Speaker 1: It's the lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack and carn
Speaker 1: s e O and JP Sorrow.
Speaker 2: He's a lapsed fan and all my years and wrestling.
Speaker 3: I never seen anything and it's the laps fan man
Speaker 3: like the one in the ring. Forget about Sado.
Speaker 4: He the real king of swing.
Speaker 5: When the bell.
Speaker 3: Goes in the kick like me throwing in the corner,
Speaker 3: but gets rash like stick even Jerry King gets take
Speaker 3: off the crowd nodded in his head like its Steve
Speaker 3: low Brown.
Speaker 5: Would you get low down?
Speaker 3: We go even high up?
Speaker 6: Flipp you on your head, but you know cool driver,
Speaker 6: you speak more and Dragon spits fire give you more
Speaker 6: shock than when he treats higher drop a more truth
Speaker 6: than the.
Speaker 7: Con of sniper. Unless you with a coconut.
Speaker 3: Roddy Pipper Jack a JP he like j.
Speaker 8: H D drop the cupcakes and gold the brain Bob
Speaker 8: means the best podcast Frost start the close cloud.
Speaker 3: If you all be as a flassic and pose boss,
Speaker 3: you get your finest text seed already I'll do what
Speaker 3: I can. You ready for music television one last time
Speaker 3: for the World Wrestling Federation. Do we have to at
Speaker 3: least until Sunday Night Heat came to the MTV of
Speaker 3: those years later. Unbelievable. We spent so much time over
Speaker 3: ten years of laps talking about how the MTV rock
Speaker 3: and wrestling connection, the war to settle the score, mister
Speaker 3: t Cindi Lauper, you know the whole story. I know
Speaker 3: the whole story. Oh ww from the back of Hulk.
Speaker 3: Hogan became a pop culture sensation hit with the irony crowd,
Speaker 3: a cable television hit and something that was very much
Speaker 3: part of the eighties on Wei that washed over MTV.
Speaker 3: And this is the last stand. This is the nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty six WWF Slammy Awards. I almost thought you were
Speaker 3: gonna say iron chicic oh instead of irony. You thought
Speaker 3: he was gonna say iron cheek. Yeah, I did. He's
Speaker 3: all over the thing. The fd IS. As we marched
Speaker 3: through the Colosseum collection, we came upon, as you know,
Speaker 3: the best of the Wwfonium seven, and in taking a
Speaker 3: look at it, we were like, wait a minute, the
Speaker 3: Slammy Awards are on this tape, or at least highlights
Speaker 3: of the very first Slammy Awards. We had to do it.
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 9: I mean, there's no there's no question about that. It
Speaker 9: makes me nervous, but yeah, it has to be done.
Speaker 3: Land of a thousand casts. And what did you think
Speaker 3: had you seen this before? I take it I have
Speaker 3: never seen the this like the original Slammy Awards.
Speaker 2: No, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, I'll tell you what I really.
Speaker 10: Like.
Speaker 9: This to me was perfect evidence of the eight Like
Speaker 9: basically that the eighties, the eighties was built on cocaine. Yeah,
Speaker 9: that's just the way the eighties were. Like anything in
Speaker 9: the nineteen eighties, the decade of the nineteen eighties was
Speaker 9: built on cocaine.
Speaker 3: And this is a prime example. Where do you see
Speaker 3: cocaine in the Slammy words?
Speaker 9: I just see everything, just the fucking craziness, the wacky,
Speaker 9: the the insanity of the whole thing, of the whole idea.
Speaker 9: Like some maybe it's not even cocaine. Someone's on drugs
Speaker 9: coming up with this whole fucking idea. Well, Vin sick
Speaker 9: Man is on drugs coming up with this idea.
Speaker 3: I mean, I know the whole thing was firmly tongue
Speaker 3: in cheek, but I didn't know it's because they were
Speaker 3: wiping the residue. I think that's the case.
Speaker 11: It is.
Speaker 9: It's just like like from you know, just the whole
Speaker 9: I mean, yeah, it's just I don't it's beyond me.
Speaker 9: It's beyond me like that you kind of take these
Speaker 9: really these are not steps that go in any logical direction,
Speaker 9: Like even things that have come into the mainstream and
Speaker 9: become like pop culture phenomenon. This, like the directions the
Speaker 9: WWWE was going is just it's beyond Yeah.
Speaker 3: You cannot forget the critical context of how much every
Speaker 3: other wrestling outfit that was still operating in the country
Speaker 3: and indeed the world, was still trying to portray the
Speaker 3: whole thing as a shoot when they started doing this stuff.
Speaker 3: But it's even beyond that.
Speaker 9: It's the idea that that they were like, well, you
Speaker 9: know what, Hey, you know, we got we'll do an album, right,
Speaker 9: we got we got MTV, We'll do an album. Hey,
Speaker 9: we did an album, Let's do an award show about
Speaker 9: the fucking album. The minds like like, like, the steps
Speaker 9: are just bizarre, absolutely bizarre.
Speaker 3: He became acquainted as I did with the Slammies in
Speaker 3: like the nineties, in the two thousands. Yes, you thought
Speaker 3: it was like an award show for best of the
Speaker 3: year in wrestling.
Speaker 9: Right, I had no idea that it was that it
Speaker 9: was that the original was the the initial idea was
Speaker 9: music based because I I think of the Slammies as
Speaker 9: you know, the leader of the new generation, right whatever,
Speaker 9: you know, those are the Slammies to me, and Hart
Speaker 9: parading around is right, two times Slammy Award winning Owen
Speaker 9: Hart just yeah, like they really did not I had
Speaker 9: no idea that, you know, because funny, I always thought
Speaker 9: Slammy was a play off of Emmy or Academy Award.
Speaker 9: I really didn't guess that it was Grammy. But it's
Speaker 9: funny because that makes the most sense.
Speaker 3: That's such a good point, Like, you know it actually,
Speaker 3: you know, it rhymes more with Grammy than it does
Speaker 3: with any of the other ones. Right, Yeah, it's almost like, well,
Speaker 3: they came up with their own Academy Awards for best Performance, right,
Speaker 3: but then they just, you know, because Graham rhymes with
Speaker 3: slam they just called it Slammys even though it's not music.
Speaker 3: But it is music. And not only is it music, boss,
Speaker 3: this isn't just a music award show. This is an
Speaker 3: award show about the best of one particular album. This
Speaker 3: is an award show contained to only one record. I
Speaker 3: really wish that they hadn't that that that the last
Speaker 3: award was Album of the Year, Right, That's a good idea,
Speaker 3: would have been really fucking funny. I would I would
Speaker 3: have been okay with that. If you're not familiar. They
Speaker 3: just took the whole WWF troop, He'll face didn't matter,
Speaker 3: you know, full cartoon versions of themselves and just had
Speaker 3: them do a series of songs. There's a series of
Speaker 3: tracks on the wrestling album, you know, just like these
Speaker 3: personality sketches and Nikolai Volkoff ranting and raving and Iron
Speaker 3: Chic and He'll Billy Jim doing the country boy routine
Speaker 3: Real American, which, as we talked about and we'll talk about,
Speaker 3: was originally intended for the US Express Peretundo and Wildem
Speaker 3: not Hulk Hogan. Hogan's on there, or at least his
Speaker 3: his song is. He's not on the eighty six Slammy Awards,
Speaker 3: which is very interesting. Yeah, but if Piper is, and
Speaker 3: you know, we kind of it again. This is another
Speaker 3: one of those examples where I'm I'm really blown away
Speaker 3: by the lack of Hulk Hogan on a main you know,
Speaker 3: with with with like to me, there's no reason why
Speaker 3: Hulk Hogan wouldn't be on this show. This should have
Speaker 3: been all Hogan conspicuous by his absence, as they would say, brother,
Speaker 3: you know what else is mind blowing conspicuous? Dude. This
Speaker 3: came out on March first, nineteen eighty six, and MTV.
Speaker 3: Yeah later that night, Saturday Night's main event on NBC
Speaker 3: Get the fuck out of This was a one two
Speaker 3: punch for WWA fans. Wow, that was the Hogan Morocco
Speaker 3: snmy where he gets ambushed by Well, that's why he
Speaker 3: wasn't on the show. I guess that must have been
Speaker 3: part of the calculate why. He probably was like, well,
Speaker 3: you know you can't pay on the show, pal, Well what, brother?
Speaker 11: Why not?
Speaker 3: Well you're in a Saturay Knight's main event. But that
Speaker 3: was pre taped.
Speaker 9: But your point is taking but we pretaped it, Dude, Darry,
Speaker 9: they don't know that, right do you know that? Maybe
Speaker 9: you don't even know that?
Speaker 3: Uh do we?
Speaker 8: What?
Speaker 3: Brother? What do you mean? Do we have to have
Speaker 3: a conversation?
Speaker 11: Dude?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: What what are you coming at me like that?
Speaker 8: For?
Speaker 11: Brother?
Speaker 3: I was there, I had the match with Morocco. Dude,
Speaker 3: are you trying to hold me up before the second WrestleMania.
Speaker 9: Brother, did you Hogan? Did you did you have a
Speaker 9: match with the Don Morocco War? Was your match happening
Speaker 9: later night? I mean nobody's seen a match with you
Speaker 9: in Morocco that people will watch it tonight. Where are you,
Speaker 9: Terry Brother? Want in Tampa?
Speaker 3: Dude? Event is on Tampa. I appreciate what you're saying, brother,
Speaker 3: but I'm looking at this lineup, dude. Junk Yard Dog
Speaker 3: was on Saturday Night's main event. He was on the Slammies.
Speaker 3: Brother Valentine like, why does what are you doing? The dude?
Speaker 3: How does he transport across space and time? Brother? Brother?
Speaker 3: Are you gonna Are you going to ask me to
Speaker 3: lose the title to Bundy? Brother? Are you saying I
Speaker 3: lay down for Oakland? Dude? This tooty fruity motherfucker, Brother,
Speaker 3: You tooty fruit in my ass? Right, Terry, That's not
Speaker 3: my business. You're tooting your own horn?
Speaker 8: Dude?
Speaker 3: What exactly serious? This is the Saturday's main event where
Speaker 3: it gets ambushed and hospitalized by Bundy to set up
Speaker 3: the rest of the look at that. And they also
Speaker 3: do the world premiere, or at least the network television
Speaker 3: premiere of the Real American Music Video with hul Cogan
Speaker 3: strumming the bass.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: With Mount Rushmore and the Twin Towers. They do that
Speaker 3: on this show, I know you would. According to my
Speaker 3: notes we'll get to they actually had Vince McMahon do
Speaker 3: a guest VJ spot on MTV earlier that night, and
Speaker 3: oh my God, introduced the world premiere of the Real
Speaker 3: American Music Video, which is so bizarre because it's talked about.
Speaker 3: When it was included on the wrestling album, it was
Speaker 3: not hul Cogan song. But apparently by the time we
Speaker 3: get to March nineteen eighty six, the decision had been
Speaker 3: made that was to do we know? When? Did we
Speaker 3: have we deciphered the first time he came out to
Speaker 3: Real American No, first time he came out to it,
Speaker 3: I do not know. I'm sure that's discoverable, though we know,
Speaker 3: of course the first time he wore the winged eagle
Speaker 3: belt and things like that. Let's see first time Hulk
Speaker 3: Hogan came out to Real American. Brother to answer the question, dude,
Speaker 3: I see December thirtieth eighty five. That rings a bell? Wow? Okay.
Speaker 3: The album came out in October eighty five and uh.
Speaker 3: By December thirty, they made the call because there are
Speaker 3: you know, clips of the US Express coming out at
Speaker 3: like TV tapings in Pennsylvania to the music, we've played
Speaker 3: it before over the years, So they did have a
Speaker 3: very short period of time and they used the the
Speaker 3: whole Kegan song that's on the record, tongue sa tongue,
Speaker 3: pung satung tongue. Right, you know what I mean? Can
Speaker 3: it in? Yeah? I actually I like that one quite
Speaker 3: a bit. I enjoyed that.
Speaker 11: There it is.
Speaker 3: Radio it is, let's fucking get it.
Speaker 5: That's absolutely everybody like that.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Almost, come on, Jesse, Oh I got through it.
Speaker 13: Yeah, well you may not get through the next cut
Speaker 13: with considering whom is.
Speaker 11: Going to.
Speaker 3: There's a Vince Words salad at the end. Huh, oh
Speaker 3: my god, want to take Vince even on the wrestling album. See,
Speaker 3: that's how the wrestling album played. They played the song
Speaker 3: and then there'd be these like little skits with Gene,
Speaker 3: Vince and Jesse in between. That's so annoying. Whul Cogan's
Speaker 3: theme literally bringing Jesse to vomit and that particular clip.
Speaker 3: Oh good, Yeah, that's was That was the idea that
Speaker 3: was gonna be kind of like you know, the Rocky
Speaker 3: theme knockoff the I have the Tiger knockoff that they
Speaker 3: were gonna go with for Hogan and they did for
Speaker 3: a short period of time. That was also the theme
Speaker 3: song to The Hulk Cogan's Rock and Wrestling Saturday Morning
Speaker 3: CBS cartoon. Okay did use it that as well. I
Speaker 3: dig that. But as we talked about last week when
Speaker 3: we read from the WWF magazine and their coverage of
Speaker 3: the first ever Slammys in nineteen eighty six, it was
Speaker 3: rock and roll at its finest. It was free, it
Speaker 3: was exciting, it was tough, and in the end it
Speaker 3: was fresh. Brother, I mean, what the fuck that means?
Speaker 3: And we'll both know as long as it's fresh, that's
Speaker 3: what matters. One thing you can also say about TLF. Yes, free, exciting, tough,
Speaker 3: and in the end fresh. Maybe I should Maybe I
Speaker 3: should say it like Jim Rome would say it fresh.
Speaker 3: So really excited to get into this. It was not
Speaker 3: an expected rock we were going to turn over, but
Speaker 3: after we did that tape last time and got a
Speaker 3: little flavor of it, had to. I don't know, We're
Speaker 3: never gonna get another perfect reason to look at this show.
Speaker 9: Yeah, agreed, like the I mean, that's it makes it
Speaker 9: made absolute sense, honestly.
Speaker 3: And continues the theme of really stewing in nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 3: eighty six juices so far in twenty twenty five, as
Speaker 3: we looked at the first Saturday Night's main event, and
Speaker 3: we've spent a lot of time around this exact period
Speaker 3: on the continuum, on the Coliseum collection as well. So yep,
Speaker 3: it's it's in keeping. It's thematic.
Speaker 11: Now.
Speaker 3: Of course they would come back and do another Slam
Speaker 3: of the Awards in nineteen eighty seven. That one not
Speaker 3: on MTV. That one distributed is basically a syndicated television
Speaker 3: special that would come on at any random time in
Speaker 3: any random market and any random affiliate that they could find.
Speaker 3: Clearly MTV not interested in a repeat engagement. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: think we're good. Thanks, though they were good with WWF
Speaker 3: after this. This was the end. They never that's that's wild.
Speaker 3: He's in the rock and wrestling area, never didy. Was
Speaker 3: it just bad business? Were they done?
Speaker 14: Or was it?
Speaker 11: You know?
Speaker 3: What was the reasoning? Yeah, well, we'll get to it.
Speaker 3: We've talked about it before, but essentially it came down
Speaker 3: to all we have is Shawn a sales account in
Speaker 3: the book Sex Lies and Headlocks for essentially, Vince is like,
Speaker 3: well make me pal, I made you. Maybe I should
Speaker 3: buy MTV instead of you buying Oh yeah, of course
Speaker 3: remember that whole thing. Yep. So according to one person
Speaker 3: who talked to Shanna Sale who is at TV, that
Speaker 3: that's how it came down. Couldn't find ratings for the show,
Speaker 3: which I think, say something. But it's funny because that
Speaker 3: night they did a great ten point zero on NBC
Speaker 3: for Saturday Nights main event, and that was the only
Speaker 3: rating anybody would care to look up or write about
Speaker 3: as far as wrestling in this particular. No, I'm wondering
Speaker 3: what you know? I mean, I don't know what what
Speaker 3: was What was MTV doing in terms of ratings at
Speaker 3: the do you know, like at the time, Mike was
Speaker 3: what's a what's a cable channel like MTV pulling in? Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's a good question. It's the share. It's definitely different
Speaker 3: because it's cable compared to the ten point Oh I
Speaker 3: just hit you with and uh for Saturday Night's main event.
Speaker 3: Let's see the top you rated United States television programs
Speaker 3: of nineteen eighty six. This is going to be so
Speaker 3: dominated by network. It's not what I mean, I mean
Speaker 3: cable cable, right, These things are way too difficult to google.
Speaker 3: I don't understand why it's so hard, but because you know,
Speaker 3: these lays, as we've been talking about in recent weeks,
Speaker 3: this has been kind of a this was kind of
Speaker 3: a thing, you know, covering the ratings. You know, you
Speaker 3: cared it was.
Speaker 9: It was a big mean Let listen then, like we
Speaker 9: talked about, it was top ten. You'd see the top
Speaker 9: ten in newspapers in the TV section.
Speaker 3: All right, So this is from the New York Times
Speaker 3: June twelfth, nineteen eighty six, headline, MTV makes changes to
Speaker 3: stop ratings slump.
Speaker 11: Wow.
Speaker 3: So this lammies didn't help at all. Wow. So the
Speaker 3: report reads, the change follows reports of sagging Nielsen ratings
Speaker 3: from MTV. The most recent average twenty four hour rating
Speaker 3: the channel released for the fourth quarter of nineteen eighty
Speaker 3: five was point six. Okay, that is a point six
Speaker 3: point ten, yes, representing holy shit. Point six represents, according
Speaker 3: to the article, six tenths of a percent of the
Speaker 3: homes equipped to receive.
Speaker 9: MTV, which I believe, I mean, I don't know what
Speaker 9: eighty six was but at least in nineteen ninety in
Speaker 9: regards to twin peaks, it's like one point is like
Speaker 9: nine and twenty five thousand televisions, Yeah or whatever, Yeah,
Speaker 9: here are the household whatever.
Speaker 3: If you do quick math, it's point it's six tenths
Speaker 3: of twenty eight point two million. That was the number
Speaker 3: of homes that in nineteen eighty six were equipped to
Speaker 3: receive MTV. And the way cable ratings work is supposed
Speaker 3: to broadcast, you do a percentage of people who can
Speaker 3: get the station, not a percentage of people who have televisions.
Speaker 3: So that ten for Saturday Night's main event being on
Speaker 3: network television NBC, is a percentage of people who have TVs,
Speaker 3: not a percentage of people who have cable. So six
Speaker 3: tenths of twenty eight point two million is get it here?
Speaker 3: Twenty I mean that seems like a big number to me.
Speaker 3: Six tenths of twenty eight Okay, let's see, uh, sixteen
Speaker 3: sixteen million people and maybe not right to me? Six
Speaker 3: point six representing six tenths of a percent of the
Speaker 3: homes equipped to receive empty six percent, that's what I said, Yeah,
Speaker 3: what do you think?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 3: Not six tens of twenty eight two point two million,
Speaker 3: the point six like not one percent point six of
Speaker 3: a percent, it would be it would be so hold
Speaker 3: on the math majors out there were I know, right,
Speaker 3: not my specialty. So then mine neither equals time. So
Speaker 3: oh shit. So one hundred and sixty eight thousand people.
Speaker 3: There we go. Now that is a twenty four hour average.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, across the quarter the last quarter of
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty five. Okay, Oh I love it. I fucking
Speaker 3: love it. That's that's what I like to hear. Jesus,
Speaker 3: Oh my god, that's reality. Hey, you're right, you know,
Speaker 3: one hundred six one thousand two in our homes. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's just like so low. That's it's like it's like
Speaker 3: nobody compared to like it's like it's like one state
Speaker 3: cable stations now do like you know, seven eight, not
Speaker 3: all of them, but MTV is thought of as this
Speaker 3: huge deal, you.
Speaker 4: Know, right.
Speaker 9: I mean I guess, I mean, I guess when you
Speaker 9: consider eighty six, I mean, what was the cable situation, Like,
Speaker 9: I mean, I'm sure it was not obviously not nearly
Speaker 9: as prominent as it would be in like the mid nineties.
Speaker 3: And stuff. But still, but if you told me thirty
Speaker 3: million people have MTV and you asked me what the
Speaker 3: average was in eighty five, yeah, I wouldn't guess. I'd
Speaker 3: go a million. Probably everyone fucking watching TBS. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Just because you have it doesn't mean you're watching it.
Speaker 3: I guess. I don't know. I mean everyone still watched
Speaker 3: the network even if they had cable, first prime time stuff.
Speaker 3: But yeah, that's just a flavor. Yeah, we don't spend
Speaker 3: enough time thinking about that, like we think about WWF
Speaker 3: maybe cresting in terms of its popularity peak and MTV
Speaker 3: losing interest. Maybe it was MTV that was losing momentum exactly.
Speaker 3: They were the ones really riding high in eighty four.
Speaker 3: Or I want to buy it, Oh my god, I
Speaker 3: want to buy MTV. I believe that I own MTV'SOK,
Speaker 3: some deep value here. Pell looks like you're your value
Speaker 3: has come in quite a bit. It's like you're less
Speaker 3: valuable than the WWE. We got to resurface this because
Speaker 3: we played it last time and it got short shrift
Speaker 3: because we had an audio issue, and we want to
Speaker 3: let you know we've figured out finally what it is.
Speaker 3: Did you know that some equipment lets you think you're
Speaker 3: muted when you're actually not. Isn't that a useful feature
Speaker 3: to have? Brother? Wouldn't you include that? What do you mean?
Speaker 3: What do you mean? I'm not what exactly? By the way,
Speaker 3: not good news for hul Cogin, not good news at all.
Speaker 3: His fucking why are tapping apparatus? Listen?
Speaker 9: There are people I know that there are a bunch
Speaker 9: of there are a bunch of sound folk out there,
Speaker 9: So I'm very curious. There's got to be a reason
Speaker 9: for it. But like so, so why would I why
Speaker 9: would there be a a setting in a recording device
Speaker 9: where you where you were based. It ignores all of
Speaker 9: your settings, ignores the the levels that you set, ignores
Speaker 9: mute and all this kind of stuff, like everything. What's
Speaker 9: the point of that? What does that do for anybody?
Speaker 3: So what it is is you have a mixer board,
Speaker 3: and you have a mute button on the mixer board,
Speaker 3: and you think that when you mute your track that
Speaker 3: what happens in the room, such as opening a bag
Speaker 3: of chips or whatever, or playing with an action figure
Speaker 3: will not be picked up because your mic isn't hot, right,
Speaker 3: But there's actually a feature where when you export the audio,
Speaker 3: that stuff is still in there, even if your levels
Speaker 3: were not moving while you were recording right right, or
Speaker 3: even if they were even if they were moving, even
Speaker 3: if they're going all over the place, even if I'm
Speaker 3: like lowering my audio like that was one of the
Speaker 3: things I was testing it out, and I was like,
Speaker 3: I didn't really know this feature, and I'm I lowered.
Speaker 3: Not only did I not use the mute because that
Speaker 3: baffled me to begin with, but then I'm lowering the
Speaker 3: audio and I'm like, how my levels at zero? How
Speaker 3: is it recording me right? Ignores it? And I don't understand.
Speaker 3: I don't understand what the purpose would be of having
Speaker 3: a feature like that. I read some offhanded thing that
Speaker 3: gave me the impression it had something to do with musicians,
Speaker 3: like that's a useful function for musicians. I don't know.
Speaker 3: If I'm trying to mute myself from being recorded, how
Speaker 3: is that helpful? So stupid? I don't even want to
Speaker 3: get into it. But the reason it's coming up is
Speaker 3: because when we played this incredible money clip during the
Speaker 3: Best of WW at Volume seven, there was that background interference.
Speaker 3: But it belongs on this show. Anyway, we came into
Speaker 3: that Colisseum home video really having no idea that it
Speaker 3: was going to be such a fucking appetizer for the
Speaker 3: full slamming, not at all entre So here it is
Speaker 3: mean gene Oakerland on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland, where
Speaker 3: the nineteen eighty six Slammies were shot, doing just doing
Speaker 3: God's work. Okay, this is mean gen Oakland walking the
Speaker 3: streets of Baltimore before the Slammies go off inside the
Speaker 3: civic arena, interviewing workaday baltimoreans. If that's even what you
Speaker 3: say about their level of excitement of what's going to
Speaker 3: be happening that evening.
Speaker 5: Who's gonna win the Slammies tonight?
Speaker 13: Who's wrestling with you?
Speaker 5: Are you?
Speaker 12: Are you wrestling to you?
Speaker 5: Are you going to be busy later on? We could
Speaker 5: wrest all night. Listen.
Speaker 15: I watch you every Saturday.
Speaker 3: You're wonderful. We're not watch wrestling.
Speaker 5: We watch you well. Thank you. I might mention that
Speaker 5: to somebody back in the office. Thank you have a
Speaker 5: nice weekend. Excuse me, ladies, I wonder if I could
Speaker 5: prevail upon you for just a comment or two. Come on,
Speaker 5: and if you would Slammys are taking place in Baltimore tonight.
Speaker 5: They're not in Los Angeles, they're not in New York,
Speaker 5: they're not in London. They're in Baltimore. Does that excite
Speaker 5: you at all? Well, I'm not from Baltimore. Oh can
Speaker 5: I ask where you're from? Delaware? Or from Delaware? What
Speaker 5: part of Delaware? Wilmington, Wilmington, what part of Wilmington. Well
Speaker 5: it's you probably west west from West Wilmington. I've never
Speaker 5: heard of it. Thank you well, strange running into you,
Speaker 5: my dear, So good to see you again. You are
Speaker 5: the kids? Oh, they're fine, terriffic. Say, the slam are
Speaker 5: taking place here in Baltimore tonight. They're not gonna be
Speaker 5: in Kansas City. They're not gonna be in my second
Speaker 5: favorite town of Cleveland. They're gonna be in Baltimore. Who
Speaker 5: do you think is gonna win for the Best Artist
Speaker 5: Autum Video Land of a Thousand Dances, The.
Speaker 2: Land of a Thousand Dances. Who's up for the award?
Speaker 5: Virtually every wrestler known the man?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 16: I think what does it?
Speaker 3: Little Richard do your song?
Speaker 5: Yes, as a matter of fact, little Richard does my song?
Speaker 5: Why don't do his? I think you're definitely gonna win.
Speaker 5: What's your name? Sweet Michelle? Michelle, you are lovely. You're
Speaker 5: also cold and will warm it up tonight. You know
Speaker 5: where I'm at?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 5: Pike's Phil Hilton? The second sir, just the second sir, sir?
Speaker 5: Excuse me, Joy, Can I have just a moment of
Speaker 5: your time?
Speaker 3: It's not going to prevail upon you momentarily.
Speaker 5: Come on, Yeah, this is what the World Wrestling Federation pal.
Speaker 5: Who's gonna win the Slammies tonight?
Speaker 11: Huh?
Speaker 5: James Brown's you know what's over here tonight?
Speaker 11: Don't you?
Speaker 5: Slammy Awards? How are you? Goodness? See what's your.
Speaker 2: Off of all? I'll see your tv U Twrest Kogan
Speaker 2: and hat Hogan?
Speaker 3: Uh, mis tee, let's see writing writing paper.
Speaker 5: And everybody everybody said, well, wait a minute, and I
Speaker 5: can't let you run away with this. You know, I'm
Speaker 5: just excited to be in Baltimore. I understand. Baltimore is
Speaker 5: the crab capital of the world.
Speaker 3: Yes, h I hear that.
Speaker 5: Who's gonna win the slam East tonight? Who's your favorite?
Speaker 3: My favorite is?
Speaker 9: Uh?
Speaker 5: For really, wait a minute, who's your favorite? My favorite
Speaker 5: is Hawt Hogan? Wait a minute.
Speaker 2: Hell, it's me.
Speaker 5: Uh he's saying real good to thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5: That's all I wanted to hear the best cut of
Speaker 5: the wrestling album. I'm sure you voted, and I don't
Speaker 5: know if we could just get maybe just a little, uh,
Speaker 5: a little enlightenment here as to who you might have
Speaker 5: voted for.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 14: I have to be a professional here and and I
Speaker 14: really it's very important that I totally this is not
Speaker 14: a big mystery.
Speaker 3: I am a professional. I'm employed by this.
Speaker 5: Wait a minute, pal, you're talking to me. You're not
Speaker 5: talking to some ja bronkly. Now, you can tell me
Speaker 5: who you you.
Speaker 4: Can tell me.
Speaker 5: Let's get out of the street here before we get hit.
Speaker 5: You can tell me who you voted for. I won't
Speaker 5: say a word. Trust me, it'll be a k fave
Speaker 5: deal all the way.
Speaker 3: I think that my friends would be very upset with me.
Speaker 3: You might be upset with me.
Speaker 5: I will see you tonight at the Slammys in Baltimore,
Speaker 5: not Boston. That's right right here. Are you from Wilmington, Delaware?
Speaker 3: No, sir, I'm from right here in Baltimore.
Speaker 5: To Riney, Baltimore, Number one, where are your books from
Speaker 5: Bottimore Randallstown And it's not as a suburb of Baltimore. Yes,
Speaker 5: all right, Now the best cut on the wrestling album?
Speaker 5: Who do you pick to be the winner?
Speaker 3: You Tod Fruity.
Speaker 5: Finally, two and a half hours the interviews, and I
Speaker 5: finally find the people I've been looking for. Thank you,
Speaker 5: good luck. We'll see you tonight, glads. Myself along with
Speaker 5: the other great ones in the World Wrestling Federation prepare
Speaker 5: for the Slammy tonight here in Baltimore at the Civic Center,
Speaker 5: sold off crowd. By the way, I've been looking over
Speaker 5: some of the landmarks of this great city on Chesapeake Bay.
Speaker 5: This tablet was erected by the Maryland State Dental Association,
Speaker 5: and I couldn't be so excited about any one thing
Speaker 5: in all my life. But the real action tonight is
Speaker 5: going to be taking place here at the Civic Center,
Speaker 5: this gorgeous facility, in.
Speaker 3: This gesture, so beautiful building you can see.
Speaker 5: This is modern architecture put together by some of the
Speaker 5: great architectural minds in the great state of Maryland. And
Speaker 5: it's here tonight where you're going to be seeing slammies.
Speaker 5: All right, visiting with more people regarding the upcoming Slammies competition. Hey,
Speaker 5: how are you my friends? The Slammies are going to
Speaker 5: be in Baltimore tonight at this great facility, the Civic Center.
Speaker 5: Are you going to be there?
Speaker 3: Am I going to be there?
Speaker 5: We're not only going to be there, but we're going
Speaker 5: to do it. Well wait a minute, guess that's right.
Speaker 3: You like wrestling?
Speaker 5: How about this? We're going to be here tonight.
Speaker 3: We're gonna do it.
Speaker 5: Are you guys ready for that? Do you think what
Speaker 5: I want to do it? He's my guy. Come on, guys,
Speaker 5: I gotta get started.
Speaker 11: Thank you?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 5: Right here?
Speaker 3: Break her up, frank her up.
Speaker 2: It's the Lapsed Wrestling Podcast.
Speaker 1: He's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling Podcast with Jack and Carnacio
Speaker 1: M J.
Speaker 2: Pisarro.
Speaker 3: I mean, I can't, Jean do it. We're gonna do
Speaker 3: it like you gotta funk? What is it about?
Speaker 11: Like?
Speaker 3: It's not like that anymore. When you put a camera
Speaker 3: on somebody on the street, they're like camera ready, all
Speaker 3: of them, you know, your camera ready out of the womb.
Speaker 3: In America these days now.
Speaker 9: Now we've had you know, we've had you know, practice
Speaker 9: with the Instagram we're shooting, we're showing ourselves that we're
Speaker 9: prepared to put on the best versions of ourselves.
Speaker 3: We're not where we are trained. We've self trained to
Speaker 3: be camera ready. These most of these people are having
Speaker 3: seizures into the camera lens or running away. In some cases, yes,
Speaker 3: they were about being seized upon. But just such a man,
Speaker 3: does that put you there? Does that put you in
Speaker 3: the time and place?
Speaker 11: Just that?
Speaker 3: I think I think we're gonna do it tonight. Boss
Speaker 3: slammis this one hour show that like someone God bless them,
Speaker 3: uploaded to YouTube. This is one of those tough ones
Speaker 3: because all those MTV shows, they're nowhere to be found
Speaker 3: on official w W channels. As we know, the Water Settle,
Speaker 3: the Score, the Brawl to Settle at all, all that
Speaker 3: ship nowhere to be found.
Speaker 9: Right right, it's gone. I mean it's it's yeah, because
Speaker 9: the MTV shit the right to have them. But that's
Speaker 9: a whole different story.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, they've been in circulation for years, so they're
Speaker 3: not particularly hard to find. But it was fascinating because
Speaker 3: I think when the WW network came out, they did
Speaker 3: put the Water to Settle the Score up and then
Speaker 3: took it down. Yeah, one of them was up for
Speaker 3: like two maybe like a week before it was taken
Speaker 3: down and amazing, and this definitely fits that category. I mean,
Speaker 3: I've never seen anything ww's ever put out with the
Speaker 3: complete slammis that Colosseum video is the closest will get
Speaker 3: And yeah, not like that's one of the colisseums they
Speaker 3: ever uploaded to the network or to Peacock. No, they never,
Speaker 3: they never. It's kind of funny. They never uploaded any
Speaker 3: of the best of to the.
Speaker 9: Home video. Yeah section, Yeah, it's kind of interesting. I
Speaker 9: wonder why they never did that, Like never, They did
Speaker 9: pretty much every other tape to a certain point up
Speaker 9: until like nineteen ninety two or three, but after that
Speaker 9: they didn't. They didn't put up any like no, no
Speaker 9: best us like that. All was hidden, and I do
Speaker 9: wonder why.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Jesse went to her commentary tracks having won the lawsuit,
Speaker 3: had to be you know, removed because he was due royalties.
Speaker 3: So maybe maybe the best us are the ones that
Speaker 3: have so many different matches that I mean, but we
Speaker 3: see him, we see him on tons of them, you know,
Speaker 3: but him on any that are on Peacock. I'm pretty sure. Okay,
Speaker 3: that was always the demarcation line to me, I mean
Speaker 3: back in the day, but not now. Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 3: it's wild. So this is something you know, they've never
Speaker 3: uploaded or made available, but someone has it, has it
Speaker 3: taped off television and put it up there. Other wonderful
Speaker 3: sources may even have original source copies. I'm also sorry,
Speaker 3: sorry to rep but but I'm it's just off the
Speaker 3: top of my head.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I'm also surprised too that that w w WE allowed
Speaker 3: MTV to have some kind of ownership of those yea
Speaker 3: of those shows that just so seems to be either
Speaker 3: a major glitch you know, you know, or or like
Speaker 3: just I can't imagine Vin mick Man ever doing that. Oh,
Speaker 3: he's still learning lessons, you know, he's he's not the
Speaker 3: sophisticated IP operator that he would come to be later.
