've been older, absolutely,
Speaker 4: but you know, in today and even in today's time,
Speaker 4: even though I've gotten the head knowledge, I don't have
Speaker 4: the patience to be you know, so tied up and
Speaker 4: away from your family and not being able to do
Speaker 4: the things with my kids that you know, the business
Speaker 4: does to you. Because I'm a dad of seven and
Speaker 4: my youngest are eight years old, boy girl, twins, and
Speaker 4: you know, at this point in my life there's nothing
Speaker 4: more important to me than my family. And when I
Speaker 4: was twenty seven and no kids, you know, I was
Speaker 4: married to the business, in love with what I was doing,
Speaker 4: and had, you know, such high goals and desires to
Speaker 4: be the best in the world. And that's what I
Speaker 4: was committed to. And it takes that kind of commitment
Speaker 4: to me in this you have to sacrifice those other things,
Speaker 4: and I would never you know, as a peture group band,
Speaker 4: you know, want to sacrifice those kind of things for
Speaker 4: a profession.
Speaker 21: Again, we're talking with Magnum here on the p W
Speaker 21: George Live Cast. Magnum. You are the stepfather of Tessa
Speaker 21: Tessa Blanchard. Correct, absolutely, yeah, Now obviously you you she
Speaker 21: grew up around you and you obviously uh did are you?
Speaker 21: Were you surprised when she decided that she wanted to
Speaker 21: enter the profession.
Speaker 5: No, I wasn't.
Speaker 4: Simply for the fact that Tessa has always been intrigued
Speaker 4: with uh, with hacking and me on the stage, being
Speaker 4: in the spotlight. And when she went down to Wrestle Media,
Speaker 4: when they inducted Tully to the Hall of Fame, and
Speaker 4: she saw the biggest show on earth for wrestling and
Speaker 4: excitement and the just all the things surrounded that, and
Speaker 4: she came back with stars in her eyes. I mean,
Speaker 4: just totally intrigued by that whole life, that whole world.
Speaker 5: Because even though she was raised by.
Speaker 4: Me and with her dad, uh, you know all the here,
Speaker 4: we were both out of the game as she grew
Speaker 4: up and was young, so she didn't wasn't around it,
Speaker 4: didn't see us performing, didn't you know, view of it
Speaker 4: and about it, and because people talking to her about
Speaker 4: us and our past, but which she was, you know,
Speaker 4: seeing all that excitement of Russellmedia. Uh, it excited a
Speaker 4: spark in her and she's just you know, dug her
Speaker 4: heels in. She's gotten me that intangible in factor that
Speaker 4: you either have or you don't have. And she's given
Speaker 4: the opportunity to, you know, to perfect her craft, which
Speaker 4: takes just spakes times as your right time, takes lots
Speaker 4: of low some ring and time in the front of
Speaker 4: live audiences. She's gonna be a superstar one day.
Speaker 21: What type of professional advice did you give her?
Speaker 4: Well, I told her to work hard and to you know,
Speaker 4: work hard and listen and to be humble, because you
Speaker 4: can't listen to the accolades of the fans and the
Speaker 4: marks and all the things around you and let it
Speaker 4: get teen. And you've got realized that this is a
Speaker 4: craft that you have to learn. It takes time, and
Speaker 4: no matter how hard and how many workouts you have
Speaker 4: in a ring, it takes time of performing with lots
Speaker 4: of different people, with lots of different styles, and it
Speaker 4: just takes time to perfect that. So I've asked, you know,
Speaker 4: trying to encourage her to be patient, to be diligent,
Speaker 4: to keep working hard to be the best he can
Speaker 4: be every day, and that if she's persistent with that
Speaker 4: and true to herself and what she's doing that she
Speaker 4: can be a success.
Speaker 26: Do you ever watch a WWE and think it.
Speaker 6: Used to be better?
Speaker 27: I don't know, josh Sometimes I think it used to
Speaker 27: be a whole lot worse.
Speaker 26: I mean, whether it's WrestleMania main events, old dudes at
Speaker 26: the top, to many titles, or women's wrestling.
Speaker 6: We're here to.
Speaker 26: Answer the big question, is it worse or better?
Speaker 12: Now?
Speaker 27: Join me Joshua White and me Stephanie Cheese for Worse or.
Speaker 26: Better part of the pw Torch Daily castline up, dropping
Speaker 26: on Monday nights.
