Speaker 1: It's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast with Jack and Carna,
c e O and JP sorrows He's a lapsed fan.
In all my years and wrestling, I've never seen anything like.
Speaker 2: Rob Kick.
Speaker 3: It's the laps Fan man number one in the ring
begin about Sosada with a real king of swing when
the bell goes hang and a kick like me throoming
in the corner with.
Speaker 2: Its rash like stick.
Speaker 3: Even Jerry King could say off the crown, nodding his
head like Steve low Brown?
Speaker 4: Would you get low down for me?
Speaker 3: Go even high up?
Speaker 2: Trip you on your head?
Speaker 4: But you no cool drivel?
Speaker 3: You speaking monology and dragon slits fire if you more
shot than the edge retires dropping more truth than the
conn of sniper unless you would a coconut Roddy Piper out,
Jack a JP, you a j wat d drop a
cupcakes and got the brain Bob Beans the best podcast
from start the close file of your benefit.
Speaker 4: It's a bassicket polls and we are privileged now to
be joined here on the Lapsed Fan by a nineteen
sixty eight Olympian for the United States and a big
time pro wrestling star across the country, including most prominently
in Florida, right around the same time that Terry Bolea
was trying to break into the wrestling business. He's an
inductee into the Thes Trego's Hall of Fame of Wrestling
and Waterloo, Iowa, and he's co host of the podcast
The Wrestling Stoop. He's eighty three years young. We're privileged
to have mister Bob Rup on the show to help
round out our understanding of this time period and much more. Bob,
we want to thank you so much for making the
time for us.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you very much. My head is so big
from that nice although a nice ange about quite some
time now. Well, thank you very much.
Speaker 4: Well, oh, it's our pleasure. That's great. You know, Bob,
we have talked so much about not just Hulk, but
talk so much about this time period, the late seventies
and what the territorial scene was like, what was going on,
who was calling the shots. So we're interested in talking
to you not just about the limited interactions that you
had with Terry Bolea, but just what the business was
like back then in the territories that that you worked in.
And I'd love to just start tell our listeners how
you came to Florida, you know, and and what what
led to you getting hooked up with Eddie Graham?
Speaker 2: Uh? I was in college. My shame you year in
college I got I got hurt. And we had a
trainer who kept telling me that I caught up a lot.
I mean I would do a little sketch and things,
and yeah, he said, he said, you ought to think
about this is at in the Olympics. She said you
ought to think about getting into for wrestling. And he said,
I know Sam Muchnick. Now, I'm sure you guys know
who I know you're You're not eighty three years old.
But Sam was the president at the end of the AA.
And I mean those are all kind of nebulous titles,
you know, like okay, who repercoin, Who's going to be
this week? But well, the trainer knew san and the
school was Southern in Illinois. It was only about one
hundred miles from Saint Louis for San Atta's office. Sam Muchnick,
So the trainer arranged for an interview. I had about, oh,
I don't know, two months left in uh and in school,
but I had I had one more tournament. I had
a national tournament. But I went to see I went
to see Sham before this tournament and he arranged for
He said, well, first thing he asked. The guy I
walked in was a guy named Larry Christop. Larry is
oh ten times the amateur I was. And he never
got into pro although he actually wrestled pro match the
first night he was ever added an arena at Tampa.
They had him fill in for somebody. He wasn't bad,
although he couldn't work alect. I mean, you know, he
had a very good body. Anyway, he went on to
become like a world record coach. He's taking a second
in the world as a wrestler. Third, he's you know,
as far as a amateur wrestler, he's well was put
this way. He was inducted into the SYU Hall of
Fame in nineteen eighty nine. I made it in two
thousand and twenty three.
Speaker 4: Understood exactly right.
Speaker 2: So he was a little bit ahead of the in
terms of stacker. But uh, anyway, you know, betterally than never, right,
So uh, anyway, we went down to see Larry, and
I went down to see San Mushick. And what was
funny about Musha says, well, what are you guys doing now?
And Larry said, well, I've graduated from college. I'm coaching
at at at a small college. And I said, well,
I'm just getting ready to graduate from from college. San said,
were you kinda college grand so why the hell would
you want to go into pro wrestling? I thought that
was kind of a weird question coming from the president. Yeah,
so yeah, that was kind of a weird start. And
uh but anyway, uh he said about Eddie Eddie can
A Graham, Well, Sam Masters, he said, look, there's two
guys that like amateurs. Uh, aren't gown you up in
Minnesota and Eddie Graham in Florida. Now, I grew up
in Michigan. In fact, that's where I am right now.
I've got four blankets on me and and he is
out guess where? I asked, Oh, I could he could
have told me that stating himself in the four Horse
of the Apocalypse where the promoters in Florida. I'm still
want to have said, I'll take Florida, thank you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a that's true Michigan or heading to Florida
as soon as you can.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, So any any Eddie came to the last tournament,
Eddie Graham, and he brought Buddy Fullner with him, was
a partner. Yeah, Ron Holk's dad and uh anyway, uh uh.
Eddie invited me and this Larry Christa to come down
to He would pay for us to fly down and
to a master of Tampa. You know, we could buy
right in Tampa, watch the matters that night at porta
Omer yesterday Armory, and then get back on the plane
the next day and go back go back home, which
for both others were Southern Illinois. So we did. We
went down there, and I liked it right away. I knew.
I knew, and I'll tell you why. Because I wanted
to travel. That's why. I one of my teammates and
Larry Highne and me who became Lars Anderson. And I
met Larry back a way back in nineteen sixty four
at the Olympic trafs. And so four years later I
hear that that Larry is turned pro. Now he's large. Anderson,
he's driving a Cadillac, he's looking. Group was great, he's
got diamond ringe and he made forty eight thousand dollars
or something in two years, and back at ninety sixty eight,
that was pretty serious money. So but both the city.
Also that he had been to Japan in Australia TWCE, right,
and when I and he'd only been in a business
a couple of years. When I heard that, I said, Okay,
that's what better way rather than decided to be a
worker for the government and work my way up to
bureaucracy to where maybe I could get an assignment overseas,
you know, or travel someway or some foreign not as
an agent, but some envoy or something. I can travel
with an athlete, you know, like I'm a pseudo athlete,
but you know, in an athletic mode I like to
call a wrestling dramatic the medical Yeah, with a few
a little taste of the twilight zone, next end of
the next, once and wrong.
Speaker 4: Bob, I canna tell you we cherish that about your perspective.
We can't wait to talk to you about that kind
of appropriate characterization of the business because you've always been
so clear about that. But so I guess, so you're
taking with the travel options and you end up going
to work for Eddie. When seventy was it two to three?
Speaker 2: I graduated in June and I was in Florida by
late July and started training and within. I don't remember
exactly when, I don't remember the date of my first
night said I should have all that of stuff. But
I'm not like Jim Cornett, who, and this is a compliment,
Cornett has been a great history Yeah yeah, owing stuff
and love of stuff that should endure, and a digital
digital age it will, you know. But like years ago,
I do sometimes flip flop around a little bit. The
Lufez and Trego's museum, they had a flood and the
basement it came up through the drain you know, the
the drain pipes that are supposed to take water out
the water the pips underground flooded and it forced water
up through those pipes about three feet into the basement
at the museum and ruin just a crapload, just a
whole bunch of hay firs stuff, you know, a one
hundred year old or fifty year old programs and all
that kind of stuff. So when I say digital digital
is forever, you know, as long as we destroyers t somehow.
But uh, anyway, yeah, so I didn't right away that
I wanted to do it. I wanted to travel. Lary
went back to coaching and it was good for that
he did. He became one of the greatest. You know,
he coached the Rootine two or three times. But that
was not my stick. That was his. You know, mine
was I wanted to travel and I got to do it.
You know, I got to go to the Japan my
first year in Australia pretty early, and uh, while I
was shown, I mean, I was a Neil fight. I
didn't know how to worked very well. But I could
get by, yes, but I couldn't. I wasn't good at
leading the match until after it took. It took a
stand out there, amroll. Uh well, especially when a couple
of the babyfacers are trying to get me killed by
doing things like having me chase them out into the
audience and they had to be Hispanic, and ninety nine
percent of the audience is Hispanic, and they have me
because then I'm a heel. But I'm too green to
realize I should go nowhere near that audience. They would
have come on follow me. I'd think my way through
the audience that I don't have ninety seven staggerings in
me in my first week in Texas America.
