A Geek History of Time - Episode 108 - 1990s Wrestling Part III

Episode Date: May 22, 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, I love being and support numbers will go through. When you hang out with the hero, it doesn't go well for you. Grandfather took the cob and just slid it right through the bar. Oh god, Bob. 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 that I'm not chicken? My grandmother actually vacuumed in her pearls. Oh my god, you always had to sexual revolution.

It might have just been a Canadian standoff. We're gonna go back to 9-11. Oh, I'm gonna get over it. And I don't understand the version of the school. Agra has no business being that big. With the cultists, it's really real. This is the history of time. Where we connect Nurtory to the real world, my name is Ed Blaylock.

I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California. Now doing my job in a hybrid model. So I have, in fact, quote, gone back to work. End quote, as any number of folks have wanted to tell me and Damien to do over the last nine months never mind the fact that we've been working our asses off anyway we've just been doing it from home not that I'm at all bitter about that or anything how about you? Well I'm Damien Harmony I am Latin teacher, something I can probably say for the last time.

Sadly. Yeah, sadly. Then I will be a drama teacher, which is, you know, it's one of those like, you didn't expect it, but you could see it. Yeah. Yeah, well, I can, I can see you actually, you know, giving yourself the opportunity to get into drama turgey. I'm sure you're going to be. I'll be fine. I have the mentality for such a thing. I have a way of forming a curriculum that builds on itself for them to learn. I have the way of making people feel safe. But, you know, I started as an historian and then I became a Latinist and now I'm only a dramatist. So it's a weird shift, but you know, you don't really pick the places that your life gets led to. Yeah. So much as you pick where you want to go. And I can spend my time screaming in the wilderness about it or I could just roll. Here's a roll with it.

Yeah, might as well. So, but right now I am still a Latin teacher up here in northern California, and I am teaching my children Latin, which is really, really a lot of fun. Yeah. And I'm looking forward to their lesson this weekend and all this summer quite honestly. Okay. It's very cool. You know, at least a day, a little bit each day of Latin, and they're really digging it. So it's, oh, good.

Yeah, very cool. but each day of the button and they're really digging it. So it's, yeah, very cool. That's the last time we talked about pro wrestling, how it had shifted from Hulk Hogan to Brett Hart in the WWF, because, well, the steroid scandal and stuff like that, and how the WCW brand had went and grabbed Hulk Hogan in a whole bunch of the castoffs from WWF. Yeah. And then had tried to duplicate what the WWF had done with them, but they didn't have production value.

They didn't have the production value. They didn't quite have the same spark. Yeah. And it was very much a tale of just because you have the money doesn't mean you have the understanding of the business itself. Well, yeah, because because of just because you have the money doesn't mean you have the understanding of the business itself. Well, yeah, because, of course, you know, WCW was being goaded forward by Ted Turner. He was, in fact, the only one in his own organization who supported WCW. All of these people under him, like hated it, but for the people that he put in charge of it. And, and also keep in mind that in the mid 1990s,

all of these businesses finally hit the rock bottom, no pun intended, cause I have a couple of years later, finally hit the rock bottom that they had been tailing toward since about 92. Okay, so it's almost like wrestling is a trailing indicator of the economy. Okay, all right, yeah. Okay, because it's almost like wrestling is a trailing indicator of the economy. Okay, all right. Yeah, okay, because okay, so so when we're talking about like the point in time we've gotten to right now is 90 what? Where are we talking about?

Hovering around 95. 95. But I'm going to go back to the 90. Okay, again, I brought us forward with wrestling. Yeah, I'm gonna put a pin in 95 and then I'm gonna go back and grab comic books, which is what's going on today. Okay, so, but I wanna kind of place that, because you talk about wrestling, being a trailing indicator. Yeah, it seems to be.

For the economy, now 95 was the middle of Clinton's tenure. Mm-hmm. economy. Now 95 was the middle of Clinton's tenure. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's and 90. And the talent of his first term. Yeah. Okay. And things are humming along. The economy is going. Okay. Yeah. He's really picked it back up. Yeah. I'm going to give credit where it's due. Usually the president's first term is left handling what the last president

did. Yeah. A lot of the things that Clinton was able to take advantage of and don't get me wrong, he pushed them into a direction. Yeah. But economically, a lot of things he was able to take advantage of had begun happening under Bush. Yeah, well, yeah, largely due to a Democratic Congress though.

Yeah, well, largely due to a democratic Congress. Well, largely due to off on it, largely due to democratic Congress and the fact that Bush senior actually listens to his advisors, right. And said, you know, I know it was a campaign promise. I know it's going to piss my base off to the point of like, herm a tile, incoherent, like, frothing at the mouth rage. But you know, Greenspan says I got to raise taxes. I got to raise tax because you can't get more without raising taxes. Well, I mean, I mean, I mean, yeah, yeah, um, his son, um, and yeah, so, uh,

And yeah, so Funny, because more on John Adams was an incredible jurist. Yeah, and I mean, you know, I Was on keeping us out of the yeah, he was I would I would solidly say that Adams was a mediocre president Yeah, he suffers in the historical record because he followed the very first guy to do the job who winds up getting very first guy to do the job who winds up getting place placed on a pedestal. Yeah, everything he does that's a president. So the second guy is automatically going to have huge shoes to fill. And Adams was very competent was very responsible. I think was rather statesmen like yes, but he's not a personality. Also kept America out of the war, though.

Yeah, well, yeah, you know, he really did. He really did. And there for that. Yes, well, yeah, you know, he really did. He really did. And they're for that. Yes, well, historically, he gets credit for it. But at the time, there was a significant number of people, at least within America's political class, who were like, no, no, no, no, get him. Get him. You know, those were some. Yeah, well, yes, yes, my point is that Adams was a really good jurist and his son was, I dare say, an even better jurist.

And in even more able statesmen who suffered from some of the same problems. Yes, it's a shame that- They were funny studies, both of them. They really were. They were wank. They were truly well-yeah. Well, yeah, they were the 18th century,

early 19th century's version of what today we call technocrats. Yes. They were experts in their field. They knew how to do the job, but they didn't have full river personalities. You're right. And they were up against a southern block, essentially. Well, yeah.

Yeah. And a rural block in the north. So, I'm just bringing up that John Adams was in many ways. You know, he was the anti-W. Well, yeah. I said, well, I kind of, I think I can see where you're going. Relationship between John Adams and John Quincy Adams

is inverted by the relationship between George Bush and George W. HW. Well, HW and W. Oh, yeah. HW and W. You had a Well, HW and W. Oh yeah. Yeah. HW and W. You had a man who was, and again, you and I somewhat disagree on HW because I put a lot

of things at his feet. I do think he was a solidly, here's where we agree. I do think that he wanted to be a decent man. Yes. And he did stand on some principles. I'm not going to say all, but I had some. Okay. But his son was just the wish version of him.

Oh, I love that analogy. His son, the thing is, the thing is, as we've discussed before, within the Republican Party, there were always these two wings. And the father and son in the Bush semi-dynastie, whatever you want to call it, represent the two wings of the Republican Party. That's true.

The senior was old New England tradition, Puritan mainstream Christian tradition, tradition very, very Yankee. And the idea that you get into public service after you have done what you're gonna do, you get into public service as your way of fulfilling your responsibility. No bless oblige.

No bless oblige, patrician kind of ideal. You're still gonna enrich your friends. You're still gonna fulfilling your responsibility. No bless oblige. No bless oblige. Petition kind of ideal. You're still gonna enrich your friends. You're still gonna enrich your friends. But, you know, you're gonna. Of course, the Rockefeller Republic. Yeah, yes, precisely. Whereas, whereas the younger son, of course,

got his big break into politics as governor of Texas, which was a Confederate state. And so he was emblematic of being himself the sion of a very wealthy family. He's like the poster child for Southern and Southwestern Sunbelt, Republicanism, which is built around the legacy of the planter class, which is well in the second son of nobility.

