Speaker 1: It's a Lapsed Fan wrestling podcast special report. The Lapsed
Speaker 1: Fan presents the Complete hull Cogan, a real American story
Speaker 1: brought to you by Garage Beer you.
Speaker 2: Know around here Lately. Boss is part of the Complete
Speaker 2: Hulled Cogan. It's kind of felt like Sweet Home Alabama,
Speaker 2: hasn't it.
Speaker 3: That?
Speaker 2: It has starting to feel right at home in the
Speaker 2: Gulf Coast. And just as soon as we're getting comfortable,
Speaker 2: much like Terry Blaya did in nineteen seventy nine, it's
Speaker 2: time to move on. Yeah, I agree. I mean, listen, listen.
Speaker 2: We're not here to make people comfortable, all right, We're
Speaker 2: here to make people feel uncomfortable, And as soon as
Speaker 2: they feel a sense of normality, it's time to produce abnormality,
Speaker 2: for better or worse. Terry Boulaya always knew when he
Speaker 2: was overstaying his welcome, right, I'll be he was. He
Speaker 2: was pretty good at it, Like well, he wasn't as
Speaker 2: good as as Terry Funk, but he had his moments.
Speaker 2: That's right. That's a great point. Yeah, Well, perhaps if
Speaker 2: Terry struck gold in New York like Hogan did, he
Speaker 2: wouldn't have left either on such a rapid clip. But yes,
Speaker 2: you're right, that is an interesting contrast. But we have
Speaker 2: to we have to put a bow on this thing.
Speaker 2: Last time we were with you on the Complete Hulk Hogan.
Speaker 2: Hogan had just wrestled Harley Race at the Rip Hughes
Speaker 2: Football Stadium in Dothan, Alabama for the NWA World Heavyweight Title,
Speaker 2: a match that ended when Austin Idol got up on
Speaker 2: the apron snapped a flash photograph and Hogan's eyes blinded
Speaker 2: him and caused him to get rolled up one, two three.
Speaker 2: According to Ron Fuller, I mean, there's not enough for
Speaker 2: you in there, and what I just said at all
Speaker 2: the things it says, I don't know what to tell
Speaker 2: you at this point in the journey there. There's too
Speaker 2: much going on right there. And I would say definitely
Speaker 2: a lot of fear, a lot of fear, a lot
Speaker 2: of concern, you know, photographers to roll ups. It's getting real,
Speaker 2: it's getting real for hul Covid. Yeah. Yeah, he's already
Speaker 2: starting to learn to look out of the corner of
Speaker 2: his eye. And I think there's a lot to be said.
Speaker 2: I mean, the thesis basically is everything you think Hulkkein
Speaker 2: figured out as his career unfolded he did in the
Speaker 2: first six months in Alabama. Yeah, in one way or another,
Speaker 2: he downloaded all he needed to download about the characteristics,
Speaker 2: the Austin Idel stuff that he lifted. But there's a
Speaker 2: home stretch here for the Alabama run. Chronologically, it gets
Speaker 2: a little complicated because at the same time he's working
Speaker 2: in parallel in Memphis around this time, almost as frequently.
Speaker 2: But as we discussed last time, when he steps into
Speaker 2: the ring against Harley Race in July nineteen seventy nine
Speaker 2: in doth And, he'd already essentially communicated to booker Louis
Speaker 2: Tillette and owner Ron Fuller that he was moving on.
Speaker 2: Ron Fuller, of course, as we mentioned, is sort of
Speaker 2: put the blame on Toilette for not putting a strap
Speaker 2: on Hogan earlier and making him feel like he was
Speaker 2: going to be a centerpiece of the promotion and thus
Speaker 2: very susceptible to an offer from Jerry Jarrett and Company
Speaker 2: up in Memphis for a bit more money and perhaps
Speaker 2: a bit more spotlight. So Hogan has already made it
Speaker 2: clear before he steps into the ring with Harley Race,
Speaker 2: according to Ron Fuller, that he's not long for the world,
Speaker 2: And so we have to take a look at how
Speaker 2: Hogan played out the string because when you hear that,
Speaker 2: you might think it was sort of a hard stop.
Speaker 2: And after he fails to defeat Hardly for the championship,
Speaker 2: he hasn't really seen in the territory. Again, that is
Speaker 2: not the case. In addition to Memphis, he goes to
Speaker 2: work for Georgia, and these are two offices that didn't
Speaker 2: necessarily have adversarial relationships with Ron Fuller in Southeast. It's
Speaker 2: not like when he went to these two territories he
Speaker 2: would never be welcomed back again. In fact, he even
Speaker 2: goes to New York to the WWWF and comes back
Speaker 2: to work a couple of some shows. Now Alabama by
Speaker 2: the close of nineteen seventy nine. Yes, wow, Bob Armstrong,
Speaker 2: of course, a long time staple in the area, father
Speaker 2: of the road Dog for those among temporary fans. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: ends up back in sort of the power circle with
Speaker 2: Southeastern Championship Wrestling, and they work a bit of a
Speaker 2: program to close out nineteen seventy nine, and I think
Speaker 2: an extreme serendipity it all ends on what of all
Speaker 2: nights for Hogan and Alabama, but Christmas nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: So we're going to take you through to that here
Speaker 2: on this week's episode. Of course, the complete hull Kogan
Speaker 2: as you know by now made possible not only by
Speaker 2: your incredible support on Patreon, but also our friends at
Speaker 2: Garage Beer, fastest growing beer brand in the US Crisp
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Speaker 2: dot Com for their beer finder and support them this
Speaker 2: holiday season, and you know it toasts the new year.
Speaker 2: Let's ring in twenty twenty six, Yeah, with a cold
Speaker 2: garage beer. Absolutely, when the when the ball drops, head
Speaker 2: to the garage. Yeah. And when they leaned into TLF,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden the awards started pouring in on
Speaker 2: their side of the house. Think not, I think not.
Speaker 2: So it's been terrific to have their support as we
Speaker 2: do really what it takes and spend what it takes
Speaker 2: to really dig and on earth as much as can
Speaker 2: be said about as we've talked about Boss, a criminally
Speaker 2: underdocumented part of Hulkgan's life in times you know the
Speaker 2: more we the more we dig into it, the more
Speaker 2: it's It's really shocking that people have not really talked
Speaker 2: about it as much as as they should have. It's
Speaker 2: a real shame, Like what do you what are you doing?
Speaker 2: You're missing out? I mean, listen, I'm grateful, you know,
Speaker 2: if we're uncovering some stuff that maybe had been covered
Speaker 2: for quite a while. So I'll take that. But you
Speaker 2: know what, the fuck the fact that Hogan verse Harley
Speaker 2: in July of nineteen eighty and doth in nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: seventy nine in Dothan filled this football stadium the only time,
Speaker 2: according to Ron Fuller, that this territory had a stadium
Speaker 2: scale show, and not a single photograph exists of that show,
Speaker 2: let alone the match between Harley and Hogan. Yep, just
Speaker 2: sets my mind into a tizzy. I mean it's just,
Speaker 2: you know, I guess all we can count on are
Speaker 2: these snippets of fans who have posted things on Facebook
Speaker 2: or forums over the years that that bore witness, Right,
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the best we can hope for, right, boss,
Speaker 2: the best we can hope for. Well, we'll see about that.
Speaker 2: But the complete Hull Coogan continues two unfold and is
Speaker 2: mentioned he had just hustled with Harley Race. I did
Speaker 2: sort of parrot something that Ron Fuller said about the
Speaker 2: match that I'm going to reel in on this episode.
Speaker 2: And this is thanks to the homie Matt, who was
Speaker 2: quick to point out immediately that in fact, Hogan verse
Speaker 2: Harley seventy nine dothen yes, was not the only time
Speaker 2: that Hull Cogan challenged for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Fuck,
Speaker 2: turn your attention please, if you could, to your chat
Speaker 2: window and observe. Tell the folks what you see. Hold
Speaker 2: on here, what do you see? What? Describe? Describe? Well,
Speaker 2: the first thing, obviously, you know, your eye goes right
Speaker 2: to the fact that you got Hull Cogan wearing yellow
Speaker 2: and red. By the way, yes, yellow and red. That's key.
Speaker 2: He is giving a roundhouse right too, uh uh Harley Race,
Speaker 2: who's holding the the NWA title. It says right there
Speaker 2: up in the ever left corner, Harley Race versus Hull Cogan,
Speaker 2: but down on the lower left hand corner. This is
Speaker 2: what's kind of a little this is this is this
Speaker 2: is interesting. Is a lot of Japanese characters or some
Speaker 2: kind of Asian cash and say I mean, I'm assuming
Speaker 2: Japan because wrestling is in Japan. I don't know, but yeah,
Speaker 2: a lot of Japanese characters saying something. I don't know what,
Speaker 2: but it's saying something. So I imagine this happened in Japan.
Speaker 2: You know what. No, the photo ran in a Japanese
Speaker 2: magazine only, oh my god, I won't say only, but
Speaker 2: it ran. What we have here is a photo from
Speaker 2: a Japanese magazine. No, what you're looking at with Harley
Speaker 2: Race to your point holding the license plate NWA World
Speaker 2: Title belt, the one that we just can't allow our
Speaker 2: minds to put in the same space time continuum as
Speaker 2: Hull Camanium. Yes, what you were looking at is Hulk
Speaker 2: Hogan wearing the red and yellow Yes, going for the
Speaker 2: NWA World title in October nineteen eighty three in Saint Louis.
Speaker 2: What how yep? Take your time? I mean, okay, so
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think here eighty three. I mean, wouldn't
Speaker 2: have he wouldn't he been working for VERN sort of yes,
Speaker 2: but not exclusively. He's going to Japan all the time,
Speaker 2: and Saint Louis was a very close confident on office
Speaker 2: to Vern, just like it was to Fritz. You know,
Speaker 2: but I but I thought that, you know, why would
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess if you're not if he's not
Speaker 2: exclusive to Verne, then he's okay. But something Why would
Speaker 2: Verne let somebody go down to n WA territory when
Speaker 2: he was very anti NWA. I but what makes you
Speaker 2: say he's anti NWA. Well, he made his own fucking
Speaker 2: company because he didn't get the NWA championshop. You go
Speaker 2: back to the fifties, Yeah, I got you. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think by now he's kind of over that for the
Speaker 2: most part. I mean, he has his own world champion.
Speaker 2: But guys like Bockwinkle and Toura many others were allowed
Speaker 2: to go to Keel auditorium shows and work for Sam
Speaker 2: much Nick and Larry Matti sick. Yeah, just like you know, well,
Speaker 2: I guess Fritz never really split off from the NWA
Speaker 2: in a clean breakaway until the late eighties. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: you know, when it was time to start pushing the boys,
Speaker 2: they went where to Saint Louis Television, particularly David von
Speaker 2: Erik to meet Harley in that handicapped matches we talked
Speaker 2: about in a lamentable tragedy. I just it's one thing
Speaker 2: to say that Hulk Hogan challenged Charlie Race for the
Speaker 2: NBA Championship the same year he came back to WWF
Speaker 2: to start the whole Camania run, but with that belt.
Speaker 2: But it's another thing to say he was wearing the
Speaker 2: red and yellow. I can't. I can't accept that Hogan
Speaker 2: wore red and yellow trunks before January nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 2: Well did he? Or I should say December eighty three didn't?
Speaker 2: He didn't. Didn't he wear red and yellow for that
Speaker 2: that Super Sunday match? Was it red? And Well? It was,
Speaker 2: but I think that the trunks were red if I'm
Speaker 2: not mistaken when I picture Hogan and Awa, and I'm
Speaker 2: sure you know it's very at everybody's fingertips to pull
Speaker 2: up counter examples, but I don't know. Man. When I
Speaker 2: heard about this match, before I saw the pick, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 2: it's going to be him, and like, you know, light
Speaker 2: blue trunks wrestling Harley, Right, yeah, right, No, he's wearing
Speaker 2: red and yellow. He's wearing it's exactly like he did
Speaker 2: in WWA. That's that's nuts. There were two matches in
Speaker 2: October of nineteen eighty three, and it's really fascinating because
Speaker 2: where do they go right when he's well a whole
Speaker 2: on a second, Actually, no, that I'm thinking about it,
Speaker 2: he's not working for VERN. He is, Yeah, he is.
Speaker 2: He's working for Vern. Yeah, because the shows that he
Speaker 2: know shows after giving his notice were Christmas Time eighty
Speaker 2: three and that's when he shows up in Wow in
Speaker 2: New York. But well, where does he do it? Let's
Speaker 2: not forget where were the television tapings happening the very
Speaker 2: first time Hulk Hogan came back from the ABA Saint
Speaker 2: Louis Chase tell So that adds a whole new context
Speaker 2: of how the Saint Louis fans that saw Hulkogan make
Speaker 2: a surprise return with just a couple of days left
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty three to the WWF, they would have
Speaker 2: seen him in that city at Keel going for the
Speaker 2: world title a few months before that against Harley Race.
Speaker 2: So keep that in mind when you take in that
Speaker 2: famous footage of him returning in December ety three, and
Speaker 2: in what the Saint Louis fans had thought about this guy.
Speaker 2: He wasn't this distant guy that they may have remembered
Speaker 2: when he wrestled in seventy nine and eighty for the
Speaker 2: WWWF that they would have just seen him under the
Speaker 2: auspices of Sam Muchnick and the NWA. So Jesus I
Speaker 2: thought it was highly appropriate to rein in that. Admittedly,
Speaker 2: the speculation from Ron Fuller that that may have been
Speaker 2: in seventy nine, Hogan's only NBA Championship shot just another
Speaker 2: example of how much there still is to learn as
Speaker 2: we go through this chronology about Hulk Cogan. It's absolutely oh,
Speaker 2: I'm I mean, it's just it's almost it's borderline unacceptable, right, Okay,
Speaker 2: the border line unacceptable because of the magnitude of his career.
Speaker 2: You think, if there's one wrestler that I have a
Speaker 2: handle on the biggest things he did, it's Hult COVID
Speaker 2: and you don't even have forty percent of it. Yeah, right, exactly,
Speaker 2: because he did he did so much more before he
Speaker 2: went full time for the McMahons that then we can
Speaker 2: handle handle. I mean, it's one thing to look through
Speaker 2: a chronological list of his matches, but when you see
Speaker 2: the pictures and you get the texture, and you hear
Speaker 2: the testimonials from people who were fortunate enough to lay
Speaker 2: eyes on the things that he was doing, that do
Speaker 2: not survive on videotape or even still photography. That's a
Speaker 2: whole different matter. And looking back on the match in
Speaker 2: Dothan against Harley, Ron said in his podcast that they
Speaker 2: were trying to figure out how to see all these
Speaker 2: people in this stadium. It was a football field, wasn't
Speaker 2: as secure as a typical wrestling arena was. And so
Speaker 2: what do you have to worry about? I mean, all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, you've got to worry about people finding
Speaker 2: ways to sneak in. I mean, think about a high
Speaker 2: school football stadium. There's a million ways in that motherfucker
Speaker 2: who's exactly no less than Terry the Hulk Boulder wanted
Speaker 2: a full security plan. Ah, but I mean I could
Speaker 2: there must have been hundreds of people that did not
Speaker 2: pay and found a way into that stadium for this match. Oh,
Speaker 2: I would imagine I'm listening it. I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: know high school football stadium. I figured that's pretty easy
Speaker 2: to fucking oh. And Ron Fuller said his podcast you
Speaker 2: remembers asking announcer slash businessman businessman, I should say a
Speaker 2: promoter Charlie Platt, who helped with a lot of his logistics.
Speaker 2: How many people do you think the Ripheus Stadium is
Speaker 2: going to hold? And he recalls plat say about eight thousand,
Speaker 2: and Fuller said, I trusted that was an accurate figure.
Speaker 2: And that night he's sitting at home. He just wrestled
Speaker 2: in Knoxville, where the war is in full tilt. So
Speaker 2: Ron Fuller is spending all of his time there, not
Speaker 2: down in Dothan. And he had his cousin Royley well
Speaker 2: chandled the box office down there, waiting for the call.
Speaker 2: Ron's waiting for the call from down there to see
Speaker 2: how many people they did. Comes in seventy eight hundred people,
Speaker 2: two thousand more fans that had ever attended an event
Speaker 2: in Dothan. Wow, he said, you get to keep this
Speaker 2: in mind. If basically eight thousand people were at the
Speaker 2: stadium and fifty thousand people lived in Dothan, think about
Speaker 2: what you're saying there. Yeah, I mean that's not to
Speaker 2: say everybody in that stadium is from Dothan. There are
Speaker 2: plenty of shots on the territory. There were a couple
Speaker 2: hour drive. But still, I mean, when you really it's
Speaker 2: one thing to say these territories, these old school territories
Speaker 2: used to put thousands in the building or every every week.
Speaker 2: It's another when you step back and say, well, the
Speaker 2: population wasn't that big. That's remarkable. That's like the only
Speaker 2: thing going on in town. No wonder, these territories, in
Speaker 2: these areas that didn't have professional sports teams thrive so much,
Speaker 2: right right, of course, of course, because you know they
Speaker 2: got nothing else to do. That's much easier to convince
Speaker 2: you in a city like that that wrestling is kind
Speaker 2: of like the prestige night out, you know, like the thing,
Speaker 2: the sporting event that has the most consequence. I think
Speaker 2: that's often overlooked when people talk about why, uh these
Speaker 2: people were, you know, chanting and reacting to these matches
Speaker 2: like they were real, These old ladies and these adults
Speaker 2: you see in the audience in the territorial days and
Speaker 2: equal in greater parts than you see children. That's what
Speaker 2: Hulk Hogan did at w w F, of course, is
Speaker 2: switch the demographics to primar ely kids. But before that
Speaker 2: it's adults. They were looking for blood, They're looking for
Speaker 2: pieces of ship to get their asses handed to them
Speaker 2: by good old boys, and that works, right. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, end of the week, you know, it's a
Speaker 2: perfect time everyone's everyone just got through a hard week
Speaker 2: at work, and they they want to they wanna to release,
Speaker 2: to say the least. Yeah, And the thing is they
Speaker 2: have not. They have not they have nothing else going on.
Speaker 2: There's no other sport, so like, I don't know, man
Speaker 2: like if if there's not you know, three major professional
Speaker 2: sports teams in my city, or even a collegiate sport
Speaker 2: that's convenient to get to to speak of a lot
Speaker 2: easier to just say, you know what, even wrestling's phone. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm going to take it seriously because I don't really
Speaker 2: have a lot more on the way of sport entertainment
Speaker 2: options here. I don't know, I don't have a lot
Speaker 2: going on in my life, right, I mean just they're
Speaker 2: not going on around me, not my life, but just
Speaker 2: no in my life. I gotta treat something like it's real.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. But Ron Fuller starts getting calls from
Speaker 2: Louis Toillette and it's deep French accent. Louis sounds extremely upset.
Speaker 2: Ron said, I could hardly get him to calm down.
Speaker 2: He was ecstatic. The crowd was way over ten thousand.
Speaker 2: Actually he was as he estimated, Rather that the crowd
Speaker 2: was way over ten thousand, well, seventy eight hundred. There
Speaker 2: had been a fucking revolt backstage because the wrestlers were
Speaker 2: all pissed off with their pay and assume that someone
Speaker 2: had stolen thousands from them, and the wrestlers because when
Speaker 2: they assessed it an eyeballed it. They said, there's no way,
Speaker 2: there's only seventy eight hundred people. That's what you have
Speaker 2: to remember about, you know, the double edged sword of
Speaker 2: doing too well in this territory in this era. Yes,
Speaker 2: just like we talked about the idea that Ron Fuller
Speaker 2: didn't want the photographers from the national wrestling magazines covering
Speaker 2: this stuff while we have such a dearth of pictures
Speaker 2: of Terry doing his thing down there. It's because that
Speaker 2: would spread national awareness of how much money they were
Speaker 2: actually making and cause all kinds of fucking headaches when
Speaker 2: people start adding up how much they should be owed,
Speaker 2: or their promoters start salivating at the prospect of stealing
Speaker 2: these wrestlers who are filling buildings in this sort of
Speaker 2: low key territory. And this is part and parcel. I
Speaker 2: think of that same psychology of like, yeah, we want
Speaker 2: to go big, but I mean Ron Fuller refers to
Speaker 2: it its podcast. It's always been the kiss of death
Speaker 2: to have a huge crowd and a new location like that.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine doing a crowd like that and the
Speaker 2: first way you choose to describe it is the kiss
Speaker 2: of death. Yes, I wonder hull Kgan doesn't remem this fondly,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, no wonder people didn't talk about
Speaker 2: this for years and years and years because all this
Speaker 2: intrigue swirling around, these wrestlers breaking off and running opposition,
Speaker 2: everyone bitching and covetching about the size of the crowd
Speaker 2: and if they're getting screwed in the payoff, alleging people
Speaker 2: skimming money off the gate. It's all this negative shit,
Speaker 2: you know. It's like everyone's succeeding despite themselves. And the
Speaker 2: second you do something really big, my god, do you
Speaker 2: have a headache on your hands? Right? He said? The
Speaker 2: wrestler's eyes get big when they see crowd like that,
Speaker 2: And so Ron trying to put this fire out, gets
Speaker 2: Charlie Platt and the phone and they ask himate how
Speaker 2: many people are on the field. It's one thing to
Speaker 2: say how many people are in the seats and the bleachers,
Speaker 2: how many people on the field, but four hundred, and
Speaker 2: they said that stadium would have been full if they
Speaker 2: were sitting out there. Gordon Soley actually came to the show,
Speaker 2: if you can believe that. Wow. Gordon Soley had done
Speaker 2: about a year on television in the territory, working side
Speaker 2: by side with Charlie Platt, kind of in an interregnant
Speaker 2: period before he became again the voice of a WTBS
Speaker 2: superstation wrestling for Georgia Championship, and he had presented Charlie
Speaker 2: Platt during the show with an award from the National
Speaker 2: Wrestling Alliance as the best new television wrestling commentator in America.