Speaker 27: Search pw Torch in your podcast apps such as Apple
Speaker 27: Podcasts or Spotify to subscribe for free or get a
Speaker 27: commercial free version with the pw Torch VIP membership. Check
Speaker 27: out pw torch dot com slash go vip for details
Speaker 27: and going vip.
Speaker 26: Worse or Better. Finally, something for wrestling fans to do
Speaker 26: on Monday.
Speaker 21: Nights, We're talking with magnum Ga, who is going to
Speaker 21: be at the NWA Legends fan Fest this weekend in Charlotte.
Speaker 21: All kinds of people are going to be there. A
Speaker 21: Lady Blossom Genie Clark, the ex wife of Stone Cold
Speaker 21: Steve All Chris Adams and Billy Jack Haynes. She's gonna
Speaker 21: have a Q and A on Thursday. Also Mickey James,
Speaker 21: Tony Shavani is going to be there. I believe this
Speaker 21: is Tony's first time being there. Jim Cornett is gonna
Speaker 21: do his live podcast taping at eleven o'clock, which is
Speaker 21: a tradition.
Speaker 5: He's in.
Speaker 21: He's in fine form ringside with Jim Ross. Austin Idol,
Speaker 21: who was on the show a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 21: is going to be doing a live Q and A again.
Speaker 21: Austin Idol does not do a lot of speaking appearances.
Speaker 21: Definitely something I'm looking forward to is I'm going to
Speaker 21: be there this weekend. Jimmy Garvin, He's going to be
Speaker 21: speaking Roadway or Animal Magnum. He's going to be doing
Speaker 21: a Q and A at one pm on Saturday. And
Speaker 21: of course, I guess one of the reasons you're here
Speaker 21: is to talk about the Hall of Heroes banquet, and
Speaker 21: this year you're going to be inducting your your mentor
Speaker 21: your your friend the American Dream, Dusty Rhodes, who he
Speaker 21: lost about about a year ago. Talk about what what
Speaker 21: Dusty did did for you that maybe we may we
Speaker 21: may not know about.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't want to give away you know, everything
Speaker 4: that I'm going to talk about in the conduction cerebody
Speaker 4: and obviously everybody listening, he doesn't have the potential of
Speaker 4: being uh being you know, being part of that. So
Speaker 4: you know, the the one of the biggest, one of
Speaker 4: the bigger things I'll share is that Dusty was that
Speaker 4: true friend to the end kind of guy. Uh. He
Speaker 4: he wasn't friends with me just because uh, you know,
Speaker 4: I helped you know them, you know, set the the
Speaker 4: Atlantic on fire and go into the battle against the
Speaker 4: w w E and do all the things that we did.
Speaker 4: We had a friendship, a brotherhood that was second and
Speaker 4: that and you know, after my accident, uh and after
Speaker 4: he departed going to the w w E, and uh,
Speaker 4: he was getting an opportunity come back to to w
Speaker 4: c W as the booker, as the creative director. You know,
Speaker 4: he opened that door up for me to come in
Speaker 4: and be his assistant. And that was huge at a
Speaker 4: time when you know, I didn't have a lot of
Speaker 4: opportunities out there because the CBS organization had let me
Speaker 4: go after my contract had expired, and there was a
Speaker 4: whole group of people there that really didn't know anything
Speaker 4: about me or what I went to the business, or
Speaker 4: history or anything, and it was kind of a cold place.
Speaker 4: And he opened up opportunities for me that theybled me
Speaker 4: to take care of and provide for my family. And
Speaker 4: it was just a true and good friend at good
Speaker 4: times and bad times. So, you know, a very special
Speaker 4: relationship there. And I've never had a relationship even come
Speaker 4: close with any one person of my adult life. Drug
Speaker 4: Dusty and I shared both during my wrestling in the
Speaker 4: ring career and half.
Speaker 21: As far as as far as Dusty, what do you
Speaker 21: think he meant the to the wrestling business.
Speaker 4: Well, he was bigger than the wrestling business. His impact
Speaker 4: will be felt throughout time because not only is at
Speaker 4: ring performance and what he did and helping you build
Speaker 4: the big Vega shows that people enjoy today, but his
Speaker 4: work in the ring and his sideline work with all
Speaker 4: these kids down there in the NFT and the developmental
Speaker 4: Center has has firmly entrenched, you know, the philosophies and
Speaker 4: what Dusty was brought to professional wrestling and a whole
Speaker 4: huge generation of kids that we're going to see performing
Speaker 4: over the next ten fifteen years. So you'll see pieces
Speaker 4: of events and pieces of Dusty Royds and his influence
Speaker 4: over the wrestling community for seventy years to come. That
Speaker 4: his impact will be fault for for multiple generations.