There's nothing for me here in the old country. I'm the second son too. Yeah, wow. And the second son, yeah, no, it's, I mean, it's, it's too perfect. Like if you wrote this, somebody would send it back in there. Like no, no, no, no, no, it's not believable. But the, you know, second son's the nobility came over here and was like, well, no, no, no, it's not believable, but the you know second Sun's the nobility came over here and was like well, okay, you know what I'm gonna title. I am literally

entitled or I would be if I wasn't the second child and so you know I but I'm I'm to the man or born and freedom to me means I get to do whatever I want to with my property. Right, right. And that's the be all end all. And that's the seed from which we get like, literally everything that's wrong with the wing. That's your Republican party now. Add a couple pieces to that to just,

you know, also, see how to do it a little bit. Yeah, a little bit. He was the, he was the Reagan version of Bush. Oh, okay. Okay, charismatic. Yeah, but but yeah, cunning, yeah, really dumb, yeah, and charismatic, and a phony.

Goddamn phony, I'm gonna go all holding call phony. Okay, yeah, yeah. But he was he was that. So had that far Western entitlement to the property like like I said. Just occurred to me, he owned a baseball team, which means he owned a large field on which Brown and Black people worked for him.

Yes. And they were called the Texas Rangers of the season. That was named after people who went off and just killed Willie Nilly to expand white presence. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, wow.

Yeah, we went for that. The parallels. The only thing that would be worse is if we went for like, I don't know, a hack real estate developer, con man, who was so odious that they gave him a show because, hey, let's watch the worst type of people. Let's watch this guy be awful to two people that like we don't really like to begin with.

Yeah, imagine if we elected that or if we elected Donald Trump, I was talking about Ronald Reagan. So thank you. Thank you. Nicely done. Nicely done. I will forever have more enmity toward Reagan because of his connection to Phyllis Schlafly because of his yanking the Republicans away from the

unreasonable right already that Nixon represented. And she's automatically right. Yeah, but at least Yes, the president can break the law right, but at least he was like trying to say well We should probably expand our message or we're gonna lose voters Yeah, it was philish laughly was like no, we could just like Double double down. Yeah, yeah, which seemed to be the play every time but also Reagan used to again He used to again, he used to, he recorded records as to why communism and unions were bad. And then he would bring them to parties and play them at parties. Now, I don't know what parties were like in the 30s and 40s

and 50s, but I can't imagine that that was a good move. Oh, are you kidding? He drowned in trim, dude. Like, no, just total panty drop, right there. So, anyway, comic books. In the circles in which he ran anyway, when I was a thing, but okay, you comic books. Yeah, okay, we're getting off the subject.

We never got to this. Yeah, well, no, it's true But now we are that pain has sailed so Okay, comic books also a trailing indicator they were wobbling in 1995 and there's a huge parallel between comic books and professional wrestling the colors Being in the heart, okay size personalities. Yeah, and the fact that they mellow drama Yeah, and the fact that they both almost completely went bankrupt in 1995. Was it almost, I vaguely remember DC or Marvel

having to reorganize having. I only found that they, I never found chapter 11. They were in a different chapter. Okay, yeah. But they took such a body blow that they were damn your bankrupt. Okay. WWF, for for instance almost went bankrupt too. They stopped having water service Like not water from the tap but like water coolers. Oh wow. Let's cut that cost now. It's a big building

It's like four or five stories. That is a lot of water coolers. Okay. Okay, I'm 10,000 contract But that's a that's a hell of a thing. Yeah, like when you know WCW had less of a problem because of Ted Turner In choosing it with cash. Yeah, and at that time he is ascendant the 24 hour news cycle. Oh, yeah Well, yeah, no because he he'd started his rise in the 80s right with with the foundation of CNN Right, which everybody had been like what the fuck are you gonna do? And he owns- With a 24 hour news, like, who's gonna watch the news at 3 o'clock in the morning? And what are you gonna do? The Atlanta Hawks. Yes.

So, here you've got a guy who, and the Atlanta Braves, I think at one point. Yeah. So, here you've got a guy- I had forgotten he'd owned the Hawks. Yeah. New he owned the Braves. And here you've got a guy who essentially can rob Paul the pay Peter and it's okay because they're all his. Yeah. So, he can keep WCW a flow who essentially can rob Paul to pay Peter and it's okay because they're all his

Yeah, so he can keep WCW flow. It can be the lost leader. I mean it can be yeah, it can be the rotisserie chicken at Costco You know yeah, um, which I there's a funny story I read recently about the the owner or the CEO of Costco and they're like you know We need to raise prices on hot dogs like you do that and I will kill you Well, yeah, because a buck 50 is a buck 50 is a buck 50 is a buck 50. Yeah, you know, oh, yeah. Well, it's it's it's one of it. It is a signature thing.

Exactly for their brands. Exactly. If you, I mean, no, you can't, you cannot do. Yeah, yeah. So comic books had no such patron media deity. Now, in 1990, we're going to come back a little bit. In 1990, the Awful Crossover Annuals series called Days of Future Presence started.

Now, there had been days of future past. But this was Days of Future present. This was 1990. And it crossed over in Marvel across the mutant annules plus the fantastic four annual. Yeah. And and however, however, the creative lack that it displayed would show up again and again, despite it only being restricted to the annuals. It wasn't good. A friend of mine drew on it actually. Oh, really? Yeah, it's

kind of cool. Okay. But it's a pity. Yeah. It was such an awful story. In 1991 though, Marvel did the Infinity Gauntlet. Yeah. Now this was a huge crossover success. And it was happening just as the collector boom was increasing.

And I think this is what led to the collapse in 95. Yeah. The collector boom itself is a hell of an indicator as to the reliability and stability of an economy, by the way. It's kind of like when you see an increase of buy gold. Commercials, you know the economy's gonna take a shit. Yeah. You know that people's housing is gonna cost a lot

of us all of a sudden. So, same thing, because, I mean, you're literally putting your money into something real. Yeah, yeah. Well, this was comic books That's also something real which is short right it will retain and then increase value That was the hope that happened with baseball cards and and that that was the prediction it it wasn't Stable in the early 90s. Oh, we talked about that. No, they were having a massive impact on the homeless population in Santa Monica,

which is what led to the writers in the mid 90s of Deep Space 9. Yes, right. So, the Infinity Gauntlet benefited from this, though, because it was a six series limited run. So a lot of people bought them up and issue four was amazing because it's all the heroes taking on Thanos which is basically what we saw in the movies. Yeah. With a few exceptions, although there's some spots that are shot for shot and I've shown my kids. I'm like by the way Hulk is Silver Surfer here.

Remember how he crashes through the thing. Thanos is going to serve the Silver Surfer to the issue one and then the um cap versus Thanos yeah, all that stuff Now there's differences as well, but like what he did to Drax and to Mantis in the Infinity War Yeah movie he did that to Wolverine and to Nova in the the comic. Okay. And then we got it. So Infinity Gauntlet benefits from this. Also, every single title had to.