Speaker 2: So that was certainly a proud moment for Charlie Platt
Speaker 2: and one for the Alabama wrestling fans to remember fondly.
Speaker 2: It doesn't get any more through and through Alabama than
Speaker 2: Charlie Platt. He spent his whole life in that state
Speaker 2: and working in television and radio. So he was one
Speaker 2: of those you know, sort of like Dave Brown and
Speaker 2: Lance Russell and Memphis so many other examples Bob Coddles
Speaker 2: we talked about. These are people who were part of
Speaker 2: the community above and beyond the fact that they were
Speaker 2: the wrestling announcer part of the local news station, for example,
Speaker 2: or the local news radio station above and beyond the
Speaker 2: fact that they were wrestling announcers. And Ron Fuller says
Speaker 2: in his podcast This Night, Hogan Harley should have catapulted
Speaker 2: the territory into one of the best in the country.
Speaker 2: Should have caught us on fire. But instead this controversy
Speaker 2: over the size of the crowd did just the opposite. Yep,
Speaker 2: did just the opposite. What lessons being learned here? Boss?
Speaker 2: Do you think for a young Terry bolea browler, I
Speaker 2: don't know who to trust me more? Dude, right? I
Speaker 2: mean I filled this house too definitely not fill the house,
Speaker 2: but that I'm told I didn't fill a house, brother,
Speaker 2: and I filled the house too much, dude, or a
Speaker 2: stand brother. You want me to sell out, Dude, I
Speaker 2: sold out. That's a lot too much. Kind of freaked
Speaker 2: me out. Freaking me out as and felt this betrayed
Speaker 2: since Eddie Graham told him it was fake and that
Speaker 2: Matt Tudor broke his leg for no reason. I don't
Speaker 2: say any or or when Mike Graham did anything. I
Speaker 2: know hadn't been this betrayed since Mike Graham didn't call
Speaker 2: him on his birthday every year since nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 2: So yeah, fuller'sa's. Call after call came in from wrestlers
Speaker 2: after the show, all with the same complaint, and finally
Speaker 2: Ron just had to stop taking their calls around midnight
Speaker 2: because it's just getting so ridiculous. And Ron said, you know,
Speaker 2: looking back, I shouldn't have worked a wrestling show in
Speaker 2: Knoxville that night. I should have taken myself off that card,
Speaker 2: put the war to the side for a minute, and
Speaker 2: I could have been down there in person and Dothan
Speaker 2: and straightened a lot of this out instead of you
Speaker 2: know the fact that his absence seemed to make things
Speaker 2: even worse because nobody feels like they're talking to the
Speaker 2: person that can make it right. You know, they're just
Speaker 2: dealing with middlemen like Louis Tillette. Looking back round, Fuller
Speaker 2: simply said the Knoxville War cost him everything and that
Speaker 2: this match was the high point of Gulf Coast Wrestling,
Speaker 2: the Knoxville War, the Knoxville Five. That's right, but's a go.
Speaker 2: As for Harley, he would go on, He would go
Speaker 2: on to continue raining, I think we know this. Harley's
Speaker 2: got a ways to go before starr K eighty three
Speaker 2: when he really passes the torch. Here's how he looked
Speaker 2: and sounded. This is Harley late August, Okay, just a
Speaker 2: month after doing this match with Terry Bulla and Dothan Alabama,
Speaker 2: back with the Strap making the towns, including this promo
Speaker 2: that survives from nineteen seventy nine down in Houston for
Speaker 2: Paul Bosh, I think.
Speaker 5: He told you off.
Speaker 6: Telling somebody off and doing something about It's two different things.
Speaker 6: I happen to be World's heavyweight champion. You don't win
Speaker 6: this by garbage. You don't win this by standing here,
Speaker 6: running your big mouth and proving to everyone that you
Speaker 6: can talk louder than they can. The talk ends and
Speaker 6: the action begins in that squared circle. Now you get
Speaker 6: your big overstuff carcass in there anytime you feel fit, Daddy,
Speaker 6: because this is on the line to any living human
Speaker 6: being and wrestling. And I think you know what I'm
Speaker 6: talking about, mister Bosh. I just proved it all over again.
Speaker 6: I am now three times World's heavyweight champion, and I
Speaker 6: can truthfully say I can beat any man in the world,
Speaker 6: and that includes that big over stuffed water buffalo.
Speaker 3: Well, the over stuff to wall of the Buffalo. Evidently
Speaker 3: such a point on World's champion Harley Race. But it
Speaker 3: is true that Bruce of Brody is better than he's
Speaker 3: ever been. But Harley Race looks like he is in
Speaker 3: top condition right now.
Speaker 2: And of course coming off an angle where Bruiser Brodie
Speaker 2: called him out and they were working a program. But
Speaker 2: that's what Harley sounded like in seventy nine. That's some
Speaker 2: swag right there. Oh yeah, he's singing. He's wrapping the
Speaker 2: whole thing about being the top guy and the top dog.
Speaker 2: Right after just thinking back, thinking back to yes, the
Speaker 2: people that Terry Boleya may have rubbed the wrong way
Speaker 2: inadvertently coming up in Florida. Guess who got his ass
Speaker 2: right in line to work Harley for the championship after
Speaker 2: Terry Bowlea did this kind of business with Harley and
Speaker 2: doth And guess who all of a sudden was right
Speaker 2: at the front. Mike Graham, Dusty Rhodes. That all come
Speaker 2: on within a month, within a month and a half,
Speaker 2: within a month and a half of Hogan selling the
Speaker 2: show out with Harley, Dusty Rhodes defeats Harley Race to
Speaker 2: become NWA World Heavyweight Champion August twenty first, nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 2: in Tampa, Florida for the first time. Baby, I'm going
Speaker 2: through around waiting, Daddy. I gotta get my I think
Speaker 2: ione else was doing some business. Baby, I gotta take
Speaker 2: care of bet to my fail you say, oh, don't
Speaker 2: overextraplate that. That's ridiculous. It was just his time the rate.
Speaker 2: No yet he lost the belt five days later. Back
Speaker 2: to Harley's Oh, Dustin's I refuse to not connect those
Speaker 2: dots because Dusty sent You know, Dusty was pretty much
Speaker 2: running the territory with Mike Graham. I'm part of me,
Speaker 2: Eddie Graham. They sent Jack and Jerry Briscoe to that show.
Speaker 2: They worked underneath Hartley versus Rays, Hartley versus bolea Boulder.
Speaker 2: Can't claim they didn't know, can't claim Dusty didn't know
Speaker 2: that Terry was doing this kind of business. Here's maybe
Speaker 2: some reconnaissance. Maybe the brisk Goes engaged in some kind
Speaker 2: of reconnaissance, maybe engaged in some kind of you know,
Speaker 2: retroactive you know, damage control around letting this guy slip
Speaker 2: through their fingers in seventy seven. I don't know. I'm
Speaker 2: just thinking out loud here, boss.
Speaker 7: I mean, look that they knew what they had though,
Speaker 7: you know they knew what they had. What it is, yeah,
Speaker 7: you know, they just they you know, they're just just
Speaker 7: a coincidence, is what it is. It's not there's no
Speaker 7: all right, I'm glad you know what, Why are you
Speaker 7: putting conspiracy theory?
Speaker 2: It's not conspiracy theory. I'm just glad you reached the
Speaker 2: reasonable conclusion. It's just a it's just a happenstance. And
Speaker 2: you know, and and and you know, Dusty, it was
Speaker 2: it was just time, you know, for five for five days.
Speaker 2: Well you got to get that first time, and you
Speaker 2: know that's what matters. Just get that first time in
Speaker 2: the bag. Talk to me, Talk to me, daddy. How
Speaker 2: did they do down in and Well, I'll tell you, gosh,
Speaker 2: I really was. I couldn't believe it. I mean this
Speaker 2: Tury Bowley and we had come through this stadium like
Speaker 2: I hadn't seen. The people were up. They wanted to
Speaker 2: see a being Harley. I couldn't believe it, Dusty, I
Speaker 2: gotta tell you, wait, wait, what do you think the
Speaker 2: bull thought? I was saying, Daddy with his who he is?
Speaker 2: I mean you he didn't hesitate to make sure he
Speaker 2: never worked the Armory. There has truly Armory Wall. Then
Speaker 2: fucking Jimmy Stewing on the phone, Jimmy stew what are
Speaker 2: you doing on the phone, baby, I'll be talking about
Speaker 2: the Brith Goes. Daddy, I'm asking you to elevate your
Speaker 2: game and do a Dusty that's passive aggressive about Terry
Speaker 2: Boley doing this kind of business and making his way
Speaker 2: to negotiating a world title run.
Speaker 7: Well, I just got you know, if I'm the daddy,
Speaker 7: he's the thing, baby, but the Terry Bully if he
Speaker 7: hits the problem with Terry Boulet. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 7: the thing if you see what he's trying to do,
Speaker 7: he's trying to take things to a different level. Baby,
Speaker 7: that we're not that that that that that's going outside
Speaker 7: n w A.
Speaker 2: You see what I'm saying. It's a it's a territor.
Speaker 5: It does.
Speaker 2: But what he did it he's taking under the own hands, Baby,
Speaker 2: that he wants to take that belt and take out NBA,
Speaker 2: make it own Terry Bowley promotion. Baby, trying to do Daddy,
Speaker 2: he's turned with the t B A all right, baby,
Speaker 2: Terry Bowl affociations. All right, So the baby, I gotta
Speaker 2: we gotta play it faith, Baby, we gotta play it faith.
Speaker 2: And I'm telling you right now, the best way we
Speaker 2: do things, okay, the best way we do things right now,
Speaker 2: we give people what they want, the American Bean broth
Speaker 2: the road, NWA World Heavyweight Champion. Your only thing at
Speaker 2: the time is now to call our favor in a
Speaker 2: barnette of all time. Now, I'm just saying, daddy, because
Speaker 2: you look, you look, baby, I'm concerned about the NBA.
Speaker 2: You consider out the NBA. We got Terry Bowley doing
Speaker 2: things that ain't never been done before because they shouldn't
Speaker 2: be done, right, Why why not? Why shouldn't they be done?
Speaker 2: Because Daddy, he's he's breaking traditional. Baby, Well about NBA,
Speaker 2: it's all about tradition, and that's not that we can Yes,
Speaker 2: we can evolve tradition, Baby, New traditions come and go
Speaker 2: every Christmas. There's a new tradition in the road. Half, Baby,
Speaker 2: that's what happened. But the thing is deaddy when don't
Speaker 2: break ranks like.
Speaker 8: Terry Boley, because pretty soon it's not gonna be the
Speaker 8: NWA Championship, It's gonna be the Terry Ballet Championship.
Speaker 2: The TBA Championship by t BD is more like it.
Speaker 2: I can't. I mean, the Dream immediately plugs himself in,
Speaker 2: immediately pulls rank Oh and gets the strap. I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: I just have to connect the dots.
Speaker 4: I have to.
Speaker 2: That's tremendous. I mean, that is absolutely I mean, listen,
Speaker 2: you think about you think about Dusty at that time, right,
Speaker 2: and that's what he was all about. He was all about,
Speaker 2: you know, taking advantage of that kind of stuff. He
Speaker 2: was he was all about getting ahead of somebody else
Speaker 2: that might become the top babyface. Yes, you know, and
Speaker 2: that's that's survival instinct and wrestling. But he was you know,
Speaker 2: especially you know Crocket Television. The country saw it in
Speaker 2: late eighties, mid to late eighties, particularly mid eighties when
Speaker 2: when Flair started to become more popular in those TBS
Speaker 2: studios than him, and he was a fucking basket case.
Speaker 2: He didn't know what to do when people we were
Speaker 2: cheering the flash right and the heeled mannerisms of Flair,
Speaker 2: and he starts, Dusty starts desperately wearing like fur coats
Speaker 2: on TBS, like mink fur coat to try to like
Speaker 2: out out glisten Ric Flair when he's supposed to be,
Speaker 2: you know, when the straight bunk house cowboy, you know,
Speaker 2: counter image to Ric Flair's playboy image, was supposed to
Speaker 2: be his whole bread and butter, and now here he
Speaker 2: is trying to wear like Louis Vuitton bags on TBS.
Speaker 2: It's too mud so so Dusty wasn't the only one
Speaker 2: that Terry Bullay is starting to leave in the dust.
Speaker 2: Back in Florida. We cannot forget that Bob Rup, who
Speaker 2: were on Fuller would say is the architect of this
Speaker 2: whole Knoxville exodus, even though you know, Ronnie Garvin was
Speaker 2: was double the star. Roup was in the area and
Speaker 2: in fact held Ron Fuller's belt. Ron Fuller later sued
Speaker 2: Ronnie Garvin to get back possession of the Southeastern Championship
Speaker 2: belt that he had. We'll have some fun with that
Speaker 2: a little later. But but Bob Roup too, and certainly
Speaker 2: it's going to be difficult for Hope to stick around.
Speaker 2: He you know, is he gonna go? Does he have
Speaker 2: any loyalty, any affinity for for Bob Rup, who was
Speaker 2: who was certainly around then a top guys in terms
Speaker 2: of a shooter and a trainer as well as a
Speaker 2: wrestler in Florida when he first started to break in.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I mean, fortunately for us, mister Rup
Speaker 2: not too long ago started podcast The Wrestling Stoop, and
Speaker 2: I would like to play now for you. Wrestling Stoop
Speaker 2: correct his recollection looking back on first encountering Terry bully
Speaker 2: Uh and how it all ended up as it regards
Speaker 2: their relationship and why let's say Knoxville was not was
Speaker 2: not going to be Terry Bullay's choice over Ron Fuller,
Speaker 2: and why pretty much skipping town uh seemed probably like
Speaker 2: the best decision for him during this promotional war.
Speaker 5: So one day I came out, I was getting ready
Speaker 5: to leave, and Uh, this guy, this big bond guy
Speaker 5: with long hair and wearing a tank top and beds,
Speaker 5: had a necklace of bees and bes do his wrists
Speaker 5: and came right up to my car and uh knocked
Speaker 5: on the window. I put my wonder down and says,
Speaker 5: hey man, he says, I'm going to be I'm going
Speaker 5: to be here Tuesday to work out with you. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I just talked to Eddie Graham. He's gonna he's gonna
Speaker 5: have me work out with you. And uh, uh I said, okay,
Speaker 5: uh yeah, I said, I have an idea that let me.
Speaker 5: Let me get back to you on that hang around
Speaker 5: here a minute. So I went back inside. I asked
Speaker 5: Eddie about it. I said, what's that about? And h
Speaker 5: He's said yeah, he said that guys are hippie. He said, uh,
Speaker 5: hair and everything. He said. I hate him. He said, h,
Speaker 5: you know, I want you to I want you to
Speaker 5: stress him. So uh, okay, I went back.
Speaker 2: I went back.
Speaker 5: I told Terry he had addition himself as Terry Boulet.
Speaker 5: I said, hey, uh, I just checked.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 5: He wants me to do is discourage you. He's not
Speaker 5: ready to give you a break of any kind. He
Speaker 5: wants me to stress the hell out of you. I said,
Speaker 5: I'm not going to be here, so if you come
Speaker 5: down here, I'm not going to be here. Well, he
Speaker 5: seemed to appreciate that he was working at Terry Dad.
Speaker 5: He was working in a band. He was a bass
Speaker 5: player in a band, and he was working there in
Speaker 5: Tampa at the time. And and over the next couple
Speaker 5: of weeks, I actually went h once. I went by myself.
Speaker 5: Another time I took my girlfriend and later became my wife,
Speaker 5: and we went out and listened to him play, and
Speaker 5: we danced a few times to his music. Another time
Speaker 5: he played in Sarasota, I went out there on a
Speaker 5: weekend night that we were we weren't wrestling. I went
Speaker 5: out and listened to him play. So, you know, I
Speaker 5: had some little association with him, and then I left.
Speaker 5: When I left Florida a few years later. A couple
Speaker 5: three years later, he had been broken into the business. Uh,
Speaker 5: and I was working. I was booking in Knoxville. I
Speaker 5: got a call from a guy named Terry Gibbs who
Speaker 5: had worked for me.
Speaker 2: And I used to talk to Terry a lot in
Speaker 2: the late nineties, right.
Speaker 5: And Terry called me and he says, hey, Bob, He said, uh, Terry,
Speaker 5: Terry Bully is looking for work. He said, he's been
Speaker 5: working out. He took a year off. He's been working
Speaker 5: out with the waist. He's enormous, you know, he's amongers.
Speaker 5: Said he look great. He said, can you book him?
Speaker 5: And I said no, I said, Terry, Uh, I said, Now,
Speaker 5: Terry was down in Tampa at the time. He took
Speaker 5: a week off. I said, Terry, do you want me
Speaker 5: to do you want me to give you your notice?
Speaker 5: He said, know, why would you do that. The only
Speaker 5: way I can hire somebody else is I have to
Speaker 5: get rid of somebody. I said, we don't have any
Speaker 5: wrestlers on it our programmed that don't work every night,
Speaker 5: so you know, if you want to, I don't have
Speaker 5: room for him, I says. What I'll try to do, though,
Speaker 5: Louis to Leette was booking pasta Cola, and so I said,
Speaker 5: what I'll do is I'll call Louis and see if
Speaker 5: Louis can get a man down there. And I did
Speaker 5: call Louis. I told him about him. Then apparently I'm
Speaker 5: not sure, but I think that he actually worked there
Speaker 5: for Louis.
Speaker 2: So Barbara doesn't even know while he's doing what he's
Speaker 2: doing in Knoxville that Terry Bulay, this guy he remembers,
Speaker 2: you know, showing mercy to when Eddie Graham wanted to
Speaker 2: stretch this hippie out of the business. Is not only
Speaker 2: working for Louis to Lett on the other side of
Speaker 2: Ron Fuller's territorial map, but he's also fucking wrestling Harley
Speaker 2: Race for the world title. And Barbrup has no idea.
Speaker 2: He didn't even know that Louis to Lay took him on.
Speaker 2: So that's even that's even more dramatic that people even
Speaker 2: within the business didn't know necessarily what Terry Bullay was doing.
Speaker 2: It's wild. So add that to the soup of the
Speaker 2: origin stories of how Terry ended up down there. You know,
Speaker 2: apparently Bob Rup was offered first DIBs with Terry Gibbs,
Speaker 2: of all people, being the intermediary that was, you know,
Speaker 2: testing the waters to see if Rupe might book this guy.
Speaker 2: And and no, he didn't really have a spot. And
Speaker 2: so he according to Bob Roup, I mean, he doesn't
Speaker 2: like pat himself on the back for this, So I
Speaker 2: feel like he kind of probably is telling the truth
Speaker 2: because I don't think he realized the significance of this.
Speaker 2: He doesn't know what Terry Blay did in the territory.
