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Speaker 1: They're also an auto rapier school to get some form
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Speaker 3: About hello, well, it's the last fame name one the
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Speaker 1: Polls well as the complete Hulk Hogan continues to unfold.
Speaker 1: Here at the Lapsed Fan, we've reached the point Terry
Speaker 1: Boleya has finally stepped into the ring at Florida Championship Wrestling,
Speaker 1: despite the false starts and the controversies with Matsuda and
Speaker 1: everything else that's become the subject of legend for wrestling
Speaker 1: fans that know the Hulk Hogan story. But as you
Speaker 1: know by now, we're trying to reach out beyond just
Speaker 1: our podcast studios, get a finer idea and some more
Speaker 1: color as to what it was like to witness the
Speaker 1: rise of Hulk Hogan before he was Hulk Hogan. And
Speaker 1: we can't do much better when it comes to his
Speaker 1: first match. Then, speaking to a gentleman who was in
Speaker 1: the ring with him in those absolutely early formative days,
Speaker 1: he is Brian Blair, formerly of the Killer Bees and
Speaker 1: a legend in the business. Brian, it's so great to
Speaker 1: have you on the show. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Jack. It's great to be here. Yeah, I
Speaker 4: had you know, I'm still hurting over Terry, or a
Speaker 4: lot of us are. But fortunately we all have great
Speaker 4: memories and we hold on to those tight and just
Speaker 4: pray that Terry's in a better place.
Speaker 1: Before getting into those recollections of those early days. That's
Speaker 1: probably not a bad place to start, Brian. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're a couple of months out now from losing Hulkogan
Speaker 1: and you were as close to him as there are
Speaker 1: a few that were as close to him as you were,
Speaker 1: living so close to him and being with him from
Speaker 1: the beginning of his career. Do you still find yourself
Speaker 1: thinking about him, like in a quiet moment, do you
Speaker 1: have to sort of be reminded that he's no longer here?
Speaker 1: What's that like?
Speaker 4: No, I'm reminded every day. I have a one of
Speaker 4: those little risk bands. It says Hulco Mania forever.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that'll do it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, seven twenty five, of course, that's the day Terry
Speaker 4: went to heaven. And you know, I just, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 4: I think about him. You know, I read my Bible
Speaker 4: every day and his memorial card is right there, and
Speaker 4: I stare at his face and think about him every
Speaker 4: single day.
Speaker 1: Oh wow. So yeah, the wristband, that constant reminder. Well great,
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about the first match because
Speaker 1: you know, people that really get, like to a geek
Speaker 1: level about Hulk's life will always look up his record
Speaker 1: of matches. That's it's not a thing on the internet,
Speaker 1: you know. And over the years, I think it became
Speaker 1: known that, in fact, his match with you in Chieflin, Florida,
Speaker 1: which you've talked a lot about in prior interviews and
Speaker 1: in great detail in your book with Ian Douglas, was
Speaker 1: thought to be his first. He talks about it as
Speaker 1: his first match. Terry does, I think in his second book.
Speaker 1: But there are records of him wrestling Don Serrano on
Speaker 1: August ninth before your Chieflin match with him on August
Speaker 1: eleventh of that year. Now, of course, it's asking a
Speaker 1: lot of you to remember specific details from that far back.
Speaker 1: We're talking August ninth, nineteen seventy seven, of course, but
Speaker 1: I did want to start by asking because it did
Speaker 1: say you were on that first card Fort Pierce, Florida,
Speaker 1: August ninth, seventy seven, John Carroll High School, when Don
Speaker 1: Serrano defeated Super Destroyer, which of course was Terry under
Speaker 1: the hood. Apparently Don Serano was supposed to wrestle Wolfman
Speaker 1: Smith on the show. There's like a newspaper clip about
Speaker 1: that that says Wolfman was a no show, so Super
Speaker 1: Destroyer gets plugged in there. Do you remember that at all?
Speaker 1: You were wrestling Tony Rocco, I believe on the card.
Speaker 4: No, I do not recall that. I absolutely recall our
Speaker 4: match and what we had several matches, not just in
Speaker 4: Chiefland and Fort Myers, oh, several places. But I don't
Speaker 4: recall him. I know that he wrestled Don after a
Speaker 4: couple of weeks after he is match in Chiefland.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I'm showing him August twenty fifth in Jacksonville,
Speaker 1: and you wrestled in August tenth and eleventh, so yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, that was a while. That
Speaker 4: was a great We had worked a lot of course
Speaker 4: we broke in together. I was in the dungeon with
Speaker 4: Matt Suda for three and a half summers, which is
Speaker 4: a long time with ero Matt Sudo. You know, one
Speaker 4: one hour is a long one one minute is a
Speaker 4: long time with just here. But I have no idea
Speaker 4: how how I made it through that, but I guess
Speaker 4: it was just a lot of passion drive termination. And
Speaker 4: I just remembered Terry long before wrestling. And anyway, if
Speaker 4: you wanted to talk about that first match, I rode
Speaker 4: up to Chiefland with the Brisco Brothers, and I believe
Speaker 4: Don Morocco was with us, and and Terry rode with
Speaker 4: I've been called off. I believe Pat Patterson. I know
Speaker 4: there was several other heels, but you know, k Fabe
Speaker 4: was very strict back then. Yeah, of course, you know,
Speaker 4: we the heels would never ride with the maybe faces
Speaker 4: or advice of me. So they told us a few
Speaker 4: days ahead of time that we were going to you know,
Speaker 4: Terry's finally going to work maybe, but oh, I don't
Speaker 4: know a week ahead of time, and they really I
Speaker 4: had been working for a few months, but they kind
Speaker 4: of wait till the last minute to smarten you up.
Speaker 4: But Terry was such a fan and such a student
Speaker 4: of the game. I mean, he never missed at the Armory.
Speaker 4: But we were excited because they said we were going
Speaker 4: to have a fifteen minute Broadway or draw fifteen minute draw,
Speaker 4: we call it a Broadway. And in wrestling speaking, so
Speaker 4: Terry and I are in the ring and go over
Speaker 4: a bunch of spots, you know, for a few days,
Speaker 4: we're really excited about it. And oh gosh, the Briscos
Speaker 4: are pumping me up on the way there. And I'm
Speaker 4: sure I'm sure Terry was getting pumped up by Pat
Speaker 4: Patterson and Ivan call Off and the rest of the guys.
Speaker 4: But we get we get in the ring, introduces, we
Speaker 4: get in the ring. It's a good little crowd in
Speaker 4: chief when it's at the high school and and anyway,
Speaker 4: we start out and we're just going back and forth,
Speaker 4: back and forth. You know, five minutes gone, everything's going great.
Speaker 4: I mean, we're having a nice little you know, we're
Speaker 4: doing chain wrestling, you know, reverses and switches and and
Speaker 4: go behind and you know, things that Terry really wasn't
Speaker 4: designed to do, and he would quickly throw out of
Speaker 4: his repertoire. But we were doing that kind of stuff
Speaker 4: at the beginning, because I said, wrestling on the marquee,
Speaker 4: so we were wrestling. Eddie Raham liked wrestling, you know.
Speaker 4: The exception was, you know, Dusty. That's why Dusty got
Speaker 4: over so big, because Florida was built as a wrestling territory.
Speaker 4: But anyway, five minutes gone in the match, a lot
Speaker 4: of chain wrestling and little strong man stuff with Terry,
Speaker 4: a few of those kind of spots, and finally he
Speaker 4: starts getting the heat on me, you know, boom boom bone.
Speaker 4: Ten minutes gone, and I know it's a fifteen minute
Speaker 4: Broadway and Terry's got me. Or actually I had him
Speaker 4: right before that down and I snapped married him and
Speaker 4: had him in a reverse chin lock. And I looked
Speaker 4: and all the talent is out on both sides, all
Speaker 4: the baby faces are out on the one side, and
Speaker 4: all the heels are out on the other side. I
Speaker 4: whispered it there. I said, damn, we must be having
Speaker 4: a heck of a match, whether everybody's watching, and he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: let's keep it. And so anyway, we don't hear the timekeeper.
Speaker 4: You know, he announced at the beginning, one fall, fifteen
Speaker 4: minute match, he did ten minutes gone, and you know,
Speaker 4: normally the timekeeper go when you get fifteen minutes, they'll
Speaker 4: give you like at least the last three minutes, you know,
Speaker 4: seventeen or thirteen minutes gone, fourteen minutes.
Speaker 1: Gone, and.
Speaker 4: You know, so there's something that won't. So I'm just
Speaker 4: still a green too, and I'm working my way through it. Well,
Speaker 4: I know that at least three minutes gone, I have
Speaker 4: gone by and I don't hear anything he tarried in
Speaker 4: it or anything. So I said, hey, bro, we need
Speaker 4: to kick it in. So we start kicking in and
Speaker 4: do it all our spots to come back. You know,
Speaker 4: he got really good heat on me, don't finally turned
Speaker 4: heel no more wrestling, you know, gouged my eyes, you know,
Speaker 4: threw me into the bashing my head into the turnbuckle,
Speaker 4: choking me with the rope, all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 4: dropping elbows on me and barely kicking out two and
Speaker 4: a half and finally he misses something. You start to
Speaker 4: come back being bang boom, and I know, now fifteen
Speaker 4: minutes is gone, being bang booming up. All of a
Speaker 4: sudden we hear fifteen minutes gone, fifteen to go. So
Speaker 4: fifteen minutes to go, fifteen minutes gone, fifteen minutes to go,
Speaker 4: and so the Brisco was changed it to a thirty
Speaker 4: minute match. And we had given everything we had. We
Speaker 4: had nothing left in the tank. Terry had nothing, I
Speaker 4: had nothing. I mean, we were just totally gassed. We
Speaker 4: got fifteen minutes to go. That's probably the worst fifteen
Speaker 4: minutes of wrestling in my life. Oh gosh, you know,
Speaker 4: talked about that many many at times, just you know,
Speaker 4: the business is full of jokes and there's always practical jokes,
Speaker 4: and that Terry was never a practical joker, really, but
Speaker 4: he was at the blunt of a few viscal brother
Speaker 4: practical jokes and that was one that God is really good.