Speaker 4: That's that's a quick education. Wow, So when you went
to Florida. Did you did you get taught? I mean,
because we've heard a lot and we'll talk about it.
You know, Terry has his whole story about Matt Suda,
and it sounds like you kind of played a similar
role before Matt Suda getting people initiated in and testing
them out. Who got you ready to wrestle in Florida?
Because they're not testing Bob Roup the way they tested
some of these guys who couldn't go amateur off the streets.
Speaker 2: That should tried me twice. Really, I didn't know when
I met him. He was very very cold in terms
of like just matter hell o, but I'm not you know,
didn't shake hands for not He had points in the office,
so you know he was managed that I was new
as far as he knew. I, you know, not a
lot of not a lot of some amateurs didn't have
the right attitide when they came in. As soon as
I finished and got my last award. In fact, after
I had my last match, I wanted Tom across the
street drag two pictures of beer. My amateur career was over.
I mean, I've been drinking beer. You know, I never
had a beer during the season. But I mean I
didn't go out and shoot Heroin while I was joined
or anything. But it was appropriate because what I met
any Grayman bluddy for I was drunk.
Speaker 4: So they knew what they were getting into. So Matt
Suda tries you in what sense? He tries to hook
you during a scrint like a grappling session.
Speaker 2: Or we said we go up? What I mean we
would go on our feet. I mean, no, hello, just
me and him, nobody else around. It's before nine o'clock.
Charlie Lay had no office hut, and uh, it's just
me and Ann. We said we we go up, so
we're on our feet. He was about two twenty. Now,
don't get me wrong, I really grew a lot of
respect and affection for hero but he couldn't do it.
I was two seventy and I just you know, Olympics
had just my last term, had only benefited much before.
There was no he couldn't touch me, he couldn't do
a thing, and I could take him down it well,
so we did that. We went forty five minutes, and
you know I could stall because he couldn't muscle me
because I was stronger. So if I had took him
down a few times and I needed to take a
you know, take a little short thirty seconds. I would
just you know, hold him off. Greco Romans. I was
Greco Roman in the Olympic. Yeah, I said, very defensive sport.
You're very good at muscles. You defend. You got back
muscles and bucks muscles and hamstrings to resist people trying
to fish you. So Hero couldn't do much with me.
He wasn't quick enough to get underneath to get a
leg or anything. He couldn't body lock me. So after
forty five minutes, he just said to have Charlie call you.
So I met him again and next week another forty
five minutes. Wow, And then he still couldn't do anything.
Things He said, you go down. I got down the
referee position. He put his hands on my back and
as soon as he tat, he got the back of
his knee on my achilles tendon. And that that story
about getting hurt, if that happened, that's probably what happened, really,
and it's probably what happened. And what Hero was doing. Now,
what he did, he got the knee and he waited
to see. And what I did is I went the
way that his knee hit my ankle, my tendon. I
went with the force out against it. I went with
the force. So what he did is he pressed my
ankle into the mat. But he didn't twist it. He
was just he just had his knee on it. Meanwhile,
I turned, I've gabbed him by the hair, and I've
got one thumb in his eye. Now I've got on
his eye, not in his eyes. And I'm letting him
know if you don't change your head a serious, hear, are,
you're going to be looking at things a little bit
differently about while a second from and uh, he he's
topped neatly. He got up. He said, now teach you.
I'll teach you some holes. He starts showing me hooks.
Once I saw it took. He needed to know I
could defend myself, got it, and uh that he didn't
have to worry about me having if I took on
challenges or anything, I wouldn't. You know, if I can
handle handies you enough, he can handle most people. Uh.
Then he knew I was okay. And he taught me
about fay shock and you know some of the standing
holes and you know, stuff over toe hold and stuff
like that. My name read for wanting to learn them.
I wanted to be able to protect myself. I didn't
want to not know. I had heard about guys. Uh.
I mean Trego's the guy in the Hall of Fame
with bez or the name of this. He heard a
kid so bad but restlock arm. He tore everything in
the arm the kid had had the army. Oh my goodness,
because I guess what happened. I guess what happened is
one of the upper bones went through the skin. Oh
I see, and so I got infections.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I'd love on that. On the Hulk story.
You mentioned the Hulk story, I'd love your opinion. Not
that you were there the day this supposedly happened between
Hulk and Metsuda, but you you knew mat Suda, you
knew his methods, you knew kind of what the ringer
they put people through. Hulk has always told the story
that Matsuda, rather than putting a knee in his achilles,
that he sort of isolated his leg, dug his elbow
into terry shin, and then pulled up on his toe
and straight broke his leg or his ankle. There's been
a million different you know, variations on the story. I'd
love your opinion. Does that sound truthful to you? Does
that sound like something that he would have made up?
Where do you Where would you come down on it?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm thinking it's the first son I've never heard it.
I've never heard that version. Why would you know? Now?
I understand, Uh, I understand him wanted to find out
if Terry could protect himself. But why would he deliberately
break his ankle or shin or whatever he broke? If?
I mean, was he teaching him unless he wanted to
run him off? It might have been. But if you man,
if you break a bone the gunline, I'd be back
for six months, right, yeah, right, So maybe it was
a test to see if he did hurt him, if
he if he come back, Yeah, I'll tell you what.
That's who'd I hated by builders? Uh? Here?
Speaker 4: Oh, now it makes sense, yeah, because that that's always
what Terry always talks about it as if like, just
like you said, they actually wanted to run him off,
you know, because they just didn't like the way he presented.
He was a long haired rock and roll hippie guy,
and while he was huge, he wasn't a wrestler.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you talk about Mike, right, Eddy Graham wanted he
wanted me to break his leg.
Speaker 4: Let's get it. What did what did Eddie tell you
to do?
Speaker 2: One day after TV? Are getting in my cars. We've
got to go two hundred and fifty miles to get
to Miami by eight o'clock. I think I was assistant
booker at the time, but it didn't matter. I was working.
I needed to be there. And and uh, Terry runs up,
Lay runs up to the car, you know, looking just
like he won't as big, you know, And and the europe.
Speaker 4: He was a lot sentner, but he was.
Speaker 2: He was a big impressive guy. Comes he He says,
I there, I'm going to be working out with your Thursday,
you know. And I said, who'd you talk to any Graham?
I went to the office, asked Charlie. I said, ring Eddie
and Charlie Lady. I said, Eddie, this street blond kid. Uh,
and I'm supposed to be working with him on Tuesday. Well,
do you want me or we're you're breaking the night?
He said, no, I want you to break his leg.
And I said, okay, I hung up. I went out
and told the cat, I said, I told Jerry. I said, don't,
I won't be here. I said, all he wants me
to do is hurt you. Uh, And I took home.
Now I got to know him a little bit, not much.
I mean, he was kind of reserved, but he was
a bass player in a band. And he told me
about it, and I went one time by myself. We
had a night off and I want to watch, you know,
you know, I mean, I don't know why. I just tug,
just something to do, I guess I took. I went
by myself trying. It's kind of weird, but uh, anyway,
I watched. He was a bass player and he wore
these seven inches. They had those real high shoes in
you know, the seven inch one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the platforms yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the platform yeah. And uh, you know he's very tall.
So anyway, he was also I want to I want
to see. They did a show in clear Water a
couple of week or turs later. I went on to that.
I took my girlfriend and we danced. We danced his music.
So I knew him a little bit. I mean, he
never got real close. Years later, I was booking a
Knoxwell and meanwhile he gets broken in really by hero
and he gets started and he becomes uh sterling golden
or I'm not sure.
Speaker 4: I carry the hulk boulder and then he was sterling golden.
Speaker 2: Yeah, whatever he was was gone yet. Well, anyway, I
seen the Tampa you know, shere lives, and Ronnie Garvian
and Bob Brton Jr. And Malanco myself went down to
run our position against Graham because we had done we
started an opposition in Knoxville and sending people in there.
So we thought it was just symbolic. We might not
have we might have three people come to the matches,
but it was symbolic we were running opposition and we
uh so uh uh. Anyway, I'm back back up in Knoxville.
I get a call from Terry Gibbs, who was working
on the crew. I had that he had taken a
week off or something, you know, and gone back home
to Tampa. He called me. He said, Bob, I'm calling
you about Terry And I said, what about him? He said, well,
he took a year off, he said. I said, he's
worked out here, said he looks fantastic. He's we came
about forty pounds a muscle and I said, well that
sounds great. I said Terry, but I don't have I
don't have a I don't have a place for him.