Speaker 2: He ends up referring Bolea instead to Louis Tillette, Hogan
Speaker 2: has mentioned. In prior episodes of The Khalet Hulk, Cogan
Speaker 2: and his book gives credit to superstar Billy Graham for
Speaker 2: the referral. Other times it seems to be Bob Orton
Speaker 2: that had something to do with it, or Bob Rup,
Speaker 2: I think, if I remember correctly from that episode, Ed
Speaker 2: Leslie in his book does give credit to to Bob
Speaker 2: Rupe in some way for making the connection, But I
Speaker 2: mean that's wrestling, man. Like you're just when someone becomes
Speaker 2: a big enough deal that everyone's going to ask you
Speaker 2: about them for years and years and years, you end
Speaker 2: up concocting a story that's probably sixty percent the truth,
Speaker 2: that you repeat so often that you forget where you
Speaker 2: took liberties with the truth. Just put yourself, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of in a position to not, like we talked
Speaker 2: about with Jerry Briscoe, to not be seen as someone
Speaker 2: who missed this, can't miss starr And so it's so crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's first frustrating. It's like it is you think Terry's
Speaker 2: the only one fabricating things. Fabricating is a strong word,
Speaker 2: but you know, just not caring enough to remember like
Speaker 2: who called who first? Because at the time he's a nobody,
Speaker 2: you know, why would you remember it. But now that
Speaker 2: he's so big, you're being asked about him so many times,
Speaker 2: and the truth is you weren't paying anywhere near enough
Speaker 2: attention to recall the precise details because he wasn't a
Speaker 2: big enough deal, right, So we're stuck with these stories
Speaker 2: that contradict each other about who called who first, but
Speaker 2: it's possible. It's no different than when you did under
Speaker 2: the cinemat for Rocky three, right, And it's like who
Speaker 2: actually gave Hogan the fucking phone call to come to be.
Speaker 7: On the movie exactly? And not only that, but everyone
Speaker 7: else said they were going to be in the movie first. Right,
Speaker 7: you know there's all that, Yeah, exactly. Everyone wants to
Speaker 7: take credit and everyone wants to have been there first.
Speaker 2: Well, since we're here, I mean, let's get Bob RUP's
Speaker 2: perspective on the whole hero matsuita thing. He was one
Speaker 2: voice that we didn't really include in what happened between
Speaker 2: Hogan and Metsuda, and Rupe has an interesting angle on
Speaker 2: it because he was somebody that did He gramm used
Speaker 2: in much the same way to try to discourage people
Speaker 2: they didn't think would have the heart to respect the
Speaker 2: business from coming back and trying more. And I think
Speaker 2: Bob Roop as a shooter, as a high level Olympic
Speaker 2: caliber wrestler in his own right, has a pretty interesting
Speaker 2: perspective on why you would do something like this to
Speaker 2: a young wrestler or a young hopeful.
Speaker 5: Right, Well, the one about Hu Boll Terry, whatever you
Speaker 5: want to call it. And he didn't come back right away.
Speaker 5: He stayed. He smartened up. He realized they weren't you know,
Speaker 5: he wasn't, so he came back later. But that ankle thing,
Speaker 5: that ankle thing that the Hero did with him, he
Speaker 5: did it with me too, the first thing, the first
Speaker 5: time we worked out. Uh, he did it with me
Speaker 5: and I where I'm down in the referee position, where
Speaker 5: I'm on my knees and my hands on the mat
Speaker 5: like it's an amateur U referee posis and it's called
Speaker 5: and Hero stood behind me. And then one when he
Speaker 5: to go, he dropped his knee on the back of
Speaker 5: my ankle, like on the Achilles tendon, which the bat
Speaker 5: in itself could have break the Killes tendon. Then what
Speaker 5: I turned sideways with it because in wrestling, one thing
Speaker 5: you learned to do is you go, you know, you
Speaker 5: go with the pressure. You don't go against it, you
Speaker 5: go with it. So I had I turned so they
Speaker 5: didn't hurt my ankle. He reached down, I grabbed my toe. Well,
Speaker 5: I had turned to facing by this time, I mean
Speaker 5: the face backwards. My body was between us. But he
Speaker 5: was close enough, I reached out and grabbed his hair.
Speaker 5: I struck my thumb on his eye and I didn't
Speaker 5: press hard, but I him know, if you fall up
Speaker 5: a mincle, you're going to have a different outlook, and
Speaker 5: at a very near future, if you're going to have
Speaker 5: a very different outlook on things. And he let go
Speaker 5: immediately and within five seconds he started teaching me how
Speaker 5: to hook. That was the last thing that he ever tried.
Speaker 5: That was that was like initiation, and that's what he
Speaker 5: did to hook and see if he could defend himself. Okay,
Speaker 5: and he couldn't. If you know how to defend yourself
Speaker 5: at all, you know how to avoid that when when
Speaker 5: they do that, you know what to do. If you
Speaker 5: don't know how to defend yourself, well then you get hurt.
Speaker 5: And so that's what the test was. Also there's another
Speaker 5: part to it. Terry had no value to them at
Speaker 5: the time. You know, they know they had a lot
Speaker 5: of big muscular guys that never did, you know, never
Speaker 5: did anything. But what is another test to see if
Speaker 5: he was hurt, will he come back? And so that
Speaker 5: was it was like a double test. Can you defend himself?
Speaker 5: And if he can't, if you want to come back
Speaker 5: and learn how to defend himself.
Speaker 2: And that's what was going That's what was going on.
Speaker 2: He's wrestling podcast.
Speaker 1: He's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast with Jack and Carno,
Speaker 1: JP Soro.
Speaker 2: And as big as he was in seventy seven or
Speaker 2: seventy six, whatever we're talking about, he was nowhere near
Speaker 2: as big as he would be by the time. You know,
Speaker 2: Ron Fuller and Louis Tillette can't deny that this guy.
Speaker 2: You got to put this guy in front of people.
Speaker 2: Look at the size of this motherfucker. Yeah. Right, of course.
Speaker 2: It's about the Royds, brother, It's about the Royds, way
Speaker 2: before Vince McMahon Junior decided that this is what a
Speaker 2: wrestler looks like. A brother, I never did Royds, dude,
Speaker 2: I've never. I don't abuse steroids. I don't do steroids
Speaker 2: deal currently. I don't deal steroids. I certainly don't. I
Speaker 2: certainly don't inject steroids. You bock to seven a corner
Speaker 2: on that one, man, What I do? How do you
Speaker 2: take them? Then? If you don't inject them? What eat?
Speaker 2: I don't do them? So how could I What are
Speaker 2: you saying? Brother? Well, I'm saying Plan B. I'm saying
Speaker 2: since last time we were with you, when we talked
Speaker 2: about the Plan B tape, I hope that's still ringing
Speaker 2: in your head, as they call the business fraud, and
Speaker 2: it's been bringing my head every everything you fucking played it.
Speaker 2: She can't believe your ears when you when you hear it.
Speaker 2: It's like when they say when they say that, I like,
Speaker 2: I've never been in a in a legitimate match. Everything
Speaker 2: that I've done has been fraudulent. So good it's it's
Speaker 2: it's absolutely it's it's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. A little
Speaker 2: more color on that from Bob Roops podcast in terms
Speaker 2: of explaining why they did that, which I didn't really
Speaker 2: appreciate it first. So this isn't something that they're doing
Speaker 2: to counteract Ron Fuller stopping them from going independent like
Speaker 2: a sort of damicles. This was a little later. This
Speaker 2: is like nineteen eighty and they did this because the
Speaker 2: NWA had marshaled so many resources to crush them when
Speaker 2: they try to run their shows, you know, bringing in
Speaker 2: big time star power from around the country to do
Speaker 2: shows on the same night in the same city that
Speaker 2: Bob RUP's Upstart group was trying to run and just
Speaker 2: doing all kinds of things to fuck with them that
Speaker 2: they thought, according to Bob Rupe, that doing a tape
Speaker 2: like this was almost like a last ditch effort, like
Speaker 2: the last bit of leverage they possibly could have to
Speaker 2: stop the NWA power structure from fucking with them, you know,
Speaker 2: like maybe, if worse comes to worse, if we tell
Speaker 2: them there's a tape where we all say it's vague
Speaker 2: and when give it to the news, you'll back off
Speaker 2: and let us actually try to survive here running our
Speaker 2: own wrestling operation. It didn't happen, but was That was
Speaker 2: the mentality of the tape was they were all ready
Speaker 2: on an island. These guys had already failed in their
Speaker 2: attempt to break off and run opposition, so it doesn't
Speaker 2: mean the battle is over in the court room. However,
Speaker 2: of course, this goes well beyond Terry Bolea departing the
Speaker 2: Gulf Coast, but eventually, if you can believe it, Ron
Speaker 2: Fuller sues Ronnie Garvin over a lot of the fallout
Speaker 2: from this, including the fact that ron Garvin had taken
Speaker 2: that the Southeastern Belt is mentioned, and also the idea
Speaker 2: it's so convoluted and We don't need to get into
Speaker 2: all of it because it has nothing to do with bolea,
Speaker 2: but it's just too delicious that basically, like Ronnie Garvin
Speaker 2: wanted money to buy another boat, and so concocted a
Speaker 2: thing where they did like a the winner of a
Speaker 2: television tournament they used to call it the Bayliner Boat
Speaker 2: tournaments would win a boat, and he's booked to win it,
Speaker 2: and Fuller is in court having to testify about predetermining
Speaker 2: the matches. Ron Garvin used to like to tell a
Speaker 2: story that Fuller, you know, basically let him win the
Speaker 2: case and go home with the be yeah, because he
Speaker 2: didn't want to admit in court that wrestling was fake. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: there's a great book out there called Professional Wrestling in
Speaker 2: the Law, Legal Battles from the ring to the courtroom
Speaker 2: where he pulled the filings, and Ron Fuller is totally
Speaker 2: in court saying that it was completely predetermined and that
Speaker 2: Ron Governor was booked to win the whole thing. But
Speaker 2: I just want to give you a little flavor because
Speaker 2: this is sort of like the fumes of all of
Speaker 2: this intrigue that's happening while Terry Bullay is in the
Speaker 2: territory up in Knoxville, and this is like, this is
Speaker 2: sort of like a whiff of the absurd end it
Speaker 2: all came to. This is from nineteen eighty at a
Speaker 2: Knoxville boss that sent you a clipping. I think you
Speaker 2: ought to just start reading that headline loud and proud.
Speaker 2: I think we know who is editing this paper. Oh brother,
Speaker 2: hold on, Oh should have forgot that picture. There, there
Speaker 2: we go, Judge pins fake wrestling scheme? Fake wrestling scheme?
Speaker 2: Is that redundant? Yes, it's not redundant if you have
Speaker 2: such a fucking disdain for wrestling that you have to
Speaker 2: let it drip through your headline. Read come on, put
Speaker 2: it in. Put it in right there. How about Judge
Speaker 2: Penn's wrestling scheme? Just no, no scheme gets across the
Speaker 2: idea that no, it does not, No, it does not.
Speaker 2: The word has to be in the headline, Boss, it's
Speaker 2: gotta be fake to be in the headline. It's gotta
Speaker 2: be fucking fake, your stupid fuck chancellor, Chancellor. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: the Corederick Boss. Frederick D. McDonald today denounced from the
Speaker 2: bench what was described in his court as a fixed
Speaker 2: wrestling tournament with the winner of a luxury boat determined
Speaker 2: before the tournament. I forbid, I love this.
Speaker 7: His ruling came in a complaint brought by NWA Southeastern
Speaker 7: Wrestling Incorporated against wrestler Ronnie Garvin. Ronald Welch, who wrestles
Speaker 7: under the name ron Fuller, is a principal stockholder in Southeastern,
Speaker 7: which promotes wrestling here.
Speaker 2: Which, as we talked about, Ron Fuller absolutely did not
Speaker 2: want in the local press the disclosure that he was
Speaker 2: in fact the owner. The question is the question here
Speaker 2: is should the court to Tennessee be used to carry
Speaker 2: out contracts for fixed wrestling matches? Chancellor McDonald said, sounds
Speaker 2: good to be I'd love to spare witness to that.
Speaker 2: We don't think the court should be a part of
Speaker 2: such arrangements. The public will lose all confidence in us
Speaker 2: if we decide this case between two phony wrestlers. The
Speaker 2: public will assume we're a work, I'll say, and then
Speaker 2: the whole justice system in the whole world is gone fuck.
Speaker 2: The issue in the suit was twelve thousand dollars, which
Speaker 2: Welch said he gave to Garvin as a down payment
Speaker 2: on a twenty seven foot bay liner boat and trailer.
Speaker 2: Southeastern filed suit June sixth, nineteen seventy nine for recovery
Speaker 2: of the twelve thousand dollars from Garvin, and asked that
Speaker 2: the boat be seized for it by the court. The
Speaker 2: order was issued by the court. Evidence today showed that
Speaker 2: Southeastern entered in an agreement with Garvin in which there
Speaker 2: would be a wrestling tournament with the boat and trailer
Speaker 2: as a prize, yes and in which it was further
Speaker 2: agreed that Garvin would win the tournament and the boat.
Speaker 2: Testimonies showed that Garvin had agreed to repay the twelve
Speaker 2: thousand dollars when he had sold another boat but not
Speaker 2: sold the Headlock. Apparently, Southeastern contended when it got the
Speaker 2: court order to seize the boat, that Garvin was going
Speaker 2: to Tokyo to wrestle. Garvin's attorney argued, quote the doctrine
Speaker 2: the doctor in the Unclean hams Unclean Hands of Stone,
Speaker 2: saying Southeastern should not come to court with a complaint
Speaker 2: resulting from an illicit agreement. Chancellor McDonald said Garvin's agreement
Speaker 2: was to win the tournament and win the boat. He
Speaker 2: said the plaintiff argue that the tournament was Garvin's idea.
Speaker 2: We will leave the parties exactly where they were before
Speaker 2: the lawsuit. Chancellor McDonald said the doctrine of unclean hands
Speaker 2: applies to the plaintiff as well as the defendant. He
Speaker 2: ruled that Garvin would gain possession of the boat. I
Speaker 2: don't give a shit. Was this a w I mean,
Speaker 2: I gonna know probably what you all do is so
Speaker 2: so so what you all do is fake? All right,
Speaker 2: it doesn't exist. It's not a real thing. So I
Speaker 2: don't give a shit. Who gets what? Just fucking let
Speaker 2: this Garvin bastard take the damn boat. Judge Mischler, it
Speaker 2: was hardly the first, hardly the first. Judge Mitchler is
Speaker 2: an archetype. He's not an individual. Okay, I'm a I'm
Speaker 2: a Chancellor of this court. I do not need to
Speaker 2: be handled with fake, fake lawsuits. Okay, how do I know?
Speaker 2: I know y'all ain't gonna get together and have a
Speaker 2: big steak dinner and a big laugh about this when
Speaker 2: I'm a big done wasting the court time?
Speaker 7: How do I know you're not wasting my time? How
Speaker 7: do I know that this is all a real complaint?
Speaker 7: How do I know that I'm not being dragged into
Speaker 7: one of your bullshit wrestling starlines.
Speaker 2: You got cameras here? I don't know, but I'll tell
Speaker 2: you I will not be abused. I will not be abused.
Speaker 2: Who is that again? When they said that, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: it was the judge in the Ron Fuller Ron Garvin lawsuit?
Speaker 2: What episode the complete holl cokein episode three thousand or
Speaker 2: whatever it is? And now bailiff, excuse me? Who who
Speaker 2: do I see over there listening up against the courtroom door?
Speaker 2: Who's silhouette? Is that?
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 2: Mister? Is that mister Bolea? Is that a Bowley over there?
Speaker 2: Is that that I heard about him? Bring him into
Speaker 2: this courtroom, sir, standing here? You can't be standing outside.
Speaker 2: He's dropping on proceedings. What business do you have before
Speaker 2: this court? And this issue?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 9: I said?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 2: Who are you? He says, He says what. Terry says
Speaker 2: what and the judge goes what.
Speaker 5: The judge.
Speaker 2: Answer the question, mister Bola, well.
Speaker 1: What do you?
Speaker 3: What do you?
Speaker 2: What are you asking me? I'm sorry, did you not
Speaker 2: hear me?
Speaker 9: I said?
Speaker 2: Who the fuck are you? He's already gone to New York,
Speaker 2: but he comes back for this trial because he's terrified
Speaker 2: of what might be said. Brother, I'm just I'm just
Speaker 2: I just happened to be walking through. Brother. You're walking
Speaker 2: through where the build the building to the territory, territory.
Speaker 2: I'm just on my way out, Brother, I'm on my
Speaker 2: way out. I'm going to New York. Dude, No way,
Speaker 2: you're going to New York right now. You are in contempt, sir,
Speaker 2: You are in contempt of this court room. I didn't brother,
Speaker 2: I just was walking through. Dude, I was walking through. Brother.
Speaker 2: You just think you could just roll up here and
Speaker 2: just you know, well, brother, what you say? Roll up? Dude?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Brother? Who you rolling up? Dude? No? I you rolled
Speaker 2: up your dumb bitch from the bench because of the
Speaker 2: dumb bitch tremendous. Ron Fuller's like laughing. Arrest that son
Speaker 2: of a bitch and you put him in handcuffs and
Speaker 2: you get him in jail now where he.
Speaker 9: Can be pinned down?
Speaker 2: What what you'll be pinned down? He doesn't get rock
Speaker 2: getting the rest, and he cares about taking a fall
Speaker 2: because he doesn't. He's he thinks this court could very
Speaker 2: well be another put on from Ron Fuller. You know
Speaker 2: you're gonna be you, sir, are gonna be pinned down
Speaker 2: by the law. Brother, Dude, I've never bro Dude, I
Speaker 2: don't understand clearly he's looking left to right. It's like
Speaker 2: these these these like court officers have their hands on
Speaker 2: their handcuffs, on their belt. I'm just walking through. Dude. Well,
Speaker 2: when to live on the beach again, I can and Boss,
Speaker 2: the brilliant thing of it is, he would only be
Speaker 2: the first Terry to put his ear up to a
Speaker 2: courtroom door. You damn fucking right. And it all came
Speaker 2: full circle, Boss for Bob Rup and Terry bolea some
Speaker 2: time later and here he uh some parting thoughts, I
Speaker 2: guess you could say on this little extra snippet of
Speaker 2: the Bob Roop Terry Bowleio dynamic.
Speaker 5: We were there. We went out clubbing. Uh maybe later
Speaker 5: that night, or maybe it was a night before. I
Speaker 5: went out to club to get a beer and I
Speaker 5: saw him and, uh, you know, you look great, humongous.
Speaker 5: I walked up to him, you know, and like I say,
Speaker 5: I known him. I for as far as I knew,
Speaker 5: everything I'd done for him had been positive. I walked
Speaker 5: up to him to like to say hi. He just
Speaker 5: stubbed me. He was talking to some girl. He just
Speaker 5: stubbed me like I was invisible, you know, So I
Speaker 5: just turned around walked away. And I've never had any
Speaker 5: use for him ever since. I mean, you know, that's fine.
Speaker 5: You know, when I think about it, I thought that
Speaker 5: perhaps he didn't want to be remembered before he'd become
Speaker 5: a star by this time. Sure, yeah, so he didn't
Speaker 5: want to be reminded of his days when he wasn't
Speaker 5: a star.
Speaker 2: I think that's a very very key insight from Bob Rup, right,
Speaker 2: I think group, yes, it's only fair, right if you
Speaker 2: don't see a star in Terry Boleo when he before
Speaker 2: he became a star. He doesn't want to give you
Speaker 2: the satisfaction of acting like you saw that. It's funny.
Speaker 2: It's funny, like right, it's the exact opposite of those
Speaker 2: who didn't see it, you know, it's like it's ugh,
Speaker 2: it such a fucking yeah, they're also fucking phony. It's
Speaker 2: so annoying, it is. It is really annoying. And I
Speaker 2: just just delight in the fact that at some point,
Speaker 2: after hitting a big hulk ran into Bob Roup after
Speaker 2: you know, cow towing to him at the Imperial Room
Speaker 2: when he was in the band trying to get into wrestling,
Speaker 2: and now Hulk is in the position of acting like
Speaker 2: Bob Roup doesn't exist. And exactly, I think he kept
Speaker 2: a very strict and very carefully attended to tallly of
Speaker 2: people who fit that category. Did our subject to joor
Speaker 2: Terry Bulay, Absolutely he did. He is not he is
Speaker 2: not letting anyone off the hook. It was well boss,
Speaker 2: a hell of a way to make a living. As
Speaker 2: the Pensacola Journal here so adequately and aptly chronicled, we
Speaker 2: always like when we visit a new territory on the
Speaker 2: lapsed fan and get a flavor of it to pull,
Speaker 2: you know, the prototypical people come to the matches and
Speaker 2: these parts, and yeah, here are three old ladies describing
Speaker 2: why they come to this thing. And here's us asking
Speaker 2: them if they know it's fake. And here's us asking
Speaker 2: a wrestler if it's fake in the locker room and
Speaker 2: taking a picture of someone lacing their boots. In this case,
Speaker 2: Austin Idel Hogan's a foe at the time in the
Speaker 2: territory gets the honors. But as we wrap up the
Speaker 2: Alabama leg of our journey and the Alabama leg of
Speaker 2: Terry Boley's journey. It's perhaps extremely appropriate that we bring
Speaker 2: you this article from the Sports section of the Pensacola
Speaker 2: Journal on June twenty eighth, nineteen seventy nine, just as
Speaker 2: Terry Bolea was ramping up to challenge for the World Championship.