Speaker 4: I mean it was. They were laughing so hard over there.
Speaker 4: I mean, they don't want to expose the business, but
Speaker 4: you can see him putting their arms over their mouths
Speaker 4: and slapping each other, and slowly they're disappearing and peeping
Speaker 4: out that went peeping out the door, watching to see
Speaker 4: what kind of match we had. The crowd completely died.
Speaker 4: It was. It was rough.
Speaker 1: Wow. You mentioned Brian going over spots in the weeks
Speaker 1: leading up to the match. What does that look like?
Speaker 1: Do you get together in the sportatorium and say we're
Speaker 1: going to do this or are you just verbally talking
Speaker 1: it out in the car? How does that go?
Speaker 4: No, we were actually in the sportatorium and went over
Speaker 4: stuff and walked through him pretty much. Uh, actually took
Speaker 4: you know, bumps on some of them, you know, going
Speaker 4: through some of the spots. I mean, uh, we did
Speaker 4: some arm drags and you know, you know how many
Speaker 4: people how many times have you seen Hulk Hogan arm drag?
Speaker 4: But he could do that. I mean Terry was very, very,
Speaker 4: very versatile, and he was a good athlete. I mean
Speaker 4: vern Gania got mad at one time in the a
Speaker 4: w A and I went to leg gut him, and
Speaker 4: vern Gania, who owned a w A territory, is his son.
Speaker 4: He went to leg dive him. I got so mad
Speaker 4: at him, was going to stretch Terry, and Terry front
Speaker 4: face locked him and vern started tapping right. Just you know,
Speaker 4: a lot of people learned the hard way that not
Speaker 4: a lot, but a few people learned the hard way that.
Speaker 4: You know, Tory was a pretty tough guy if you
Speaker 4: had to be.
Speaker 1: When you went into the ring for that match, Brian,
Speaker 1: what was the understanding as to what you guys would
Speaker 1: have been doing when the fifteen minutes elapsed. Was it
Speaker 1: a double down? Was it Terry hits you with a
Speaker 1: big move and he's about to pin you and then
Speaker 1: the time expires vice versa.
Speaker 4: No, we were doing false finishes. We were trying to
Speaker 4: end it, like you know, a Sunset flipped him. He
Speaker 4: shot me, he reversed it. I went to shoot him
Speaker 4: and he reversed it. I hit the ropes, came off
Speaker 4: with this. You know, he bends over for a backdrop
Speaker 4: like and I jump over him. Sunset flip him ron too.
Speaker 4: He kicks out, jumps up small package on two two
Speaker 4: and a half. You know, he kicks out, and we
Speaker 4: were just doing false finishes. It was it was That's
Speaker 4: why it was so difficult, you know, because here you're
Speaker 4: doing all these false finishes. If it was just a
Speaker 4: double down, a double knockout, we used to call it.
Speaker 4: A double down is the modern term. But dang, it
Speaker 4: would have been a hacking a lot easier.
Speaker 1: But d have been laying there collecting your your breath
Speaker 1: there for the next Now, did you have a finish
Speaker 1: and did he have a finish.
Speaker 4: At the time At the time neither one of us
Speaker 4: had an actual finish, you know. I mean it's Terry's
Speaker 4: first match or so, so he can't really establish a finish.
Speaker 4: And I was still feeling my oats.
Speaker 1: So what what do you remember doing in that extra time? Brian?
Speaker 1: Was it just that unexpected fifteen extra minute?
Speaker 4: Did you just redo the as you know wind? I
Speaker 4: wound up with the sleeper on the sleeper. Then Steve
Speaker 4: Kerran got on me about that, Steve Risco's old Steve Kurrn,
Speaker 4: that I did his finishing. That he pretended like he
Speaker 4: was mad at me. Oh gosh, it's like a constant
Speaker 4: rib They never stopped. You never stopped ribbing.
Speaker 1: Let me let me get that straight, Brian. Sorry, go ahead, Jim, No, no,
Speaker 1: go ahead. If you get something on the sleeper, you're
Speaker 1: saying you grabbed the sleeper because you're trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what to do presumably for that fifteen more minutes,
Speaker 1: and the sleeper at the time was Steve's finish. That's
Speaker 1: what you're saying, Brian.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's exactly, Jacob what I'm saying. Exactly. I even
Speaker 4: went into the figure four and I actually screwed it up,
Speaker 4: so he kicked me off the figure four and of
Speaker 4: course I was Jack Briscoe's finished right there.
Speaker 1: So you gave you gave a little bit back to
Speaker 1: about that is that you gave it back to them too,
Speaker 1: a little bit if you're gonna put me out here.
Speaker 4: For that was Actually, you know, I'm not that smart
Speaker 4: to think that I'm giving it back. I'm just trying
Speaker 4: to think of things I think I can do. But
Speaker 4: I think I can do that's amazing.
Speaker 1: I just had a question. So so I know I've
Speaker 1: heard this.
Speaker 2: This is you know, not the first time I've we've
Speaker 2: heard this before, but this idea that that you don't
Speaker 2: find out that it's that it's work until you're on
Speaker 2: your way out to the ring during your first match. Now,
Speaker 2: I I've listen, I've been in the ring two times
Speaker 2: with very very limited training, just more for for fun
Speaker 2: to kind of learn and and just kind of and
Speaker 2: and to to to see how it felt. And I
Speaker 2: can't imagine even and now in today's world learning like saying, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, you know learning as you're going out to
Speaker 2: the ring that it's that it's a work.
Speaker 1: I mean, how how did how do you do that?
Speaker 2: How do also do you train for so long and
Speaker 2: not you know, like I just I want to know
Speaker 2: what it's like, what it was like for you to
Speaker 2: to to finally understand that it was a work, and
Speaker 2: how you didn't really know it was a work before
Speaker 2: you went out to the ring that first time.
Speaker 4: Well, out of over one hundred people that started in
Speaker 4: the business and the Lancers in the three summers that
Speaker 4: I was there three and a half summers, the only
Speaker 4: three people that made it were Paul or and Orf,
Speaker 4: mister Wonderful Cogan Poachster, and myself. And at one time
Speaker 4: I said to Orndorf, I said, look, Hero smartened me
Speaker 4: up because we knew. I mean, you just had to
Speaker 4: know that it was you know, that they were working.
Speaker 4: But there was a little doubt there. I mean, you
Speaker 4: didn't know if some of it was real, if you
Speaker 4: know it was when you're around the boys enough and
Speaker 4: then you see him talking and eventually you kind of
Speaker 4: figure it out. But the Hero was so strict, you know,
Speaker 4: and Eddie Graham and the people there that were training us,
Speaker 4: they just believed in, you know, not smartening us up
Speaker 4: until you know, they thought that we needed to because
Speaker 4: they just as soon see you go out there on
Speaker 4: amateur wrestle, which we did all the time constantly. So
Speaker 4: I said, I said, Paul hero smartened me up yesterday.
Speaker 4: He said, what, No, he didn't. He didn't believe it.
Speaker 4: So yeah, give me a slam. So you know, I'm
Speaker 4: actually lying to Paul. I want to see if because Paul,
Speaker 4: Paul's already had a couple of matches, because I'm just
Speaker 4: you know, I want to doubly, doubly checked at the work.
Speaker 4: So the takes me up and he slavs. I mean
Speaker 4: I could barely walk for two weeks. I mean, my
Speaker 4: hip went out so bad, my psiatic hurts so so
Speaker 4: bad for two weeks. Oh gosh, I'll never forget that
Speaker 4: paint and that that was a brutal, brutal lesson. But
Speaker 4: I don't know there's psychology for waiting so long. But
Speaker 4: it was usually like away from a week to a
Speaker 4: month before you would go out there and they'd smarten
Speaker 4: you up. So and you don't have a whole lot
Speaker 4: of time to practice, you know, sunset flips and different
Speaker 4: things like that inside cradles or small packages what they
Speaker 4: call you know, those are things that you kind of
Speaker 4: know from amateur wrestling. They're things that are used as
Speaker 4: a war, but they can also be used as a shoot. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so much of that, so much of the.
Speaker 1: Business is like I think one of the reason fans
Speaker 1: might get confused, Brian is because years later, when the
Speaker 1: famous wrestlers tell their stories about getting started, they lie
Speaker 1: about going to the ring thinking it's a work. Terry
Speaker 1: in his second book said, in that match with your
Speaker 1: chieflin quote, we're fighting. I mean, we're really beating the
Speaker 1: shit out of each other. I thought I was supposed
Speaker 1: to win this thing, and he was just following his
Speaker 1: orders to not get beat. So that's sort of like
Speaker 1: a middle ground there. What do you think of him
Speaker 1: characterizing it that way?