Speaker 3: You know, he's just eating eating out of Dick Eversoll's
Speaker 3: hand and trying to learn his way.
Speaker 9: And I guess that's true because I guess, you know,
Speaker 9: a lot of those shows would have happened, Yes, this
Speaker 9: would have been you know, it would have happened before
Speaker 9: prior to yeph the So maybe that's for.
Speaker 3: A contract that was drawn up when he needed MTV
Speaker 3: more than MTV needed him, and my god, like whatever,
Speaker 3: whatever you need, pal, you know, just let's get on MTV.
Speaker 3: That sounds fucking great. You know, we're doing it in
Speaker 3: the garden anyway, and you know Cindy's lapper is going
Speaker 3: to be involved anyone, So the let's just put on MTV.
Speaker 3: That's gravy. So there probably wasn't a lot of thought
Speaker 3: put into securing rights to broadcast rights later on with
Speaker 3: whatever napkin the MTV contract was written on, because there
Speaker 3: was apparently not much in the way of like contingency planning,
Speaker 3: like what if what if? So they just went from
Speaker 3: show to show and all of a sudden, when there
Speaker 3: was just the slightest hint of friction, they were gone,
Speaker 3: and of course more than happy to be nested on
Speaker 3: NBC by that point, so it wasn't like they were
Speaker 3: without a home to transition to. But yeah, the Slammies,
Speaker 3: and the only reason the Slammy has happened is we've
Speaker 3: just telegraphed is because the wrestling album existed, and any
Speaker 3: history lesson on the very first Slammy Awards in the
Speaker 3: creation of the slammis has to have a lot to
Speaker 3: do with the Wrestling Album Again came out in the
Speaker 3: fall of nineteen eighty five. You've all probably seen it
Speaker 3: by now, if not heard it. It's the one with
Speaker 3: you know, the full litany, the full mosaic of WWF
Speaker 3: aracter is standing in a recording studio and then it's
Speaker 3: got Jesse, Vince and Gene. As we learned from our
Speaker 3: pal Brian Penry, the original WF creative director, a very
Speaker 3: laborious process to superimpose the image of the announcers over
Speaker 3: the photograph of all the the assembled wrestlers on that
Speaker 3: album cover. But yeah, it came out on vinyl and
Speaker 3: it was It's what they call and what they called
Speaker 3: and still call, a novelty record. It's sure, it's not
Speaker 3: created by musicians professional musicians. It's not intended to really
Speaker 3: be consumed and perceived by music fans. It's just a
Speaker 3: it's a brand extension for people who were already buying
Speaker 3: wrestling shit.
Speaker 9: Right, It's like, uh, I mean, it's like, haven't needed
Speaker 9: a champion novelty record here?
Speaker 3: It is the wrestling album. It's not meant for.
Speaker 10: When Albert Kim's thousand pounds up Beat comes runnering at you,
Speaker 10: it can mean only one thing. He wrestling album with
Speaker 10: Paul Cogan's Theme a Reel and Rogan Elily Jims Don't go.
Speaker 8: Less with a.
Speaker 10: Most performances by Roddie Piper and Nickolai Holko, Captain Lou
Speaker 10: Kimmy Hart Mean Jean have a junk yard Dog. We
Speaker 10: have the wrestling album on Epic record and teams, I'll
Speaker 10: paout your record store.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine no, that's just coming on during like
Speaker 3: Matt Locke, you know that would be pretty tremendous time. Seriously,
Speaker 3: with lunchboxes, the cartoon, the l j n's, it's all
Speaker 3: starting to happen all at once. That the home videos crazy,
Speaker 3: all of these people that want to license the ww
Speaker 3: It had its moment. It's like when the Ninja Turtles
Speaker 3: were red hot. You know, everyone's tripping over themselves to
Speaker 3: slap that that I p on any number of you know,
Speaker 3: foreign sourced plastic to try to sell as many you know,
Speaker 3: pieces of ship with a yeah, a whole coching uh
Speaker 3: likeness on it as they possibly can. And here is
Speaker 3: their attempt at at music, and here's their attempt at
Speaker 3: an award show. And it's all tongue in cheek. The
Speaker 3: irony crowd. You know, it's not like they're of course,
Speaker 3: of course taking themselves very seriously. Of course two traditional
Speaker 3: wrestling fans total anathema, Like my god, there's heels and
Speaker 3: faces on the same stage. Ever, either're leaning into how
Speaker 3: the general public wants to laugh at wrestling anyway, Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: and they're trying to own that, which is like the
Speaker 3: whole point of pride is pushing against that, resisting that
Speaker 3: as a wrestler, and like taking it personally and attacking
Speaker 3: people that call you a phony. Here's Vince, you know,
Speaker 3: orchestrating a presentation that were he's come laugh at us, you.
Speaker 9: Know, right, I know that's exactly it. Like it really
Speaker 9: is like that kind of like almost almost desperate, you know,
Speaker 9: Like to me, you know, you can either you can
Speaker 9: certainly say that they're that they're able to make fun
Speaker 9: of themselves, but at the same time, there's almost a.
Speaker 3: Kind of.
Speaker 9: Sadness to the fact that we're that willing to make
Speaker 9: fun of ourselves just to have people watch us.
Speaker 3: I now, you know what it's like. To me, it's
Speaker 3: like the kid who's unpopular but who does a funny
Speaker 3: party trick, so he gets invited to the party, and
Speaker 3: he just comes to that party, man, and he'll do
Speaker 3: that party trick as many times in succession as you
Speaker 3: want for anybody that asks, because he's just blown away
Speaker 3: that he has a chance to impress upon an upper cast,
Speaker 3: you know, and just what else you want me to do?
Speaker 17: You know?
Speaker 3: But they had the cross currents. They had Mister T,
Speaker 3: they had Cindy Lapper, they had celebrities that were you know,
Speaker 3: Cindy Lapper won the Grant me and walked on stage
Speaker 3: with Hulk Hogan behind her is her bodyguard. Like Hogan
Speaker 3: hosted SNL, Mister T in the eighteen was the biggest
Speaker 3: show on television. It's like, this is unbelievable that they
Speaker 3: ended up in this position where this many people we're
Speaker 3: willing to just have some fun and make some money
Speaker 3: doing pro wrestling, and you know, TV, what do they do?
Speaker 3: They just chase the stars around and try to create
Speaker 3: stuff that they can pretend they architected and deserve credit
Speaker 3: for and deserve to be paid millions of dollars for them.
Speaker 3: Really they're just starfuckers, you know, just chasing the hottest
Speaker 3: thing and building you know, phony architecture around them as
Speaker 3: if they have any particular talent, and so WWF was
Speaker 3: and it's involvement with celebrities was the perfect springboard to
Speaker 3: some of those eyeballs back then. So we get the
Speaker 3: wrestling album, we get the Slammy Awards, and we get
Speaker 3: this here treatment and one of it's kind I'm not
Speaker 3: really sure. I don't know, have we done an episode
Speaker 3: before that's like just about a TV special like this,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure what if there's any corollaries. It kind
Speaker 3: of feels like that episode of Baywatch that we did
Speaker 3: for Flair almost. Yeah, I mean, the only other thing
Speaker 3: could think of that would be I mean maybe like
Speaker 3: I mean, that's still like a pay per view, like
Speaker 3: a regular kind of odd ball television. I mean, I
Speaker 3: guess Thunder and Paradise. Yeah, yeah, that's right. But still
Speaker 3: that's I mean, this is that you know that that
Speaker 3: even has that was also for that was a Hopper
Speaker 3: thing too. Yes, we were put into that position, but
Speaker 3: I think Brandon from a Jersey actually put that one
Speaker 3: on the table. Yeah yeah, but one where it's like,
Speaker 3: here's something a wrestling company did with a totally different
Speaker 3: audience than the wrestling fan in mind. That's right, that's
Speaker 3: a rare breed in and of itself, and this, this
Speaker 3: is definitely a step outside of our It's almost like
Speaker 3: a sounds like the WBF special, you know, right, And
Speaker 3: you know that was the other thing I was going
Speaker 3: to say too, It's kind of like the WBF thing.
Speaker 3: But you know, Jesus so bizarre. We're doing it. We're
Speaker 3: ripping off the band aid and we're going to figure
Speaker 3: out why. Well, we're going to try to figure out
Speaker 3: why the slammy's happened. I don't know if I don't
Speaker 3: know if that's possible, but but of course so we can.
Speaker 3: We got to remind you. We're obliged to remind you
Speaker 3: lest you forget that the only reason something like this
Speaker 3: is possible is because people on like your free loading
Speaker 3: bitch ass, are willing to pay for it, and you
Speaker 3: deserve there ever, they deserve a gratitude. It is patreon
Speaker 3: dot com slash the lapsed fan. That is where the
Speaker 3: nucleus lies, that is where all of the the atoms collide,
Speaker 3: and for your Patreon dollar, no shortage of material Heading
Speaker 3: into WrestleMania season. We just finished the live call of
Speaker 3: the twenty twenty five Elimination Chamber. We watch modern WWE
Speaker 3: so you don't have to. And in this case post
Speaker 3: I think they missed something. You know, I'll tell you
Speaker 3: it is. I know people, I guess you know. It's funny.
Speaker 9: I didn't even and this wasn't you know, usually I'm
Speaker 9: all over the you know, I don't know what happened
Speaker 9: Sunday that I was not really looking at Patreon or
Speaker 9: any really of our of our social media stuff because
Speaker 9: I always usually, you know, check in and see what's
Speaker 9: going on.
Speaker 3: But I didn't. And people were amazed that. People were
Speaker 3: skeptical that we'd be able to avoid it, but I
Speaker 3: honestly didn't know shit. And people sleeping like people sleep
Speaker 3: on how much your Twitter feed adjusts to the fact
Speaker 3: that you were watching the show, and like you get
Speaker 3: this impression that everybody's talking about it. It's like, if
Speaker 3: if Twitter or whatever Facebook doesn't think you were watching
Speaker 3: the show, they're not going to show you a million
Speaker 3: videos about it, right exactly.
Speaker 9: So it was, uh, yeah, it was a hell of
Speaker 9: a fucking That was honestly one of the biggest surprises
Speaker 9: that I've I think I've seen. Honestly, I said it,
Speaker 9: I said it, and I still stand by it. Honestly,
Speaker 9: I keep thinking about it. I think I think it
Speaker 9: may be one of the most shocking he will turn
Speaker 9: since Bashing the Beach ninety six, Honest to god. Well,
Speaker 9: so you lean into what's Cody's going to do, what
Speaker 9: Rock's going to do the whole time, it's the the
Speaker 9: overwhelming thing is going to be what Sina ends up doing. Yeah,
Speaker 9: you know, that's pretty You never really thought about that
Speaker 9: because they were They really did a great job playing
Speaker 9: up the whole.
Speaker 3: You know, uh uh John Cena Memorial Tour.
Speaker 9: Yes, you know, like really, let's just like, you know,
Speaker 9: let's do kind of the best the best of John
Speaker 9: Cena year and man did they fucking and.
Speaker 3: How got how gotten to Dwayne is by the suggestion
Speaker 3: that he's flying by the seat of his pants and
Speaker 3: you know, just trying to manufacture stuff. It's going to
Speaker 3: take a long time before they admit that this was
Speaker 3: not a big master plan, that yeah, this is a
Speaker 3: last minute pivot where yeah, they fucking made it up
Speaker 3: the fucking night of I don't doubt. I don't doubt
Speaker 3: that Rock has you know, been trying to convince Sena
Speaker 3: for some time to go heal after it was such
Speaker 3: a success for him the year before. I'm not saying
Speaker 3: that you won't find it being suggested before it took place,
Speaker 3: but come on now, but great, still great, still awesome.
Speaker 3: We're still the beneficiaries. Can't wait to see how it
Speaker 3: plays out. And that's worth a year's worth of Patreon
Speaker 3: dollars alone just to hear our reaction, because indeed, as
Speaker 3: the Boss said, we were able to somehow shelter ourselves
Speaker 3: from spoilers despite it being on a delay for us.
Speaker 3: And yeah, the Senior Hill turn and here we go,
Speaker 3: the WrestleMania double live calls coming your way coming up
Speaker 3: Easter weekend. This is the time to lean in Patreon
Speaker 3: dot com slash the lapsed fan. Of course, Wrestle Mamia
Speaker 3: oh yes, continues to roll out like clockwork every single
Speaker 3: week as the boss Man.
Speaker 9: But yeah, you know what, and this week started WrestleMania season. Wow,
Speaker 9: honestly with Wrestle Wrestle Mamia, we did. People would have
Speaker 9: just heard my mom and I watch you know, Ria
Speaker 9: Ripley versus Becky Lynch at at last year WrestleMania forty.
Speaker 3: Fascinating choice my mom.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 9: Every now and again I realized I probably should have
Speaker 9: my mom watch women wrestlers. And she had been asking
Speaker 9: about WrestleMania when we went to so Mania, and I
Speaker 9: was like, oh, you know, I probably should throw that
Speaker 9: out there, and you know, see what, you know, that
Speaker 9: might be a good one for her to watch.
Speaker 3: I can't wait to see a reaction to that one.
Speaker 9: Yeah, you gotta listen to a reaction for that one.
Speaker 9: I'm sure it's you know, she does end up saying
Speaker 9: always usually I don't like the women fighting. I don't
Speaker 9: think the women should fight each other.
Speaker 3: That's great. So yeah, that's of course the mote tier.
Speaker 3: Only the tip top tier on Patreon has access to that. Uh,
Speaker 3: you know, we don't let everyone in the living room
Speaker 3: carpet with us, you know what I mean? No, No,
Speaker 3: you got to past the piper for that. Listen, listen,
Speaker 3: I keep that about as private as I used to correct.
Speaker 3: All right, that's exactly right. So yeah, let no one know,
Speaker 3: or only let's select few know, exactly. So yeah, join
Speaker 3: the Boss Man and Mama Sorrow looking at matches from
Speaker 3: the past.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 3: In a one of a kind ways, we somehow managed
Speaker 3: to tap that voice that we all had growing up
Speaker 3: of I'm gonna I'm gonna humor my son watching this,
Speaker 3: but right, I'm gonna ask some questions that really blow
Speaker 3: the whole illusion up.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and then and then then you fucking get lost,
Speaker 9: and then they get lost into it, and then you
Speaker 9: realize the whole thing.
Speaker 3: That's why we watch wrestling exactly, because even the skeptics
Speaker 3: in the room exactly end up going for the ride
Speaker 3: in a subtle way, but in a real way nonetheless.
Speaker 3: So yeah, wrestle mommy, available to you and under the cinemat.
Speaker 3: I mean, this Twin Peaks thing, this fucking David Lynch thing, wow, wow,
Speaker 3: I you know it.
Speaker 12: I was.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 9: I'll be the first to admit when I decided to
Speaker 9: do it, I was kind of like, all right, I mean,
Speaker 9: it'll be fun to go through Twin Peaks. I'm not
Speaker 9: sure what we're gonna get out of David Lynch in
Speaker 9: terms of da da da, but he is the gift
Speaker 9: that keeps on giving. Oh my god, all right, he is.
Speaker 9: He He really was more fascinating than I ever thought
Speaker 9: he was. And I thought he was fascinating, but he
Speaker 9: really is one of the most really one of the
Speaker 9: most genuine people I think we've ever dived in to
Speaker 9: on cinemat Well, you know what he is.
Speaker 3: The more I think about it, he's somebody who mastered
Speaker 3: the form and function of a normal person. But this filmmaking,
Speaker 3: there's this is not a normal person. No no, no,
Speaker 3: no no no, like be that normal and be this
Speaker 3: genius when the putting the cameras on.
Speaker 9: He's somebody. He's the person who is able to really
Speaker 9: like separate his his kind of like you know, human
Speaker 9: being side and his artistic side and kind of in
Speaker 9: a weird way keep them separate.
Speaker 3: But also they're able to interact, you know.
Speaker 9: What I mean, Yes, because because he's not a wacky,
Speaker 9: weird person when you talk to him, but he is
Speaker 9: the darkest thoughts, yes, the darkest ideas and ideas that
Speaker 9: are not that that don't follow human logic. I mean,
Speaker 9: we watched this, you know, we watched that one clip
Speaker 9: of of of Lost Highway, uh last time, and I
Speaker 9: mean just how chilling and bizarre, and I mean that's
Speaker 9: postmodernism in a box. If you ask me right there, what.
Speaker 3: Was the gentleman's name with the face?
Speaker 17: Uh?
Speaker 3: The the actor or the or the the actor is
Speaker 3: Robert Blake? I mean a lot playing the fucking playing
Speaker 3: the man of mystery who calls who's at your house?
Speaker 3: Mystery man who's at your house? When you call your house,
Speaker 3: even though he's standing right in front of your off
Speaker 3: site smiling, and they both and then he laughs at
Speaker 3: you on the phone and in front of you. I
Speaker 3: mean that's yeah, It's almost like Lynch needs to have
Speaker 3: that separation.
Speaker 17: This is it.
Speaker 9: Okay, here we go. You're at a party, you go
Speaker 9: over to the bar, you get a drink, and you're
Speaker 9: just minding your own business and them here's where it
Speaker 9: kicks in. Then a man walks in. This walks in
Speaker 9: to the room where you are and you're just minding
Speaker 9: your own business. And he comes in and he talks
Speaker 9: to you, and then he says, I'm at your house.
Speaker 3: Right now.
Speaker 9: Wow.
Speaker 16: And then he gives you the phone. You call home
Speaker 16: and he answers the phone. The theory is right in
Speaker 16: front of you, but he's in front of you.
Speaker 15: What do you do?
Speaker 3: I get a milkshake? Oh, I'm just gonna you know
Speaker 3: what it's all said and done as amazing as Twin
Speaker 3: Peaks is. And the riot's taking us on. That's what
Speaker 3: I'm gonna remember, is him spending no less than fifteen
Speaker 3: minutes describing the three times in his life that he's
Speaker 3: had the perfect milkshake.
Speaker 9: Yes, seriously, I mean that's that's why it was like,
Speaker 9: I mean that again, the first thing I was looking,
Speaker 9: I was just looking for for interviews, for tidbits of
Speaker 9: information that first week, and there it is.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sorry, and it was just the greatest thing.
Speaker 3: If you're not listening or if you're not hip to
Speaker 3: it what we're doing with Twin Peaks, your straight bitch,
Speaker 3: that's the only conclusion you can reach because this is
Speaker 3: this is the heart of what storytelling means. You know,
Speaker 3: wrestler and wrestlers wrestling talks about storytelling. You know, Okay,
Speaker 3: all right, you want to learn about that. And there
Speaker 3: are wrestling connections.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 3: We talked about the course Fandango Tyler Breeze segments they did, yep,
Speaker 3: mimicking Twin Peaks on Rock. I mean in a weird way.
Speaker 9: You know, that does qualify Twin Peaks the whole fucking thing.
Speaker 9: So maybe someday we'll come back to it. Absolutely, but
Speaker 9: this will be the end of the you know, our
Speaker 9: next it will be our last portion of the David
Speaker 9: Lynch tribute with the last two episodes of the season
Speaker 9: one of Twin Peaks, and you know, will wrap it up.
Speaker 9: It's gonna leave You're not gonna be satisfied. I'll tell
Speaker 9: you that.
Speaker 3: It's a different kind of journey.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's it's uh, it's gonna wrap it up, and
Speaker 9: it's it and only the way you can, honestly, because
Speaker 9: because we're the the it's gonna be kind of it's
Speaker 9: it's gonna be interesting, how really the the the end
Speaker 9: of of and it's fitting too, and I was hoping
Speaker 9: it would kind of end up being like this and
Speaker 9: at the end of David Lynch's life kind of coincides
Speaker 9: again with with Twin Peaks towards the very end. And
Speaker 9: so it's a it's a nice uh, it's a nice
Speaker 9: way to close out under the state that continues cooking
Speaker 9: on a level few other podcasts operate at. You already
Speaker 9: knew that, and it's available to ep and above. By
Speaker 9: the way, I gotta tell you something actually in regards
Speaker 9: to in regard to how much the scene of thing
Speaker 9: impacted me, I didn't even tell you this yet today
Speaker 9: this morning, all right, I was like, I actually was
Speaker 9: like I need more yes, I need more, And I
Speaker 9: actually decided, well, the only thing I can really like,
Speaker 9: it's not like fucking I can't throw on the Today
Speaker 9: Show and they're gonna be fucking talking about that. She
Speaker 9: knows me talking about it and legitimate. So I said,
Speaker 9: you know what, I'm gonna fucking throw on that press
Speaker 9: conference they always had. They always did the fucking post
Speaker 9: and I'm fucking watching Triple H and he's just talking
Speaker 9: about But I was like, I needed I needed extra,
Speaker 9: I needed something else because because I because I can't
Speaker 9: wait until Tuesday morning to see what John Cena is until, like,
Speaker 9: you know, see what is on on YouTube that John Cena.
Speaker 3: Said, and then you saw he just came out and
Speaker 3: picked the mic up and dropped it and left. I
Speaker 3: didn't even get that far, actually, honestly, I had to that.
Speaker 3: I was watching Triple H talk about it and and whatever,
Speaker 3: and it was like, I haven't had that need in
Speaker 3: a long time, long time. So that's saying something absolutely.
Speaker 3: Boss Index is humming. We'll see if the returns kicking,
Speaker 3: but yeah, that's definitely a special moment that you want
Speaker 3: to experience with us there. And I do wonder, you know,
Speaker 3: as we've talked about how part of me hopes he
Speaker 3: comes out with his nWo shirt, like, yeah, oh, he's
Speaker 3: got to change the gear up somehow, you would think,
Speaker 3: I really hope.
Speaker 9: So if they don't, If they don't, if they go
Speaker 9: fucking to Tonk on this ship and don't change him
Speaker 9: at all, I'm gonna be pissed.
Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, the games they get now, the games got
Speaker 3: to change it. They got to change it. Oh. We've talked,
Speaker 3: you know a lot about how the state of Sina's
Speaker 3: hair resembles the state of David Lynch's hair, Yes, in
Speaker 3: so many ways, and how poetic it really is, and true,
Speaker 3: I do wonder before we get back to the Slammys,
Speaker 3: how David Lynch would think about the John Cena Hill turn,
Speaker 3: how he would react to the turn of events we
Speaker 3: saw in Toronto this past weekend.
Speaker 9: You know, I was sitting at my home, all right,
Speaker 9: I want you to so, I'm at my home. I'm
Speaker 9: sitting in a brown leather chair, all right, brown leather chair.
Speaker 9: It's still I hate to say it, it smells a
Speaker 9: little bit like cigarettes. It's my smoking chair. I've used
Speaker 9: it for about fifteen years. I bought it fifteen years ago.
Speaker 9: At a used furniture shop down on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Speaker 9: I bought it on a Tuesday at about three two
Speaker 9: forty six pm, and I brought it home and I
Speaker 9: put it and it's been in the same spot. I've
Speaker 9: moved furniture in the room around the chair. The chair
Speaker 9: has been in the same spot. It is my TV chair.
Speaker 9: And I said, you know what, I'm going to put on? Wrestling.
Speaker 9: I don't watch wrestling. I don't watch wrestling. I don't
Speaker 9: care for it, but I do find it to be fascinating. Yes,
Speaker 9: I enjoy all art forms. So I picked up the remote.
Speaker 9: I held it in my left hand. With my right hand,
Speaker 9: I pressed power and I put on the television and
Speaker 9: I said, okay, I've got to stream this. And I
Speaker 9: called my daughter. I said, Jennifer, how do I stream WrestleMania?
Speaker 9: And she said, Dad, I don't know. I said, okay,
Speaker 9: and I hung up. Then I called somebody else. I
Speaker 9: called Kyle McLachlan. I said, Kyle, how do I watch wrestling?
Speaker 9: And he said, David, you gotta get Peacock. I said, Kyle,
Speaker 9: I don't like birds in the house. He said, no,
Speaker 9: you gotta buy the app. I said, okay, and he
Speaker 9: came over and he helped me buy the app Peacock
Speaker 9: and I put on the wrestling and I watched this
Speaker 9: guy John SENA. Wow, I gotta tell you, John SENA,
Speaker 9: this guy wears wears gene shorts. And now I haven't
Speaker 9: seen gene shorts in years. I don't even know how
Speaker 9: you do gene shorts.
Speaker 3: I said, there he is.
Speaker 9: He's there, and he's in the rings, and he wins.
Speaker 9: He wins in the giant dome cage that they have.
Speaker 9: I mean, wow, what a cage. You've never seen a
Speaker 9: cage like this before. It's brilliant, it's beautiful, sleek and black.
Speaker 9: It's just amazing.
Speaker 3: It has it has these amazing compartments. And inside this
Speaker 3: is what makes it unbelievable.
Speaker 9: Inside the cage are tiny compartments, little apartments right for
Speaker 9: the wrestlers to stay in until they get called out,
Speaker 9: so they don't wrestle right away. They sit in their
Speaker 9: little compartment and they watch. You see, it's like a movie.
Speaker 9: You're what they're watching.
Speaker 3: It's as if they're unleashing Wolverine one at a time
Speaker 3: before they participate.
Speaker 9: John Cena wins and it looks like a big celebration.
Speaker 9: Everybody's happy. Outcomes Codin's Road, the son of somebody, I
Speaker 9: don't know who he's a son of, preferring to his dad.
Speaker 9: He was great about his dad. I'm sure that his
Speaker 9: dad was a great, great guy to have a son
Speaker 9: like this man. And he comes out and he gets
Speaker 9: in the ring. Two men in the ring, one in George,
Speaker 9: one in a beautiful suit, one wearing a suit, one
Speaker 9: wearing jean shorts, one one with bleach blonde hair, one
Speaker 9: with skin like Robert Blake in Lost.
Speaker 3: Highway, and the one with the Robert Blake skin is
Speaker 3: now going to match the other guy for his belt.
Speaker 3: He says he's going to he's going to match up
Speaker 3: with the champion.
Speaker 9: And then the cage. The cage at this point is gone.
Speaker 9: It vanishes. You wouldn't believe it if you saw it
Speaker 9: that vanishes. I didn't see it go anywhere. And then
Speaker 9: down comes Dwayne Johnson, movie star. I don't know what
Speaker 9: he has to do with the wrestling people, but there.
Speaker 3: He is, to say nothing of Travis Scott. And then.
Speaker 9: Dwayne and John Cena they look at each other, and
Speaker 9: John Cena it's like it's like he was in a trance,
Speaker 9: the most exciting trance I've ever seen. I've seen people
Speaker 9: in trances, but this was something beyond.
Speaker 3: He had the Frank Silva look in his eyes. He
Speaker 3: looked he looked like Frank Silva as Bob Scary and
Speaker 3: I said, wow wow. And then he kicked the champion
Speaker 3: in the nutsack. He fucked him up, and you could
Speaker 3: tell the people that was the last thing they expected.
Speaker 3: People didn't know it was going to happen.
Speaker 9: This was the most exciting thing I've seen on television
Speaker 9: in twenty five years.
Speaker 3: I had eighteen cigarettes during the whole time. Who and
Speaker 3: a piece of cherry you to find, no doubt. David
Speaker 3: Lynch takes in see the successor to his pompadour. Turning
Speaker 3: on Cody Rhoads available for your Patreon dollar.
Speaker 9: I turned to Kyle. I said, Kyle, that John Cena.
Speaker 9: He's got my hair. He's stealing my hair. Now he's
Speaker 9: got my attention. I've got more of it. I've got
Speaker 9: more of it. Right, have a great day, I said,
Speaker 9: you know, Kyle, thank you for getting me peacock. I
Speaker 9: hope you have a beautiful night. It's good to see you.
Speaker 9: Please don't eat in my house.
Speaker 2: Get a lapsed fan wrestling podcast.
Speaker 1: He's a fan wrestling podcast with Jack and Jo.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean personally, to watch the evolution of the
Speaker 3: David Lynch imitation under the cinemat has been one of
Speaker 3: the great privileges of my life and I hope you're
Speaker 3: sharing with us in it. Over at patreon dot com
Speaker 3: slash the Lapsed Fan. Of course, if you're headed to Mania,
Speaker 3: or if you're headed to any of the Road to
Speaker 3: WrestleMania events, you gotta wear lab Schwag Pro Wrestling T's
Speaker 3: dot com Slash the Lapsed Fan for the full suite
Speaker 3: of our off the top of our head T shirt creations.
Speaker 9: Yes, even when we do have a Twin Peaks line, yes,
Speaker 9: currently out there, so you can get your your Lapsed Peaks,
Speaker 9: your Lapsed Peaks, you can get your what we.
Speaker 3: Do what we do took off. What we do it
Speaker 3: took off. It's still the fucking greatest thing. Oh my god,
Speaker 3: What We dowd continues. That was last year and so
Speaker 3: much more. Of course, the Chopped tea store for your
Speaker 3: higher end apparel needs like like hoodies and pants and
Speaker 3: fanny packs and hats and wonderful things all there for
Speaker 3: you in your consumption cameo. If you want to get
Speaker 3: in touch with any of the rogues gallery of lapsed characters, Yes,
Speaker 3: and put them to use. Maybe there's a maybe there's
Speaker 3: a work. Yes, maybe there's an Easter message or a
Speaker 3: Saint Patrick's Day message you'd like to have delivered by
Speaker 3: one of the lapsed characters or something like that. No
Speaker 3: shortage of ways to elevate your lapsed experience and contribute
Speaker 3: to the pot that makes this this all possible. Do
Speaker 3: you know there is a guy named Patrick Sower who
Speaker 3: once wrote the wrestling album An Oral History. Boss. Oh no,
Speaker 3: we are definitely the beneficiaries of such Oh my god,
Speaker 3: it begins and shout out to him. He published it
Speaker 3: just last year as a matter of fact. Why because
Speaker 3: apparently it landed with enough cultural boom that it warranted
Speaker 3: a look back.
Speaker 11: It is.
Speaker 3: It is a curious piece of pop culture. Ethemera like,
Speaker 3: even if you don't care about wrestling, if you see
Speaker 3: this thing, what's the story here? I'm sure I'm sure
Speaker 3: you do. On November thirtieth, nineteen eighty five, the piece
Speaker 3: begins one of the most original, influential, and inconsequential albums
Speaker 3: and Rock and Roll History debuted at number one hundred
Speaker 3: and seventy four Oh my God on the Billboard Top
Speaker 3: two hundred chart. The record would scratch, claw and eye
Speaker 3: gouge its way to number eighty four, where it remained
Speaker 3: for two weeks in January nineteen eighty six before crashing
Speaker 3: back down on the mat. Wow. But that is not
Speaker 3: where the wrestling and vinyl connection began. The WWF was,
Speaker 3: for all intents and purposes late to this particular party
Speaker 3: we've talked about in forums like the Lapsed Funk how
Speaker 3: there was a pretty robust industry already in Japan. It's
Speaker 3: true Builton around having at least as far as we
Speaker 3: can see, the foreign American wrestlers do record albums such
Speaker 3: as Terry Funk, Hulk Hogan of course, echibanus Hogen Son.
Speaker 3: Hogan Son is number one soon Panson, I mean, I
Speaker 3: mean he under that from paying off the Pacific that
Speaker 3: ended up being the anthem of the whole damn thing
Speaker 3: for Hulkogen in Japan. Abdul the Butcher did a record
Speaker 3: as well when he was a huge superstar in Japanese
Speaker 3: pro wrestling and all over endorsements and advertisements and television
Speaker 3: commercials and things like that. Here in the States, there
Speaker 3: were a couple of record companies that had given it
Speaker 3: a shot before the wrestling album was minted and came out,
Speaker 3: not the least of which was a label called Rhino Records,
Speaker 3: which made its bones doing reissues of Monkeys albums. The Monkeys,
Speaker 3: I think a run around. I didn't. I didn't know that. Actually,
Speaker 3: the Monkeys had kind of a resurgence in the eighties.
Speaker 3: They they were like the rebroadcast the television show The Monkeys,
Speaker 3: which is basically the Beatles, Right, that's what we're supposed
Speaker 3: to be thinking they are like, right, So there's like
Speaker 3: a reissue of them that put this Rhino Records label
Speaker 3: on the public consciousness. We mentioned Novelty Records. Have you
Speaker 3: heard of Damien Demento. You've heard of Damian Demento. I
Speaker 3: know you've heard of him, But doctor Demento. Do you
Speaker 3: know what that is? Yes, you tell the people. I
Speaker 3: don't really know too much. I've heard him. I don't
Speaker 3: really know too much about him. I honestly, I i've
Speaker 3: heard him. I only know him because the Simpsons. Actually,
Speaker 3: oh really, I knew he was a radio personality, but
Speaker 3: he's uh. He's mentioned on The Simpsons a couple of
Speaker 3: times that I remember he gave weird Al his break.
Speaker 3: He's a guy who was based Okay, yeah, all right.
Speaker 3: He was like the first DJ to put out albums
Speaker 3: that were like not music. They were just like like novelties,
Speaker 3: right like these like you know, like the Monster Mash
Speaker 3: kind of stuff.
Speaker 17: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and uh yeah. He had a show called the
Speaker 3: Doctor Demento Show in the seventies and it was a
Speaker 3: place you could listen to crazy ass songs. You know
Speaker 3: that he would that he would surface and give give
Speaker 3: credence to and in the wrestling album. As I'm reading about,
Speaker 3: it kind of fit into that tradition of albums that
Speaker 3: were produced not for artistic merit, but just what if
Speaker 3: we did this? And before that, there is also a
Speaker 3: little cottage industry of doing this with celebrities who weren't
Speaker 3: necessarily who couldn't necessarily carry a tune. But you know,
Speaker 3: you put him in the you put him in there
Speaker 3: with contract musicians for an afternoon and they could just talk,
Speaker 3: you know, the Terry Funk. He's not singing on that thing.
Speaker 3: He just rock and roll. He's just reading off a
Speaker 3: piece of paper. Yeah, and it'll it might sell. And
Speaker 3: early to this particular game was Jesse The Body of Ventura. Mmm, sure,
Speaker 3: one of many hours. Yeah, we've we've heard him and
Speaker 3: he did a rock album as well. Did you did
Speaker 3: you pull this one out during I did for a
Speaker 3: made for TV biography? No, no, I pulled it out
Speaker 3: for I think it was Running Man, Running Man. We
Speaker 3: did Running Man.
Speaker 9: I think that's when I'm pretty sure it was the
Speaker 9: last Jesse movie that we did.
