A Geek History of Time - Episode 107 - 1990s Wrestling Part II

Episode Date: May 15, 2021

So first thing foremost, I think being the addition of pant leggings is really when you start to see your heroes get watered down. The ability to go straight man, that one. Which is a good argument for absolute girls. Everybody is going to get behind me though, and I support numbers to go through. When you hang out with the hero, it doesn't go well for you. Grandfather took the cob and just slid right through the bar. Oh, God. Okay.

And that became the dominant way our family did it. Okay. And so, both of my marriages, they were treated to that. Okay, wait, hold on. Yeah, rage, I could. How do you imagine the rubber chicken? My grandmother actually vacuumed in her pearls. Oh my god, you always did.

We had the sexual revolution. It might have just been a Canadian standoff. We're gonna go back to 9-11. Oh, come on. Here we get a Uber. And I don't understand the book, it's a school. Agra has no business being that big. With the cultists, it's a wedding meal.

This is a geek history of time. Where we connect, in order to the real world, my name is Ed Laylock. I'm a real teacher inside of of video reading in California. And in personal news, my wife and I are a little more than halfway through WandaVision. And we're behind everybody else in the geek universe because my wife is an adult adoptee into the tribe as opposed to being raised in the culture.

And so we didn't get around to watching it. But there's also the fact that we have a three-year-old and so our viewing time is somewhat limited. Sure. We spend an awful lot of time in Blippi's company these days when our boy is awake, rather than watching stuff we'd like to be watching. And now that I said that,

I now have the excavator song stuck in my head. So I regret bringing it up. How about you? I'm Damien Harmony. I am a Latin teacher up here in Northern California. I, let's see, as a personal note, I don't have much except that my daughter, I showed my children watershed down

and my daughter did a deep dive down the rabbit hole, as it were, on European rabbits to write up their culture. Okay. So now she knows a ton about European rabbits, their mating habits, how they keep their warrants, what they do, what their gestation is, etc. Wow. Then we watched white fang, because my son really likes white fang. Okay. And then she did another deep dive on dogs. Okay. And now she knows everything about their gestation habits and on and on and on and there's

many, many breeds. Wow. Meanwhile, help my son. She asked him, she's like, hey, can you quiz me on or can I quiz you on different dog types and this and that. He's like, I only like kittens. Ah. Ah.

That boy really loves kittens. They are his favorite animal. And he will tell you everything about them if you ask him well Yeah, but you know just like my son will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about packy cephalosaurus yep or Oh, no Archeopathas no the armored Anchalosaurus. Thank you. Sure. So yeah, but yeah, no when they when they when they get you got a start getting Some you know start getting them to watch Dinosaur's okay. It is a fun little cartoon Okay, and they they're dinosaurs that came from space. Okay. I'll I'll look it up and we'll have to yeah, all right Anything anything anything to supplant blippy

now please Dear God, please I know showed them comedies recently, but I can't remember for the life of me what comedies. I've showed them But there are some stuff that was really really abstract that they both really really liked but now I'll get to that the next episode or so Yeah, I really, really abstract that they both really, really liked. But now I'll get to that in the next episode or so. Yeah. I, there was one other thing I was gonna say about what my son does be the kittens or the dogs, but darn if I can forget it. So, okay. Oh, well.

You and your dinosaurs. Yeah, sorry. That's okay. So, when last we talked, I promised I talked to you about wrestling, and then I talked about Michelle Foucault and racism in LA. Yes. At least this time, I'm gonna move over to New York. Oh, okay.

Which is where there's some wrestling based out of. Yes, so hopefully. Don't tease me. Okay, don't tease me. Let's get into what we're gonna get into, and then we can. All right, all right. So you remember last time we talked about the LA riots post the acquittal of four officers who beat the ever loving daylights

of the Rod King on video, 56 times. With a baton, like I kicked him seven times and they stood in them. And, and the stun gun him repeated like, yeah. You know, and, and the thing is, you know, you, you hear, hit him 56 times. 56, yeah. 56 times.

What, what I don't think it's, it's really possible to convey verbally, is when you hear, they hit him with a baton 56 times. it's really possible to convey verbally, is when you hear they hitting with a baton 56 times, you need to understand that hitting somebody with a baton is not the same thing as hauling off and punching somebody or anything like that, a baton was made to hit people. Was made specifically to be a weapon.

And it is not lethal in the way that a gun or a knife could be, but the amount of trauma and the kind of injury that we're talking about them and flicking on this man, say it's it's it is unless you have watched somebody practice like martial arts with a ton fob, which is the the the the you know eastern martial arts ancestor right of a police police or just watch Eskama or something. Yeah. Until you've actually seen the kinds of,

the amount of energy that gets delivered when something gets struck by them, it hearing, well, they hit him with a baton 56 times, you know, you think of like a relay baton. Right. Or a British or British officer swagger stick, right? Like, no, no, this is a heavy solid object made for hitting. Made for hitting. Yeah.

And and it's it's here. I'll give you a level of violence is is sickening. Yeah. I'll give you a good example. You ever leave open a cabinet and then you lean into it and it doesn't give and you've now feel like you've just dented your forehead. Yeah, it hurts like the dickens because it didn't move and all that force went in your head. All right, all that energy went straight right bone your skull or have you ever you've got a little one. Have

you ever gotten up and you swung to turn around and you smacked your head into the side of a wall. I've done this on a corner. Yeah, it hurts. Right. Oh, oh, well, I'll do you hang on that pain. That pain is nowhere near as much as getting hit with a baton. Yeah. And most people have had those pains because you're moving at a slow rate in a short distance. Yeah, these are people while he is on the ground going up above their shoulders coming down with force. Oh, yeah, 56 times and kicking him. Yeah. So yeah, it's it's it's Stomach churning. Yeah. Yeah. So on the other side of the country. Yeah in September of 1992. Okay. Okay, so that was April. Yeah.

Now, it's one, two skip if you. Now, it's in September. Yeah. Just a couple of months before the election between Clinton, Bush, and Perot. Yeah. The Patrolman's Benevolent Association demonstrated in protest of David Dinkins. David Dinkins. Black mayor.

Right. First black mayor of New York. Okay, I think so. And then mayor of New York, David Dinghitz's then mayor of New York, who would be up for re-election in the following year, his effort at making an all civilian police misconduct review board. Right. So they took to the streets to protest an all civilian police misconduct review board. Now, you pointed out last time that police are also civilians. Yeah.

But this is an all non police. Yeah. And all private citizens. Yes. Misconduct review board, not a sensing body, not a jurisdictional body, not a, no, this is a misconduct review. So if you've been charged with misconduct, then you go to this review board and these people review the charges and determine some things, right?

Yeah. Okay. So Dinkins was New York's first black mayor. He had beaten out the establishment Democrat Ed Koch. Yes. Um, and he held off Rudy Giuliani to win the ownership in 1990. Yeah. Now what I find interesting is that Dinkins beat out the establishment Democrat Ed Koch. Do you remember a couple of years ago when AOC beat out the, uh, she primary and beat out the establishment Democrat. Yeah. So you've, you've, you've got some people that are actually able to run to the left. Yeah. With some success. Yeah.

California, look into it. Um, so work on that. He holds off Rudy Giuliani to win in 90, his attempts at combating the rising crime in New York, remember, it's 90, um, the rising ethnic and racial disparity and distrust in New York, his attempts at combating the rising crime in New York, remember it was 90, the rising ethnic and racial disparity in distrust in New York and the blighted economy met with a lot of success but with a lot of mixed reviews. Shocking, that a black man being successful at fighting the very things that he is fighting against is met with mixed reviews. Okay. And it's not like his presidency or his mayorship was without troubles.