Speaker 4: You know, he's protecting the business. Yeah. Yeah, we did
Speaker 4: potato each other a lot. There's a lot of a
Speaker 4: lot of potatoes thrown in that match. The last thing
Speaker 4: that they that the ownership wanted to see in Flora
Speaker 4: was somebody miss a punch by a couple of inches
Speaker 4: or whatever. They wanted you to lay them in, and
Speaker 4: so we were, we were laying them in and ah,
Speaker 4: that's just the way that we were taught then and
Speaker 4: after a while, you know, later on in life, Terry
Speaker 4: would he wouldn't work with anybody that was stiff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that. That's definitely something we heard about. So
Speaker 1: all right, that's great. So when he's saying, because if
Speaker 1: you say you're working out the spots, you know, a
Speaker 1: few weeks ahead of time, clearly Terry's not going into
Speaker 1: the ring thinking that he's just willy nilly trying to
Speaker 1: use real techniques to pin you, and your your mission
Speaker 1: is to just not let him pin you. I mean,
Speaker 1: he says, you know essentially that he was supposed to
Speaker 1: win it. But you say you go to the ring
Speaker 1: expecting a draw.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I was absolutely told to us that it
Speaker 4: would be a draw.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so I'll go with it, right, I'll
Speaker 1: go I'll go with your memory on that one.
Speaker 2: Also, that's one thing too, like, I mean, that just
Speaker 2: seems like a crazy thing to be I mean, i mean,
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes, it seems like it's it's certainly that that's
Speaker 2: an incredible amount of time to do the uh, the
Speaker 2: kind of athleticism and and and to do any kind
Speaker 2: of of a pro wrestling and men to just kind
Speaker 2: of have that that kind of just did you say, no,
Speaker 2: we're gonna ad fifteen minutes and you don't even know
Speaker 2: about it and it's completely all you know, done behind
Speaker 2: your back. It's really again, I'm I'm to me, that
Speaker 2: seems risky. It seems like a risky thing to do
Speaker 2: with two guys who are going out for there for
Speaker 2: the first time. I don't know, maybe I'm crazy, but
Speaker 2: I mean I commend you guys for able for being
Speaker 2: able to pull it off as best as you can.
Speaker 2: But that seems like a hell of a risky prank
Speaker 2: to me. Give given the nature of the pro wrestling business.
Speaker 4: You're right, JIPI, it is a hundred percent is But
Speaker 4: they the way We're in a small town that gets
Speaker 4: run about, you know, twice a year, and in a
Speaker 4: high school with you know, five hundred people or whatever,
Speaker 4: and you got the Brisco brothers who don't care so
Speaker 4: that you know they did. They march to their own
Speaker 4: drama and they actually own part of the office like
Speaker 4: five percent or something like that.
Speaker 1: So, Bron, when we look at the record, there's that
Speaker 1: Don Serrano match, and it always says that your match
Speaker 1: with Terry and Chiefland is the second match you had,
Speaker 1: not your first, that the first was in fact the
Speaker 1: day before in Fort Myers at the National Guard Armory
Speaker 1: August tenth, with the Chieflin match being August eleventh. Do
Speaker 1: you think there's a chance that you remember the Chiefland
Speaker 1: match as actually the Fort Myers match and that you
Speaker 1: had been in the ring with Terry before this.
Speaker 4: No, I know for a fact that his first match
Speaker 4: was in Chiefland, and I know that he worked with
Speaker 4: Don Serrano because we were working out in the ring,
Speaker 4: and I just remember the first, first, first, first. It
Speaker 4: was always the first, first, first. Yeah, and he would
Speaker 4: have told me or you're saying I was on that card,
Speaker 4: that's right. I don't recall that at all.
Speaker 1: That's fine. I mean it could happen. And you know,
Speaker 1: I guess there's a distant chance that who the newspaper
Speaker 1: refers to as super Destroyer wrestling Don Serrano is not Terry.
Speaker 1: But I'd be shocked by that because he's Terry. He's
Speaker 1: super Destroyer against you right under the hood.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes he is, he is, and there was no
Speaker 4: other super Destroyer in the in the territory.
Speaker 1: Okay. So knowing that then that that kind of answers
Speaker 1: the question. Another thing I always wonder is the results
Speaker 1: that survive say that Terry went to the ring that
Speaker 1: night against you in Chiefland and Fort Myers. Is Terry Boleya?
Speaker 1: Maybe they just put that in there, but he was
Speaker 1: super destroyer, right, he never wrestled you in that first run?
Speaker 1: Is just Terry Boleya?
Speaker 4: No, we have pictures from there?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, one into your book.
Speaker 4: It's my book actually Truth be Told. But yeah, that's
Speaker 4: from Chiefland. So he was with a mask. Why would
Speaker 4: they call him Terry? Belay with him? Right?
Speaker 1: If the whole idea, as Brisco has said, was to
Speaker 1: put him under the hood to sort of protect him
Speaker 1: so that if you did use him later, people don't
Speaker 1: remember him as that clumsy loser, you know what I mean? Understood?
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly exactly?
Speaker 1: Did you can you can you sort of confirm that
Speaker 1: for us? Like what was the psychology of putting someone
Speaker 1: like him that's so big, you know, under a hood
Speaker 1: so early?
Speaker 4: Well, you know, Terry had that look, that special look.
Speaker 4: It's like what I used to sneak into the bars
Speaker 4: and watch him play bass guitar and you know, standing
Speaker 4: the platforms and he was like stood out like a freak.
Speaker 4: I mean, he had a tremendous body, a tremendous tand
Speaker 4: he had his mama's jewelry on and was about seven
Speaker 4: foot tall with those platform six inch platform shoes, and
Speaker 4: it was just amazing to watch him. So he had
Speaker 4: that charisma from being in a band. He had so much,
Speaker 4: So it makes sense to put him in a mass
Speaker 4: so later on when he comes back as whomever he's
Speaker 4: coming back as. Uh. Even if he was coming back
Speaker 4: as you know, he would obviously have some kind of
Speaker 4: a tide terrific terrry or whatever. You know, you wouldn't
Speaker 4: want to remember him when he was clumsy and green.
Speaker 1: That's right. So, so the photos in your book are
Speaker 1: so great because I don't think we've seen those before
Speaker 1: until your book published them. Maybe they were out there.
Speaker 1: Where did the photos come from? Of you wrestling him?
Speaker 1: And are there others from those early days and no
Speaker 1: one's ever seen?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, a couple of the people that took photographs here. Golly,
Speaker 4: I can't think of their names right now.
Speaker 1: That's okay, But you ended up in possession of them.
Speaker 4: Steve Kernos actually Ian.
Speaker 1: Has them or had them, Okay, So the author I.
Speaker 4: Ian Ian Douglas, who wrote co wrote the book, my
Speaker 4: yep offer kind of.
Speaker 1: Well, that's great Okay, cool, that's good to know. I
Speaker 1: thought maybe it was something that you had over the years,
Speaker 1: just hung on the photos that were taken, or if
Speaker 1: they were bill after photos or or whatever. I mean,
Speaker 1: those are so kind of historic now because there's no
Speaker 1: video at all of Terry wrestling in that first run.
Speaker 1: It's just still images, and even those are very sparse.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes, I've got a lot of you know,
Speaker 4: fun photos, but hundreds. Oh sure, having a good time,
Speaker 4: but nothing in the ring. Other than those. There's some more.
Speaker 4: I've seen a bunch of them, but they're all stills.
Speaker 1: How would that work back then, Bran and c w F.
Speaker 1: Would they only tape the Armory shows in the Sportatorium
Speaker 1: or would they not even tape all the Hester early shows.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they would tape in that the Sportatorium, and they
Speaker 4: didn't tape all the time at the Armory. They would Actually,
Speaker 4: the reason you don't see a lot of footage from
Speaker 4: back then is because they would take the master tape
Speaker 4: and just tape over it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Tragic, tragic, absolutely trasic.
Speaker 4: Save money. Yeah, they didn't have the foresight of realizing
Speaker 4: how much money that stuff would be worth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm actually grateful. We have as much sort
Speaker 1: of film footage from the hesterly that we do. WW
Speaker 1: bought a lot that I think you know from the
Speaker 1: grams that we didn't even know existed until they re
Speaker 1: released it. But the only thing we have in video
Speaker 1: form from then, and you've probably seen it by now,
Speaker 1: Brian is is Terry in the Sportatorium. He's working with
Speaker 1: I think Willem Ruska, he's working with Eddie, he's working
Speaker 1: with Pat Patterson and they're just doing just doing drills
Speaker 1: and he looks so lean. Terry does so young and
Speaker 1: so like, you know, impressionable and kind of clumsy. But
Speaker 1: he's doing some you know, he's doing O'Connor rolls, he's
Speaker 1: doing some fairly complicated stuff. Well, what do you think
Speaker 1: if you know what I'm talking about that? What what
Speaker 1: are we seeing there? Is that just like sort of
Speaker 1: the run of the mill training at the Sportatorium?
Speaker 4: What what is that? I actually I haven't seen that.