It was a mandate that it had to have a crossover with infinity. One issue had to cross over with Infinity Gauntlet. Oh, wow. Yeah, it was crazy. They're whole publishing line. Everything. It's all to support this thing. Now this set of false premise for years to come, that this success could be replicated,

that the crossover was a salvation. The key was the fact that, okay, so what we did was we linked everything together. And that's the reason we made money on this. When no, that's part. That's the year the important part. Right. And that's and that's the reason we made money on this. Right. When no, that's part. That's that's that's the year the important part. Yeah. Yeah. Turns out there was a collector boom at that same time. Now in 1992, Marvel lost a ton of talent because a lot of those authors and writers and artists went to form image comics. Yeah. Now I have friends who love image comics. I I confess I am as mainstream as a guy gets so I never got into image I'm sure I would love it now as an adult, but well, all right. I'm gonna say this as as a

Luddite I Never got into image because I felt like a lot of image titles were trying really hard to be edgy. I think I don't know if they were trying so much as they weren't restricted by Marvel. It was these artists finally getting to write art that they wanted. I think that sometimes you know it's kind of like when you finally let out a fart and then you're like, oh, I might have pooped myself a little. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, no, I get it. So, but like now we look back on the decade of the 90s

and we make fun of, you know, extreme. Right, everything. Yes. And like on TV trips, they refer to this period as the bronze age of comics where everything had to turn into being gritty and dark. And I just like, to me, as a teenager, it was a turnoff. And with everything that has happened in the world since, it still a turnoff.

No, I get to. And all I'm saying is that's my personal. Yeah, and I don't just taste bias. What everyone we call yeah, honestly, because I also get real tired real quick of gritty. Yeah, I want to talk about gritty pretty good. Okay, all right, but but at the same time, I don't think they were trying to be gritty so much as they were rolling along in the zeitgeist and the zeitgeist was getting was that way. All right. So that's fair. Now image comics forms at a time when the economic recession was really hampering luxury spending.

So right as they leave people stop spending so much on on comic books, right? And distribution companies didn't help either because they, they also scaled back. So it's, but it's not like Marvel was alone in losing people and treating people shittily, DC ran into a similar problem. And they both seem to be suffering from problematic business models

through the 1970s coming close to bankruptcy multiple times within the 1970s. And the thing is their fix wasn't really a fix. It just delayed it. The reason is because they got enough of a shot in the arm by speculator markets, which started in the mid to late 1980s. Now, I blame that one episode of amazing stories that had Mark Hamill in it, where he meets a, you know, as a young man, he's waxing his car and he meets this goblin

or Gremlin. He says, I'll, you know, I'll give you wisdom. He says, okay, I don't, he says, I'll grant you a wish or something to him. Okay. He says, well, I don't ever want to work. He says, don't throw anything away ever. And so Mark Hamill grows into an old man. He's living in a shack and he's poor as shit.

And he's just hoarding everything. And then one day he's going to get gas and he goes to pay for it with a collection of pennies that he had. And then two guys happen along and they're like, oh my god, this is the first issue of Superman. Okay. So I tongue in cheek blame that episode. Yeah, but reaches back a lot farther. Yeah.

Either way, the speculator markets beefed up comic book sales all the way through the early 90s until the bubble completely burst in 1993. Yes. Okay. So neither DC nor Marvel had to innovate in order to stay alive because the problems that they had in the 70s were solved by speculation, keeping things artificially inflated. Okay. And their flawed and ultimately uncoorking business model continued well beyond its drop dead date, bringing with it the end of a lot of comic books and frankly a lot of creative panic and creative instability.

Okay. Now, by the 1990s, while there had been plenty of anti-heroes that were introduced in the 1970s, because of course they were introduced in the 70s. Well, yeah, and the 80s. The 70s. Yeah, okay. They also seemed to have gained a tremendous foothold in the 90s. Now here's a short list. The Punisher, he starts in 74. Yeah. But he got his first stand alone in 87. Okay. Now I know this doesn't really fit the mold, but it does run straight through 1995.

Okay, his second title started in 89. I know that that's not technically the 90s, but you know, it's historically speaking, it's close enough to that. And that also ran until 95. Punisher Warzone, his third title at 1992. So you've got three titles that are running simultaneously of the Punisher. Now Spider-Man had four titles running, but you have the Punisher who's not a good guy from 92 to 95.

Okay. Again, all three die in 95, and it's very much a 1990s comic. Gambit gets his first appearance in 1990. Deadpool gets his first appearance in 91. X-Force, which is the anti-hero version of X-Men and they don't be defeat. Yeah, because Leighfield. Yeah, 91. Okay. Blade and Ghost Rider. Now both were 70s characters, but they got a shot in the arm in the 90s. Blade got his own run from 94 to 95. I didn't know that before I started. Okay.

Wolverine got his own standalone starting in 88. Yeah. But it ran through 2003, and it was a mainstay of the 90s. Oh, yeah. Venom even got his own series in the 90s. Yeah. DC did a lot of leather jackets and updates for their heroes. Oh my God. remember Superboy.

Oh God, but occasionally they'd also have a 90s replacement like Artemis. Oh yeah. Suicide Squad skipped the 90s entirely interestingly enough. Wait, yeah, I would shock to find that way. Yeah, yeah, they did not suicide squad did not exist as a comic in the 90s at all that I could find. I find that so hard to believe. It was a little off brand. I was like, okay, you know, confirmation bias did not did not win out for that day. Yeah. Even Lobo, which was supposed to be a parody of grim and gritty anti-heroes ended up with

an enthusiastic following and run in the 90s. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, the thing is and no, he didn't get his own. No. No, we're talking about grim heroes, not grim the hero. Oh, nice. Nice to think. Yeah, very good.

Well done. Well done. Superman died in 92, by the way. I was going to ask about this because I vividly remember. I wound up the following Comic Con. San you graduated in 93. I did graduate in C.D.A. Yes. And then you could do your hometown con. Yeah, it was not the all of pop culture juggernaut that it is.

Now, it was big, but it was not ridiculous. It wasn't hot. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law, when they first got married, they honey mood in San Diego. And they're like, what do you want to do today? Oh, let's go check it out. Now that was 2006. And they still could just walk right up.

Oh yeah, and buy tickets at the door. Yes, but anyway, good luck trying that now. Let me tell you. Yeah, so, but I remember, because you were talking about Lobo, and in 93 at Comic Con, Lobo came to Comic Con. As the, as the, every year,

at least back then, I haven't been in forever, but every year you got somebody, somebody they invited one of the guests of honor for the con to say, give us a story this year that'll be the convention comic book. And it was a lobo comic. And, and the story was the story starts with lobo hanging out in a bar because it's lobo. He finishes reading the death of Superman. Okay.

The comic, right. And he winds up laughing so hard. He beats the comic against the table so hard he destroys it. Of course. And so he goes to Comic Con to find another one. And it was an in-joke parody about the entire industry. Yes. And it was so completely over the top.

Like he literally crashes his space hog into the convention center and limbs, like gleefully illustrated, like severed limbs and eyeballs, flying in all directions. And he goes to artist Allie and is sitting there as guys are coming up you know to get their portfolios reviewed right and he goes oh no your anatomy is all wrong grabs

somebody else out of the crowd throws him across the table gets out a knife and like at vivis x like I go and see all right see here you got your you got your skin layer and then you got your service musculature and and I mean it was it was absolutely amazing and and so so the thing is the authors never lost sight of the fact that they were that they were writing a parody and I think an awful lot of the fans didn't lose sight of the fact that they were writing a parody. And I think an awful lot of the fans didn't lose sight of the fact that they were writing a parody. I don't think it avoided Poe's law entirely. I think what we have is a go-robo moment. Yeah.

That's forever. We'll call it that for once. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, you're right. Yeah, and the death of Superman was this amazing moment, whereas somebody who was peripherally a comic book fan at the time. I was never as a kid. I was never like big into comics as a thing, but I was close enough to enough people who were that I witnessed at the time, the real time conversation

that was going on amongst comic book fans and people in the industry about the event of the death of Superman. As an event. Yes, and it was an event. It was a huge event. And the backing and fourth thing about look what this is doing to the art form. We have how many different covers were there for that issue.