Speaker 7: Hell of a Way to Make a Living by Jerry Shreiver.
Speaker 7: I remember one time these two guys were wrestling in
Speaker 7: a car about a car about the winner would receive
Speaker 7: a new car. It was real physical, bloody match, and
Speaker 7: the winner was really battered up. After the fight, he
Speaker 7: threw himself on the hood of the car and was
Speaker 7: laying they're bleeding. I saw people go up to the
Speaker 7: car and run their fingers through the blood and lick
Speaker 7: it and then say, Ha, that's not blood. He's faking it.
Speaker 7: He's using a blood capsule or something. It really hurts
Speaker 7: these guys when you when people yell fake.
Speaker 2: Just months before, this person said the same thing in
Speaker 2: the court of law. Mister Roy welchlch professional wrestler and consultant.
Speaker 2: So Welch not run Oh sorry, Roy Welch. Sorry now Roy?
Speaker 2: Is is he a professional wrestler and a professional consultant?
Speaker 2: Or is he a professional wrestler consultant. I don't know.
Speaker 7: That's a great that's a great question. Just a consultant
Speaker 7: is like, does he consult outside of wrestling?
Speaker 2: That's the question. Tells me, probably not, But we're about
Speaker 2: to find out. Roy Welch is worried, and for good reason.
Speaker 2: In just an hour until the main event on Tuesday's
Speaker 2: professional wrestling card at the Municipal Auditorium, and Welch has
Speaker 2: learned that The Hulk, a crowd favorite who was supposed
Speaker 2: to challenge Beautiful Austin Idol for the Gulf Coast Championship,
Speaker 2: has canceled out Brother leg Injury. Brother What due to
Speaker 2: a leg injury sustained the night before. Nervously running his
Speaker 2: fingers through his shiny black hair, the man in charge
Speaker 2: of the night's festivities confronts this latest slipped gear in
Speaker 2: the pro wrestling Merry Go Round. Well, these are things
Speaker 2: that set your program back, but it can't be helped,
Speaker 2: he says, disappointedly. Welch is one of the men committed
Speaker 2: to the success of pro wrestling in Pensacola, and he
Speaker 2: feels he is just on the brink of attaining it.
Speaker 2: So he's on the brink of attaining success. Yes, apparently
Speaker 2: it's been the opposite so far, I guess okay, But
Speaker 2: there are always the setbacks, skepticism, skepticism, skepticism from sports purists,
Speaker 2: rival outlaw promoters. Yeah, sure, injuries. The crowd tonight is respectable,
Speaker 2: but many seats are given out as charity to the underprivileged,
Speaker 2: and there is always the rent. I've got to go
Speaker 2: see if I can round somebody up. I usually bring
Speaker 2: my wrestling out there with me just in case, but
Speaker 2: I didn't tonight. I might have to send somebody for it,
Speaker 2: he says. The crowd takes the announcement of the cancelation well,
Speaker 2: except for a persistent course of boo birds in the
Speaker 2: back who chant give us her money back. Yes, this
Speaker 2: veteran crowd knows that unexpected lineup changes are part of
Speaker 2: the carnival like atmosphere of pro wrestling. They also know
Speaker 2: that whoever is in charge of the entertainment tonight will
Speaker 2: come up with some behemoth for the idol to bounce
Speaker 2: off the ropes and slam onto the plywood with a
Speaker 2: banchy cry. After all, that's what they came for. Professional wrestling.
Speaker 2: It's rough and tumble, it's melodramatic, bordering on farcical. It's
Speaker 2: more authentic than some people give it credit for. It
Speaker 2: ordering on bordering on bordering on farcical. It's inconsistent. It's fun.
Speaker 7: There is money to be made, and because of that,
Speaker 7: it's a serious business and the hell of a way
Speaker 7: to make a living. Take Charlie, not his real name,
Speaker 7: but a feature on the Tuesday Night Card, a professional
Speaker 7: wrestler for thirteen plus years who has been here and
Speaker 7: back and looks it. The hairline is receding and the
Speaker 7: middrift bulge is slowly advancing on his still powerful frame.
Speaker 7: At thirty six, he's won his share of titles and
Speaker 7: now he's hoping to squeeze maybe five or eight more
Speaker 7: years out of his body. Then he wants to hang
Speaker 7: it up and go back to being a chemical salesman. Oh,
Speaker 7: this is definitely sales. This is definitely hell co good.
Speaker 2: My name's Charlie. Dude, chemicals you're talking about? Dude, I
Speaker 2: don't you know chemicals? So you know, well, it's a
Speaker 2: it's a it's a Well then what I don't I
Speaker 2: don't sail things. That's something I mean by sail is
Speaker 2: the same kind of round up chemicals that said uh
Speaker 2: got involved with after.
Speaker 7: He's just starting on his second marriage, after his hectic
Speaker 7: lifestyle finally caved in his first marriage, which lasted nineteen years.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna go different page here to continue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, next file. It does say the works in the
Speaker 2: top left, which I think is just hilarious and it's
Speaker 2: very funny.
Speaker 7: Traveling around all the traveling around all the time, it
Speaker 7: started to get a little aggravating, especially with this gas thing,
Speaker 7: he said, as he held tightly against his stomach. It
Speaker 7: puts a strain on a marriage trying to keep two households.
Speaker 2: What well, that's another way of saying it puts a
Speaker 2: strain on a marriage to have two wives. I guess.
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 7: Surveying the crowd, which hasn't changed much over the years,
Speaker 7: he observes ninety percent of people are blood Thursday. You know,
Speaker 7: after thirteen years, you just sort of ignore them when
Speaker 7: they scream at you and holler nasty things. I just
Speaker 7: go out there to win matches and put money in
Speaker 7: my pocket. My advice is something starting out good luck.
Speaker 7: I wouldn't steer anyone away from it.
Speaker 2: Though. It gets in your blood and the more you wrestle.
Speaker 2: The more you want to wrestle, it's a hell of
Speaker 2: a way to make a living. Now, then there's Austin Idel,
Speaker 2: a sweetheart of a guy who is the top bill tonight.
Speaker 2: He uses Las Vegas cool from every pore of his
Speaker 2: granite superstructure, even though he's from Tampa and indeed that's
Speaker 2: where he was born. All some folks.
Speaker 7: A man who cultivates the image of a superstar, he
Speaker 7: is not all that arrogant, simply secure in the knowledge
Speaker 7: that he has made it as intelligent, physically, tough and
Speaker 7: disciplined as most other pro athletes. He is living somewhere
Speaker 7: in the one hundred fifty thousand dollars plus annual income bracket,
Speaker 7: yet he has virtually unrecognized outside his profession.
Speaker 2: No matter he quote worked my hide off to get
Speaker 2: where he is, and now he reaps the rewards. Everybody
Speaker 2: loves the idol. He stays flexed, actually really good twenty
Speaker 2: one in biceps. It's a very glamorous life I lead,
Speaker 2: but it's also tough metally and physically. I thrive on
Speaker 2: glimmer and glamour. I'm single and I wouldn't have it
Speaker 2: any other way. Man, I can just about pick what
Speaker 2: I want. It's hard to let that kind of thing go.
Speaker 2: And I go to Vegas about once a week, walk
Speaker 2: down the strip, play with the girls, pull a few handles.
Speaker 2: You know, there is no form, no theory to get
Speaker 2: into the top. Either you have the ability to put
Speaker 2: fannies in the seats or you don't. Everybody loves the idol,
Speaker 2: his body, the glib tongue, whatever you know, Babe. Sometimes
Speaker 2: I yearn for the media exposure that other pro athletes
Speaker 2: are getting. If I could just get on the damn
Speaker 2: Tonight Show, I know I could make it boom one
Speaker 2: shot on Johnny Carson and everybody would know the idol
Speaker 2: that maybe if Johnny quits, I can take his place.
Speaker 2: N When I quit, I'm going back to Vegas and
Speaker 2: follow and follow the sun. Finally, there is Rick Field,
Speaker 2: still trying to get out Joe Rogan today to this day.
Speaker 2: By the way, o Ustin, I will remember you saying,
Speaker 2: why doesn't Joe invite the real deal on if Hogan's
Speaker 2: going to a show and give me credit for all
Speaker 2: the gimmicks.
Speaker 7: Finally, there is Rick Fields down to the bottom of
Speaker 7: the hill, a relative youngster on his way up waiting
Speaker 7: and waiting for a shot at the top. I've been
Speaker 7: in wrestling about five years professionally, but it's been in
Speaker 7: the family for years.
Speaker 2: I got my schooling from my father. I didn't go
Speaker 2: to the AAU route like most of the guys, and
Speaker 2: it hasn't been an overnight thing. I swept floors, put
Speaker 2: up signs, took take its referee, you name it, I'd
Speaker 2: done it.
Speaker 7: I'm in this thing to win the world championship. That's
Speaker 7: my goal. That's what everybody wants. You have to keep
Speaker 7: building up wins. The main thing for me. You gotta
Speaker 7: keep building up houses so people can say, oh, you
Speaker 7: know this guy's a draw, then I'll give them the title.
Speaker 2: The main thing for me is to keep my nose
Speaker 2: clean and and keeping God in good condition. Watch and
Speaker 2: learn and something will come my way. Is it worth it?
Speaker 2: Nothing's worth it unless you love it. You gotta remember
Speaker 2: we don't get unemployment or workmen's compensation, no retirement. We
Speaker 2: have our health and our bodies. I wrestled with broken ribs,
Speaker 2: pulled muscles. I remember one time I was working on
Speaker 2: my car and the radiator blew up and scalded me.
Speaker 2: I get some second and third degrees burns on my
Speaker 2: ribs and chest. The next night I wrestled before thirty
Speaker 2: seven thousand people in the New Orleans super Dome. It
Speaker 2: was great.
Speaker 7: Roy Welch's calmer. Now a replacement has been found for
Speaker 7: the Hulk, and the show will go on as planned.
Speaker 7: But people will get their kicks, the wrestlers will pocket
Speaker 7: their earnings, and everyone will go home satisfied tonight, next
Speaker 7: week and the next fifty weeks after that, the pro
Speaker 7: wrestling Merry Go Round never stops.
Speaker 2: Everyone will pocket their earnings. That's right. How wild is
Speaker 2: that that this reporter shows up on a show that
Speaker 2: Terry just not going to make that one brother and
Speaker 2: Austin Idols left there with no opponent, yep, pretending to
Speaker 2: be the A side when the first, the first sentence
Speaker 2: of the whole article is about how the Hult couldn't
Speaker 2: make it, and people are chanting refund in the back
Speaker 2: of the building. I think I don't know, man, if
Speaker 2: my math is right. As far as when this happened,
Speaker 2: this would have been shortly after Terry Bullay made it
Speaker 2: very clear to Louis Toilllett and run Fuller that he
Speaker 2: was going to Memphis and he wasn't happy, and you
Speaker 2: know he's going to do the Harley match, but it
Speaker 2: would be after a bit of an extended absence, or
Speaker 2: at least relative to how frequently he was working a
Speaker 2: prolonged absence. So this is probably one of those leg
Speaker 2: injuries of convenience boss, if nothing else, it's being captured
Speaker 2: in this article. Yep, I imagine that. So we got
Speaker 2: a flavor of the locker room and the talent and
Speaker 2: the logistical rigamarole that went into making Gulf Coast Wrestling.
Speaker 2: We also have a little sidebar here in the fans,
Speaker 2: as promised. So let's get a little bit more acquainted
Speaker 2: with the vox popular eye of Gulf Coast. Oh yes, indeed,
Speaker 2: let me go back here. Got start from the beginning
Speaker 2: here because that was the other one too, right, starts
Speaker 2: the yeah for fan attics. It gets rid of their frustration.
Speaker 2: They come to the matches because they want to blow
Speaker 2: off some steam, that's right. The large woman in the
Speaker 2: lavender tent dress was seated front row center in the
Speaker 2: for the Tuesday Night wrestling card. She frequently was up
Speaker 2: and out of her out of her chair during every match,
Speaker 2: trying her darnedess to call the referees attention to the
Speaker 2: dirty work going on behind his back. Oh damn bad
Speaker 2: wrestlers them, those main ones, disdained. Barbara Williamson referred to
Speaker 2: the mass Gladiator's tag team the obvious bad guys.
Speaker 7: Wrestlings are sparked. They shouldn't hurt one another. Oh she's
Speaker 7: my mom, This is my mom.
Speaker 2: Every region has one. Yep, she exclaimed, still rot up
Speaker 2: over the bloodshed of the previous match. Williamson of Pensacola
Speaker 2: was just one enthusiast among the large crowd at the
Speaker 2: Municipal Auditorium where professional wrestling packs the men every Tuesday night.
Speaker 2: I do this every week. I got carried away during
Speaker 2: Williamson said during one of her calmer moments between falls.
Speaker 2: A mother of eight, she had three of her younger
Speaker 2: children in tow I've been coming to the wrestling matches
Speaker 2: off and on. Where did she have the rest of
Speaker 2: the hospital. I hope ah.
Speaker 7: I just pictured a fucking carving toad by yeah, and
Speaker 7: I watched it on TV whenever it down. She said
Speaker 7: her favorite wrestler is the Hulk and almost unanimous favorite
Speaker 7: with the women in the audience. Listen to that, you've
Speaker 7: never seen him, she asked.
Speaker 2: In surprise. He's just big. He has got big shoulders,
Speaker 2: she said, cupping her hands over above her own. And
Speaker 2: he's good looking, and in plain English, he's a gentleman
Speaker 2: a wrestling in plain English. I thought she was gonna
Speaker 2: say he's hot, you know, I know, right, So hey,
Speaker 2: there there goes my whole theory that no one ever
Speaker 2: saw Terry Bulea as a sex symbol. Ever, Uh huh,
Speaker 2: this woman did. And she's packing it in, Barbara Williamson,
Speaker 2: She fucking she loves it. She needs it. Is that
Speaker 2: her with the extra larch coke in her hand? I
Speaker 2: think so, yes, it is? And is Barbara Williams look
Speaker 2: at her, Oh my god, looks she looks on my
Speaker 2: aunt Martha. She looks like she's in for a scump,
Speaker 2: like a legit character. Yeah.
Speaker 7: Absolutely, a wrestler who's a gentleman. The true terms seem
Speaker 7: to conflict, so Williamson explained, he's so considering it. If
Speaker 7: someone gets hurt in the ring, he'll come out and
Speaker 7: help him. As the lights went down and the next
Speaker 7: match was introduced, Williamson pointed to the Platinum Blonde entering
Speaker 7: the ring, Austin idel watch this guy, she said. He
Speaker 7: thinks he's great, but he's too conceited. He bleaches his hair.
Speaker 2: I hate to break it to you. Yeah right, Barbara,
Speaker 2: but uh so does the Hulk. My lady Idols seem
Speaker 2: to be getting into early trouble with Ron Slinker, his
Speaker 2: behemoth of an opponent. The flashy blonde was down on
Speaker 2: his knees, begging Slinker for mercy. I am that.
Speaker 7: I imagine some of this is fake, Williamson conceded her eyes.
Speaker 7: All they do it just to get the fans going,
Speaker 7: but I still enjoy it. The whole family enjoys that.
Speaker 7: It gets rid of frustrations. All this hollering and carrying
Speaker 7: on takes it all out of you. The weekly wrestling
Speaker 7: is something she can get truly involved in, keeping up
Speaker 7: with the flamboyant personalities, the grudge matches, the title contenders.
Speaker 7: If you go to a movie, you go to it
Speaker 7: and it's over with. But this is every week. Williamson said,
Speaker 7: So it's like television then, right, Yeah, who's ever heard
Speaker 7: of that format?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Right. Surveying the crowd, the wrestling fans seem to
Speaker 2: span the generation gap. Two slender girls from Mobile one
Speaker 2: a frosted blonde. The other brunette positioned themselves early in
Speaker 2: seats on the aisle right next to the wrestler's entrance.
Speaker 2: They were dressed to kill, as a male observer put it,
Speaker 2: decked out in tight blue jeans.
Speaker 7: Sleeky bleff I think we know I they're there. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 7: and an over abundance of eye makeup. They would blend
Speaker 7: right in and at a rock concert, but among the
Speaker 7: Tuesday night wrestling crowd, they stood out. The girls sat
Speaker 7: sipping cokes and snorting coke and throwing occasional anxious glances
Speaker 7: over their shoulders to the dressing room entrance as they
Speaker 7: answered questions.
Speaker 2: Imagine slipping that in the article to see if the
Speaker 2: editor noticed sipping and snorting coke? Yes, can I just
Speaker 2: take a second? Two boss, if you don't mind. Yes, Yes,
Speaker 2: we don't talk enough about this. This is a Tuesday night. Yes,
Speaker 2: they went to work and they're going to work. Yes,
Speaker 2: not always the weekend, like you said, it's right. Can
Speaker 2: you imagine being in a routine in your life? Ever,
Speaker 2: as long as we've been wrestling fans wherever, there's a
Speaker 2: school night every week where you go to the matches.
Speaker 2: I would I would, I would have lost my mind
Speaker 2: as every week. I would have loved it. Such a
Speaker 2: different experience of pro wrestling than we got to have. Yep, yep, Oh,
Speaker 2: it'd be fucking amazing. I used to come all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I know, and then you had eight kids, said Robin Waltman, seventeen.
Speaker 2: But I've just started to coming here again. She and
Speaker 2: her friend have made the hours drive every week for
Speaker 2: the past five weeks. We had to use my daddy's call,
Speaker 2: she said, but he doesn't mind as long as we
Speaker 2: feel it up. A referee for the night's program who
Speaker 2: used to date Waltman's sister, introduce them to their family
Speaker 2: their favorite wrestlers. He put in a good wood for me. Oh,
Speaker 2: Waltman said, with a giggle. The girls were hoping for
Speaker 2: a brief chat with one of them when the competitors
Speaker 2: came to the dressing room door to watch the match
Speaker 2: is preceding their own. It's more interesting when you know
Speaker 2: the guys, said Waltman. You don't want to get you don't.
Speaker 2: You don't want them to get hurt. Last week, a
Speaker 2: blonde hair dude, one of her favorites, came out to
Speaker 2: the ring came out of the Ring of Redhead all bloody.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to watch, but she did along with
Speaker 2: the rest of the crowd, because blood and guts time
Speaker 2: is the most exciting time for the fans. Yes, I
Speaker 2: get excited about this. Oh my god, it really makes
Speaker 2: me mad when the bad guys beat up on the
Speaker 2: good guys. I tell you what, you don't want to
Speaker 2: be around when I get that excited. Oh my arms,
Speaker 2: my arms, a swinging, a holler, and I slap whoever's
Speaker 2: next to me. What we're slapping to fill her up?
Speaker 2: What exactly?
Speaker 7: Waltman's companion, eighteen year old Kathy Welch, nodded in agreement,
Speaker 7: having been on the receiving end of her of her
Speaker 7: friend's excitement more than once eighteen ye but she's been
Speaker 7: lucky to get away with just a few bruises. One
Speaker 7: wrestling fan was let fortunate. A few months ago. I
Speaker 7: threw a coke on a guy and a mobile, Waltman said,
Speaker 7: with a grin. I didn't mean to, but I get
Speaker 7: too excited. I guess the cup just flew out of
Speaker 7: my hand. I didn't soak him, but share got him wet.
Speaker 2: They found a fucking gem in this crowd. Jesus Christ,
Speaker 2: she's fucking money. Well, Jo seemed a bit more reserved,
Speaker 2: but the whole thing acknowledged that some of the action
Speaker 2: in the ring is fake. Again, go to the arena
Speaker 2: and just ask these people if they know it's fake.
Speaker 2: Please come back with quotes. Yeah, most of it is
Speaker 2: sat up, but it's still a lot fun, she said.
Speaker 2: I sit around and watch the people. It's really fun.