Speaker 1: I'd love to get it to you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I'd love to see that. Because Eddie or
Speaker 4: CWF they used to film in different places like if
Speaker 4: there is an angle, I say, we were going to
Speaker 4: do an angle in Jacksonville. Or something. You know, there'd
Speaker 4: be a camera there filming. You may have heard the
Speaker 4: story about Ernie Ladd and the Tire Irons with the
Speaker 4: original brothers. Well that's because they were filming in Jacksonville
Speaker 4: and Ernie was doing a job on his way out,
Speaker 4: and he in the office promised him that, you know,
Speaker 4: he wouldn't be filmed doing a job, and there the
Speaker 4: camera was. You know, they would just have one hard
Speaker 4: shot up higher up and maybe you know, like in
Speaker 4: the cheaper seats somewhere in there, and you know, just film,
Speaker 4: like I said, from one angle. But Ernie saw that
Speaker 4: red light and that's what caused that incident.
Speaker 1: So they would deploy video camera to spot show so
Speaker 1: to speak, if they knew they were going to shoot
Speaker 1: an angle, but not every time. So that was kind
Speaker 1: of like they tell exactly.
Speaker 4: So you know, unfortunately, gat there were so many great
Speaker 4: matches that were never filmed. Oh yeah, oh gosh, just
Speaker 4: tremendous matches that were just were never filmed. I mean
Speaker 4: you can go back and look at some stuff with
Speaker 4: like Dori Fonk Junior and Jack Brisco in the Bayfront
Speaker 4: Center and some good things like god, I don't know
Speaker 4: why they preserve. Probably those are preserved because they were
Speaker 4: filmed separately from the standard studio wrestling shows.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an NWA world title match, so there's interest
Speaker 1: across the country and having video of those probably, Yeah.
Speaker 4: And championship wrestling from Florida also went into New York, Yes,
Speaker 4: which was big, and it allowed Eddie and Vince Senior
Speaker 4: to work together a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's very evident, especially in the seventies when you
Speaker 1: see Dusty going back and forth to the Garden and
Speaker 1: then a lot of guys from down there and eventually Terry.
Speaker 1: So when you guys came back to the locker room
Speaker 1: in Chieflin after that rib was played on you, what
Speaker 1: happened when you went to the curtain. Were you guys
Speaker 1: hollering at people? Were they, you know, cracking beers and
Speaker 1: saying congratulations, you just got initiated. How did that go?
Speaker 4: I remember there was a tounnel laughter. Everybody was belly laughing,
Speaker 4: And I was really mad at the Briscos because I
Speaker 4: knew they did it. I mean, they just they couldn't
Speaker 4: pass up any kind of a rib and they didn't
Speaker 4: want to fess up to it, of course, but that
Speaker 4: was that's all I really remember is they were just
Speaker 4: laughing at me and I couldn't hardly walk. I was
Speaker 4: so tired and just drug out and beat up. It
Speaker 4: was worse than a street fight, and it was it was.
Speaker 4: It was really funny for the boys. So I'm glad they.
Speaker 1: Got But did you get in anybody's face? Did you
Speaker 1: scream at anybody even in the days following?
Speaker 4: No way, no way. One too hard to get to
Speaker 4: that spot. So this is gonna take any kind of
Speaker 4: crap they gave me, understood.
Speaker 1: One thing Terry says in his book, his second book,
Speaker 1: about this whole episode is You mentioned he was writing
Speaker 1: with Pat beforehand, and he got acquainted with Pat at
Speaker 1: this point in time. He tells a whole story about
Speaker 1: how Pat also ribbed him saying, you know, you got
Speaker 1: to blow me to get into the business. And then
Speaker 1: but I'm just kidding, and then we get to the
Speaker 1: building and if I'm so, if you don't do that,
Speaker 1: then after the match, all the boys are going to
Speaker 1: grab you in the shower as part of that's what happened.
Speaker 1: That's the initiation in a wrestling and Terry talks about
Speaker 1: that being very much on his mind when he went
Speaker 1: back to the curtain after wrestling you fantasy reality? What
Speaker 1: do you say?
Speaker 4: That sounds like that exactly like that? He was terrible.
Speaker 4: He was terrible the last time I saw how Heroes?
Speaker 4: Why do you keep playing so hard to get? That?
Speaker 4: Turns me on?
Speaker 1: Do you remember Terry ever being kind of shook up
Speaker 1: mentally because of that? Because he talks about it in
Speaker 1: his book like it really freaked him out, but he
Speaker 1: talks about a lot of things like that really freaking
Speaker 1: him out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he didn't like it at all. I mean he could,
Speaker 4: I could deal with it, but he didn't like He
Speaker 4: really didn't like it. He didn't like to be ribbed.
Speaker 4: He didn't like anything about that part of the business.
Speaker 1: Was he like me?
Speaker 2: Was he afraid that maybe, oh go ahead please, I
Speaker 2: was probably gonna go down the same thing. I mean,
Speaker 2: it sounds like he it seems like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: he didn't like things kind of being like just kind
Speaker 2: of jumped up on him, like you know, almost like
Speaker 2: something coming from behind and and and like surprising him.
Speaker 1: Is that is that true?
Speaker 2: I mean, it's based on what you're saying and what
Speaker 2: we've read that he just didn't like those kinds of
Speaker 2: surprises kind of made a little paranoid almost.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it did, and that's very true. He was he
Speaker 4: just wanted everything above board. You wanted to know what's
Speaker 4: going on. He didn't want no surprises.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to know who's talking to who
Speaker 1: I got you?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, so oh god, that brings so many memories.
Speaker 4: You guys are awesome. He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast
Speaker 4: with Jack and m JP Sorrow. He's a lapsed fan
Speaker 4: wrestling podcast.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I hate to go here, Brian, but
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of people have said this about
Speaker 1: Pat and I always wondered if if he just says
Speaker 1: it's a rib when the guy says no, and he
Speaker 1: actually if the guy said yes, uh, it would become
Speaker 1: much more real very quickly. I mean, I don't want
Speaker 1: to be impolitic about it, but I always wonder a
Speaker 1: lot of guys have this story about him. And of
Speaker 1: course Terry Garvin like, do you think Pat, like if
Speaker 1: if Hulk wasn't terrified by the suggestion, or wasn't wasn't
Speaker 1: saying absolutely not the suggestion, that he still would have
Speaker 1: called it a rib. I'm just messing with you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you mean Pat saying I was just ribbing with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he says, I'm just ribbing when someone says no.
Speaker 1: But if someone says yes, does he still say I
Speaker 1: was just ribbing you. If you get my point.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, I've seen him in bed with
Speaker 4: I'm not going to name the guy him. His boyfriend
Speaker 4: was Louis don Darrah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, My wife and I used to go over to
Speaker 4: their house on occasions, and Louis was a great cook.
Speaker 4: And I always liked Pat. I mean, Pat was a
Speaker 4: great friend of mine. And you know, he hit on
Speaker 4: me several times when he realized, you know, that he
Speaker 4: was barking up the wrong tree, but he was still
Speaker 4: cool with me. I mean he always and he was
Speaker 4: a wealth of knowledge. So I love to just pick
Speaker 4: his brain. And you know, I saw some matches with
Speaker 4: him and Ray Stevens were a tremendous tag team. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and they were over a big time in California and
Speaker 4: other places. But Pat was a wealth of knowledge obviously.
Speaker 4: You know, he's been the booker all over. He was
Speaker 4: actually the booker in Florida for a while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So he was helping Johnny Valentine when Terry Brooke.
Speaker 4: Right right, he was assistant booker. So anyway, Yeah, No,
Speaker 4: he he was serious every time he propositioned somebody, and
Speaker 4: he Pat was so smooth that he always had a
Speaker 4: way to make if he feel felt like he made
Speaker 4: somebody uncomfortable that he liked, he would go out of
Speaker 4: his way to or say the right things to. I'm
Speaker 4: just riven, you know the kind of things.
Speaker 1: Do you remember, because I wasn't clear when you were
Speaker 1: talking about it, did Terry come to you in particular
Speaker 1: about Pat? Do you remember him saying anything new about that?
Speaker 4: Oh? A couple of times.
Speaker 1: He wasn't just a call it for us, because I
Speaker 1: always wondered if that was something he kept to himself
Speaker 1: or not.
Speaker 4: Well, he told me just about it. Anything he could
Speaker 4: do to hear. I mean, I have some of the
Speaker 4: deepest secrets in my heart. Terry and I were so closely.
Speaker 4: I was in the hospital for three weeks. He called
Speaker 4: me every day. Wow, every day. I mean I have
Speaker 4: messages on my phone right now with his voice, and
Speaker 4: I listened to him often. He was just golly. I
Speaker 4: was with him the first when he met his wife, Linda.
Speaker 4: You know, we were we got a went to a
Speaker 4: hotel in La and uh, checked in. We were right
Speaker 4: down the hall from each other, and Terry asked me
Speaker 4: if I wanted to go to this bar called the
Speaker 4: Red Onion, and I said, I'm gonna hang out tonight
Speaker 4: and he said okay, took off and that's where he
Speaker 4: met his wife Linda. He never showed up door and
Speaker 4: oh Terry, no Terry, So I didn't know what when
Speaker 4: did we have cell phones in?
Speaker 1: When did you very first meet Terry? Do you remember
Speaker 1: the first day you? I mean, well, besides seeing him
Speaker 1: in Ruckus, when did you first meet him and have
Speaker 1: a conversation with him? I should say, I guess, well,
Speaker 1: he talked to me.