The Crown Heights riot happened during his tenure. Yeah. But as the economy continued to decline, the murder rate in New York also declined, which I found interesting. Yeah. He also started a housing rehabilitation project that brought a lot of dilapidated houses out of ruin

Okay, now this isn't broken windows theory, which is itself is a different. Yeah, which is a bad Yeah, but back to the police demonstration so in September 16th 1992 10,000 off-duty police officers Swarmed the area near City Hall now Now as I recall, the amount of police in New York outnumbered the amount of Coast Guard that we have. Yeah. I have to look that out, but okay. Yeah. I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of like 56,000 police officers in New York. Okay. Well, in 10,000, we're off duty. That's one, 50,000. So they swarm the area in their city hall, 2,000 of them marched onto the Brooklyn Bridge. In both areas, they

assaulted reporters who were trying to cover the demonstration. Off-duty police officers are assaulting reporters. And in all places, they objected to the call for increased police accountability. Yeah. The police who were marching said that if there was going to be a review board for their most conduct, there would be no police force. It's a hell of a line to draw. Yeah. Either or not both. Either or plenty of uniformed police officers were there too, because you know, it's a demonstration. And it was the same group of uniformed officers who made very little attempt to control the crowd.

Law and order advocates were largely silent on the matter. Former, and soon to be mayoral candidate Rudy Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor whose future administration would fiercely promote zero tolerance policing took part in the protests himself. Yep. When asked if the police got out of hand, which they had, the president of the policeman benevolent association said, quote, sometimes if emotionalism is not evoked publicly, the responsible elements of the community do not listen. Oh, wow. So, that sounds an awful lot like somebody trying to sound very, very

rational and very logical while saying a riot is the voice of the unheard. Or the voice of the oppressed. Yes. Yeah. It's quite a contrast. Yeah. but it is also holy on brand now these are police who are angry about the idea of Non-police getting to criticize and call them out. Yeah, and they're not having it Yeah, so they do the only thing that they can do and protest and Riots violently against reporters Yeah, police officers carried signs that read no justice and riots violently against reporters.

Yeah, police officers carried signs that read no justice, no police. Wow. The PBA president also said that Dinkins' efforts at policing reform aimed at bringing down violence in different neighborhoods would invite more chaos. Chaos.

Yeah. Crime is going to get worse, he said. The streets will become less safe than they are. He was wrong. Yeah, well, yeah. The data bears out that he was wrong. Crime went down in the 1990s, even though white fear continued to rise. Yeah.

And Giuliani took over, winning by a very narrow margin, though in white areas, panic seemed to send a lot of white people to the polls. And that's an interesting privilege that white people have when they get scared, they get to vote. Yeah. What's interesting to me is the fact that there's this definite idea that definite idea that we need to give the police all of this leeway because if we don't, they're not going to be able to do their job. We have to, we can't leash them in any way because if we limit them in any way, then the bad guys are going to run riot. You know, this concept on the right that cops have to be judged red

in order to do their job. Mm-hmm. Remember, that was a satire. Yeah, I know. I, you told me. You told me. I talked about it. Yeah.

You know, and it was a satire written in response to a right wing government coming into power and completely undoing the, you know, post-war, uh, uh, datant, right in the left, you know, the status quo. And so, um, you know, the funny thing about it is anybody who bothers to look at policing and law enforcement anywhere else in the developed world would understand that's not true. It's right. Patently and demonstrably false. You could even look here in America because there are some cities that have done reports

and studies and then actually did what those reports and studies told them to do and you saw shit go down by a significant amount. Yeah, you saw you saw the level of crime go down because communities were more comfortable going to. Right. Authorities and law enforcement and saying, hey, we need help with this thing. Yep. So it's this knee jerk authoritarian kick. Which is, here's an interesting wrinkle to that. Darrell Gates, guy from LA, actually did advocate for that same thing. He said, you do not get to pull people over

that you suspect of being illegal. Yeah, he put a stop to that. Complex dude, still a right bastard in too many respects for me to have much respect, but he did absolutely do that. Yeah, even a stop clock has written twice a day. Exactly. Exactly. So after this demonstration, civilians reported to the local police station that they had witnessed six officers assault a man on a subway. They go to him and to producing a razor blade to defend himself because this is the subway in New York. And then they swarmed him and beat the shit out of him.

And during the riots, because they did turn it into riots, the uniform police did nothing really to curb it. Hundreds were reportedly drunk in public as well, which is interesting because they would often pull people off their own porches at that time. And these were all blue lives. They all chose this profession and they're protesting non-police oversight over their misconduct, not even over their policing, just the misconduct. These are all chosen blue lives. I would just like to point out that they're out there marching for blue lives specifically,

and this is what they do. Now, if you just contrast that with maybe last summer, and I have the numbers somewhere on my phone because I had to take a fellow teacher to task about saying that, you know, the Antifa riots. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Quote, reporters and innocent bystanders were violently assaulted by the mob as thousands of dollars in private property was destroyed in multiple acts of vandalism. The protesters stormed up to steps of city hall, occupying the building. It is a weird thing that like white people like to occupy buildings a lot.

They then streamed onto the Brooklyn Bridge where they blocked traffic in both directions. Jumping onto the cars of trapped terrorized motorists. Many of the protesters were carrying guns and openly drinking alcohol. Yet the uniform police present did little to stop them. Why? Because the rioters were nearly all white, off-duty, and YPD officers. They were participating in a patrolman's benevolent association demonstration against Mayor David Dinkins, called for a civilian compliant review board and his creation earlier that year of the Maulin Commission, formed to investigate widespread allegations of

misconduct within the NYPD. In the center of that mayhem, standing on top of a car while cursing Mayor Dinkins through a bullhorn was mayoral candidate Rudy Giuliani. Beer cans were and broken beer bottles littered the streets as Mr. Giuliani led the crowd in chance. I just really like to contrast that with January 6th for a second. Yeah. I can't because they're kind of the same thing. Kind of. Similar cast too. Yeah. They can't because they're kind of the same thing. Kind of. Similar cast, too. Yeah. The New York Times reported that Newsday columnist Jimmy Brezzlin described the racial

conduct in chilling detail. Quote, the cops held up several of the most crude drawings of dinkins. Black performing perverted sex acts, he wrote. And here was one of them calling across the top of his beer can, held to his mouth. How do you like the expletive deleted N word beating you up in crown heights? The off-duty cops referring to a severe beating that Brezlin suffered while covering the 1991 crown heights riots in Brooklyn. So they're yelling at this reporter. Wow. Brezzling continues. Now others began screaming. How do you like what the expletive deleted

and words did to you in Crown Heights? Now you got a expletive deleted and word right inside City Hall. How do you like that? A expletive deleted and word mayor. And they put it right out in the sun yesterday in front of City Hall, Brezzlin wrote, we have a police force that is openly racist.

Wow. That's 1992? Yep. So, coast to coast, you have a racial animus of white agreement underlying social unrest occurring between the traditionalists and those advocating for change. OK. Okay.

Yes. During an election year, now much more niche, promise to get to wrestling. Okay. In WCW, a Southern-based wrestling company, but one that had access to TBS, a national cable network, Ron Simmons became the first black, recognized world champion in wrestling when he divided big van Vader in September of 1992. All right. This was truly a big deal in wrestling. However, he wasn't actually the first. The thing is, as we've talked about in wrestling, the world was filled with different territories.

So each territory had its own world champion. And as a result, they didn't recognize each other's world championships all the time, especially the ones that existed outside of the structure of the NWA of the 1900s. Still, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Bearcat Wright. Bearcat Wright was a babyface most places that he went, and in Indiana he refused to wrestle for segregated crowds. As such, the Indiana Athletic Commission suspended him. See back then, wrestlers had to actually get a wrestler's license in every state, as though that it was a legitimate sport. That kept up K-fabe. And you had to do this at your own cost, all to protect K-fabe.