And it was, this doesn't have anything to do with the story. This doesn't have anything to do with the character of Superman or the legacy or any of that. This is all about, we want to generate as many different versions of this comic book as we can, so that we can feed into collectors and speculation. Like, we're going to have like X-ray, you know, platinum, weird hologram. That's what I was looking for, hologram covers and six different artists being involved in different versions of the thing.

Because they had a business model that didn't work, and this was how they were keeping it alive. So they were, and it was an obvious ploy, like to everybody who was watching it, that's the part that gets me. Is you talk about they, like they've collapsed. Yes. And the thing is they knew that what they were doing,

everybody could see it. Like it wasn't, it wasn't a, well you know we're gonna do this and it's gonna work. It was, well, what the fuck do we do? Well, this is one of the reasons why they start cutting, you know, cutting staff. Yeah. Is one of the reasons why ultimately your artists formed their own brand. Yeah. Like this. So also, I will point out though that I listed a bunch of anti-heroes.

Yes. And all of this casting about franti-heroes tells us that things are in a state of flux. There is a reaction to what's going on. The old way isn't working. This is a postmodern reaction to the deconstructed lies of prior eras. That's one of the reasons that this is happening. It's also a desperate trend designed

to get those sweet, sweet, on-lead dollars. And by and large, it doesn't really work. And sure, the comics were successful at the time, but the whole industry was flagging really hard. Oh, yeah. So much so. Then in 1996, DC and Marvel had an official crossover, which then led to an amalgam universe between the two for a while that did not see the years end. In 1996, we also saw the onslaught, which is when the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers all joined up. So now you're buying their comics for the crossover stuff. The crossing where Tony Stark died again was in 95. And while we're at it, Dr. Doom died twice in 1993. Wonder Woman died at one point. I think while she was wearing her

leather jacket, Hal Jordan died in 1994. Lex Luthor died twice, Greenwood died, even on May died. And that wasn't even the Nadeer creativity wise. Creatively. Yes. That came, I think, with the Peter Parker clone saga. Spider-Man had four titles running concurrently by 1994, and this was Marvel's way of making sure that nobody would like any of them. So creatively, they're swinging for the fences more and more, and when you swing for the fences, you get a lot fewer hits.

And all of this is in response to the very real economic, social, and creative pressures that art was facing in the mid-1990s. Now, all of this will finally get us to Philadelphia. I didn't realize we were going to Philadelphia. Yes, we're going to Philadelphia. To Philadelphia, because Philadelphia is what starts Eastern Championship Wrestling.

Eastern Championship Wrestling then becomes extreme championship wrestling. Eastern championship wrestling then becomes extreme championship wrestling. And Buckleman, I'm gonna hit you in the head of the frying pan. Because that's one of the weapons they use. So Philadelphia has a really weird relationship with sports. Philadelphia is kind of a crazy city. Like for its name, there's an awful lot of hate. In 1968, they booed Santa Claus. Yes, it wasn't even that they booed him that was really, I mean, that's fucking weird.

They threw snowballs and batteries at him. Batteries. They threw batteries at him. That's the part that I always don't get. Why is it about, is it because they're they're either heavy? Yeah, all right. So, so.

They also, yeah, go ahead. I just, I wanna take everybody in the audience back a few months to January. Okay. When votes were being counted. Yes. And it was in Philadelphia, in the state of Pennsylvania,

was one of the places that was that was turning into, you know, going to be, is this going to be a flashpoint? Right. There was a lot of talk in, you know, conservative Twitter and in the red sphere of the internet about, well, we're going to go to, we're going to go to Philadelphia. We're going to make sure to, you know, make sure this, that's right. That's right. Trump.

And, and I was struck by how immediate and harsh the laughter was. Yes. From everybody in Philadelphia about, no, no, you don't understand. We're the town that boots Santa Claus. Right, right. Like I remember, right?

So that's right. And then you have the Philly mascot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going, if you show up, we don't care what color you're had is, we don't care what kind of gun you bring. No, no, we will fuck you up and we will enjoy doing it. Like, it's going to be fun. Like they have to grease the light poles when we win a championship title.

They officially grease light poles. They have a court in the stadium where the Eagles play. They have an actual court like with a judge and a bailiff and a holding pen. That is a disrepresent So yeah, yeah, because because Eagles fans are yeah 1983 those same Eagles fans beat the shit out of the mascot for the Washington Redskins Now that was that was during the game Fuck me what? The game they beat him up again in the parking lot and they broke his leg

Yes lot and they broke his leg. Yes, they're famous. They're famous for lighting quarters, like heating up quarters and throwing them on the ice for Philadelphia Flyers games for hockey. Jesus Christ, these people are barbarians. And the way, by the way, the owners of the flyers are some of the shittiest people that have ever existed. So it's really great. Yeah, okay, yeah. But they're also some of the most knowledgeable fans in sports fandom. So imagine what this does for Philadelphia wrestling fans. Good boy. Oh my God.

Okay. Yeah, now by the way, remember, Bill Clinton is the first boomer president in 92. There's a huge backlash by those who were used to being in power and extreme cultural reaction at the same time, be it racial sexual or simply generational order versus chaos. Okay. 1994 comes and you've got the midterm elections after 40 years of the House being Democrats after 58 years of the House being Democrats with only 10 years going the other way, both

houses were now clearly in Republican control. Yes. This is a massive political upheaval in the middle of a massive cultural upheaval during a massive economic upheaval. Nothing is stable. Everything is breaking convention. Well, and okay. And on the world stage, by this time in the Clinton presidency, we are looking at

the Balkans war. No, no, no. So I'm in 94. 94. The Balkans war. You're talking the bombing of Yugoslavia and all that. Yeah, 99. 99, okay.

All right. But we do it. Okay, NAFTA. We do have the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Yeah, it was a few years prior. Yeah, and I mean, and our position as one pole of a bipolar world, we're still wobbling about, like, okay, do we now become the unipolar power?

Do we, like, what is this, what is this, what is this, is this, is this hegemony? Yeah. Yeah. Now it's no wonder that nostalgia collectors was really popular on a massive scale. You remember, 1994 was also the year Force Cump, Gump came out, which was a movie

that made tons of apologies for racism and whitewash and lampoon, the activism of brown people and black people in the 60s. The jump came out, which was a movie that made tons of apologies for racism, and White Washington lampooned the activism of brown people and black people in the 60s, and it was told through the simple eyes of a very problematic character. Yes. Who in the book had a huge dick, by the way. Good times. White boomers and later reaction to change, and you have commercialized myth building nostalgia.

Okay, yeah. Remember Woodstock? Oh, yeah. In 1994, baby, the 25th anniversary. Oh, yeah. So let's commercialize the hell out of it. But to be honest, Woodstock itself was commercialized from the get-go.

Yeah. But Woodstock 94 was such a different beast from 69. It was promoted as, quote, two more days of peace and music. So thoroughly derivative. That is so thoroughly driven by nostalgia and the 25th anniversary of stuff. Oh, it plastered with corporate logos. Yes. From like Pepsi was like, I remember the images.

Yes. With the bird on the thing. Yeah. It was a very capitalist opportunistic vibe. That vibe was missing, however. Well, it was missing. However, it was also ever present in the original from it was missing from the public consciousness, even though it started it, we're trying to make a ton of money. Well, yeah. But the weather, you know, men plan the weather. Yeah, well, yeah, yeah.