Speaker 4: When I went up and talked to him, I was
Speaker 4: you know, I had been a bartender at a hooker
Speaker 4: bar called I swear the mons Venus world famous strip
Speaker 4: club was back then, it was called the Huddle Lounge,
Speaker 4: and a guy named Steele Steve Bennett and Rick Casarras,
Speaker 4: a Chicago bear guy owned the lounge. And it was
Speaker 4: an actual hooker bar, a gentleman's bar.
Speaker 1: They wow and.
Speaker 4: Like I said, it's called the Hoble Lounge. And anyway,
Speaker 4: I was, I was pretty wise beyond my years, and
Speaker 4: I grew up fast. I lived on my own since
Speaker 4: I was thirteen. I'm sorry. I had a job since
Speaker 4: I was thirteen. I lived on my own since I
Speaker 4: was fifteen. Right before my sixteenth birthday, I moved out.
Speaker 4: And I haven't been anywhere. I haven't had to rely
Speaker 4: on anybody, but thank got it. But you know, Terry
Speaker 4: would tell me so so many things that you know,
Speaker 4: I mean, you've got my book. You could just read
Speaker 4: what he wrote.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. So when you were bartending there, he
Speaker 1: would come by. I had asked you when you have
Speaker 1: very first talked to him.
Speaker 4: I don't remember the first time we had the very
Speaker 4: first time. I know that I had seen him in
Speaker 4: the armory, but I didn't talk to him there until later.
Speaker 4: And then then the first time I went into the
Speaker 4: other place when they went on break, I went up
Speaker 4: to him. He was really nice. I just told him, hey, man,
Speaker 4: you got a great look, and I loved the band
Speaker 4: whatever something like that, and he started talking to me,
Speaker 4: and that was the very first time we had exchanged words.
Speaker 4: And then at the armory after that, later on we
Speaker 4: would speak and it was like it became a friendship,
Speaker 4: you know. I mean, he was older than me, a
Speaker 4: few years older than me. Terry would be seventy two
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 1: But so you're talking to him at the armory. So
Speaker 1: it wasn't a total shock when suddenly he shows up
Speaker 1: to train at the Sportatorium. It wasn't like, hey, I
Speaker 1: remember you from Ruckus. Where have you been? You were
Speaker 1: in touch with him and conversant with him all up
Speaker 1: until that point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, the Briscoe has helped him out.
Speaker 4: He always he wanted to be a wrestler. I mean
Speaker 4: that was his and he told me that he wanted
Speaker 4: to be a wrestler, and so did I. I mean
Speaker 4: it was something that we both had in common. We
Speaker 4: both wanted to be throw wrestlers. And so that's what
Speaker 4: really sparked our friendship.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. So why is some because we're thinking of these
Speaker 1: early days and we've been laughing as we've gone through
Speaker 1: all the things Terry said and wrote about this time period.
Speaker 1: He always brings up Mike Graham. He always brings up
Speaker 1: Mike Graham didn't like me. Mike Graham was out to
Speaker 1: get me, or Mike Graham was a jock and I wasn't.
Speaker 1: And that accounts for why Matt Suda did what he
Speaker 1: did to me. Can you can you help us understand
Speaker 1: why Terry was so preoccupied with Mike Graham, because it
Speaker 1: seems like Mike Graham, he was much older than Terry.
Speaker 1: I don't think he were knew Terry in high school,
Speaker 1: or if he did, it was in passing. Can you
Speaker 1: talk about that dynamic with Mike.
Speaker 4: You know, I really don't know why him and Mike
Speaker 4: had a lot of friction. He would say some negative
Speaker 4: things to me once in a while about Mike, but
Speaker 4: they were kind of shared feelings, you know, like he
Speaker 4: would call it a midget. He had a midget, you know,
Speaker 4: main event midget. He should be the midget. Mike was
Speaker 4: kind of you know, he was a promoter's son, so
Speaker 4: the owner of the owner's son, Eddie Graham, obviously his son.
Speaker 4: He got the big pushes and all that. So and
Speaker 4: Mike could be he didn't sugarcoat a lot of things.
Speaker 4: I mean, I liked Mike and I was actually a
Speaker 4: business partner. Is I don't have anything personally bad to
Speaker 4: say about Mike, but I'm seeing be a dickhead to
Speaker 4: a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Sure, and he didn't there's something about Terry. I mean,
Speaker 4: he would never put him over. You know when I
Speaker 4: say put him over, you know, say good things about.
Speaker 1: Her, say good things, not not in the ring, right
Speaker 1: because I don't think they ever worked a program.
Speaker 4: Right, No, no, no, no, no no no, no no no,
Speaker 4: I mean outside the ring. Do you think that that
Speaker 4: was talking good? Yes?
Speaker 1: Do you think that talking bad about Terry went back
Speaker 1: to even high school? Or did that only start when
Speaker 1: Terry tried to break into the business.
Speaker 4: That I don't recall. I think it was more of
Speaker 4: the business. You know, Terry in high school played baseball.
Speaker 4: He was a good bowler. I just saw a guy,
Speaker 4: Vic Pettitt.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we know Vick yep.
Speaker 4: Ye, who grew up with Terry in the early early days,
Speaker 4: so you know, and Vic was a pro bowler. He
Speaker 4: was on the Pro Bowling Tour. So Terry was into
Speaker 4: bowling and so for sure just always going to be
Speaker 4: a wrestler.
Speaker 1: Did do you think Terry had a harder time than
Speaker 1: most coming through the met Pseuda system because of that
Speaker 1: that lack that that friction with Mike Graham. Do you
Speaker 1: think that's a fair thing to cite as to why
Speaker 1: Terry went through what he went through or was that
Speaker 1: just the way it broke out for him.
Speaker 4: No, he because it was it would believe me, guys,
Speaker 4: it was hard on everybody. Yes, it was brutal. I
Speaker 4: mean brutal. I can't even we have to get up
Speaker 4: to doing five hundred push ups, five hundred Hindu squads,
Speaker 4: one hundred at a time, wrestling for you know, ten twelve.
Speaker 4: However much gas you had in your tank, he wouldn't say,
Speaker 4: go till your tongue was hanging out. I'm stopping soil,
Speaker 4: your tongue was hanging out. And there was absolute till
Speaker 4: you were a defenseless and then he would go wrestle hook.
Speaker 4: Yet after that, oh gosh. It was a brutal system.
Speaker 4: And then you know, I didn't like to hurt people,
Speaker 4: but you know, then I became when Bob Roup left,
Speaker 4: I had to become the enforcer there, and they wanted
Speaker 4: you to get blood or break something on everybody, and
Speaker 4: I didn't like to do that. You know. It just
Speaker 4: it was easier for me to just make him bleed
Speaker 4: than hardwise than to break something, because they didn't want
Speaker 4: the what they call the marks, the fans to go
Speaker 4: and say, oh I went into it was easy, you know,
Speaker 4: I went in too be a pro wrestler and tell
Speaker 4: their friends it was easy. That was Eddie Graham's philosophy.
Speaker 4: You know. He would always say, you know, if you
Speaker 4: ever get your ass kicked by Mark, you're fire, and
Speaker 4: if you get your ass kicked by one of the
Speaker 4: other boys, it's okay.
Speaker 1: Well, when Terry broke in these early days, we have
Speaker 1: that footage I mentioned showing how kind of lean he
Speaker 1: was and how he just didn't have the build that
Speaker 1: he would get later. But you know, Terry's been very
Speaker 1: but about it as the years have turned. About Diana
Speaker 1: Ball and how prominent that was. He was already a
Speaker 1: gym rat when he was in Ruckus, even before he
Speaker 1: became a wrestler. But it seems like when we read
Speaker 1: between the lines Brian, as far as him going to
Speaker 1: Coco Beach for a year, taking it off, looking up
Speaker 1: with ed Leslie, and then coming back through Memphis and stuff,
Speaker 1: that's when he really got massive. Do you remember Terry
Speaker 1: using a lot of danaball in that early time when
Speaker 1: you would have wrestled him or was he a lot
Speaker 1: less defined? Because he looks big in the pictures in
Speaker 1: your book, and then other pictures he doesn't look so big.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to figure out when he really jacked
Speaker 1: that up and became this monstrous presence.
Speaker 4: I really don't know. I mean, we never we never
Speaker 4: talked about steroids much. Oh yeah, very very seldom. It
Speaker 4: was you know, that was his kind of like own
Speaker 4: personal yeah deal. I mean I can honestly say, you know,
Speaker 4: we you know, steroids were never the topic of conversation.
Speaker 4: But back then you got to remember, you know, we're
Speaker 4: in this sportatorium which is already over one hundred degrees,
Speaker 4: well over one hundred degrees, and there with the big spotlight,
Speaker 4: no air conditioning whatsoever, and they wouldn't turn the fan
Speaker 4: on unless Hero couldn't take it anymore. It didn't matter
Speaker 4: about anybody else. Or of course when they had the
Speaker 4: exportatorium notches, they would turn the fans, but it was
Speaker 4: already so how you did just stand there and get tired,
Speaker 4: And now you got to remember all the things we're doing.
Speaker 4: So he didn't have a chance to gain weight. He
Speaker 4: lost a lot of weight from the first day he
Speaker 4: was I mean I watched him in a couple months,
Speaker 4: he must have lost twenty twenty five pounds.