So anyway, they suspended his wrestling license in Indiana until boxing got desegregated in 61. Shortly thereafter, he defeated Killer Kowalski to become the equivalent of the world champion in Indiana. And then he went on over to LA because you leave when you're at the top of your games. You're going to drop the belt, but then you'll be right. Bearcat right defeated classy Freddy Blassy. In August of 19. Oh, in August, they don't have these names anymore. Killer Kowalski. Yeah, I mean, dude, well, here's some fun fun detail for you've heard of triple H, right? Yeah. Okay. You've heard of China. Yeah. Okay. Both of them were trained by Killer Kowalski. No kidding. Yeah.

It gets even more fun. Killer Kowalski was named such because a guy that he was wrestling had cauliflower ear and Killer hit him hard enough that knocked the cauliflower ear off his head. Oh wow. Cause it's all calcified. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Killer Kowalski, AlSko, also, all his life was a vegetarian. Really? Weird little detail. Okay. Sorry, but classy Freddie Blassy. The term pencil neck geek. Yeah, that's his.

Really? Yes. Nice. In fact, there's a song from Dr. Demento that you mentioned. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The last time. Pencil neck geek. Yeah. Yeah. That was that was homage to classy Freddie Blassy. Uh, classy Freddie Blassy was based largely out of LA. And he was a heel. He had people who stabbed him on his way of the ring.

One guy threw acid at him. Oh yeah, he got in the best ways. That's right. When he was older, he was a manager. Yeah. Okay. He managed the, uh, the team of Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkov, okay, who were the world tag team champions, uh, in 1984. Okay. WF. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, more importantly though, he managed a guy in, I think, 82 or 83 names Sterling Golden. You might know Sterling Golden by his more popular name Hulk Hogan.

Oh, nice. This Hogan's second trip through the New York Territories when he became Hulk Hogan. So classified as last year, he managed a whole bunch of really well-known wrestlers. He typically would manage the foreigners. Anyway, in 63, though, he was in his prime as wrestler and he lost to a bearcat right. So bearcat right becomes the world champion of the worldwide wrestling associates, an organization that didn't get absorbed into the NWA until 1968 when then it got renamed as NWA Hollywood Wrestling.

Okay. Now, Bearcat Wright is one of the kinds of wrestlers that's kind of interesting. First off, he was the first black man to win a championship. As far as I could figure, oh, actually, there is one more guy who does it with the NWA Championship, but we're gonna get into that in a second.

But Bearcat Wright refused to do jobs sometimes. Okay. And so when you're champion and you refuse to do the job, that's a problem. And so he refused to drop the belt to either Eduardo Carpentier, who was a guy from the Montreal Territory, I wanna say. Okay.

Or Freddie Blassy again. So the WWE stripped him of the belt and awarded want to say. Okay. Um, or Freddie Blassy again. So the WWE stripped him of the belt and awarded it to Carpentier on December of that same year. So December of, uh, of 63. Now, um, there's a whole fun story about that. But again, another rabbit hole I had to walk. Yeah. Now technically, Bobo Brazil, yeah, uh, had also won the NWA championship almost a year earlier in October of 62, but the NWA at that point was running this cool gimmick where the face would hit nature boy buddy Rogers. Okay. Nature boy buddy Rogers is the one who then gave the name to Rick Flair. Right. Okay. Claire beat him beat him with the, with Nature Boy Buddy Rodgers own figure four hold.

Oh, okay. It was seven. All right. But Nature Boy Buddy Rodgers was the first champion of the WWF. Got it. That's what they split from the NWA and Buddy Rodgers. Oh, okay. Buddy Rodgers was a right prick apparently because he would bring in all his own guys and

he would only wrestle them for the most part. But Bobo Brazil was so popular that Buddy Rogers had to wrestle him too. So Rogers is the champion, okay, and he's a heel. And he would always say to a nicer guy, it couldn't happen. Which I just love that in 1960s, you had that kind of twisted aspect of our language. Yeah, not twisted to me, because I'm a Latin teacher,

but to most normal human beings, it's that's, you know, who speak English, that's a little weird. But to a nicer guy, it couldn't happen, right? Buddy Rogers would get hit in the groin by the baby face. Okay. And he wouldn't be able to continue.

And then the baby, right. Cause, you know, somebody kicks you in the child shot. Yeah, and it's always an accidental chone shot. Okay. Then the baby face would be awarded the belt and he would refuse it because he didn't win it legally He'd won it with an illegal accidental move Okay, so this was one of those times so Bobo result. No, I can't do it. I'm an honorable man We'll just have to have the match again some other time. Okay creative finish So that brings us to Ron Simmons now Ron Simmons was very much the first black recognized world champion. Okay. And WCW pushed him to that title using racism. It is WCW.

The guy in charge. Ted Turner. Well, no, here's the interesting thing. Okay. Ted Turner, yeah, he owned the whole umbrella and he liked that he had a part in it and he'd always make sure they had money even though everybody else in his organization wanted to starve it and let it die. But he didn't run it day to day. He brought in a guy who would then hire other people to run it.

So WCW had a guy in charge named Cowboy Bill Watts. Cowboy Bill Watts had been a wrestler. He had, I think, sold out the Madison Square Garden three times with Bruno San Martino. So Bruno sold it out, but he was the heel of the league. Now, he'd had a very successful run as a booker in the mid-south and his formula is pretty simple. Get a popular black baby face and have him defeat all comers.

You may have heard of this guy. Junkyard dog. Yeah, okay. So that's what he's got. So anyway, Cowboy Bill Watts had Ron Simmons' as a scent to the title come through his facing and handling racism. And at the time, Lex Luger was a bad guy, and he approached Ron Simmons and said, you're pretty good.

You should be at my show for. And the weird thing is Simmons would actually then go on to lose to Luger, because they're building Luger in this other way. And then Simmons started challenging Vader who I think in WCW at that time was known as Big Van Vader. Okay. Now he was a mountain of a man who 450 pounds and was the first man to do a true moon salt at his size, first big man to do a true one. Oh wow. Okay. Bam, bam, big hello. Did a foe moon salt. He basically kind of leaned backward and jumped backward,

but it was like turned halfway. So yes, he got the full rotation, but he was twisted. So Vader gets the credit. Anyway, so Vader's manager is Harley race. Harley race is a goddamn legend. But also he's a legendary prick. He said, there's a lot of these guys in wrestling. Oh, well, it's a carny territory.

Yeah. So, Harley race said that Ron Simmons was unworthy. By the way, Ron Simmons, I don't know if you know, he is one of the very few people. He was like, he came in ninth in the Heisman trophy contest. Oh, wow. But he was a defensive player. And defensive players never get considered for Heisman trophies. He also, his number was retired at FSU. Oh, wow. He's a legend. Yeah. Anyway, so Harley-Race said that Ron Simmons was unworthy as an opponent because he was just an errand boy.

Back in the day. Wow. Harley-Race said that a boy like him would have carried his luggage. Holy shit. Now this is 1992 in a Georgia based territory with a mid-western former world champion talking to a black wrestler. Wow. Now all of this was booked by a man who once supported Lester Maddox. I don't know if you know Lesterandro Maddox was. Alessandro Maddox had a business, he had a restaurant, and he chose to close it down instead of serve black customers in 1965. Yeah.

Maddox would then go on to become Governor of Georgia. Yep. Now Bill walks spoke of this support in 1992. And he'd also informed WCW, hey, just so you know, I have spoken in support of Leicester Maddox and they're like, you know, they're based in LA or in Atlanta and they're like, the Leicester Maddox is like, yeah, I supported his ability to shut down his business instead of, you know, served to black people because that's his property in blah blah and he explained it away.

his property in blah blah and he explained it away. Now, WCW was owned by Ted Turner, as you said, Ted Turner had as his vice president for the Atlanta Braves, Hank Aaron. Yeah. When Hank Aaron heard about this, he pressured Bill Shaw, who is Ted Turner's president of the organization to fire Bill Watts in 1993. That's a lot of names to pull. So Bill Shaw is kind of the capo regime under Ted Turner. Yeah. Hank Aaron is off to the side over here. Under the brains, but he goes back up to the capo regime said, get rid of this guy.