Speaker 2: They go crazy. Among the more passive spectators was Eric Chaffin,
Speaker 2: an eight year old clad in a Superman T shirt
Speaker 2: clutching his autograph book Bigpen and thirty one Cents, was
Speaker 2: at the wrestling matches for only the second time. He
Speaker 2: paused in the midst of a dash to the dressing
Speaker 2: room door to catch a retreating wrestler. I've only got
Speaker 2: two autograss but I want them all, he said enthusiastically.
Speaker 9: I tell you secret, I start backstage to get auto grasps.
Speaker 7: As the crowd roared to the action in the ring,
Speaker 7: Eric struck his fingers in his ears. But though it
Speaker 7: hurts my ears, he explained, nevertheless, he enjoys watching the sport.
Speaker 7: I like it when they have to double team matches
Speaker 7: and I like it when the Hawk jumps in the ring.
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm jumping. I'm not jumping, dude. I wonder
Speaker 2: what he meant when the Hulk jumps in the ring.
Speaker 2: He wants me to make a safe Yeah. Would he
Speaker 2: want to join them when he gets bigger?
Speaker 4: Nah?
Speaker 2: Huh, he said with conviction.
Speaker 9: I'm not going.
Speaker 2: I'm not getting punch in the nose. But I might
Speaker 2: join the fire department square and burn my ass off.
Speaker 2: What the doesn't ask? No, no, it doesn't say that.
Speaker 2: But I might join the fire.
Speaker 7: Department and squad bloring boring, yep, Annie made Lucer of Pensacola,
Speaker 7: who gave her age as seventy one.
Speaker 2: I gave her age as you know, another way of
Speaker 2: writing that is just seventy one. Yeah, right, exactly. But
Speaker 2: apparently someone doesn't believe that she's save one, but he
Speaker 2: believes that other girl's eighteen.
Speaker 7: Interesting exactly was that with her personal lap and her
Speaker 7: cane by her side.
Speaker 9: You're not seventy one, you're seventy, Saven.
Speaker 7: Interjected her companion, Katie Goldsby, also Pensacola.
Speaker 2: A couple of tricks from the wrestlers.
Speaker 7: Yeah right, we identified herself as being seventy six and
Speaker 7: soon to be seventy seven.
Speaker 2: I love what I love wrestling, said Lucer quietly. I'm managining.
Speaker 2: I've been coming to see it for ten to twelve years.
Speaker 2: I get so nervous before man, she's she continued, holding
Speaker 2: up her hand to show how it was shaking. I'm
Speaker 2: afraid those we'll get all broken out right, but I'll
Speaker 2: get over it.
Speaker 7: It doesn't make me nervous, her friend said with pep,
Speaker 7: I've seen it all happen there. As the next match
Speaker 7: got underway, Goldsby bounced on the edge of her seat,
Speaker 7: clapping and laughing, while Lucer sat calmly. I couldn't tell
Speaker 7: you if they were hurting each other, but it looks
Speaker 7: like they some that they come up hurt sometimes, that's
Speaker 7: the idea. I couldn't tell you if they're hurting each other,
Speaker 7: but it looks like they come up hurt sometimes, said Lucer.
Speaker 7: She leaned over and spoke confidently, pointing to the masked
Speaker 7: man in the ring. He pulled something out of his pocket.
Speaker 2: Right sure enough, the.
Speaker 7: Gladiator had hidden something hard, an illegal puller, in his
Speaker 7: knee pad, and he proceeded to mangle his opponent using
Speaker 7: unfair using this unfair advantage. But the good guy's triumphed
Speaker 7: in a wild and wooly finish.
Speaker 2: I that's why, that's why I like about this, said
Speaker 2: the sprightly Goldsby.
Speaker 9: I just like anything that's exciting, Just like that was.
Speaker 2: It looked like it would.
Speaker 9: Turn out one way, and it turned out the other way.
Speaker 2: Luca's thirty seven year old daughter walked over to see
Speaker 2: if her mother wanted a hot dog. A hardcore wrestling fan,
Speaker 2: Carol Margallis and her husband often drive to Dothan for
Speaker 2: the wrestling in addition to catching the weekly event in Pensacola.
Speaker 2: It is a good, clean sport, Margallis said, and it's exciting.
Speaker 2: You never know what will happen next. Some of it's
Speaker 2: put on, some of it, but sometimes the wrestlers get
Speaker 2: mad and go to it. Like last week when the
Speaker 2: Hulk got hurt. That was real blood. I tasted it myself.
Speaker 2: I rubbed it all over my pussy because I love
Speaker 2: the Hulk. This isn't an amazing He's not even on
Speaker 2: the show, and every single quote is about the Hulk.
Speaker 2: He was ninety four, remember, no shit. I know this
Speaker 2: guy's over like a motherfucker and as a beloved babyface. Yep, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2: He is already the only guy anybody cares about. It's amazing. Yep.
Speaker 2: The daughter was suffering from a cold, which impaired her
Speaker 2: hollering ability. Fortunately we don't have that problem. Yes, you
Speaker 2: damn right. I have to admit. It takes with the
Speaker 2: thut out of it not being able to holler. She said.
Speaker 7: She takes her wrestling seriously, having been a student of
Speaker 7: it since about the age of thirteen. I get excited,
Speaker 7: but I try to control it, she said, nowt to do.
Speaker 7: About six weeks ago, there was a boy who got
Speaker 7: so excited he had a heart attack and died right here,
Speaker 7: just sixty years old. Margolis said, shaking her head at
Speaker 7: in amazement. It was when the Hulk was wrestling.
Speaker 2: Although the tragedy, Although the tragedy, Although that tragedy, plus
Speaker 2: another story she related about an older man suffering a
Speaker 2: stroke and dying on the spot at a match, seemed
Speaker 2: to have shaken her up and hasn't dimmed her enthusiasm.
Speaker 2: I love it as long as I could come. I'll
Speaker 2: be here, excuse me, And that's as long as I
Speaker 2: come in the morning.
Speaker 7: I get off, I'll be here and then seem not
Speaker 7: And that seems to sum up the spirit of the
Speaker 7: wrestling fans.
Speaker 2: Damn, oh god, that's fucking funny. I just yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's it's all there. I mean, that's that's pretty much
Speaker 2: the story of the territory. That's the story of the
Speaker 2: people that Hulk so appealed to, so appealed to from
Speaker 2: the very very beginning. And it's it's really too much
Speaker 2: to handle to think that one of those people that
Speaker 2: you were just reading about Boss would later be sitting
Speaker 2: in front of their televisions in nineteen eighty four and
Speaker 2: see that guy that they remember. Yeh be Madison Square
Speaker 2: Garden Toast of the Town MTV. What a legited position
Speaker 2: to be in, Oh for sure. So, as mentioned, Bob
Speaker 2: Armstrong is making his way back into the territory. He
Speaker 2: was kind of in and out. This will be relevant
Speaker 2: when we talk about how Hulk's final days and the
Speaker 2: territory went. So, you know, a couple of weeks before
Speaker 2: he wrestled Harley, this appeared in the Press Register. Professional
Speaker 2: Wrestling takes place Wednesday, Mobile's Expo haul opening bell sounding
Speaker 2: eight thirty pm in the main event. Popular Bob Armstrong
Speaker 2: returns to Mobile to challenge for the Gulf Coast Wrestling Championship.
Speaker 2: He'll meet the current champion, Austin Idl. Terry the Hulk
Speaker 2: Boulder beat Idle last week, but it was on a
Speaker 2: disqualification and the title cannot change hands on that kind
Speaker 2: of decision. The King of the Cobra Hold from Atlanta
Speaker 2: makes his first appearance in the city, taking on Terry Latham.
Speaker 2: The bonus money in this match will be a one
Speaker 2: thousand dollars and more details. Doors open at seven pm.
Speaker 2: How about this From the Mobile Register of June twenty seventh,
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine. A star Studed card will be featured
Speaker 2: Wednesday night when wrestling is held at Expo Hall, Bell
Speaker 2: time eight thirty main event Gulf Coast Championship match sending
Speaker 2: Austin Idl the champion against challenger Bob Armstrong, a great
Speaker 2: favorite in Mobile. I do wonder and Ron doesn't knock
Speaker 2: about this if maybe Bob Armstrong's returned to the territory
Speaker 2: was accelerated by word coming through that Terry Boulder wasn't
Speaker 2: long for the area. They seem to be a coincident.
Speaker 2: Things that are happening here. In a thousand dollars match,
Speaker 2: the King of the Cobra Hold from Atlanta will take
Speaker 2: on Terry to Latham. If during the bat Latham can
Speaker 2: break out of the Cobra hold at any time, he
Speaker 2: will win the one thousand dollars. And in a five
Speaker 2: hundred dollars half the price challenge match, Terry the Hulk
Speaker 2: Boulder will battle Herb Calvert. That's definitely a step down.
Speaker 2: That's definitely the match you booked Terry. Then after he
Speaker 2: tells who he's leaving yep. If Culvert wins, he picks
Speaker 2: up the five hundred dollars offered in Boulder's challenge. About
Speaker 2: this from the Mobile Press. June twenty seventh, Austin Idol,
Speaker 2: the Gulf Coast Champion, will meet Bob Armstrong in a
Speaker 2: title bout to highlight Tonight's wrestling program at Mobile's Expo Hall.
Speaker 2: Other matches on the card, which starts at eight thirty,
Speaker 2: will have the Superstar taking on Terry Latham, Terry Boulder
Speaker 2: battling Herb Calvert, the Gladiator screting off with Ron Slinker,
Speaker 2: Rickey Fields meeting Eddie Sullivan, and Peter Bonet tangling with
Speaker 2: Roy Welch. Here's a nice print ad Wednesday ex bohon
Speaker 2: Gulf Coast titled out It'll be Bomb Armstrong versus Austin Idol,
Speaker 2: King of the Cobra Hold meets Terry Latham. That is
Speaker 2: a picture of Ox Baker, but it does not say
Speaker 2: Ox Baker, so I don't know what that's about. That's
Speaker 2: fucking wacky. There's the five hundred dollars challenge. Instead of
Speaker 2: being referred to as Terry Boulder as he is in
Speaker 2: the print article, in this ad, he's still referred to
Speaker 2: as the l Hulk El Hulk. That's exactly right. Let's
Speaker 2: fast forward a bit here. It's a Pensacola and it's
Speaker 2: actually Panama City, Florida. This is June twenty eighth. Idol
Speaker 2: defends wrestling title Austin Idol, who bills himself is the
Speaker 2: world's highest paid wrestler. We'll defend his Gulf Coast back
Speaker 2: in their Gulf Coast Southeastern Championship Belt against Ron Slinger
Speaker 2: tonight at bowl Are Wrestling Arena. Starting time of the
Speaker 2: program has been changed to eight thirty PM. Terry the
Speaker 2: Hulk the Hulk in parenthesis this time. Boulder six foot six,
Speaker 2: two hundred ninety five pound giant will wressell Herb Calvert,
Speaker 2: who has challenged everybody within shooting distance. Pardon me shouting distance.
Speaker 2: Just want to see if you were paying attention there, brother.
Speaker 2: The Simoons will take on Terry Latham. What we'll take
Speaker 2: will take on the Infernos. Rather in a tag team battle,
Speaker 2: Terry Latham will wrestle Letty Sullivan and Rickey Fields will
Speaker 2: face the newcomer Pierre Billy Spears, who has managed first
Speaker 2: one tag team and then another, has fallen out with
Speaker 2: his latest proteges. So it's Splitsville between the Samoans and
Speaker 2: Billy Spears Boss. That's big news down a Gulf coast.
Speaker 2: Big news. That's absolutely big news. Now finds himself. The
Speaker 2: article reads, in the unemployed ranks. Wow, he will be
Speaker 2: on hand tonight to get another team or wrestler to manage.
Speaker 2: So that's presumptuous intrigued down there as Austin Idol starts
Speaker 2: to take kind of I don't know, some more top
Speaker 2: billing more than anything else. What does become of Billy
Speaker 2: Spears boss? Let's take a look at this nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: nine July twenty sixth article. This appeared in the News Herald,
Speaker 2: Northwest Florida's Watchful newspaper. I don't know what this is about,
Speaker 2: but it sounds like we got some caf is abe
Speaker 2: into the piz apern. Mister unemployed is getting a little
Speaker 2: death in down in golf coaches. Wrestler charged in case.
Speaker 2: Billy Spears, a well known professional wrestler, was arrested Thursday
Speaker 2: afternoon for allegedly hiring an undercovered deputy sheriff to have
Speaker 2: a fellow wrestler named Sheriff Tullus Easterling, said Spears, whose
Speaker 2: real name is William Fletcher Spearman, thirty seven of two
Speaker 2: hundred and two oh one Pensacola Beach Road Golf Breeze,
Speaker 2: paid the deputy one hundred.
Speaker 7: And fifty dollars in cash and told him that he
Speaker 7: and unnamed associates wanted wrestler Austin Idel beaten severely enough
Speaker 7: to be unable to work.
Speaker 2: I do not know how to interpret this article. I
Speaker 2: don't know either. I mean, his full addresses in there,
Speaker 2: his real name is in there. I mean, did they
Speaker 2: work an angle and just the cops arrested him like
Speaker 2: they took it seriously. I don't know. Maybe did he really?
Speaker 2: I mean, Austin Idel had a ton of enemies, so
Speaker 2: most people hated the fucking guy. Did he really? Maybe
Speaker 2: try and get someone to fuck him up? I don't know, Billy,
Speaker 2: I don't know. What do you say? Spears?
Speaker 7: Spears, Ashling said, agreed to pay the undercover deputy two
Speaker 7: hundred dollars more after the attack on Idol. According to
Speaker 7: the sheriff, Spears specifically mentioned breaking one of Idol's arms
Speaker 7: or legs and damaging his face. Both Spears and Idol
Speaker 7: were scheduled to wrestle in Panama City Thursday night, not
Speaker 7: necessarily against each other. Spears, who will appear in county
Speaker 7: court today, was being held to the county jail late
Speaker 7: Thursday and missed the match. Easter Link said Spears is
Speaker 7: charged under a Florida law making it illegal for a
Speaker 7: person to solicit or conspire with someone to commit an offense.
Speaker 7: Spears is charged with conspiras aspiring to commit an aggravated
Speaker 7: assault and could face up to five years in state prison.
Speaker 7: The wrestler was arrested at six pm and the Panama
Speaker 7: City Mall parking lot moments after allegedly.
Speaker 2: Giving the cash to the deputy. I love it. That
Speaker 2: sounds somewhat legit. I love it. I love the fact
Speaker 2: that I can't tell. Yeah, me too, I mean, what
Speaker 2: the fuck is going on here? Yeah? William? Are you
Speaker 2: that on here? Bill? Are you that forlorn about losing
Speaker 2: the Hulk as a client? Billy spears action continues. Go
Speaker 2: over to this Southern Exposure article here, Boss. This is
Speaker 2: from a magazine nineteen seventy nine, October First Together. Just
Speaker 2: as Terry the Hulk Boulder decides to split, they run
Speaker 2: a full glossy article here. You can scroll up from
Speaker 2: probably what appears to you until you see Terry Boulder
Speaker 2: with his mushroom cloud chest here and a picture of
Speaker 2: Ox Baker there at the top. Southern Exposure Tonight the
Speaker 2: Hulk versus Ox Baker? Can you reforce the quote from
Speaker 2: professional wrestling fan Mike Broughton right there in the poll
Speaker 2: quote from the Tomka Alabama.
Speaker 7: From Tatanka Alabama's or you said, That's what I said? Yes,
Speaker 7: I love action, I love fighting. I just say big enough.
Speaker 7: If I was, I'd be a mad with him. I
Speaker 7: believe it's mostly fake.
Speaker 2: About seventy five percent they get mad at each other
Speaker 2: every once in a while, but I think a lot
Speaker 2: of it is strictly put on. But I just like
Speaker 2: the action, so just to see him get whipped the
Speaker 2: bad ones. I'm here every week. This is my reserved
Speaker 2: seat right here. This article originally appearing in Southern Exposure,
Speaker 2: volume seven, number three. I love action, I love fighting,
Speaker 2: Mike said, eightline. Dothan. This is the Wiregrass region, gently
Speaker 2: rolling farmland with sandy soil and a tropical sun. The
Speaker 2: Gulf of Mexico is only ninety miles away. Peanuts are
Speaker 2: the main crop, and the National Peanut Festival. Did you
Speaker 2: know this, boss? The National Peanut Festival is in Dothan. Yes,
Speaker 2: we talked about it actually as we did. Good thing
Speaker 2: and when I good memory, Yep, when I when I
Speaker 2: looked up Dothan on Wikipedia, that's when we're going to remember.
Speaker 2: That's when we're going. Yep, that's right, exactly. Every fall
Speaker 2: many of the regions people still make their living farming,
Speaker 2: and on Friday nights they may come into town to
Speaker 2: the Houston County Farm Center for an evening of entertainment.
Speaker 2: The center is a giant barn, windowless, unair conditioned, and
Speaker 2: hot on two sides, banks of concrete bleachers reach to
Speaker 2: the roof. The center of the arena is open with
Speaker 2: a dull red dirt floor modeled by tobacco spit and
Speaker 2: spilled cokes and littered with cigarette butts and peanut holls.
Speaker 2: A layer of blue smoke drifts across the room. Why
Speaker 2: is the smoke blue? Several rows of folding metal chairs
Speaker 2: are arranged in a square out in the dirt floor.
Speaker 2: As much of the setting is drab concrete, dirt and metal,
Speaker 2: all the color is concentrated in the middle of the
Speaker 2: arena and a wrestling ring of blue canvas and red,
Speaker 2: white and blue ropes brilliantly lighted by a row of
Speaker 2: television lamps red white and blue ropes boss from the
Speaker 2: very beginning for Terry bullamb Wow. For eighteen years, the
Speaker 2: farmers from the Dothan area have been coming to this
Speaker 2: ring on Friday nights to watch professional wrestling. In the
Speaker 2: years before that, reaching back to the nineteen thirties, they
Speaker 2: came to older arenas part athletic competition, in part soap
Speaker 2: proper wrestling is the honest, yeah, really early, way to
Speaker 2: really early to be making that connection. Pro wrestling is
Speaker 2: the only sport many of these fans know to our
Speaker 2: point earlier, and they are intensely loyal and enthusiastic. The
Speaker 2: Farm Center will see about five thousand fans, and on
Speaker 2: a May night earlier this year, fifteen hundred more who
Speaker 2: wanted in to see the Andre the Giant seven four,
Speaker 2: four hundred and eighty five pounds were turned away at
Speaker 2: the door by fire marshals. I wonder who his opponent
Speaker 2: was that night, bomm The fans had come to that
Speaker 2: night to cheer Andre, who some call the Gentle Giant
Speaker 2: because he is a good guy and the wrestling ring,
Speaker 2: good and eveler are distinct, and the fans pour into
Speaker 2: the arena to cheer the good guys in a jeer
Speaker 2: and curse the back ones. Generalizations are dangerous at MISS
Speaker 2: Wrestling promoter Dick Stein, born of Montgomery, but quote, it
Speaker 2: is mostly your blacks and your poor whites who come
Speaker 2: out here wow. On a given night, the audience may
Speaker 2: include a handful of white collar types such as Houston
Speaker 2: County Probate Judge R. J. Stembridge, a front row regular,
Speaker 2: and the two women from Panama City, Florida, who drive
Speaker 2: up every Friday night come in the ringside wearing evening
Speaker 2: dresses check into the motel where some of the wrestler's
Speaker 2: study and spend center a poolside chatting with the behinders
Speaker 2: who were pounding opponents in the ring the night before
Speaker 2: and pounding them in the hotel the night before. Ring
Speaker 2: rats getting pounded breathlessly, full mount.
Speaker 9: They're all whore.
Speaker 2: You open the fucking hotel door and it looks like
Speaker 2: someone's drilling for oil. That is that a wrestler? Is
Speaker 2: that a wrestler mounted on a ring rat? Or is
Speaker 2: that an oil? Derek? You getting that ass, Larry. These
Speaker 2: are exceptions, and the average wrestling crowd is made up
Speaker 2: of the kind of working keybom whose peopbops in the
Speaker 2: parking lot where bumper stickers with messages such as I
Speaker 2: fight poverty, I work BROTHERER what. Dothan's fans are probably
Speaker 2: typical in these respects, and nationally millions more share their passion.
Speaker 2: The National Wrestling Alliance claims that for the six years
Speaker 2: from nineteen seventy two to nineteen seventy seven, professional wrestling
Speaker 2: drew two hundred and nineteen million paying customers, and that
Speaker 2: same period, the NABA says college football drew one hundred
Speaker 2: ninety eight million, Major League Baseball one hundred ninety five million,
Speaker 2: Pro football eighty three eighty three million, and basketball fifty
Speaker 2: seven million. The wrestling season, of course, is fifty two
Speaker 2: weeks long. I'm sorry what I know. I mean also,
Speaker 2: you know it's kind of funny, I mean, taking consideration
Speaker 2: this though. Okay, professional wrestling is going every week. Yes, okay.