Speaker 12: Yea.
Speaker 21: And I think it's amazing back, you know, with the
Speaker 21: with the with the six o five show, if you
Speaker 21: watch it now on the network, you'll see the interviews
Speaker 21: that Dusty would cut and he would make veiled comments,
Speaker 21: veiled digs at the w WF, and it was it
Speaker 21: was a very heated rivalry as you as you talked about.
Speaker 21: And I think it's it's a testament to Dusty's legacy.
Speaker 21: And people talk about when he went to the WWF
Speaker 21: and they they put him in polka dots and he
Speaker 21: may or may not it may or may not have
Speaker 21: been a rib but whatever. But for for a guy
Speaker 21: who was on the front line of that very bitter war,
Speaker 21: who may or may not have been humiliated by Vince
Speaker 21: when he went to the WWF, here we are thirty
Speaker 21: years later, and I think it's a testament to the
Speaker 21: work that he did and the person that he was,
Speaker 21: where he has been remembered and embraced and you know,
Speaker 21: and enshrined as as one of their own.
Speaker 4: Now, well, Vincent and his wife and Triple Ah and stuff,
Speaker 4: we're all there, and Dustin's general saw them while they're
Speaker 4: talk to them, and the thing was it was about
Speaker 4: our business has always been about respect. The other. Rivalry
Speaker 4: was huge, and there was certainly animosity when Dusty first
Speaker 4: went there. And now, I don't think the publy nuts
Speaker 4: were a rib at all. I think they were an
Speaker 4: attempt to discredit him and the fact that he rose
Speaker 4: above and beyond anything. Ever anybody imagined what he could
Speaker 4: do with what they laid on his plate only elevated
Speaker 4: him even higher in their opinion of you know, in
Speaker 4: respect for what Dusty was capable of doing as a
Speaker 4: performer and both you know what he also would later
Speaker 4: bring and his coaching coach mentoring to the view and
Speaker 4: young talent that they were trying to cultivate for their
Speaker 4: own their own uh endeavors. So yeah, it's an amazing
Speaker 4: story and one that has so many layers of so
Speaker 4: many passes that you can write multiple books about it.
Speaker 21: So when I was promoting this interview with you, Magnum,
Speaker 21: I tweeted out a picture of you and Dusty in
Speaker 21: these huge fur coats on the six o five show
Speaker 21: doing an interview with Tony Schavani, and Tony's got this
Speaker 21: look on his face. And I guess a lot of fans,
Speaker 21: younger fans are people had not seen, uh seen those
Speaker 21: coats before. They had they had it, got it, got
Speaker 21: a lot of engagement. Everyone was commenting on the the
Speaker 21: fur coats. So do you wanna do you want to
Speaker 21: explain the huge fur coats you guys wore?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we, you know, we we had a lot of jesting,
Speaker 4: you know, go on between us, and you know, Player
Speaker 4: was always run in his mouth and his mis and
Speaker 4: this that and his you know, all his high dollar
Speaker 4: suits and all the things. And and one day we
Speaker 4: were just Dusty dye Player. We were all in Vegas
Speaker 4: and Dusty and I walked into this furrier shop with
Speaker 4: the guy who'd made coats for Limarachi and everybody else,
Speaker 4: and of course they were all over he and I
Speaker 4: and we just we just had a long hair. This
Speaker 4: time we both could get full link coyote coats made
Speaker 4: to wear on TV, just to shut up Rick. And
Speaker 4: so we again we both bought these coats. We paid
Speaker 4: about seventy five hundred dollars a piece for him back
Speaker 4: in nineteen eighty five and wore maybe three times but
Speaker 4: Warball TVs and had pictures taken with him, and you know,
Speaker 4: it was it was just kind of a tongue and
Speaker 4: cheek kind of funny thing to us back then. But
Speaker 4: you know, that's kind of competition we had. And you know,
Speaker 4: as a cavadery and everything else out of a bots
Speaker 4: this and it's H'm glad that there's some good pictures
Speaker 4: of us out there in them and the wolves and
Speaker 4: did create quite a stern to say the least.