Yeah, because that's not okay. So that's 93 where Watts gets fired, but Ron Simmons beat several heel contenders to defend his belt and eventually he would lose it Activator in late December 1992 So he wins in September like I want to say like September first Let's see if I actually wrote down the actual date No, I just have it in September. Okay. But I know that he loses it like December 30th or 31st.

So he doesn't quite make it to the next year. And he loses in Baltimore, I want to say, because that's typically when they would go through Baltimore was in December. And yes, I know that. Of course you do. Of course you do. His reign was remarkable as a first, but fairly unremarkable beyond that.

The belt had already lost value since Ric Flair had left with the original belt in 1991, and that was due to a fight that he'd had, I believe, with Bill Shaw. Not Bill Shaw, I'm forgetting the other guy's name. But the territory was also suffering, despite the cable network and WWF at the time was pushing really, really hard. Yes, more on them later though. Anyway, there's a brief inversion of racial expectations and wrestling in 1992.

And Ron Simmons was that inversion from August 2nd, 1992 until December 30th, 1992. Okay. Now, August 2nd to December 30th. Early November fits right between them. Yeah, the election. And into that era, steps Bill Clinton. He played the saxophone on the Arseneo Hall show

in the summer of 1992. He, the first baby boomer president, defeated the incumbent George Bush. And back then, baby boomers were seen as like something hopeful. Um, that was a long time before okay, boomer. Yeah. Yeah. Tony Morrison, a few years earlier or a few years later pardon me, uh, was lamenting the

way that Republicans were attacking, uh, Bill Clinton. And then she called out that the embattled president was quote, white skinned, notwithstanding, he was quote, our first black president. Oh yeah, that was a huge, huge quote. Yeah, now she went on quote, blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime.

She was wrong there and I'm glad. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope any black, actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness, single parent household, born poor, working class, saxophone playing, McDonald's, and junk food loving boy from Arkansas. Now her characterization of him was taken largely out of context, and I think it's important to note that she was doing so to highlight the Republican attack on him, starting with white water and the attacks on Hillary Clinton, and working their way to the Lewinsky scandal. And that attack was born of the culture wars

that Buchanan had started in 92, which I've already covered fairly extensively in episodes 58 through 60. Bill Clinton's presidency was a watershed moment for traditionalists. The Republican Party had held the White House for 12 years straight, and if you go back to 1968, they'd held it with one four-year exception continuously for 24 years. Oh, shit. Yeah. Oh, shit. Yeah. Oh, shit. Yeah. That part of the math because it was all before my lifetime.

Never occurred to me. Now you see why people are so entitled to the way. Yeah. That's a generation. Holy shit. And if you if you go back from 68 to 60, that's another eight years. So with a total of of 12 years you can go all the way back to 52 Good so God almighty. Yeah, so 32 years with the exception of wow Yeah, 24 with the exception of four Bill Clinton coming into the White House is a hugely unsettling event for White Establishment America. That in itself carries with it a sense of change, and therefore, if you're trying to hold

on to power a sense of chaos. Yes. But first, there's more to explore on the issue of race when it comes to this period of time, and sadly, it'll be more of the same over and over again with just different headlines. So let's go into sci-fi for a minute. In September of 1993, Avery Brooks becomes the first commanding officer of a Star Trek series, Deep Space Nine. Yes.

He was a widower, raising his black son, running a space station and doing all of it while having a fairly authentic emotional life actually in as much as one can on a Star Trek episode. Yeah. But it was, at its core, a story about a black man's love. His love for his deceased wife crippled him for a while. And the writers held that really quite dear. It was the reason that Cisco threw himself into his work so completely. His love for his son powered him. It gives him a moral center, a moral compass that he can hold on to. And eventually, his love for his later girlfriend, who becomes his wife after a really long time,

Cassidy Yates, who he actually gets sent off to prison for a bit, because she's working with the monkey. And then he destroys the monkey, and then she comes up, and then they, that's what it's all about. Yeah, really good writing. Yeah. He pursues it with the same vibrance of a man who is deeply in love because he's pursuing it as a man who is deeply in love.

Yes. Avery Brooks and the writers of Deep Series 9 depicted a black man loving, healthily, loving deeply, and loving passionately. And it's a black man's, a black man in a leading role on an already purposely diversified cast and series. Still, notice that it's 1993, and this is happening. Yes. In June of 1994, OG Simpson was arrested and then charged with the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her paramour wrong, Goldman. Yes. There was so much that went on in this trial that made it so bizarre. First, there's just the logistics.

There's a late-night flight to Chicago and arrest a suicide note and an appeal on TV from a friend to turn himself into the police. A slow-speed chase, which is gonna come in later with wrestling. With a friend in a different white Bronco because he worshipped OJ so much that he bought the same kind of white Bronco. With Simpson threatening to kill himself in the back of the bronco, add to that football celebrities going on public radio to plead with him not to kill himself, including Walter Peyton. National broadcast break ins to various shows, including the NBA finals, the, the poor next they just get in a break. Yeah, it's a clear hit bag to flee the country and all of that before any

arrangement. Yeah. Yeah, it was everything. You know, we talked in the episodes about Cardassian jurisprudence, which is the kind of niche thing that you know, where they only only podcast, I think anybody's ever done about that. But you've got if you find another one that does that, you know, where are the only only podcasts I think anybody's ever done about that. But if you find another one, does that, you go listen to that podcast. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, because wow.

But, you know, the fact that this is still, yeah, I know, I can't am too, because we're pointy headed that way. But Derek Lipkin, friend of the show. Hey, you know, Jeroz Prudence pretty well. If you find us a podcast that talks about Cardassian Jeroz Prudence, please let us know. Yeah, other than ours.

But we talked in those episodes about this moment that we were in, where trials were televised. Yes. And the OJ Simpson trial was the... The trial, yeah. we were in where trials were televised. And the OJ Simpson trial was the... The trial. Genesis, like of the, I mean, that was when that really had

its first major moment in the Zit guys. Yep. And, you know, if the glove doesn't fit, you must quit. You must quit. I mean, all of the drama in the courtroom, all of the craziness outside the courtroom, like there have been many series made about

about everything that went on because it was just so bonkers. Yes. And I mean, part of that is, is OJ Simpson as a personality is kind of bonkers. Yeah, he's an interesting cat. Like he was on the naked gun movies. Yeah. He was a national celebrity. No.

For his football, he was one of the first black men to actually get an endorsement contract on a national chain. Like he's a big deal. Yeah. And here's what's weird for me. OJ was famous for his chewing race. At a time where other black athletes were taking stands against racism. Yeah.

He said. Yeah. I'm not black. I'm OJ. Oh yeah yeah, he didn't take stands He was famously quoted for saying that and and you've got Bill Russell You've got will chamber well less so well, but more Cream of Dool Jibar. Yeah, Muhammad Ali went to jail. Yeah, like you've got a whole bunch of people and at this time Muhammad Abdel Roof I think in 1994 he refused to stand for the

singing of the national anthem. And pretty much lost his basketball career for it. Anyway, he was, here he is, now he's pushing the bar, opening doors for black athletes when it came to commerce. And I do think it's interesting that, again, O, to be a mediocre white man, you can do whatever you want, but if you are excellent as a black man, if you are excellent at something,

you are also responsible for all the other aspects of life in the public eye, not very fair. I think speaking for myself as a mediocre white man, I think one of the greatest privileges that white men have is mediocrity. Yeah, if we're successful at something, you know, Chris Rock says this. He says, you know, I live in this neighborhood where there's like four black people that live in the whole neighborhood.