Speaker 3: And here we are in March eighty six. He's starting
Speaker 3: to uh make Vince very uncomfortable with the predator opportunity.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm you know, oh yeah, for sure, that's starting
Speaker 3: to bubble up, just as the body becomes hey, I
Speaker 3: got my union. Yeah, because this is a weeks out
Speaker 3: from the famed WrestleMania Too thing where all the scuttle
Speaker 3: butt was the guys were going to set out WrestleMania
Speaker 3: to get a union done, with Jesse running point and
Speaker 3: a hulk stooged to the effort out to Vince, and
Speaker 3: Vince was able to neutralize it before it ever took shape.
Speaker 3: And so Jesse is starting to spread his wings already
Speaker 3: after becoming oh yes, a national household name as the
Speaker 3: color commentator on Saturday Night's Main Event, which, as we
Speaker 3: covered a few weeks ago, started in May of nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty five. But he got a taste of and I'm
Speaker 3: sure had an ax to grind around WWF, basically copying
Speaker 3: you know. He had a version where he got all
Speaker 3: the money Jesse the Body of Ventura, the Body Rules.
Speaker 3: It was called Slash Showdown with Mister V. It came
Speaker 3: out in nineteen eighty four and it had two tracks
Speaker 3: on it had the Body Rules and Showdown with Mister
Speaker 3: V and written and produced by Mark O'Ryan. Here is
Speaker 3: kind of a progenitor, a forerunner of what the wrestling
Speaker 3: album would become, with a key voice on the wrestling
Speaker 3: album himself, Jesse Ventura. He had it. Turns out he
Speaker 3: already had his reps in of course, a form of
Speaker 3: tracks like this one Body Rules Power. I got speech
Speaker 3: his body every.
Speaker 14: Ring, if.
Speaker 3: If if my RepA when I wrestled. I got the head,
Speaker 3: I got the boos, I got the.
Speaker 7: Raves to get you want trouble, you be sorry.
Speaker 5: We body.
Speaker 14: I got the buyer. I got the buyer.
Speaker 3: Suddenly doesn't seem like it came so far out of
Speaker 3: left field. The wrestling album No not at All, the
Speaker 3: Body Rules, things like this had already been created. And
Speaker 3: in the same year that WWF got Wrestling Album on
Speaker 3: the shelves, the aforementioned Rhino Records came out with a
Speaker 3: compilation called Wrestling Rocks. Really Yes, this is just a
Speaker 3: full track list of songs recorded by wrestlers independent of
Speaker 3: WWF's involvement, such as Pencil Net Geek by Fred Blassie,
Speaker 3: which became which was already as calling card, and the
Speaker 3: issuance of this song on vinyl just further cemented that.
Speaker 3: It's where you might hear a re issuance of the
Speaker 3: NRBQ song Captain Lou Captain Lou Alban which I know
Speaker 3: makes you very happy. Yeah, yeah, I could do without
Speaker 3: that one forever. That's a lot on that. When we
Speaker 3: did the Colosseum home video on Captain Lou as part
Speaker 3: of the Coloseum collection, Captain Captain Pooh Captain Pooh Albana,
Speaker 3: Fred Blassie, King of Men, Exotic Exotic Adrian Street does
Speaker 3: a track on the album called Imagine What I Could
Speaker 3: Do to You? Some of these pre existed How about
Speaker 3: Boogie woogie Man, Jimmy Valliant bringing you son of a
Speaker 3: Gypsy Man? Boss, how about not not a fan? No,
Speaker 3: but here's the taste of what some of those tracks
Speaker 3: sounded like. Again, four runners to the wrestling album. Here's
Speaker 3: Freddy Blassie.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 6: When I was a kid, life was going swell until
Speaker 6: something happened blew everything the hell. That night my daddy
Speaker 6: stumbled in all Dale and weak set a woman up
Speaker 6: the block just gave birth to a geek.
Speaker 5: Mom said, sell it to the circus.
Speaker 4: What the heck?
Speaker 7: Dad said, Nope, this one's a pencil nag.
Speaker 6: And if there's one thing lower than a sideshow freak,
Speaker 6: it's a gritty, scum sucking pencil nag.
Speaker 4: Geek.
Speaker 3: Why did that tickle you? The rhyming I don't know this.
Speaker 3: The rhyming is is hysterically stupid. We go from kind
Speaker 3: of joyous to do you want to hear Jerry Lawler
Speaker 3: try to say, m.
Speaker 14: No, you're looking for growing the right way. You're looking
Speaker 14: for trouble. You write nothing. I was wont to stand enough.
Speaker 3: I'll you back. It was agreed, Well.
Speaker 14: Mess around with.
Speaker 3: Trouble by Jerry the King Lawler. Is that what it's
Speaker 3: called yes you're looking as your teenagers daughter with me
Speaker 3: with me? Yeah, right exactly. No no, no wrestling, no, no,
Speaker 3: no no. We got echoes of this, didn't we During
Speaker 3: the attitude I well remember they would come out with
Speaker 3: these like bootleg wrestling albums, like these fake like knockoff
Speaker 3: versions of the WWF entrance themes and such. Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: this would follow wrestling around for years because it sold
Speaker 3: copies in eighty four and eighty five apparently, So that's
Speaker 3: kind of the uh, that's kind of the conditions. I
Speaker 3: find it kind of wild that there was these precursors
Speaker 3: to the wrestling album, Like WWF wasn't taking a leap
Speaker 3: of faith here and putting this album out. It was like,
Speaker 3: there's already a precedent for this kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess that is true, that it's kind
Speaker 3: of already out there and that, But that's more Vince
Speaker 3: than like creativity. You know. Vince is much more motivated
Speaker 3: by like, wait a minute, somebody else is making money
Speaker 3: in this business, Like I can do it four times better.
Speaker 3: We beat them, right, deacintly, we got to take care
Speaker 3: of that shit. Not my idea, but I can I'm
Speaker 3: offended by somebody you know doing it instead of me.
Speaker 3: So let's get further oriented here. Let's turn to the
Speaker 3: York Daily Record. If we can and what this article
Speaker 3: is going to do. We'll get a couple here. Let
Speaker 3: me try to get myself properly oriented. This is going
Speaker 3: to get us oriented with you know, how WWF is
Speaker 3: being covered at this point in time and some of
Speaker 3: the first mentions of what would become the Wrestling Album.
Speaker 3: We want to know what was going on in music
Speaker 3: at the time as well as what was going on
Speaker 3: at WWF at the time. Sure, so we're going to
Speaker 3: present the Boss with several exhibits to share with you
Speaker 3: on this front. Right, Let's see if I can get
Speaker 3: the right one here. Bere with me. I'm gonna send
Speaker 3: you a few and then I tell you which one
Speaker 3: is to look for. Where is it coming in? It's
Speaker 3: coming in hot No? Is it coming in email? Okay? Yes,
Speaker 3: So let's see what we can what we can learn
Speaker 3: from the Boss here. All right, you're gonna be you're
Speaker 3: gonna be taking a look at the article York Daily Record, Monday,
Speaker 3: December thirtieth, nineteen eighty five. Let me see here is
Speaker 3: this article in the York Daily Record out of York, PA.
Speaker 3: And this is I thought kind of a helpful little compendium,
Speaker 3: including I mentioned of the wrestling album for what's happening
Speaker 3: in the music scene right around the time the wrestling
Speaker 3: album hit storage shelves? What was hot? What was not? Boss?
Speaker 3: All right? Look who ruled? Oh my god, so we're
Speaker 3: talking eighty which what was the date again? Yeah? This
Speaker 3: is December thirtieth, nineteen eighty five, on Monday. He's the
Speaker 3: living section with us be in the top right hand corner.
Speaker 3: Let's see here by Lynn Margolis. Ah, there it is
Speaker 3: all right. I ruled, The Boss ruled at that's right.
Speaker 3: That's what was happening in music area.
Speaker 9: Music scene was dominated by Springsteen's Born in the USA.
Speaker 9: The public clamored for Phil Collins, begged for Brian Adams,
Speaker 9: and went crazy for wrestlers. But when the records, But
Speaker 9: when record stores and radio stations were asked what buyers
Speaker 9: and listeners requested most during nineteen eighty five, their response
Speaker 9: was nearly unanimous. Bruce Springsteen. The Boss Is Born in
Speaker 9: the USA. LP just finished its eightieth week on Billboard
Speaker 9: Magazine's Top ten album list and four out of five
Speaker 9: local records to contacted mentioned it as the top selling
Speaker 9: album of the year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Bruce Springsteen sold really well for us this year.
Speaker 18: Aha, said Walt, said Walt piet trom store manager of
Speaker 18: the West Manchester Mall.
Speaker 3: WEE three record shop. That's catchy.
Speaker 9: The same was true at the Music Merchant in Queensgate
Speaker 9: Shopping Center, at the Listening Booth in York Mall, and
Speaker 9: at Camelot Music also in the West Manchester Mall. Billboards
Speaker 9: year end issue released this week says Springsteen and his
Speaker 9: Eastreet Band had both the hottest selling album and the
Speaker 9: most popular concert tour in nineteen eighty five. Rolling Stone
Speaker 9: also puts Born in the USA at the at the
Speaker 9: top of its top one hundred album chart for nineteen
Speaker 9: eighty five. Rising Lean WYCRFM program director Keith Allen reported
Speaker 9: Springsteen was not a top requested artist at ninety eight
Speaker 9: YCR this year. None of his songs were top request
Speaker 9: songs for this year. Allen said, although the New Jersey
Speaker 9: Rocket had five singles on the charts during nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 9: I love that we need to find a way to
Speaker 9: just take Springsteen down or not.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, we can't, all right, just celebrate him exclusively.
Speaker 9: We have to be objective about it, of course. However,
Speaker 9: Springsteen had two songs in the top ten list of
Speaker 9: requests at Starview ninety two WHTFFM. Glory Days is third
Speaker 9: on that station's list of top ten songs for eighty five,
Speaker 9: and Trapped is number five. According to program director Mike Onadeco,
Speaker 9: this stat station's list of the top ten most requested
Speaker 9: songs in nineteen eighty five is as follows, Money for Nothing,
Speaker 9: Dire Straits from Brothers in Arms, If You Love some Buddy,
Speaker 9: Set Them Free, Sting from the Dream of the Blue Turtles,
Speaker 9: Glory Days, Springsteen from Born in the USA, Little by Little,
Speaker 9: Robert Plant from Shaken and Stirred, Trapped Springsteen USA for
Speaker 9: Africa album That Was Yesterday, Foreigner from Agent Provocateur, Cannonball,
Speaker 9: super Tramp from Brother Where You Bound? Theme from the
Speaker 9: TV series Miami Vice. Wow, That's spectacular.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 9: Jan Hammer from the Miami Vice. Not to be confused
Speaker 9: with Van Hammer from the Miami Vice soundtrack. Small Town,
Speaker 9: Small Town, Small Town, John Cougar, Mellencamp from Scarecrow and
Speaker 9: Power of Love, Huey Lewis and The News from sports.
Speaker 9: Most of the record shops mentioned several of these same
Speaker 9: titles and artists when listing this year's top sellers. Having
Speaker 9: to pick up the phone and call a record store
Speaker 9: in a mall, O, my god, I figure out what
Speaker 9: was selling spectacular Looking at the dumb ass Spotify charts.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep.
Speaker 9: Patron of We three said Money for Nothing was a
Speaker 9: big seller, along with Madonna's Into the Groove extended play.
Speaker 9: Madonna sold well all through the year. Patron reported, great insight.
Speaker 9: Oh yeah, I'll tell you Madonna was fantastic. Just one
Speaker 9: of the you know I I I keep keep track of,
Speaker 9: you know, the numbers and the Madonna just just blew
Speaker 9: them all away.
Speaker 3: I keep track of the numbers. I don't doubt it. Amazingly,
Speaker 3: he was the only source ioped here. Amazingly, he was
Speaker 3: the only source contacted for this story. It says that no,
Speaker 3: I wish more, I wish it stopped there. I wish
Speaker 3: it just amazingly.
Speaker 9: He was the only source contacted for this story to
Speaker 9: mention the artists who wound up first on Billboard's list
Speaker 9: of the top pop artists for nineteen eighty five. Kelly Rhodes,
Speaker 9: record manager at The Listening Booth said the store's biggest
Speaker 9: selling singles included besides Money for Nothing, Hearts Never, Mellencamp's
Speaker 9: Small Town Former Eagle, Glen Fries You Belong to the City,
Speaker 9: and Miami Vice Lionel Richie's Say You Say Me from
Speaker 9: the movie White Knights, and a variety of others. Albums
Speaker 9: and demand of the York Mall store included Tears for Fears,
Speaker 9: songs from So Cheers for Fears, songs from The Biz,
Speaker 9: No Big Chair, the Miami Vice soundtrack, LP Brian Adams, Reckless,
Speaker 9: Motley Cruz, Theater of Pam. That's funny. Hey, that's funny. No,
Speaker 9: because what's his name from Motley Crue? Wasn't he Sidney
Speaker 9: Pam Anderson? But not here, not in eighty five, that's true. Yeah,
Speaker 9: it was in the nineties. Yeah right, Indeed, that's fucking funny. Yes,
Speaker 9: that's really funny, zz Tops, Eliminator, and several heavy metal titles.
Speaker 9: Stephanie Motzo Ball, Soup manager of Camp Kamala Music West
Speaker 9: Manchester Mall stores, said Reckless in Phil Collins No Jacket
Speaker 9: Required were very popular this year.
Speaker 3: Since No Jacket is doing so well face value. An
Speaker 3: earlier Collins album has picked up again, right, Miss Mazzo said,
Speaker 3: mister Mister is really taking off, and so is Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 3: To just pick up, ma'am, try to do an interview,
Speaker 3: she said, referring to the albums Welcome to the Real
Speaker 3: World and how could it be respectively, added Miss Motso,
Speaker 3: the Fat Boys sell really well. It's amazing.
Speaker 11: Wow.
Speaker 9: The three member rap band has recorded two LP's Fat
Speaker 9: Boys and the Fat Boys are back and they're featured
Speaker 9: in a top drawing rap movie, Crush Groove. Soundtracks from
Speaker 9: the movies Saint Elmo's Fire and The Big Chill have
Speaker 9: also been popular, Miss Motso, said Tom Baum, manager of
Speaker 9: the Music Merchant, said Melancamp's recent appearance in Hershey boosted
Speaker 9: his sales locally. He also named releases by Brian Adams,
Speaker 9: Tears for Fears, Zz, Top Dire Straits, Heart, Glen Fry,
Speaker 9: and Phil Collins as the year's heaviest sellers. I also
Speaker 9: heard that King Kong Bundy was one of the year's
Speaker 9: heaviest sellers, as was Peter. But the biggest surprise of
Speaker 9: the year for Baum, miss Matso and other record dealers
Speaker 9: was the Christmas season success of the wrestling album.
Speaker 3: Imagine getting the wrestling album under the tree.
Speaker 9: I mean I would have I would have I would
Speaker 9: have fucking blown you know, I would have fucking creamed
Speaker 9: my pants if that happened.
Speaker 3: Wow, I mean it just would have been like this
Speaker 3: wrestling thing. Yeah, it's like you couldn't buy You couldn't
Speaker 3: be a wrestling fan before this and buy shit like
Speaker 3: that to have. I couldn't have action figures.
Speaker 9: I mean, no, can you imagine, like, like, you know,
Speaker 9: if you were a kid in the seventies watching you know,
Speaker 9: MSG shows, like you wouldn't No, no, you you like
Speaker 9: you could dream of this ship. Yeah, you know you
Speaker 9: dream of this ship.
Speaker 3: Stuff came into existence after huole Caamania, you know, was
Speaker 3: formed so that those earliest hulkamaniacs didn't have a million
Speaker 3: pieces of you know, swat to own. Not at all.
Speaker 3: Fucking crazy wrestling album The Christmas of eighty five.
Speaker 9: Yep, a conglomeration of sounds from everybody who is anybody
Speaker 9: in the wrestling arena. The MTV video hit prompting sales
Speaker 9: of the album is loosely based on the tune Land
Speaker 9: of a Thousand Dances, said Patron. The wrestling album was
Speaker 9: our biggest holiday seller, our biggest holiday seller. That's crazy.
Speaker 3: And then it continues alonely do you have to go
Speaker 3: backwards one not to get the right clip picks up
Speaker 3: with not music? Oh yeah, I gotta yeah, I say
Speaker 3: it's gonna zoom into it.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 9: He reported seeing a lot of parents buying the six
Speaker 9: ninety nine LP for their kids, adding now we sold
Speaker 9: out on almost every and almost we saw that.
Speaker 3: Hold on, he just can I start over again? We
Speaker 3: sold out of it almost every week, yeah, laughing. Petron
Speaker 3: noted that the album was almost universally panned, and he
Speaker 3: recalled Billboard Magazine's comment as sing as they're they're pretty
Speaker 3: good wrestlers, you know, and that's that's fucking that's a hoot.
Speaker 3: That's a fun. Just to be clear, you own a
Speaker 3: record store, right, that's I do.
Speaker 11: I do.
Speaker 3: I own a record store that but you know I do.
Speaker 3: I do read Billboard magazine. You're laughing at wrestling.
Speaker 9: I like to well, absolutely listen. I like to uh,
Speaker 9: I like to listen. I'm a I'm a music specialist
Speaker 9: when first and foremost so you know, I'm a I
Speaker 9: You know this is this is not only my job,
Speaker 9: but my passion.
Speaker 3: I appreciate your tone either. I mean, of the things
Speaker 3: I sell are real, aren't they? I mean, listen, I'm
Speaker 3: I'm selling. I sell real albums.
Speaker 11: I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't, you know, put on fake fights. So let's
Speaker 3: let's just let's cool. The thrust is there, right, thrust?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 3: I can't believe you could be alive at a time
Speaker 3: when like this kind of an article is obliged to
Speaker 3: include the wrestling album. Like they didn't want to put
Speaker 3: that in there, but they had to.
Speaker 9: Of course they have to. You know, when it when
Speaker 9: it's when it when it kind of comes out of nowhere,
Speaker 9: you know that that's it's huge.
Speaker 3: And to think of it competing with Bruce Springsteen, Madonna,
Speaker 3: and Van Halen just too much for me.
Speaker 9: A bizarre belong in that company. Now there they were yep, yep,
Speaker 9: all because of a fucking fad every year.
Speaker 3: Guys back then, especially guys like George Steele and stuff,
Speaker 3: who knew what it was like a decade before this.
Speaker 3: They are now rock stars. It's like the damnedest thing.
Speaker 3: They're doing the same thing they've been doing, you know,
Speaker 3: to pact arenas, but not to national celebrity like that.
Speaker 9: Right, and and right, and they're exactly and and they're
Speaker 9: and they're right. They have an album like what they
Speaker 9: they're on a nationally released album. Of the album's continued success,
Speaker 9: Miss Matso said, added this.
Speaker 3: One I would definitely call amazing. She's talking about the
Speaker 3: wrestling album. Yes, oh my god, she's a pipstart through huh.
Speaker 10: Uh.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm I believe in irony. You didn't say that.
Speaker 3: I love motifylomb You know, I just I think that
Speaker 3: if you view the world with an ironic lens, it
Speaker 3: kind of like, you know, things make more sense that way.
Speaker 3: You know. I believe in irony and ironic symbolism. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I believe in irony, but ironically, I don't believe in
Speaker 3: irony my clothes. What I do believe in, however, is
Speaker 3: the blurring of high and low culture.
Speaker 9: You know, see, where I like to kind of focus
Speaker 9: my energy is where lines are blurred. You know, Oh
Speaker 9: my god, I don't like being on one side or
Speaker 9: the other. I like this kind of like where they blur,
Speaker 9: and wrestling is it kind of obliterates the line between
Speaker 9: high and low art.
Speaker 3: It's like one big blur, hyper theatrical, you know, it's like, right,
Speaker 3: it's think of the pastiche entertainment. But at the same
Speaker 3: time it's athletic. Yet it's like watching a live action cartoon.
Speaker 3: It's like an what it's like an Holian of camp.
Speaker 3: It's just a layer upon layer of pastiche. Do you
Speaker 3: see I mean, like, if you look up pastiche in
Speaker 3: a dictionary, they're going to show a wrestling ring. Just
Speaker 3: think about this. It's wrestlers pretending to not be fighters,
Speaker 3: but pretending to be musicians. Who I mean, but but well,
Speaker 3: but it's their characters. It's wrestlers pretending to be characters
Speaker 3: who are pretending to be musicians.
Speaker 9: Think about that. These are these are men who are
Speaker 9: pretending to be wrestlers. Okay, and it's not like the
Speaker 9: men are the musicians. It's the characters who are the
Speaker 9: rock stars.
Speaker 3: Like whoa, I mean, Budrillard teaches us that, I mean,
Speaker 3: wrestling is already a syml lacrum. You know, I believe
Speaker 3: you know I am. I consider myself to be a
Speaker 3: practicing postmodernist. Well sounds like practicing pediatrist or something, But
Speaker 3: it sounds like a like a clinical practicing postmodernist. You know,
Speaker 3: I have a doctorate in post modernity. So I am
Speaker 3: a doctor of post I'm a doctor postmodernist postmodernomics. But
Speaker 3: I ask you, if wrestling is simulation of a fight,
Speaker 3: doesn't this become a simulation of a simulation this album?
Speaker 3: I mean, if what they do is simulating a you know,
Speaker 3: a sporting athletic endeavor, you know, here the simulation is
Speaker 3: simulating something else. The real is long gone. All that's
Speaker 3: left are layers of performance. I mean, what we're looking
Speaker 3: at this wrestling album is the dawn of artificial intelligence.
Speaker 8: What the fan wrestling podcast He's lapsed fan wrestling podcast.
Speaker 2: With Jack and car and.
Speaker 3: It's it's artificiality creating its own thing, Like like, these
Speaker 3: are not real people, they're characters and they're creating an album.
Speaker 11: What is it?
Speaker 3: What does it mean when someone pretending to be someone
Speaker 3: who's pretending to be someone creates something that doesn't exist?
Speaker 3: The where does it end? Like if from here? What
Speaker 3: if this album like spawned a country? What is this country?
Speaker 3: Like the wrestling album Flag is put down in a
Speaker 3: fictional land and from there a fictional population. Does it
Speaker 3: become real or does it just become or does it
Speaker 3: all the mirrors of collapsing identities? Are we exactly like? Where?
Speaker 3: What is the identity we seek?
Speaker 19: Right?
Speaker 3: That's the question the wrestling album. Let me write, I'm
Speaker 3: writing that down.
Speaker 11: What is.
Speaker 3: The identity we seek? That is the question presented by
Speaker 3: the wrestling album?
Speaker 11: Is it not?
Speaker 1: That?
Speaker 14: Is it?
Speaker 3: Are you done? Nope?
Speaker 9: At Downtown Record Company, one Market Way West, the biggest
Speaker 9: selling LP this year has been Freddie Jackson's rock Meet
Speaker 9: Tonight Wow. The single of the same title is ranked
Speaker 9: number one on Billboard's chart of the Top Black Singles
Speaker 9: for nineteen eighty five. We Are the World both the
Speaker 9: album and single versions. The Bandwagon hunger relief song by
Speaker 9: artists joined together as USA for Africa, also sold well
Speaker 9: at the store, according to manager Patty Grobe. None of
Speaker 9: the other store managers mentioned that song's early nineteen eighty
Speaker 9: five success, but Starview ninety two's on Deaco said Live
Speaker 9: Aid ranked with Springsteen's shows as the top concerts of
Speaker 9: the year. Billboard names Live Aid as the fourth largest
Speaker 9: grossing concert of the year, while listing seventeen Springsteen concerts
Speaker 9: among the top one hundred money making gigs in nineteen
Speaker 9: eighty five. Since area radio stations base play lists partially
Speaker 9: on record store sales, and record sales are based partially
Speaker 9: on radio airplay. It's hard to determine which influences the other. More,
Speaker 9: Patron said his store sells a lot of top forty
Speaker 9: tunes as well as an above average amount of black
Speaker 9: oriented heavy metal music. Top ten very closely parallels to
Speaker 9: national top ten.
Speaker 3: He noted.
Speaker 9: He did mention a few deviations, mainly requests for albums
Speaker 9: by groups popular in local night spots. Those included three
Speaker 9: LPs by Maryland based Kicks and two releases an album
Speaker 9: and an LP an EP rather by The Sharks, a
Speaker 9: Lancaster band. Local record business pros neglected mentioned neglected mention
Speaker 9: of one of the Billboard's top pop duos, Wham, who
Speaker 9: recorded two of the magazine's top three pop singles for
Speaker 9: nineteen eighty five. That feat was equalled only by two
Speaker 9: other artists in the last thirty years, Elvis Presley and
Speaker 9: the Beatles. Nor did programmers or dealers mention another hot
Speaker 9: pair Hollid Oats or Tina Turner or Prince And what
Speaker 9: of last year's hottest artists? Remember Cindy Lauper and Michael Jackson,
Speaker 9: who apparently they're yesterday's news no longer favored buy record
Speaker 9: store customers and radio station listeners here. But that's the
Speaker 9: way the record spin at least in nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 3: Wow, what a time.
Speaker 9: So think about that, Like, ironically, ironically, the wrestling album
Speaker 9: is making more news than Cindy Lauper. Absolutely, that's hilarious.
Speaker 9: And it's her machine behind it. I mean who produced it, exactly,
Speaker 9: Dave Wolf Exactly, Dave Wolfe. He always comes back to
Speaker 9: Dave Wolf. The guy Roddy Piper body slammed after breaking
Speaker 9: the record over Abano's head in Madison Square Garden. The
Speaker 9: cops get involved, and Dave Wolf was Cidi Lauper's manager
Speaker 9: and boyfriend who is a pretty big wrestling fan who
Speaker 9: had gone to the garden throughout his life and gone
Speaker 9: to shows with his parents and stuff. And when he
Speaker 9: gets when he gets in the soup, all of a
Speaker 9: sudden he's suggesting angles bringing in the biggest pop star
Speaker 9: in the country. And yeah, he starts to get a
Speaker 9: little more leeway to suggest more projects, including the wrestling album.
Speaker 9: So let's return here to this after kind of to
Speaker 9: set the table for us oral history piece that lays
Speaker 9: out the history of the Wrestling album by Patrick Sour
Speaker 9: big tip of the cap because he documents a lot
Speaker 9: of stuff and runs down a lot of things that
Speaker 9: no one would ever think to ask about this this album.
Speaker 3: So kudo's there. So Dave Wolf said, my dad was
Speaker 3: a wrestling fan back in the days of Bruno and
Speaker 3: Haystacks Calhoun. Wow, he got me into a young He
Speaker 3: got me into a young six or seven in high school.
Speaker 3: He took me to a match in Stamford, Connecticut, where
Speaker 3: they set up a ring in the football field. I
Speaker 3: was in seventh heaven. Once I started to understand the
Speaker 3: theater of it, wrestling became a passion of mine.
Speaker 19: Of course.
Speaker 3: Cyndi Lauper then releases her debut album She's So Unusual
Speaker 3: in nineteen and eighty three, and we know that girls
Speaker 3: just want to have fun. Video prominently featured leuel Bano,
Speaker 3: who she met on an airplane to Puerto Rico. As
Speaker 3: we've talked about in several forums, including the Colisseum video
Speaker 3: on luell Bano. So that puts her squarely into the
Speaker 3: wrestling world. That's kind of the first dipping of the
Speaker 3: towel in the water. Yeah, and then Dave Wolf brings
Speaker 3: Cindy Laupper to Lenny Petsy, who was an executive producer
Speaker 3: of the Wrestling album as well as Cindy Lappers She's
Speaker 3: so unusual and signed her to Portrait Records out of
Speaker 3: a band she was in called Blue Angel, and they
Speaker 3: really kind of make her a singles star in the
Speaker 3: wrestling parlance. Interesting, and they wanted more of the young
Speaker 3: male demographic buying her record, so they cooked up the
Speaker 3: storyline with Cindy Lapper owing Captain Lleue Albano record royalty.
Speaker 3: And to figure all this out, Wendy Rector, of course,
Speaker 3: being represented as the woman of the eighties by Cindy Lapper,
Speaker 3: takes on the fabulous Mula who was Loue Albano's charge
Speaker 3: slash yeah, the bad girl in the situation and let
Speaker 3: me get into it. The piece includes an interview with
Speaker 3: the drummer on the Wrestling album, a guy by the
Speaker 3: name of Jim Browler who had quite a career across
Speaker 3: top ten Billboard singles. Like everyone in town, he told
Speaker 3: the author, I knew Dave Wolf, who was the link
Speaker 3: between rock and wrestling. He wasn't the only pro wrestling
Speaker 3: fan around though a lot of us grew up with it.
Speaker 3: I watched the old guys in w R Channel nine,
Speaker 3: but nobody talked about wrestling until Dave put it together
Speaker 3: with the music. All of a sudden, guys came out
Speaker 3: of the closet looking around sheepishly until we figured out
Speaker 3: that a bunch of us were wrestling fans. It was
Speaker 3: like cocaine. Nobody admits to want to blow until somebody
Speaker 3: breaks it out and everybody's doing it right want. Everybody
Speaker 3: fucking wants it, but nobody wants to be the one
Speaker 3: to suggest it. That's pro wrestling fandom right there, looking
Speaker 3: at each other like am I in safe company for
Speaker 3: the big reveal?
Speaker 11: Right?
Speaker 3: The big reveal? Yep? So yeah, it's Dave Wolf. I
Speaker 3: mean Cindy Lauper, she likes wrestling, but she's not a
Speaker 3: fan of it. She's not like a a devote It
Speaker 3: was really Dave Wolf who ushered her into this world
Speaker 3: and into this circumstance. So we all know the big
Speaker 3: angle with Dick Clark in the ring and Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, where they broke the record over Lebano's head
Speaker 3: that was supposed to be presented to City Lauper by
Speaker 3: Hogan and stuff for such a wonderful career, and in
Speaker 3: rock and roll, the rock and wrestling connection was born.
Speaker 3: Wolf Telling, the author of this oral history. I don't
Speaker 3: recall the exact chronology, but I came up with the
Speaker 3: idea for the wrestling album. I talked to Lou and
Speaker 3: Roddy about it. They said, great, make a deal with Vince.
Speaker 3: I did, and then went to Epic Records and it
Speaker 3: came together. I hired all the producers, songwriters, musicians, and
Speaker 3: picked the wrestlers. Everyone involved was into it. Of course,
Speaker 3: the participants would include guys like Hillbilly Jim, who's Don't
Speaker 3: Go Messing with a Country Boy was an anthem and
Speaker 3: WW for years, Right Boss passed on to the Godwins
Speaker 3: as well. Yeah, right, Exactly. What's really tough about it
Speaker 3: is that you know, you don't hear it because they
Speaker 3: don't have the rights to it. It's a song that
Speaker 3: somebody else was able to claim rights to. So when
Speaker 3: you watch Peacas, we I don't understand, like, how did
Speaker 3: that happen? I know, how did they lose?
Speaker 9: Just that they well, well not only that they're there,
Speaker 9: are they're well they also don't have uh eat them
Speaker 9: cakes or whatever the fuck they're Oh, that's true. Yes,
Speaker 9: they don't have that in case we grab them cakes
Speaker 9: right right, Like, you know, I don't understand how they
Speaker 9: can own the album but not own these songs.
Speaker 3: Every song, Yeah, I mean it's I'm sure there was
Speaker 3: different deals cut with every songwriter and guest vocalists and whoever.
Speaker 3: You know, in some cases the song rights were disputed.
Speaker 3: In some cases perhaps it was unquestioned that WWF had
Speaker 3: dominion over them. They're still I mean, I'm sure that
Speaker 3: there's probably legal ship up the wazoo. But like you'd
Speaker 3: think you'd think that they would want to own all
Speaker 3: their ship. Yeah, you think that that would have been
Speaker 3: a thing over the course of the years that Vince
Speaker 3: would have wanted to do. Probably happened to They thought
Speaker 3: they had the rights in their primitive legal department at
Speaker 3: the time, and then somebody. It just took someone to
Speaker 3: contest it and then I call fuck it, you know. So,
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know that again, it just seems weird,
Speaker 3: like why not you know, own that shit. I don't know,
Speaker 3: it just seems weird. We'll get more color as we go.
Speaker 3: Dave Wolf saying, Vince Love the basic concept, so he
Speaker 3: gave me free reign, but we also collaborated. He sat
Speaker 3: down and pointed out things that should be tweaked. In
Speaker 3: the early days we had a great working relationship. It
Speaker 3: didn't last. Everything changes with that guy, but while making
Speaker 3: the wrestling album, we had fantastic rapport. It's a novelty album.
Speaker 3: Wolf continued, But novelty can't be done right if it
Speaker 3: isn't treated with respect. If the idea is better than
Speaker 3: the execution, then you have nothing. I couldn't do things,
Speaker 3: halp hazardly. I was committed down to the last detail.
Speaker 3: Silliness requires serious thought beforehand to flourish. No Dave Wolf
Speaker 3: coming with the philosophy. Huh oh yeah, absolute silliness requires
Speaker 3: serious thought beforehand to flourish. I think I know a
Speaker 3: podcast that serves as proof of concept there, huh right?
Speaker 3: Or is they Jimmy Hard as well? And he's an asset,
Speaker 3: I mean, you know with the Gentries. He had been
Speaker 3: a rock musician for decades and it was actually had
Speaker 3: a hit song in the sixties before even getting involved
Speaker 3: as a professional wrestling manager in the Memphis territory, which
Speaker 3: being a Memphis native and making his name in music city.
Speaker 3: You know, knew quite a bit about it and had
Speaker 3: done all kinds of music on Memphis wrestling television before
Speaker 3: ever coming to WWF, so he was perfectly positioned to
Speaker 3: help we see him actually perform a live concert, don't we,
Speaker 3: Boss at the Slammies.
Speaker 12: Hmm?
Speaker 3: Indeed, heart putting it down for us. So he what
Speaker 3: a weird? What a weird? I mean, because you know
Speaker 3: they're not singing live? Well do you mean they're live singing?
Speaker 3: You mean? Yeah, yeah, it was broadcast live on MTV
Speaker 3: from the Uh well that that I believe.
Speaker 9: But you know that they weren't actually singing, right, it
Speaker 9: looks like it, I mean, it suddenly becomes like a
Speaker 9: very polished sound.