I said to put to put him on the on
the crew. I have to fire somebody. So, uh, what
I'll do is I'll call Louis to Lotte was booking
and for his other territory, which was down in uh
Lower Oh, I'm kind of think aware, not sious, but
he had another territory down there somewhere in Tennessee, uh Alabama.
Uh that that Ron actually Ryan actually left Ron for
the owner.
Speaker 4: Of about Southeastern Gulf Coast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Southeastern left I was running it for you know,
two three weeks their town, he'd be gone. He was
down at the other territory working in the ring. And
you know, I think Robert was they'd take him over
down there. I think Robert went to Enophing, So I
think that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Robert Robert was Memphis. So you're so you're saying,
Terry Gibbs had said, I got this guy, Terry, he said,
I don't have a spot on the card for him.
It sounds great. And then what's the next thing, you know,
as it regards.
Speaker 2: Hulk, Well, I call I call Louis Louis Tillett. Yeah,
and I said, can you can you take this sky?
Can you take his names? Terry Maway. I guess he's
going to Sterling Gold or whatever I saw I could
do for him, and and and I guess he went
over there. I'm my understanding, did do you? And you're in.
Speaker 4: March seventy March seventy nine, he goes to work for
Ron Fuller in Dothan and Mobile, Alabama. And within a week,
within a month or two, he's wrestling Andre the Giant
in Dothan and selling out. And he's wrestling Harley for
the NBA World title in a high school football stadium
that summer in Dothans. So yeah, Ron went all the
way with him right away on Louis Tillette's uh, you know,
recommendation and belief and that he could be an attraction
because of how big he was.
Speaker 2: Well, I got in that booking, look at that, and
now here's the deal. A couple of years here's where
I was going with it. A couple of years later,
when we did the tough Man contest Garvin and Orton
and I Michael was too old. Garvin and Orton and
I entered just tough. They were having a tough man
contest at oh that place in camp I can't think of.
It doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: It's like people off the street testing themselves and like yeah,
like a big fight, yeah, like a tough man.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well it was a tough man contest. It was
very early in the days of it. I mean it
was all man. They were brutal. We decided to enter
the tough man contest, and the guys who were running
the contest were a traveling thing. They didn't know that
we were wrestlers for wrestlers, or they were never acceptance
because we would you know, if one of us one uh,
you know, people might say, well for wrestling, it's the
whole thing was rigged, you know, uh, guilt by you know,
like association in their own mind. So and and uh,
what we were what we were trying to do was
if we, as amateur or as pro wrestlers who entered
a tough man contest, why isn't Mike Graham and you
know Steve.
Speaker 4: Kurrent Championship Wrestling right champions Local.
Speaker 2: That was our way of showing some defiance, right, like
we're uh so uh anyway, and then I didn't I didn't.
I it was. It was while we were in Tampa
that we were at a bar one night and I
saw Cherry and he looked great, and he had become
he'd gotten over now. And I walked up, telling me
to talk to some girl. And I walked up and
I might have said, high Terry. He just me, he
didn't speak.
Speaker 4: He what again, Bob? Can you repeat that?
Speaker 2: He just snubbed me snubbed He didn't even he didn't
he didn't know. It would be like an inviserable person
walked up. Do you think now, do you think nervous?
Speaker 5: Made him nervous?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 4: No, okay, he wasn't.
Speaker 2: He wasn't Terry Bowley anymore. I walked up and said, Hi, Terry.
H he wasn't Terry anymore. Think about it. That's my
way of forgiving him for ignoring me. He couldn't the girl.
He had introduced himself to the girl I'm sure the
Stirling Golden or whatever I think, or maybe now if
she knew he was let me ask you, have you
said did you talk to uh? Did they talk to
him when he was Terry? Or do all of them
know him as Hulk?
Speaker 4: Now we talked to plenty of people who kne him
as Terry. Yeah, I mean he wasn't. He wasn't Hulk
until the end of seventy nine when he went to
New York for the first time. We're talking earlier in
seventy nine, So he was only Terry and or Sterling Golden.
Speaker 2: At the end when he admitted about you know, how
what did it cost and all the operations? Was he
doing it a talk or was he doing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question. That's a that's always a
hard one. I mean, you know, if he gets if
he puts his foot in his mouth, that was Hulk.
If he was if he's praised for it, that was Terry.
Speaker 5: That's the same from from what I From what I've heard,
you know, he was he was Terry inside his house,
and then when he shut the door and he was
outside the house, he was Hulk.
Speaker 4: That's what I've heard.
Speaker 2: Of course. Yeah. Well, and on the TV show he
had to kind of the Hulk in the house too, Yes, exactly. Yeah.
I often wondered about that because I mean there's a
whole uh you talk about when I talk about the
filight zone, you get guy who's who's a persona that's
been invented and created through a series of years of
lying about how tough they are, and there years of
going out and doing athletic uh theater and making people
think they're tough, and reality, their wives can kick the
ship out of them. So especially when he goes they're
stupid enough to get you know, slacker around and goes
see and she she resumed to fight with a baseball
match of the crew.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that'll do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, usually not usually one is a fight right away.
Speaker 4: But uh, that's great stuff. Can I ask you, Bob,
before I forget and before we move too far away
from it. You had said right away when we were
asking you about Terry, you know, and Matt Suda, he
said Eddie hated him. And while I got the story
as to what he said to you, what I don't
understand is why did Eddy hate him?
Speaker 2: Because you're hippie?
Speaker 4: Is that simple?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Eddie was so he was Eddie was so conservative,
he was almost a fascist. Oh I see, yeah he Uh, Well,
they tell the boys, they tell the boys what to do,
the tell grown men. You tell people are down to
the giant. Chris Taylor, you know Chris, you know thurd
In the Olympics, you're telling him what to do. You're
telling then the giant you're gonna go out there and
get slammed or whatever. Now you're not maybe telling him,
you're working to figure how the way to ask him
in a way to tell what he will do it
and not kill you somewhere in the process. But uh,
but but no, Eddie, power corrupts and that's absolute. I
mean in eighty three and thank god I had no power,
but not totally corrupted either.
Speaker 4: So so there you go. Did did Mike? Did Mike
have problems with I was gonna ask that question.
Speaker 2: Mike Graham.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Mike Graham had problems with who Terry bulla Hull Cogan.
Speaker 2: I have no idea of any contracts at all because
because I ever being together Hogan Hogan.
Speaker 5: You know, in his books and other things, he's like
petrified of of of Mike Graham.
Speaker 4: He paints the story as if Mike was sort of
a bully. Bully. Yeah, he's three years ahead of him
in school. They had like one of one of Terry's
old friends talked about one time they had the kind
of like a bump the shoulder confrontation at a high
school football game. It sounds like, uh that perhaps Eddie's
distaste for that hippie rock and roll guy may have
been passed on to Mike, and Mike wasn't too happy
to see Terry go as far as he did in
the beginning.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm speaking, I hated all of the dad. But
you know, Mike coach down Heath that had the he
had the time of Sara sah he he he was
a wrestling coach and he coached Mike. I think he
coached Terry. Uh. Uh Urry, another guy, Snacks is killing
around uh her he's I can't think of his name, straighter.
Uh a few of the guys he trained them. Uh
and amateur wrestling. But see, you can teach a guy
for one year, and you can teach him Michael take
down or set out or whatever. But you know, unless
you do it for years. And I'm talking about practicing
every day, uh. And I don't mean just during wrestling sision.
I'm talking about every day of the year. I mean
you take a day off, you know the rest of
your body here and there, but you know your rush day,
you swim them or you know, you do something that's
you take a lot you walk ten miles or whatever.
Speaker 4: But uh said, Mike just trained for like a year.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'll give you an experience. It was
Ron Buller, it was slighter, uh, Mike Graham and Charity anyway,
uh anyone, and they to teach them how to protect themselves.
We were the sports or and the snake pit, absolutely
perfect name for it. And so what I was doing
was to show him how to, uh apply the front
face lock because that but here you've got a guy
who's trying to attack you. What's your facing, what's he
going to do? He's probably going to make a die.