I don't know if it's still true, but it was in 2004, he said this. Says there's me, Missy Elliott, and I forget who else he names. I think there's an athlete in there this says there's me missy Elliott And I forget who else he names. I think there's an athlete in there and then there's somebody else He says so there's me, okay, I'm a pretty famous comedian. I do all right missy Elliott amazing Amazing musical talent And he names an athlete and he named somebody else probably another musician. He says you know who my neighbors? It's a fucking dentist like And that's kind of the thing, you know who my neighbor is? It's a fucking dentist. Like, and that's kind of the thing, you know. So OJ is is is opening the door for black men

in terms of commerce. Like if you don't have OJ in the 70s and early early 80s, you don't have Jordan necessarily. Yeah. So he's opening the door for black athletes when it comes to commerce. Not necessarily on purpose. He doesn't sit there and go look at all I'm doing for everybody. But he's you know he's running it up the middle. Well done. Thank you. Well done. Yeah. He got a national company and a national commercial series when no other black athletes did. And it's fairly undeniable from a capitalism perspective. Yeah, oh yeah, no, it definitely is. I think what I find interesting about all that is, as you say, he made a very big deal of issuing,

I love your use of that word in this context, any kind of racial baggage or racial element to any part of it, as you say he said, I'm not black, I'm OJ. But society, as much as he wanted to, is shoe it, it's white society on the one hand agreed with him. Well, you know, it's not about whether he is white or whatever. Oh, yeah. That's absolutely to the white middle. You know, that totally plays to the middle. And I think there's a level of half totally genuine and half playing the game, playing the game to him doing that.

And I think in every account of his career and just, you know, people talking about him as a person, it's really clear that in his own head, the number one thing that mattered was OJ. Was OJ? Absolutely. Which could speak to a lot of societal pressures on how here's how you can be a successful person if you are black. That's true.

You know, it's quite a hemming in. Oh, yeah. That happens. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, in LA, the black community knew this about OJ. And even though they may have enjoyed his football playing skills and his celebrity prior to the trial, they saw him as having denied his community choosing to live in Brentwood

with the rich white folks. Yep. Not really black. But once the trial takes place in LA, and it's pretty clear that the police also fucked up in terms of procedure. Oh huge place. In the public zeitgeist that they framed. And more on that later, their history in LA of racism as a police department is more than

enough to swing the black community in LA into supporting Simpson, despite his repeated denial of them. Oh yeah, well, there was, there was, it was, it was, it was an interesting kind of commentary at the time that was, I mean, I don't have any quotes to pull word for word, but there was kind of this commentary about, at the end of the day, he is one of us. Yeah. In this way, like, you know, we don't like him very much, but at the end of the day,

you know, look what they're doing to him. Look what they're doing. Yeah. If they can do it to him, they can do it to the rest of us. Yeah. Yeah. So things shift because of everything I'd mentioned earlier, Natasha Harland's Rodney King, Mark Furman, all of these things happened, chokeholds being illegal and the police being mad about it. Yeah.

Darrell Gates' comments, the whole thing comes to a head in a very weird way in a trial that involved a man who'd all but actively abandoned his roots and his communities, but who couldn't escape how the white power structure still saw him. And he was later proven to have violated Browns and Goldman's civil rights by killing them. Yeah. So I mean, he did it. He was found not guilty in 1995 at the end of the trial. Incidentally, it was October of 1995 when he was found not guilty. Did I mention that one of the jurors

gave the black power sleut to OJ after the verdict was read? That happened. Yeah. Yeah, it was a pretty clear case of jury notification. Yeah. You know, like the system we have is done. Yeah.

How many white people got out of it? Oh, I know. I'm not, you know, the system we have is how many how many white people got. Oh, I know I'm not I'm you know, I'm I'm just I'm just saying oh yeah That's you know and that thing happened and it's one of those oh, you know like we got one Off finally was was kind of the most was was the mentality from from a lot of folks. I I you know and the thing is, at the end of the last episode, I talked about, you know, a high school classmate of mine, in, in 95, into 96, I was still in, in touch with him. And he and other people in my social circle, which was, as you talked about, the soup you were cooking in was more of a chowder, so was mine. And, you know, the idea that, you know, but he committed murder. And like, you know he did it.

We all know he did it. How can you just let him go? Right. The way that wound up reinforcing white indignants, Yes. Is really a thing. Yes. Is really very noticeable.

You know, it was it was one more it was just you know one more brick in the wall as it were of you know to reinforce every negative stereotype about you know African-American people black, and their relationship to law and order. And the flip side of it, which is how many times in how many places have white people to the exact same thing. Yeah. When the victim was black or Hispanic or Asian

or whatever, you know, the big differences in a lot of places, the nullification happened before there was a jury involved. Right. You know, look at Emmett Till's killers. I was gonna say, like, you know. Roy Bryant called. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that was the first, my first go to as well. Yeah. Was like, hey, here's two people that like straight up said, oh, yeah, we did it. Yeah. Yeah. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassin. Like, you know, look at, look at, can't even begin to talk about the number of cases. And on a moral level, it's abhorrent. Yes, it is. On a strictly political race relations, let's look at how the system is working level. Yeah. It's a bit more like you created.

You need to recognize how we got here. Yeah, you've created a system wherein pointing out that he got off is not an immediate, like, oh my God, that's awful. It's like, yeah, but like you created a system where yeah, but is the norm. Like that's the, yeah. I would point out by the way that James R. Raid did get a

resident tried and he did get convicted. So he did. This is true. Yes, James. But you're 100% right about Roy Bryant and his brother-in-law whose name I forget. Yeah. But the Moodin L.A., like I was saying after the trial, was,

especially in the black community, celebratory as hell. There was a reported feeling of we finally got a win. It didn't matter anymore that he was the murderer. The police had such a long history of abuse and corruption, like I said, you created a system. That any black man getting to walk free after a trial trial even after he'd abandoned and ignored his whole community. When so many people had walked free after killing or attacking black people in LA, even in

the last couple years, was a cause for celebration. White people were aggrieved, frustrated, felt cheated. On one level, clearly the authorities had failed to do their job correctly and a murderer had walked free. On a deeper level, a black man had killed a white woman and went free. And on an even deeper than that level, the structures that were in place to keep... Here I go talking about structures again. No, you know you get into trouble.

Let's do that. That's fine. The structures that were in place to keep white people safe and secure at the expense of black people in LA have been dealt a body blow by a black lawyer, Johnny Cochran. He becomes a villain in this to the white community. Was this a... Which in itself is interesting to me. There's like this, well, OJ couldn't help it kind of aspect to it,

and it's really the smart black guy that's the one you got to watch out for. It's like, that's some really fucked up races. The level of the level of loneliness there, it's like an onion. It has so many layers. Yeah. Oh, and just like, you know, like you're comparing piles of shit, and you and I both know that when you've had a bowel movement, there are good poops and bad poops. of shit and you and I both know that when you've had a bowel movement, there are good poops and bad poops. Yeah. And like these different racisms are like different layers of... Different consistencies of crap.