Speaker 3: We gotta remember before Millie Vanilli, people weren't as people
Speaker 3: were much more credulous, you know, people weren't as weren't
Speaker 3: as good at listening for the difference. That kind of
Speaker 3: fascinates me actually, like a time in America where people
Speaker 3: actually couldn't appreciate whether you were lip syncing or not,
Speaker 3: whereas now it's like there's never any doubt. So Dave Wolf,
Speaker 3: one of the driving forces is that I wanted every
Speaker 3: wrestler to have their own walk in theme music. Before
Speaker 3: the wrestling album, it was always Eye of the Tiger
Speaker 3: or something like that. Why not give these guys their
Speaker 3: own unique songs. I didn't audition anyone. I went with
Speaker 3: my gut feeling. Roddy was interesting because he was my friend,
Speaker 3: but I wasn't entirely sure he could handle it. I
Speaker 3: knew he would get uptight if it wasn't going well,
Speaker 3: so he'd feel real, he'd feel insecure, and we wouldn't
Speaker 3: get authentic Roddy Piper. The song was perfect for him
Speaker 3: and he nailed it. Funny thing the song is actually
Speaker 3: what's it actually called boss? The song he does on
Speaker 3: the album, it's called for Everybody. Oh, it was inspired
Speaker 3: by the real song called for Nobody, Fuck Everybody, Fuck
Speaker 3: Fuck Everybody, which is a song by Mike Angelo and
Speaker 3: the Idols. That's amazing that had come around this point
Speaker 3: in time. So yeah, there's a lot of that on
Speaker 3: the wrestling album. You know, the Land of a Thousand Dances,
Speaker 3: you know, has a progenitor. It has a version of
Speaker 3: it from whatever it was Swing days. We'll get to it,
Speaker 3: but on the record, it's for Everybody, Wolf says the
Speaker 3: way he sang it, it sounds like the original version.
Speaker 3: Everybody got the point, he says. We wrote some songs.
Speaker 3: Other guys picked classics, like means gen Oakerland who covered
Speaker 3: two Dy Fruity okraland could really sing. So could Mouth
Speaker 3: of the South, who did Eat Your Heart out. Rick Springfield,
Speaker 3: you know, said this was the thing.
Speaker 9: I never I never. I always wondered why tooty Fruity
Speaker 9: was his song. I never understood where the connection was
Speaker 9: because I remember him coming down in more you know,
Speaker 9: mean Gene coming down in more recent years, like since
Speaker 9: like WW closed, and they'd introduce him and he had
Speaker 9: come down to touty Fruity.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I don't get it, right, Why, what the
Speaker 3: fuck is this song all about? For him?
Speaker 11: Right?
Speaker 3: I had no idea. I had no idea if this
Speaker 3: was it. It's it where it comes from. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of that with the wrestling album and the first Slam,
Speaker 3: he said, connects a lot of the pieces of why, Yes,
Speaker 3: the presentation of these big stars of the rock and
Speaker 3: wrestling era was such as it was, it did come
Speaker 3: down to this, Yeah, tooty Fruity Oakland really singing soaking
Speaker 3: Mouth of the South, who did the song eat your
Speaker 3: Heart Out, Rick Springfield, Jimmy Hart. Dave Wolf says had
Speaker 3: been part of a band called The Gentries, who had
Speaker 3: a Top five hit Keep On Dancing. He was a
Speaker 3: real rocker. Nikolai Volkoff was deadly serious about kadamia. He
Speaker 3: had a somewhat operatic voice, stayed in pitch and could
Speaker 3: really belt it out. And he also was very serious
Speaker 3: about diarrhea. Yea, he could belt a lot of things out.
Speaker 3: He also delch a lot of things out. It's true, yes,
Speaker 3: but according to Dave Wolf, it was heartfelt perfect. It's
Speaker 3: turned to h to Jimmy Art for a quick insight
Speaker 3: into what he's been up to during this point in time.
Speaker 3: This is from his book. When I was hired by
Speaker 3: the WWF, Vince told me he wanted to do music
Speaker 3: for the company. Wanted me to do music for the
Speaker 3: company as well as the in ring stuff, which is
Speaker 3: exactly what I wanted to do. I'd been putting rock
Speaker 3: and wrestling together since the late seventies when I cut
Speaker 3: that song and video for Handsome Jimmy Valliant. So that song,
Speaker 3: that Jimmy Valliant song, and that Rhino Records thing that
Speaker 3: compilations was from the seventies and Memphis Hackett's What Wow
Speaker 3: really started everything, Jimmy Hart says, but the WWF took music,
Speaker 3: like everything else, to a new level once again. It
Speaker 3: was the difference between flying first class and riding four
Speaker 3: to a car in Memphis. Cindy Lauper, the pop star
Speaker 3: who had hits with girls Just Want to Have Fun
Speaker 3: and True Colors, brought the WWF rock and roll credibility.
Speaker 3: A huge fan of Captain Leewell Banel, one of Vince's
Speaker 3: wrestlers and managers, Lauper got Vince to let her use
Speaker 3: lou in a video. One thing led to another, and
Speaker 3: before you knew it, the WWF was doing promotion with
Speaker 3: MTV Rock and Wrestling. As I already knew, messed together perfectly.
Speaker 3: Cindy was managed by her boyfriend Dave wolf and he
Speaker 3: was friends with Dick Clark. I think they all approached
Speaker 3: Vince with the idea of marrying her stuff with the
Speaker 3: w w F, and eventually a storyline was created that
Speaker 3: would get her involved in the first WrestleMania. Later, Dave
Speaker 3: Wolfe decided time was right to do a wrestling album.
Speaker 3: M he approached me, Jimmy, I know that you sing.
Speaker 3: Have you got a song for it? Yeah? I said,
Speaker 3: I've got a song called Eat Your Heart Out. Rick
Speaker 3: Springfield Springfield was one of the hottest crossover stars of
Speaker 3: the early eighties. He had a hit record with Jesse's
Speaker 3: Girl and a starring role in the soap opera General Hospital.
Speaker 3: I didn't know Rick Springfield was on General Hospital. I
Speaker 3: didn't know that either. Anyway, that record, which was called,
Speaker 3: appropriately enough, the Wrestling Album, was pretty bizarre, even by
Speaker 3: w w F standards. Jimmy Hart right, Captain Lou Albano
Speaker 3: did a track on the history of wrestling means You Oakerland,
Speaker 3: one of our announcers, performed Tudy Fruity, the old Little
Speaker 3: Richard hit, Nikolai Volkoff sang Kairamia. Rick Deringer also featured
Speaker 3: on one tune. So there was some solid music on there.
Speaker 3: It's been re released a couple of times and it's
Speaker 3: still available. Yeah, they did. They put it out on
Speaker 3: CD not too long ago. Actually, I remember getting the
Speaker 3: Resting Album on CD. Very strange reissue because if I
Speaker 3: remember right, it was done kind of before they had
Speaker 3: their nostalgia wave. They put it out like at the
Speaker 3: tail end of the Attitude era. What is this back
Speaker 3: on the shelves for it was so bizarre.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I remember that too. I remember it being kind
Speaker 9: of in a weird and maybe they Yeah, I don't
Speaker 9: know why. Yeah, I don't know why they do that,
Speaker 9: but I do remember that.
Speaker 3: A second record, pile Driver too, which we'll get to.
Speaker 3: The nineteen eighty seven Slammy Awards is very much tied
Speaker 3: up on the pile Driver album, which was their second release.
Speaker 3: And I didn't even fucking know they had two fucking
Speaker 3: night albums. It's the one with hul Cogan with a
Speaker 3: construction hat on the cover of it. It's right, And
Speaker 3: that'll make a perfect entree when we get to that
Speaker 3: Colisseum home video On the Colisseum collection, there's a pile
Speaker 3: Driver Colosseum home video release that includes or at least
Speaker 3: a coincident with the eighty seven slammings. And that one's
Speaker 3: a lot more famous interesting than the first one, right
Speaker 3: because it has Vince doing stand back, just him just
Speaker 3: going completely insane and a leisure just losing his fucking mind.
Speaker 3: What is he doing? I mean again, talking.
Speaker 9: Talking prophetically, well, talk about cocaine, right, all right, that's
Speaker 9: that's it right there, jesus.
Speaker 3: A lot of Vince documentaries, including the Netflix one, made
Speaker 3: a lot of hay out of that performance and the
Speaker 3: lyrics contained therein for sure, as they should. But the
Speaker 3: Hogan was actually at that one playing bass. If you've
Speaker 3: ever seen that clip of Hogan playing bass on like
Speaker 3: a stage, right, it's from the eighty seven to eighty
Speaker 3: six Slammies. That one also has the famous Hardley Race
Speaker 3: Jim Duggan brawl where they brawl all over the place,
Speaker 3: not unlike the brawl that breaks out here. The idea
Speaker 3: was like, you know, what if an award show broke
Speaker 3: down into complete chaos, you know, and all the actors
Speaker 3: or all the singers just started punching each other on stage.
Speaker 3: That's that's Vince's big idea, going back to the fucking
Speaker 3: Uncle Elmer wedding and the Mother's Day.
Speaker 9: Right case, It's always about these like events like this
Speaker 9: fucking breaking down, yeah, and.
Speaker 3: These animals just being unleash. Right. A second record, Pile Driver,
Speaker 3: was released in nineteen eighty eight. I stumbled, oh no,
Speaker 3: Jimmy Hart, I didn't know this. I submitted the demolition
Speaker 3: theme song. Did you know? The Demolition theme song is
Speaker 3: on that on Pile Driver. Now, yeah, I think I
Speaker 3: knew that one and crank it out that, both of
Speaker 3: which Rick Deringer was on guitar for. Rick Deringer's on
Speaker 3: guitar for Hulk Cogan's Real American as well. Right right,
Speaker 3: So he also brings us hang Hangs, Hang Pangs, Hang
Speaker 3: Tang good for him, as well as Honky signature tune
Speaker 3: hon Ko Honker Tonky Man Hunker what no hunka Honka
Speaker 3: Honky talk Man. They took my demos, Jimmy Wrights cut
Speaker 3: the tracks and included all three songs on the album.
Speaker 3: My work earned a couple of awards from Sea Sack,
Speaker 3: a company that licenses music performance rights. I went to
Speaker 3: the awards prison during Country Music Week in Nashville. It
Speaker 3: made a brief acceptance speech. This is a lot more fun,
Speaker 3: I said, than getting beer thrown on me every night. Eventually,
Speaker 3: Rhino Records put together a compilation of old wrestling music. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it wasn't eventually, Jimmy. It was actually I think pretty
Speaker 3: much at the same time or even slightly before the
Speaker 3: release of the wrestling album called Wrestling Rocks. They included
Speaker 3: Son of a Gypsy, which is one of Jimmy Hart's
Speaker 3: songs and ever since, no matter where I've worked, my
Speaker 3: music's been on every wrestling album. JJ McGuire, who co
Speaker 3: wrote a lot of my wrestling stuff, was in my
Speaker 3: second group of Gentries. My booking agency had called me
Speaker 3: when I was looking to put together that band and
Speaker 3: said they had a guy who could play just about
Speaker 3: anything bass and drums and keyboards that would be perfect
Speaker 3: for the band. I hired him right away and he
Speaker 3: stayed with me through the years. Everything had come full
Speaker 3: circle from the Gentries to wrestling and in a way
Speaker 3: back again. You didn't Nikolai Volkov's grandfather was an opera singer.
Speaker 3: Boss I did not know that as you see him
Speaker 3: belt out the opera here on the wrestling album, don't
Speaker 3: you Yeah? Yeah you do? You do? You impressed? As
Speaker 3: an Italian man? Uh, you know, he's fine. I don't know,
Speaker 3: like it's not not the finest sound we've ever heard
Speaker 3: come out of his mouth. No, No, I think I
Speaker 3: know what that would be.
Speaker 9: You're not exactly operatic, but it's uh, you know, he's fine.
Speaker 9: You know, he's got he's got that kind of like
Speaker 9: you know, this is what an opera singer is. Supposed
Speaker 9: to sound like hard or horror horr, you know, like
Speaker 9: like creating an operatic sound when it's like okay that
Speaker 9: you know, you don't really have that talent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you're like you're like mimicking it almost right, right,
Speaker 3: he tells. The author of the oral history piece, does
Speaker 3: Nikolai Volkov. My grandfather was an opera singer, and I
Speaker 3: like classical music myself. My grandfather took me to his
Speaker 3: teacher for a singing lesson, but I see all my
Speaker 3: friends outside swimming in summertime. One lesson was enough for
Speaker 3: me because he wanted to swim. I guess what he's
Speaker 3: trying to say in his somewhat broken English. I still
Speaker 3: feel good going into the studio after David told me
Speaker 3: to sing Karameia, even though I have one day to
Speaker 3: learn it, the guy said, do it again, do it again.
Speaker 3: We did it ten times to get the timing in
Speaker 3: the tempo. They had present professionals who knew what to do.
Speaker 3: So on Karamia, I think I did a good job.
Speaker 3: As for Grab Them Cakes, that was a song that
Speaker 3: David Wolf had written in the disco days of the
Speaker 3: early seventies or the late seventies. Rather you know.
Speaker 9: I actually, you know, it's a good song. Yeah, it's
Speaker 9: pretty good. I like a good funk song, so it
Speaker 9: was fun. There's plenty of boooo right there. Yeah, it's
Speaker 9: got a nice little, you know, bassline going.
Speaker 3: Do you know who his co singer is in that song?
Speaker 3: Have you heard of Vicky Sue Robinson? I don't know her.
Speaker 3: She's on stage with Junkyard Dog in the eighty sixth Lamies,
Speaker 3: which is actually more of a coup than you would think.
Speaker 3: Have you ever heard turn the Beat Around? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's her. That's her. It's her, no shit, okay. And
Speaker 3: she performed with the Junkyard Dog here on the Wrestling
Speaker 3: album and on the Slammies. Yes, she had quite a
Speaker 3: career beyond that, but that was really her her number
Speaker 3: one hit and as mentioned, don't go messing with the
Speaker 3: Country Boy. This was penned by, according to the oral
Speaker 3: History piece, two pedigreed songwriters by the name of Marshall
Speaker 3: Chapman and Doc Pomus, and it's still as of recently.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's still the case to this day,
Speaker 3: but as of just a few years ago it would
Speaker 3: still play all the time on Serious XM as the
Speaker 3: opening song for a serious XM show called Moonshine Matinee
Speaker 3: Really Yep, which is a weekly serious XM radio show
Speaker 3: hosted by one of the two authors of the song.
Speaker 3: And that's got to be Wow, Why this one's all
Speaker 3: tied up in weirdness?
Speaker 17: You know?
Speaker 3: Yeah, they must own that one. And if grab them
Speaker 3: cakes has the woman from Turn the Beat Around on it.
Speaker 3: I'm sure she got herself some rights too. I mean,
Speaker 3: I guess I just maybe, you know, go and use it,
Speaker 3: use it on the slammies, use it on the album.
Speaker 3: But like Forever More on, you know, a million entrances
Speaker 3: of the Hillbilly Jim and the Godwins across your entire
Speaker 3: video catalog? Do you have to pay for that? You
Speaker 3: know that wasn't contemplated by the original deal. That's my guess.
Speaker 9: It's just kind of funny, like you know, I mean,
Speaker 9: I know that it constantly costs money, as you know,
Speaker 9: but it just seems weird, like you'd think, I don't know,
Speaker 9: they used it throughout the fucking nineties, right, Like you'd think, like, no,
Speaker 9: I'm not going to do that either, you know, why
Speaker 9: do it?
Speaker 4: Then?
Speaker 12: Like?
Speaker 11: What is it?
Speaker 4: Then?
Speaker 9: On weekly television but now that it's streaming, and you know,
Speaker 9: from when I've gathered, streaming royalties are significantly less, yes,
Speaker 9: than you know, broadcast royalties. So like just how to understand, Like,
Speaker 9: what's what's the big deal? Yeah, so I'm sure there's
Speaker 9: gonna be some other kind of always assume that it's
Speaker 9: just she didn't complain about it until later. You know,
Speaker 9: they just did it for years without her ever complaining
Speaker 9: and then somehow that hit into it unless she Yeah,
Speaker 9: I don't know, Well, it's really it's country Boys that
Speaker 9: I'm talking about. Country Boys has played a lot more
Speaker 9: than grab them ass cakes?
Speaker 3: Hey, Yeah, what are the cakes anyway? And that's song
Speaker 3: I don't ten know, Like are they is it ass cheeks?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: Is it actual cakes? Are we grabbing cakes? I mean
Speaker 3: looking at Junkyard Dog's waistline the Junk Food Dog in
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty five, and.
Speaker 9: He listen, listen, listen, he ain't grabbing them. He's just
Speaker 9: devouring them cakes. Grab them Swiss cake rolls, right, but yes,
Speaker 9: grab them cockcas Till Billy Jim tells the author of
Speaker 9: the oral history piece, I'm from the South, so I
Speaker 9: learned to play guitar and sing at nine years old,
Speaker 9: way back when I would go out and do little gigs.
Speaker 9: I didn't enjoy the hassle of it all that much,
Speaker 9: so I didn't stick with it. But the background helped
Speaker 9: me both of my careers, wrestling and radio. Yeah, he
Speaker 9: wanted to be a radio hosted hill Willi Jim did
Speaker 9: he really?
Speaker 3: Yeah? He would actually be. I think on that Moonshine
Speaker 3: Matinee'd be involved in that. I'm happy I came along
Speaker 3: at the right time. He says, if you missed the sixties,
Speaker 3: you've got a hole in your musical soul. Point is,
Speaker 3: I've been a big music fan my whole life. So
Speaker 3: the first time I read the lyrics they sent me
Speaker 3: for Don't Go Messing with a Country Boy, I said,
Speaker 3: oh man, this sucks. I don't want to do this.
Speaker 3: It's hokey as hell. That was the whole point, Jim,
Speaker 3: of the whole fucking thing, right, And here, in a
Speaker 3: Shoots interview he did years later with Hannibal, He'll Billy
Speaker 3: Jim reflex on you know, as as goofy as it
Speaker 3: might have been, this w F music experiment put some
Speaker 3: trophies on his wall that some really great musicians never had.
Speaker 7: The first song that I did, that don't go messing
Speaker 7: with a country boys song.
Speaker 20: I did part of that in New York and I
Speaker 20: finished it with a great late producer, Joel dorn Over
Speaker 20: in Philadelphia, and they had the band on there that
Speaker 20: played it was Joel Wiseburn and Deliverance.
Speaker 7: You know, there was a great movie out called Deliverance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, years ago were Reynolds and.
Speaker 7: U and John Boyd and that song. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 7: same wow, same guy did that. They're the ones who
Speaker 7: did the track on me. And of course Marshall Marshall Chapman,
Speaker 7: she's the one who wrote it.
Speaker 2: Her and U.
Speaker 7: Maybe Shelf Silverstein had something to do with.
Speaker 3: It in Nashville.
Speaker 20: But it's funny how those things happen. I mean, you know,
Speaker 20: with and with studios and stuff like that. There's a
Speaker 20: lot of that going. You never even see those things.
Speaker 20: Assistant was kind of a one off thing that I
Speaker 20: just had a dream about. You you know, that waking
Speaker 20: up along thing. It's kind of a little cool thing
Speaker 20: about the road. I didn't enjoy it as much, of course,
Speaker 20: as I did that don'tal message country boy thing, because
Speaker 20: I heard it all the time and it was my
Speaker 20: theme thing, you know, all over the world with that,
Speaker 20: and he had that, he'll be a Jim Temple thing.
Speaker 3: You knew what was happening, you know.
Speaker 7: And it's funny how people get those things. It's funny.
Speaker 20: I've often been around the country like we do, and
Speaker 20: you know, when you're got you go eat at night,
Speaker 20: maybe if there's a little restaurant there and a little lounge,
Speaker 20: you go in and see acts and musicians and entertainers,
Speaker 20: and you find just find sometimes around the country you
Speaker 20: find some of the greatest entertainers that are just struggling
Speaker 20: a little funny far away towns that you never go to.
Speaker 20: And then you and I'll be thinking, you know, set
Speaker 20: here I am. I've got two gold records for songs
Speaker 20: that I did on those wrestling album wrestling albums and
Speaker 20: Pile Driver on Epic records on my wall and home,
Speaker 20: and here are these great musicians.
Speaker 7: These guys are playing and singing and and they'll never
Speaker 7: even get a look at It's all about being the
Speaker 7: right place at the right time.
Speaker 4: Right the fan.
Speaker 2: Wrestling podcast, He's Fan Wrestling Podcast.
Speaker 3: With Jack and well, at least he gets it. At
Speaker 3: least he's not claiming here it was a musical genius. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: that must burn your ass if you work your ass
Speaker 3: off in.
Speaker 9: Music along idiots. I mean, I'm that's gonna be the
Speaker 9: way for anybody. I mean, you know, I mean, I'm sure,
Speaker 9: I'm sure with the with the wrestlers, it probably hit
Speaker 9: a little bit harder. But I mean, you can I
Speaker 9: can imagine any kind of journeyman performer or musician just
Speaker 9: trying their fucking hardest and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 9: some fucking one hit wonder comes out and ugh, you know,
Speaker 9: it's like gonna be miserable, not even.
Speaker 3: One who wonder. Like these guys are any musicians, They're
Speaker 3: like being forced Well I know I'm saying this is
Speaker 3: gonna but I'm what I was trying to say is
Speaker 3: that I'm sure it's not uncommon for musicians to kind
Speaker 3: of like feel that way, but it must hurt a
Speaker 3: little extra when these bozos do it. Right. Yeah, they're
Speaker 3: being ushered into the music business. They're not even like
Speaker 3: trying and like landing on a hit because they're goofballs, right,
Speaker 3: They're being forced to show up at a studio and
Speaker 3: lay down a track that they don't even want to do.
Speaker 3: And that's one of the biggest records of nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 3: and that goes double gold in Canada. And like he said,
Speaker 3: he's got he's got old records on his wall. And
Speaker 3: can you imagine, you know, the caliber of musical talent
Speaker 3: that wasn't able to get that, And there's goofy ass.
Speaker 3: Hillbilly Jim. Here's one of the writers of the song,
Speaker 3: recounting a conversation with his co author or her co author.
Speaker 3: I think it is uh yeah, in her memoir it's
Speaker 3: called Goodbye Little Rock and Roller. I've got just the
Speaker 3: right person standing right here in my apartment. She's a
Speaker 3: terrific songwriter. Yeah, from Nashville, knows all about country music. Yeah,
Speaker 3: no problem, Okay. After hanging up the phone, Poem has
Speaker 3: turned to Chapman and said, you're not gonna believe the shit.
Speaker 3: They're wanting a song for some wrestler, a guy named
Speaker 3: Hillbilly Jim. It's Cindy Lauper's people. They're doing an album
Speaker 3: of singing wrestlers. They've got Hulk Hogan and everybody, but
Speaker 3: they want a theme song for this Hillbilly Jim guy.
Speaker 3: Something you shoot me in the head please, something like
Speaker 3: fucking kill Me the Ballad of Davy Crockett, and I
Speaker 3: went and listened to the Ballad of Davy Crockett, and
Speaker 3: I can definitely hear the influence. Yep, you up for it.
Speaker 3: We wrote it, Chapman says, in like fifteen minutes. Oh,
Speaker 3: I spent that long on it. Don't go messing with
Speaker 3: a country boy. They wanted to go messing with a
Speaker 3: country bitch. Yes, he'll billy. Jim was pissed actually because
Speaker 3: he thought he kind of came off like a hillbilly
Speaker 3: bitch in the song. He says, Marshall Chapman didn't know
Speaker 3: me from a monkey and a damn zoo. She just
Speaker 3: happened to walk through the door. That's how it happened.
Speaker 3: I bet more big things started out Kookie than you'd
Speaker 3: ever believe. So he's definitely Marshall Chapman, who he's calling
Speaker 3: a monkey and a damn zoo, is somebody that definitely
Speaker 3: has something to do with why he doesn't have writes
Speaker 3: to the song because he's very sour about Marshall in
Speaker 3: this interview. That's really funny. Chapman says they wanted a
Speaker 3: theme song for a wrestler in bib overalls. I didn't
Speaker 3: watch wrestling, so I just wanted the Davy crocketty idea,
Speaker 3: a backstory, killed a bear when he was only three,
Speaker 3: et cetera. I also thought of the old folks song
Speaker 3: about John Henry, about how strong he was, so I
Speaker 3: wrote the lyric. When I was a little bit boy baby,
Speaker 3: I cut my teeth on a big old tree. He'll
Speaker 3: billy Jim, He'll billy Gims. H'll billy Jim. Still gives
Speaker 3: me shit about that line, but it scanned well. He'll
Speaker 3: billy Jim. My character was a big old guy from
Speaker 3: mudliy Kentucky who wasn't supposed to be sharp or worldly.
Speaker 3: I didn't have fancy moves. I had a gimmick. I'm
Speaker 3: a country boy. I read the sophomoric lyrics and knew
Speaker 3: what they were doing. There was one good part. They
Speaker 3: got the guy who played the fiddle and Deliverance do
Speaker 3: my music. So I went in and did my thing.
Speaker 3: Hill Billy said, I gotta have fiddles in her memoir.
Speaker 9: I like how that's exciting. The guy who fucking did
Speaker 9: the deliverance theme or whatever.
Speaker 3: That's not cool to you.
Speaker 9: I mean, it wouldn't, it wouldn't I wouldn't care, like
Speaker 9: I don't know, Like I don't know, that wouldn't be
Speaker 9: a big deal to me, like having I mean, listen,
Speaker 9: I guess it would be cool, but I wouldn't probably
Speaker 9: make notice. Like if I did a song and the
Speaker 9: trumpet player who did the Godfather theme fucking like I
Speaker 9: was like, Oh, that's pretty cool, but I'm like, I
Speaker 9: don't I don't think i'd make note of that. I
Speaker 9: was like, you know, I would only tell people who
Speaker 9: you know, I can tell my dad that story because it's.
Speaker 3: Like because it's almost funny now, because yeah, right right,
Speaker 3: Like I don't know, it's a weird thing to almost
Speaker 3: brag about, right. And her memoir, Chapman said Poem has
Speaker 3: told her it sounds real stupid. We'll probably make a
Speaker 3: shitload of money, Billy Jim. As years went by, I realized,
Speaker 3: don't go message to the country Boy is the wrong
Speaker 3: chord for me. I think it was a lo G
Speaker 3: should have been.
Speaker 8: A d.
Speaker 3: How about an F Here's the director of the Land
Speaker 3: of a Thousand Dances, which is the video with all
Speaker 3: the wrestlers. They perform it at the end of the Slammys,
Speaker 3: but they had a video come out before that of
Speaker 3: them doing it, and they play it on the Slamy
Speaker 3: Awards broadcast as well. His name is Ed Grillis. He says,
Speaker 3: I worked with Cyndi Laupper for a long time, going
Speaker 3: back to her band Blue Angel. I directed the videos
Speaker 3: for Girls Just Want to Have Fun. She bop in
Speaker 3: time after time. So yeah, the guy who did the
Speaker 3: Land of a Thousand Dances WWF wrestling album video did
Speaker 3: Girls Just Want to Have Fun and time after time
Speaker 3: as well. Okay, I had my own connection to wrestling
Speaker 3: apart from that, I spent six months tried to get.
Speaker 9: But I guess I mean, I wonder why Land of
Speaker 9: a Thousand Dances. Yeah, of all the songs, weird song,
Speaker 9: of all the songs to cover, it's a weird song
Speaker 9: to cover.
Speaker 3: That's weird. But like I mean, I don't know. To me,
Speaker 3: that's just not one that I would have thought of
Speaker 3: to cover. It does have that kind of like, you know,
Speaker 3: it sets up nicely for like a huge ensemble because
Speaker 3: like everyone can come in with like the wrestling funs. Yeah,
Speaker 3: on each it is weird, like it is weird. Oh
Speaker 3: it's great, I like it.
Speaker 20: I like it.
Speaker 9: Nah no, no, no, no, I love that song, but
Speaker 9: it's it's just a weird. I don't know, it's weird
Speaker 9: to me that that would be a song that they
Speaker 9: would choose.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, there's not quite clarity on how that song
Speaker 3: ended up being these songs for the moment, but yeah,
Speaker 3: I agree with you, it did click into place. And
Speaker 3: you know when you were reading that article about what
Speaker 3: was hot music in nineteen eighty five and they mentioned
Speaker 3: we are the world, That's what I think of when
Speaker 3: I see this, right, you know, putting all those music
Speaker 3: stars together in one stage.
Speaker 9: I don't understand what the they change the title to
Speaker 9: with adding a question mark, and two I don't understand
Speaker 9: why they do that, Like what the purpose of that was?
Speaker 9: Question mark for a land of a thousand for lant
Speaker 9: of thousand dances? They like they they they technically changed
Speaker 9: the title by adding a question that he goes land
Speaker 9: of a thousand dances question mark exclamation point, exclamation point,
Speaker 9: question mark.
Speaker 3: That is so weird. I don't know what that does
Speaker 3: to the song. Well described me the state of my
Speaker 3: fucking psychology when I'm listening to the song, right, my
Speaker 3: guess that's probably it ed grills, The director writes, I
Speaker 3: spent six months trying to get Vince McMahon to work
Speaker 3: on a movie with me, a movie with me. He
Speaker 3: finally agreed, and we went to all the major Hollywood
Speaker 3: studios trying to get them to do a wrestling film.
Speaker 3: We tried for a couple of years. It wasn't happening,
Speaker 3: but it was another project we explored in The Madness. Wow,
Speaker 3: I don't want that would be like I wonder what
Speaker 3: he do, because you know, it would be just another
Speaker 3: like marketing thing. It would it wouldn't be like a
Speaker 3: really serious movie. It would just be like Hulk Hogan
Speaker 3: and a million other wrestlers are forced into a script
Speaker 3: that got written. I mean, no holds barred. Yeah, probably, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's probably it. Dave Wolf says for the album, I
Speaker 3: got clearance to rewrite the verses of Land of a
Speaker 3: Thousand Dancers. I wrote all the lines and pre arranged
Speaker 3: wrestlers to record backstage at a match. We curtained off
Speaker 3: a studio and I brought them in one time, one
Speaker 3: at a time to sing. This was the track that
Speaker 3: called for a video at Girls Remembers. It was actually
Speaker 3: shot in Poughkeepsie, which was a regular stop for WWAF
Speaker 3: at the time. Of course, they at the mid Hudson
Speaker 3: Civic Center where they started taping a lot of their
Speaker 3: television in at eighty six and arena, he says, where
Speaker 3: I believe there was a WAF card the following night.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of work on the day of
Speaker 3: the shoot. We had the morning and afternoon to set
Speaker 3: out wrestler close ups and stuff like that before bringing
Speaker 3: in the live audience for that night for the shoot.
Speaker 3: And there's actually a ticket stub, Brother, what I know?
Speaker 3: I can't agree more. Actually, it's really concerning that they're
Speaker 3: bringing all these fans in for a shoot, Like, what
Speaker 3: fu You don't run that by all Cogan? Yeah? Right,
Speaker 3: all these people here for a what brother, a shoot
Speaker 3: of all the things? What do you buller? So wow,
Speaker 3: there's actually and shout outs to Matt for finding this,
Speaker 3: there's a ticket stub from ticket Tron that's out there
Speaker 3: that someone saved of reporting as an extra for the
Speaker 3: UH for the Land of a Thousand Dances video shoot. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's kind of one piece of e femera that exists.
Speaker 3: You can take a look there if you'd like, But
Speaker 3: there it is. Yeah, Mid Hudson Civic Center. What they
Speaker 3: called Mayor m Ai R Hall wrestling video shoot first
Speaker 3: twenty five admitted. And so we know because of this
Speaker 3: ticket stub that the Land of a Thousand Dances video
Speaker 3: was shot on October second, nineteen eighty five. That's wild,
Speaker 3: it is. That's what you needed to get in. So
Speaker 3: some extra hung on to his ticket and ended up
Speaker 3: on the on the internet. But yeah, that was the thing.
Speaker 3: These guys were so fucking busy and ticket Dron. Ticket
Speaker 3: trona know what what a dated business that is the
Speaker 3: fucking I mean with the fucking uh, like the.
Speaker 9: Uh and the logo with all the fucking like first
Speaker 9: of all the rainbow colors and then you get all
Speaker 9: the uh. I don't know, I look like repeat letters.
Speaker 9: I don't recall that. But it's like Ticketron is like
Speaker 9: flying towards you that.
Speaker 3: Ticket drawn right, yes, where you get yeah, some noise
Speaker 3: like that, Yeah, God, ticket drawn, the tickets for the future.
Speaker 3: It's like you just started your your fucking uh I
Speaker 3: don't know, like started Tetris on the Atari.
Speaker 9: So get your tickets, got your tickets for tomorrow. Your
Speaker 9: ticket to tomorrow is today, ticket Dron.
Speaker 3: The way he says the Land of a Thousand dances
Speaker 3: video was supposed to unfold, was an idea that would
Speaker 3: work one time after that the audience would know what
Speaker 3: was coming. So we shot it once and it played.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's true. If it all breaks down, Yeah, the
Speaker 3: breaking Kfe brother this a huge fight. Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 3: There was an audience there like that. But these guys
Speaker 3: were flying all over the place so much that like
Speaker 3: you had to do it in one shot. You didn't
Speaker 3: have more than six hours with these guys before they
Speaker 3: had to make the next town. And this is the
Speaker 3: era where like they were so clueless about like how
Speaker 3: ragged they were running these wrestlers. Right as Vince tries
Speaker 3: to cut into all these new markets that he'd never
Speaker 3: been to before, WWF had really never been to. Like
Speaker 3: the week of this whole thing, they were in New
Speaker 3: Orleans for the first time, trying to fuck with Bill Watts,
Speaker 3: who's still in business down there. But they're bringing the Dog.
Speaker 3: They're bringing Junkyard Dog to New Orleans, of course, absolutely,
Speaker 3: like they brought Hogan and Jean and the rest and
Speaker 3: then Jesse Ventura to Minneapolis, you know the playbook. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and uh, with no real consideration for like the wear
Speaker 3: and tear on these guys with no rest and no
Speaker 3: chance to fucking by the by, like, you know, four six,
Speaker 3: eight weeks of this, you're like you can't even walk,
Speaker 3: you know, like you don't even know where you are,
Speaker 3: you don't know what city you're in. You're deprived of sleep,
Speaker 3: you're just especially if you're a guy who had a
Speaker 3: routine in the business before this, yep, yeah, and you
Speaker 3: can't like you don't have that decompression period anymore. These
Speaker 3: guys are getting fucked up, and they were taking a
Speaker 3: lot of things to get up so that they could
Speaker 3: keep earning, because this is money like they'd never seen before. Sure,
Speaker 3: you can't just go and sit out when all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, WWF seen to it that you're making like
Speaker 3: ten times which you ever made for a wrestling match,
Speaker 3: and then all these extra checks are coming in for
Speaker 3: all this extra shit, you better fucking be there. It
Speaker 3: doesn't matter what you got to put in your system
Speaker 3: to be there. Goddamn right, get those ivs, you stupid bitch,
Speaker 3: Get out there. You're going to pass up this opportunity.
Speaker 3: Come on, damn, you're making real money to a fake
Speaker 3: sport and you're complaining. Make my fucking on the plane,
Speaker 3: piece of shit, sh get on the fire. God. I
Speaker 3: haven't slept in seventy eight hours. You know what, I
Speaker 3: haven't slept in three years? To have as a fuck?