Speaker 1: Was fascinating. Wow, he came in bigger than we see
Speaker 1: him yet, because he does look like someone that's kind
Speaker 1: of dehydrated as opposed to someone who hadn't put the
Speaker 1: muscle on yet. And then you see the match, the
Speaker 1: picture of the match against you, and I mean you
Speaker 1: remember being in there with a guy with a lot
Speaker 1: of definition, right, not a guy that was kind of skinny.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, a lot of definition. He was cut
Speaker 4: up absolutely okay, that he was a right shape. Ryan.
Speaker 1: Do you have some more time or we run up
Speaker 1: against your hard stuff. I want to be respectful of
Speaker 1: your time. No, I'm good, okay, just let let us know.
Speaker 1: Please don't hesitate. Thank you for that, because I do
Speaker 1: want to get more into the Matt' suitas stuff. Because
Speaker 1: this is another one. When you go through while Cogan's story,
Speaker 1: there's fifteen different stories, it seems like, and I know
Speaker 1: you have you been in situations with Jerry where you
Speaker 1: guys have traded contradictory stories and maybe you were left
Speaker 1: to think that maybe Hogan had more than one run
Speaker 1: in with Matt Suda because the version he told you
Speaker 1: doesn't match the version Jerry said. Just to recap you know, basically,
Speaker 1: there's like three places I guess it could have been
Speaker 1: the Sportatorium, which is where Jerry said that the leg
Speaker 1: break happened. Matt Suit is Jim, which I believe is
Speaker 1: where you say you heard it happened, and then Edie, right,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to get to that, and I just
Speaker 1: want to be clear on this. Ed Leslie talks in
Speaker 1: this book about Matt Suda meeting him meeting Hogan at
Speaker 1: a tailor shop down the street from the Brisco's body
Speaker 1: shop that had some mats. Is that tailor shop with
Speaker 1: the mats the same thing as what you're talking about
Speaker 1: when you say Matt suit is Jim. Yeah, exactly, all right,
Speaker 1: so it's only two places then, got it? The tailor
Speaker 1: shop in the gym are the same place, now that
Speaker 1: we have that clear. Yeah, So Jerry swears he was
Speaker 1: there in the Sportatorium, Charlie Leigh, and of course everyone
Speaker 1: else that was there is dead, so we can't really
Speaker 1: ask them. And we heard which is part of probably
Speaker 1: by design, and they roll near the ropes. You know, Jerry,
Speaker 1: here's the snap and he was there and you weren't there,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, tell us about what you heard.
Speaker 4: I wasn't there, of course. Yeah, Yeah, no, Terry, I'm
Speaker 4: just going by what Terry told me.
Speaker 1: And can you just recap for our listeners what Terry
Speaker 1: has told you.
Speaker 4: He just suddenly Matt Sooner turned into a dick. That
Speaker 4: was what they called him, a dick. He turned into
Speaker 4: a dick and uh broke my ankle. You know, I
Speaker 4: don't want to embellish that, but basically turned into a
Speaker 4: real dick and broke my ankle.
Speaker 1: And then later you would say he didn't understand.
Speaker 4: He didn't under he didn't he thought it was a
Speaker 4: real cheap thing, a.
Speaker 1: Real cheap thing. Yeah, because he describes it's described at
Speaker 1: times as Terry is like wrestling around with Matt Suit.
Speaker 1: And Terry was big, and Terry has stories back in
Speaker 1: high school of him like taking down the high school
Speaker 1: wrestling coach because he was so big even though he
Speaker 1: didn't know how to wrestle. And here he is stuffing.
Speaker 1: Perhaps Matt Suit is taked down and Matt Suit gets
Speaker 1: a little pissed off and that's what led to the injury.
Speaker 1: Is that how you understand it? Yes, yes, that's clear then.
Speaker 1: So so that said, just to just to rewind, so
Speaker 1: this happens in Matt Suit is Jim, and I know that.
Speaker 1: You know, it's been said that you've confirmed that it
Speaker 1: wasn't a break. Jerry swears it wasn't a break of
Speaker 1: a bone or an ankle or anything like that, that
Speaker 1: it was just a sprain. Did you remember anything more
Speaker 1: specific as far as what actually happened to Terry's.
Speaker 4: Like he just said he broke my ankle.
Speaker 1: Hmm, that's what he said. Did you do you think
Speaker 1: it was less severe than that?
Speaker 4: I can't say because I wasn't there. I don't want to,
Speaker 4: you know, ambolish. Sure, Oh that's fair, spread anything that's false. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so that's all I can really say.
Speaker 1: That's fair. Yeah, Jerry would come around and say it.
Speaker 1: You know, it wasn't a break. It was just a
Speaker 1: really bad, you know, spraining and they looked at X
Speaker 1: Ray's or whatever and things like that.
Speaker 4: But that could have been you know, and I'm sure
Speaker 4: you know, even Terry talking to me telling me the story,
Speaker 4: he could say, a break sounds better than a really
Speaker 4: bad strain, you know what I mean. It's banger. It's
Speaker 4: still he's still telling the truth basically because he can't
Speaker 4: walk on it, so it's broken.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, he doesn't have to be a doctor, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Absolutely? Yeah, did you talk to
Speaker 1: him about this years after it happened or do you
Speaker 1: remember hearing about it when it happened?
Speaker 4: No, it was probably gosh, oh, I don't know, maybe
Speaker 4: a year afterwards. Sure, it wasn't right afterwards.
Speaker 1: Did do you hold open the possibility that there were
Speaker 1: two separate things that Jerry's talk about one ankle injury
Speaker 1: and you're talking about another. That sounds very unlikely to me.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, No, I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't think so. I think I don't know why
Speaker 4: Terry would tell me well, beefcake or that it was
Speaker 4: there and it wasn't. But I'm not going to call
Speaker 4: it Gerald a liar. But although I've caught him and
Speaker 4: had to give him proof on a couple of things.
Speaker 1: Obviously, Well it's wrestling, like you said, whereas and you
Speaker 1: can imagine you guys are in the business, you guys
Speaker 1: know each other and can't figure out half the time,
Speaker 1: we as fans have no clue. We just know that
Speaker 1: these two things can't be true at the same time,
Speaker 1: or very unlikely to be true. Yeah, it'd be one
Speaker 1: thing if it was just some guy, but we're talking
Speaker 1: about whul Hogan story here, So like the biggest star ever,
Speaker 1: these little details, people don't stop talking about them as
Speaker 1: you can appreciate. So I wanted to ask you, I
Speaker 1: have a theory here, tell me if I'm if you
Speaker 1: think I'm off here, I kind of think looking at
Speaker 1: all this, that Jerry and Jack to some degree were
Speaker 1: part of the whole Mike Graham mentality of like, this
Speaker 1: guy's kind of a goofball. He's clumsy, he's big and everything,
Speaker 1: and while he does stand out, we kind of wouldn't
Speaker 1: mind if he kind of quit. At the same time,
Speaker 1: they didn't see much in him, and years later Jerry
Speaker 1: would change the story around to make it seem like,
Speaker 1: you know, they were just trying to test Terry but
Speaker 1: saw big money in him, and that Terry bolted because
Speaker 1: he wasn't getting bookings. And then Jerry has a story
Speaker 1: about how I was given you bookings, Terry, but I
Speaker 1: was given them to your mother and she wasn't passing.
Speaker 1: That sounds like the kind of story you make up,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Ruth was a wonderful woman, Terry's mom. Both Pete and
Speaker 4: his dad and his mom Ruth were tremendous people. I
Speaker 4: They're at the top of my list for parents, great parents.
Speaker 4: And Ruth would never ever not tell Terry something. I mean,
Speaker 4: she couldn't wait to tell him anything. She was more
Speaker 4: excited about his career than he was, So I can't
Speaker 4: see her not giving him bookings.
Speaker 1: Got it. Yeah, that rhymes to me. It sounds like,
Speaker 1: you know, Hulk Hogan became Hulk Hogan, and anybody who
Speaker 1: didn't see that in him early kind of has egg
Speaker 1: on their face, including potentially the Briscoes. So you have
Speaker 1: to make up these little stories along the way to
Speaker 1: counteract Terry's story that he didn't get bookings, when in reality,
Speaker 1: when you look at the match listings, he didn't. He
Speaker 1: never worked the Hesterly Armory and he was really kind
Speaker 1: of spread out a lot. I'd imagine when Terry talks
Speaker 1: about being frustrated by how much road work he had
Speaker 1: to put in, how many miles he had to put
Speaker 1: in without getting a lot of money, that that's probably true.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, well we did. I mean we would go
Speaker 4: do three TV tapings and I think we got twenty
Speaker 4: five bucks twenty five or thirty five dollars for that.
Speaker 4: We worked a lot of shows for fifty bucks barely
Speaker 4: cover your gas, it was. And then they'd always tell
Speaker 4: you it's not how much how much you make, it's
Speaker 4: how much you save. Kid, Right, well, Kerry.
Speaker 2: Can't save much when you're when you're spending it all
Speaker 2: on gas going to and from the That's hilarious.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly how much how much would Terry get taken
Speaker 1: advantage of by the other boys? Taking advantage of is
Speaker 1: probably the wrong way to put it, but you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, jumping in his car and making him
Speaker 1: pay for the ride, Harley Harley Ray, smashing beer cans
Speaker 1: on his head, And was he kind of the butt
Speaker 1: of jokes when he's driving these guys around the territory
Speaker 1: in that first year?