The weather was having none of it. The rains brought a ton of mud with them, and the whole affair was a dark carnival version of its historical antecedent. Oh, yeah. And it's really interesting to read about, but what I remember the most was the mud covered performance by nine inch nails, as well as the audience throwing mud at primus

when they sang, my name is mud. Yeah, so you've gotten nostalgia, big deal. Yeah, huge, big deal. Now let's go back to Yeah. So you've gotten a Stolja, big deal. Yeah. Huge big deal. Now let's go back to Philadelphia. So Eastern W. Eastern Championship Wrestling was born out of Tri-State Wrestling Alliance and the

NWA Eastern Championship Wrestling combining. You remember the Territories? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. This is one of the territories. In 1992, it all combined to short into Eastern Championship Wrestling. Okay. 1992 it all combined to short into Eastern championship wrestling. Okay, in April of 93 this particular promotion got TV time semi locally. Now if you get TV time in Philly, that's a pretty big region.

Okay, yeah, and a few months later Paul Heyman who formerly had been known in WCW and the AWA as Paul E. Dangerously and his whole thing was he is a slick New York corporate guy with a giant phone the size of it was a brick phone era. Oh, okay. Yeah. That was the prop that he would hit people over the head with like Jimmy Hart had a megaphone. Yeah. He had this thing and it did just as much damage. Okay. Because it was a giant wood. My God. Yeah. So Paul Heyman joins a promotion and becomes a booker because he just lost his job at WCW. Okay. So booker is the person who handles the story line sets up the matches, stuff like that.

Okay. So at this time, the NWA was... Okay, so wait. So his title is Booker. Yes. But as the guy who's responsible for story lines is kind of a creative director. Yeah, I mean a booker is a creative director. Okay.

Yeah. But you know... The booker would say, okay,er is a creative director. Okay. All right. I just, you know, the booker would say, okay, this is where we want the match to the final blow off. That's what it's called. This is what we want it to be. And to get to there, we need to get to here and to get to here, we need to get to here and to get to here, we need to get to here and to get to here, we need to get to here. Okay. Now you two guys go out and make that happen. Okay. So he he's the he's the high level that happened. Okay, so he he's the he's the high level, yeah, high level plot line guy.

Yeah, I mean, basically he is giving the wrestlers to skeleton. They flesh it out with their matches. Okay. And with their promos. Okay. Now at this time, NWA is on its very last legs as as will happen a lot. The NWA is you might remember was the National Wrestling Alliance, which has been founded in 1948 by a bunch of bookers throughout the United States. By the 1980s, Vince McMahon had driven most of the member territories out of business or he had bought them out. Yeah. And he would do so with a balloon payment. He says, look, I will pay you a little bit now and a little bit and a little bit and you know, and on and on. And if I don't make the full payment for you, you get to keep all the money I've given you. And then he would just concentrate on that and he would steal their stars. So the

largest remaining promotion was WCW in the NWA. And it left in 93. So now, nowadays, if you hear about the NWA, it's had a resurgence. It's its own promotion. And the reason why is because it's licensed out its name to other promotions in the 2000s. That's how it stayed. Oh, OK. So it all relevant. OK. All right.

But previously, it had been a fairly hallowed organization. But by 93, it was a hallowed organization. Oh, nice. Thank you. Thank you. By 94, the non-compete clause, the Jim Crockett, OK, Jim Crockett was the guy in charge of Jim Crockett productions, which was based out of Georgia prior to Ted Turner's takeover, which is a pretty big deal in the wrestling world.

He had signed a non-compete clause with Ted Turner when he sold his Georgia promotion to WCW. Okay. So WCW had the NAWA championship for a while, and then eventually he had a clause that finally led up in 94. So now he gets to use the NAWA's name, the NAWA title again.

Okay. All right. Cool, cool. So he, being Jim Crockett, wanted to revive the brand of NAWA. Now it was kind of a dead brand. Old promoters, they always go back to the same old thing Okay, so he contacts he being Jim Crockett he contacts a guy named Todd Gordon

Todd Gordon is the guy who's also in charge of Eastern Championship Wrestling. He's the other guy Okay, he brought in Paul Heyman to be his booker got it. So you've got the promoter. Let's talk Gordon And you've got the other guy. Okay. He brought in Paul Heyman to be his booker. Got it. So you've got to pull out her. That's Todd Gordon. And you've got the booker. Okay. Okay. The president of NWA did not trust Crockett and Gordon combined to share the championship and send the champion around to all the other asphyxiaated territories. Yeah. In fairness, Crockett did tandem and opalize the NWA title because he had Rick Flair through Mustcher the 1980s. Yeah, okay. So that makes sense.

Yeah, now this distrust that was inherent in the NWA was sometimes why Luthez ended up with the belt from the 40s through the 50s. Because they couldn't trust each other. So they're like, well put on on on Loo Yeah, they'll do the right thing and he's a good enough Shooter that no one can take liberties with him. Okay, so Crockett wants Gordon to host a tournament for the championship to crown the NWA new champion

Okay, so the president of NWA whose name was was Dennis Coraluzzo, made sure that he personally oversaw the tournament in Philly. So he's there kind of stepping on Todd Gordon's toes, and Todd Gordon and Paul Haman are wanting their own creative freedom, but Coraluzzo is like, well, you know, I think, you know, he's kind of, he's the boss who shouldn't show up. Yeah. So this antagonism lit the match under Gordon to do something drastic with the title.

Kind of like, well, fuck you. If you're going to be here, I'm going to go Philly on you. Enter Shane Douglas. Do you know that name? It sounds oddly familiar. Yeah. Now Shane Douglas was trained by Dominic D'Nucci, a local Pittsburgh Philly East Coast Italian wrestler who did a pretty good job

when he was, he was there, he was the guy who would often fight the champion or he would be the guy before you get to the champion. He's the same guy who trained cactus Jack whom you'd probably know as Mick Foley. Oh, now, okay. Shane Douglas was a traditionalist who'd gotten a series of bad opportunities that he floundered through both the WWF and the WCW. In the WCW, he was part of the dynamic dudes along the side of guy named John Lauren Itis, who you might know is Johnny Ace.

If you don't, that's okay because he was big in Japan, but his brother you'd know, his brother's name was animal. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Alright. So the dynamic dudes was not a good gimmick. It was two white blonde guys running to the ring carrying skateboards that neither knew how to use. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No. Yeah. Like a lead balloon. Yeah. Alright. His second run in the WWF he was known as Dean Douglas a heel who was a college professor Because Shane Douglas had gone to college and Vince McMahon likes to do Occupation based gimmicks in the mid-night. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and he'd ask him like what would you use to do? Well, I was a trash I was a trash guy great Duke the drum dumpster. Drosy. You're gonna be a trash man now Would you use to do I was a hockey player you're gonna be a trash man now. What you used to do? I was a hockey player.

You're gonna be the goon. God damn it. What you used to do? Well I was a post-apocalyptic warrior. Yeah yeah what else did you used to? That was a repo man. Great you're gonna be the repo man. What you used to do?

Well I was tailor made, Terry Taylor. You're gonna be the red rooster. What the f-? Wait. So Dean Douglas. Yeah. Shane Douglas becomes Dean Douglas. Taylor made Terry Taylor you're gonna be the red rooster what the fuck wait So Dean Douglas yeah Shane Douglas becomes Dean Douglas is a college professor and he's always giving lessons and his music was scratching a chalkboard Okay, I'm gonna know yeah, I mean I Maddically it makes Kind of sense I guess

I medically it makes kind of sense. I guess He's a bad guy and he'd always tell the good guys what they were doing wrong on this chalkboard I firmly believe that his promos were what inspired the same dumb shit with Glenn Beck and his stupid lessons with the chalkboards It's the exact same thing. Oh God I Wrestling man pro wrestling. Oh, oh God. Really? I think so. I will show you a promo when we're done recording this and you'll tell me. Oh, Jesus. Yes. He was a mid-carter. Okay, you know, and he has a lot to answer for yeah, I was just saying yeah, because So he's a mid-carter who is buried by other wrestlers during his run Which outside of ECW was his most memorable run

But his first ECW run was really the thing I want to hone in on here So are home in on so Todd Gordon and Jim Crockett and Paul Heyman Convinces Shane Douglas to win the NAWA Championship belt and then to shit all over it in a promo Now Shane Douglas had to train by a traditionalist he himself was a traditionalist is not how you do business But they explained in he said like look he's like, I don't I don't think this is a good idea And they said no, no, no take a look the only people it's gonna piss off are wrestling purists And this will be how you get notoriety. And the wrestling purists don't matter anyway.