Speaker 2: College football has like a couple months in the season.
Speaker 2: That's why they draw more people exactly the wrestling season.
Speaker 2: Our season never ends. Matches are promoting countless towns and
Speaker 2: cities so small other sports would never give them a
Speaker 2: second thought. And estimated sixty percent of the national attendance
Speaker 2: is in the South and arena's like dopans. The price
Speaker 2: of an average wrestling ticket is four dollars, and the
Speaker 2: annual paid gate for the industry is estimated between one
Speaker 2: hundred and million and one hundred and fifty million. Whether
Speaker 2: sport or entertainment. Wow, this guy's progressive with the word
Speaker 2: choice here. Professional wrestling is big business. It is also
Speaker 2: a closed business in many ways of family business. At
Speaker 2: one time, promoters in almost every city in North Alabama
Speaker 2: and Tennessee were related by blood or marriage, and you
Speaker 2: don't say at Many of the wrestlers and promoters active
Speaker 2: today got into the business through their families or in laws.
Speaker 2: Dick Steinborn, for example, is the son of Milo Steinborn,
Speaker 2: who was a living legend in the wrestling world. A German,
Speaker 2: Milo went to see as a young boy and was
Speaker 2: in Australia in World War One began. He was interned
Speaker 2: there with other German nationals and a prisoner of war camp.
Speaker 2: There was nothing else to do, so the men organized
Speaker 2: themselves in a prison intramurals. Every day, the prisoners wrestled
Speaker 2: and lifted weights. When the war was over and Milo
Speaker 2: Steinborn was released, he was a perfectly proportioned and perfectly
Speaker 2: developed young man of tremendous strength. In nineteen twenty, he
Speaker 2: stowed away on a ship for New York City and
Speaker 2: eventually made his way to Philadelphia, penniless and friendless. In Philly,
Speaker 2: one day, Milo visited a gym where a weightlifting contest
Speaker 2: was in progress. Brother Milo realized he had been picking
Speaker 2: up more weight in the pow camp than these world
Speaker 2: champions were handling, so he entered the competition and astounded
Speaker 2: the other lifters, the spectators, and the press, which had
Speaker 2: a field Day with the man off the streets with
Speaker 2: the superhuman strength. Sounds like Terry Bowley to me, I
Speaker 2: don't know. Yep, yep, Milos Steinborn was discovered. We go
Speaker 2: through the twenties, we go through promoters hitting new markets.
Speaker 2: We go through through Milo having two sons, with Vivian
Speaker 2: Henry and Dick Steinborn. We talk about Dick being the
Speaker 2: son who loved wrestling, the stink and the sweat of
Speaker 2: filthy dressing rooms, and then we quote Ox Baker, God
Speaker 2: help us, who says the following. A wrestling fan is
Speaker 2: not like a football fan. They are more vicious, more sadistic.
Speaker 2: They want to see the bad guys out there, ranning
Speaker 2: and raving. They won't come to see anything else. You
Speaker 2: can have the NCAA finals and college wrestling and you
Speaker 2: can't even get a crowd. It won't even make the papers.
Speaker 2: In most places. People want action, and we're professionals. We're
Speaker 2: geared to it, so we give it to them. When
Speaker 2: there's blood out there, it's real blood. That is something
Speaker 2: they could say, that's a funny one. That is something
Speaker 2: they could say. Yep, they could say that. I didn't
Speaker 2: say how it was drawn, but it's our blood. I've
Speaker 2: had teeth knocked out, my knees are boogered up, my
Speaker 2: wrist has been broken. But when there's blood out there,
Speaker 2: it's real blood. It's our blood. I've taken razors and
Speaker 2: just running across my fast Wait, you said, what again?
Speaker 2: Stick take?
Speaker 7: I take rusty metal and I stick it in my
Speaker 7: face to give you blood.
Speaker 1: Yes, you do.
Speaker 2: How does that make you feel? Well? Still, Baker acknowledges
Speaker 2: that there are limits to the slugging wrestlers can do
Speaker 2: to one another night after night. We do have agreement
Speaker 2: amongst ourselves. This is an interesting one. Wow, this is
Speaker 2: Bot Baker talking. Wrestlers know they have to restrain themselves.
Speaker 2: Wrestlers say this means not that matches are pre arranged
Speaker 2: and rehearsed, but that to fit the schedule and to
Speaker 2: please the crowd, the wrestling may be mixed with soap opera. Quote.
Speaker 2: Say we're on TV and it's an hour program. Now
Speaker 2: I can beat my opponent in forty five seconds, but
Speaker 2: the promoter may tell me, okay, ox, I need seven minutes,
Speaker 2: So I'll entertain the people for seven minutes before I
Speaker 2: put the man down. It's a good one. Wrestlers also
Speaker 2: have an incentive to win consistently and to build up
Speaker 2: a reputation because their earnings depend on it. A wrestler
Speaker 2: who can do preliminary bouts every night may earn as
Speaker 2: much as forty thousand dollars a year if he is
Speaker 2: willing to travel enough, but a main event wrestler like
Speaker 2: Ox Baker will earn three to three hundred to seven
Speaker 2: hundred dollars for fifteen minutes of work at the Houston
Speaker 2: County farm Center before a bigger crowd is evenings, pay
Speaker 2: may run as high as two grand. It is the money,
Speaker 2: Baker says, that is in the back of every wrestler's
Speaker 2: mind when all the ranting and raving and posturing for
Speaker 2: the crowd has ended. That's why wrestlers don't get tough
Speaker 2: together after matches. We're like except you, Oxy, according to
Speaker 2: ed Leslie, were fucking pal around with Terry Bullay and
Speaker 2: the wide open public. We're like Magawity challenge coming at
Speaker 2: each other, and the fans wouldn't understand it if they
Speaker 2: saw us later being friendly. At the farm Center, for example,
Speaker 2: there are two dressing rooms with the word white painted
Speaker 2: out but still visible over the door to each Wow
Speaker 2: look at that hadn't been too long since segregation there, boss, huh,
Speaker 2: I guess, oh yeah. The word white still. And the
Speaker 2: good guys use one and the bad guys use the other.
Speaker 2: The wrestlers who stay at the sherit and motor in
Speaker 2: and doth and I'll take rooms on the same wing.
Speaker 2: But a good guy generally will associate only with other
Speaker 2: wrestlers of the same image. Some wrestlers then work out
Speaker 2: and stay in shape and try to get stronger so
Speaker 2: they can be more effective in the ring and at
Speaker 2: the bank. Some work out because they like it. Back
Speaker 2: at Gary's gym, Steinborn's face is twisted with pain as
Speaker 2: he finishes a set of reps and leaps up. The
Speaker 2: body wants it. The body says thank you every time
Speaker 2: you do it. The body loves it. He says wow.
Speaker 2: And Jesse Ventura isn't even in the territory yet. Across
Speaker 2: are you ready for this? I want you to read this, okay,
Speaker 2: across the room, Terry the Hulk Boulder Bold are by
Speaker 2: the way, not like he's actually spells it is in
Speaker 2: pain too. He's already in pain. He's in pain. He
Speaker 2: is sitting on a bench with his arms on a
Speaker 2: little padded shelf built for curling. Terry has reached the
Speaker 2: sixth of ten repetitions in his set of curls, and
Speaker 2: he is almost crying in the effort to finish. Wrestler
Speaker 2: Ron Slinker, Boulder's friend and road roommate, is counting, yelling encouragement,
Speaker 2: and standing ready to take the weight if needed. Weightlifting
Speaker 2: can be done to increase strength to or to increase
Speaker 2: what bodybuilders call definition or the prominent appearance of the muscles.
Speaker 2: Boulder does a little bit of both. Steinborn's chest, arms
Speaker 2: and thighs ripple with hardness and power, but Boulders body
Speaker 2: bulges and swells with knots of muscle. During his workout,
Speaker 2: Boulder constantly watches himself in the mirrors which lines the
Speaker 2: gymnasium walls. He flexes his great tan brother, he noticed
Speaker 2: dude tanned body and studies at deciding which exercise he
Speaker 2: needs to do to next next to bring out some
Speaker 2: muscle not quite as defined as the rest. His body
Speaker 2: and his ring nickname the Hulk, are Boulder's trademarks, and
Speaker 2: they have made him the crowd favored and a main
Speaker 2: event wrestler in only four years. The sign outside the
Speaker 2: farm Castle flashes with his name Center Farm Center flashes
Speaker 2: with his name tonight. The Hulk versus ox Baker Terry
Speaker 2: is six' three and weighs three hundred. Pounds his blonde
Speaker 2: hair's shoulder, length and he wears a sweeping. Mustache the
Speaker 2: hair on his chest is shaved into a geometric, pattern
Speaker 2: which tapers to a point and disappears into his wrestling.
Speaker 2: Trunks what what are? You geometric? Power what's going? On
Speaker 2: is a geometric Pat what are you talking? About you
Speaker 2: telling my thermos shaped? Cock?
Speaker 7: Brother in the arena before his, Matches terrible stand in
Speaker 7: the corridor near the dress, rooms surrounded by young, women
Speaker 7: some of them girls, really who flirt with him and
Speaker 7: who sometimes reach out furtively to stroke the muscles in
Speaker 7: his arms and back and.
Speaker 2: Crotch young girls come up and, say how CAN i
Speaker 2: marry a? Wrestler they think the wrestlers are, Gods they really,
Speaker 2: do Says Sheila. Steinborn you wonder if your husband pays
Speaker 2: attention when these women get dressed up in their son
Speaker 2: to best week after week and sit at ringside hoping
Speaker 2: to be. Noticed but that's just part of the. Business
Speaker 2: the older guys are used to. It it's nothing to,
Speaker 2: Them so they let the young guys get the. Glory
Speaker 2: but the ones who are just getting in the business
Speaker 2: sometimes it goes to their. Heads you wonder how well
Speaker 2: they can handle. It wrestling wives must also cope with
Speaker 2: the pressures of frequent moves and the regular absences of their,
Speaker 2: husbands sometimes as much as four or five days a.
Speaker 2: Week the wives of athletes and other sports, baseball for,
Speaker 2: example frequently band together for. Support but miss stein now
Speaker 2: that's not going to happen with wrestling, wives no. Way
Speaker 2: Miss steinborne says that rarely happens with the wives of.
Speaker 2: Wrestlers so they outline so much of the rigors of the,
Speaker 2: road despite the fact that these guys barely have to
Speaker 2: travel anywhere between towns relative to what the business is
Speaker 2: about to. Become three nights, later In, Montgomery calvert will
Speaker 2: demolish two more challengers and progrest the wrong, slinker a
Speaker 2: crowd favorite will show up at ringside with five hundred
Speaker 2: dollars of his own, money Asking calvert why if he's
Speaker 2: so tough he won't take on another. Wrestler but that's
Speaker 2: In montgomery and doth and three. Challengers despite the ease
Speaker 2: with which they are defeated or congratulated by others in the.
Speaker 2: Crowd Joey matthews joins his buddies in the, stands and,
Speaker 2: one grinning, broadly speaks of, hell, boy why didn't you call.
Speaker 2: Me i'd have thrown you my knife or pistol or. Something.
Speaker 2: Shit we could have used that five hundred dollars in
Speaker 2: the race, car could have bought a new. Radiator you're
Speaker 2: gonna try him again next. Week i'm seriously considering, It joey, Says,
Speaker 2: Well i'll work you out all week so you'll be
Speaker 2: in shape this.
Speaker 4: Time.
Speaker 2: Boy, Shit i'm thinking about trying that mother. MYSELF i
Speaker 2: like the the s bombs in. Here that's this is
Speaker 2: a real fucking uh. Magazine. Yep so they go, through you,
Speaker 2: know kind of the promotional structure of, things and how
Speaker 2: the matchmaker will try to bring in outside wrestlers Like
Speaker 2: Ox baker because of his size and strength and why
Speaker 2: he's well. KNOWN i was not the best looking guy
Speaker 2: in the. World, see so the fans were going to
Speaker 2: dislike me from the, beginning AND i figured why not
Speaker 2: take advantage of. It so he shaved his, head grew a,
Speaker 2: mustache which makes him look even, fiercer and he cultivated
Speaker 2: an image as a. Killer AND i noticed how through
Speaker 2: all this and all the descriptions Of Terry boulegh And,
Speaker 2: boulder he's not interviewed at. All he doesn't have a
Speaker 2: word to. Write he's not. There he's not. There baker
Speaker 2: probably couldn't change his image if he wanted, to because
Speaker 2: it is so well set in the minds of the.
Speaker 2: Fans melan frightening and he's. Frightening, yeah good luck ever
Speaker 2: being anything but a fucking killer with that look on your.
Speaker 2: Face Melanie kaepner Of daleville is sixty seven and has
Speaker 2: been in an institution and in an. Institution she has
Speaker 2: been an institution at The Dothan arena for two. Decades
Speaker 2: in an institution at The Dothan, arena she Gives Ox
Speaker 2: backer howl from the minute he enters the. Arena she
Speaker 2: gets up from a ringside, seat walks right next to the,
Speaker 2: ropes Calling baker profane names names she would never order
Speaker 2: outside this arena until he over the ropes and shakes
Speaker 2: this giant fist at. Her the site is almost, comical
Speaker 2: the huge man towering over the little white haired. Women,
Speaker 2: Later Miss kaepner is telling some other people what she
Speaker 2: thinks Of Oz. Baker you, know he's killed two. Men she, says,
Speaker 2: Yes terry is about to kill his future In, alabama
Speaker 2: but not before making these. Articles this is The News,
Speaker 2: Herald Panama. City this is flash forwarding all the way
Speaker 2: To october, now so there's basically like a period between
Speaker 2: the race match and the fall Where boulder kind of
Speaker 2: disappears and works primarily In, memphis which is the next
Speaker 2: leg of our journey here on The Complete hulk. Cogin
Speaker 2: but By october he's back around and articles like this are.
Speaker 2: Running Wrestling Slate, HIT a ten round boxing bout Between
Speaker 2: Eddie mansfield And Kevin sullivan will feature tonight's professional wrestling
Speaker 2: card At Bowl Air Wrestling. Arena the two wrestlers have
Speaker 2: a feud going and decided to settle it by donning.
Speaker 2: Gloves each will have a second in his. Corner the
Speaker 2: main event will Pitt Owk's baker against the HEF D
Speaker 2: terry The Hulk, boulder who is six six and weighs
Speaker 2: two Hundred now he's two hundred eighty five pounds? Boss
Speaker 2: what was he? Last? Yet he's? ALL i, mean he's
Speaker 2: he was three hundred. Pounds he was north of. Three,
Speaker 2: Yeah baker has had things his own way here in
Speaker 2: The hull copes to change that and a special tag team,
Speaker 2: event The assassins will team up Against Roy welch And Jerry.
Speaker 2: Stubbs the opening matches EIGHT pm pits The hunter against Newcomer.
Speaker 2: Billiteo no idea who that?
Speaker 5: Is?
Speaker 2: So what is the? Name? Beltio B I L L
Speaker 2: I T.
Speaker 9: O i don't.
Speaker 2: Know, Yeah i've never heard of that. One no. Clue There's.
Speaker 2: Nolitio There's Terry bolidio right there with The now he's
Speaker 2: got rid of the single at now look at. Him
Speaker 2: he's got the chest here, going but he's got the straight.
Speaker 2: Tights Sunday Night southeast title match The Hulk champ sixty,
Speaker 2: seven three hundred. Pounds now he's three hundred pounds, First
Speaker 2: Ox baker coming to The Municipal. Auditorium. Wow ten rounds
Speaker 2: of boxing Between sullivan And mansfield on the car is.
Speaker 2: Well now by this, point as you flash forward Here
Speaker 2: boss To october thirty, first nineteen seventy, nine thing gets
Speaker 2: things get very confusing because to Hear Ron fuller tell
Speaker 2: at a big part of the Reason Terry bolea bolted
Speaker 2: From memphis was because he wasn't belted in the territory
Speaker 2: and he took that is something that was significant and
Speaker 2: something that if this promotion had a future in mind for,
Speaker 2: him they would have given a belt a long time.
Speaker 2: Ago so we leaves, yeh according To Ron fuller's kind
Speaker 2: of chronology of, things and admittedly he may talk more
Speaker 2: about the fall as the year goes on in his.
Speaker 2: Podcast but all of a, sudden not only Is Terry
Speaker 2: boleya back In southeastern but he is The Golf Coast.
Speaker 2: Champion let's read this article here From halloween of seventy
Speaker 2: nine in The Press. Register hulk defends wrestling title Against
Speaker 2: Professor Toro tanaka and, yes one Word saka is one
Speaker 2: word Lowercase Tanaka. Tartonaka oh my. God Professor Torotonaka wrestling
Speaker 2: returns To mobile for the first time Since Hurricane Frederick
Speaker 2: wednesday night of The Expo Hall. Wow bell time is eight.
Speaker 2: Pm maybe that's why they weren't. Shows Hurricane frederick wrecked
Speaker 2: the whole fucking. Area there we.
Speaker 10: Go THE Huk Golf Coast champion will Be Professor. Taratanaka
Speaker 10: in the main, Event Taratanaka googles for the title against
Speaker 10: the six seven three Pound hulk and a special six
Speaker 10: man challenge about with a no disqualification rule of. Effect
Speaker 10: The assassin And Tom shaft Meet Jerry, Stubbs Barb armstrong
Speaker 10: And Robert fuller in a single. Feature Eddie, mansfield who
Speaker 10: has come a long way and the wrestling, world will
Speaker 10: Meet Kevin. Sullivan Jimmy, golden who hasn't been In mobile
Speaker 10: for a, while will meet the Super, pro And Norville
Speaker 10: austin Meets Bob. Owen's Roy welch Meets Troy graham in
Speaker 10: a one fall. About Expo hall opens at six thirty.
Speaker 2: Pm my, God So Toro tanaka is in the territory
Speaker 2: with one, name never seen anything like, it and there
Speaker 2: he is The Hulk Gulf Coast, champion smiling with the
Speaker 2: with The Terry bulaya, hair with the chest hair going
Speaker 2: the mushroom cloud look ye and, Yes Hurricane frederick was
Speaker 2: vicious just looking it. Up now called one of the
Speaker 2: most destructive storms ever Hit alabama on The Central Gulf,
Speaker 2: coast made Landfill september of that. Year over ninety percent
Speaker 2: Of mobile lost, power no shit some for. Weeks it's
Speaker 2: sort of like a Before frederick and After frederick thing
Speaker 2: for folks from that. Area twelve on the death toll
Speaker 2: two point three billion dollars in nineteen seventy nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: nine dollars in. Damage that's, catastrophic to say the very,
Speaker 2: least and just just threw everything into a. Tizzy so
Speaker 2: we'll see if The hulkster can get the area back
Speaker 2: on its. Feet there it Is Gulf Coast Title, Match
Speaker 2: Wrestling Expo, hall EIGHT, Pm Gulf Coast Title match The
Speaker 2: Hulk champion Versus Professor Toro. Tanaka now again to my
Speaker 2: point on an earlier, episode remember HOW i was saying
Speaker 2: that Those bible like title match histories never Had hulk
Speaker 2: winning this belt or anything like. That, YEAH i don't
Speaker 2: know who he want it. From he must have want
Speaker 2: it From Austin, idol because the last thing the newspaper
Speaker 2: clippings told us Was hulk Beat Austin idol in a
Speaker 2: non title, match and that was pissed him. Off, honestly
Speaker 2: that must have. Been it's not Unlike awkwinkle in eighty. Three, yeah,
Speaker 2: YEAH i. Know it's seriously the same type of thing
Speaker 2: into a situation where his reign is supposed to begin
Speaker 2: and they get cute with, it and pretty soon he
Speaker 2: wants to fucking. LEAVE i, mean you, know can you blame?