Speaker 4: You know, I was it actually with Terry then? And
Speaker 4: nobody's going to say these guys just rebeated that, well
Speaker 4: would they? You know, they'll say they ribbed him.
Speaker 1: But I.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of guys that tried to borrow money
Speaker 4: from him and things like that, if that's what you mean,
Speaker 4: and didn't didn't pay him back. Yeah, it's uh, there's
Speaker 4: a lot of people that took took advantage of him
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 1: Yes, wow, Yeah, just on the road, Terry front me
Speaker 1: some money and then you'd never heard from him again. Yep. Well,
Speaker 1: he talked about that with his in a second book.
Speaker 1: He talked about that even with his estranged brother Kenny,
Speaker 1: who's actually from a prior for Yeah, I was.
Speaker 2: Gonna I was gonna ask about if you actually but
Speaker 2: you go finish up. I was going to ask if
Speaker 2: you knew if you ever spent much time with either
Speaker 2: of of of Terry's brothers.
Speaker 4: I was with Terry when Alan, Well, I met Alan
Speaker 4: first in l A.
Speaker 1: Then you're already at w w F. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when we were in w w F is when
Speaker 4: I met Alan. And I actually went with Terry when
Speaker 4: Allan died, and he was torn up about that. Sure,
Speaker 4: I never met Kenny.
Speaker 1: Never met Kenny, No, I don't. I don't think Terry
Speaker 1: has met him very very often. But he does tell
Speaker 1: a story this book about how one time, when Terry
Speaker 1: hit it big, he blent Kenny some money and didn't
Speaker 1: pay him back. So Terry h correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: Brian kept very close notes about who stiffed him on
Speaker 1: on owed money. For sure.
Speaker 4: Oh, he had a memory like an elephant. Terry had
Speaker 4: the greatest memory I've ever seen is that movable memory? Oh, yes,
Speaker 4: tremendous memory.
Speaker 1: Do you think some memory accounts for why he's so
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, so cognizant of like being
Speaker 1: taken advantage of and so afraid of it, or so
Speaker 1: cautious I should say afraid might be too strong a word,
Speaker 1: but so cautious about being taken advantage of, because he
Speaker 1: remembers every little thing where anyone ever like crossed him,
Speaker 1: anyone ever screwed him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think he totally remembers that. It's one thing
Speaker 4: I feel good about. I've never asked him for a nickel.
Speaker 4: And even though I don't get me wrong, he's bought
Speaker 4: in a lot of dinners and stuff. Sure, my wife
Speaker 4: and I and my family, he's he's been. He won't
Speaker 4: let you pay. I mean in the later years, of course,
Speaker 4: in the earlier years it was was different. But even
Speaker 4: when he first went to ww F, my wife and
Speaker 4: I went to their home him Linda, when they first
Speaker 4: got Mary bought at condom in Connecticut, and it wasn't
Speaker 4: it wasn't a condo. It was an actual house, but
Speaker 4: it looks like it looked like a condo type area.
Speaker 4: It's It was separate and detached and it was a
Speaker 4: nice place. But him and Linda were going to fly somewhere,
Speaker 4: so he and I had to go somewhere else. We
Speaker 4: had been there for like four or five days, and
Speaker 4: he gave me his car. He let us use his car.
Speaker 4: I guess we had to go to New York or
Speaker 4: something and he was going across to La or something,
Speaker 4: a long way, so he had he just had a
Speaker 4: car take him to the airport and men Linda and
Speaker 4: left his car for me. I mean he was always
Speaker 4: talking to look out, not just for me. I mean
Speaker 4: he looked out for a lot of people. And he
Speaker 4: was very generous. Uh when he when Terry started making money,
Speaker 4: he was really generous with the people that he liked.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: You can't say enough nice things about that. I was
Speaker 4: ever like a cheap son of Evan, you know.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, not cheap, but just very He kept
Speaker 1: score as far as.
Speaker 4: Absolutely absolutely if somebody him he didn't, you know, he'd
Speaker 4: still talk to him, but you weren't going to get anything.
Speaker 1: I think he takes the shots at everything. But over
Speaker 1: across his two books, I think everyone who's ever screwed him,
Speaker 1: he calls him out somewhere in very in very subtle ways,
Speaker 1: like you said, but he gets he gets those receipts
Speaker 1: in for sure. You agree. Okay, let me just ask
Speaker 1: you a couple more, Brian Dusty. Okay, Dusty was the
Speaker 1: king in Florida when Hogan came up. Hogan's always talked
Speaker 1: about how much Dusty influenced him. We know, Dusty's all
Speaker 1: over Florida TV as well as New York TV at
Speaker 1: that time, cutting these amazing promos against Superstar and Graham's
Speaker 1: coming back with promos. If you put the two together,
Speaker 1: You've got Hogan's promo styles, so you can see how
Speaker 1: influential they were on him as a as a younger
Speaker 1: wrestling fan. But you know, I'm going through Dusty's book
Speaker 1: and everything Dusty's ever said about Hogan at that time,
Speaker 1: and it's there's almost nothing. He called him the yellow
Speaker 1: foam finger guy or something he kind of uses like
Speaker 1: a term that's dismissive of him, and he seems to
Speaker 1: celebrate in his book. Dusty does that that Hogan never
Speaker 1: wrestled at the hesterly that that's kind of something Dusty
Speaker 1: holds up over Hogan did, did Dusty really was he
Speaker 1: dismissive of Terry in those early days? Was he one
Speaker 1: of those guys that didn't see it and then maybe
Speaker 1: later changed his story about how he felt about Terry.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, And I liked Virgil. He was Dusty's I
Speaker 4: enjoyed Dusty. He was always fun to be around, always entertaining.
Speaker 4: I really really liked him. And for some reason, he
Speaker 4: was very jealousy Terry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's just the way it was. Did that
Speaker 1: jealousy come out when Terry hit a big in New York?
Speaker 1: Are you saying even in the very beginning, because Terry
Speaker 1: was so big.
Speaker 4: Well, Dusty extremely intelligent, he knew the business so so well.
Speaker 4: I mean, too many people knew the business as well
Speaker 4: as Dusty start to end, and we're as creative and innovative.
Speaker 4: I can't say enough good things. As far as Dusty's talent,
Speaker 4: it was amazing. But he protected his kingdom. But Terry
Speaker 4: did the same, you know. I mean, when you get
Speaker 4: up on top, I'll give you an example. And I
Speaker 4: will never say anything bad about Terry because this is
Speaker 4: but this is not bad. It may be controversial. Jesse
Speaker 4: Ventura wanted to start a union and he got my
Speaker 4: partner convinced my partner at that time, jumping Jim Burunzone.
Speaker 4: I mean, he still do a lot of stuff, do
Speaker 4: the wrong another six seven times this year. But you
Speaker 4: take out that people still like this. Old guys said
Speaker 4: Dusty would well that does see. I'm let me go
Speaker 4: back to Jesse. I think about Jesse. I mean Dusty
Speaker 4: when I'm talking about Jesse Jesse Ventura. You guys probably
Speaker 4: heard this story. But he wanted to start the union.
Speaker 4: Talk Brunziella into it, a few other people, and I said,
Speaker 4: I said, Jimmy's harper, I'm calling we got to start
Speaker 4: a union. We got nothing. We got nothing. I mean,
Speaker 4: this is one of the reasons I run the charity
Speaker 4: for progress. But they call it from rally come. But
Speaker 4: I said that there is no way you can start
Speaker 4: a union unless you get home and Manchel, you need
Speaker 4: to get from the middle of the card up. Otherwise
Speaker 4: it's just not gonna work. Oh yeah, welcome on. And
Speaker 4: I said, no, Well, anyway, Terry wound up tell events.
Speaker 1: Yes, And.
Speaker 4: You know that's a prime example of protecting. He wanted
Speaker 4: to protect his spot, yes, right, which I'm glad he
Speaker 4: did because he made us a ton of money. He
Speaker 4: made us all a ton of money.
Speaker 1: And I mean I made.
Speaker 4: I made over two fifty just in my two hundred
Speaker 4: and fifty thousand dollars I was making right at, right
Speaker 4: at and over two hundred fifty thousand dollars plus my
Speaker 4: my merchandise money in you know, the eighties.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a lot of money now, let alone
Speaker 1: then yeah, yeah, So that's a great example. So you
Speaker 1: have Hogan there, like, you know, even if he was
Speaker 1: against the union, but to your point, like, you know,
Speaker 1: if all the boys unionized, then everybody's pay would be
Speaker 1: the subject of collective bargaining. In Hogan's pay probably would
Speaker 1: have a scene on it compared to what he could
Speaker 1: make if there wasn't such a thing. So that's you know,
Speaker 1: fair play to him as far as what worked for
Speaker 1: him in that position at that moment, you know, pushing
Speaker 1: against unionization. And you know, maybe that's one of many
Speaker 1: things he learned from Dusty right that if you're going
Speaker 1: to be the top guy, you also have to make
Speaker 1: little strategic moves along the way to make sure no
Speaker 1: one else knocks you off your perch.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I couldn't have said that matter. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: So do you think Dusty had an opinion about Terry
Speaker 1: even back when he first broke in was wrestling you
Speaker 1: in Chiefland? Or do you think Dusty barely cared about
Speaker 1: Terry until he became a big star.