That's your legs. So if he does, you know, his
heads right there. If you you know, get your get
a front face lock and lock it in, you can
you can, uh depending, Well, that's again that's another thing, man,
you better. You're going to have to You have to
practice that stuff, and you have to practice it a lot,
and you have to do it, and you have to
shoot at it. You have to go out for somebody work.
They're resistance. You're doing them with, not Carl Gosh, because
unless you're absolutely suicidal, but somebody quite mass food, you
do it as a shoot. Yes, okay, Well we're going
for the fun facelock. That's the hole. Who could get
the front face lock? That's nothing else, just the front
facelin or the toe holds. You know, who can get
the stuff? You know, who could get the balance stretch? Uh?
Which is down on that It's called the guillotine, which
is a great name for a move. Uh well actually
the one standing up you know where the guys guys
are wrapped around it.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, well sure, ye absolutely, you.
Speaker 2: Could never you could never do He could never do that.
You're an octopus. You could never do that standing out.
But man, oh man, that that holds a bit. That's
that's a that's a give up hold. But an amateur
wrestling you couldn't give up. And if guys couldn't get
some shoulders down, there'd be guys trying to pen themselves
because the hole was killed them.
Speaker 4: So so Mike is going through these paces? Is that
sort of.
Speaker 2: Mike was never tough? Yes, Mike was never I never
saw him flight like a fistfight. I never saw him. Uh.
One day you had Danny Hye, you had Kazo Visuri,
you had Billy Robinson, you had me, Bob Morton Jr.
Speaker 4: Uh Else Mike was there. I take it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know, you have some top guys and
some pork had been Ronnie Uh, Ronnie Hill had a
school down there in Florida and he used to train guys.
And you know, Ronnie was a retired wrestler and he
was doing what so many guys do. He just started
to school. And you know, Ollie Anderson and Jane did
it while they were still wrestling, and Jenny Day did it.
Had a great school up there in Virginia. And uh so.
Speaker 4: All these tough guys and Mike.
Speaker 2: Well, Eddie resented the fact these guys would come out
of a school there in Florida. They be there here
of course, and not everybody, but they go around and
people would ask the ball are you what? Are you
a wrestler? And they say yes. Well, Eddie was trying
to project the Savings did his wrestling because he had
people like Jack brisco National champion, Dale Lewis, uh two
town Olympian, Bob Group and Olympian Danny High, National, three
time national champion, undefeated, Jack Briscoe, Jerry Brushow. Because he
had people like us. Now we weren't the draw we
were doing and you needed dimmick people. You need to
have doulah and you needed you know, uh, you needed
people with the girls. You needed gimmicks, and you need
a whole card to draw. You know, you didn't have.
He didn't have a card up and down of all shooters.
But just one day at Disportratory and they had all
those guys there and this was this one kid who
looked good. He might have wanted have been a great recruit.
I mean, he looked like a young running garb and
he was handsome, and but uh, they wanted and he
wanted him a lesson made of him because of he
got trained over there at Ronning Hill School. So they
were uh, they started ganging up on him, and uh
the first move, Billy Robinson wanted to start with him,
and Billy pushed him in the ropes and went the
head by him, and the kid was looking for it
and you reared back where Billy head kind of hit
him in the chest, and the kid shoved and Billy
tholl right on his ask if I'd have been shooting
Billy sitting there right in front of him, if I've
been shooting with him, I have kicked him right in
the face. And the fight would have went over either
got him in the neck or the mouth and you know,
the eyes or someplace, and I fa didn't work out
him and stop. And while he's trying to give up
down because his wife, A guy gives you an advantage. Yeah,
he's you know, saying, you're in a fight with a
guy and he's got brass necks around. All of a sudden,
he just sits down in front of you.
Speaker 4: You got to go for it, yes, exactly. So were
you trying Are you trying to tell us, Bob that
Eddie wanted Mike to come off as one of those shooters?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I see, yeah, uh no, no, not not really.
He wanted Mike, wanted Mike to be able to protect himself.
He wanted he wanted Mike to be more than Yeah,
now I'm getting a doctor psychobabble here. Yeah, he wanted
Mike to be more than he was.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And you know there's that old say, and you can't
make chicken salad chicken ship, right, Not that Mike was
a chicken ship. But he was small, you know. I mean,
if he had look at Kevin Sullivan, Kevin wasn't much
taller than Kevin was maybe an inch taller than Mike,
but he was he had developed his body. You know,
Kevin had that big thick back and his chest and
his arms and his legs, and he looked like an athlete.
I could go in a ring against him and and
feel like I was having you know, just a inches shorter,
but you know, and uh, he actually looked more fifth
than I did when I was heavy. I mean, when
I was carrying too much weight. Sure, but Michael, Mike
wouldn't work out hard enough to get those kind of muscles.
Speaker 4: I see. Wow, So the so perhaps those who had
who had big builds might have aggravated him. I also
wanted to go back when you drove away from Terry
there that that day when he said, I'll be working
out with your Thursday brother, and then Eddie says, break
his legs, and then you don't show up. Do you
think that day where you told Terry I'm not going
to be there is the day that Matt Suda hurt him.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, okay, no no, they didn't. That
didn't happen. That didn't happen while I was there, got it.
Terry didn't come around for a while because I was
still there for a while. The thing, all that thing
was that should it would have never happened if I'd
have been there? What?
Speaker 4: Why is that, Bob? Why wouldn't it have happened if
you were there?
Speaker 1: He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack and and Jpisaro.
Speaker 2: He's the laps Fan Wrestling podcast. The thing, all that
thing was that should it would have never happened if
I have been there?
Speaker 4: Why is that, Bob? Why wouldn't it have happened if
you were there?
Speaker 2: Because I knew Cherry by that time, and I would
have protected him. I see Wow, If I would have
protected him, I would have I would have taken him
privately and trained him, or or I would have told him,
I would advise him. Then don't go there, you know,
if you know, it's not like you know the Mathia
deal where you have to cut off in Japan or
you have to cut off your finger to show the
boss at your loyal or whatever. You shouldn't have to
do that. And pro wrestling, I agree you should.
Speaker 4: I had the impression that sometimes you had to do
that because Eddie wanted you to. Did you have to
break some bones of people he wanted to never come
back or was is that something you always found a
way around having to do?
Speaker 2: I was asked eight times. I never did it. I
did crack a guy's wrists. So although he didn't need
a cat saw. I had a son a couple of
weeks later and by accident at the grocery store, and
he had on embrace. But I had I had asked that.
I told that guy. I had given him fifteen times.
I told him this guy Graham was telling me to
kill this guy. This is another one of Ronnie West
Ronnie Hill's proteges. Eddie wants me to kill the guy.
And what had happened? The guy came into office and
he didn't look like us. She wasn't. He didn't. He
had been trained. But Ronnie Ronnie Hill had smartening up.
It's to the language, you know, like I saved you.
And he came in. Well, the guy behind the desk,
it wasn't Charlie Lay the old time pro for fifty years,
there was a guy named It was a guy named colonel.
His name was colonel, his rank was colonel. Chaffy was
his last name. He was the guy that had commanded
the armory for the twenty five years that every Graham
ran there and when he retired, he asked and Pete
to come to the office and hang out. What happened
one day Charlie wanted to take a leak or to
have lunch, left the colonel there and answer the phone.
This kid walks in and he starts talking. Yeah, I know,
you know he's start you know, I'm talking. He's trying
to talk like he's smart of the business, and Eddie
hadn't smartened the colonel up.
Speaker 4: The colonel has no idea what he's saying. Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the colonel calls upstairs. He's asked to get
kid to step out. He wasn't a kid. That guy
whos about thirty, asked you to stuff out that stuff
that thinks I might still be on YouTube. I don't know.