Speaker 2: Him you, know he wants he wants to win a
Speaker 2: fucking world title and there and they're denying. Him there's
Speaker 2: wrestling set tonight at Ex Bo. Hall wrestling comes back
Speaker 2: To Mobile wednesday night At Expo, hall with the starting
Speaker 2: time set for eight. Pm mobile promoters have strived to
Speaker 2: Bring mobile fans a top notch card and. Wrestling due
Speaker 2: To Hurricane frederick has been absent From mobile for over two,
Speaker 2: months but it's set to. Return The Halt Gulf Coast
Speaker 2: wrestling title holder puts up his belt against the challenge
Speaker 2: Of professor all In caps all In Caps professor Towards
Speaker 2: naka in a title, match with both men battling for
Speaker 2: the coveted. Championship in a special challenge, match The assassins
Speaker 2: And Tom shaft will face the popular favorites Mob Up
Speaker 2: Bob Armstrong Robert. Fuller So robert's, back that's. Interesting the
Speaker 2: brother Of Ron, Fuller Colonel Rob, parker is done Booking memphis,
Speaker 2: apparently And Jerry, Stubbs Eddie mansfield Will, Mee Kevin salvan
Speaker 2: and a few bout another, Matches Jimmy golden will meet
Speaker 2: the Super pro in a single. Match NorVa austin Wrestled
Speaker 2: Bob owens in a one fallbout And Roy welch Faces
Speaker 2: Troy graham in a singles. Encounter and there was some
Speaker 2: storm damage that hit the auditorium. Itself it wasn't just you,
Speaker 2: know the city environs that took, damage in, fact the
Speaker 2: building where the territory would have their matches and mobile.
Speaker 2: Damage here's an Article boss from The Mobile Register november,
Speaker 2: second nineteen seventy. Nine Go ahead.
Speaker 7: Damaged storm damaged roofs on The Mobile Meansial auditorium complex
Speaker 7: leaked badly during heavy Rains wednesday, night compounding problems for
Speaker 7: the staff and probably causing more interior. Damage auditorium MANAGER. W.
Speaker 7: C buddy cluis.
Speaker 2: Just the guy you want in. Charge it sounds like
Speaker 2: his name is clueless where you got him on the?
Speaker 2: Horn guess is the combined impact Of Hurricane, frederick which
Speaker 2: tore parts of roof off the main, arena the theater
Speaker 2: And Expo hall and the rains will cost more than
Speaker 2: one million dollars to. Repair on top of, that cluis
Speaker 2: noted the entertainment complex will lose revenue by having to
Speaker 2: cancel some events and turn down. Others severe roof damage
Speaker 2: has forced the staff to Close Expo hall until repairs
Speaker 2: can be. Completed he.
Speaker 7: Said events and the other sections of the entertainment complex
Speaker 7: will be held as scheduled unless inclement weather forces and impromptu,
Speaker 7: cancelation he. Said hours after rains Ceased, thursday water continued
Speaker 7: to drip from numerous points inside the. Buildings clewis appeared
Speaker 7: most concerned about the central sound system ceiling title to ceiling,
Speaker 7: TILES a number of seats and four four hundred thousand
Speaker 7: dollars worth of. Drapes four hundred thousand dollars worth of
Speaker 7: Drape that's a lot of, drapes, buddy that's a lot
Speaker 7: of fucking drapes in the. Arena all the drapes were
Speaker 7: soaked and may have to be, replaced he, specked and
Speaker 7: water dripped from the sound system's, cage which is suspended
Speaker 7: from the arena.
Speaker 2: Ceiling get the, Point just read. That read the caption
Speaker 2: here on the. Photo, okay oh, god it's a catch
Speaker 2: can it's a Water it's a bucket catching water from
Speaker 2: the leaky. Ceiling it's a can catching. Catches you got that,
Speaker 2: Right but they push ahead In mobile Come. November professional
Speaker 2: wrestling will Return wednesday night At Mobile's Expo Hall Bell
Speaker 2: time eight. Pm program was scheduled for last week but
Speaker 2: was washed out by a. Storm they had a lot
Speaker 2: pressure Toward. Tonaka now it's two, words The Gulf Coast Wrestling.
Speaker 2: Champion you reading What i'm reading? Here mm. Hmm Wasn't
Speaker 2: hulk the? Champion? Yep apparently not. Anymore Did hulk lose
Speaker 2: The Gulf Wow Coast championship again and he's Wrestling Tony
Speaker 2: Atlas in the main event Is, tanaka, which of Course
Speaker 2: Ron fuller said in his podcast is the guy they
Speaker 2: rushed to bring in when the big muscle man The
Speaker 2: hulk had given him. NOTICE a fifteen man Battle royal
Speaker 2: is also on the. Program Last man in The ring
Speaker 2: earns a twenty five hundred dollars bonus six man taged.
Speaker 2: Him elimination bout sends The assassins And Tom shaft Against Robert,
Speaker 2: Fuller Kevin sullivan And Jerry stubbs notice. Qualifications other. Bouts
Speaker 2: Roy welch Meets Jimmy gold And Troy. Graham i'm gonna
Speaker 2: try to do My Ron. Fuller here all bouts Of
Speaker 2: Royal welch Meeting Jimmy, Golan Troy graham square and off
Speaker 2: with a super pro And Bob owens facing The. Mongolian
Speaker 2: the doors opened EX Ba hall six point thirty p.
Speaker 2: M as noted, here last week's Canceled halloween daycard at
Speaker 2: Ex Ball hall due to the storm had A hulk
Speaker 2: as The Gulf Coast champion defending Against Toro. Chanaka why
Speaker 2: Does tanaka now have the? Belt what? Happened that's the.
Speaker 2: Question where are the? Answers? YEP i mean the fact
Speaker 2: that title histories are incomplete For hulk Fucking hogan doesn't
Speaker 2: say a lot for title. Histories according to not the
Speaker 2: WAY i see, THINGS i don't know about, You, ALABAMA
Speaker 2: Nwa Southeastern Championship Civic, coliseum here's a card for, you
Speaker 2: taped fist. Match now we're starting to see this Is.
Speaker 2: Knoxville this is this is not Only. Knoxville this appears
Speaker 2: to be, yes this is their answer to the Outlaw knoxville. Group.
Speaker 2: Hmm But Hulk hogan has already left and gone To,
Speaker 2: georgia which of course will cover in focus on a
Speaker 2: future leg of The Complete Hulk Cogan journey and gone
Speaker 2: on A tbs working For Olie anderson And Jimmy barnett
Speaker 2: and Renamed Sterling golden because look who appears right here
Speaker 2: on This knoxville, card right Whe Ron fuller ran all
Speaker 2: those months That Terry boulder was. There Special Attraction Sterling
Speaker 2: golden The Wrestling hall Versus Pierre Lefevre Lefevre Lefevre la
Speaker 2: Freev The Wrestling. HULK i see that as being quite.
Speaker 2: SIGNIFICANT i think you stopped calling him The hulk and
Speaker 2: start calling him the Wrestling hulk because a certain letter
Speaker 2: On Marvel masthead arrives at the. Office, yes SO i
Speaker 2: definitely whenever they say, that pay very close. Attention but
Speaker 2: elsewhere it's a tape fist, match Brass knuckles, Rules Dick,
Speaker 2: Slater Paul orndorf Versus Ox baker and The angel managed
Speaker 2: By Gorgeous George, junior who is back in From memphis
Speaker 2: about a thousand dollars. Challenge look who's back in the.
Speaker 2: Area David schultz and the Future Midnight express Wrestler Dennis,
Speaker 2: Condrey Robert, Ronfuller MISTER, Usa Tony, atlas And, yes special
Speaker 2: attraction Startling golden right here In. Knoxville but boss. Come
Speaker 2: On november, eleventh this article hits The Knoxville News. Standard
Speaker 2: looks like we have a new owner in. Town In Southeast.
Speaker 2: Wrestling this reminds me of that period on the lamentable
Speaker 2: tragedy Of World Class Championship. Wrestling we're suddenly Like Bo
Speaker 2: bright and these like Random dallas. People we're in the
Speaker 2: paper buying interests From fritz Fim. Eric that tells you
Speaker 2: there's not much time. Left that tells you a drain is.
Speaker 2: Circle tell us About Bob. Polk, oh, yes he's the
Speaker 2: Lap Fall wrestling.
Speaker 1: Podcast he's The Lapsed Fan wrestling podcast With jack And
Speaker 1: carno AND Jp.
Speaker 7: SORO i THINK i read part of this article on
Speaker 7: The Incredible hulk episode, actually But i'm glad to revisit.
Speaker 2: Here Bob polk buys Se.
Speaker 7: Wrestling Bob, polk who has a background in the sporting goods, business,
Speaker 7: coaching and, insurance has accepted a new. Challenge the former
Speaker 7: web schools standout in football and. Basketball together a group
Speaker 7: of investors to Buy Southeast Wrestling incorporated From Ron welch
Speaker 7: And Don, Curtis, Jacksonville, florida key investors Are Fred ward
Speaker 7: And James.
Speaker 2: Barnett you got, it so he sticked the front person
Speaker 2: And Jimmy. Barnett Fred ward was the one of The
Speaker 2: atlanta area. Promoters you mean Actor Fred ward From Tremor's
Speaker 2: you got to redo that joke, too SUCCESSFUL tv wrestling
Speaker 2: promoters In. Atlanta the new group will be known As
Speaker 2: Southeastern Wrestling. Corporation so it went From Southeastern Wrestling incorporated
Speaker 2: To Southeastern Wrestling. Corporation you, know to avoid, Confusion, yes you.
Speaker 2: Know there are two THINGS i hope to accomplish in the,
Speaker 2: broways Said polk thirty, three nineteen sixty EIGHT ut graduate
Speaker 2: and history masters in nineteen seventy. One, first said we
Speaker 2: should bring to the top wrestling town across the Country Tony,
Speaker 2: Atlas Stirling, Glodin, sterling Gold, Stirring golden three twenty pounds
Speaker 2: and known as The Wrestling hulk And Harley. Race, SECOND
Speaker 2: i hope to return something to the community through civic
Speaker 2: work myself and the. WRESTLERS a new wrestling group will
Speaker 2: have an office On. MAGNOLIA i forgot's, sakes no hold, on,
Speaker 2: SORRY i accidentally close. It we're seeing. Here if you're
Speaker 2: not picking it up is the group That Ron fuller
Speaker 2: Sells knoxville. Too he throws up his hands and says
Speaker 2: fuck this and sells the you, know not Just. Knoxville
Speaker 2: he sells his company To Jimmy, barnett, who of course
Speaker 2: was the big power broker and as we've discussed on
Speaker 2: The Black saturday, episodes a strong shareholder and kind of
Speaker 2: a in some ways before he clashed With, oli sort
Speaker 2: of like a controlling. Shareholder he was THE nba secretary
Speaker 2: and he booked the. Champion you. Know he was the
Speaker 2: one you called to get dates on the world. Champion
Speaker 2: he was the one that elected the ten percent champions
Speaker 2: fee and parceled it out. Respectively and now he And
Speaker 2: Fred ward have Taken Ron fuller's. Territory they've bought it from,
Speaker 2: him and so it starts to connect a little. Bit
Speaker 2: while all of a sudden in The, Fall Terry boleya
Speaker 2: is coming back around the. Area while this article hadn't
Speaker 2: hit the press, yet and perhaps the sale hadn't been fully,
Speaker 2: consummated wouldn't surprise me to know that it was pretty
Speaker 2: well understood and in the air on the fall of
Speaker 2: seventy nine That ron was looking to get out and
Speaker 2: in fact sell to somebody That Sterling golden had gone
Speaker 2: to work, for Or Terry boleya had gone to work
Speaker 2: for and been renamed a re Christened Sterling. Golden and
Speaker 2: now all of a sudden in this part of the,
Speaker 2: territory the newspapers or chocol block with mentions Of Sterling golden.
Speaker 2: Again so it comes back. Around that's kind of Why
Speaker 2: boulder's first exit from the territory is a bit of
Speaker 2: a head. Fake it's more like he Leaves Louis toillette
Speaker 2: than he Leaves. SOUTHEASTERN i got. You let me see.
Speaker 2: Here so the New Rusting group will have an office
Speaker 2: On Magnolia avenue Near sh'll how Chill Howie. Park let's
Speaker 2: Let's THATCHER Tv productions and Public, relations And Charlie bauer
Speaker 2: promoter will continue with the organization. Quote he goes there
Speaker 2: will be no change in admission prices or location of m.
Speaker 7: Matches for a moment, THERE i thought he said there
Speaker 7: will be no charge in admission.
Speaker 2: Prices good thing that wasn't a. Typo. Man you imagine
Speaker 2: the fucking confusion caused by that, one.
Speaker 7: Said, polk former assistant coach and football and basketball at
Speaker 7: BIT a lot other. Keep every time they Say, polk
Speaker 7: they fucking list another like accomplishment that.
Speaker 2: Another right you? Know and web school before establishing a
Speaker 2: sporting good. Store, ah, YES i can do sports BECAUSE
Speaker 2: i run a sporting good. Store Tara matsuda thought so.
Speaker 7: Ye, polk who has worked part time in wrestling in
Speaker 7: the past few, years was employed By Brotus Clay anderson And.
Speaker 7: Associates Bortus clay Aren't anderson And associates before embarking on
Speaker 7: his new.
Speaker 2: Well how Fitting it's holidays and The Territory boss look at. This,
Speaker 2: Thursday november twenty, Second Knoxville New, Sentinel Hartley race is
Speaker 2: coming back to. Headline there will be no turkeys on
Speaker 2: The Thanksgiving night wrestling card At Civic coliseum Because Harley
Speaker 2: race will take On Dix slater in the main. Event
Speaker 2: slater won a local elimination tournament for the right to Meet.
Speaker 2: Race Ron fuller continue to Meet. RACE i don't, Know
Speaker 2: Dick slater And race don't really tend to make it a.
Speaker 2: Combination Ron fuller continues his feud With sterling The Wrestling,
Speaker 2: Hulk Golden sterling The Wrestling hulk in Parenthesis golden and
Speaker 2: another match In David Schultzen Dennis condrey take On Pierre
Speaker 2: Lea feyere And Jerry roberts in the tag team. Highlight
Speaker 2: the other two matches complete the eight thirty. Cards there
Speaker 2: it is, tonight eight thirty, Pm Civic Coliseum Fan Appreciation,
Speaker 2: night no increase in. Prices the posters, says, wow what
Speaker 2: a special treat for. Us of course has mentioned race
Speaker 2: For slater with special Ref Don curtis and in the
Speaker 2: special grudge Match boss in my eyes deceiving. Me It's
Speaker 2: Ron fuller versus who The Wrestling Hulk? Golden but another
Speaker 2: fucking Type oh for the. Ages can you Pronounce stertlewig
Speaker 2: s t e r L i W g ster slug
Speaker 2: the Wrestling? Golden this is a combination Of Jim hellwig
Speaker 2: And Sterling. GOLDEN i guess The Wrestling Hulk golden Versus
Speaker 2: Ron Fuller southeastern tag, Titles david Schultzon Denz Condre champions
Speaker 2: Versus Jerry roberts And Pierre la. FIV i can't say
Speaker 2: the name And i'm just gonna deal with. It Sterling
Speaker 2: golden still. HERE i wonder if there was like A
Speaker 2: i wonder if they got a, refund if they misspelled
Speaker 2: the wrestler's, name AND i wonder and, uh you, know
Speaker 2: the promoter figured out like a kickback to the to
Speaker 2: the person who wrote the ad so they would get
Speaker 2: a piece of the refund so they could get a
Speaker 2: discount on the. Ad because there's way too many spelling
Speaker 2: area it's really, bad just about every time there's one of.
Speaker 2: Them Knoxville News, Sentinel november twenty. Eighth All Star Championship
Speaker 2: wrestling Now All, Star, yes was the name of the
Speaker 2: group That Bob orton and The Knoxville five split off and.
Speaker 2: Created and look who they're attracting to the. Territory makes
Speaker 2: sense out of this for? ME i guess it's because
Speaker 2: they're still running As All Star, wrestling even Though barnett
Speaker 2: now is pretty much consolidated power and they're on their
Speaker 2: absolute last. Legs but you don't hear a lot about.
Speaker 2: This they're still going to market As All star at
Speaker 2: the W Knox. Auditorium But Sterling golden's on the, card,
Speaker 2: Yes and not only is he on the, card he's
Speaker 2: Wrestling bob Rup that's, right in A hulk. Challenge, now
Speaker 2: you tell me if there's A hulk challenge for five
Speaker 2: Grand bob rup and The hulk Sterling. Golden how is
Speaker 2: The southeastern title match list that above also? HAPPENING i don't.
Speaker 2: KNOW i Guess bob is working double duty and who's
Speaker 2: he wrestling besides The hull Working All star? Risks and like?
Speaker 2: IT i like. IT i like it a. Lot he
Speaker 2: don't do your right, Now Bob. Roop you're looking at one,
Speaker 2: man one man coming in taking care of a, business
Speaker 2: doing it the way THAT i, do because that is the.
Speaker 2: Way uh. Huh The Macho, Man Windy savage likes. IT
Speaker 2: i do like. That he started with you're looking at one.
Speaker 2: Man he was always big on not stating the. Obvious
Speaker 2: that's one thing we can say About Rainy. Savage BUT i, can't,
Speaker 2: OKAY i, mean this has got to be. It this
Speaker 2: has got to be the first, time maybe In, memphis
Speaker 2: but That Hulk hogan And Macho Man Ready savage are
Speaker 2: on the same. Card. Yeah Hers, Day november twenty, ninth
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy. Nine knox that it's crazy because The outlaw
Speaker 2: group is kind of fading away and kind of getting
Speaker 2: subsumed By. Atlanta another thing that happens in nineteen seventy,
Speaker 2: Nine absolutely, right but there's still secial traction still tells
Speaker 2: you where they, stood as The NO Dq No Time
Speaker 2: limit tag match puts the five hundred Pound Man Mountain
Speaker 2: dean And Ronnie garvin Versus Bob Orton junior And Professor Boris.
Speaker 2: Malenko we of course in The, Malanko orton And garvin
Speaker 2: part of The Knoxville, five but the See Bob roup
Speaker 2: Versus Sterling golden on the card is. Amazing Terry Terry,
Speaker 2: gibbs that supposed intermediary getting a book down there Facing Barry,
Speaker 2: Oh Barry. Orton. Wow no FROM Wwf STARS wwf shows to,
Speaker 2: Come Southeastern Friday Night, coliseum The Don, show and the
Speaker 2: absolutely The Donna Hue. Show most, specifically most Memorably november,
Speaker 2: thirtieth seventy, Nine Friday, night eight Thirty, Coliseum Southeastern heavyweight
Speaker 2: Titled Dix Slator champion Versus Ernie Ladd, Challenger Tony atlas
Speaker 2: Versus Sterling Golden mass in nineteen and seventy nine and
Speaker 2: the return match for The southeastern tag Titles David, Chelton
Speaker 2: Dennis Condrey champions Versus lathiev And Jerry. Roberts take a
Speaker 2: look at the next. Damage there's a big Old Dick
Speaker 2: slater throwing a heavy elbow terry bowlet slash sterling. Golden
Speaker 2: you know it's sterling golden for the most. Part if
Speaker 2: he's now wearing long trunks but not a single et
Speaker 2: right right chest hair is, shaved but it's skin tight,
Speaker 2: pants not, trunks and no straps over the. Shoulder but
Speaker 2: he's got the white wrist tape dialed. In yes he.
Speaker 2: Does he's Working Dix slater and we're turning to seehim.
Speaker 2: Melding and what's most amazing is that we haven't talked
Speaker 2: about the Last Hulk hogan Versus, andre The giant match
Speaker 2: In Gulf Coast. Southeastern take a look at. This here
Speaker 2: we are by the end of nineteen seventy, Nine andrea
Speaker 2: And hulk are mixing it up, again And hulk is
Speaker 2: he's got a different coat of pain. On take a
Speaker 2: look at The, hulk the state of The hulk here
Speaker 2: it appears not that we can tell why he's got
Speaker 2: the belt. Back, yeah he has the belt that's The
Speaker 2: Southeastern championship with the, red white and blue color designed to.
Speaker 2: It hulks in skin tight white long, pants red knee,
Speaker 2: pads red boots And i'm not sure how to feel about.
Speaker 7: THAT i, mean you, know it's definitely an uncomfortable. Feeling, yeah,
Speaker 7: WHY i, mean he. SHOULDN'T i, mean actually it kind
Speaker 7: of looks like two thousand and Two Hulk, hogan it,
Speaker 7: does you, know he almost you, know it's too bad
Speaker 7: that there's not the The Strawberry banana frapp going.