Yeah. Yeah. So was this a sign of white people's hegemony slipping culturally? Traditionally, they had that shit locked down, but now, not so much. That one got through. And on what I think is an even deeper than that level, white people in LA didn't really carry about Latasha Harlan's murder

by a Korean shop owner, because it wasn't white on black violence. And it was in a black neighborhood. They didn't really care about Rodney King being beaten so badly by the police. After all, he was, quote, resisting arrest, according to the police, who'd bragged about beating him. They didn't care that video evidence made it clear

that the police had overstepped their bounds and beat a man nearly to death. They cared that black people burned down and made LA unsafe for white people. They cared that Reginald Denny was attacked with such glee, and they cared that black people now were expressing joy at a white woman's black murderer going free. White people older than their thirties were aggrieved, felt their traditions were under assault, felt that they were losing their

culture war, and that had been a part of the lexicon for a few years now, and they were resentful of it. that had been a part of the lexicon for a few years now and they were resentful of it. Okay, additionally, all that's going on in terms of race, here's a quick jump through some other stuff that I'd brought up in prior episodes. In December of 1993, the Department of Defense instituted legal framework under which queer folk wouldn't be actively sought out and drummed out of the service. This was called the Don't Ask Don't Tell. Yes. The thing to keep in mind here was that it came after a study that determined there was no harm to gangliz being service members in the armed forces. And it was a huge step forward at the time. I love that we can actually look back at it as a regressive garbage. Yeah, but that shows how far

we've come. And because when it came out, there were episodes about it and all sorts of prime time TV. And it was seen as a big move forward. In 1995, Shannon Faulkner became the first woman to enroll in the Citadel, formerly all boys military academy. I talked about that much more in other episodes. In 96, you've got US versus Virginia determined that any school getting any federal funding had to abide by the protections of the federal law,

which means that banning women from attendances illegal and grounds for being shut down. In 1997, Ellen featured an episode where the titular character, Ellen, came out as gay on TV. The next year, Will and Grace came on to the network's featuring a main character who was gay. Now he was acceptably gay, because he was still very much othered, but he was gay. Neither of these was the first gay character on TV. However, do you know who that was? Not off the top of my head, I do not. Billy Crystal in soap.

Right. He wasn't a main character. But he wasn't just a gay punchline either. And still, these two shows really in terms of representation. Yeah. You know, a few years later, you had pleasant buddies for God. They're pretending, you know, and you had Jack Trip or pretending to be.

Pretending, yeah. I cannot believe they forgot about Billy Christ on soap. I am still waiting for someone to put soap on a streaming service so that I'm in. Oh my God. Yeah. I'm invisible that here are the so-and-so and here are the so-and-so I forget their names yeah because I was significantly younger when watching it than you weren't in 1994 as I detailed an episodes 56 through 58 through 60 NAFTA changed the way America did business with its neighbors and

in a lot of really important ways and was seen as a defining objection worthy issue at the time. Thank goodness we learned, and it wasn't used dishonestly to gather power any time thereafter. And thank goodness it didn't feed a dragon of untruth and a narrative of isolation later. We are way too smart for that. Indeed. Okay, so there's this wobbling of the culture. Okay, you there's this wobbling of the culture. Okay, you've got racial unrest.

You've got just like the structure that's in place is being shown to be so much... Beachley flawed, Balsa wood. Yeah. Yeah. And all the stuff having to do with gender is... Yeah. And sexuality. Sexuality.

Yeah. All of these things. So, you know, and so of course, they're really upset when another white man becomes president. Look what's happening. Yeah. So long, the wrong kind of white guy. Yes. So there's a serious wobbling and the funny thing is he is everything that they pretend to love too. We're out here for the common man. He was the common man. You know, at that time, He was the common man. You know, at that time, I'm gonna say the Republican establishment had not started claiming to be for the common.

Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. That level of bullshit false populism comes around in 2000. Is a product of Bush too. That's a reaction to the Clinton thing. Oh, and you know, we need to see that back. Yeah, we need to get the bubble vote. Yeah. Yeah, that's good point.

And that's, you know, who would you rather have a bear with? Yeah, we're not picking a drinking buddy, we're picking somebody who won't, the chief executive of our government. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a big time wobbling in the culture. The youth culture is defining itself

more and more separately from the dominant culture as well. Not just, I'm gonna go out and have fun, but don't worry, I'm gonna come back and get a job and work just like dad did. Now, in itself, it is unstevally transitioning to dominant cultures, unstevally transitioning from the war babies, the silent generation, to the baby boomers.

Things are also changing faster than they had previously and harder to see ways given computerization and telecommunications specifically. What's pretty cutting edge in 1995 will be a fading memory in 2005. But what was cutting edge in 1995 had clear antecedents in 85. Oh, yeah. So that 10 year gap you had CDs and you still had CDs.

The next 10 years, CDs are gone, daddy gone. Yeah. Long distance phone calls. Same thing. Yeah. Computer storage. Cell phones. Yeah. It's not that they didn't have cell phones. Yeah. Computer storage, cell phones. Yeah. It's not that they didn't have cell phones. Yeah.

But that in 2005, you've got a cell phone that is like you're only a couple, a couple years away, I think from the Apple phone. From the iPhone. I think that's odd seven Is it that early? Okay, so I was directing plays and I saw a kid playing pool on one. Okay. I Know I know early early early early on phone, but yeah Okay, yeah, I knew you're only a couple of years away from yeah, no Yeah, so you're on blue bears. You're on the texting is a thing. Oh, yeah Yeah, so I remember resisting it. Yeah. No key of phones. Yeah. The technology had gone. This is funny. My wife and I were actually talking about when she was a kid. It's been a couple of years living in Florida. And

while they were in Florida, her father had a company car for the big construction firm that he was working for. Sure. And it was a huge big deal that he had a car car for the big construction firm that he was working for. Sure. And it was a huge big deal that he had a car phone. Right. I remember that. And it was... And it was... And it was...

And it was... And it was... Who would break into people's cars and steal their phones. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh wow. And I think... No, he didn't have one of them, but of course,

you know, the first generation cellular phone. Uh-huh. Was, you know, his tall, walk of course, the first generation cellular phone was, it was tall, one of the... Walkie talkie. Yeah, it was bigger than walkie talkie. Yeah, it was without the antenna, it was the height of our microphones. Well, it was used as a prop in wrestling.

Oh, yeah. Paul Heyman, at that time known as Johnny Dangerously, he played like a Schmarme, New York agent type wrestler. Okay. It would be the foreign object that he would hit people over. Because you could do that. Yeah, that's what it was in the 80s with an 80s cell phone because it was, you know, an eight pound battery pack. Yep.

Yeah. That would only last about, you know, 20 minutes of actual college time. Yeah. But, you know, and that's the first generation of cellular phones. And then by 2000, you have the first flip phones. You know, it's changed to something that you can fit in your pocket. But then, as you're saying, the pace then goes from something that will fit in your pocket in airquods, but is still pretty bulky. To being five years

after that, it's small enough to lose. Yeah. So it's a future shock. It's tothler. Absolutely. Being proven right. So you've got all these shifts that are happening that in 10 years from 95 to 2005 are wildly different than they were. And you know what it is, is that momentum too, right? Yeah. So in the WWF, back to wrestling, a company that had been rocked by sterile scandals for a few years, starting in 91, a new generation of wrestlers was coming into their own. It was fledgling from about 92 forward, too. Some of this had to do with the economic recession felt worldwide, a largely neo-liberal capitalist

trickle-down effort that had depressed wages curtailed production and cut services within austerity programs that just helped keep things afloloat since the top tax rate in the U.S. had dropped from 70% at the top rate to just 28% at the top rate in the 1980s. This meant fewer folks coming to see wrestling. By 1993, WWF looked vastly different than how it had looked five years earlier, 88 to 93. Okay. And 88, that's WrestleMania four. That's Hulk Hogan losing on Saturday nights main event to Andre the Giant having two referees who are actual twins.

That was a thing that happened. Okay. Um, five years later, it's 1993. Hulk Hogan's not even in the, uh, pretty sure he's not even in the organization anymore. No. Uh, if he is, he's come back. I think he comes back in 94 though. But by 93, it looks really, really different. Wrestlers were far smaller. Some of this has to do with the steroid scandal.

Yeah. Uh, but also Mick Vince McMahon had publicly in the trial where he was indicted Admitted again in public to K-Fabe now for people that don't know K-Fabe K-Fabe is keeping up the fiction of Wrestling being real all of it. So You don't talk about the outcomes of the match outside of the locker room. If you play a Russian, then you are a Russian in life. You're in character 24, 7, 365. Yes. Until your gimmick changes. Right. Yeah. But as long as you go away for a while, you go, you're going to come back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like go away learn a new hold It really is it really is a testosterone laden soap opera. Yes

Because that's exactly how like testosterone and baby oil Oh, I don't know why that got me so bad But it did But you know that that's me so bad, but I did. But you know, that's exactly the way that characters and plot lines work. Like when I sit down, occasionally my wife will go to catch up on her, soaps.