But anyway, he called upstairs and said, Eddie, did this
guy down here he's taying the business doll fake well
and he's got a twenty five year relationship this colonel
that he's been lying to him about being So he
called emergency. I'm coming down here. I'm coming there to
work because I work in the office a booker as
sister booker one of them, and Edie immediately Bob, and
he wanted me to hurt this guy Dad because and
you know when you know, when it showed up on
tape years later, I was absolutely stunned. I had no
idea of what Eddy did. Was he called Dave Togy,
which was his head of production, and one man he
got it all done. Buntel. I mean he had solely,
as you know, the voice, but he was running the
cameras and all the mechanics and the hydro auction and
all that. So anyway, he got Togy down there, and
Togy what you saw on film of me abusing this
guy was only about ten minutes. I had spent the
fifteen to twenty before that of getting this guy and
putting in these holes where he's and all that. And
then I'm not screening, but he you know he'd be
but hey, one's shrinking. But and then I, instead of
breaking the one time I had him what I had
to crawl, I had him more. I could have done
what uh to his leg? What uh? Trago schedued the
kids arm? I had I had his leg trapped, I
had figured forward his leg above the knee. I had
his ankle pulled up on the leg with his toe
pointing uh in the wrong direction towards the side. All
I had to do was both take a full pull
on his ankle. I was dislocated his knee. And but
depending on how I pulled and how tight I sensed
up that figure four on his legs, I could have
broken both his leg bones and tivvy and the tabula,
dislocated his ankle uh and perhaps certainly dislocated his knee,
and perhaps both steamer, I could have crippled the guy. Well,
when I was pulling on the guy's leg, you know
how your leg bones are bent kind of curved a
little bit. They curved the other way boy, and I'm
watching the curving and you know, like four or five
degrees in the wrong direction. I almost got schecked to
my stomach. I had to let oh the guy. I couldn't.
I couldn't go through with it, you know, I mean
got it? Now?
Speaker 4: Do you think is Eddie taping this for like leverage?
Like if this guy ever goes goes out and says
anything about the business, you got a tape of him
getting Like why would he film it? I guess is
my question?
Speaker 2: The show to the colonel.
Speaker 4: Oh right, that was the point got it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the show to the colonel. Couldn't have the colonel
in there. Yeah, they couldn't have the curonel.
Speaker 4: In there watching, watching the session fascinating. Wow.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, he he set this up. The colonel
was in the wrap. Yeah, he wanted that to show
to the colonel because the colonel had heard. You don't
think that colonel had heard from one three thousand people
as the best most things. And uh and Andy been
telling no, no, our version isn't. Look we got Jack Briscoe,
National Champion, Day Lewis, and we got all these guys.
Ours is real. Yeah. And some of those other people
maybe their matters are shady, but on ours.
Speaker 4: Was Johnny Valentine in the office. I've heard people say
Valentine was actually the booker when Terry Boulder Terry Hogan
had his first matches in seventy seven on a couple
of shots in the Florida Cercy wrestled Brian Blair a
couple times under the mask as Super Destroyer, and that
Johnny Valentine didn't really see anything in Terry Bolea and
that that set him back a little bit too. Do
you remember Johnny being involved or was that not coincident
with when you were there.
Speaker 2: Now what this had been after the plane reck where
Johnny was.
Speaker 4: Wheelchair yep, like seventy seven or so.
Speaker 2: I don't believe I've never heard of it. But let
me let me also make clear that I was not
in contact with anybody, you know when we went. Uh,
when we're in opposition. You wouldn't believe the boys a
big tough song, you know, guys wouldn't. We're afraid to
even talk to.
Speaker 4: It, talk to you, associate with you, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you were like.
Speaker 2: We stepped to the gas station one time and pulled
around the side use of that room, and a bunch
of guys that they pulled in to get gas, and
a bunch of the guys were inside and we came.
We came walking out of the store and they saw us,
and uh, Carl Cox happened to be with them, and
Carl was a buddy of mine from when I worked
out in Texas. And uh, those guys are all scuttling
to get in the car. The guy hadn't even paid
fents paid for the gas. He pulled the mouse out
and stuck it in. They were running out of there,
like so they didn't have to admit they even sawr
or so you wouldn't have to not talk to us, right,
but not even so high, so they didn't have to
appear to be a coward. And Carl Carl refused to
let him leave. He stood, he was in the back seat.
He shoud one foot out on the ground with a
car open, and he said, Bobby, he said, these chicken
ship motherfuckers are too scared to even talk to you.
He said, I wish you well, my friend. He said,
I hope you do. I hope you do good. And
he got in the car with him.
Speaker 4: Incredible, What a different world?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 4: Can I actually, I don't want to miss the chance
to ask you this that, this question. And just as
far as time check, we want to be respectful of
your time. Are you coming up on a hard stop
in ten minutes or can we go a little longer?
Speaker 2: Uh? You know, my it's you're it's my fault, not
at all.
Speaker 4: No, I'm loving it. I just don't want I'll start
rushing if we only have ten minutes. But if we
can keep going, okay, great, thank you.
Speaker 2: I just want to be I've got I got I
got great gimmick going. I've got I've got not it's
not dementia, but right next to dementia, and then the
long life right before, right before, and.
Speaker 4: Now we're getting it right before.
Speaker 2: Great. Yes, and I do have Parkinson's, but I you know,
what it is is one finger's taken a little. So
I'm not I'm not hurting. I feel great on eighty three.
Nothing hurts, wonderful. My needs have been replaced nineteen times.
When I read that Hulk has nineteen or seventeen or
nineteen operations, I often wondered, you know, I did a
thing about We're talking back on Hogan again about his
whole life if at the end, if he thought about it,
if he wondered, was it worth it? Yeah, you know,
with what he ended up in terms of he had
some personal problems in his marriage and his family, with
his children, his that son, that wreck that killed somebody
or hurt somebody or yeah, you know, and and you know,
and being a public figure, it's like a sickness almost,
you know. I mean, I'm not saying he had it,
but we're seeing some of it now with some other
NBA champions that are out.
Speaker 6: There acting really really really fucking championlike uh in Bars
and things, and yeah, now this Doug alive, so I
wouldn't be I wouldn't.
Speaker 4: Be, understand, But there's a price to be paid for
that much spotlight for sure. Yeah, definitely. And in the
final analysis, yeah, we fortunately Terry passed away. It's probably
like a decade before he could be that reflective. You know,
he was still out there, still pounding the pavement, still
in front of the cameras whenever he could, almost until
his dying days. You're looking for a pay day, yep.
Speaker 2: Well that's what I was curious about. I was curious
about if if, the if the all the admissions of
personal frailties and securities and all that with just another
part of the show. That's why I asked you to
do it as Hulk.
Speaker 4: It's a great question. I'm not sure anybody knows, but
we definitely don't watch him from the sidelines. And you know,
one of one of the people that came up with him,
of course, was Ed Boulder, the future Brutus, Beefkke and WWF.
He was friendly with Terry all the way back in
Tampa when when they were teenagers, and as time went
Ed's hanging out with Terry quite a bit in Tampa.
Now Ed ed Leslie wrote a book, and you come
up in the book as a key kind of figure
when they're playing in the rock clubs and Ed is
there while Terry's playing on stage. I want to read
you an excerpt from Ed's book that involves involves you,
and want to see if you have any recollection of
this because you told the story, of course about going
to see Terry playing music once, you know, going out
dancing with with your girlfriend. But it seems like there
may have been another time. He remembers being in this
club and Joe Lado comes in, Dusty Rhodes comes in,
and during the band's break, he rushed over to tell
Hulk about all these wrestlers that are here, and Eddie's
version as he he tells Hulk, now's your chance. You
know you want to talk to these wrestlers. There's a
bunch of them out there, and Ed writes, he rolled
up his sleeves and walked over to Bob rup who
was hanging out drinking with Bob Orton at a table. Hey, Bob,
do you like the music? Bob nodded but didn't say much.
I just want to let you know this is Terry talking.
I'm also a big fan of you guys, and I
would love to be a wrestler myself one day. And
then the book says Rup and Norton looked him up
and down and nodded. I saw them talk for a
few minutes. The next thing you know, Terry's taking down
a number. The band played another set, and then Terry
went up to get a drink at the bar. There
was Mike Graham. They both walked out of the bar
for a bit. Terry came back in elated. I rushed
over to see what happened. I asked him that, and
he said, brother Bob rub hooked me up with Mike,
and Mike's gonna set me up with Hira Matsuda. I'm
going to go and train with him tomorrow. Do you
remember that? Maybe that's the answer right there.
Speaker 2: You know what, I've got the perfect I said it earlier,
so I'm not I'm not springing it on your house. Yeah,
I said, I got that real close to the thing.
You know what. I might not remember that, but that's
a hell of a story. It's starting to come back
to me now.
Speaker 4: Really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't. I don't remember that.
Speaker 4: That's fine.