Speaker 2: On so this is Not terry The Hulk. Boulder this
Speaker 2: as The Knox One New sentinel tells Us december, eighth
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy, Nine sterling The Hulk golden won by. Disqualification,
Speaker 2: yes That's roondre The giant and the main event Of
Speaker 2: Friday Night wrestling at The Civic. Coliseum so that's Why
Speaker 2: Ron fuller talks about the two matches That hulk had
Speaker 2: With andre in the spring of nineteen seventy, nine as
Speaker 2: there were only two meetings in the territory because by
Speaker 2: the time they hook it back up In, knoxville you,
Speaker 2: Know fuller's out and so much has. Changed, yeah The
Speaker 2: giant had dumped The. Hulk the article reads from the
Speaker 2: ring When Dick, slater who was upset by The hulk last,
Speaker 2: week charged from the dressing room and began to beat
Speaker 2: The hulk with a, chair resulting in The giant's disqualification
Speaker 2: due to outside interference and other. Matches Jerry roberts Beats Terry.
Speaker 2: ORRANGE i don't think It's Terry. ORNDORF i could be.
Speaker 2: Wrong that's WHAT i haven't heard. Before, yeah that was
Speaker 2: him when he turned baby face After WrestleMania won nothing
Speaker 2: DO i. THINK i just bear with, me. BROTHER i
Speaker 2: think what you should, do, dude is instead of a
Speaker 2: WHOLE maniai, brother not your baby. Face he shouldn't Be
Speaker 2: paul Or. DWARF i think you should Be terry On.
Speaker 2: ORNDWARF i am. DUDE i, mean come, on you, KNOW
Speaker 2: i think it's a good way to, go. Brother it
Speaker 2: does say later here in this. Article so later In
Speaker 2: Paul oorendwarf Beat David, Scheldt Stennis condrey and the. Grappler.
Speaker 2: Wow SO i don't. Know maybe there was A Terry
Speaker 2: orndorff THAT i don't know. About could have been knocks
Speaker 2: only a. Sentinel here's another article from the same programs
Speaker 2: of the day Before Andrea Wrestling hulk meeting main. Event
Speaker 2: the biggest man in wrestling seven foot, four four hundred
Speaker 2: and eighty five Pound andre The giant And hulk. Begins
Speaker 2: by the, Way boss undoubtedly reading these articles his LIFELONG
Speaker 2: i don't want to say, phobia but his lifelong you, know,
Speaker 2: obsessive compulsive thing about try to do everything he can
Speaker 2: to overtake his rival's. Numbers Headlines Friday night of The Civic.
Speaker 2: Colisseum his opponent is six foot, six three hundred ten
Speaker 2: Pounds sterling the Wrestling Hulk golden AND i can't wait
Speaker 2: to get more into this time period because After hulk
Speaker 2: leaves and then kind of comes back, around they take
Speaker 2: The Hulk Andre show on the road The Wow, yeah
Speaker 2: Consider dothan AND i think it Was, montgomery the other
Speaker 2: match The Maris, pensacola The Petri. Dish, okay they figured it.
Speaker 2: Out this thing draws, well this thing draws, big And
Speaker 2: Ron fuller was not the only promoter to notice this
Speaker 2: be prepared for way Before WrestleMania three and before Even Shay,
Speaker 2: stadium The hulk Versus andre to headline major cities all
Speaker 2: Over North america and Eventually. JAPAN i can't handle that
Speaker 2: ride and out of The. Coliseum battle of The giants
Speaker 2: seven foot, four forty five pound under The, giant big
Speaker 2: ass picture Of andre to his massive mit versus six foot,
Speaker 2: six three hundred ten pounds sterling gold in the Wrestling.
Speaker 2: HULK i mean you're looking at you're looking at the
Speaker 2: raw material of The WrestleMania three promotional. Campaign it absolutely
Speaker 2: is right. Here, seriously it's seventy nine they're already promoting
Speaker 2: it is sort of a a special. Attraction it's not even,
Speaker 2: like you, Know terry the Hult, boulder who's risen to
Speaker 2: prominence here, locally is going to welcome the international superstar
Speaker 2: under The giant and see if he can test his.
Speaker 2: Will he's not the local, boy you. Know terry is
Speaker 2: the other side of The this marquee sort of freak
Speaker 2: show that when it comes to town is kind of
Speaker 2: a special attraction match on the order of AN nba title.
Speaker 2: Match so now he's kind of elevated a little bit
Speaker 2: visa dere and that he's not the underdog hoping to
Speaker 2: prove himself Against. Andre he's the guy that you want
Speaker 2: to see Test andre in your. Town and, man are
Speaker 2: they learning their lesson about this being the money? Match
Speaker 2: And i'm Sure Vince junr wherever he's, sitting is paying
Speaker 2: very close attention to this as. Well here's a card
Speaker 2: that was dug out by The Homie matt From december,
Speaker 2: thirteenth seventy. Nine Southeastern Championship wrestling In. Knoxville Southeastern Tag Team,
Speaker 2: Title schultzen contry Versus Orn dwarf An Atlas Southeastern title,
Speaker 2: Match Sterling golden Versus Dick. Slater some wow is The
Speaker 2: southeastern title that he has there on his waist and
Speaker 2: you see it off to the right as. Well Sterling
Speaker 2: golden Versus Dick. Slater here's a post from The Wrestling
Speaker 2: Classic sport mentioning how the title switched around around this
Speaker 2: point in. Time this fan Remembers hogan Is Sterling golden
Speaker 2: won The southeastern title From Dick slater On december, first
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy, nine worked his FIRST wwwf matches a few weeks,
Speaker 2: later and went back and dropped the title To Bob
Speaker 2: armstrong On Christmas. Night so we're worthy about to see
Speaker 2: to cap off The alabama leg of the Complete Hull Cogan,
Speaker 2: journey Is hogan coming back to do The Christmas day
Speaker 2: honors after he's already gone To New york and been
Speaker 2: on their. Television that's, Insane really is. Wild you don't
Speaker 2: really think of their being kind of a anything except
Speaker 2: The awa In japan on the other side of Hul
Speaker 2: cogan leaving For New. York but there is a lot
Speaker 2: more to say than you might, think Because Southeastern Championship
Speaker 2: wrestling presents a Card Christmas, day and how as we
Speaker 2: ride up on Our christmas here in twenty twenty. Five,
Speaker 2: Boss i'm sure they never could have guessed Back Christmas
Speaker 2: night nineteen seventy nine to The Civic coliseum And knoxville
Speaker 2: that we'd be doing something called a podcast about.
Speaker 9: It i'm sure.
Speaker 2: Not but what A christmas night that must have been
Speaker 2: at THE. AH i can't. Imagine that must have been.
Speaker 2: Crazy three thirty Pm bell. Time you like that On Christmas?
Speaker 2: Day a three thirty? START i, do. WELL i don't.
Speaker 2: Know now too early, early you gonna Have christmas dinner?
Speaker 2: FIRST i see that's. True maybe be home For christmas? Dinner? Maybe,
Speaker 2: yeah maybe that's that could. Be that could be. True
Speaker 2: Southeastern Heavyweight title, Sterling Golden Wrestling hulk and Quotes Wrestling Hulk.
Speaker 2: Champion they must be saying wrestling Because marvel got. Pissed
Speaker 2: they have to be all of a, sudden they must
Speaker 2: they have to. Be in, fact he's probably Called Sterling
Speaker 2: golden because when he got To NATIONAL tbs they were,
Speaker 2: like we, can't, no we can't call you The. Hulk that's.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous it's so obviously Versus Bob, armstrong as well as
Speaker 2: A Texas Death match falls count anywhere in the. Building
Speaker 2: dick's later teams Of Paul arndoor Versus David schuls And
Speaker 2: Dennis condrey a seven girl over The Tarboro Battle royal
Speaker 2: fifteen hundred bucks to the, winter and in a special challenge,
Speaker 2: match It's Buzz sawyer with one ze Versus Ox. Baker
Speaker 2: snippet if like, task that's, right here's little sippet from
Speaker 2: The Knoxville New, Sentinel december twenty, Fifth Christmas, day nineteen seventy.
Speaker 2: Nine wake, up open the presence with the, kids have
Speaker 2: your uh your a chicory coffee or, whatever and fried
Speaker 2: squarel down, there whatever, else whatever. Else Truman capote used
Speaker 2: to eat his a young boy when he woke up
Speaker 2: And Bob, armstrong, GEEZ i can't BELIEVE i missed the
Speaker 2: Whole christmas memory. Connection there's you, Know Truman Capote's Christmas
Speaker 2: memory one of the Great christmas short. Stories ever written
Speaker 2: all about A christmas that these wrestling fans attending the
Speaker 2: arenas in nineteen seventy nine in this part of the
Speaker 2: country would have would have remembered and identified earth the
Speaker 2: smell of fruitcake wafting through the coming out of the
Speaker 2: chimney amazing. Times Bob armstrong is back For christmas. Wrestling
Speaker 2: the headline reads local Favorite Bob, armstrong or as it,
Speaker 2: Reads Arman strong arm n another check cashed has returned
Speaker 2: To knoxville to Challenge sterling the Wrestling hulk in Parenthesis
Speaker 2: golden in a special wrestling Show christmas afternoon At Civic.
Speaker 2: Coliseum Dix slater And Paul orndorf Meet David, Chulton Dennis,
Speaker 2: contry and the main event Of Texas Tag Team deathmatch
Speaker 2: seven lady Wrestlers lyne And over The Tarborough Battle, royal
Speaker 2: with the loan survivor taking home the fifteen hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: Prize In, Ox baker Faces Buzz all You I'S thna
Speaker 2: call Him Buzz lawyer in a challenge. Match so here
Speaker 2: it is fast forward one tick. Oh this is the
Speaker 2: only other match that survivest the f out of. Here
Speaker 2: they have this. Match they have this match we have
Speaker 2: to bring to a conclusion The Gulf coast. Section so
Speaker 2: much has, happened we're going to push back the timeline
Speaker 2: a little. Bit BUT i figured With christmas right around
Speaker 2: the corner and this match happening In, christmas this Is
Speaker 2: Terry bulat saying goodbye to The rings Of alabama against
Speaker 2: the stalwart of the area in none other Than Bob.
Speaker 2: Armstrong my, friend are you? Ready i'm ready. NOW i
Speaker 2: don't know how and why this one. Survived i'm pretty
Speaker 2: sure we're hitting a time period where George Championship WRESTLING
Speaker 2: tbs would air highlights from other affiliated. Territories knoxville having
Speaker 2: been bought By Jim barnett And Fred ward would definitely
Speaker 2: be one of. Them AND i think what we're seeing
Speaker 2: is not some match, that like The Hogan andre arm wrestling,
Speaker 2: match happened to survive in the personal collection of some.
Speaker 2: Guy man if only some podcast out there one day
Speaker 2: could get to the bottom of that, one, yeah, Seriously
Speaker 2: but in, fact this was a match that happened to
Speaker 2: be from the, area that aired on another television show
Speaker 2: that while you, know Complete Georgia championship doesn't exist as. Either.
Speaker 2: Before of, course the proliferation of. VCRs there is a
Speaker 2: fair amount Of georgia from nineteen. Eighty we watched a
Speaker 2: bit of it In getting The essence Of Austin idol
Speaker 2: earlier on The Complete Hull. Cogan and now because of,
Speaker 2: THAT i believe we are the. Beneficiaries we get to
Speaker 2: See Terry boulder mix it up with the Old Man
Speaker 2: Christmas night nineteen seventy. Nine what a year it's been
Speaker 2: For Terry bolat and what a way it ends playing
Speaker 2: in three two.
Speaker 4: One and you, KNOW i think the key to this
Speaker 4: film is We i've looked at this film a couple
Speaker 4: of times and watched the.
Speaker 2: Watch let's that're on the. Call look At, hogan look at,
Speaker 2: him look at. Him he's on film clearly long yellow
Speaker 2: trunks and pressed collar and, elbow AND i think slow
Speaker 2: methodical working of the arm by the jew frowed bottomed Arm.
Speaker 5: Sean he couldn't man handle Larm strong the way he.
Speaker 5: Has other restaurers are in The southeastern area Farm.
Speaker 2: Strong armstrong wearing a single major, yes is looking like
Speaker 2: Fucking Richard. Simmons he really.
Speaker 4: Does the bomb has that, speed that and he has
Speaker 4: it the bird and when in that respect to the
Speaker 4: extra eighty or.
Speaker 2: Ninety he was.
Speaker 4: Spotty The Big man was used against, him opposed to being.
Speaker 2: His compress lock to the arm Wringer hogan digging knees
Speaker 2: and elbows in the corner.
Speaker 4: The whole by surprise on the whole boom Driving armstrong
Speaker 4: into that fla in the corner of the.
Speaker 2: Buckling and The.
Speaker 4: Big man was, tough was very cautious Of armstrong.
Speaker 2: Elbow brother here comes No brody drop and cover By
Speaker 2: Sterling golden gets too a.
Speaker 4: Way But bob is still in the ball. Game you,
Speaker 4: know you can never Yet bob in the position for that.
Speaker 2: Golden. Squeeze he's got red and. Yellow it's just not
Speaker 2: where it has to. Be you, Ready, wow drops the.
Speaker 2: LEGS i was able to stay away from. IT i
Speaker 2: think the cover uh And Bob armstrong cans leg drop
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy. Nine you want to mention That bob
Speaker 2: was unable To he hasn't perfected the.
Speaker 4: Movie definitely back and back in a big way as
Speaker 4: you're going to.
Speaker 2: See on this, bill and landed more with the back
Speaker 2: of his uh calf on the face than the Figh
Speaker 2: and when he came and he had one thing In
Speaker 2: Wow championship ducks the. Line bob throws a big, right
Speaker 2: bringing the Sterling golden down all.
Speaker 4: Fours top wrestling talent that we've seen in The southeastern
Speaker 4: area over the. Years bob has been the champion in the.
Speaker 2: Past golden is. Reeling look at himself in the.
Speaker 4: Area and you can see one because mister perpetual, Motion
Speaker 4: bob is always in gear and it's always high.
Speaker 2: Gear oh grabs the Where?
Speaker 5: Armstrong Because armstrong had been stuff in my.
Speaker 2: Finger he had things his way olden. Thought he had
Speaker 2: things his own. Way indeed less.
Speaker 4: Across the back of the.
Speaker 2: Neck there he can vantage throw his arms strung over
Speaker 2: the top. Rope look how the lights come up?
Speaker 4: There, no, YEAH i, agree was unable to save the whole.
Speaker 2: Tide right, back O'Connor roll, up Fun strong rolls up
Speaker 2: for the free body.
Speaker 4: Press so we Have southeast.
Speaker 2: Jauary how Happy bob is he as.
Speaker 4: That belt high in the, air kisses his glades around
Speaker 4: the coliseum with. It so we'll be Having bob on
Speaker 4: the program next. Week you'll be you'll be seeing him
Speaker 4: in a reaction for quite some time now because we've
Speaker 4: got a new, champion a great one and he's back
Speaker 4: and ready to.
Speaker 5: Go i'm.
Speaker 2: Sweet wow so Long Sterling golden just thoughts there overall
Speaker 2: on seeing him mixing it Up Christmas night seventy, NINE
Speaker 2: i mean it's it's it's. WILD i, mean there there
Speaker 2: are he's still a little you, know he's not there,
Speaker 2: yet but there's still a lot of elements of Of,
Speaker 2: hogan you, know you besides the, leg besides, that you,
Speaker 2: know even the way you know when he loses and,
Speaker 2: stuff and it reminds me of how he would lose
Speaker 2: as a, heel you. Know and he kind of liked
Speaker 2: his oh, brother and he gets down on his knees
Speaker 2: and he's like looking into the, crowd, like why, BROTHER
Speaker 2: i didn't do? It. Dude, yeah he had reserves to
Speaker 2: call on when he Was. Hollywood, yeah, yeah, yeah for.
Speaker 2: Sure and the punches and stuff like there were just
Speaker 2: there's a lot of. It there's a lot of it.
Speaker 2: There he just there was like a little bit of
Speaker 2: a lack of follow through that he would develop the
Speaker 2: punches and. Stuff, WELL i think of the back elbows
Speaker 2: and stuff that he did, There like there was it
Speaker 2: just kind of was a little it didn't feel, Complete,
Speaker 2: yes unlike a certain, JOURNEY i could, mention but if
Speaker 2: you think we're, complete my, friend we've only just. Begun
Speaker 2: look At Terry. Boulder it was nice knowing the THE
Speaker 2: Nwa southeastern heavyweight. Champion it was nice knowing as chest.
Speaker 2: Hair it was nice knowing. Him and look at look
Speaker 2: at those yellow trunks on That southeastern. Belt too, little too,
Speaker 2: late but we certainly Get Terry bully strapping himself up
Speaker 2: a little. Bit we even get us and mentions in
Speaker 2: the paper as somebody that's interacting with some of the local.
Speaker 2: Athletes here from The News journal In, Pensacola gainesville Date.
Speaker 2: Line Danny, fike sophomore Tackled university Of, florida spent last
Speaker 2: summer lifting weights with a couple of theatrical athletes own
Speaker 2: As Ron slinker And terry Foldat Jesus. Christ so he's
Speaker 2: now officially a theatrical athlete in their prof As Danny
Speaker 2: fike says from The university Of Florida. Tackle they're professional
Speaker 2: WRESTLERS i worked out with at The Pensacola Health, club Said,
Speaker 2: fike who played On Pine Forest High School state for
Speaker 2: a runner up from seventy to seventy. EIGHT i know
Speaker 2: they act kind of crazy in the, ring but they're
Speaker 2: pretty down to earth guys out of the. Ring AND
Speaker 2: i know one THING i wouldn't want to mess with
Speaker 2: them in the. Ring slinker And boulder must be the
Speaker 2: hiss and boo bad guys who'll do anything, mean dirty
Speaker 2: and low down to gain an unfair. Advantage otherwise they
Speaker 2: wouldn't want to mess With Danny. Fike this Columnist Billy mitchell,
Speaker 2: writes so last vestiges perhaps of the Name Terry, boulder
Speaker 2: and it's traveling in an area that he LEFT i
Speaker 2: think way more of an imprint on than he had
Speaker 2: any right to. Expect M Ron, fuller it's off to
Speaker 2: court to try to get the belt back and the
Speaker 2: boat if he's lucky From Ron. Garvin and it's really
Speaker 2: never going to be the same in this part of
Speaker 2: the countries it regards professional. Wrestling but for the last
Speaker 2: few months that it was the same for the last
Speaker 2: few months where you could go down there Typical. Hugan
Speaker 2: he comes in and he gets built up to be
Speaker 2: on this, megastar and then when he, leaves it's, like oh,
Speaker 2: shit like the whole thing goes to. Shit lessons being,
Speaker 2: Learned lessons being, learned For Terry boleya and all who
Speaker 2: employ and book him going, forward and there will be
Speaker 2: a litany of said. Folks but the raw material is.
Speaker 2: Here we've done our level best to bring it to
Speaker 2: life for you here in The Complete Hulkoke and never
Speaker 2: let it be said That Terry Boleya's Gulf coast history
Speaker 2: is under documented. Anymore it Was, andre it Was, harley
Speaker 2: it Was Ox baker And Austin. Idol it was so
Speaker 2: much of the. Signatures the first hint and whiff of
Speaker 2: the signatures that would define his career was the beginning
Speaker 2: of The andre. Feud it is the beginning of calling this,
Speaker 2: man This Terry. Boleya from The Infinity's end band In,
Speaker 2: tampa The, hulk As Lou forigno lights up television screens
Speaker 2: across the country with his portrayal of The Incredible. HULK
Speaker 2: i think things are. SET i Think Hulk Cogan boss
Speaker 2: is prepared to be. Born let the new year bring
Speaker 2: that to you and yours here on The Complete Hulk
Speaker 2: hogan and The Lapsed. Fan we've got a couple of
Speaker 2: more legs of the nineteen seventy nine journey to get acquainted.
Speaker 2: With Because terry The Hulpe boulder made imprints In, memphis
Speaker 2: he made imprints In, atlanta and yes he would soon
Speaker 2: make imprints In New. York we leave you for, now
Speaker 2: coming off The Christmas night victory Of Bob, armstrong and
Speaker 2: wish you and yours a happy holiday two thousand and twenty.
Speaker 2: Five And i'm left, Wishing boss that ALL i want
Speaker 2: to get under the tree this year is someone that
Speaker 2: can help me see what these fans In, dothan In
Speaker 2: montgomery And mobile And, pensacola and in so many other
Speaker 2: areas on The Gulf coast we're able to witness As
Speaker 2: terry The Hulk boulder morphs Into Hulk. Cocain don't know
Speaker 2: who that could, be but maybe they'll be under the
Speaker 2: tree this, Year god willing you, Know Charlie, Platt, yes,
Speaker 2: sir how are? You? Sir next time on The Complete
Speaker 2: Old cogan