Speaker 3: Who gives up? I don't get a ship. I'm not here.
Speaker 3: Come on, man, you want to get listen? You want
Speaker 3: to keep your job? Right? You want to stay employed?
Speaker 3: Do you need me to fuck you up? I will
Speaker 3: kill you right now. I have no problem doing it.
Speaker 3: Kill you for complaining killing I have no problem doing it.
Speaker 3: And then I'll kill your family with my bare hands.
Speaker 3: I'll destroy you. Get your fat ass up there. Complain
Speaker 3: to me about sleep. I don't sleep by choice, So
Speaker 3: why don't you suck it up before I kick you
Speaker 3: in the ball? Take your mother's life? About that? I
Speaker 3: have your mother. I have your mother's phone number on
Speaker 3: speed dial, and I will call her and I will say, listen, ma'am,
Speaker 3: I'm coming over to kill you. Be prepared, right. How
Speaker 3: does that make you feel? M mmm? You're getting hungry
Speaker 3: for that success? Are you going to continue being a bitch?
Speaker 3: You see the opportunity I'm putting in front of you.
Speaker 3: I'm giving you ever seen money, and you're complaining to
Speaker 3: me about sleep. You're a fucking prick, a piece of shit.
Speaker 3: What's going to happen if you don't do what I
Speaker 3: say going forward? If you don't do what I say,
Speaker 3: if you don't listen, if you don't follow every single instruction,
Speaker 3: I will devour your life. I will rip it to shreds,
Speaker 3: I will shit it out my ass, and I'll flush
Speaker 3: it down the toilet, and I won't think twice about it.
Speaker 3: I don't need you. I don't need you at all.
Speaker 3: You're just a seat filler. I'll get someone else to
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 11: You need.
Speaker 3: The wrestling album is what you need. You need the wrestling.
Speaker 3: Anybody else on this planet whatever. Put you in a
Speaker 3: studio pal and put you on to think anybody would
Speaker 3: give you a legitimate career doing anything. No, I am
Speaker 3: giving you opportunity. But I don't need to give you
Speaker 3: an opportunity. I could walk out there in the street
Speaker 3: and grab some asshole and say, get in here and
Speaker 3: be him, because I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna murder him,
Speaker 3: so I want you to be him. It's that simple.
Speaker 3: You're not replaceable, and I'll forget you ever existed. Get
Speaker 3: up there and sing, sing, bitch, god, Dad, are you
Speaker 3: afraid of Come on, man, are you afraid of success?
Speaker 3: Provided to provide it, he knows when his ship has
Speaker 3: come in Nicola. Despite the existence of that ticket we
Speaker 3: just shared with you, remembers it this way. They forgot
Speaker 3: to advertise for a live audience. A couple of hours
Speaker 3: before the shoot. They sent me in meat loaf who
Speaker 3: was a drummer in the video. No shit. If you
Speaker 3: look on the stage, yeah, totally, that is meat Loaf
Speaker 3: drumming on the land of a thousand. Nance's weird. Nikolai
Speaker 3: Volkoff says, they sent me a meat loaf who was
Speaker 3: a drummer in the video, to a radio station and
Speaker 3: tell people to show up. We did good. It sold out,
Speaker 3: so so was the last minute affair grills. The director says,
Speaker 3: when you have fifty heels and fifty baby faces, you're
Speaker 3: going to get a reaction. All the WWF guys did
Speaker 3: whatever they wanted to do. We let them decide. Not
Speaker 3: a surprise, but they totally got into the brawl. We
Speaker 3: had four or five cameras going so we could do
Speaker 3: all those quick cuts. When the melee kicked off, the
Speaker 3: crew got their heads bashed in and the wrestlers didn't
Speaker 3: care who was in front of them. I was backstage,
Speaker 3: so I was okay. Dave took a beating. He dug it.
Speaker 3: I'm sure Nikolai Volkoff Cidi Lauper is in the video,
Speaker 3: but she has a wig on while playing guitar. At
Speaker 3: the end, we have a big smash, everybody fights everybody.
Speaker 3: She was swinging her guitar and a sharp edge accidentally
Speaker 3: scratched my leg. It started bleeding terribly. I said, Cindy,
Speaker 3: you don't like me too much. Look what you just
Speaker 3: did to my leg. She almost fainted. I felt so bad.
Speaker 3: Wiped the blood off with my hand. Look it's fine.
Speaker 3: I admire her so much. I never forgot that ed Grills.
Speaker 3: I do have one odd memory from the video shoot
Speaker 3: at Leslie, who everyone knows is brutus, Beefcake came up
Speaker 3: to me and said, my name is Eddie too. I
Speaker 3: don't know if, oh, he did not say it like that.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that was supposed to make us
Speaker 3: friends or what, but he found that really interesting. What's
Speaker 3: going on here? Come on? Can you picture Beefcake? Her
Speaker 3: such a funk? Hey, brother, my my named Eddie two.
Speaker 3: It's crazy Wow. Another Eddie. Wow, s's a not common name. Wow. Man, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that is crazy. So uh hi Ben good? I mean
Speaker 3: I'm just ed, you know, just Eddie. Ah, what do
Speaker 3: you need? I'm busy here. No, I just thought it
Speaker 3: was cool we had the same first name. So I
Speaker 3: guess we're best friends now.
Speaker 16: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah?
Speaker 9: So where are you from? Kind of busy here where nowhere?
Speaker 9: Not from anywhere, not from not from what you're saying, right,
Speaker 9: you know, not from anywhere you need to be. He
Speaker 9: keeps saying we're both named Eddie, and how crazy that is.
Speaker 9: I'm starting to wish you were the Man with No Name.
Speaker 9: We turned to the Memoirs of the Man with No Name,
Speaker 9: Brutus beef Cakes book. The music video for Land of
Speaker 9: a Thousand Dances was a who's who of the nineteen
Speaker 9: eighty five WW roster and a recording studios. Downstage, we
Speaker 9: were all wearing our full ring gear. That's so bizarre
Speaker 9: to show up at a set like this listening no
Speaker 9: shirt on.
Speaker 3: We're all wearing a ring. Listen, listen, listen. We need
Speaker 3: to emulate your characterizations on telephone. Hell, so we need
Speaker 3: you need to be in ring gear, and we need
Speaker 3: you know we need to have h you know, you
Speaker 3: need to listen right under the lights. All right. We're
Speaker 3: creating music video here, all right. We are entering the
Speaker 3: realm of music video, so we need to be on
Speaker 3: top of shit, all right, ring here music video, that's
Speaker 3: what we're about, all right. Forget what you've done, your
Speaker 3: play up, k fabe the best you can. But remember
Speaker 3: we are here in the music video arena. That's where
Speaker 3: we are. This is not this is not the mid
Speaker 3: Hudson Civic Center. This is the the the WWE Music
Speaker 3: Video Center of arena. Welcome to the WWE Music Video Center.
Speaker 3: They have like other shows there that's not wrestling because
Speaker 3: it's the Midhountain Civic Center. They have like you know,
Speaker 3: Shakespeare and the WWF Video Center called the Music Videos
Speaker 3: Video Center. Ww Coming to the w w F Music
Speaker 3: Video Center. Shane Youn shine up before communism? Did you
Speaker 3: like the Grinch there? And the Christmas time Kevin Hart
Speaker 3: performing at the WWS Video Center. Someone whip up that logo.
Speaker 3: I want one of those Crew T shirts from back
Speaker 3: in the day. The music video for Land of a
Speaker 3: Thousand Dances was a who's who of the ninete eighty
Speaker 3: five w w roster on a recording studio soundstage, Brutus
Speaker 3: Beef kick rights. We were all wearing our full ring gear,
Speaker 3: singing in unison and dancing, Yes, dancing. That little few
Speaker 3: seconds you saw of all of us on screen took me.
Speaker 3: I don't know they call it dancing. It's just sensible
Speaker 3: step touching, you know, it's not. Actually, what more resembles
Speaker 3: dancing is what you guys do in the ring. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's ballet, isn't that? A little few seconds U saw
Speaker 3: all of us on screen took nearly all day long
Speaker 3: to shoot. It was all laid out to look really chaotic,
Speaker 3: but in reality, it took a lot of work to
Speaker 3: get that look of insanity. You know, hey, Brutus, just
Speaker 3: to let you know. Yet, most people have seen DVD features,
Speaker 3: they know how long shit takes the film. And then
Speaker 3: you had the director right before Brutus saying and actually
Speaker 3: we just let the wrestlers do whatever they want. And
Speaker 3: it didn't take a look at all. Right, it took
Speaker 3: like fifteen minutes as we didn't have a chance to
Speaker 3: do more than one take, because I imagine the drugs
Speaker 3: probably made it seem like it was long, absolutely compared
Speaker 3: to how how accustomed they were to getting a quick
Speaker 3: fix back then. By comparison, it seemed long then. Later
Speaker 3: on that night, we were all rushing off to wrestle
Speaker 3: on a show. Rick Darringer was also there on stage
Speaker 3: with Sidney Laupper. Sidey. Lauper was in her disguise, probably
Speaker 3: because she didn't want to be associated with such a
Speaker 3: pool of bad talent. I always assume that too. For
Speaker 3: my spot in the video, they had me standing on
Speaker 3: the stage right next to meet Love. I thought that
Speaker 3: was just awesome. He was there all positioned on a
Speaker 3: drum set, but he was not really playing the drums.
Speaker 3: He was just there to looked the part. That's interesting.
Speaker 3: I had already been around deren during Cindy and got
Speaker 3: to know them, but I remember seeing meat Loaf was
Speaker 3: really cool. I was kind of a fan. We had Hey,
Speaker 3: you look like me? Is your name Ed? We had
Speaker 3: he does look like meatof doesn't you look like me?
Speaker 3: If your name Ed?
Speaker 9: Meatloaf does kind of look like ed Leslie? Yeah, I
Speaker 9: guess now, But yeah, we had a long day on that.
Speaker 9: I mean, I fucking fucking uh. You know, honey baked
Speaker 9: Ham looks like ed Leslie.
Speaker 3: If a honey baked ham, wore like thirteen silver bracelets
Speaker 3: on his wrist, spikes and skulls and stuff. He gave
Speaker 3: us an interview though fas like Greg Valentine did that
Speaker 3: one time partner oh man, But I remember seeing meat
Speaker 3: loaf was really cool. I was kind of a fan.
Speaker 3: We had a long day that stage, over and over
Speaker 3: and over singing that thing. Santana thought the whole thing
Speaker 3: was ridiculous. I would look over at Hi while the
Speaker 3: group was singing Nana, Nana, Nana. I remember I could
Speaker 3: see him laughing. Oh, should have gotten a cameo, fucking
Speaker 3: fucking Tito. I'm sure we haven't. Da Oh he's his
Speaker 3: cameos have always been so wonderful. This is w w
Speaker 3: F Hall of Famer, Ariba. I have a message here
Speaker 3: for JP. JP. Your friend Jack wanted to know what
Speaker 3: do I remember about shooting the Land of a Thousand
Speaker 3: Dances music video. Well, I remember it was hot that day,
Speaker 3: and I hope you enjoyed this cameo Reba. Well, his
Speaker 3: wife's like, do you want to drink? In the background,
Speaker 3: and we're like getting you know, we're getting a view
Speaker 3: way up his fucking nasal passages. Just like clear shot.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, I remember I had a croissant that day,
Speaker 3: and that's it. That's all I remember. I remember we
Speaker 3: filmed that. Hope you enjoyed this cameo. Well, JP, it
Speaker 3: was a thing.
Speaker 11: I'll tell you that.
Speaker 3: It was not nothing, despite what you may think. It
Speaker 3: was a thing that happened. I saw him laughing over
Speaker 3: and over again under his breath and shaking his head.
Speaker 3: Why are you laughing, Tito, I asked him between takes.
Speaker 3: I think I just have a horrible voice to have
Speaker 3: a song on an album, he said, laughing. Every wrestler
Speaker 3: had to film their individual parts separately, and then we
Speaker 3: had to film the group parts as well. Then get
Speaker 3: this in the evening at the show, we had to
Speaker 3: perform the bit for the live crowd, even for even
Speaker 3: more footage. For the next two weeks, all I had
Speaker 3: in my head was that stupid riff.
Speaker 12: No no, no, no no.
Speaker 3: Those bastards must have played that song one hundred times
Speaker 3: that day. The music video played everywhere as well. It
Speaker 3: was on MTV NBC's Friday Night Videos, which I was
Speaker 3: a dick. Ever song production Saturday Night's made event. All
Speaker 3: the w B programming, its reach was surprising and pretty amazing.
Speaker 3: None of the singles received any real heavy radio airplay,
Speaker 3: but the WWF Wrestling Album as a whole reached number
Speaker 3: eighty four on the album sales charts. Kids everywhere owned it.
Speaker 3: Brutus Beefcake calling being on set, Dave Wolf I came
Speaker 3: up with the idea for the Slammies, the first ever
Speaker 3: award show for a single record. I won for the
Speaker 3: Best Executive Producer on the Wrestling Album. I was the
Speaker 3: only one nominated in the category. I'm looking at my
Speaker 3: salammy right now. Browler, who is the drummer, says, all
Speaker 3: the guys came together at the had Factory studio for
Speaker 3: the photo shoot. This is the photo shoot for the
Speaker 3: wrestling album cover. I believe that Brian Penry talk to
Speaker 3: us about when we interviewed him a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 3: It was incredible, just wall to wall, real live cartoon characters.
Speaker 3: But I heard Hull Cogan and Brutus Beefcake choreographing that
Speaker 3: night's match. I knew it wasn't really real, but Mann
Speaker 3: did my bubble burst. It was entertainment, sure, but listening
Speaker 3: to them planted out totally fucked up up the mystical,
Speaker 3: magical quality wrestling held for me. Boss Vince is getting
Speaker 3: to it and he's dismantling it. Oh my god, he
Speaker 3: doesn't really care at this point. Somebody we heard from
Speaker 3: earlier says our attitude was let's have a blast and
Speaker 3: if we sell records, great, and then we did a
Speaker 3: lot of them. Miss McMahon was supportive from the get go.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure the marketing people at Sony knew what
Speaker 3: to do with him with the Wrestling Album. He was
Speaker 3: a big help in that department. We promoted it on
Speaker 3: WWF shows every Saturday. Lots of cross merchandising. Record stores
Speaker 3: loved it because it brought in young male buyers who
Speaker 3: weren't necessarily music kids. Not necessarily music kids. A wrestling
Speaker 3: fan No, okay, I'll believe that when I see it.
Speaker 3: I don't really like their youth. No, I don't think
Speaker 3: music's really a thing, right, But I gotta boy the
Speaker 3: wrestling home. I bought the Wrestling Album because Brodie Piper
Speaker 3: is a great worker. You know, I I you know,
Speaker 3: I'm I I I I. I'm not buying that. I'm
Speaker 3: only gonna buy the Rick Flair Wrestling album. He actually
Speaker 3: can have five star matches. Well, I'm not gonna buy.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna buy WWE's thing, you know, because I
Speaker 3: don't want like a circus album. I want like a
Speaker 3: real wrestling album. Guys, have the circus album? A real
Speaker 3: wrestling album? What a vision quest the soundtrack? That's what
Speaker 3: you mean right by real wrestling? I sure hope. So
Speaker 3: I hate to burst your bubble about Flair versus Garvin
Speaker 3: forty five minutes. That's phony too. It's planned ahead of time,
Speaker 3: you know when we're gonna get that, right, We're going
Speaker 3: to get you know, the you know, how about the
Speaker 3: nw A wrestling album. Like when you say you're looking
Speaker 3: for the wrestling album, you're you're talking about that plan stuff,
Speaker 3: pre arranged wrestling or like the actual Olympic wrestling Yes
Speaker 3: at Strawberries. Oh wait, wait you want that? What do
Speaker 3: you want the the fake stuff? Were you're talking about?
Speaker 3: You know, Olympic wrestling albums, which of which there are many.
Speaker 3: His fucking damn Gable on the cover shooting the low
Speaker 3: Inside Circle.
Speaker 9: Yeah, they're like real, real wrestling albums are basically just
Speaker 9: recordings of matches.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: That's great to listen to the sound sounds of matches,
Speaker 3: no commentary, nothing, just breathing and smacking the mat thumped albums.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, it's like, oh it's so good. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: I can feel the excitement. Marshall Chapman the aforementioned Marshall
Speaker 3: Chapman says, I've called the Wrestling Album the most dubious
Speaker 3: cultural achievement of the twentieth century. But I'm also sorry,
Speaker 3: what say that again? The Wrestling album. This is a
Speaker 3: person who wrote the Hillbilly Jim lyrics. It was being
Speaker 3: very sardonic about the whole thing. I've called the Wrestling
Speaker 3: Album the most dubious cultural achievement of the twentieth century. Wow,
Speaker 3: I'm probably the only Nashville songwriter who has ever received
Speaker 3: a royalty check from the WWF. The drummer Browler says
Speaker 3: the Wrestling Album isn't artful, but it is a snapshot
Speaker 3: of a moment. The eighties were a funny time, both sonic.
Speaker 3: That's all we do. Listen, that's all we need.
Speaker 8: We do.
Speaker 3: We do snapshots of momentary incidents. That's what you do,
Speaker 3: snapshots of momentary ww The ww is a company where
Speaker 3: we take snapshots of momentary incidents and exploit said, snapshots
Speaker 3: for full full cross functional gain.
Speaker 9: Full cross functional monetary and emotional gain.
Speaker 3: The emotional gain that's a fringe benefit of WWF emotional gain. Well,
Speaker 3: that's right. That is the equivalent of smiles on faces
Speaker 3: and you know anuses and chairs, right. I think Browler
Speaker 3: puts it well. The eighties were a funny time both
Speaker 3: sonically and stylistically.
Speaker 9: Wow, yes, for sure they sonically and stylistically, that's tremendous.
Speaker 3: Indeed, were just quickly to visit what Brian Penry told
Speaker 3: us about putting together the Wrestling album cover. He remembers
Speaker 3: it was a process that took over a period of weeks.
Speaker 3: And since it's a double album, when you open it up,
Speaker 3: there's a there's you know, a different scene in there
Speaker 3: of the Hit Factory in New York where many luminaries
Speaker 3: like Billy Joel and others have recorded over time. And
Speaker 3: he said, very few of the people you see on
Speaker 3: the cover art of the Wrestling album were in the
Speaker 3: same room at the same time. They had to like
Speaker 3: squash them all together. In some instances, people were totally
Speaker 3: in totally different cities than where some of those guys were.
Speaker 3: He says, for ample, when you look on the cover
Speaker 3: and Vince has his arm on gene Okolin's shoulder. They
Speaker 3: were shot against a backdrop and dropped in to the image.
Speaker 3: They were shot elsewhere because they had a show brother
Speaker 3: be shot elsewhere. What do you mean if he's not here? Brother?
Speaker 3: What is who's shooting on me?
Speaker 11: Brother?
Speaker 3: What is there some kind of technology you've been hiding
Speaker 3: for me that means he can be here when he's
Speaker 3: not here? Why are you shooting.
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: When you when you say.
Speaker 11: Take that? Just the.
Speaker 3: The potential scenarios are like stacking up in his head
Speaker 3: like one hundred miles an hour, keeps the moment. He
Speaker 3: is like ready to react about one scenario another one?
Speaker 3: Who pops in his brain right.
Speaker 11: Now?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 8: What?
Speaker 3: What are we doing? Are you shooting?
Speaker 11: Hm?
Speaker 3: You're shooting the music video without me? Dude? Did you?
Speaker 3: This is all on my back brother? And I wasn't
Speaker 3: invited to the Land of a thousand dances videos? Well,
Speaker 3: the land of a million about a million hull Camania?
Speaker 3: How about? How are we doing? You know, Terry brilliant.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna put in a call right now to Dave.
Speaker 3: We're gonna put this together. The Land of one thousandania
Speaker 3: a million million. Sorry, yes, a thousand is not nearly enough.
Speaker 3: The Land of a million hul Camania. Okay, all right,
Speaker 3: uh Dave, Dave Vince mc mann of the w w E.
Speaker 3: We are thinking about adding a a a another track
Speaker 3: to the album. Uh, Land of a million Hulkamania. Let's yeah,
Speaker 3: uh yeah, brother, yeah? What what are you doing?
Speaker 11: Well?
Speaker 9: Fit the sentence, brother, yeah, the Land of a million?
Speaker 9: Whole comania for the the wrestling album to to to
Speaker 9: to brother, what to do right away? To do a
Speaker 9: wrestling album to do right away? Wrestling album two do
Speaker 9: right away?
Speaker 3: I never said right away?
Speaker 11: What what?
Speaker 8: Why?
Speaker 3: Are you in a rush? Were falling over? Will you?
Speaker 3: Nickolo me? Brother? No, no, Terry, I'm not. I'm moving
Speaker 3: all right. Wrestling album to do on a momentary basis satisfied.
Speaker 3: If wrestling album, if I may impress upon you momentarily,
Speaker 3: if I may impress upon the momentary of the Shakespeare's
Speaker 3: way of saying it, come on in here, thou shalt
Speaker 3: shal thou shalt commit to the uh, the endeavor of
Speaker 3: adding said track to the wrestling album to do at
Speaker 3: the momentary appropriate time. Land of a Million hulk Mania
Speaker 3: is thou mission right, thy mission right? And thou shalt
Speaker 3: thou shalt obey all comania brother? Ten commandomy just a problem?
Speaker 3: Take commandmentitude? Whoa You're gonna commit me with fucking fucking tablets? Brother?
Speaker 3: Demandments are we're talking about what you're saying? Ten demandments?
Speaker 3: Amendments or demandments.
Speaker 14: There's like.
Speaker 1: Wrestling podcast, the wrestling podcast that knows the boys need
Speaker 1: their candy. It's the Lapsed Fan. He's the Lapsed Fan
Speaker 1: Wrestling podcast with Jack and Carno and Jpro.
Speaker 3: What's funny is that what came after the person said
Speaker 3: basically what he just said, but what he hears it
Speaker 3: from somebody else. It's really alarming because it's like, I
Speaker 3: thought that was only my head, Like, like, what what
Speaker 3: do you just say? That's what I was just worried about,
Speaker 3: And now you're saying what do you saying in my mind?
Speaker 11: Brother?
Speaker 3: How are you saying that I'm thinking out loud?
Speaker 2: Did you?
Speaker 3: It's not hard to get him fucking going, man, It's
Speaker 3: not to hit him go. When he was not on
Speaker 3: the Slammies or in the Land of a Thousand Dances,
Speaker 3: a lot of meetings, a lot of problems, a lot
Speaker 3: of problems. Had to assuage a lot of concerns about
Speaker 3: what but the subtext was not including him. Yeah, Brian
Speaker 3: Penry told us about He had to use a side
Speaker 3: text machine, which I've never heard of, which is like
Speaker 3: the earliest digital printing machine. I've ever seen one of
Speaker 3: these things what they are, but it's like one of
Speaker 3: the earliest ways to do like a graphic like this
Speaker 3: where you can superimpose different images into the same frame.
Speaker 3: And that's all over the wrestling album. So interesting trivia there,
Speaker 3: thanks to Brian and all the work that that took
Speaker 3: as part of his duties. He remembers Mona Flanbay as well.
Speaker 3: She made some scary sounds come out of that trumpet.
Speaker 3: He says. I don't know if he's talking about Mona
Speaker 3: Flambee or not when he says that, Yeah, so it's
Speaker 3: cool check out that interview because he goes he goes
Speaker 3: into his house and goes to find his copy of
Speaker 3: the wrestling album to explain to us what it is
Speaker 3: he sees as he flips through it. But the important
Speaker 3: track in so many ways to me at least, is
Speaker 3: real American. It's quite absolutely, Isn't it quite wild to
Speaker 3: think that this is where Real American was birth. On
Speaker 3: this album, it's crazy, absolutely crazy. Here it sits and
Speaker 3: here we feel it in so many ways. And if
Speaker 3: you listen to the track on the Wrestling album, there's
Speaker 3: absolutely no mistaking the fact that they intended it for
Speaker 3: Barry Wyndham and Mike Rotundo, because as soon as the
Speaker 3: song concludes on the Wrestling album, we have a interjection
Speaker 3: from Vince McMahon himself and his crew. What taking it
Speaker 3: abundantly clear that that was the song inspired by the
Speaker 3: US Express. Take a listen.
Speaker 7: I can't believe that's for Windom and Rotundo.
Speaker 5: Derringer, you should have buried yourself in spade buried. Come on,
Speaker 5: just eat your heart out.
Speaker 3: Wow, yep, I can't believe that's for Wyndham and Rotundo.
Speaker 3: Wom and Rotundo a piece of trivia there, that's wild
Speaker 3: and that song itself, Real American has a bit of
Speaker 3: a oral history in its own writer writer by the
Speaker 3: name of Quinn Myers and at magazine by the name
Speaker 3: of mel once did an oral history on a whole
Speaker 3: Cogan and Real American.
Speaker 11: Now.
Speaker 3: While Derringer is the guitarist on the song and it's
Speaker 3: actually a fairly celebrated guitarist and has done work in
Speaker 3: collaborations with several high profile acts over the years. That
Speaker 3: is not his voice. Were you aware that it is
Speaker 3: not Derenger who actually sings this side? No, I'm curious
Speaker 3: who is it. He's some obscure lead singer at a
Speaker 3: New York named Bernard Kenny, and you're not really gonna
Speaker 3: find much else that he did. I believe he sang
Speaker 3: with his brother under the term the Kenny Brothers. There's
Speaker 3: a couple of YouTube videos they give you a little
Speaker 3: glimpse into who they are. One little snippet on YouTube
Speaker 3: says the Kenny Brothers an amazingly talented nineteen eighties New
Speaker 3: York based band. In late winter early spring, they recorded
Speaker 3: four songs at Tiki Recording Studios on Long Island. On
Speaker 3: one of the songs, this is how you know because
Speaker 3: it says here in the YouTube comment on this song
Speaker 3: Bernard Kenny, who co wrote Real American with Rick Deringer
Speaker 3: and sang lead vocal. So he's the i AMA. That's
Speaker 3: his voice. Wow, it's not Rick Derringer that he's passed away.
Speaker 3: According to this comment on YouTube, they never made it
Speaker 3: big enough to even have any clips about them and
Speaker 3: newspapers that I could fire anything like that. But according
Speaker 3: to this commenter, Bernard Kenny has since passed away the
Speaker 3: voice of Real American. The Mel magazine article says in
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty five, Derringer was eleven years removed from his
Speaker 3: hit single rock and roll Hoochie Coo, and twenty years
Speaker 3: removed from the classic number one track hang On Slop Sloopy,
Speaker 3: on which he sang leave vocals. Yeah, don't ask me, man.
Speaker 3: It has to sound weird to be a song title.
Speaker 11: We know this.
Speaker 3: After working extensively with bands like the Edgar Winter, Grew,
Speaker 3: Bear Supply and Bonnie Tyler, Rick Deringer bounced around shredding
Speaker 3: guitar solos for Barbara streisand and writing songs with his
Speaker 3: partner at the time, Kenny. And this must be the
Speaker 3: Kenny we're talking about this, Bernard Kenny. Maybe not. But
Speaker 3: one of those songs, of course, was Real American. And
Speaker 3: while the two didn't know what it would eventually be
Speaker 3: used for, as soon as they wrote it, they knew
Speaker 3: it was destined for glory. So how about that Real
Speaker 3: American was not written because there was a open space
Speaker 3: on a pro wrestling record album. It already existed, the song.
Speaker 9: They were just I thought I remember that, Yeah, I
Speaker 9: thought I remember that being a thing, that it was
Speaker 9: a real song, that that w eventually just kind of
Speaker 9: claimed ownership for me.
Speaker 3: We're trying to find a home for it. Derrenger, writer
Speaker 3: and producer of Real American, told mel magazine. My writing
Speaker 3: partner Bernard Kenny and I sat down one night in
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty four and we had the idea to write
Speaker 3: the most patriotic song of all time. Oh my god,
Speaker 3: what a weird fucking thing. That's also like, that's fucking
Speaker 3: Reagan right there. Oh, totally so fucking Reagan era yep.
Speaker 3: And we wanted to express that in the song. So
Speaker 3: that was the whole objective behind it. When we sat
Speaker 3: down a few hours later, the song Real American was born.
Speaker 3: After it took the Matt long to fucking write this
Speaker 3: song a few hours for the rights of every man. After,
Speaker 3: I guess after it was written in this take a while,
Speaker 3: Derenger says, we actually played it and it brought us
Speaker 3: to tears. Get the fuck out of time. I knew
Speaker 3: he had done such a good job and it was
Speaker 3: destined to be a hit. What a bunch of this
Speaker 3: is like the original and I'm proud to be an American,
Speaker 3: you know, right right? But there is there's the I remember.
Speaker 3: I remember.
Speaker 9: I remember as a when I was in high school, like, so,
Speaker 9: did you ever have like those weird like fundraiser nights
Speaker 9: in high school? Like they'd have like a casino nice Yeah,
Speaker 9: the casino night. I remember, they have this fucking idiot
Speaker 9: lounge singer, you know, come in and like he was
Speaker 9: doing like a mix of like variety ship stand up
Speaker 9: and and uh and and songs and stuff like he's
Speaker 9: it's mostly tongue in cheek the whole time. And then
Speaker 9: he's gonna, you know, we're gonna take it down for
Speaker 9: a little bit here, I mean sings I'm proud to
Speaker 9: be American. Like he makes this whole big fucking deal
Speaker 9: about I was like, oh my god, Like, what the
Speaker 9: fuck is such a weirdo.
Speaker 3: There's no faster way to like change the mood in
Speaker 3: a room then play that song.
Speaker 9: I know he's like so passionate, and it was just
Speaker 9: like this is the weirdest thing, Like, dude, you're you're
Speaker 9: singing at a casino night at a high school like.
Speaker 3: What are you doing?
Speaker 9: Yeah, exactly, keep with the goofball ship, all right, that's
Speaker 9: gonna play.
Speaker 3: Don't don't start preaching, moron. So we hear what Bernard
Speaker 3: Kennedy sounds like, and we've heard it a million times.
Speaker 3: We could, you know, do it off the top of
Speaker 3: our heads. Yes, but you know there was actually records
Speaker 3: out there of Derringer himself singing real American really, And
Speaker 3: this is what it would sound like if Rick Deringer,
Speaker 3: the guy most associated with Old Cogan's Real American, actually
Speaker 3: sang the lyrics. And I want you to picture Oul
Speaker 3: Cogan making his way to the ring to this. All right,
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 21: I am a real American, fight for the rights of
Speaker 21: every man.
Speaker 5: I am a real American, fight for what's right, fight
Speaker 5: for your life.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Wow, when it comes.
Speaker 15: Crashing down and it hurts inside, you gotta leave a hand.
Speaker 5: They don't have to hide.
Speaker 3: I thought it was take a stand it don't Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think that you my friends, my friend.
Speaker 5: I gotta take a stand.
Speaker 3: No, No, I gotta be a man. I am a
Speaker 3: real Parican.
Speaker 5: The right stuff, iry man.
Speaker 22: I am a real Pican.
Speaker 5: Robots right by your life.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I think they would have went back to the
Speaker 3: other whole theme pretty quickly.
Speaker 9: Yeah, well, although you know, I do, uh, I do
Speaker 9: appreciate the drums and that, like there's yeah, there's a
Speaker 9: really heavy on like on on on uh on the drums.
Speaker 3: That's I don't know, I like that. It's a nice listen.
Speaker 3: It's not the it's it's it's what they would do.
Speaker 9: That's the kind of version you'd put on uh, like
Speaker 9: a Forcible Entry album, right, you know, like it's it's
Speaker 9: that kind of like you know when they play the
Speaker 9: when they have the weird version of the Triple H
Speaker 9: theme and it's like, you know, it's not it's not
Speaker 9: the real thing, but it's it's kind of cool to
Speaker 9: have that version as well.
Speaker 3: I agree, you know, like that would be. Yeah, Like
Speaker 3: I like it's it's very interesting and I like it.
Speaker 3: I don't not like it, but it's just not it's
Speaker 3: not the real thing. He's and he's replacing the words.
Speaker 3: I don't know if he's doing that on purpose or
Speaker 3: if he just I don't know, doesn't remember the words.
Speaker 9: Oh maybe maybe it's original. Maybe he's like, this is
Speaker 9: what I wanted. When I say it, I'll bring it
Speaker 9: home Rick it while we're in your vision.
Speaker 14: I stand strong about that.
Speaker 15: And wrong, don't take trouble boy.
Speaker 3: Don't take control.
Speaker 14: Inside out.
Speaker 5: Pizza.
Speaker 17: I am.
Speaker 3: Got it.
Speaker 9: I heard I heard some of like the the actual
Speaker 9: mix of the of the regular one in that Yeah yeah,
Speaker 9: at the very at the right before the chorus hit,
Speaker 9: it sounded I could hear kind of like that that
Speaker 9: that that kind of synthesizery like weird, not weird, but
Speaker 9: it sounded like the whole Cogan version a little bit.
Speaker 3: It's uh, the same instrumentals. Interesting when he says, uh,
Speaker 3: and I don't take trouble for very long? Yeah, you
Speaker 3: know what. I always thought it said there what and
Speaker 3: I don't take control for very long? You know, like
Speaker 3: the like the United States, they just take you know,
Speaker 3: they displace the regime and they take control for a
Speaker 3: year and they're gone and then we leave. Right's exactly right,
Speaker 3: take control for very long, which would be a very
Speaker 3: strange thing to put in. I also just love the idea,
Speaker 3: like it's it's so you know again, this is so
Speaker 3: like like it's a fighting song, Yeah, is what it is.
Speaker 3: Like It's like it's a fighting song, like you're not
Speaker 3: even you know, it's it's it's not talking about freedom,
Speaker 3: it's talking about fighting for freedom.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 3: That's the fucking funniest part of this whole thing. It's
Speaker 3: it's literally about fighting people. Yes, they don't say who,
Speaker 3: but it's anybody, I guess who's going to take away
Speaker 3: my freedom. During the course of the music video that
Speaker 3: they came to came up with for this song, he
Speaker 3: rips a headshot of Mamar Gadaffi in half from Libya
Speaker 3: Hogan does does the half god in the mel I mean,
Speaker 3: is he was he threatening America's freedom?
Speaker 16: Yeah?
Speaker 3: He was, you know, death to America blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: I mean yes, but was he actually threatening America? Because like,
Speaker 3: did was there? I mean, did we need to?
Speaker 9: I mean terror, I understand terror, But was you know,
Speaker 9: were they invading America taking our freedom?
Speaker 11: No?
Speaker 3: They weren't invading America. No, right, That's what I mean.