Sure. And she watches, this is important. She watches days of our lives, which is the same one that my mother watched when I was a kid. Yeah, no, that's the standard bearer. Like if you ever think soap opera, most people think days of lives,

they even have the theme song in their head. Yeah, yeah. Like Sands or the Hourglass. Right. Yeah. So, and the number of times that there's, it's the same character,

but they look different because it's a new actor. Right. One of two things is gonna happen. Either there's been a subplot where they've had plastic surgery, or we're all just going to ignore the fact that they look and sound completely different. Yes.

But, you know, or, or, same actor comes back and is playing a different person now. Evil twin. Yeah. Cause a new looks alive. Yeah, you know, and, and the only plot point I don't think I've seen wrestling do is wrestlers aging up at an unrealistic rate. Because on days of our life,

does pregnant shit. What are you going to tell me? Well, because Lita got pregnant by can and had his demon spawn inside her. And then her pregnancy accelerated at like a rate of like a week is a day kind of thing. To the point where when she was clearly showing and then she got knocked off the thing and she miscarried. You know, you could tell that she had truly miscarried because she went right back to being her normal, not pregnant. Not pregnant self. Yes.

Yeah. Within a week or two. So. Okay. So. And the guy that did it was Gene Snitsky. Yeah. And Gene Snitsky. You're gonna love this. He, he, he, you know, so Kane is really pissed because his demon spawn. Yeah. He didn't get born. Yeah. And so he's going after Gene Snitsky. So now is Kane, the good guy or the bad guy because he raped Lita, but but yeah But he lost his kid. Yeah, so then he's going after Snitsky and Snitsky. There are so many layers. Oh my god

Just like oh, that doesn't even get to the Katie Vick story. Look that one up, but But I don't know if I want to okay, Gene Snitskyky, he's holding a little baby, a baby bundle in the ring. In the ring. And he calls out Lita and she comes down and he's teasing her about her, her miscarriage that he'd caused. And by the way, his theme song is called It Wasn't My Fault. And he's like, you know, do you want to hold my baby? You do you?

No, you can't. And you can't because you can't take Arab a baby and then he punts the baby into the audience And that wasn't the worst thing that they've done Okay, so miscarriage is a plot point. Oh several I meant Ray is a plot point yes, um And punting a baby. Yeah, oh necrophilia is to mother mother posbuck Wow, okay that you won't see on days of our lives one point

Man wrestles a handicap match. He and his son Shane wrestle a handicap match. Well, it's not a handicap match. It's just that Sean Michaels' partner never showed up. Sean Michaels' partner was God. The man goes into a church and mocks God. And then they have a match where God gets an entrance and he doesn't show up. And so Sean has to fight alone against Vince and his son.

But, but okay, do they actually go full Beckett? And like he loses because God like truly didn't show up or do they go American evangelical? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. God actually showed up. Yeah, okay. No, God doesn't show up. Sean is just able through his faith to persevere and win Okay, so yeah, God doesn't need to show up. Oh, okay God is not mocked right yeah, okay, yeah, right okay So silly yeah, yeah, okay, I'm thinking I'm thinking legislative roll. Right, okay, sorry. Wrong paradigm. So anyway. Wow. So what you got on days of your life. So much IK.

Yeah, going on there. Yep. You know, wow. Yeah, all right. So yeah, but anyway, yeah, no, it's a self-opera. Yeah. It is. Oh, so in wrestling when you go.

Murder gymnastics. Yeah. Yeah. When you go, which I haven't referred to it as, even though I said I was going to, yeah. Yeah, yeah. When you go, which I haven't referred to it as, even though I said I was going to, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But in wrestling, in wrestling, in wrestling, in wrestling, in wrestling, in wrestling, in wrestling, in wrestling, in wrestling, in wrestling,

in wrestling, in wrestling, for instance, there was a guy named Barry Darsow, who was a Crusher Crusher, who was a Crusher Crusher, who was a Crusher Crusher, who was a Crusher Crusher, who was a Crusher Crusher, who was a Crusher Crusher, who was a Crusher Crusher, who was a Crusher Crusher, who was a Crusher Crusher, who was a Crusher Crusher, who was a Crusher Crus,

who was a Crusher Crus, who was a Crusher Crus, who was a Crusher Crus, who was a Crusher Crus, who was a Crusher Crus, who was a Crusher Crus, who was a Crusher Crus, who was a Crusher Crus, who was a Crusher Crus, in WCW and he was an American who had like fallen in with the Russians in the early 1980s and he was the only Russian that could speak English. Okay. Right. Well then he goes to WWF and becomes smash of the demolition. Okay.

Well, once demolition disbands, he becomes the repo man. Okay. Yeah, it's demolition dispans. He becomes the repo man. Okay. Yeah. And then when he goes back to WCW, he becomes the black top bully, which is basically a truck driver. All right. Yeah, it's, yeah.

Same dude. Yep, same man. Not rushed anymore. Nope. And like, okay. Yep. So like I said, they look really, really different, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Now, the first time that he admitted to K-Fabe was actually in 1989 because he said, why are we giving all this money to the athletic commissions when we're not athletics? Like, we're not actual contests. So in Jersey, he went on record as saying, it's K-Fabe, y'all. So he broke K-Fabe. Vince McMahon did. Vince McMahon broke K-Fabe, y'all. Like, so he broke K-Fabe. Vince McMahon did. Vince McMahon broke K-Fabe in 1989 and New Jersey.

Well, because that's where the money was. Yes. I just want to bring that out because in a few episodes, let's say we're on page 13 out of 31. In seven episodes, it's going to come back. But now in the trial in 1984, McMahon leans in hard on the idea that wrestling was sports entertainment and not a real contest.

There are four steroids who cares. And also I didn't give them out. It's a nice double denial there. Now, the main wrestlers at that time were Shawn Michaels, Razor Ramone, Diesel, and I mentioned those two real quick because at one point after they'd left, the WWF was like, well, we still own those names and then they put two other wrestlers into those roles.

Oh, yeah. Hey. Yeah. Days of our lives all over again. Yes. All right. Including one of them, the fake Diesel. Would later go on to become Cain.

Oh no shit. Yeah, and people would hold up signs everyone's wild cane runs on fake diesel power Yeah wrestling fans, they they can be smart So Shawn Michaels razor-rimon Razor-rimon one of the first wrestlers I ever saw a wrestle when he was just known as Big Scott Hall. Okay. Diesel, Yokosuna, Crush, Tatanka. They were the, they were the main wrestlers and the standard bearers were mostly Bret Hart, Bret the Hitman Hart, my favorite, and the Undertaker.

Yeah, okay. Now, they were all touted as, quote, the new generation. That was the thing and the idea was we'd gone through the whole commandia era. We'd gone through the Golden Age arresting. Yeah. And those guys are all gone now. So we have the new generation, which in itself is derivative. Yes. Okay. Postmodernism, it's finest. Yeah. It was an attempt to distance and distinguish the WWF from the WCW at the

time because WCW had now raided a lot of their bigger names and older talents, which is interesting. Including Hogan. Now, I find that interesting too because one of the ways that Vince McMahon built the WWF was he went into all the territories. Oh, and he stole their people. And stole people? Yeah, offered them better money. Yeah. Now, WWF was taking things in a new direction

now that the superstar, Hulk Hogan, had left in 1993. And the verbiage built around the idea that these were new, iconic classic stars who were an update to what had brought the WWF into the public eye. But in the reality, primary colors, yeah, well, the colors are 90s colored though. A lot more pink, a lot more turquoise. Yeah, well, yeah, that's kind of kind of what I'm saying is I'm actually trying to say

like, okay, wait, you're saying this is what brought the WWF into the public eye, red and yellow, and I mean, the palette of Hulcomania and that era was very distinct. Yes. And then the palette of the 90s was, we're gonna introduce a lot more secondary, and I'm gonna go on an album and use the word tertiary colors.