Because most of the fans aren't those anymore. Okay. And Douglas frankly didn't like Korra Luzo anyway, because the two of them had a dispute over when he was booked in NWA territories as it was. So after he won the tournament and he was presented with the NWA title, the same title that Luthese had held, the prestigious and historical belt, he threw it down and said the following. And I don't have his voice. So I'm not going to say, he would talk like this. And like this. You can look it up. He says, in the tradition of Luthese, in the tradition of Jack Briscoe of the Briscoe brothers of Dory Funk Jr. of Terry Funk, the man who will never die, as the real nature

boy Buddy Rogers upstairs tonight, from the Harley races to the Barry Windoms to the wrecked flares, I accept this heavyweight title. Wait a second, of Carrie von Erich of the fat man himself, Dusty Rhodes. This is it tonight, dad. God, that's beautiful and Rick steamboat. And they can all kiss my ass. And then he threw it down. So he names all of these. Yeah, big legendary, you know, figures. And then he says, because I am not the man who accepts a torch to be handed down to me from an organization that died, Rest in Peace, seven years ago. The franchising points to himself, Shane Douglas, is the man who ignites the new flame of

the sport and professional wrestling. And at this point, he takes out the ECW title. Tonight before God and my father as witness I declare myself the franchise as the new ECW heavyweight champion of the world. We have set out to change the face of professional wrestling. So tonight let the new era begin. The era of the sport of professional wrestling. The era of the franchise, the era of the ECW. Now, this is a huge hit in Philadelphia, and Philly is the only place this could have played so well. Yeah, I mean, it is gobsmacking. He is shitting on all the traditions. Wow. Which the thing is, the wrestling pretends to love its traditions, but it's inherently self-cannibalized. Well, yeah.

It's a corny, but he called it what it was, and that's a no-no, you know? Yeah, well, it's kind of a violation of K-Fab. Right. And... It's like a meta-violation of K-Fab. And look what he's doing. He is chaotic, and he's throwing down order. We come right back to that.

Right, right. Yeah. Coreizo. The head of the NWA, the old traditional head of the NWA, his most tone deaf, tone deaf. No, instead, that would have been better. After the event, it was over. He said in an interview that Douglas couldn't refuse the NWA belt and was the champion of the NWA, quote, whether he likes it or not. Douglas couldn't refuse the NWA belt and was yet the champion of the NWA quote whether he likes it or not.

And then he said that he was going to move to have Douglas stripped of both the NWA world championship and the Eastern championship wrestling heavyweight championship calling him undeserving of both titles. Okay. So he's playing right into the hand of like like do we do we do we do we know for sure that this wasn't Like this is not a work from Coraluso Coraluso got worked This was not a work. This was a shoot. He straight up was like how dare you a smurge really? Yeah, cuz look at all the shit

He didn't see he was not in on it well I mean whether it was in on it or not he didn't he didn't read the situation no no he didn't because he's an old timey promoter okay and there you know so the next night Todd Gordon says quote wow I listened with great interest as a representative of the NWA board of directors. When they get formal, you know, it's going to get ugly. Yeah. Took it upon himself to inform you that they have the power to force NWA Eastern Championship Wrestling to not recognize the franchise Shane Douglas as a World Heavyweight Champion.

Well, as of noon today, I have folded NA Eastern Championship Wrestling. In its place will be ECW, Extreme Championship Wrestling, and we recognize the franchise Shane Douglas as our World Heavyweight Champion, and we encourage any wrestler in the world today to come to ECW to challenge for that belt. This is the ECW, Extreme Championship Wrestling, changing the face of professional wrestling. Holy shit. ECW declared itself on the corpse of the NWA and you have two forces pulling in wrestling, old school versus new school. Wow, okay.

Now here's where it gets weird, right? So this is like- Oh, because it hasn't been weird at all, until now. You can kind of see iconoclasm as being a, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This, the old, the old, yeah, I mean, shit, you know, when you watch Godfather Part Three, which I think came out right around the same time,

he even says the young try to replace the old, that's the natural old things. Yeah. It's a 90s version of it, but it is. Yeah, okay. Yeah, no, that makes sense. But WWF and WCW were pretending to do this in their organizations anyway, but they weren't really leaving the old school behind. Remember the WWF was doing the new generation. Yeah. And they

were using traditionalists to be the new generation. They were trying to grasp that new extreme idea without really knowing how to grasp it, whereas ECW stood out and declared itself and basically did as postmodernists do. We reject the old way. This is a new thing. Now wrestling rings are an interesting piece of architecture, I think. They're square. Yeah. Most of them. They're usually 20 by 20 or 18 by 18. They have four corners. They have stairs. You walk up to get into them and they have three turnbuckles. Right. Yeah. Okay. On each corner. On each corner.

They're icons of order. Yes. And tradition, right? They literally have a canvas on the mat. Yes, so artists, right? And this is where wrestlers tell their stories to the vulgar masses. Yeah, this is the place where everyone's attention is fixed in an arena, watching oversized men making oversized moves and reacting with oversized expressions, sparkly murder gymnastics. Yes, always a predetermined outcome. It is a beautiful vulgarity. It's theater.

Yeah. The ropes contain the action. The corners contain the ropes. The ropes and the corners are softer than the mat, but they are used to inflict great injury. Some wrestlers use them to launch themselves at other wrestlers. Yes. There are four ways to win in a wrestling match.

Now, it used to be that if you jumped off the top rope, you would be disqualified, by the way. Oh, really? That was a normal thing through the early 90s. Okay. Then they did away with it because more and more high flying, the Japanese style was in the show. Yeah.

But you can pin your opponent. That's way number one. Or you could make your opponent submit. That's way number two. Now both of these your opponent submit, that's way number two. Now both of these must occur within the confines of the ring itself. Okay, your opponent could get caught cheating and get disqualified any number of ways.

Okay, or your opponent could end up outside of the ring. Though if you throw them out over the top rope into the 1990s, that would also disqualify you. Such was the danger. OK. That's why battle royale or battle royales were such a big deal, because you have to throw them out over the top rope.

They're extra dangerous that way. OK. Really they're extra dangerous, because anybody could fall and roll your ankle. Yeah. Let's. Yeah. OK.

So he would be counted out. Usually it'd be a 10 count, but in some organizations, it was a faster 20 count. OK. It's kind of dependent. But that's it. That's that's that's how you win in wrestling. Okay. Okay. The ring represents the social contract. Okay. The willingness of good guys and bad guys to agree to a literally leveled playing field. Victory is always held in the ring. Bookers would restrict trips

outside of the ring very carefully. The first few matches of a card we've talked about this would never leave the ring. Don't leave the ring, no blood, no blood. Disqualifications were exceedingly rare in the first few matches too. You show people how it's supposed to be with the first few matches. You get them excited. Now as the night wears on, cheating may happen more. A good guy may be thrown out of the ring.

The bad guy will stay in the ring hoping to score an effortless victory at a time using the rules to his advantage. The bad guy might retreat to the outside of the ring, cowardly, cowardly chance to regroup in a cunning fashion to gain a rest that he otherwise wouldn't have gained. Still, the action happens inside the ring. Now later in the night, blood may spill if it's a grudge match or if it's an especially grueling contest, blood adds to the story. Don't spill it too soon and if you do, you lose the magic. Blood is not for every card. Okay. In ECW, all of that goes out the fucking window.