Speaker 9: Like, the song is talking about people taking away my
Speaker 9: freedom and I will fight those motherfuckers.
Speaker 3: And it's like, I mean, they're not taking yours away,
Speaker 3: they're taking away others away. Yeah, a lot of people,
Speaker 3: you know, it's not he was. He was Reagan's enemy,
Speaker 3: you know, he was like sure, he was like, Bush's
Speaker 3: Saddam Hussein. You know the same thing.
Speaker 9: Of course, of course, listen, I get that. I totally
Speaker 9: get that. It's it's still fucking bizarre.
Speaker 11: It is.
Speaker 3: It is bizarre.
Speaker 9: It's a weird it's a weird fucking uh, it's it's
Speaker 9: a you know, when you really when you take it
Speaker 9: out of a wrestling context, because wrestling is all about fighting,
Speaker 9: and you put it into a legitimate song context, it's like,
Speaker 9: I mean, I guess it could have been the theme
Speaker 9: for the fucking uh.
Speaker 3: What do you call it?
Speaker 9: The fucking h Millius movie there to del Mairte No exactly, Nah,
Speaker 9: the Patrick Swayzee. No, Patrick Swayze, fucking Charlie Sheen that
Speaker 9: you're talking about it, I can't think of it. Red Don,
Speaker 9: red Don, thank you? Yeah, like that that could be
Speaker 9: the theme, like the Darringer version, could be the theme
Speaker 9: for Red Down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, easily, yep. Yeah, it's of the time, definitely. In
Speaker 3: the mal magazine piece, Browler, who was the drummer in
Speaker 3: the band, says, usually I wouldn't step out and say
Speaker 3: the stuff, but Bernard Kenny, the real singer, is one
Speaker 3: of the most one of the great singers who never
Speaker 3: became famous. He says. Don't get me wrong, Rick's a
Speaker 3: great singer and a brilliant fucking cat, but Bernard is
Speaker 3: the unsung hero of this song. You haven't heard that
Speaker 3: voice anywhere else. Unfortunately, that was a big break for him,
Speaker 3: and he got shut down in terms of getting credit.
Speaker 3: One of those great old music biz stories. I remember
Speaker 3: him having a bit of a bug up his ass
Speaker 3: about getting sort of screwed out of his credit for
Speaker 3: this thing. Fascinating. Rick Deringer says to Mail Magazine. When
Speaker 3: the wrestling album came along, we had the whole thing
Speaker 3: put together and really organized, and we still hadn't used
Speaker 3: real American anywhere yet, so we thought this wouldn't be
Speaker 3: a good use of it. How about that real American
Speaker 3: was an afterthought on the album That's wild and tell
Speaker 3: why it went to the US Express, Derringer says, we didn't. Later,
Speaker 3: we didn't alter the original at all of the song
Speaker 3: for the WWE. We just laid down the legit version
Speaker 3: we imagined and that was the one that they used.
Speaker 3: We were really happy about all that, but still somewhere
Speaker 3: in the back of my mind, I thought, Man, this
Speaker 3: song should be somehow more legit than just a wrestler's
Speaker 3: theme song. Ah, Rick, that's a weird that's not our
Speaker 3: wrestling works. Pell live live that fucking dream, dude, take
Speaker 3: it in joy exactly. Don't look at gift tors in
Speaker 3: the mouth because res wrestling keeps songs alive twenty thirty
Speaker 3: years longer than they should be exact cult of personality.
Speaker 3: I know people love that song anyway, but you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. Like that song, yeah, but as a
Speaker 3: tell like no one else right, exactly the wrestling. We
Speaker 3: wanted to write this fabulous patriotic song for all Americans.
Speaker 3: Rick says, we saw it somehow on a different level
Speaker 3: than a wrestler's theme song. So in some ways I
Speaker 3: was a little let down. Oh shut the fuck up, dude. Okay, Well,
Speaker 3: but he was. That's what happens, all right, That's what happens.
Speaker 3: As much as he looked down on that use case,
Speaker 3: he wasn't above appearing on WWF television was Rick Deringer
Speaker 3: to promote said song and the forthcoming wrestling album. Here's
Speaker 3: a clip from an October nineteen eighty five edition of
Speaker 3: Piper's Pit on WWF television. Rick Darringer steps into the
Speaker 3: pet himself.
Speaker 4: You're finally familiar with have a scene if you're like to.
Speaker 14: This gentleman's name is Rick Berenger. He's playing with Daker.
Speaker 15: Winter, Johnny Winters, Frankenstein.
Speaker 3: He's one of the best guitar players in the world.
Speaker 8: We are the world, we are the guy.
Speaker 15: Why don't you take those silly looking sunglasses out? First
Speaker 15: of all, because I want to I know your credentials
Speaker 15: as a guitar players, being one of the best of all.
Speaker 3: I know he's got a live.
Speaker 15: Age a program coming up with Cindy Lauper and Woo
Speaker 15: and Rob Stewart, and he is going.
Speaker 3: To be playing with them. And i'd want you to
Speaker 3: know now that.
Speaker 15: You're in Piper's Pitt, that you play the guitar for
Speaker 15: a living and I beat people up for a living.
Speaker 3: Soul Pillsbury, Dauboin, Why you're here, Just don't get too
Speaker 3: brilliant with me. And this is good old Laces here
Speaker 3: he my bodyguard.
Speaker 15: I understand you're you're doing an album with wrestlers singing
Speaker 15: on him.
Speaker 5: I came here with the Good Spirits and I Roddy
Speaker 5: because all right, because I feel like I'm excited about
Speaker 5: this record.
Speaker 14: I'm doing the Junkyard Dog has done.
Speaker 5: A great song. Of Yard Dog is doing a great
Speaker 5: great song.
Speaker 15: Jimmy Hart has done a fantastic song.
Speaker 5: Kill Billy.
Speaker 14: Jim has done a great thing.
Speaker 15: We got plans to do, Captain Lou Albano, I'm really
Speaker 15: excited about it.
Speaker 3: Wait, get your hands off my micro I'm excited about this. Well, wait,
Speaker 3: wait a second.
Speaker 15: If junk you're a dog and all them guys help out,
Speaker 15: help out myself.
Speaker 3: Man, you know I could sing a heck of a song.
Speaker 11: Man, I could be a rock and roller.
Speaker 3: I could sing a great song.
Speaker 15: Don't you think you're gonna give me the opportunity to
Speaker 15: show everybody how great i'd be.
Speaker 5: I didn't know about this. I've been working closely with David.
Speaker 3: Woolf, and I thought we can I do a song?
Speaker 14: Can I do a song?
Speaker 7: There?
Speaker 2: Look, I got nothing to getst you coming in the studio.
Speaker 5: If you want to make a jerk out of yourself,
Speaker 5: let me tie your something.
Speaker 3: Your little pips would shut them down, set them down.
Speaker 15: Let me tell you something, your little jerk, I'll tell
Speaker 15: you I'm gonna have a thought.
Speaker 3: That we go off the air. Wow.
Speaker 9: So that's Rick Derringer. I mean, that's the one of
Speaker 9: the latest segments I ever heard, and he has no
Speaker 9: idea what he's fucking doing.
Speaker 3: No clue. So you can hear the promotional apparatus kind
Speaker 3: of kicking in the gear for this forthcoming wrestling album
Speaker 3: something else that had happened eighty five. In addition, We
Speaker 3: Are the World is the Chicago Bears, who were super
Speaker 3: Bowl bound in nineteen eighty five, came out with the
Speaker 3: super Bowl Shuffle. Now this was much more of an
Speaker 3: inspiration to the rustle rock Rumble that one vern Gan
Speaker 3: yet would Leater oversee as part of a SuperClash, right,
Speaker 3: it was SuperClash, Yes, available in Life and Death of
Speaker 3: the ABA. Yes, made a lot of fun with that one.
Speaker 3: Eighty seven, I think it was. And here though, I
Speaker 3: think it's it's kind of part and parcel of the
Speaker 3: whole you know, mood of like these ensemble songs with
Speaker 3: people who weren't musicians but were celebrities in the eighties. Yeah,
Speaker 3: getting to do these songs. This is what it sounded
Speaker 3: like on the NFL side. And you can definitely hear
Speaker 3: Russell rock rumble vibes even more so than the Land
Speaker 3: of a thousand dances. That's get it. T LF.
Speaker 2: Shut shut, We're.
Speaker 3: You know, we're not here. We're just.
Speaker 21: Well they called me sweetness, and I liked the dance
Speaker 21: running the ball. It's like making more dance. We had
Speaker 21: the goals's trained in camp to give Chicago goals for
Speaker 21: more tamp and we're not doing this because we're greening.
Speaker 5: The Bears are doing it the kneed.
Speaker 21: We didn't come here look for truck Bok.
Speaker 3: Were just.
Speaker 1: A lapsed fan wrestling podcast, the wrestling podcast that knows
Speaker 1: the boys need their candy. It's the Lapsed Fan. He's
Speaker 1: the lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack and Carno and
Speaker 1: JP Soo.
Speaker 3: I mean that's it. Actually, it kind of sounds a
Speaker 3: little bit more like jive soul bro. Yeah, you know
Speaker 3: they got a little bit of inspiration there. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: for sure. So what was on Vince's mind? You know,
Speaker 3: we've heard from Dave Wolf, We've heard from Rick Deringer,
Speaker 3: we've heard from the drummer and the producer and the
Speaker 3: director and some of the wrestlers on set, and we've
Speaker 3: heard from what was Vince thinking. Well, it's hard to
Speaker 3: get a lot of insight, but we're not completely bereft
Speaker 3: of it. This article here that I've just laced you
Speaker 3: with is from the Tampa Tribune, and fortunately for us,
Speaker 3: as part of an article about, you know, the typical
Speaker 3: Hulkogan's all the rage Wrestling's coming to Tampa? What's this
Speaker 3: circus all about? That got some time with Vince McMahon
Speaker 3: in this article towards the end of nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 3: and this is December seventeenth, to be exact, And it
Speaker 3: turns out a lot is swishing around in his mind,
Speaker 3: including the forthcoming Slammy Awards presentation. Oh my goodness, Oh
Speaker 3: my goodness, let's get acquainted with how the Hulkster and
Speaker 3: Vince McMahon's enterprises we're being written about heading into the
Speaker 3: year nineteen and eighty six. Also, I love that fucking
Speaker 3: that Punky Brewster. Is it above the fucking Yeah, it
Speaker 3: looks like her. The Santa Posa looks like I think
Speaker 3: it's a Punky Brewster looking the Sleigh Moonfry brother brother mean,
Speaker 3: we mean, fry dude, what's going on?
Speaker 9: Ah dohn Fry Right, Wrestling's Hulk comes to Tampa. Hulk
Speaker 9: Hogan alias Terry Bolea of what.
Speaker 3: They put that in the paper Brother. The kidding me
Speaker 3: Dude's scheduled to take on Terry Funk.
Speaker 9: In one of eight matches Saturday. All right, that's I
Speaker 9: don't know, it's a little side like a sub headline there.
Speaker 9: Uh Hulkamania. You can't escape it. Hulk Hogan, the country's
Speaker 9: most famous wrestler, seems to be everywhere. Look in the
Speaker 9: bookstores you'll find Hulk Hogan's ugly mug brother glaring off
Speaker 9: a slick calendar looking. Look at the toy stores, you'll
Speaker 9: find the Hulk Hogan action figure, a newcomer that's throwing
Speaker 9: a headlock on the he Man toys this Christmas. Look
Speaker 9: at Saturday Morning cartoons you'll find an animated version of
Speaker 9: The Hulk Hogan Rock and Wrestling Show. Where's the live
Speaker 9: action version of the Hulk Hogan Rock and Wrestling Show?
Speaker 9: I know, fact like there's any other version right. Look
Speaker 9: in the record stores you'll find the Hulkster and his
Speaker 9: pals have a new album out. And look at television
Speaker 9: on any given weekend and you'll find Hulk Hogan and
Speaker 9: the wrestlers from the Worldlessing Entertainment on channels ranging from
Speaker 9: MTV to USA Cable and WFTS Channel twenty eight and
Speaker 9: WRTV in New York, and come Thursday Night, The Hulk
Speaker 9: will be at the University of South Florida Sundome for
Speaker 9: one of the four hundred or so live events that
Speaker 9: will be staged Brother this year by the WWE. Hulk
Speaker 9: defends the world title against Terry Funk in one of
Speaker 9: eight matches scheduled. The WWE, headed by promoter Vince McMahon,
Speaker 9: is a high powered promotional organization that has catapulted wrestling
Speaker 9: from the dregs of the of a low budget, blue
Speaker 9: collar existence to the heights of popularity. Wrestling has become respectable,
Speaker 9: at least in appearances. For example, the event here Thursday
Speaker 9: night will be taped for NBC's Main Event, a Wrestling
Speaker 9: TV special that will air in place of Saturday Night
Speaker 9: Live at eleven thirty pm January fourth. This is the
Speaker 9: third main event this season for NBC, and because the
Speaker 9: ratings for the previous ones have been much higher than
Speaker 9: the ratings for Saturday Night for Saturday Night Live, I
Speaker 9: don't think that's true. Yeah, I think that Saturday Night
Speaker 9: Life reruns. He doesn't say. I thought he doesn't say
Speaker 9: that at all.
Speaker 3: Brother.
Speaker 9: There are likely to be more, there's little doubt that
Speaker 9: Hulk Hogan alias Terry Belaya of Tampa Brothers Twice is
Speaker 9: the superstar of WWE, But the brains behind the glitz
Speaker 9: and glamour of a glamour of professional wrestling is the
Speaker 9: forty year old McMahon, the kingpin of the WWE. Only
Speaker 9: a few years ago, professional wrestling operated on a smaller scale.
Speaker 9: The country was divided. You want to put down as this,
Speaker 9: you want to talk about the fact that before the WWE,
Speaker 9: they were, you know, it was divided. We have unified
Speaker 9: the entertainment industry. We have unified all of entertainment for
Speaker 9: everyone to enjoy in a way that has never been done.
Speaker 9: Entertainment has never been this organized. Only a few years ago,
Speaker 9: professional wrestling and operated on a smaller scale. The country
Speaker 9: was divided up into different sections run by different promoters.
Speaker 9: There were no national heroes. Bouts were held in armories
Speaker 9: or high school gyms. Certainly not in baseball arenas, in
Speaker 9: baseball stadiums in Chicago or football stadiums in Minnesota.
Speaker 3: Never, not at all, except you have to ignore when
Speaker 3: it did happen though for the exactly of course.
Speaker 9: Then cable television came along and McMahon, who had knack,
Speaker 9: not a knack, but who had knack for showbiz, capitalized
Speaker 9: on his stable of outrageous talent. What happened was a
Speaker 9: combination of factors, including a little bit of luck. McMahon
Speaker 9: said in a telephone interview, the major difference is how
Speaker 9: we view wrestling from a production and promotion standpoint. We
Speaker 9: brought the entertainment value to a higher level. That's the
Speaker 9: major philosophical difference in what we do. We are in
Speaker 9: the entertainment business and we want the fans to get
Speaker 9: their full value right.
Speaker 3: So he's thoroughly transitioned onto that bullshit. Now, McMahon knows
Speaker 3: the business well. His grandfather promoted boxing in Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 3: His father promoted boxing and wrestling. I grew up in
Speaker 3: the business. I did everything from taking tickets to putting
Speaker 3: up rings. He knew that giving full value that meant
Speaker 3: that there could be nothing too outrageous for the World
Speaker 3: Wrestling Entertainment Wrestlers. At the beginning of its rise to fame,
Speaker 3: the WWE, which is based in Connecticut, managed to reach
Speaker 3: into millions of homes because it was carried by w
Speaker 3: r TV in New York, York, a station that has
Speaker 3: offered on many cable systems that gave the w w
Speaker 3: E NASH nationwide exposure. In addition, McMahon launched a wild
Speaker 3: and crazy talk show originally originally called The Tuesday Night
Speaker 3: Titans on the USA Cable Network. The show has since
Speaker 3: moved to Friday nights and is now called TNT. Formatted
Speaker 3: much like the Johnny Carson Show. TNT quickly became the
Speaker 3: darling of the yuppies, hipsters, and those looking for a
Speaker 3: high camp experience. I doubt that I emphasis on high.
Speaker 3: We're looking for a high camp experience. McMahon a handsome
Speaker 3: must thank you. We hear that, a handsome, muscular fellow
Speaker 3: played it straight as he tried to interview characters who
Speaker 3: would often challenge each other and then break up the furniture.
Speaker 9: We try to be different. When you have people eccentricities
Speaker 9: that you know that some of our people have, why
Speaker 9: not use that to the optimum. Why not show off
Speaker 9: the very talents that make them stars in the ring?
Speaker 3: Did he say eccentricities in the article?
Speaker 9: When you have people with eccentricities, my god, that some
Speaker 9: of our people have, why not use that to the optimum,
Speaker 9: not the optimum effect, but the optimum The fuck is
Speaker 9: he doing? Following the success of the TNT show, McMahon
Speaker 9: began rubbing elbows with celebrities such as David Letterman and
Speaker 9: Dick Eversoll, the former producer of Saturday Night Live. Last year,
Speaker 9: ever Saw and McMahon joined forces to produce the main
Speaker 9: event series. It was the first time since the nineteen
Speaker 9: fifties wrestling had received network recognition. McMahon said they picked
Speaker 9: Tampa for the third show because they wanted a quote
Speaker 9: warm locale. You know that may not mean much to
Speaker 9: you down there, but in many parts of the country
Speaker 9: it will be freezing cold on January fourth, So we
Speaker 9: thought the people I would like to see some warm weather,
Speaker 9: McMahon said from an inside of an arena. Apparently, in
Speaker 9: addition to taping the eight matches that are slated for
Speaker 9: Thursday night, McMahon's crew will also be shooting at Adventure Island.
Speaker 9: He's ordered about two dozen curvaceous women for the event. Yes, well,
Speaker 9: you know, the we do appreciate curves and the WWE
Speaker 9: we think that curvaciousness is a is a a brand
Speaker 9: that may transcend the televised entertainment the equivalent.
Speaker 3: Did you say curvaciousness is a brand? Yes, a nice
Speaker 3: stand by that apparently. Apparently you do all the weight
Speaker 3: of the w WE and legal aspects behind me. Before
Speaker 3: you go running off of the mouth too much. Remember
Speaker 3: the legal aspects have been engaged as well.
Speaker 9: The card promises all sorts of excitement for the WWE
Speaker 9: fan included our matchups such as Rick Hunter facing King
Speaker 9: Kong Bundy, and a peace match between Corporal Kershner representing
Speaker 9: the United States and Nikolai Nikolai spelled n I c
Speaker 9: h O l I Volkov representing Russia. The Cold War
Speaker 9: was never like this. McMahon expects there that there will
Speaker 9: be more main events and that the WWE will be
Speaker 9: back in Tampta.
Speaker 3: We've got a great following down there. He also feels
Speaker 3: the interest in wrestling hasn't peaked yet. What's next?
Speaker 9: We go, well, you know, we're thinking about an award
Speaker 9: show for the Spring Wow.
Speaker 3: It would be like the Grammys, and we'd call it
Speaker 3: the Slammies, and it would be a show where everything
Speaker 3: you ever wished would happen at one of those events
Speaker 3: would happen. That's his mentality. His mentality in the Slammies,
Speaker 3: is like, because that's how he thinks is we don't
Speaker 3: watch the Grammys and we want nothing more than for
Speaker 3: all these musicians to just start beating the ship out of.
Speaker 9: Each other, right, we want we want these fucking crazy
Speaker 9: as Shenanigans to break down.
Speaker 3: Of course we don't. And no, not at all, not
Speaker 3: even close. I just want to see the great serenaded
Speaker 3: and give speeches and you know, have quality set up
Speaker 3: for recognition exactly.
Speaker 9: But no, what people really want to see is they
Speaker 9: want to see They want to see the then the
Speaker 9: musicians harassed the interviewers, right, they want to see the
Speaker 9: musicians fight each other when when they when one isn't
Speaker 9: given the award. I mean, this is what people want
Speaker 9: to see.
Speaker 3: I've asked people, and for good measure, they can throw
Speaker 3: food around and maybe make jokes about schatology.
Speaker 9: I you know, I I walk around my neighborhood and
Speaker 9: I say, hey, you know what do you want to
Speaker 9: see an award show? Do you want to see violence
Speaker 9: at an award show? And they said, well, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I said, you do, don't you start? I know you,
Speaker 3: I know you do.
Speaker 9: I know you want to see violence in an award show. Sure, sure, whatever, Vince,
Speaker 9: just whatever you say there, it is fact. He expects
Speaker 9: it will be carried by a major network. And you know,
Speaker 9: there could be a movie too. You know, we're talking
Speaker 9: to Warner Brothers right now. A WWE wrestling movie is
Speaker 9: very possible.
Speaker 3: Possible.
Speaker 9: Apparently nothing is impossible when it comes to McMahon and
Speaker 9: the WWE.
Speaker 3: Just love getting to him when it's in the formative stages,
Speaker 3: in the larval stages in his mind. Yes, thinking about
Speaker 3: doing something in the spring.
Speaker 9: We got ideas for a potential award program comes springtime.
Speaker 9: You know, let maybe a different style of vehicle that
Speaker 9: may promote other aspects of the WWE and the ww
Speaker 9: talent roster that may You.
Speaker 11: Know, we.
Speaker 9: Have a multitude of brand extensions that could entertain people
Speaker 9: for eons and decades to.
Speaker 3: Come, eons, first in decades. He I love how he starts.
Speaker 3: He starts the line of thought.
Speaker 9: With, well, yeah, well, well, you know we have various
Speaker 9: you know, we're always brainstorming here and me and the
Speaker 9: creative department of the World's Entertainment here in Stanford, Connecticut.
Speaker 9: We believe that brainstorming is the basis for all ideas.
Speaker 3: Well thank God for that. So that's him in the
Speaker 3: months before the slam He's how about weeks after the
Speaker 3: Slamies April fifth, nineteen eighty six, The Financial Post in Toronto,
Speaker 3: Pro Wrestling's rich new grip promoter Vince McMahon took an
Speaker 3: old idea and made it big money spectacle on both
Speaker 3: sides of the border. It's sport, showbiz, vaudeville, and morality
Speaker 3: play all rolled into one. Wherever you heard that whole
Speaker 3: fucking litanyah right, it takes place. He met a carnival
Speaker 3: like atmosphere and sports arenas in the biggest cities, in
Speaker 3: the smallest of towns. It's rolling across the continent like
Speaker 3: a jug or not. Professional wrestling Ryal Wrestling Federation style
Speaker 3: is rapidly becoming a multi million dollar, multi media, multi
Speaker 3: u name it phenomenon. The brains behind all this, braun
Speaker 3: is the Wiley Vince McMahon, president of Titan Sports Incorporated
Speaker 3: of Greenwich, Connecticut. His company controls the WWF and its
Speaker 3: myriad of clever spinoff, licensing and merchandising enterprises. He's a
Speaker 3: third generation promoter who not content with the little wrestling
Speaker 3: empire in the Eastern US he inherited from his father
Speaker 3: and grandfather several years ago, is taking his show all
Speaker 3: over the US. In Canada, prior to McMahon in his
Speaker 3: show of Bravado Wrestling was strictly a regional affair. There
Speaker 3: we go with promoters working within smallish boundaries, tying up
Speaker 3: several states or provinces exclusively and leaving outside markets to
Speaker 3: their competitors. Yes, I mean well, Neil, those are the
Speaker 3: things that we know. We contributed to the nationalization of
Speaker 3: professional entertainment as a whole, as well as the oil industry. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: we we solidified oil to create a base of uh
Speaker 3: sort of o peck emphasis on peck. And then they
Speaker 3: get Jack Tunny quoted. He says this idea has been
Speaker 3: around for years. Says, in admiring Jack Tunny press, Can
Speaker 3: we can we get someone to just write something in
Speaker 3: the voice of Jack Tunny. Please, I don't care who
Speaker 3: it is, Jack, say this. Please just sit go and
Speaker 3: say this. Listen, answer the phone. They're going to ask
Speaker 3: you a question. Ignore the question, just say what's on
Speaker 3: the paper? How funny is it a legitimate news reporter
Speaker 3: interviewing Jack Tunny like he's the actual president of the data. Yes,
Speaker 3: I mean, well, we want you to if you if
Speaker 3: you're interested, we do. I wouldn't mind you to introduce
Speaker 3: you to somebody, to introduce you to the president of
Speaker 3: the company. Uh, you know who was of a much
Speaker 3: more important status than I am. I'm simply the the
Speaker 3: the the developer of sorts, mister Jack Toney. Jack, please standings,
Speaker 3: please meet this reporter here. I believe his first name
Speaker 3: is Howard. Thank you, Howard. Hey, I sound like David Lynch.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Jack Toney had Lynch qualities. He did just a
Speaker 3: small touch of Lynch. He was like a lost, lost
Speaker 3: lost Lynch. Yes, yeah, but yeah. They're also interviewing him
Speaker 3: in his capacity is, as they say, here, Canada's top
Speaker 3: wrestling promoter based in Toronto, which, of course, when Vince
Speaker 3: made the deal to push into Toronto, he formed a
Speaker 3: venture with the Tunny family and they split profits, and
Speaker 3: they split them richly. The Tonnies got pretty much the
Speaker 3: best deal of anyone that got into bed with Vince.
Speaker 3: I think that's really the key right there. It's really
Speaker 3: about venturing, right, That's what it was.
Speaker 11: It was.
Speaker 3: It was business venture after business venture. I mean, I
Speaker 3: should take that back. We haven't seen all the language
Speaker 3: of all the NDAs. So maybe some people got better
Speaker 3: money for getting into bed with Vince. But as far
Speaker 3: as as far as this goes, well, I can tell
Speaker 3: you and there have been many women who've gotten plenty
Speaker 3: of money and going to bed.
Speaker 8: With me.
Speaker 3: And you, and you're proud of that fact. Hey, listen,
Speaker 3: I believe in paying for services. I believe in the
Speaker 3: service industry. How amazing is it that he makes that
Speaker 3: sound noble? I believe in paying for sir, well, I
Speaker 3: guess when you put it that way.
Speaker 11: I do too.
Speaker 9: Absolutely, it's not a it's not so abnormal as people
Speaker 9: like to put it. I believe it is indeed truly normal,
Speaker 9: not abnormal.
Speaker 3: A lot of people, Tenny says, get great ideas and
Speaker 3: then fold up when they run into restrictions. But he
Speaker 3: had the guts to keep going. Okay, say can you
Speaker 3: do that again?
Speaker 19: Please?
Speaker 3: I don't think it was delivered in the proper tonality.
Speaker 3: This idea of is right Tony's saying. You know, other
Speaker 3: promoters have tried to take over the entire world before.
Speaker 3: It didn't back off Vince Junior back didn't back off
Speaker 3: another's diad. They got cold, They got cold feet when
Speaker 3: the globe was at stake. Now they got cold feet
Speaker 3: once they got to Toronto. Three weekly okay. McMahon's marketing
Speaker 3: arsenal includes the use of this as well as the
Speaker 3: Northern territories right. Three weekly syndicated TV shows on nearly
Speaker 3: one hundred and ninety independent stations in the US and Canada.
Speaker 3: Eight annual ninety minute specials. Good, No, there's eight Saturday
Speaker 3: nights made events? Is there eight? Or six? Is there eight?
Speaker 17: Well?
Speaker 9: In eighty six there were no. Usually it's like six.
Speaker 9: But but you know, hold on, that's something I think
Speaker 9: in eighty eighty six there were there were quite a few.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this article was written in eighty six, and
Speaker 3: fairness to the author, so they have no way of
Speaker 3: knowing whether NBC would order less uh in the future years.
Speaker 9: So we're looking at I mean one, two, three, four, five,
Speaker 9: five five five okay, so five and eighty six.
Speaker 3: But there were I'll tell you what, But but there were.
Speaker 11: Eight?
Speaker 3: When was this article written? Eighty six?
Speaker 8: What?
Speaker 9: What?
Speaker 3: What month? I'll hold on's exactly how many? April fifth,
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty six? Oh god, I mean so at that
Speaker 3: point one, two three, there have been five at that
Speaker 3: point in total starting losing a five five Yeah, they
Speaker 3: have been five six yeah. I mean maybe maybe that's
Speaker 3: a little glimpse on the curtain. Maybe maybe NBC had
Speaker 3: an option for eight. You know, yeah, maybe exercise it.
Speaker 3: Why else would you put a number in there?
Speaker 8: You know?
Speaker 3: A weekly animated children's TV show on CBS called Hulk
Speaker 3: Hogan's Rock and Wrestling. Hogan is the WWA World Heavyweight Champion.
Speaker 3: The show is the network second most popular Saturday daytime program.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you're aware, but the current champion
Speaker 3: is Hulk Hogan. Let me introduce you to our our
Speaker 3: Matt n Idol, if you will. That was Awithstanding, America's
Speaker 3: SWEETHEARTY know what, he's a He's a matine idol. He's
Speaker 3: also a late night idol, right emphasis It depends on
Speaker 3: depends on when, what type of day he's idling, but
Speaker 3: he is an idolator. He does engage in idolatry. And
Speaker 3: when I talk about a matinee idol, I put the
Speaker 3: emphasis on Matt. He's a matte idol. There's no way,
Speaker 3: there's no way. There's never been a profile of Hulkgan
Speaker 3: where it says matinee IDOL and m at R all
Speaker 3: capital letters. Oh that had to happen. That's pretty wild.
Speaker 3: Think about this. They're on NBC, they're on USA, they're
Speaker 3: on CBS in the form of rock and Wrestling, and
Speaker 3: they're on MTV. Yeah. They are as wild. Yeah, every platform.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like it's kind of funny, you know
Speaker 3: that make a big deal out of being on you know,
Speaker 3: USA and Fox. Yeah, you know, yeah, and it's like nothing.
Speaker 3: So they were, they were all over the place, and
Speaker 3: they were not just on these stations. They were like
Speaker 3: hot commodities on these stags were these days were sought after. Yep,
Speaker 3: we were the station. A hot selling album on CBS
Speaker 3: Epic Records, featuring songs from many of the WWF top
Speaker 3: wrestlers in three rock music videos to help sell it.
Speaker 3: A bi monthly self promoting magazine called WWF that bos
Speaker 3: the circulation of two hundred thousand, nearly twice that of
Speaker 3: its nearest BI monthly. That's what it says. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: think it was at that point. Wow. Yep. Oh, it's
Speaker 3: a good trickle question for that. Back in the day,
Speaker 3: I know she talk about the agonizing months between.
Speaker 9: Really, I mean, that's just it like, you know, you
Speaker 9: think about the four weeks, I have two weeks instead
Speaker 9: of four weeks. I mean I would have I would
Speaker 9: have I would have wet myself for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. When I read that, it kind of gets me
Speaker 3: excited because whenever I've seen like archives of the magazines,
Speaker 3: it always seems like there's a ton missing. But maybe
Speaker 3: it's just the BI monthly era. Yeah, I have to say,
Speaker 3: I do not know when they went monthly wrestle Maybe
Speaker 3: BI monthly is two months, yeah, every two months. What
Speaker 3: would be two in a month. There's not a word
Speaker 3: for that as far as I know, I'm thinking two
Speaker 3: in a month. Maybe BI weekly, wouldn't it if it's
Speaker 3: two in a month, I.
Speaker 9: Guess, well, I guess that's true every Yeah. See that's
Speaker 9: what I was thinking. You were saying that that would
Speaker 9: have been great. BI monthly would have been awful.
Speaker 3: Oh no, bye bye. Weekly weekly would have been like
Speaker 3: the deserver, fucking just on fucking run off a roof
Speaker 3: to grab well. They would have had to hire six
Speaker 3: editors a year, because I mean, Jesus Christ, that's a
Speaker 3: lot of work. WrestleMania, now in its second year, an
Speaker 3: annual close circuit TV extravaganza held each spring. TV stars
Speaker 3: like Joan Rivers and Kathy Lee Crosby will help notte
Speaker 3: WrestleMania to April seventh as well. Mister T will box
Speaker 3: in it, and sports personalities like William the Refrigerator, Perry
Speaker 3: and Ed two Tall Jones will wrestle in it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: when we played that Chicago Bears a super Bowl song,
Speaker 3: no shortage of wressel Mania. Two participants in that thing. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: The licensing of more than forty products and toys, the
Speaker 3: staging of more than eight hundred shows annually in the
Speaker 3: US and Canada. You can say that staging of is
Speaker 3: going to say staging of multitude of matches as well
Speaker 3: staging of fights. Yes, all this in less than two
Speaker 3: and a half years. New York based LGN Toys Limited
Speaker 3: is the master toy lice see of the WWF, selling
Speaker 3: everything from eight inch wrestling dolls there it is oh
Speaker 3: Helkamania exercise equipment. How many young hulkamaniac rock and wrestling
Speaker 3: kids opened a LJN on Christmas morning in eighty six
Speaker 3: a week to have their grandmother call it a doll?
Speaker 3: Did you get the doll?
Speaker 10: Or what he get?
Speaker 3: One of those dolls. Did you get one of those
Speaker 3: wrestling dolls?
Speaker 5: Grandma?
Speaker 3: Fuck you right, That's where all started. The dolls were
Speaker 3: the main feature of the wrestling line. Last year. More
Speaker 3: than four million, four million were sold in the US
Speaker 3: at six to eight dollars. While you're having a lot
Speaker 3: of things on the table, While we have a lot
Speaker 3: of things on the table, I should say wrestling has
Speaker 3: improved the company, no question about it, says Andy Popolardo,
Speaker 3: who is l jn's advertising manager. Wrestling. All of a sudden,
Speaker 3: it has become so popular. It's like Americana almost took
Speaker 3: a very careful note when he read that one that
Speaker 3: I am Americana. And this from Peter Budge, director of
Speaker 3: product manager of CBS Record Canada, which distributes the Wrestling
Speaker 3: album in Canada on its Epic label in Canada, we're
Speaker 3: very close to going platinum, which is one hundred thousand
Speaker 3: units for an item perceived as a novelty record. That's phenomenal,
Speaker 3: he said. All of pro wrestling is riding the wave
Speaker 3: of popularity generated by the WWF. One broadcast salesman at
Speaker 3: Titan Sports estimates paid attendance at pro wrestling is increased
Speaker 3: by one third in North America in the past year.
Speaker 3: After the WWF, there are two other major wrestling promotional groups,
Speaker 3: the older National Wrestling Alliance based in the southern US,
Speaker 3: and the American Wrestling Association, which operates in the midwestern US.
Speaker 3: Quote since the WWF took off, there is also a
Speaker 3: lot of little groups coming out of the woodwork every day,
Speaker 3: says joh my God, he's not talking about awn NWA,
Speaker 3: and he says that a series. Not No, says John Ort,
Speaker 3: publisher of New Jersey based Wrestling Eye magazine. Do you
Speaker 3: remember wrestling? I No, I don't know that one at all.