Speaker 2: I don't want you to. I don't want you to
put anything in your book that. I mean, I don't
know why I would say that. Uh, now you know
what he does. What might have happened this story. He
might have been telling a story twenty years later of
stuff that Terry told him earlier.
Speaker 4: Totally. Yeah, it could be what that party.
Speaker 2: What he said about I'm working out with Bob Roup
was exactly what he said when when he uh, after
you talked to.
Speaker 4: Me, Yeah, when he came up to your car, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so maybe you know, like you know, the deal
co A Graham Jell Joe wrestler.
Speaker 4: By the time it comes out the other end, Yeah,
there's four stories put together. Yeah, absolutely, Okay, Wells And
later in the book he talks a little bit more
about you come up again because after Terry had trained
at the Snake Pit and had you know, about a
dozen matches in seventy seven, then he takes a year off.
Him and ed Leslie go out to Cocoa Beach and
they work in a gym together, they work at a
bar together, and then by seventy nine that's when they're
ready to kind of get back in to the wrestling business.
And Ed writes that Terry had shown him pretty much
everything he'd learned. He was working a little here and there,
and they wanted a debut attack team gimmick where him
and Ed were brothers, and he said the ball started
rolling very fast. After that, Terry talked to Bob Rup,
who he had seen in the early days of the school.
He got us a meeting with Jim Barnett, who was
a well known n TOB affiliate promoter in Georgia, and
we showed up to Atlanta in gear as the Boulder brothers,
Terry and Eddie Boulder. Do you remember connecting Terry with Barnett?
Would that make any sense? No? No, no, I don't
think so. I don't think he might be thinking about
Louis Tillette there. I'm not sure, but or maybe Terry Gibbs.
But but it didn't sound But you didn't make the introduction.
You told Terry told you about Hulk Hogan, Right, Terry
Gibbs told you about Hulk Cogan. It's not that Hulk
Cogan came to you.
Speaker 2: Hey, No, I asked you to snub in the bar.
I never went there. I Hoganim could have showed up
on my front I should unless you're a collector. Put
a newspaper.
Speaker 4: That's the money quote there it is. I love it.
Speaker 2: Well, no it's not. You know, the shooting doesn't have
anything to do with it. But the guy that he
was snubbing was a college graduate, a veteran, and an
olympian and a national champion and all of Americana State
camp in, absolutely an educated man, and he's telling he's
just like, fuck off, I'm not even gonna run. You
don't get in front of me. It's not having you
brush on my part of false pride. But I mean
that I would not be offended. Holy shit. Uh yeah,
there was something a mine of a good wonder. Oh
the price Mike Extrand, Yeah, Party twenty seven, forty three,
Joe flor Ninus sixty, Hawk seventy, all of them money
by the go to male clinic can buy a wing
to live then and be treated by all the doctors there,
couldn't save them. So the price they paid for the
the way they got in there was their bodies, with
their muscles, absolutely, and the price they paid to get
those muscles was their life.
Speaker 4: Absolutely glad you said that, because it's you can't talk
around that. I mean, it's it's too obvious that it
shaved off decade or two or even more. I mean,
of course, Mike Hedgcrant had a ton of other issues
as far as drug abuse and things, but they're all,
you know, it all commingles in some ways. So I
want to I want to fast forward a little bit,
if we could, Bob, because we'd be remiss if we
didn't talk about how seventy nine doesn't continue to evolve
because while you know, you remember the Terry Gibbs piece
about hooking up Hulk, and Hulk goes off to work
for Ron Fuller in early seventy nine and becomes quite
a sensation. He works for Jerry jar and Jerry Lawler
in Memphis as well in the summer of seventy nine,
along with his friend Ed Boulder. While that's all happening,
and while Hulk is even wrestling Hardley in the Southeastern Territory,
the Knoxville War is underway, and we've talked a lot
about this. There's a ton of material out there about it,
so we have a pretty good grasp on the story.
But I would like, since we have the opportunity to
speak to you, to get it in your words as
far as why why you felt first of all that
it was time to split away from from Ron Fuller
and try to run opposition or take the territory. I
know it has something to do with, you know, keeping
track appropriate track of who's selling what kind of tickets.
So if you could just give our listeners your perspective
on why the war really started, that'd be awesome.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I'd already I've already had a try
to take over in California with Shire right when his
local promoters, I mean the people that they him working
with him for twenty years, all came to me because
I had control of the talent. I took him. I
took Roy. Roy ran everything until I'm not trying to
brag here, but if I was going to be the
booker and be responsible for drawing, then I had to
be able to want to come up with the idea,
and I wanted to have the talent. I wanted to
get the talent. Roy just kept bringing back the same
old people, cold so uh and business was terrible. The
night I got the booking out there, I gave I
was getting ready to give my notice. Anyway, I tried
it once before, when when I want with Now we're
back in Maxville. Ron's stealing money, or let's put the
way money is. I'm not saying. I'm not. I did
not say Ron is stealing money. Money is being misappropriated.
I brought it to his attention, he said, without ever
looking me in the eye, he said, oh, I can't be.
It was his mother daughter team. Uh no, no, no
officials of any kind there to check them out. No
tax people, no athletics, athletic Association officials, nobody there check
them out. And uh and they paid in cash in
those towns. And yeah, so Ron ron Wright had worked
for four or five different promoters. They had been working
there for forty years. He's the one who showed it
to me. He showed me it happening, and I watched
it twice more of my shell saw it happening, and
I want to Ryan put it with it. He kept
denying it. But I had a five percent. I was
supposed to get five percent of growth. You know what
we drew every week. And I said, well, Royn, you
realize if you unreport, say, you know, even five thousand dollars,
you know you're talking about you know, two hundred and
fifty bucks from me, and uh so, uh, you know
it's going on. I'm telling you, I see it going on.
He said no, no, no, no, he just kept denying it.
And I finally said, so I didn't give my notice.
Ronnie Garvin and Malincoln I had kind of a brain
trust going. I went back and we all lived in
the same apartment complex, and we could get together. Even
though Ronnie was baby facing, Larry and I were heels
of the Lincoln I were heels. He could. We had
a way we could get together in the same apartment
without anybody seeing us. So I walked through him. I said,
I'm going to give my notice. Uh so you'ren be
stole from Uh you know, people can only steal from
you if you out. I can work anywhere in the world,
I said, I'm just going to give my notice. Ronnie
Garvin says, Ronnie, who's been there, you know, a year
and a half years, biggest start. I don't know if
they had any bigger ones, but uh they might have.
But uh he was big at that time. And uh
Ronnie said, uh, let's take it. That's what he said,
Let's take it.
Speaker 4: Let's take it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I stood your territory. He said yeah. I looked
at my ank car. He said, what do you think, Clarry?
He said, yeah, I said, these two veterans my Michael
had been in the business thirty years. Ronnie's been in
the business ten years before I had. So here are
these two veterans are saying, let's take it. But what
we were stupid. We didn't have a team be wrapped
up before we get it because we were worried about going.
If we went to our TV, the words would get out,
and so I don't know, we shrew up, but it
didn't work. Now that being said, I'm here talking to
you guys right now. I'm very happy doing that. And
life is good.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 2: I had two sons in the house about love. That
we're going home together and life is good. Uh. That
that that mental thing for some reasons. You know what
my memory, my memory is saying, listen, Bob, I've been
a year beck and call for eighty three years from No,
just fucking forget it.
Speaker 4: Just forget it. Yeah, wouldn't that be a luxury?
Speaker 2: Be a joke?
Speaker 4: I remember I saw Runs talked a little bit in
interviews over the years about the whole thing, and he
he said that you know, in addition to what you're
saying that he completely denied that anyone could be stealing
the money. You know, he says that actually he didn't
have control over who actually counted tickets and collected tickets
at the at the Knuxville Coliseum, so he kind of
felt like, no, no, yeah, no, it.
Speaker 2: Wasn't the coliseum. It wasn't it wasn't. Uh uh the
DWKE Kentucky.
Speaker 4: Town, oh I see, okay understood.
Speaker 2: Said there were Saturday nights yep, any town where the
mother daughter, and there were spots shows. Yes, they wouldn't
have like a high school gym is not going to
have their own box office for wrestling that right. You know.
All Ron needed was the mother and the daughter. And
he had a guy I can't remember his name. He
had a guy that was kind of security, you know,
a man there that kind of watch the money and
make sure everything. And Mike McMurray, the referee, had ten percent.