Okay. And I think it was specifically the Philadelphianess of the audience. Okay. And when Paul Heyman bought out Todd Gordon, and he has full control of ECW, he was able to turn the heat up on all those shows. From beginning to end, the entire thing was spilling outside of the ring, outside of tradition and out of the public imagination. ECW gained TV syndication in 93 and started doing paper views four years later. But in those four years between the beginning of TV and the beginning of the paper views, there was a deep dive. and I mean it literally into the chaos matches went all over the arena the fans aided up matches began going into the crowd the crowd would go ape shit the crowd would start chanting for people you know

they'd say WECW or they'd start chanting like holy shit holy shit it's filling. Or my favorite, you fucked up. You fucked up. You fucked up. Okay, so I want to go back for a second to the way the structure is supposed to work. Yes. Okay. There was a fascinating thing I read several years ago That that was an anthropological study of Magic and religion okay and one of the central points that was involved

Was the idea that in any religion? Every religion has rituals. And within any religion, if you look hard enough, you can find the ritual that is the core ritual from which all of the others gained their legitimacy. Yes. So in Christianity, that's communion. Okay. That is the central right of Christianity. It is the central promise, the central issue. It is the ritual.

Yeah. I mean, it's a better way to put it. It is the ritual. Yeah. And that is what then provides the the the imprimature of legitimacy on everything else that happens with the church. The author of the paper, of course, didn't didn't apply to Christianity because they were talking about others. Other other other religious traditions, but that's I was going through our CIA at the time, and so I immediately made that connection. I'm like, oh, okay, well, this makes sense.

So those first few matches of a car were that ritual, establishing the legitimacy of this is the sport, the reminder to the crowd. These are the rules. This is the Catholic in me. I'm looking at this, and I'm seeing the reminder to the crowd. These are the rules. This is the Catholic in me. I'm looking at this and I'm seeing the order of the mass. This is what brings us here together today. This is the sport we're all here to see.

And then everything else we do here is the theater, the catharsis, the blood of Christ, the bloodletting of the cross. The stations of the cross. Stations of the cross. Yes. You don't start with the walking in the whipping. Until you get to pen to costalism. Right. And then you start with that.

And then it's like, no, no, no, we get the snakes out now. Like we start with the snakes. We're starting, we're, yeah, we go bigger, go home. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, um, yeah. So yeah, that, that, that, that, that, that left at me when you're talking about that. Yeah. And the crowd goes apes shit for all of this.

Okay. Again, speaking in tongues. Yeah. I mean, they're going into the crowd. You don't go into the crowd. There are safe zones marked off by basically metal bicycle racks, right? Yeah, yeah, they're shit got wild. And then okay, have you ever been to hockey Rocky Horror picture show? No, but I am I am I am I am adjacent to a number of people.

I have plenty of friends. So I know I know it is it is a staged event. Yes, it is the most postmodern thing I have ever heard of. Think about it. It is it is immensely meta. Yes, because think about it. You have a script and everybody in the audience willingly and actively participates in the script pretending at the chaos, but there is a total breakdown between the stage and the audience. And yet everybody

behaves according to the script. Well, yes, audiences throw things at appropriate times. Yes, at Rocky Horror. Rice at one point. One friend of mine actually said that she got home so late that she fell asleep and went, right, you know, fell right to sleep. When she woke up the next morning, she got on dress to get in the shower and rice felt everywhere. And it was only then that she'd remembered that she'd gone to the Rocky Horror picture show that night. All right, because, right, because the ritual again, yeah.

Why does my mouth taste like bread and wine? Yeah, yeah. What a, oh right. Yeah, last night. Yeah, yeah, only, yeah, but it's the same idea. Like, what the hell? Yeah. The, the, why is my dad dead?

Oh right, because we went to see snakes. Yeah, that's, you know. What this brings up to me, what it kind of drives home is as monkeys, like as primates. Yes. There is a very deep part of us that craves ritual.

Yes we do. And I find it funny that we will make them about literally anything in order to get effects. Yes. And for all of their intelligence, insight, whatever, marks and angles are spent. No, Lennon, Lennon and Trotsky. Like, they didn't figure out the central importance of that.

The whole idea of religion is the opiate of the masses and like, we gotta do it, there's a bit of it. Okay, look, cool. Yeah. I get where you're coming from there. You know, I don't agree with it, but I understand the thought process behind that, but like, have you looked at your fellow primates?

Right, well, and this is, I'm gonna sound really fucked up for just a second. Okay. This is what Hitler got right. Okay. Was his use of Catholic ritual while displacing the Catholics? Yeah, yeah. You know, his use of religiosity while creating genocide,

the Nuremberg rallies were just rife with ritual. He would, you know, go and lay a wreath where his friends in the beer hall pooch had gotten killed like annually. Ritual ritual ritual ritual. The problem with being an iconoclast is that unless you have a ritual, one will spring up. Oh, yeah. And ECW was the same way. Okay. Audience members became regulars because it was almost always the same venue. Okay. And they had a quote,

they had a bring your own weapons match where fans were explicitly encouraged to bring random objects to the ECW arena so that the wrestlers would use them in their matches. And these fans ruthlessly loyal to ECW would bring all sorts of objects. Here's a list. One fan brought a kayak. Other things that were left. Vinyl records. That kind of makes sense.

Cheese graders. Fuck me. Yes. Bowling pins. Okay, VCRs Okay, and most infamously the cast iron skillet I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't understand how the cast iron skillet is the most infamous when you mentioned a cheese Grader because Okay, okay, the theatricality of it. Okay.

So now, any one of these items could have been a disqualification, but no, because it's ECW. And since it's Philly, they had shirts made, say ECF&W.

Of course. Now, this does not speak anything to the liberal use of chairs the balcony in the venue Yes, they would stack up tables and jump off a 30 foot balcony in fact as of this recording one of the most famous Guys's name is new Jack and I'll probably talk about him in the next episode. He died today He was in his 50s. He died way too young, but oh my God that guy is chaos and carnit. Go look him up. Okay.

Look up the mass transit incident alone. It's you should never have the mass transit incident. You should never have a pro wrestler who has three justifiable homicides on his record. I'm just saying out loud these things. Yeah. What? The actual fuck. Yeah, and he would jump off of, oh God. So he was, he worked for Jim Cornett,

one of my favorite guys in Smoky Mountain Wrestling. And he was part of, I think they were called the Gangsters. So two black guys in Smoky Mountain Wrestling. Gonna be bad guys. Yeah. And during one of his promos, again, this is one I can show you between the shows. During one of his promos, he says, I just want to give a shout out to OJ, that's two down.

We got a whole lot more to go, baby. Like he said this on TV and you should see Bob Coddle just like, what the fuck? Oh my god. It's so far. Holy shit. Right? So anyway, new Jack would die off the balcony on to people who were on stacks of chairs.

30 foot balcony. Yeah, stacks of tables pardon me, but yes, they would use barbed wire. One time, the ropes were barbed wire. They would use metal spikes. They would use kendo sticks. They would use metal spikes, they would use kendo sticks, they would use all this stuff. Now perhaps the most two telling instances and I'm going to leave with these two stories and we'll start up the next episode after that.