Yes. Like, you know, and the whole 90s aesthetic was bonkers. It's back. God help us. It's back with a new flair though. Just like when we were kids, the 70s aesthetic was back with a new flair. Yeah. And then, you know, these days are, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's all cyclical, but God almighty. Now, in reality, there's step backward, I think, because Bret Hart was a standard bearer in so many ways for the

WWF, but he was also, so he's the new generation, right? Yeah, but he'd been around since WrestleMania 2. Okay, but he'd been under and mid card. Yeah, but he was a Canadian legacy. He was a second generation star who'd focused on technique and older storytelling conventions in the ring Yeah, he may have been the next generation to make it big But by no means was he a new type of wrestler and because he was their main baby face it shifted to wrestling Technical traditional wrestling became more popular again now. I think this is this is really important shooting rather Yeah, and this is probably important. Shooting rather. Yeah. And this is probably important because of the steroid scandals. So look, we have people with tremendous athleticism

and skill and they're smaller. Bret Hart was only six foot one, six foot two. I know. And you know, he was 234 pounds. Okay. You know, Hulk Hogan was 303 pounds and he was six foot eight, six foot nine. pounds. Okay. You know Hulk Hogan was 303 pounds and he was 6 foot 8 6 foot 9. I had forgotten he was actually that fucking huge. Yeah well he's had so many surgeries that I think he's around 6 foot 4 now. Okay. Yeah. But you know. Uh always do that. Yeah. Well especially when your main move is falling on your ass every night. That actually will compress. Apparently. Yeah. So yeah, he was their main baby face. Traditional wrestling, technical wrestling becomes more

popular again. He tells amazing stories. Again, he is one of my favorite. During the golden era, the Hogan era, wrestling was largely about just the larger than life personalities, brawling, and selling in the ring, and having personal problems. Big men are making big moves for short matches in the age.

Okay. Huge successful model that popularized wrestling to a level it hadn't seen before, because it doesn't take much thinking to see what's going on in that ring. Okay. Now there were big personalities who could go and they could tell longer stories in the ring and they're really performing at a higher level. But it wasn't new, it was a return to the traditional methods of wrestling just with 90s colors. Now WCW for all the talent rating that it did and despite it being a Southern company,

which meant telling different stories was also trying to nationalize. And in the process, they tried and mostly failed to copy what WWF was doing. You'll like this. You remember the ultimate warrior? WWF made him an icon, short-lived one, but an icon, WCW, the renegade. You ever hear of him? No. Exactly. It's just they couldn't, they couldn't get anything to stick.

Similar colors, similar gimmick, but never really got over. Well, because it's already been done. I mean, that's part of the problem. That is part of it. Although wrestling is self-developed. Cannibalized, yes, it does. But you're right. I mean, when it's so is part of it. Although wrestling is self devouring. Cannibalized. Yeah. It absolutely does.

But you're right. I mean, when it's so closely done and it's like, hey, we got a guy that does that too. It's like, no, you don't. You know, yeah. Yeah. WWF had rated the NWA slash WCW because, and we'll talk about that a bit, for Lex Luger. Now he was supposed to be the next Hulk Hogan and WWF, complete with a bus tour called the Lex Express,

and it was a bust because Lex couldn't really work. He didn't know how to sell. Hogan, for all the criticisms people have for him, he could sell, and if you watch his Japanese matches, he could work. Okay. He actually could work. He just wasn't allowed to to because he didn't need to

because that's not what we're doing. Okay. WCW signed Hogan to a contract and tried to recreate as much of Hulk Emanue as it could. And since he owned that title, he was able to work with it. But WCW version of Hulk Emanue lacked the Chris production value.

It felt like a community college play production of a James Bond movie. You can see where they're trying to go, but it's just like Scott is not working. Yeah. Still, WWF was trying to get youth audiences eyes on their product and they had been for years, which absolutely explains our Cineo Hall having WWF was trying to get youth audiences eyes on their product and they had been for years which absolutely explains our Cineo Hall having WWF wrestlers on his show. And I think that's a good place to end it because I want to start talking about comic books next. And then I'll get back to wrestling again.

Okay. Man, so holy crap. All right. So, you got any books you want to recommend this time around? No, Dune again. Yeah, yeah, it's a many series. Eventually it's coming. When we get through your cross sectional analysis

of an entire fucking decade. Well, I'll recommend to you then. Okay. The first one is Stokely Speaks from Black Power to Pan-Africanism. Stokely Carmichael. Also known as Kwame Ture. Really good stuff written by him.

And then the other one is a book by Brett Hart, which is my favorite wrestling book, I think, that I've ever read. And it's Hitman, my real life in the cartoon world of wrestling. All right. It's really good book. It's big, because he took notes on everything. Now it's absolutely from his perspective,

but I tend to believe him more than I would believe Vince McMahon. So. Well, yeah. Because Vince McMahon, it's kind of like, you know, yeah. It's his job. I don't even bury an animosity for him on some level, because that's his fucking job. So what do you expect from a carnival owner?

You know, like you really want safety standards from that guy? Jesus Christ, you know. He's drawing the beard on the bearded lady like she went bald from emphatigo years ago, you know, so. Alright, so I recommend those two books. Anything you want to tell me that you've gleaned so far? Not right Um, not right now. Okay, not at the end of this episode. I don't totally care. I do wanna go back and just try to see if I can find like an article about the most bonkers wrestling plot lines.

Oh yeah. Just, you can find a top 10 list. Because a holy crap. Oh yeah. I thought Marlena getting possessed by the devil was crazy pants, you know. No, it's the number of alien abductions they've had on the show was, you know, a thing.

But, but- Robocop rescued sting ones from a cage. Oh. Yeah. Good night folks. Yeah, we're like, I don't. Yeah, I don't know. Where do I take that like a holy shit? Yeah, all right. So yeah Where can people find you on the social media? Sparkly murdered gymnastics They can find me on the social medias at EH Blalock on Twitter and

EH Blalock on Instagram. They can find me as Mr.Blalock on Twitter and eHBlalock on Instagram. They can find me as MrBlalock on TikTok. Where can they find you? Oh, you can find me at duh Harmony on Twitter and Instagram. You can also find me on twitch.tv, forward slash capital puns every Tuesday night. Either playing games with my pun fellows or putting on a pun tournament.

Here we go. You can also find me on twitch.tv, forward slash iMac puns games with my pun fellows or putting on a pun tournament. Here we go. You can also find me on twitch.tv-flash-iMac-punds with my partner Ian McDonald talking about Marvel Strike Force. You can also find me, no, that would be advertising this podcast. No, I think, yeah, that'll do a pig. It'll be just those for now. Okay, yeah.

All right, and if you want to yell at both of us about something, if you disagree with with Damien about the virtues of Brett the Hitman heart, come at me. Or anything else. Come hard. Because I took quote rowdy piper. You do not throw rocks at a man as machine. Which honestly, having studied the intifada, I'm a little uncomfortable saying. But. So only on this podcast, ladies and gentlemen. But if you want to come at him about that,

you can find two of us collectively at Geek History time. Tell us your favorite Twitter favorite, really bad storyline. There you go. Yeah. Oh, I'd look forward to reading that. Yeah. It would be an education for me. And the source is much googling and probably sleepless nights.

How would they do that? Why? Why would you? Why? So, yeah, on that note, I'm Ed Blaleck. I'm Damien Harmony. And until next time, keep rolling 20s.