Speaker 4: I don't know that, because you know, Dusty was never
Speaker 4: vocal about that, and I never saw him say anything derogatory.
Speaker 4: But you know, what goes on in the office, nobody
Speaker 4: really knows. So I know that he was, you know,
Speaker 4: derogatory towards him later on when Terry really hit it big,
Speaker 4: But in the beginning, I'm not sure. Yeah, there was
Speaker 4: somebody in the office. Somebody didn't Mike had to be Mike.
Speaker 1: There's probably Mike, let's be honest. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: mean the reason I know, the reason I would say
Speaker 1: that is because that's or Terry would point too. I
Speaker 1: would think if you if you cornered him, I mean,
Speaker 1: he brings it up often. But I was curious about
Speaker 1: that because you know, I think a big part, an
Speaker 1: undertold part of Terry's story, Brian is who actually saw him?
Speaker 1: Did anyone really see star in him? Or did everyone
Speaker 1: make up that they saw star in him after he
Speaker 1: became one?
Speaker 4: I think it was more after he became one and
Speaker 4: then yeah, once he you know, the Thunderlips deal, you know,
Speaker 4: really put him on the map, you know, the move
Speaker 4: doing that movie really really really bolstered his career. It
Speaker 4: was a very wise thing to do, very wise, no question,
Speaker 4: you know. But I I knew, I knew Terry was
Speaker 4: going to be a star very early because he just
Speaker 4: had it all. You know, he could hearing him imitate
Speaker 4: Dusty and the things that I saw him do and
Speaker 4: could do in the ring. He was just charismatic. He
Speaker 4: he was like a step ahead. You know, he grew
Speaker 4: up street smart. You can get all the college education
Speaker 4: you want, but there's nothing like street smart. When you're
Speaker 4: street smart, it just helps in everything. And you just
Speaker 4: got to survive the street. But you know, he was
Speaker 4: in and bars every night, dives in different places, and
Speaker 4: he saw a lot of things young and that helped him,
Speaker 4: you know, be the person that he is. Was. Uh,
Speaker 4: he just you know, took all that stuff and became
Speaker 4: hul Kog. And what he learned from Dusty and Superstar
Speaker 4: Billy Graham. He loves Superstar Billie Graham was Yeah, he
Speaker 4: loved watching that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to get to the point where it
Speaker 1: seems like after Hogan goes to Coco Beach with ed
Speaker 1: Leslie and gives up the business for a year and
Speaker 1: then comes back that his first phone call wasn't Jerry
Speaker 1: and Jack, it wasn't Eddie Graham. It was one thing though,
Speaker 1: did you hear any any stories about the Cocoa Beach period?
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard any stories about that?
Speaker 4: I don't recall at the second.
Speaker 2: This just seems just from what we've kind of uncovered,
Speaker 2: it seems like they're like a lot of stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he had a colorful run out there with Eddie Leslie.
Speaker 2: So and he really he really cut ties with Tampa
Speaker 2: like he was and doesn't sound like to people that
Speaker 2: don't know Florida, like it's that far away. But but
Speaker 2: that's like a real, like I'm.
Speaker 1: Leaving this business behind potentially kind of move.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, he was fed up. I know, That's what
Speaker 4: he told me. He was just fed up and tired
Speaker 4: of the backstabbing. It was just, you know, wanted to
Speaker 4: do his own thing for a while. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that definitely becomes clear in what I was saying,
Speaker 1: was that when he decides to dip his toe back
Speaker 1: into wrestling the way he tells the stories, he called
Speaker 1: Superstar and then he gets hooked up with Louis Tulay
Speaker 1: in Gulf Coast. He doesn't go back to the circuit.
Speaker 1: He ends up back in Florida and circulation eventually, but
Speaker 1: his first phone call a Superstar. Then we know where
Speaker 1: that goes. We'll see, we'll see how that all factors
Speaker 1: in when we get there. But I want to leave you, Brian,
Speaker 1: with that question about you know what frustrated Terry. You
Speaker 1: kind of got there already to to leave. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you were to be as specific as you can
Speaker 1: be with us about why Terry ultimately decided to not
Speaker 1: only quit Championship Wrestling from Florida that first time, but
Speaker 1: quit wrestling altogether, what would you tell us? What do
Speaker 1: you really think bothered him the most about his first
Speaker 1: experience in the business, That.
Speaker 4: They were just keeping him down and not using and
Speaker 4: not trying to be creative with him, not trying to
Speaker 4: do anything with him, just keeping him down, putting him,
Speaker 4: you know, keeping him out the opening match, second match,
Speaker 4: you know, just not giving him a break and not
Speaker 4: showing him a future.
Speaker 1: And and why do you think they weren't doing that
Speaker 1: probably jealousy, jealousy about what I mean, he hadn't done
Speaker 1: anything in the business yet.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but he had all the tools. I mean he
Speaker 4: looks what they did with me. I mean, became two
Speaker 4: times Florida heavyweight champion. I was hvery champion, Southern eavyweight champion,
Speaker 4: two time tag team champion, and you know, worked with
Speaker 4: Flair and Funk and uh so, you know, and I
Speaker 4: couldn't hold Terry's jockstrap as far as putting people in seats,
Speaker 4: and that's what it's all about. He had that flare,
Speaker 4: that charisma that just was so you nique, you could
Speaker 4: just a blind man could see it.
Speaker 1: He just.
Speaker 4: Granted he wasn't Hulk Hogan then, and he wasn't uh
Speaker 4: nearly as polished, and he, you know, Hulk Hogan became.
Speaker 4: He kind of turned hop Hogan a piece by piece
Speaker 4: into what he was, you know, from saying the prayers
Speaker 4: the right promo was saying the prayers, taking the vinumin.
Speaker 4: I mean, he could do a promo on the drop
Speaker 4: of a dime, that was and he had that look
Speaker 4: that you know, look at Hogan. He I mean there's
Speaker 4: a guy six six h son tan built unbelievable, handsome,
Speaker 4: He's got everything, I mean all the tools, he's athletic,
Speaker 4: h and he just he was so unique and so
Speaker 4: entertaining that people flocked to see him. And it's very
Speaker 4: you know, nowadays they can you can take half the card.
Speaker 4: I would say half of the card you could take
Speaker 4: right now in WWE and make them the top draw
Speaker 4: because of all the props and gimmicks and storylines they
Speaker 4: have in all the different ways. Back then, you couldn't
Speaker 4: do that. They didn't have all the all the lights,
Speaker 4: the pazazz and all that stuff.
Speaker 6: Now granted, you know, he go look at the A
Speaker 6: w A where he got over like huge, huge, I
Speaker 6: mean that caused vern Gania's whole territory, so you know,
Speaker 6: and that was a great, great territory, one of the
Speaker 6: best territories in America during the Territories DA Territory days,
Speaker 6: and Hogan was it was he was the draw.
Speaker 4: But and you know, he didn't have the the luxury
Speaker 4: of all the production value that WWE has now. Can
Speaker 4: you imagine if he had that.
Speaker 1: Then, oh god, I think what I'm coming around to
Speaker 1: finally here, Brian in trying to understand this whole thing,
Speaker 1: and hearing you tell it, I think you really clicked
Speaker 1: it in. For me is that the reason so many
Speaker 1: people who are around when Terry first broke into the
Speaker 1: business could lay claim later to saying they always saw
Speaker 1: a superstar in him is because of those attributes that
Speaker 1: you're speaking of, the height, the promos, the charisma, the
Speaker 1: look which was evident on stage with Ruckus, let alone
Speaker 1: in the wrestling business. But I guess the second part
Speaker 1: of that is, yeah, you can say you saw star
Speaker 1: in him from the beginning and tell the truth. But
Speaker 1: the second part of that is what did you do
Speaker 1: in response to that? Did you consider him too much
Speaker 1: of a threat and try to drum him out and
Speaker 1: come up with excuses around initiations to do that, or
Speaker 1: did you lean in? And I think it's very clear
Speaker 1: that the decision makers at Champs, depressing from Florida at
Speaker 1: the time Terry broke in, did not lean in, did
Speaker 1: not try to do anything substantial with him and shows,
Speaker 1: and chose to see him as more of a threat
Speaker 1: than a potential cash cow. Agreed, all right, we've jp.
Speaker 1: I think we actually achieved a thesis here. I think
Speaker 1: so too. I think so too. That was amazing all right, Well, Brian,
Speaker 1: appreciate you. I'm so glad you took the time for us.
Speaker 1: And as you mentioned, and I failed to mention at
Speaker 1: the beginning, Brian is also president of the Cauliflower Alley Club,
Speaker 1: which longtime fans will know is such an important organization
Speaker 1: for retired wrestlers, for wrestlers in their sunset years, and
Speaker 1: that the convention that you guys do always seems to
Speaker 1: be such a nice occasion and it's really a feel
Speaker 1: good part of a business that can be very unkind
Speaker 1: to these wrestlers when they retire. So I want to
Speaker 1: thank you for that service as well. Maybe one day
Speaker 1: we'll see you at one of those things, and I
Speaker 1: want to thank you so much for taking the time
Speaker 1: here on the LABS.
Speaker 4: Fan absolutely got a great program. Keep it up, guys.
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