Speaker 3: We know and then you'd see that on the newstands,
Speaker 3: one of roughly twenty five such publications on the market,
Speaker 3: twenty five different wrestling magazines, going wow, you imagine, God,
Speaker 3: just drop me off, drop me off, because Saturday's accounted for.
Speaker 3: Saturday's accounted for. Oh as, come on, all right, that's
Speaker 3: just I would actually want to go shopping. So yeah,
Speaker 3: so I could go to the magazine area and have like,
Speaker 3: of course, are you kidding?
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 3: That was one of my fucking stops, always one of
Speaker 3: my stops, you know, at I had, I had, you know,
Speaker 3: basically four stores I wanted to go to. When I
Speaker 3: went to the mall, it was usually KB Toys even
Speaker 3: you know, obviously into my twenties. As long as KB
Speaker 3: was around, I was seeing what what wrestling figures were available,
Speaker 3: to see what's going exactly. I would go to Suncoast Video.
Speaker 3: I would go to I don't know, straw whatever it
Speaker 3: with strawberries or some some record shop. Yes, I would
Speaker 3: go to. And then I would go to the magazine,
Speaker 3: the magaz the Hudson News, so that I could see what,
Speaker 3: you know, what wrestling magazines were available, who was on
Speaker 3: the cover? What can I what is what is getting
Speaker 3: me interested?
Speaker 8: Right?
Speaker 3: Always it was amazing and time that will never you know,
Speaker 3: it's been ripped away from us. Yeah, it has. It has.
Speaker 3: We say it all the time. Physical media, and that
Speaker 3: includes magazines, media of physicality. Anyway, the WWAF refuses to
Speaker 3: supply with pictures for his magazine. They've preferring to keep
Speaker 3: total control of its product. You don't have to like them,
Speaker 3: the WWF, but they've done a lot for themselves and
Speaker 3: the rest of the business indirectly, whether they've wanted to
Speaker 3: or not. McMahon is a genius in his own time.
Speaker 3: You've got to give the devil his due, he says.
Speaker 3: McMahon's marketing prowess has unveiled a new and growing audience.
Speaker 3: It's not purely the blue collar sport. A lot of
Speaker 3: people think it is, says one Titan salesman. The professional
Speaker 3: managerial class and upper income people are well represented. A
Speaker 3: lot of people have come out of the closet to
Speaker 3: admit they're wrestling fans. Mcmon's that's so funny. Even did
Speaker 3: you know the professional managerial classes out there?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 9: Those are the days, man, you're still coming. I mean, listen,
Speaker 9: we're still coming out of closet for that ship. Look,
Speaker 9: it's not all blue collar. This guy owns eight TGI
Speaker 9: Fridays in Greater Cleveland. Mcmon's leading attraction is the charismatic
Speaker 9: Hogan at six eight three ten pounds.
Speaker 3: The hulkster is wit charismatic dude, charismatic brother?
Speaker 11: What is that? What was that? A?
Speaker 3: Is that sarcasm? Dude? Right?
Speaker 8: Well?
Speaker 3: Are you saying that, I'm what do you mean by Charris?
Speaker 3: What's your what's your deal?
Speaker 5: Dude?
Speaker 3: Are you saying I have the riz brother? The rizz
Speaker 3: t is the Tis or ish Tis? Wait? Is nay,
Speaker 3: brother who mhmm, it works now tis tis now the
Speaker 3: witching of the night. Tis but my name, that is
Speaker 3: my enemy. But now when when you say tiss at
Speaker 3: the bar, dude, he starts, he starts reading like old English,
Speaker 3: tis for for it is, it's right, tis nobler, nobler
Speaker 3: for what tis is nobler than what brother w W.
Speaker 3: I can get behind that, dude, brother, laser spine I'm nobler.
Speaker 3: What if Hogan came back and did the triple H
Speaker 3: offensive set, he'd do the laser spinebuster? You know that, right? Yes?
Speaker 11: I do, I do.
Speaker 3: I can confirm that he would do that at six A,
Speaker 3: three hundred ten pounds the whole state budget. I can't
Speaker 3: believe we didn't say that during TNH. I can't believe.
Speaker 3: I can't believe that either. That's tremendous. Shout out to
Speaker 3: the homie John who's taking another jaunt through TNH. God
Speaker 3: blessed those those brave souls. Oh my god. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: won't is as imposing a figure outside the ring as
Speaker 3: he is inside.
Speaker 11: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Just something tells me us resurfacing TNA like we did
Speaker 3: that time is going to lead to I don't know.
Speaker 3: Just like a short term moment of TNA nostalgia where
Speaker 3: people are going to be looking back at what happened.
Speaker 3: A former rock musician in Bodybuilder, Hogan is one of
Speaker 3: the most sought after celebrities in Hollywood. He has made
Speaker 3: appearances on Saturday Night Live, love Boat in the A Team,
Speaker 3: He has his own animated TV show, numerous licensed products,
Speaker 3: countless personal appearances, not to mention beating up opponents with
Speaker 3: names like the Magnificent Morocco, Big John stud and King
Speaker 3: Kong Bundy three or four times a week.
Speaker 11: Wow.
Speaker 3: WWF's original strength lay in Madison Square Garden in New York,
Speaker 3: considered the mecha wrestling in North America, but the phenomenon
Speaker 3: has spread to the NaSTA County Coliseum on Long Island.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, that's a fucking You talk about a brand extension,
Speaker 3: that's a forty five minute drive. I can't. I can't
Speaker 3: believe they're going that far. Spectrum in Philly, the Meadowlands
Speaker 3: in New Jersey, in the Capital Center in Orlando, Ver, Maryland.
Speaker 9: Yet I mean all these fucking I mean, listen, not
Speaker 9: even Philadelphia is that far.
Speaker 3: Those are all markets they were in before this expansion,
Speaker 3: right exactly, very curious to put it that way. Well,
Speaker 3: Madison is where Garden is historically been a wrestling sellout
Speaker 3: with its twenty two thousand plus fans. Even prior to
Speaker 3: its WWAF association. The other four locations now played a
Speaker 3: packed houses of fifteen to seventeen thousand, where's before they
Speaker 3: were in the nine to ten thousand range. Drawn up
Speaker 3: motor Tunny switched to the WF from the NBA in
Speaker 3: July nineteen eighty four and hasn't looked back. We've been
Speaker 3: hasn't looked back because he doesn't know how. He was
Speaker 3: busy in Alzheimer's patient through the whole We've been bringing
Speaker 3: in shows to make Believe Garden since nineteen thirty one,
Speaker 3: and we've always done well, but with the WWF we've
Speaker 3: been doing a capacity business twice a month for the
Speaker 3: past five months. Donny also brings WF cards into smaller
Speaker 3: arenas all over Ontario elsewhere.
Speaker 9: I've been oh to tell you that the WWE is
Speaker 9: better than anything I've done.
Speaker 3: And that's a quote, and this is not set under
Speaker 3: duress or in there any personal fear of reprisal. It
Speaker 3: says here that I chose to tell you this elsewhere
Speaker 3: in Canada. Alberta and Quebec are also wrestling hot beds,
Speaker 3: although they don't get WDBF cards yet. Oh that's not true.
Speaker 3: They were going to Quebec already definitely out and that
Speaker 3: Jacques came in in eighty four. I think it was, yeah,
Speaker 3: something like that. Yeah, Alberta and Manitoba get AWA cards,
Speaker 3: Quebec gets the IWF. Well, that's true. That was the
Speaker 3: Deno Bravo outfit, but that was not the only game
Speaker 3: in town. They had already started to do some shows
Speaker 3: up there in the US. Mcmaon the wrestlming and two
Speaker 3: is seeking to crack the major markets of Chicago and
Speaker 3: Los Angeles. Wressellmingia two will feature three live shows emanating
Speaker 3: from the Los Angeles Sports Arena, Nassau Coliseum, and the
Speaker 3: Rosemont Horizon outside of Chicago. The key matches from each
Speaker 3: will be piped across the continent live on close Circuit TV.
Speaker 3: There will be more than one point five million people
Speaker 3: paying up to fourteen dollars a ticket to watch WrestleMania
Speaker 3: two in North America, including twelve locations across Canada. How
Speaker 3: do you know, I guess they already sold one point
Speaker 3: five million closed circuit tickets. That's fucking amazing. Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 3: The WBF stars all have exclusive contracts with Titan Sports
Speaker 3: for their services. Yeah, I'm sure they do. Yeah right, yeah,
Speaker 3: Ironclad pushed in front of them at a TV tape
Speaker 3: being signed or get shot in the head, you know,
Speaker 3: once they realized how much money is coming in. I've
Speaker 3: never threatened if I didn't have to. Didn't we read
Speaker 3: the contract?
Speaker 11: Yeah?
Speaker 3: We read it because because it came out where he
Speaker 3: was like, we're all riding this wild train together, where
Speaker 3: the exactly it's a fucking bullshit. Yeah yeah, Jerry Briscoe
Speaker 3: found a copy in his archives, right, kind of the
Speaker 3: first contracts they issued around to the talent once this
Speaker 3: all this mania started to happen, and the rights to
Speaker 3: merchandise their names on all the licensed product lines. Nobody
Speaker 3: signing the checks will tell you the exact figures, but
Speaker 3: many of the top good guys and bad guys are
Speaker 3: said to be making in the two hundred to four
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars range, and Hogan's anual net worth has
Speaker 3: been pegged it anywhere from two point four million to
Speaker 3: four million dollars by the WWF and at one million
Speaker 3: dollars by wrestling eyes ort. But wrestlers earn every penny
Speaker 3: they make. As far as Toney is concerned, it's a
Speaker 3: hell of a grind. They're up in the morning nearly
Speaker 3: every day to travel. They wrestle three or four times
Speaker 3: a week, and when they're not fighting, they're doing TV interviews.
Speaker 3: They're just isn't any time to sit at home and
Speaker 3: count their money, because it's gone by the time they
Speaker 3: get home. Exactly, They've already spent it on alcohol, drugs, yes,
Speaker 3: sex women, yeap hotel rooms that the company won't pay
Speaker 3: for meals, the company won't pay for health insurance, the
Speaker 3: company won't pay for rental cars, the company won't pay
Speaker 3: for I mean, listen, listen, I mean you know what
Speaker 3: do you want all those things paid for?
Speaker 4: You need?
Speaker 3: I mean, you know we're talking about you know, where
Speaker 3: where do you think the money comes from? And we're
Speaker 3: giving you everything we can and you want us to
Speaker 3: spend more on you. But you know what about the company?
Speaker 11: Right?
Speaker 3: What about us? The only reason they pay for your
Speaker 3: flight tickets is so you can't try to cafade the
Speaker 3: deal and get there late. Right, Exactly, exactly the way.
Speaker 3: We know that you're there. We know where you are,
Speaker 3: when you are, and why you are, and you take
Speaker 3: the Red Eye. You know, you always take the earliest
Speaker 3: flight so that you never have an excuse of being late.
Speaker 3: So what's really so different from wrestling today compared to
Speaker 3: bygone eras? They look better, work out more, and our
Speaker 3: TV production is much better. Toney says, yeah, they work
Speaker 3: out more, all right. Gorgeous George Yukon, Eric Whipper Watson,
Speaker 3: they were big stars, but nothing like Hogan. He's big
Speaker 3: in every corner of the world. If you look took
Speaker 3: the Junkyard Dog, yes that's another wrestler, or the author.
Speaker 3: We go and hopped a plane to Egypt, they'd know
Speaker 3: him there. Oh my god, they'd know him there. Huh, boss,
Speaker 3: I guess they would. If you're saying that, if he
Speaker 3: was telling me that, then I'm then it must be true.
Speaker 3: All these conditions resulted in, among other things, our topic
Speaker 3: de jure, the nineteen eighty six Slammies, and with it
Speaker 3: coming up in MTV, if you happen to be flicking
Speaker 3: the channel, says, we used to do so joyously in America.
Speaker 3: This may have been something you came across.
Speaker 5: You've heard of the Oscaris, You've heard of the Grammys,
Speaker 5: now MTV, the World Wrestling Generation Grace at the Slammies.
Speaker 4: Drive and the slam Is.
Speaker 3: That's because I'm different.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 5: The best best performing single artist. I'm gonna have to
Speaker 5: pid myself, don't forget such a watches Baby.
Speaker 2: Seven thirty eight o'clock launched the first.
Speaker 5: Claws, MTV Baltimore Civic Center, the Slammy Awards.
Speaker 2: Rock and Wrestling at its best.
Speaker 3: Seven thirty eight. It's like the Jeopardy time slot right
Speaker 3: exactly so bizarre. It's so bizarre. Playboy Magazine with this excerpt,
Speaker 3: February first, nineteen eighty six, after the Wrestling album came out.
Speaker 3: The rock and wrestling connection, much valuehooed by my part
Speaker 3: time employer, MTV, is that both are ninety five percent
Speaker 3: posturing and five percent substance, and my experience this ratio
Speaker 3: tends to hold for the rest of life as well.
Speaker 3: But it is easier to discern and rock and wrestling,
Speaker 3: which I think makes both activities such inviting targets for
Speaker 3: politicians across the ideological spectrum. Okay, we need to let
Speaker 3: this author go yes, yep. I think it's about the
Speaker 3: worst sentence I've ever read in my life. I think
Speaker 3: he has I think that the fork needs to be
Speaker 3: stuck inside this gentleman and playboy paid more per word
Speaker 3: than anybody in those days. There is good posturing motivated
Speaker 3: by P. T. Barnum style greed and the desire to
Speaker 3: have fun. And there is evil posturing motivated by paranoia
Speaker 3: and the desire to look like a hero. While weaseling
Speaker 3: on the MX. What the wrestling album at paranoia? What
Speaker 3: do you mean? What by various stars of the word
Speaker 3: Wrestling Federation is posturing at its best? He declares, the
Speaker 3: wrestling album Boss posturing at its best. Indeed, I think
Speaker 3: we got to the bottom of that with Budrillard and
Speaker 3: with the help of dere Dah for one thing, the
Speaker 3: producers Rick Derringer, Joel Norn, Dave Wolf and Monaflombay Cindi
Speaker 3: Lauper's new alter ego. We're smart enough to know that
Speaker 3: funny music isn't funny. Serious music in a silly situation
Speaker 3: is funny. Serious music in a silly situation is funny?
Speaker 3: Were you talking about it? What the you saying? He's
Speaker 3: just trying to say these songs are serious in a
Speaker 3: silly way in and of themselves, oh my god. But
Speaker 3: when presented by wrestlers, they take on a silliness that
Speaker 3: makes them actually funny. No, no, wrong, that's wrong. Listen,
Speaker 3: that's objectively wrong. Yeah, you get to stop, man, this
Speaker 3: guy's gonna fucking stop. Hence, the musicians are playing crisp
Speaker 3: pop in various styles and are not competing with the
Speaker 3: singing wrestlers for exuberant awfulness. And boy are the singing
Speaker 3: wrestlers exuberantly awful. Particular standouts are Rowdy Roddy Piper's for
Speaker 3: Everybody actually Fuck Everybody, and Nikolai Volokov's astoundingly slurred Kadamia.
Speaker 3: The one exception is Deringer's Real American, which is serious
Speaker 3: we are an embattled minority style nationalism, which is a load. Okay,
Speaker 3: this playboy writer calls Real American a load. One way
Speaker 3: to look at it, drop a load.
Speaker 18: Hm.
Speaker 3: But if the rest of this record gets any radio
Speaker 3: play at all, it could be one of the great
Speaker 3: party records of the year. If you can't get off
Speaker 3: on silliness this transcendent, you're probably a politician. Oh my god.
Speaker 3: The fuck. Honestly, how was the god like the work
Speaker 3: that writers did in the eighties to like intellectualize things, man,
Speaker 3: my goodness and like the like to be witty and
Speaker 3: have this you know, the intellectual is the wrong word. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you're right.
Speaker 9: Yeah, like they're trying they're trying to be like smart,
Speaker 9: allgy and trying to be you know, uh kind of
Speaker 9: I don't know, ahead of the curve is not the
Speaker 9: right term, I think, but like they just want to
Speaker 9: be you know, I don't know, they're just obnoxious. Like
Speaker 9: the fact that the fact that that that people that
Speaker 9: there were people who signed off on this as good
Speaker 9: writing is is just unbelievable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like they're editors that said, yeah this works. Love
Speaker 3: It a time in America where you could just be like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's no worse than politics. Hun, Everyone's like, ah ha, exactly,
Speaker 3: that's so dated. It sounds so forced now, you know
Speaker 3: sound I mean it sounds forced, then sounds forced. Then sure, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that that was that was the sensibility at the time.
Speaker 3: It was like we're all above politics, you know, but
Speaker 3: if you don't follow politics, then you're not part of
Speaker 3: the writerly class. Comment exactly, Come on, I mean can't
Speaker 3: be part of the commentary unless you watch what are
Speaker 3: you reading?
Speaker 4: Though?
Speaker 3: You know you're you're making comments and stuff, but you
Speaker 3: don't even know what you're talking about.
Speaker 23: You know.
Speaker 3: Of all the people that lampooned it, most brilliantly, and
Speaker 3: I think we excerpted this on our Wrestlmania one show
Speaker 3: all those years ago, was MTV themselves when they did
Speaker 3: that whole thing. Remember in the cafe where the intellectuals
Speaker 3: that they recruited to sit around and talk about the
Speaker 3: dialectics of wrestling. Remember that, yes, they were mocking New
Speaker 3: York intellectuals, but they hired actual intellectuals to talk about
Speaker 3: pro wrestling in a total tongue in cheek way, and
Speaker 3: they put it on the on the broadcast and a
Speaker 3: lead up to things when they were showing all these
Speaker 3: rock stars commenting on who they thought who they wanted
Speaker 3: to win, between hul Coke and Roddy Piper.
Speaker 9: It's funny, you know, it's it's it's uh, you know,
Speaker 9: it's materialization.
Speaker 3: We talked about the fact that the same night of
Speaker 3: the nineteen eighty six Slammis was Saturday night's main event.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you know this, Boss but you
Speaker 3: do appreciate that right after the Slammys finished, they did
Speaker 3: a house show in the same building, right. Wow, I
Speaker 3: did not know that they sold those tickets just to
Speaker 3: watch a half hour stage show. Well, they bought tickets
Speaker 3: to watch a four hour staged show. But you get
Speaker 3: my point.
Speaker 11: Now.
Speaker 3: There was a whole event with Piper and Orndorf and
Speaker 3: a steel cage in the main event right there in Baltimore,
Speaker 3: and in fact, Ventur and Monsoon were on hand for commentary.
Speaker 3: The only video, curiously that's emerged of the matches that
Speaker 3: night are not the high profile ones, but a lot
Speaker 3: of the j brone matches, which apparently they aired in
Speaker 3: some for some form or other. I've seen them, but
Speaker 3: I've seen them sort of isolated, not as part of
Speaker 3: a broader television broadcast. But really, yeah, at some point
Speaker 3: on one of their syndicated shows or something, they must
Speaker 3: have aired these and we'll talk about which ones have
Speaker 3: survived on videotape. But yes, the house show that followed
Speaker 3: it took place right there in the Baltimore Arena, fourteen
Speaker 3: thousand in attendance. It was Jim Powers defeating Barrio. It
Speaker 3: was George Wells beating Jose Luise Rivera. It was Danny
Speaker 3: Spivey beating Ron Shaw, Siva Offy pinning Renegoula, The Junkyard
Speaker 3: Dog pinning aj Pertruzzi, Antony Atlas pinning Iron Mike Sharp.
Speaker 3: There was also Nikolai Volkov and the Iron Cheek defeating
Speaker 3: George Steele and Corporal Kirchner, King Kong Bundy pinning Hillbilly
Speaker 3: Jim and Paul Orndorf again defeating Ruddy Piper in a
Speaker 3: steel cage match where apparently Piper had according to a
Speaker 3: comment on YouTube underneath the Slammies where someone who apparently
Speaker 3: was at the show was reflecting, Piper had his pants
Speaker 3: pulled down at a particular juncture in the contest, and
Speaker 3: Orndorf snaked out of the cage crawling through the door.
Speaker 3: But yeah, this is wild that there was a wrestling
Speaker 3: show right after the first Slammings. And here's just a
Speaker 3: taste of the kind of things Gorilla and Jesse were
Speaker 3: saying on the few matches they did commentate that ended
Speaker 3: up seeing the light of day.
Speaker 11: Very Oh take an exception to some of our ring
Speaker 11: signers here were John Park once again. SRO signs went
Speaker 11: out early about ten days ago this Baltimore Civic Center
Speaker 11: was sold out to capacity for this World Wrestling Federation
Speaker 11: and Wrestling at Club Agenda.
Speaker 4: Well, I'll tell you, Gorilla, that's the key now.
Speaker 11: Even to get tickets to come to the live events,
Speaker 11: you've better plan on getting them about two weeks ahead
Speaker 11: of tilon you go and there won't be none to get.
Speaker 4: Well, you should get them the night that you're here. Yes,
Speaker 4: you should get them to the next event because they
Speaker 4: usually always go on so at that time, Lobby the
Speaker 4: wise man, you'd know that during because I understand it.
Speaker 4: You're generally at the paper your seat here, don't you trust?
Speaker 4: Thank God, I don't have to, Jack, I figure if
Speaker 4: you reserve that all the time? An I nice because
Speaker 4: I'm paying for it.
Speaker 3: I get my scream to make me.
Speaker 4: Pay for your well Frob, how about right not nice?
Speaker 4: Counter by burialgate deft pressure by reaching it, pushing out
Speaker 4: back to the time.
Speaker 1: It's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast, the wrestling podcast that
Speaker 1: knows the boys need their candy. It's the Lapsed Fan.
Speaker 1: He's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling Podcast with Jack and se.
Speaker 3: Mg so Yes Barrio Barrio not Barrio Barrio in the
Speaker 3: fucking Barrio Spaghettio. Yeah. Yeah, there we go against Jim
Speaker 3: Powers there excerpted. Uh, they're talking a lot about the
Speaker 3: sold out crowd, and yeah, I'm sure would have sold
Speaker 3: out anyway, considering how hot they were at the time,
Speaker 3: But they're not mentioning the people are there to see
Speaker 3: the Slammies. It's like, right, an afterthought. But yeah, when
Speaker 3: they show like the wide shot to start the Slam
Speaker 3: Awards broadcast in MTV, you do, in fact see a
Speaker 3: ring set up, and it's you see it, and you
Speaker 3: just think it's part of like a set design, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's what I thought. I thought it was just kind
Speaker 3: of part of the set, and I didn't realize it
Speaker 3: was a thing not there to work. The Saturday It's
Speaker 3: main event that night, as mentioned, was from Phoenix, and
Speaker 3: it had been taped on February fifteenth and airing here
Speaker 3: on March first, and it includes, as mentioned, the premiere
Speaker 3: of Real American. I guess you could say the network
Speaker 3: television premiere of Real American. It has some interesting pre roll.
Speaker 3: You know that before they started playing natural Song on
Speaker 3: Saturday Night's main event, they played archival footage of JFK saying,
Speaker 3: ask not what you can do for your country? Oh
Speaker 3: my god, are you here? Ask not what your country
Speaker 3: could do for you? Yeah? Why, I don't know. I
Speaker 3: guess they thought that was relevant. Yeah, and keeping with
Speaker 3: what they wanted to portray about Ulk Hogan at the time. Okay,
Speaker 3: it's weird. The video also shows him tearing up a
Speaker 3: picture of Gadaffi. As we mentioned, by the time they
Speaker 3: aired the video on the broadcast, Hulk had already been
Speaker 3: totally ambushed and sent to the hospital. My Ginggong Bundy,
Speaker 3: So it's almost like a it's a bit tearful, you know,
Speaker 3: for wrestling fans. There was an mentioned in one of
Speaker 3: the newsletters. The guys that between the sheets picked this
Speaker 3: up and the newsletter I haven't heard of before, but
Speaker 3: somebody who was live in attendance in Phoenix for this
Speaker 3: taping said that not only you know, was the Hull
Speaker 3: cogaan angle harrowing for the live crowd, but they actually
Speaker 3: got on the microphone and told the live crowd. According
Speaker 3: to this newsletter report, it wasn't the observer, but it's
Speaker 3: another one. They told the crowd that we can't get
Speaker 3: a pulse on Hul Cogan. Oh No, they did not.
Speaker 3: That's what That's what was reported. Imagine that. I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: ladies and gentlemen. We apologize for the delay. We are
Speaker 3: tending to Hulk Hogan right now as closely as we
Speaker 3: can medically, and I regret to say it might be
Speaker 3: quite a while at the moment I hesitate to say,
Speaker 3: but we do not have a pulse on Hulk Hogan.
Speaker 3: We do not have the audience, the pulse of the audience. Clearly,
Speaker 3: you imagine the children crying, I mean exactly, like, what
Speaker 3: are they thinking, Well, you gotta get as much emotion
Speaker 3: out of the crowd for this. I guess this is
Speaker 3: the NBC angle that's gonna sell WrestleMania. You can't. You
Speaker 3: can't leave anything on the table. That's awful. But as
Speaker 3: mentioned the reason I carved out the Real American premieers,
Speaker 3: the network television premieers. There is evidence, though I couldn't
Speaker 3: find video of it, and I'm sure if it did exist,
Speaker 3: it would be very easy to find. Of Vince McMahon
Speaker 3: as guest vjay on MTV earlier in the day presenting
Speaker 3: the premiere of the Real American Video for the music
Speaker 3: television audience. Here's a blurb MTV and Wrestling tangle again.
Speaker 3: The first maybe annual maybe not Slamy Awards will be
Speaker 3: telecast live from before the eyes of fourteen thousand avid
Speaker 3: wrestling fans at the Civic Center in the heart of
Speaker 3: downtown Baltimore, Maryland, Friday March first, seven thirty pm Eastern
Speaker 3: Time only on MTV. Host of the show as none
Speaker 3: other than the Voice of the Ward Wrestling Federation, Vince McMahon.
Speaker 3: Among the well muscled nominees who have promised to show
Speaker 3: up that nighter, Freddy Lassie Jesse, the Badi Ventura and
Speaker 3: Captain Lewell Bano. Okay, you're promoting the managers and the commentators.
Speaker 3: That's who you're promoting. Okay, Emily needs somebody. Mtvvjays Alan
Speaker 3: Hunter and Martha Quinn will be in Baltimore to offer
Speaker 3: color commentary during the history making event that not turned
Speaker 3: out to be the case. Alan Hunter was, of course
Speaker 3: the mtvvj that was backstage for War to settle the
Speaker 3: score and has been a couple of historical documentaries about
Speaker 3: the first WrestleMania that whole time period since, and he
Speaker 3: was integral. He was the guy that sits with Gene
Speaker 3: Okerland and kind of narrates this whole idea of rock
Speaker 3: and wrestling before we get to the Hogan Piper match
Speaker 3: on war to settle the score. But he was not
Speaker 3: on the slamm He's Martha Quinn, however, was We'll get
Speaker 3: more acquainted with her in a little bit. She's backstage
Speaker 3: in a sweater trying to figure out what the fuck
Speaker 3: is George Steele's problem for instance. Yes, oh my, I
Speaker 3: know she is just ah, she doesn't want to pold woman,
Speaker 3: that poor woman. I mean, it is just it's so awful.
Speaker 3: I feel for her. I do so, it says here.
Speaker 3: Vince McMahon to guest vjay prior to the Slammy telecast.
Speaker 3: Vince McMahon will be a guest vjay on MTV Wednesday,
Speaker 3: February twenty six, So it wasn't earlier that day. It
Speaker 3: was a week before. Wednesday, febru twenty six, from ten
Speaker 3: to eleven pm Eastern Time, McMahon will introduce the world
Speaker 3: premiere of Haul Cogan's new video Real American, with music
Speaker 3: by Rick Deringer, and reveal a little behind the scenes
Speaker 3: Slammy information. But I wouldn't give to see that clip.
Speaker 3: We don't have such luck, right, I know, I mean,
Speaker 3: that's just that that sucks. I would I would hope,
Speaker 3: if I would hope, I would hope too. Absolutely, This
Speaker 3: from the Los Angeles Times in May of that year,
Speaker 3: Sound and Vision, rock and Round the Flag. Is it
Speaker 3: too late to reschedule the bi centennial? Now that rock
Speaker 3: and rollers finally are getting into the American spirit on
Speaker 3: Moss about a decade too late. The MTV channel is
Speaker 3: starting to look more like something that could be called
Speaker 3: the USA Network that already exists. So I'm gonna get
Speaker 3: this Chris Willman on the phone. This guy's an idiot.
Speaker 3: These guys are I mean, honestly, you know, I just
Speaker 3: want to have such clever turns a phrase always does it.
Speaker 3: Also clearly don't want to be doing this. They don't
Speaker 3: even like put in the time to kind of like
Speaker 3: gussie it up for no reason. Just tell us convey
Speaker 3: the information please, I mean, don't have to be dry,
Speaker 3: but like, what was that all about?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: This new patriotism takes many forms. There's Jackson Brown singing
Speaker 3: that he wished these United States were in the right
Speaker 3: for America, and then there's the America right or wrong
Speaker 3: flavor of novelties like the collaboration between wrestling heavyweight Hulkgan
Speaker 3: and rock lightweight Rick Derringer. Ouch, Wow, Wow, Real American.
Speaker 3: Neither vision of the Red, White, and Blue is very compelling, unfortunately,
Speaker 3: at least not in the video translation. There is something
Speaker 3: uniquely American, though, in the fact that the bottom of
Speaker 3: this barrel of current video clips is scraped by a
Speaker 3: bad actor taking on a new career. Ratings are based
Speaker 3: on a scale of zero to one hundred. Okay, so
Speaker 3: he's rating a series of patriotic albums at the time,
Speaker 3: of course, Real American being among them. On the wrestling
Speaker 3: album he writes ul Coogan and Rick Dernder's Real American,
Speaker 3: directed by Ed Gorillas. Derringer had good sense not to
Speaker 3: make an appearance in this video for a song from
Speaker 3: the Wrestling outl but the haltster provides ham enough for
Speaker 3: one hundred clips. While the missing singer promises to fight
Speaker 3: for the rights of every man. The hunky wrestler is
Speaker 3: seen entering the ring to best an opponent dressed in
Speaker 3: red or crumpling up a photo of Gadaffi or playing
Speaker 3: air guitar against a rear projection backdrop of Mountain majesties
Speaker 3: and spacious skies. Like Brown's video, this one also uses
Speaker 3: stock war footage, but of the more victorious type i e.
Speaker 3: Pre Nam. The sheer imbecility of a guy in tights
Speaker 3: equating himself with World War two vets might be more
Speaker 3: offensive if it wasn't such a rare example of Dada
Speaker 3: at its most heightened and aggressive. Did they fucking call
Speaker 3: this dada?
Speaker 4: Wow?
Speaker 3: I'm going to send you the direction and I'm gonna
Speaker 3: make you read it back to not only me but yourself,
Speaker 3: and the people go ahead. Oh my god, this is
Speaker 3: the kind of stuff that WWF's fucking rise in the eighties.
Speaker 3: Da Da, dadaist art. Jesus Christ. The sheer imbecility of
Speaker 3: a guy in tights equating himself with World War two
Speaker 3: vets might be more offensive if it wasn't such a
Speaker 3: rare example of Dada at its most heightened an aggressive
Speaker 3: level performances reality. I mean, you know, dada, isn't it fitting?
Speaker 3: Is it's definitely uh you know, da da? How so
Speaker 3: it just you know, it's anti establishment, it is uh
Speaker 3: uh you know, it comments on its own absurd. It's
Speaker 3: it's a it's a public gathering demonstration. You know, I
Speaker 3: mean we're talking. It falls under the whole fucking thing there.
Speaker 3: Does it comment on its own absurdity? Of course it does.
Speaker 9: Does it blurred the lines between art and life? I
Speaker 9: mean that's the Slammy Awards right there. Yes, okay, that
Speaker 9: is the Slammy Awards.
Speaker 12: Man.
Speaker 3: I would have loved to share a romagine. This is great. Okay,
Speaker 3: this is on the Wikipedia page of Dada. Okay. Yes,
Speaker 3: the work of French.
Speaker 9: Poets, Italian futurists and German expressionists would influence Dada's rejection
Speaker 9: of the correlation between words and meaning.
Speaker 3: That's it Data, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 24: I was waiting for some going to play, Hi Dada,
Speaker 24: We're gonna go there on the slant? Do you dare
Speaker 24: I consider me a Dadaist Thedaist?
Speaker 3: Oh, oh my goodness, here we go. According to Hans Richter,
Speaker 3: Dada is not art.
Speaker 8: It is.
Speaker 9: It is.
Speaker 3: Anti art. Wow, that's pro wrestling. Yes, it is, it
Speaker 3: is anti art. I like that. Where art was concerned
Speaker 3: with traditional aesthetics, Data ignored aesthetics. If art, if art
Speaker 3: was if art was to appeal to sensibilities, Dada was
Speaker 3: intended to offend. It is pretty funny to call him
Speaker 3: dada intended to offend, that's intended to offend. That's Roddy Piper, right,
Speaker 3: that's everything, absolutely, that's Aron't she can Nikola Volkhov and
Speaker 3: anybody who got heat the old, the old fashioned way.
Speaker 3: Dada attempted to reflect onto human perception and the chaotic
Speaker 3: nature of society. I don't know, man, something everything is
Speaker 3: dada too, she beware of dada. Empty Dadaism is a
Speaker 3: disease self kleptomania. Man's normal condition is dada. But the
Speaker 3: real dadas are against dada. A quote for by Tristan
Speaker 3: Sarah and the Romanian ofvant Guard poet. Yeah, the real
Speaker 3: dada is what.
Speaker 25: The real dadas or against the data. Yeah, everything is dada.
Speaker 25: Beware of dada.
Speaker 3: That's that's what they used to tell Stephanie.
Speaker 25: Stephanie, beware dada because everything is dada, but the real
Speaker 25: data against dada.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh, so you're saying, are you saying Sean O'Shea is
Speaker 3: my dad? Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 26: Perhaps mister o'she real da Da against the da Da.
Speaker 26: It's a Romanian poet, I Robailian bullet. I'm no expert,
Speaker 26: but I think Barth would see the Slammies as a
Speaker 26: ritual of exaggerated meaning.
Speaker 3: Let me, let me, let me tell you, all right,
Speaker 3: I think Barth would have been the front fucking row
Speaker 3: absolutely all right, like just soaking in the absurd post
Speaker 3: modern example in front of him. Yes, just how many okay,
Speaker 3: how it's commenting upon itself exactly. He would be obsessed
Speaker 3: with this cafe merit that's being celebrated, the bizarre, like
Speaker 3: this perception of humanity right through the lens of absurdity. Yep, okay,
Speaker 3: he would have. He would have fucking like he let
Speaker 3: me tell you, the moment after the first award happened,
Speaker 3: he would have been on his feet, standing ovation who wins.