I didn't know that until about a week ago. Really.
Uh so he was yeah and Mac was Mac on
the almost pay days. Uh uh? Both both towns that
the same same letter.
Speaker 4: Same letter.
Speaker 2: Okay, uh, they do that the talents would draw uh,
maybe twelve thirteen, fourteen, grand right, and they were always
They're always good. Because then I went there. I think
I think they went there one sort well maybe once
a month, might have been one story two weeks, because
I don't think. I don't remember running the Kentucky Town
every every show.
Speaker 4: Every Yeah did you how was it? His booker in
Knoxville for you, Bob did what was did you have
trouble drawing runs? Kind of makes it seem like Knoxville
was struggling at the time the war happens, and that
you know, the card the cards weren't drawing, and he's like,
you know, you were sabotaging the cards trying to get
attendance down. Yeah, this is you've probably heard them.
Speaker 2: I listened to you know, I tried to listen to
his his stuff, and I heard the one I picked. Yeah,
because call it name calling. This I was a playground
supervisor when I was mister Mount for my kids after
I retired, and just you know, the first or second
graders to college other names, Oh here, nanny, Nanny booboo
and all that. Yeah, so Ron Fuller was calling me names.
But the first tape I turned, he had to deal
where you know, write the right the fans, but his
very interested fans for his show of the Tennessee Show,
they had to write end. So the very first start
of the show was he's going to read or write it.
So he had his co hosts. I don't know what
to call the guy who opened the show for him,
I had him a letter or read the letter to him,
and the letter is, why is Bob broops? That's a dick?
Why why is Bob such a dick? That's the opening
question on the fucking tip.
Speaker 4: Straight down the fairway.
Speaker 2: Right, there's supposed to be eight or ten hours of
this shift. I'm going to listen to this kind of
ship for eight I don't think so I've heard enough
got it, So I decided I just forget it now
to be fair, and you guys have good if you
listen to them my podcast at all.
Speaker 4: Yes I did.
Speaker 2: I did react a couple of times, and I told her,
I told the story Knoxville, and I told I said
some of the things I said to you guys tonight.
But that was that was my first time to speak
out because frankly, it had bothered me. I'm sure you
know a long as a lonely voice. I had a
very small voice on social media because I hadn't worked
to have a big one, right and uh so to
refute it, what you're doing is you're giving validity that
these charges could be true. I see, I just ignoring them,
you know, I'm just saying. But but once we got
on it. Once Ray and I got on a subject
and he asked me about it, well, I had to
tell him. You know, I can't say I don't want
to talk about it. I had to tell him some
of the stuff I was telling you about about what
happened Ryan about around had brought around his own destruction.
He could have been if he'd have been smart. You know,
it's a compliment. I'm complimenting myself here. He'd have been smart.
He just said, look, Bob, what about we do this
until I find out what's going on. Why didn't I
start paying you five hundred bucks more a week and
give me a month or two to start this out?
Would you do that for me, Bob? Now, if he
done something like that, I would have accepted. In no
one it was fucking black, you know, payoff, But I
would have accepted because I could have gotten away, you know,
I could have gotten along with that if the rest
of the boys ran right, and all those guys they
knew they were getting screwed. They weren't quitting, they weren't
coming to me and giving their notice. So if he could,
if Royan's wanting to take care of me. You know,
my fault was one of my faults was when you're
a wrestler and you become a booker, you have to
forget all about being one of the boys. You are
now management. You are not labor anymore. And if you
put your heart you leave any part of your heart
and labor, you're making a big mistake because they'll fucking
break it. And so I made that mistake and trusted, uh,
you know, I could touch Ronnie, but we trusted Dick
Schlater and not to speak all those dad, but you know,
he he demonstrated his qualities. Uh he was, Yeah, he was.
Speaker 4: He took the book. You know, ron has said that
Dick was the one who told him about what you
guys were doing, and Dick got the book after that
for ron for the period of time he controlled it. Okay, well,
that's that's good. I just wanted to, We just wanted
to and again You can refer to Bob's podcast for
for a lot more in depth commentary, and we talked
about it as we went through it, but it definitely
wanted to set the stage there. Not to harp on
it though. But one reason it is important for us, Bob,
is because you know, as you know, the Plan B
tape got on YouTube and it's just it is just fascinating.
It is just like this time capsule of an era
that and I know, JP, you know you're really interested
in that, you want to be you wanted to ask
about the tape. I mean, I I am.
Speaker 5: As as a wrestling fan, you know, I just never
seen when we listened to we watched it and I'd
never seen anything like it.
Speaker 4: And no, I I I I was curious.
Speaker 5: I mean number one, I mean.
Speaker 2: In the rustling business, it's like Moses bringing down the
tablets and you took him in an under the job.
Speaker 4: Precisely.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 4: One thing that that.
Speaker 2: That's about exposing the rusty business flaws. That's that was
the kind of spun exposure in the rustling busness flaws
as a threat.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because what I found interesting though, too, is that
you know, over the years and we've we've noticed as
we've looked at at all sorts of of of newspapers
dating back even to the late eighteen hundreds, and there's
always been this like like a skepticism that pro wrestling
is is not on the level. And I just I
was fascinated that you guys were just gonna come out
and just say it, and you're gonna you're gonna expose
it all right.
Speaker 2: There imagine Malanco effect of him. Yeah, you know, he
hadn't been around. Larry's been around thirty Larry goes all
over the country. So yeah, that it was man as
a threat. We were we were getting our ass kicked
and we're running out of money to keep running, and
they were Crockett was sending in people. Uh, Jarrett was
sending in people, and Graham was sending in people, and
Barnett was sending in people. So, uh, what we got
told you about going down and doing the little just
kind of a fuck you type part of my language.
Uh with Toddy Grayer, you can edit that out.
Speaker 4: You can say as much as you want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then uh uh so we were fighting back
any way we could. And we thought what we made
a veiled references. If we had made another one. I
was going to talk about Jim Bynet's personal night.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you may make reference to that as the subject
of a future tape that I suppose was never made.
Speaker 2: Well, no, we didn't. I don't know what happened. Ron
Wright set that up. He said we can do this,
and we talked about it, and it wasn't my idea
I had. I got a lot of the heat because
I was a booker. Ronnie was the one that said,
let's take it. In fact, Ronnie was the one Ron
Buller shoot in court because Ronnie stole a fifteen thousand
dollars a motor boat from him. All right, you know
you know that's the story. Yeah, yep, yeah, the dirty Yeah,
the money in the paper bag story. So there were
no contract, there was money in paper bag, and me
as a judge, you want me to make a decision
about whose money that was money? That was right? Yeah?
Well did the paper bag have oh I belonged to
Kroger in a Kroger bag to give it to the
Cribber store.
Speaker 4: The judge also wasn't interested in, uh deciding who has
the rightful claim to a phony wrestling belt, which also
was part of that battle.
Speaker 2: Between those two oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, some of
So that's that's just this is a twilight zone stuff
I'm talking about.
Speaker 4: Right, Well, you were saying that it was runs I
did to do the tape runs I did to do
the tapes, and you only got one of them done.
Speaker 2: It sounds like, yeah, well listen, uh I'm going to
be around for a while. Uh please uh And you
know maybe that the D word, even if it progresses,
there's gonna be some of me. Well, I don't think
the long term memory is going to be affected. So
please keep me in mind for future shows or you know,
if you if you want somebody or just a kind
of you know, I mean a couple of minutes here
or there. I enjoyed. I enjoyed, you know what, being
on your your the show, aving you guys. Thank Having
you guys, with your reputation and your credibility authenticate me
makes me relevant and it gives me respect and I
appreciate that.
Speaker 4: It's a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Bob.
Speaker 4: I'm absolutely You've been more than kind with your time.
And to wrap it up, can I ask you just
the other side of the Knoxville thing is seventy nine
because one of the things that I'm fascinated by is
there's a there's a clipping from a newspaper in Knoxville
November twenty ninth, nineteen seventy nine, all Star Championship Wrestling,
which is the name you gave to the promotion, that
after you split off and started running opposition, you've got
Bob Orton in Malenko versus Garvin and Man Mountain Dean.