Speaker 21: Did did do you still have the coat? Did you
Speaker 21: sell it?
Speaker 5: What? Was it a tax?
Speaker 11: Right?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was that I sold a couple of years ago,
Speaker 4: I think dusty Gauges and down in Dallas Page one year.
Speaker 4: But I mean it was so big and heavy, it
Speaker 4: was it was like wearing an electric blanket. Unless it
Speaker 4: was about thirty below outside. You couldn't merely stand award.
Speaker 4: It's the warm stand out all of my life.
Speaker 21: Well and in that era, you guys are doing great
Speaker 21: business and and you know, I understand like in particular
Speaker 21: for the TV tapings, the uh, the cars in the
Speaker 21: parking lot when everyone showed up, they were pretty spectacular.
Speaker 4: But we were all making big money. And you know,
Speaker 4: in the eighties, big money. If you're making one hundred
Speaker 4: and fifty two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year,
Speaker 4: that was huge money back then. And uh so, yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean Corvettes and Mercedes, Jaguars and Porsches were, you know,
Speaker 4: just just everywhere.
Speaker 6: I mean we were.
Speaker 4: We were in Charlotte before there was any pro sports team,
Speaker 4: so we were the pro sports team and there was
Speaker 4: about two hundred of us here and there was a
Speaker 4: lot of money flowing.
Speaker 21: All right, Magnan, Well, look, we'll see you this weekend
Speaker 21: at the nw A fan Fest. Any words before we
Speaker 21: let you go, Man, just thank you.
Speaker 4: I never ceases to amaze me the impact and the
Speaker 4: great stories the fans have. Look forward to seeing them
Speaker 4: all there. I'm so honored to be inducting Dusty into
Speaker 4: the Hall of Heroes. He would have loved that. He
Speaker 4: had a great passion from the city of Charlotte and
Speaker 4: for the Atlantic Wrestling Organization in this territory. So you know,
Speaker 4: I'm excited about it, look forward to seeing the fans,
Speaker 4: and thank you so much for having me off this morning.
Speaker 21: My pleasure anytime magnum and thank you. And by the way,
Speaker 21: we'll be doing a live show on Wednesday night around
Speaker 21: five thirty, So if you're in the hotel and you
Speaker 21: see a podcast, come on by and just say hi
Speaker 21: for a couple of minutes.
Speaker 4: All right, that's great, you guys have a great day.
Speaker 21: All right, man, there's magnum Ta, the Great magnum Ta,
Speaker 21: Terry Allen joining us on the live cast, and we
Speaker 21: covered a lot from mid Atlantic Crockett, which I guess
Speaker 21: is the same thing, to Watts, to Portland and Florida,
Speaker 21: to WWF and Andre the Giant. But yeah, he's going
Speaker 21: to be at the Hall of Heroes. It's going to
Speaker 21: be uh this weekend and you can come on by
Speaker 21: and see magnum Ta and everybody. Go to NWA Legends
Speaker 21: dot com and again, Britt Wittmyer and I we're going
Speaker 21: to be there this Wednesday. We're gonna do a live
Speaker 21: cast at five thirty, the usual five thirty Eastern time
Speaker 21: for the Pat McNeil Show, because we're going to be
Speaker 21: there for Pats. If you're in the area, if you're
Speaker 21: going to NWA FanFest, come by and say hi. But
Speaker 21: hopefully we'll get some wrestlers on and some wrestling personalities
Speaker 21: whoever they are. We'll see what happens. But it's going
Speaker 21: to be live and engaged and hopefully be a lot
Speaker 21: of fun. But a lot of people are going to
Speaker 21: be there, so be sure and stop by Bruce Mitchell.
Speaker 21: He's going to be there, so I say hi to
Speaker 21: say hi to Bruce and say what's up with with everybody?
Speaker 21: So yeah, n w A legends dot com and you
Speaker 21: can can check it all out book heads. This has
Speaker 21: been fun as always, So I'll see you on Wednesday
Speaker 21: and they again next Saturday. I need to book somebody.
Speaker 21: I haven't had a chance the opportunity, but we'll figure
Speaker 21: something out. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll find somebody this
Speaker 21: weekend and we can we can make it work. Make
Speaker 21: it work that way, all right, Well, we will see
Speaker 21: you on Wednesday for Pat McNeil, so be sure and
Speaker 21: call in and we will talk to you then.
Speaker 12: A lot of.
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