The most two telling instances you're so horrified of how... I can't even speak. Like oh my god. Of how acceptably chaotic ECW promotions were yeah are the Al snow head incident and the chair incident Okay, so we're gonna take him in a verse order to talk about the chair incident now you look like you got to say Just the fact that these have been codified with the name the blank incident. Yes there's a trope on TV tropes that's that's I mean the one I'm borrowing from is the spaghetti incident, uh-huh, which is taken

from the the guns and roses. Yeah, yeah, yeah, title. And you never find out what the spaghetti incident actually was. But it's it's the blank incident. Sure. And in the trope, the characters talk about this thing that clearly was a big deal, something awful happened or some big thing, and then you never learn what it is. Right, right. And these sound like spaghetti incidents,

but I know they're not. Yeah, they're on video. And I'm horrified'm horrified as you should be just like by the thought. I'm scared. Yes. Okay. Okay. So the chair incident. Yeah, happened in 1994. Okay. Hardcores. Okay. During the main event between Terry Funk, who was the former NWA champion from the 70s, mentioned by, or by Shane Douglas now, speech. So no, Terry Funk. Terry Funk is the only other brother. So there, there was two brothers who had both been NWA champions, the other one was Dory Funk Jr. Dory Funk Jr.

Got the title, then he lost it to somebody and then eventually Terry Funk takes it up. Dory Funk Jr's dad, Dory Funk, he had a wrestler, died of a heart attack at a young age. So he had two sons who went into the business. Dory Funk was very much a technical traditionalist. Okay. And Terry Funk was a brawler and he was a mean ass heel nasty. In the 70s he was a big deal. He had radically reinvented himself as quote middle aged and crazy by this point. And so perfect for this particular promotion matter. Okay. And so it's been matched between Terry Funk and Cactus Jack, you know, him is McFolly. Yeah, okay. And frankly during the whole card, starting in the third match, they made very liberal use of steel folding chairs.

During the main event, there was a tag team named Public Enemy, both of whom are dead now. They brought their own tables to the ring normally. Wow. They interfered with the match, making it a no contest. And here's the thing, you're supposed to fucking end a match with an actual decision, but an ECW didn't matter, right? Yeah, so they interfered with the match and after that ruling came down Public enemy continued to beat down cactus Jack Terry funk decided I'm gonna come to his rescue now the two of these guys

Terry funk and cactus Jack had had wars over in Japan called Death Matches. Well, yeah. Where actual explosions happened. And actual like strangling people with barbed wire happened. And shit like that. A real fight masquerading as a wrestling match. But like a bloodbath. Okay.

So Terry Funk comes to his rescue and the two start beating public enemy back. And then it got all ECW-E. Terry Funk asked a fan for his chair. Lean down over the ropes. Give me a chair. The fan tossed it up to him. Across the guard rail, which is what keeps fans back

across the apron, into the ring. So we're breaking so many conventions here. Oh yeah. Then more fans start throwing more chairs, then more and more and more until public enemy was literally buried under chairs. It's insane. The wow.

Yes. What? Okay. Now this next incident was a series of incidents in 1997 and 1988. I'm not sure if it's yours. Yeah, very similar. So what we're saying here is the crowd at an ECW match

was basically a barely contained riot. Yes. Waiting to happen. It was an appropriately timed. Yes, okay. Okay. Okay interactive experience that followed a script. Okay, yeah. And occasionally went wildly off the rails because. But never off script, because the violence was.

It was the star, okay, yes. So, very postmodern. Now, the next one I'm gonna talk about, this happened between 97 and 98, and it's in the full throws of chaos for ECW, right? ECW would hand out Styrofoam heads to the audience because there was a... Here's why Al Snow was a incredible wrestler.

I love Al Snow. Had a mannequin head and he wrote the words help me backwards on the mannequin's head Okay, women's head and it was almost always a brunette and it said help me and then he wrote help me forwards on his forehead So they were matchy, right? Okay, and then he'd come out and she'd be giving him advice Okay, okay, so Al snow would come out to prodigy music, carrying his own mannequin head and dancing with it and dancing like you would at a rave because that's what he was turning it into. And everyone else would raise their heads in the air, their own starvehom heads in the air and they would head bang in tune with Al Snow's head.

Okay. And they'd all shout, head, head, head, head, head, head. Okay. Now when he gets to WWF, he keeps this gimmick and his theme song is, it starts with him shouting, what does everybody want? And the whole crowd was shout, head. What does everybody lead?

The whole crowd was shout, head. What does everybody love? Head, head, head. Oh my God. Now he'd get in the way. And the fans love? Head, head, head. Oh my god. Now he'd get under me. And the fans, you know, he'd do this little dance, and he'd be shaking it, and then he'd do this. He'd wave in.

And all the heads, the whole audience would give him head. Oh my god. OK. That was before the match. OK. Now, think about what these ropes represent, what the ring represents. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All of this. And look at how Rocky Horror postmodern embracing this chaos of the mid 90s is. Oh my God, yeah. So of course, Vince McMahon smells money as early as 1994. It is his talent. Yes. Like a shark in the ocean. He can smell a dollar. Yes, a thousand miles away. So I think this is a good place to end it. We will pick back up in 1994 at WCW in Baltimore. Okay. I believe it's Baltimore. Um, but uh,

Yeah, that was wow. Holy shit. Yeah, it's like here's what I recommend everybody do. I'm not gonna book recommendation. I'm gonna give recommendation that you go on to your YouTube machines and you type in new Jack vice, VICE. Okay, and up will pop a documentary on new Jack. Okay.

Watch it because it's astounding. Okay. Yeah, so that's my recommendation. Okay. I'm not even going to ask you what you gleaned because you were so gobsmacked right now. Like what the holy hell. Okay, yeah.

So if you have a book recommendation, we'll take it otherwise. Okay, yeah, no, I do. I do have a book recommendation. Do it. I am going to recommend that anybody who is a regular listener to this podcast. We love you.

Yes, we love you so much. I recommend very strongly you go out and you find yourself a copy of Dune, the first novel, only the first novel, because that's going to be work enough on its own. And because when we get done with this saga, that's going to be the next thing that I'm going to be teaching Damien about. And there is so much going on in that book. And it really, I mean, it's the classic of the genre. It really is a seminal work in a whole bunch of different ways. And to prepare for that discussion, I highly recommend you go out and read the book. You can, you can

also certainly watch the 80s David Lynch film. Okay. Okay. But, but I'm going to be focusing on the book. Okay. For, for those episodes that we're going gonna be talking about it and another time I'll do a comparison between the book and the movie just because, again, there's so much going on. Sure. In the book.

Okay. Yeah. So that's my, Go Redoone. Okay. It'll take some time. So that's probably gonna be my recommendation at the end of the episode. You're gonna have it.

You have it too. Yeah. So there you go. Cool. Well, where can people find you on the internet? They can find me on the interwebs at EH Blalock on Twitter and Mr. Blalock on the Insta and on TikTok. And where can they find you?

Well, you can find me as usual on twitch.tv forward slash capital puns every Tuesday night. Although we are shortening our schedule by the time this drops the next episode that you'll see of capital punishment will be June 1st. Okay. We're gonna go back to a monthly thing Although if you want to watch that channel and watch us play games feel free. We're gonna go back to a monthly thing. Although if you want to watch that channel and watch us play games, feel free. We're playing games on that channel. Also, if you go on to the YouTube's and you type in MSF, Excelsior Gaming, you'll probably find my collaboration with Ian McDonald. Yes. Which is a lot of fun. We talk about a Marvel strike force The other place you can find me is at DAH Harmony on the Twitter and the Insta and that should be more than enough Yes, so and of course if you want to

point out some some error in our in our reporting of the historical events or the popular culture geekness of what we're talking about, you can find us collectively at Geek History Time on Twitter. And by all means, if we've gotten something wrong, seriously correct us, let us know, because that's part of what this is about. And otherwise, for a Geek History of Time, I'm Ed Ed Blalock and I'm Damien Harmony. And until next time, keep rolling 20s.