Speaker 3: He wouldn't have sat down again, and he would say,
Speaker 3: you know who wins, the Slammy doesn't matter. What matters
Speaker 3: is the pageantry of pretending it does. Yes, oh ah,
Speaker 3: the slam Slammies. Okay. And that night at NBC they
Speaker 3: had the Mister T bob Orton boxing match to set
Speaker 3: up Piper and Mister T at WRESTLMINGA two. They had
Speaker 3: Bundy squash Jobber, Steve Gator Wolf. They had Hogan beat
Speaker 3: Morocco viadiqu when Bobby Heenen ran in stomped his head,
Speaker 3: and then they had Bundy splash Hogan until he was hospitalized.
Speaker 3: They had Beefcake and Valentine over the British Bulldogs in
Speaker 3: a preview of the Wrestleminia two tag team Tanitnele match
Speaker 3: that they had, and the broadcast closed out with Junkyard
Speaker 3: Dog versus Adrian Adonnis. Vince McMahon is out there, he's
Speaker 3: on the stump. They go to the NAPTI convention, the
Speaker 3: National Association of Television Producers and Executives. I think it
Speaker 3: is where you, you know, put on a show on
Speaker 3: a convention show floor to try to get people to
Speaker 3: advertise on your television network. Yeah, and here's a report
Speaker 3: that survived all these years from some local television station
Speaker 3: I think napt He was in New Orleans that year,
Speaker 3: and they actually had done a show in New Orleans.
Speaker 3: I think we mentioned earlier, right around this time where
Speaker 3: Vince Man they've set up a ring in the middle
Speaker 3: of this convention hall where these more tony Gria can
Speaker 3: have a fake wrestling match against I think Rene Gula,
Speaker 3: which is just awesome. There's all these people, all these
Speaker 3: convention goers in suits sitting there trying to burst out
Speaker 3: laughing at what it is they're watching. But what we
Speaker 3: get at the very tail end of this report, after
Speaker 3: some nat sound if you will, is just Vince in
Speaker 3: his at his most nineteen eighty six. I want you
Speaker 3: to picture him with the vest underneath his suit jacket.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean, that extra layer. Yep, Yep,
Speaker 3: there we go, yep, nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 5: WWF right here, I guess a bullet here this afternoon
Speaker 5: from Upland, New Zealand debt. He is a former five
Speaker 5: time co holder.
Speaker 12: On the World Wrestling Confederates in tag team Championship belts.
Speaker 12: Wait in at two hundred and thirty eight pounds. Welcome
Speaker 12: to the Orleans Tolly Carrea Ouria along fall pound.
Speaker 5: Explain with the best scene was expleen?
Speaker 13: Okay, what is the role with wrestling at a convention
Speaker 13: like this? What do you guys get entertained? Yes, exactly
Speaker 13: what we do as we do at an arena. That's
Speaker 13: what we do at a convention. Why I like this,
Speaker 13: That's why at this booth you will see nothing but
Speaker 13: jampack people and other booths. You won't see too much traps.
Speaker 13: How would this stack up against all the other kinds
Speaker 13: of product shows that they sell at this convention. I
Speaker 13: would say we'd do extremely well in terms of the
Speaker 13: television ratings that we get. We just did a ten
Speaker 13: point five on the last Saturday night Areen event for
Speaker 13: any you see, which is the highest late night.
Speaker 3: Rating in over three and a half years.
Speaker 13: It's indicative of what our overall ratings are doing a
Speaker 13: ververy product. So wrestling, the popularity wrestling hasn't peaked yet, well,
Speaker 13: it certainly not in the World Wrestling Federation. Wrestling has
Speaker 13: always been around for years and years, but the World
Speaker 13: Wrestling Federation has it, and it's our brand of excitement.
Speaker 3: Its starners and numbers, and definitely not.
Speaker 5: Exactly is this as this is exactly what we've seen
Speaker 5: with watching one of these matches, but I can see
Speaker 5: it's the same.
Speaker 13: It's somewhat uh more more of demonstrations. Actually here at
Speaker 13: the little bit all in out competition, we hear a
Speaker 13: lot of magectives used to describe the show's being sold here, dynamic, exciting,
Speaker 13: zany whatever.
Speaker 3: Why would you describe this this program?
Speaker 13: I really think it defies description, honestly, I mean there's
Speaker 13: something here for everyone, and it's just the World Wrestling Federation.
Speaker 3: It pretty weuch speaks for itself. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: God's so noxiously.
Speaker 4: And that's called that's called that's called a beautiful belly.
Speaker 3: The Pelly Superets right Overland belly was.
Speaker 5: Well executed by the former amateur.
Speaker 1: It's the laps Fall Wrestling Podcast, the wrestling podcast that
Speaker 1: knows the boys need their candy.
Speaker 2: It's the Lapsed Fan.
Speaker 1: He's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast with Jack and Carnacio
Speaker 1: m JP sooro.
Speaker 3: I mean, what are you here in Vince though we
Speaker 3: entertain That's his answer, and they ask is wrestling peaked?
Speaker 3: And he's like, well, I want to say, well you
Speaker 3: think of his wrestling as peaked, but I don't.
Speaker 9: Know what you think of wrestling peak. But you know,
Speaker 9: I mean here in the World Rossling Federation, I believe
Speaker 9: that we haven't been around long enough to have peaked yet, Like,
Speaker 9: what the fuck? We've only been around a couple of years.
Speaker 3: What are you talking about? Man, We've been around a
Speaker 3: couple of years, been on television holding a microphone since
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy three. You well, not to forget the wrestling
Speaker 3: product itself. I mean we're talking about the the the
Speaker 3: mountain climbing of the entertainment prospects of entertainment television formatting. Well,
Speaker 3: you know when you put it that way, and we're
Speaker 3: really proud of it. No, we're really proud of what
Speaker 3: we do. There's something for everybody, Well what we do.
Speaker 3: It's funny you say there's something here for everybody, Vince,
Speaker 3: because I don't see anything here for people who think
Speaker 3: wrestling is a complete fucking waste of time and a joke.
Speaker 3: I don't see anything for them. So that's most people.
Speaker 3: But the way, But I just just love Vince in
Speaker 3: his element, getting this kind of like soft touch media
Speaker 3: attention for the first time and still somehow finding a
Speaker 3: way to like talk shit, you know, Like there he
Speaker 3: is like some of the other no one the other
Speaker 3: booths gives a shit about what's going on in our
Speaker 3: booth has a line, you know.
Speaker 9: I mean, people are innested in what the Rustling Federation
Speaker 9: I has to offer, the the entertainment prospects and the
Speaker 9: what the entertainment battlefield if you.
Speaker 3: Will, And did you know what defies description? Boss?
Speaker 11: Did you know that? You know?
Speaker 9: I like to think that what we're doing is actually
Speaker 9: a classic example of data.
Speaker 3: Oh shit, imagine if you went there with this interview
Speaker 3: with the guy would be fucking lost. You know, we
Speaker 3: are you know we we we we model our our
Speaker 3: format and you know, uh, entertainment design on a data basis.
Speaker 3: We consider ourselves to be a German expressionist, especially that
Speaker 3: of my kid, but I could I'm I consider myself
Speaker 3: to be an American expressionist, right, an American Dada and
Speaker 3: our talent signed on the data line.
Speaker 9: In terms of my I mean, it's actually on. And
Speaker 9: this is why I can say we are practicing dataists.
Speaker 9: Is that I can say with full confidence and that
Speaker 9: notwithstanding that I am an American data.
Speaker 3: Well, there's another working title for the Netflix one on
Speaker 3: a multitude of level. You know, at some point we
Speaker 3: became aware that our talent was thinking about union unionization
Speaker 3: over disgruntlement of their royalty payouts as we exploit so
Speaker 3: many new licensing revenue streams here the World Wrestling Federation
Speaker 3: and Titan Sports, Inc. So what I thought I'd do
Speaker 3: to kind of drive the point home to our talent
Speaker 3: that it's us creating the value and thus we at
Speaker 3: Titan Sports that deserve the line and share of profits
Speaker 3: for these exploited likenesses. What I would do is sit
Speaker 3: a talent down disclosed to them precisely how much in
Speaker 3: dollars that we had sold of merchandise featuring their likeness.
Speaker 3: I would then produce a briefcase with that denomination in
Speaker 3: American dollars to them. And then what I would do
Speaker 3: is I'd make them sit there and watch as I
Speaker 3: took every last dollar that I was owed and left
Speaker 3: them with barely one percent of what was in the briefcase,
Speaker 3: and I made them watch me put it in my pocket.
Speaker 3: I like to remind them exactly of where they stand
Speaker 3: in the grand scheme of things, and so I like
Speaker 3: to talk money about them when they are when they
Speaker 3: haven't eaten in at least seven hours, and while they're
Speaker 3: there and while they are starving and they are desperate
Speaker 3: for money, I will eat dinner in front of them,
Speaker 3: right so they can understand that you have to reach
Speaker 3: for the brass ring in order to eat the brass ring.
Speaker 3: And here you see now four hundred thousand dollars that
Speaker 3: you helped us generate in toy sales and merchandise sales.
Speaker 3: And I just like you to watch pal as I
Speaker 3: take thousand dollars bands until three hundred and ninety thousand
Speaker 3: of this money has gone into my own pocket. I'd
Speaker 3: like to say that you know what you have. You
Speaker 3: know when you when you consider the fact I mean
Speaker 3: this is this is only fair when you consider exactly well, yes,
Speaker 3: it is your physical likeness, but the the there are
Speaker 3: many layers as to what goes on in the creation
Speaker 3: of this merchandising opportunity. And you know, as much as
Speaker 3: your likeness is what is selling the product, it is
Speaker 3: the people behind the scenes, the platform putting the product together.
Speaker 3: It's the platform, and this certain platform that actually has
Speaker 3: done the hard work. If I say platform, if I
Speaker 3: say platform enough, suddenly I'm owed eighty percent of revenues.
Speaker 3: I mean, listen, we we are, we are you know,
Speaker 3: we are working. We are performing on a multitude of platforms, right,
Speaker 3: and we have to consider, you know, the value and
Speaker 3: the worth of each individual platform on a need to
Speaker 3: know basis. Vince is just like he's playing pretend on
Speaker 3: being a real businessman, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 3: he's learning in real time, like what stuff gets people
Speaker 3: to go, what the fuck you're talking about? And what
Speaker 3: stuff gets them to nod along. I mean, you know
Speaker 3: this is this is just simple business, you know, mathematics.
Speaker 3: Can you help me out here? I want to wear
Speaker 3: I want to wear designer sweaters too. I want to
Speaker 3: design Dick Eversol sweatered sweaterd during this era, and he's
Speaker 3: very much sweatered in this piece. This is a I
Speaker 3: believe it's a BBC news report. It's also from nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty six, so it's timely. And they actually sit down
Speaker 3: with Vince in the old Hollyhill Lane address uh wow,
Speaker 3: in Stanford. They show the exterior of the building, which
Speaker 3: is fascinating to look at. Just saw that they have
Speaker 3: taken down Boss the WW logo from atop of the
Speaker 3: old Titan tower. It's just the faded kind of black
Speaker 3: outline where it used to be. You can kind of
Speaker 3: make it out, but it's just it's gone. What a disgrace,
Speaker 3: What a disgrace. I mean that tower has been there
Speaker 3: our entire lives as wrestling fans. Yep, A beacon in
Speaker 3: like this quaint area. You know, it's the new headquarters
Speaker 3: is surrounded by a million other glistening office towers. It's
Speaker 3: not it is visually distinct because they made a big
Speaker 3: show of it, but it's Titan Towers was like this
Speaker 3: little weird headquarters for the wrestling stuff in the middle
Speaker 3: of this neighborhood in Stamford. It's like a it's like
Speaker 3: a three family next to it. You know, when I
Speaker 3: saw that the logo was gone, it's just black up there,
Speaker 3: so sad, so sad. I don't know, man, just awful.
Speaker 3: I don't know. So here he is. They're just gonna
Speaker 3: destroy it. There's no I mean, no one's going to
Speaker 3: buy that ship. What did Vince say at the live
Speaker 3: show in Philly lapsed? Vince? He said, you know the
Speaker 3: day will come when the building comes crumbling down, and
Speaker 3: in that moment you will think of me, and you
Speaker 3: will be grateful that I inherited this earth, because who
Speaker 3: are you wrestling fans if not for me? Listen, I
Speaker 3: said it, and I believe it. Wow, there's Vince.
Speaker 22: The World Wrestling Federation is no stranger to hustle or bustle.
Speaker 22: His head off is in peaceful Connecticut wrestling impresario Vince
Speaker 22: McMahon to see the creative inspiration which is.
Speaker 3: The secret of his success.
Speaker 13: From there, Hulk is scheduled for a premiere of his
Speaker 13: cartoon series.
Speaker 22: Handed turned amun wrestling from an old fashioned grunt and
Speaker 22: groan spectacle into an unfolding military for mass audiences.
Speaker 23: For the hype leading up to the match is very carefully.
Speaker 23: Man literally looks upon that hype the same way the
Speaker 23: producer of Dynasty or Dallas looks at his supreme corse.
Speaker 23: Here they have one man who sits in a room
Speaker 23: a year round and writes a scenario six months in
Speaker 23: advance for what's going to happen leading up to these matches.
Speaker 13: And the wrestling business, it's a question of two or
Speaker 13: more individuals going out to the ring wrestling, having a
Speaker 13: little bit of applause or what have you from the audience,
Speaker 13: and it's time to go home until the next match.
Speaker 5: That's not really what we do.
Speaker 19: We're in the sports entertainment business, yes, And there is
Speaker 19: a huge philosophical difference between being in strictly the wrestling
Speaker 19: business and being in the sports entertainment business.
Speaker 22: As we are amidst the scramble for quick bucks and
Speaker 22: instant excitement, a lone voice of dissent is making itself heard.
Speaker 17: I think it's stresses everything which is dirty undided. I
Speaker 17: think It teaches that you've got to be dirty in
Speaker 17: order to be successful in this life.
Speaker 22: Senator Abe Bernstein as a New York lawyer who wants
Speaker 22: to introduce legislation to have McMahon's shows banned.
Speaker 17: It glorifies brutality and physical violence and reminds me of
Speaker 17: the Roman days of gladiators.
Speaker 13: You don't see knives, you don't see guns, you don't
Speaker 13: see rapes, you don't see anything at all like that
Speaker 13: that's portrayed in anything.
Speaker 19: That we do as long as family oriented environment.
Speaker 3: Oh so it's the laps editor who's on television. That's
Speaker 3: what that is right there, he's coming for it. Hi,
Speaker 3: this fucking bullshit, this bullshit carnival he's doing that. We
Speaker 3: don't do rapes that they would bring that they would
Speaker 3: dust that one off for the attitude era.
Speaker 9: Well, we don't do rapes unless it's the raping of
Speaker 9: the giants, right, does raping of dignity count pal right exactly? Listen,
Speaker 9: we don't listen, we don't. We don't televise rape. We
Speaker 9: don't televise, uh, televise.
Speaker 3: That's a big difference. And we don't do you know,
Speaker 3: we don't. You know, these are these are certainly things
Speaker 3: that differentiate us from uh any of your any of
Speaker 3: your your network, your primetime network, uh entertainment vehicles. We
Speaker 3: we what we do is really family oriented, action, adventure,
Speaker 3: comedy entertainment. You know, we're telling stories and we are
Speaker 3: you know, we we simply are out there to put
Speaker 3: a smile on the fans' faces. And you know, we
Speaker 3: don't do any of the negative things. You know, we're
Speaker 3: not out there uh uh you know, doing drive by shootings, right,
Speaker 3: you know we're not. We're not talking about portraying hard
Speaker 3: like some of them primetime hits. We're not portraying murder.
Speaker 3: You know, we would never ever think to do that.
Speaker 3: We certainly don't put people on fire. We we don't
Speaker 3: drop people from high altitudes. We don't pay we don't
Speaker 3: pay off investigators to drop cases charges against our wrestlers.
Speaker 3: You know, we don't use you know, barbed wire weaponry
Speaker 3: that we'll never do that ever. You know, we don't
Speaker 3: we don't do stories of sexual uh uh desire and
Speaker 3: and incestual opportunities. Now, I know why'd be aware of
Speaker 3: data such a Only Vince has ever said these two
Speaker 3: words together. Incestual opportunities I'm not saying the two words
Speaker 3: have never been said side by side, but they've never
Speaker 3: been said with this air of like a corporate path
Speaker 3: that could be taken. Like he's not talking about, you know,
Speaker 3: some perv uncle who like has access to his niece. No,
Speaker 3: when he says ancestral incestual opportunities, he's talking about the
Speaker 3: chance to somehow make commerce out of incest just one
Speaker 3: of many categories we can choose to enter that we
Speaker 3: choose not to enter, at least not yet, not until
Speaker 3: she gets some plants. So that's fine, That's what I'm
Speaker 3: trying to say. I can't get the problem. We don't
Speaker 3: do rape, but I can't get over him in the
Speaker 3: officing r ah so fucking Rich's So it's just unbelievable.
Speaker 3: Just think of what that says about the popularity at
Speaker 3: WWF at the time that you know, this British news
Speaker 3: station would send these guys all the way across the
Speaker 3: country the world rather to go to the fucking headquarters
Speaker 3: and interview Vince and wondering what the fuck is this
Speaker 3: shit about. That's what it is. As much as we
Speaker 3: talk about eighty five, and it was transformative Wrestlinginia one Saturday.
Speaker 3: It's main event, water Settle to score all this incredibly
Speaker 3: important stuff that happened eighty five, the integration with Cindy Lauper,
Speaker 3: which kind of kicked off in eighty four, but it
Speaker 3: was eighty six where like the Blitz happens because finally
Speaker 3: everyone's caught up to it, you know, sure, and they've
Speaker 3: come out with the Wrestling Album, which gives another pretense
Speaker 3: to look in at WWF again and at the end
Speaker 3: of the year. So eighty six is full of crazy
Speaker 3: publicity about this thing. They were excited to see them
Speaker 3: come to Baltimore. Boss, I can tell you that, yeah,
Speaker 3: and if you can share with us, The Insights has
Speaker 3: featured in the Monday, March third, nineteen eighty six editions.
Speaker 3: So this is just a couple of days after the
Speaker 3: Slammies took place in Baltimore. One of their columnists, Kevin Cowherd,
Speaker 3: has a different thoughts. First of all, he's got to
Speaker 3: change that name. This is totally inappropriate. I mean, you
Speaker 3: want to talk about right up our alley. This is
Speaker 3: like exactly the column that the Lapse editor would assigned.
Speaker 9: Uptown Saturday night. The Civic Center is a perfect cold
Speaker 9: of noise and haze and chaos. By the time the
Speaker 9: tag team of Nikolai Volkov and the Iron Sheek climbs
Speaker 9: into the ring, a chorus of booze rains down. Volkov
Speaker 9: and the Sheik you should know are the bad guys.
Speaker 9: The Sheik is wearing a burnoose and waving his omnipresent
Speaker 9: Iranian flag. Volkov carries a whip. He has introduced it's
Speaker 9: hailing from Moscow, Russia, although there is evidence to suggest
Speaker 9: he's a former amateur weightlifter from Hackensack, New Jersey. The
Speaker 9: noise level climbs two decibels. Volkov and the Sheiks strut
Speaker 9: about the ring and wave their fists. Their manager, the
Speaker 9: nefarious classy Freddy Blasi, helps calm the sellout crowd of
Speaker 9: some fourteen thousand by waving his cane menacingly and thundering
Speaker 9: his trademark you pencil necked geeks at the fans. And
Speaker 9: then it happens. The moment we've all been waiting for,
Speaker 9: ladies and gentlemen, intones the ring announcer, mister Volkov requests,
Speaker 9: but you all rise and join in the singing of
Speaker 9: the Russian national anthem. Well instant bedlam. Beer cups come
Speaker 9: hurtling in the direction of the ring, so do pennies,
Speaker 9: bottle caps, even a chair. I pray silently that no
Speaker 9: one has seen fit to bring along a hand Grenade's
Speaker 9: a fucking idiot. Volkov and the Sheik appear not to
Speaker 9: notice the debris. Both have snapped in two attention, saluting respectfully.
Speaker 3: It's so funny to me, how when you look at
Speaker 3: mainstream media articles about WWF at this point, how Volkov
Speaker 3: and Chic resonate so much. It's so true, the observer,
Speaker 3: they'd like to stand out more than Hogan.
Speaker 9: Yep, yep, Usa Usa. The crowd chance predictably, Yes, dirty
Speaker 9: stinkin Russians, screams a kid next to me. You believe
Speaker 9: the nerve of these dirty stinkin Russians, right, I tell
Speaker 9: him I am most certainly do not. Maybe ten minutes later,
Speaker 9: Volkov and the Sheik extract their revenge. Volkov slams a
Speaker 9: chair over the head of good guy Corporal Kirshner, rendering
Speaker 9: him all but unconscious. With the referee suitably distracted, the
Speaker 9: Sheiks slaps the dreaded camel clutch on Kirshner's partner George.
Speaker 9: The animal steel a good camel clutch, by the way,
Speaker 9: is supposed to be better than better than ether for
Speaker 9: putting your opponent's lights out, better than ether, better than ether.
Speaker 9: It's a band, Yeah right. Volkov and the Sheik are
Speaker 9: declared the winners. Seconds later, Kirshner looks as if he
Speaker 9: needs a stretcher. The animal is so distraught that he
Speaker 9: starts eating one of the turnbuckles, spitting sawdust in the air.
Speaker 9: Some sawdust fucking stuffing.
Speaker 4: Is what it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he thought that was sawdust in the turn dust. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's smart guy coward.
Speaker 9: Coward is fighting coward right, Yeah, let's get it, Kevin
Speaker 9: Pussy more like about it. An ocean of booze crashes
Speaker 9: down once again. I thought the bad guys always lose,
Speaker 9: says a woman to my ride. It's a game of inches,
Speaker 9: I tell her, and a sad day for America someone
Speaker 9: else's someone else said no way, give me guys. All
Speaker 9: sorts of disparaging remarks are regularly attached to pro wrestling
Speaker 9: and the people who pay to watch it. The thing
Speaker 9: that scares me the most about wrestling fans, manager Bobby
Speaker 9: the brain Heenan always says.
Speaker 3: Is that they can vote and they can breed.
Speaker 9: Oh Heenan Sports Illustrated reports that wrestlers themselves are foo
Speaker 9: fond food for thought, are fond of telling this joke question?
Speaker 9: What has fourteen teeth and an IQ of fifteen a
Speaker 9: the first ten rows of any wrestling crow? Oh god,
Speaker 9: booh we go Yet if the Civic Centers show this
Speaker 9: past weekend as any indication pro wrestling's gaudy appeal, with
Speaker 9: its vaunted rock and wrestling connection and its emphasis on
Speaker 9: slick showbiz packaging has never been greater. One other thing,
Speaker 9: Baltimore is fast emerging as a flagship city for the
Speaker 9: worldlessing entertainment, which currently dominates the industry, which is one
Speaker 9: reason the WWE designed to hold the much heralded Slammys
Speaker 9: Awards Slammy's Awards Right ceremony here Saturday, as well as
Speaker 9: the long awaited steal quote quote steel cage unquote match
Speaker 9: between former tag team partners and now bitter arch rivals
Speaker 9: Rowdy Roddy Piper and Paul mister Wonderful Orndorf.
Speaker 3: Yes, what's that a real steal cage? No, he doesn't,
Speaker 3: it's in't quotes. What's that you say? You never heard
Speaker 3: of the Slammies. Here the jack Oh go ahead say
Speaker 3: it so yeah, yeah, right listen, I'm just gonna say
Speaker 3: not my words. This is a quote by Kevin Coward.
Speaker 3: It up with the Slammies line before it again. What's
Speaker 3: that you say you never heard of the Slammies? Here
Speaker 3: the Japs bomb Pearl Harbor oh Man.
Speaker 9: Anyway, the Slammys arret of wrestling with the Grammys art
Speaker 9: of the music industry. It seems a group of ww
Speaker 9: wrestlers got together and cut an album called, oddly enough,
Speaker 9: the Wrestling Album That Deserved.
Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, they.
Speaker 9: They filmed a music video as well, an updated beef
Speaker 9: and bronze version of that old standard Land of a
Speaker 9: Thousand Dances. The album, by the way, is cleaning up.
Speaker 9: They're backing up armored cars to the ww offices here
Speaker 9: with this has nothing to.
Speaker 3: Do with any any kind of money being there. You
Speaker 3: know what's in those armored cars. It's not just to
Speaker 3: take away.
Speaker 9: So here was the wrestling industry in Baltimore this weekend,
Speaker 9: patting itself on the back and handing out it's quote
Speaker 9: Slammys unquote and generally preening over the healthy spread of
Speaker 9: Matt Mania for This Country. For the record, Rowdy Rdy
Speaker 9: Piper won a Slammy for quote best performance unquote in
Speaker 9: the video.
Speaker 3: It's got kind of rules. I gotta say, Yeah, he's
Speaker 3: winning me over. Yeah. This enraged Bobby the brain Heenan,
Speaker 3: who claimed he should have won in a landslide since
Speaker 3: and I'm quoting here, I voted ten thousand times myself.
Speaker 9: Except he didn't. He voted for didn't know for himself.
Speaker 9: But it's fine. He voted for Bundy.
Speaker 3: He just voted for someone who didn't win, is what
Speaker 3: he's saying. Right, Well, well, he says he's saying that
Speaker 3: Bobby the brain Heenon should have Bobby Heenon thinks he
Speaker 3: should have won. That's not what he means. By I
Speaker 3: voted myself, he means right, not for myself. Right, He
Speaker 3: just voted that many times for Bundy. He even threw
Speaker 3: a microphone at Master of Ceremonies and super promoter Vince
Speaker 3: McMahon and then stalked off stage. Me and gene Oakerland
Speaker 3: won the category of quote Best Wrestling Commentator unquote. This
Speaker 3: so infuriated Jesse the Body of Ventura that he had
Speaker 3: to be physically restrained from attacking the legendary guerrilla Monsoon. Yes,
Speaker 3: he's pissed that Gene Okerland won, so he has to
Speaker 3: fight off Monsoon Soon, stopping him from getting to Gene.
Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, I guess the quote Junkyard Dog unquote
Speaker 3: one for best solo performance on the album. Like he
Speaker 3: needs another award. Ah, He's expected to gross over three
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars this year alone. The Dog celebrated by
Speaker 3: celebrated by.
Speaker 9: Mugging the evil Jimmy the Mouth of the South Heart,
Speaker 9: the bullhorned toting manager of such near dwells as King
Speaker 9: Kong Bundy.
Speaker 3: This guy watched the fucking thing at all. Now, he
Speaker 3: just collected all the names and just tried to have
Speaker 3: fun with him.
Speaker 9: By now you understand the tone of the evening festivities.
Speaker 9: Clearly this was no Book of the Month club meeting,
Speaker 9: but there was more. Rock star Cindi Lauper, appropriately disguised
Speaker 9: as the dizzy yet alluring Mona Flombay, made a guest appearance.
Speaker 9: Guitarist Rick Derringer played, so did Leslie West, once the
Speaker 9: guiding forest of the seminal rock group Mountain MTV, the
Speaker 9: music television station, showed the proceedings live to a nationwide audience.
Speaker 9: Piper called Lauper a scuzz head perfect and why shouldn't
Speaker 9: wrestling celebrate on this cold March evening. Despite dire predictions
Speaker 9: to the contrary, pro wrestling is still booming. It's still hip,
Speaker 9: even chic to tune into America's newest hulking heroes at
Speaker 9: the good times. Roll arenas are still bursting with wrestling
Speaker 9: fans each month. The Nielsen ratings are holding steady, which
Speaker 9: is to say they're still sky high. People everywhere are
Speaker 9: still talking pile drivers in sleeper holes, buying Hulk Hogan
Speaker 9: posters and Superfly Jimmy Snook dolls. Business has never been better.
Speaker 9: The quote steel cage unquote match between Piper and Orndorf
Speaker 9: is proceeding with proper drama, and the span of five minutes,
Speaker 9: Piper has rammed Orndorf's face into the steel cables. What
Speaker 9: the steel cables?
Speaker 3: There's different? You know those cages aren't made out of
Speaker 3: ring ropes, right right, They're not? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 9: Gouged his eyes, knead him in the groin, stomped on
Speaker 9: his Adam's apple, and butted him in the forehead. A
Speaker 9: less worthy opponent would surely be on his way to
Speaker 9: the emergency ward. Yet Orndorff remarkably looks as fit and
Speaker 9: rested as a man just returned from a you make
Speaker 9: in vacation. Then it happens. With a superhuman burst of strength,
Speaker 9: Orndorf explodes from Piper's grasp and hurls himself through the
Speaker 9: steel cage door. Under the rules, he wins as the
Speaker 9: first man out of the cage. Predictably, Piper does not
Speaker 9: take this loss gracefully. Stunned for a moment, he then
Speaker 9: stands and are you ready?
Speaker 3: Decks. The referee levels him with a blow to the head.
Speaker 3: The Civic Center is up in arms once more. The
Speaker 3: booze roll in like thunder across a Kansas prairie. Piper
Speaker 3: grins an evil grin, then struts off, and as the
Speaker 3: arena lights flick on and we stream for the exits,
Speaker 3: we are all agreed in one thing that Piper is
Speaker 3: really a scuzz head. Oh man, chef's kiss, what a
Speaker 3: listen coward? He did it, he came back. I'll say
Speaker 3: that that is. Send the local columnist from the big,
Speaker 3: big metropolitan paper to see what all this wrestling fuss
Speaker 3: is about.
Speaker 9: By the way, if you want, if you're curious about
Speaker 9: getting a Mitsubishie at Jerry's Mitsubishi Clearance, you can get
Speaker 9: a nineteen eighty six Mirage for fifty eight ninety five,
Speaker 9: or you can get a Mighty Max for fifty eight
Speaker 9: ninety five.
Speaker 3: Imagine those prices. How about a crabcake at Jimmy's. How
Speaker 3: about a Primadoro at a Please? At Sabatinos, you can
Speaker 3: get a nineteen eighty six starry On for fourteen. Do
Speaker 3: you think Kevin Coward came away thinking every WWF show
Speaker 3: has an awards part to it. I bet I bet
Speaker 3: He's like, you know, well, I guess that's what they do.
Speaker 11: Huh.
Speaker 9: They do the awards thing, do the matches, and they
Speaker 9: do a fake ward ceremony. Academy of Oscars, Yeah, a
Speaker 9: fake Academy Awards. They got the Oscars, they got the Mabels,
Speaker 9: they got the Mo's. It's right, it's out of control.
Speaker 9: So wow, that's Baltimore. That's the Slammies. And as we know,
Speaker 9: when the curtain closed on Rowdy Roddy Pipers, Cowherd illustrates
Speaker 9: there for the evening, So too, did the lights go
Speaker 9: down on the seminal yet short relationship between the Word
Speaker 9: Wrestling Federation and music television. It doesn't get more ads
Speaker 9: than that. And here from SHAWNA.
Speaker 3: Sale's book Sex Lies in Headlocks, The Real Story of
Speaker 3: Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Entertainment, we get a
Speaker 3: snippet from his reporting of how it all came to
Speaker 3: an end. The ensuring Feurer made Vince McMahon's business so hot.
Speaker 3: The third MTV special, The War to Settle the Score,
Speaker 3: aired live and in prime time. To ensure crossover appeal,
Speaker 3: a new member was added to the cast, Mister t,
Speaker 3: whose career had been launched by Rocky three and was
Speaker 3: at his mass appeal height as the star of NBC's
Speaker 3: action show The A Team. On February eighteenth, nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 3: The War replaced The Brawl as the highest rated show
Speaker 3: in MTV history. By now, it was obvious that MTV
Speaker 3: had transformed Vinie's business, Yes and markets Like Saint Louis,
Speaker 3: The ratings for his syndicated show were doubling. Inside MTV.
Speaker 3: That fed a perception that the network was giving more
Speaker 3: than it was getting.
Speaker 4: MMM.
Speaker 3: The perception was particularly acute with Garland's boss Robert Pittman quote.
Speaker 3: A year after we made the first deal with Vince,
Speaker 3: it occurred to Pittman that he made one mistake, says Garland. Ah,
Speaker 3: he didn't ask for a piece of the action. Kept saying,
Speaker 3: look at how big we made it. We put MTV's
Speaker 3: seal of approval on it. Why don't we have a cut.
Speaker 3: So Pittman asked McMahon to a conference room in the
Speaker 3: company's corporate office and told him the price of continued
Speaker 3: exposure would be a cut of his gross McMahon's reply
Speaker 3: was short and to the point. As good as you've
Speaker 3: been to us, We've been good to you, and I'm
Speaker 3: not asking for a piece of MTV.
Speaker 9: Wow.
Speaker 3: That was pretty much the end of that relationship, Garland says, Oss.
Speaker 3: How about the nineteen eighty six Slammy Awards, toll, oh.
Speaker 9: Man, we have twenty four, yes, and that's probably not
Speaker 9: you know, I mean. The problem is is that they
Speaker 9: show the goddamn music video, right, yeah, that that really
Speaker 9: raps it up.
Speaker 3: Literally ding ding ding kills it kills it, no pun intended, yeah,
Speaker 3: or pun completely intense, like when the pinball gets caught
Speaker 3: in the two Yeah, that little lane there bounces back
Speaker 3: and forth for a minute.
Speaker 9: Yep, I mean you can't even see everybody, and I'm
Speaker 9: sure that there are more in there but Gorilla Monsoon,
Speaker 9: Mister Fuji, Fredn's Blassie, Lou Albano, Paul Orndorf, Howard Finkel,
Speaker 9: Randon Savage, Rawden's Piper, the Iron Sheets, George Steele, gene Oakerland,
Speaker 9: Arnold Scoland, Jay Strongbow, Bobbins, Heenen Heenan, John's Valiant, Nikolaifel Cough,
Speaker 9: King Kong Abundance.
Speaker 3: SD Jump King Kong Abundance. Yes, Adrian Adonis, Terrence Funk,
Speaker 3: Fabulous Moolah, Uncle Elmer, Jim Knightheart and the junk Yard Dog.
Speaker 3: And with that business to spelled, it's time to raise
Speaker 3: the mood up in this piece. Let's get ourselves some
Speaker 3: twoty fruity. Let's grab some cakes. What do you say, boss,
Speaker 3: I'm I'm I'm ready to get slammied. Time for the
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty six Slammy Awards. On the other side of
Speaker 3: this break, keep it close,