You've got Macho Man Randy Savage versus yourself listed here
on the clipping, and it also says on that night,
in addition to Terry Gibbs wrestling, that there's going to
be a Hulk challenge for five thousand dollars and it's
going to be Bob Roup versus the Hulk Sterling Golden. Now,
I'm quite sure you never actually wrestled Hulk, but there's
this indication in this newspaper ad that that it was planned.
Do you have any memory of that.
Speaker 2: Let's back up to the stake what you said. There's
two sentences ago. You're quite sure it never happened. Is that?
Because of why when we talked.
Speaker 4: Earlier, because of that, but also since then, there's a
wrestling website called Wrestling Data dot Com. And it's a
very comprehensive list of you know, you can look up
by wrestler every match that they've had, and I see
on that night your list is actually wrestling Randy Savage
November twenty nine, seventy nine at the Knoxville at the
Wnox Auditorium. So that also tells me.
Speaker 2: No mention of me sterling exactly right. Well, I use
that same I use that same data. Oh. Sure, that's
a good that's a good website. Yeah, I mean it's
got it's pretty accurate. I look, I looked at a lot.
Speaker 4: Of give me the name again, sure, wrestling data dot com. Yeah, yeah,
so you don't wrestling.
Speaker 2: Terry, I don't, you know, it seems like I don't know,
I could forget it right exactly. Uh, but you know
I told you a story about you know, if somebody
had asked me, Okay, I'm we're gonna we're gonna cut
one of your toes off if you get the answer
on but have you ever wrestled past I pushing Michelle anyway,
I've never wrestled him. They might have come out both
codes because some guys sent me, hey, twenty minute match
in the cow Palace. Oh, ship, that's right. I mean
years ago when I you know, I still had a mind.
Oh my god, it's wild.
Speaker 4: Because Terry comes, he goes away, he does Memphis, then
he goes and he goes to Georgia and he becomes
Stirling Golden on Jim Barnett's TV. And then Barnett buys
Knoxville from Ron Fuller, and then all of a sudden,
Hulk is coming back around Knoxville, even though that it
was sort of part of the Southeastern territory. So I
always wondered, you know, when Barnett took over Knoxville, if
you if you had a view on whether Barnett used
a lot of the Georgia guys in Knoxville after that,
and if Hulk was part of that. Maybe I noticed
he wrestled Dick Slater in late seventy nine after Barnett
took over. Just essentially, you know, what was Knoxville like
and what was the constitution of the roster after Barnett
took over. If you even concerned yourself with that, I
don't even know.
Speaker 2: You know what happened as soon as we we went
to work with theos and you talk about a nightmare, really, oh,
my god, oh old man papa, Oh my god. It's
a horrible, horrible person. And I'm sorry, I mean, I'm
sorry to speak ill of the dead. But uh, he
was he was something else. So anyway, working with them,
I felt like a failure. You know, this is my
second time at trying to do they do in business
all the time. It's coup of hospital takeovers. You know,
you just ships back around. That's how only got Barnett
out of Atlanta and hired me. Uh. But once I left, Uh,
once I managed to Uh, I was working for the papos,
and I had heard it was a nightmare. I hated
it and I heard it. Uh. We always believed that stuff.
If you ever went out position, no promoter ever hire
you in all that bullshit. So I had not even
bothered to call around. And one day I called. I
talked to buddy uh uh Mandel and uh I met
him in before he got started. I met him in Knoxville,
and and I like to I like to care and
on around with us. And I don't know if I
helped get him started or not. But anyway, he was
out there working. I called him. He said, Bob, there
they need to heal out here. You got a call,
and so I called Watts, but I said, yeah, uh yeah,
here's a starting date. So I was living real low
on the hog. I had a girlfriend with an apartment
in Knoxville that I was paying for, and I was living.
I was sleeping on couches and things and and uh
up up in uh Lexington, Kentucky where the uh where
the where the office was so uh when I went
out to uh, when I went out to uh Bill's territory,
I just slept. I slept on Bob Orton's couch for
a while. I didn't cash my first uh oh ten checks.
I don't think I cashed one. And then when if
I made a positive bank, I think it was like
nineteen grand or something like that. Because it was good.
Business was good, and Bill got me over right away.
Speaker 4: Right, so stop. So you wouldn't have You wouldn't have
worked anywhere near You wouldn't have worked anywhere near Knoxville
after Barnett took it over, right, This.
Speaker 2: Is what I wanted. The reason I told you the
story is between those two I forgot all about Maxwell.
I didn't give a shit about Maxville. Knoxville to me
wasented like to me. It was like a like a
new clear a plant that blows up. You know, it's
like a black hole back everything everything. I'd lost about
two hundred thousand dollars and not money that I had
about twenty five of that, but in money I could
have made. Uh, And you know, left there with terrible
memories of you know, like I say, going opposition and
finding out most of the boys wanting to talk to you.
That's that's kind of hard to take and keep respect
to the guys once you start working again. So you know,
my attitude had changed. I had gotten I'd gotten a
big boy pants on and realized that the business is
something to make money at and you know, try to
save some money. And that's what I did. So and
then I forget. I forgot all about Knoxville.
Speaker 4: Okay, that's really helpful, because there's the there's that, there's
the newspaper. And I said, there's also this idea that
once Hulk is Sterling Golden beat you for the nw
A Southeastern title, that that's out there and repeated in reports.
But the match, I don't know when that happened. It
didn't happen as far as I can tell. Right, he
had that belt, but he didn't beat you for it
because that was after Barnett had taken over, and like
you said, you were long gone from Knoxville, right right, yeah, yeah,
So he goes and he ends up losing on Christmas
Night seventy nine to Bob Armstrong. Does Hulk, He loses
the belt, some different belt, did a different bomb, and
that's it, and he's he doesn't come back to Knoxville again.
And it didn't seem like he just final question for you, Barbroup.
I mean, it didn't seem like Hulk was it took
a position in the war, right, It didn't seem like
Hulk picked Fuller over you or anything like that, because no, okay,
you didn't try to recruit him or anything like that.
Speaker 2: No. I remember, I remember one of our last nights
in Maxville. I went there's a bar all the boys
went to. I went down there by myself because since
we had gone opposition, we had stopped going there because
we were like the opposition group, and Slater had become
the booker and he was like ruling the bar like
he owned it. And I decided I got I wasn't mad.
I just decided I had some cowboy boots, and I
had a blackjack. One of those ones was about sixteen
inches long. Our security was a head of a copt
in Fort Laller. Bill and I got to be buddies
after working there down there for a year or two,
and he told it to me. Here, gave me one.
He said, take this, you might need it sometime. Well
I put that years later, I put that in my
boot and I went to the bar by myself. You know,
if I went in there with Ronnie and Bobby, you know,
Bobby Orton Jr. And ron and Milenko, maybe with a chain.
Uh uh. You know we're going in there to have
a fight. No, that's not the way to go. By
going in there by myself. I was trying to show
him that. You know, I wasn't scared of what I did.
Is I four straighters hand. We've been running ads in
the paper lights out match after our matches, Uh loser
or loser or a person who doesn't show up as
a chicken. We were running in the paper every weekend.
I was challenging Slater to slice out match. So when
I went to the bar, I knew he would be
in there. He had to challenge me and I I
didn't get all the satisfaction I wanted, but I did
get to whack him and bust Molten with that black jack.
Speaker 4: Wow wow.
Speaker 2: And he never he never put he never put a
fender on me. H. And the next time I saw
him through three years later, I was booking in Florida,
walked in the dressing room. I was lookome to say, well,
I wonder if she's holding the grudge or anything, but
he actually liked nothing that happened. So, uh, that's another's
twilight zone stuff, right.
Speaker 4: Well, we want to thank you for getting us acquainted
through your eyes at this twilight zone because we've long
talked about wrestling that way, and it's fascinating to hear
someone with such respect and time in the business. Uh,
just to think of it the same way looking back
after all these years. Well, Bob Roup, it was a
real pleasure to have you on the show. We want
to thank you so much for your extended time and
and testing that memory as best you can. There was
some great stuff in there, and we're glad you allowed
us to sort of put it on the record. Thank
you very much.
Speaker 2: H Well, thank you guys, appreciate it. Uh, call me again.
I'll probably, I might not be I might not be
all here, but all neat will be here.
Speaker 4: That sounds like a deal.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Bob, all right, appreciate it.
Speaker 4: PA is a production of the Labs Entertainment Group.
Speaker 2: Its content is intended for reven use only
Speaker 4: What we want.